The expectations for the first episode of the brand new Black Mirror season exclusively on Netflix was very high heading in but it delivered. The first episode managed to both meet and exceed my expectations and in true Black Mirror style, make me feel uncomfortable.
What we’re going to do is give you a full episode guide below featuring the cast of the first episode, a basic synopsis, any theories and outstanding questions we have and comments from the show creator himself.
Cast of Nosedive
Bryce Dallas Howard plays the central role of Lacie in this episodes and knocks it out of the park on this one. She’s certainly had a great few years with leading roles in Jurassic World and Pete’s Dragon plus you may recognize her from ‘The Grinch’ too.
Alice Eve plays the role of Naomie or otherwise known as Nay Nay who is to be married in the episode. SNL’s Michaela Coel had a role in the episode as the airport stewardesses. Cherry Jones also had an important role playing the truck driver who’s currently on Amazon’s Transparent as well as the classic movie Signs.
Plot/Alternate Reality
In the seemingly not too distant future, this episode features an evolution of the social media generation who believe like its and social status is everything. In the reality people constantly rate each other out of 5 contributing to an overall score which then determines certain aspects of their life and benefits too.
The alternate reality also features advanced holograms and futuristic cars that rely only on electricity.
Theories/Other Comments
- In the featurette (seen above) Brooker refers to this episode actually being the world we live in. Let’s elaborate on that a little. Since the dawn of Twitter and Facebook lots of people have set out to make it their mission to get recognition and acceptance through the form of posts which then receive likes by people. This episode simply takes it one step further and to the extreme.
- The episode has bright colors and is aesthetically pleasing adding another layer to the fakeness of everything
- The concept of the show isn’t new in fact it was most famously done in Community where everybody rated people on a mobile application called Meow Meow Beans. The episode ended with the school rioting, groups forming and destruction at the end.
- It’s quite easy to compare this episode to season 1’s episode called 15 Million Merits.
- Why were they both swearing and insulting each other at the end of the episode? Because they’ve been arrested their shackles to their score is off meaning they can be honest and frank with each other.
- The laugh from Lacie at the end of the episode is distinctly different to that during the episode. Once again, this is because it’s real as opposed to her fake laugh.
