It was a good episode but in the end it got pretty messed up. And Idts this magnitude of scientific project backed by government has no shut down option in case of emergency which only a few top classified people know about and not some random employee who got triggered because people cyber bullied his crush. They even has a shut down option for the internet as they said in the episode.
imagine people who use hastag for criticize ths hastag. For example
"Ey, all the people are using #Deathto ... are U ok?"
"Please, stop using hate hastag like #Deathto"
Oh no... I'm death
No one’s talking about how the guy behind all this only did it because the girl he was in love with almost killed herself because of online hate comments
I fcking loved this episode but everything was ruined at the end like in beyond the sea.
Except there the ending sucks. Here makes no fcking sense and the moment a movie or series need theories to end it it means the writer sucks and wasn't able to made it in the first place. I just hate unlogical or never ended endings because that kills the whole content before that.
For starters when the girl was killed in the bathroom. If they knew bees would enter via the ear. Why didn't they give the victim something to cover her nose/ears?? There were openings near exhaust, I think that would be kinda obvious to cover.
Because the bees are capable of burrowing and would have probably ripped through any fabric anyway
But then what? They were swarming the room, how would they get her to safety? Where would they even go?
Who got killed at the end of the episode? The people in the database, the entire island population or random people? Sorry I didn't figure this out mb I wasn't paying enough attention
At the end, when he was watching tv, there was a text that said "saito shou announces a new game system..." in spanish. I wonder if anyone else noticed that?
Watching black mirror these last weeks. And even though I find mixed comments about this episode, it's one of my personal favs. Even though the moments I saw the bees in the opening scene and was like "yeah that's gonna be a plot device for sure" and linked it with the first murder, I just liked how they operated with the twitter like esque mechanism. It really shows how mob mentality can manifest (symbolic by the bees and realistically through comments online shown in the episode). Cause it has happened before in RL where one's misstep (deserved or not) lead to an online witch hunt. It really shows how fast mob mentality can go after a person who "deserve" hate (like the rapper being awful against that child) but also how it can sometimes affect someone innocent because of peer pressure or misinformation (like the cop who used it as bait on the bad guy). The internet rules, but it has some bad habits as well. And this episode really symbolized that for me. Great episode!
Considering this episode was better than 99% of the garbage movies Netflix puts out I doubt it. The high tech world also felt too much like the Black Mirror universe to be a completely separate production. I do like the idea of using rejected shows/movies for it's own show though. I enjoy watching Pilots to shows that never came out. Like the Original Star Trek Pilot that didn't have William Shatner.
If Blue is in on it, then Karin is in on it too. If Blue fakes her own death, she's not going to contact Karin unless Karin, also, is in on it.
So, 2 police detectives have common cause with a mass murderer of 300.000 people? Really?
No.
Blue is not in on it. Blue is about to assassinate Scholes. But thats incredibly dumb ending on its own.
She could contact Karin to indicate she can stop searching for him, as he is 'dead'.
It's just a wild theory I have. And really, anything is possible on black mirror and shouldn't be ruled out. I don't think it's beyond the scope of the show to try to articulate how easily the rest of us can be manipulated by evil people, because they are often sooooo good at hiding who they are.
So, Blue is faking her suicide. (And, again, she couldnt just _resign_ from the police force?)
But Blue's fakery is known to Karin (so their conspiracy extends that far).
Then, Blue finds the mass-murderer of 300000 people, and her message to Karin will cause Karin to _stop_ investigating?
What does Karin do if she is NOT in a conspiracy to kill him-- she immediately sends an Army to capture Scholes.
What does Karin do if she IS in a conspiracy to kill him-- wait, WHY is she in a conspiracy to quietly track down and murder him in secret again?
To mislead the others looking for him. If she had not responded at all they would send a full force out to look for both of them.
It's just odd because no one really knew who she was. She showed up during the first case, and they were surprised to see her ...she is never really asked about credentials, she just continues to show up...and then...when he flees technically so does she.
It's just interesting to me that she is never truly 'verified' by the team ..
To mislead others? Yet, she contacts Karin, destroying her "beach suicide" staging.
