Black Mirror - White Bear

A woman, Vic, awakens in a daze with scraps of brief memory coming to her as she is hunted by others in masks as folks come out of the woodwork to record the chase on their cellphones! A photo of a little girl Vic is drawn to, believing that the guy in a picture with her is the husband and that girl her daughter. Encountering Jem at a gas station, she receives some “help”, guided by her to a location called White Bear. Jem informs Vic that some signal emanating from the White Bear has turned some into killers and others into spectators. If they can just get to the location and cut off the signal, perhaps the madness would cease. But there’s quite a dandy of a twist…in the vein of “not everything is as it seems.” Folks aren’t quite who they appear to be, either. Michael Smiley, as Baxter, is especially a clever bit of casting, alternating personas not once, nor twice, but ultimately three times by episode’s end. He opens a van, offering the girls a ride before two “deranged, masked killers” (right out of Vacancy or The Purge) catch up to them. A forest location where bodies are hanging crucifixion style on trees gives Vic and Jem a dark inclination of what lies in store for them. Escaping that isn’t without its suspense, resulting from Jem orchestrating one-upmanship on Baxter and freeing Vic from rope restraints. But White Bear isn’t quite what Vic is led to believe, as a “riveted studio audience” and “performers” will soon foretell.

The idea of poetic justice, of a “punishment fit for the crime” should be quite a topic of discussion once this episode of Black Mirror rolls out through its credits completely. I can only imagine heated back-and-forth and valid points from both sides of the argument. Was Vic deserved of the repeated, cyclical fate of the “justice system park” and “criminal justice system at work” game purposely using her as its “star attraction”. A child burned alive and her death recorded is a heinous crime in itself and many consider those responsible deserved of a fate worse than the loss of life.

Shot with Vic disoriented and wrought with anxiety (obviously) as Jem tries to guide her through the mindfield, so to speak, the episode makes for a harrowing journey which takes us to a studio audience cheering the “grand show”. The surreal sight of folks recording it all on cellphones, even as a guy wearing a baklava, packing a shotgun (a lady wearing a sheepmask, wielding an electric cutter, and her partner ready with his blunt object) fires openly towards Vic and Jem is fantastic in its depiction of the barriers broken down with no interference.

As far as the park, I had a good discussion with a Reddit friend about this tonight. About the loss of humanity. I felt those involved in the park are hitting their marks, going through the daily routine with a workmanlike mentality, and putting on the performances/disguises/roles designed as sentence passed down to a murderer. By using the memory sweep device, clearing the mind of a past, Vic is further undermined and punished. And the memory sweep is shown as quite agonizing and painful to Vic. Along the way humanity was left at the time clock.