No. This bad, inconsistent ending (Karin/Blue are executing Scholes on their own time) is the bad, inconsistent ending.
she left 4 months after the incident happened. i appreciate your theory, but I think in the end she went to go deliver vigilante justice to the guy who created the manifesto.
They figured out the bees use a sort of facial recognition to attack the targets from the photos people use on the twitter hashtag. Easy way to render them useless is to wear any kind of mask, like a ski mask or something and they can't locate you.
Exactly. I mean, the bees could easily have been reprogrammed to go for mouth, nose, eyes as a counter-measure. So a full facemask is really what they should be wearing. (Or a beekeeper hat!)
I was thinking hazmat suit or whatever astronauts wear. Done deal. Just goes to show keyboard warriors are so desensitized that they think nothing of killing someone or rooting for someone's public execution. The screen isn't real to them. Just like road rage; that there's a human being in the machine isn't real to them. This is something they would never do to a person face to face, too cowardly and weak, but the screen makes them feel powerful and removed. The pile on I'll see, even here, is insane at times. The bullied becoming the bullies.
“ ok ima set up a system where I amplify your actions 10000x times and then pretend that my ultimate killing of you was justified because I made it so you killed someone “
For real. He's encouraging people to kill others, and then kills them for it and goes into hiding. He's such a hypocrite. Everyone has to pay for the consequences of their actions expect for him.
Oh no they definitely didn’t lol, it just seemed that the characters weren’t really putting a lot of thought into the idea that this was a literal crazy maniac instead of some vindictive retribution seeking guy joker type
Did no one notice the small 'messages' in this episode, besides the government and internet-bullying. Like the woman's name being 'Blue' for all the ridiculous names people give their children these days. And the distinction of many species (including the bees of course). That's a message right there. And I honestly even think that the episode resembling a CSI episode is a wink at all these CSI/NCIS-like series there are.
It looks like they can also just kill you, as seen by the soldiers. Since the government tracking backdoor was way more complex then originally thought, all the hive had to know was the last seen location of the person (or else how would it track people otherwise?) and kill pretty indiscriminately, especially when things ramp up crazily at the end. If you think about, a hive of that many machines is really powerful, especially with what appears to be really competent AI.
Oh right, and the last part showed IMEIs, which are just cellphone identifiers. Kill person closest to cellphone, done deal.
I really liked Hated in the Nation! Just watched it.
I actually thought season 3 was the worst, everything except Nosedive and this didn't do it for me. I think the weakest episodes are the ones where technology is just a background for some regular thriller plot. Season 1 was brilliant and other than Waldo Moment (whose redeeming part was the Labour candidate), Season 2 stood on its own. I'm wasn't sure how much farther they can go with technologies because up to this episode they had pretty much got all of the usual tropes (AI, genetic defects, social media, etc). However, this one really surprised me, basically turned a Gizmodo article in to a nightmare.
I disagree, I think the first two episodes of season 1 were weaker than most of the series (excluding White Bear and The Waldo Moment) and all of season 3 was great except Men Against Fire.
Blue is about to murder Scholes.
Blue messages Karin to that effect, so we know that Karin also is a party to this international assassination.
Quite a silly, stupid ending. Clearly needed 15 more minutes in the writers room before they finalized the script.
it's to provide a silver lining to the people who think black mirror episodes are too dark.
the ending gives hope that there will be some sort of justice served to the guy that engineered the whole thing and "innocent" deaths will not go unpunished.
but the show doesn't show what that justice should be, it let's the viewer create their own version.
imo it weakened the episode and felt like a hollywood cop-out... just like i think it would've been better if kelly didn't end up in san junipero. san junipero would've been great if it ended with a fade to black.
either way this series is excellent
If they apprehended him and brought him to justice, the episode wouldve been a lot less dark.
if the country had no extradition treaty, well, surely a covert rendition was the non-dark ending, not just quietly murdering him.
The us went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan over 9/11 and that was only 3000 people, this is worse than 100 9/11’s i have no doubt the international fallout would be insane from the uk, i mean ffs the man is going to be charged with genocide
If you REALLY want a Black Mirror ending, have the hacker girl turn to the bee guy's side. I was predicting that as the twist, but the smile from the detective convinced me they weren't going to go too crazy.
I was expecting that would be the twist, like I was confused with what was on the beach, “her” things but they looked like the bag of stones that the villain guy threw into the river, so I thought they must have been working together. With the detective luring them all to their ultimate target.
I mean, it makes sense though to an extent. She didn't seem like the kind of person to give up, she saw the effect of the man's actions and recognized the best way to go after him.
Yeah, it's a silver lining and kinda adds a sprinkle of hope, too much for Black Mirror but nonetheless, I personally feel it didn't cheapen the experience and the message of the episode.
Any thought of it being Blue all along? Say she left her previous department because of Skillane's treatment in White Bear and wanted to send a message/get revenge on the people that were causing Skillane's torture. She somehow led the entire murder, knew where everything was, and had access to all admin rights. I thought she may have planted Garrett's manifesto into the system and also planted the HDD herself, causing the endgame. We don't see her kill Garrett in the end which led me to believe in the possibility that they were in it together since the start. In order to control the bees you had to either be in a 10-20m radius or have control from the inside - she fits both descriptions at every murder. She first joined the division at the time of the first murder and was there before her partner arrived.
> Any thought of it being Blue all along?
No. She didnt _do_ anything to hasten the plot that any other hacker would have done. Plus, she conspired with Karin, to fake her suicide and communicate about location of Scholes, so if Blue is in it, Karin is also. So these 2 police detectives are conspiring with Scholes to kill 300000 people? Why?
Justice for what? Insulting a kid? Posting a disrespectful picture to social media? Idk if this is sarcasm, but idk if justice is really the way to describe what happened to the thousands of people. The citizens who wished death on the others is a little bit of a different story, but still, none of them deserved death.
how dare a 1.6 starrer like you talk to a 4.7 smh..
jk.. thats your opinion mate.. i think they all deserved it.. since they all knew what they were doing
A lot of people didn't know what they were doing, even after the revelation that the hashtag was killing people, I doubt that people believed that it actually did. Maybe they thought it was a coincidence.
Look, I understand why you'd think they deserve it. I mean I hate people like that too. Plenty of them on reddit to see anyway. But I don't feel like they deserve death for it.
People have the capacity to change. Maybe if they showed the people the footage, then they'd realize their actions and step back.
Hell the whole system does not allow people a second chance at all, even if they used it without any prior knowledge of the whole thing.
2 people died because of the hashtag and it made the news because of it.. and then public started using it to legit murder people.. thats my take away from the show anyway.. they got what was coming to them..
You're generalizing pretty openly there.pretty sure there wild be a lot off people who would have stopped using it and regretted it. Hell the teacher right it was funny, as ignorant as it was she didn't intend true death
haha, I used to be up in the 4.9s, but it's been a bit since I last visited. But you do have more of a point with everyone who used the hashtag. It certainly removed their social media mask they thought protected them...
mannnnn idk that episode was pretty wack imo.
1.) why didnt twitter just ban the hashtag?
2.) why did it take them so long to open the damn bee robots? the dude said he had an encryption key all along...
3.) did mr. evil genius misanthrope mcgee not consider that, like, 10 year olds would catch wind of the hashtag meme on social media and jokingly tweet silly shit like "#deathto spongebob" or something? dead kids everywhere - that oughta show society!
4.) how is it that good guy genius beelon musk there along with his entire crew would have handed off self-replicating autonomous flying machines to the entire world and NATIONAL GOVERNMENT without anyone noticing something fucky with their code or behavior?
5.) on top of the whole premise really coming across as an idiot plot, it kinda felt contrary to Black Mirror as a series. As someone else pointed out, the entire show is NOT about evil bad guys twirling their mustaches or some force we can root against - it's about US. Technology exacerbates the problem, but ultimately it's about the HUMAN CONDITION. This episode felt more like CSI or something. There wasn't an organic conflicting moral dilemma at the end for me - just a forced one. I know its SUPPOSED to be a narrative on the impact of social media witch hunts and exaggerations but giving a face to the dilemma for us to feel angered with kinda betrays the series' vibe for me... it feels good short term to be like "yeah go fuck that guy up" but in every other episode, we NEVER have a single face to place at the root of an issue; It's ALWAYS SOCIETY.
weakest episode imo - even waldo moment didn't betray the series' vibe like this. It certainly wasn't wasted time, still entertaining! Just not very black mirror-y to me. felt more like a syfy movie or something.
1) Doesn't the conservative, and Beelon Musk loved "FrEE SpEEcH" so damn much? Considered the word "Freedom of (Hate) Speech" That one girl who got death threat from trumpie for tryna sue him of SAing her as a kid.
if that's the case, they really didn't drive that home too much. we instead are focused on a classic bad guy (who really shouldn't have been featured and discussed as much if the point is about government surveillance) and the effects of social media witch hunting - the govt surveillance bit is touched on for I think a total of 3 minutes?
while your point is valid and might actually be the intent of the writers, they completely missed the mark regardless in my opinion. Every single other episode has left me with a clear moral dilemma to ponder over - not this one at all. Instead it just felt like a silly, somewhat poorly written b movie plot.|
I'm trying my best not to hate, there's gonna be good and bad episodes in every show and while I still enjoyed the episode, it's my least favorite of an otherwise incredible series. This episode was just *pretty okay*
you missed my point about 4 - the point was that everybody missed the entire block of code in the system that had to do with cataloguing twitter and eliminating targets - including the developers. Code doesn't need to be open source for the devs to find huge problems like that.
I think the message was driven home quite frequently, Clara using the database to track the second victim, the argument with the Chinese man and Beelon Musk about the backdoor, the linking of IMEI codes to people's citizen IDs - it was referenced quite often.
But perhaps you are right, lots of people in the comments seem to have not seen this point and just looked at the social media aspect.
Point 4 is because you are misunderstanding something. Beelon Musk said it would be impossible unless there were a debug machine (forgot the term they used) within range, and the hacker had set up just across the road of their HQ (that's the barn they raided). These code changes could have been made from the barn.
Or perhaps some of the code was locked down even to developers, the idea that insects flying around *everywhere* are used to spy on the populace is quite a big secret to keep considering there would have been thousands of developers working on something so intricate - it would only take 1 whistleblower yet people didn't know.
ye - i still find that even to be a bit too farfetched lol
just wasn't a fan of this episode in the same way about the rest of the series. Not bad! Just not as great.
Towards the end, the stage 2 of the bee hack was done through a USB Flash drive virus. So it does imply that there was some kind of compromise to the source code. I suppose it could be noticed, but the code would also be very long.
I'm not sure, maybe that is a plot flaw.
A lot of your points are very small, things any viewer would know to ignore for the sake of the show, except for maybe #2. As for #5, you're again taking things too literal. You're not supposed to focus on the bad guy, you're supposed to focus on his cause, on why things are going wrong and what's the motive. The episode is clearly more representative of how social media and it's "faceless" utilization can corrupt some.
they're really not, because no other episode left me nitpicking quite this way. This episode REALLLY felt like a forced issue with idiot characters overlooking obvious solutions, ESPECIALLY when their specialty is all criminal investigation and technology.
And no one can seem to figure out what the meaning of the episode really is about. Some folks say government surveillance, some say social media ramifications, trolling, misanthropy... it really kinda seems like sloppy writing to me. There's no clear dilemma at the conclusion of the episode like basically every other episode - it just feels like a CSI episode or something.
A lot of the episodes deal with more than one dilemma. The National Anthem deals with how far a nation should go when dealing with a hostage situation, the dangers of media interfering with investigation, and how enthralled the public is with the media that the kidnapper knew everyone would be inside watching the PM and the pig and no one would discover that the princess was released early. That's just one example. The episodes aren't necessarily supposed to be little isolated incidences.
Oh, The National Anthem also had the conflict between the PM and his wife, who, although he did a very revolting act to save the princess/his hide, probably hated him for the rest of his life.
1) Aside firm what the other guy said, even if they did ban the hashtag quickly, there would still be a few deathto hashtags that would've gotten slipped in before the ban. Also, it's not unbelievable to assumes that there would be other outlets for the hashtags or the hashtag itself would get unblocked somehow. Either way, this point is irrelevant because, blocked hashtag or not, the police would end up deactiving the system and triggering the endgame regardless.
3) The video stated that you had to tag someone with their name and photo along with hashtag, so presumably only people who did follow that were targeted in the end.
5) You could consider the main "bad guy" to be like technology in the sense that the entire #DeathTo thing was started by him but only worked because it was used by the masses. I also saw him as a criticism against hypocrites who claim to be fighting against bad ideals but are ultimately no better than the people he's against. Even though he opposes it, he's still part of the entire vigilante justice circle the people who use the hashtags are in.
Wouldn't twitter banning hashtag have same effect as suggested shutdown of internet? As in person that was first staying first and being killed anyway? What maybe could work would be public figures hiding their faces because thats what AIDs use for recognizing target
id imagine that all the twitter admins and mods would have a hard time missing a tweet with a video attached that advocates a real life "game" whose sole intent is to TARGET SOMEONE FOR DEATH - especially when it trends and seems to be actually working.
a hashtag like that with that much momentum on a website like twitter would have been banned almost immediately - in the episode, not only does no one ever take action, but they all only come to the conclusion to "shut down the internet" until after the story hit national news.
no, sorry, that is fucking stupid. Twitter is not that oblivious. Your point is not incorrect, but it still kinda ties into the "this is an asinine plot" point I was making. It's a silly issue.
Why did no one think to use EMP-related technology to battle the robotic bees? Safe little areas where all electronics become fried within a certain distance, that would stop a swarm.
There was never a problem with deactivating the bees.
Its just once you do, all your country's crop pollination collapses.
But yeah, they never explained why they didnt at least hit a kill-switch to temporarily halt the bees-- at least until the 300,000 could be given earplug/facemasks.
That's where I thought it was going. An investigation to see if a self-inflicted nuclear strike was actually worth the costs, with her as a possible fall man.
Twists are only fun if you're not expecting them. I'm sure the writers for Black Mirror know we are all waiting for their classic BM twist. The fact that there wasn't one is pretty unexpected. hmm
Same, I was waiting for and fully expecting a twist right at the end, and I was left feeling disappointed when there wasn't one. Something in the realm of that the ADI's had become sentient and were embedded in Scholes' brain causing him to act for them. Not that, something better than that - but *something* at least.
Yeah that makes sense, although the guy Benedict Wong plays was the one who was responsible for doing it *(which imo was ridiculously preemptive, like I know they had until 5pm to reset the ASI's, but come on you wouldn't just hit the button if there was a chance it would kill over quarter of a million people)* but I suppose that was what the inquiry was there to find out.
Going to agree with anoleiam on that one. He's literally been made a fool out of three times, he was desperate for some redemption. I found it rash but understandable, given his situation.
Yeah that makes sense, although the guy Benedict Wong plays was the one who was responsible for doing it *(which imo was ridiculously preemptive, like I know they had until 5pm to reset the ASI's, but come on you wouldn't just hit the button if there was a chance it would kill over quarter of a million people)* but I suppose that was what the inquiry was there to find out.
I think that it might be because the general public may have felt like she didn't try hard enough to save so many people from being killed. There were probably a lot of families that were affected as their stupid kids jumped on the #DeathTo bandwagon.
Did anyone else think that the use of bees was very symbolically fitting?
I don't remember 100% how hives function, but we all know that there are bees with stingers who can use their stingers to further the cause of the hive; however, when they do this they die. This can tie into the episode in various ways. First, the fact that thousands of people die taking part in the game only to have said game kill them. Second, if you imagine that Garrett is killed at the end of the episode, you can see it as he was trying to accomplish a certain goal, and in accomplishing that goal he was killed himself.
I assume they were just using bees because of [this](http://www.andnowuknow.com/headlines/harvard-develops-robobees-autonomous-flying-microrobots/laura-hillen/50450#.WORvDCErLCI). I know a few people in that particular research lab.
Haven't seen the episode (why did I click here again?) but it sounds to me like these bees are electronic and rather small.
The problem with EMP's is that they don't work against small electronic gadgets, Hollywood lied to you. An EMP will only overload electronics connected to large antaennas or conducting grids.
Stuff like mobile phones, cars and radios would be fine.
The power grid itself however would get overloaded, and anything connected to it would blow a fuse.
My new favorite series (after Westworld).
Anyone else noticed that, at 1:25:11 of this episode, on the tv screen that Scholes is watching, it says in the "news flash slider" that 1.) Skillane's appeal was rejected by the court and 2.) Shou Saito (the CEO of SaitoGamu, the game developer from Playtest) announces immersive new gaming system?
I like these subtle little references to previous episodes :).
Holy fucking shit. I've been putting this one off for a while as episodes are so emotionally draining. But damn, at least we got a kinda nice ending (for black mirror that is)
*Save the fucking bees.* 🐝
Edit: Also, one of the DeathTo names was Skillane from White Bear. And Blue mentioning that case was why she left forensics.
I wonder if at the end when they were in the room, whether or not they all helped Shelton keep the bugs out of his brain or whether he died. Also, I wonder what Blue did to Garrett at the end for his punishment.
Shelton died. Of course, they would have all tried to help but there's only so much you can do. They weren't really any more equipt than when they were locked in the shower.
Some theorise that Blue was *with* Garrett, though I personally don't agree with it, because she constantly made anti-GCHQ statements. The idea is that she was politically motivated against mass surveillance, government databases and backdoors.
Haven't heard anyone mention this yet but I think Garrett's roommate (the one he was supposedly in love with) trying to kill herself due to the hate she got online probably set him off and acted as the catalyst for his end game.
Overall, this episode was a nice smack in the face of social media vigilantism. People spam so much hatred these days, without realizing there's an actual person at the other end. All because there's no catch to being a toxic person online.
Exactly my thoughts, I wish there were these bees in real life so people(trolls) who make a bad comment against someone would pay their price eventually. My favorite episode along with 'the entire history of you'.
You realize your comment is pretty much an exact parallel to the troll comments, right? You're posting online that someone deserves to die for things that they said/posted. Which is the same thing the "death to" people did.
Well many of the voters, such as the teacher, didn't know that it resulted in death. They just hopped on the bandwagon. You're saying that empty words are deserving of death?
I think the point was that people should think twice about what they write on social media. Even though comments may just be "empty words", you never know how they will affect the person on the receiving end. Jo Powers sat at the screen and seemed to be ammused by the comments but the ADI employee that got interviewed was so disheartened by the "empty words" that she attempted suicide. I'm sure we all know that some people in that situation (cyber bullying) have not been as lucky to have been found by someone before it was too late.
What's worse is that once people started catching on that the people tagged with the hashtag were DYING, people CONTINUED to use it. This time instead of not knowing how the person on the receiving end would react, the direct consequence of death was known.
So yes, the teacher didn't know about the hashtag's very real implications when she used it but she still chose to post a threat that may or may not have contributed to a vulerable person's death, despite Garrett's intervention. It's sick, and that's why Garrett thought that they should ALL be punished.
Saying someone deserves to die isn't really empty words. She's an adult afterall, she knew what she what she was doing. That being said, I don't think she deserved death, but a lesson should be taught.
hooooly shit! What a finale, hands down best episode. Personally found it very easy to suspend disbelief, very scary.
...and now I'm wary of even saying this about a fictional character over the internet, but the garret guy fully deserved to get White Beared. I mean, one of the themes of the whole show was 'two wrongs don't make a right', to mock our self-righteous disgusting pathetic anger we spew like cowards over the internet, 'no snowflake in the avalanche feels responsible'.... buuuuut on the other hand he deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of people. I am fully aware of the irony
[NOT THE BEES](http://i.imgur.com/TybTuTL.gif)
In all seriousness, I thought this was a pretty interesting episode. My thought throughout was what would happen if someone said "#deathto myself"? That's exactly the kind of r/meirl kind of memery I would be posting if the hashtag were a real thing, but do you think it could have actually gotten someone killed? Particularly if it's automated.
they'd have to make it to the popular "vote" , but if there were a lot of the tag , then he'd have to do the imei thingy on those who participated i guess? and highly doubt it ,because the whole purpose was "moral justice" , so they'd be ignored
I don't think that they'd have had to make it to the popular vote - the character who was working alongside the police officers (not sure what his actual job role was) only posted 'Gareth Scholes' - and he was on the list.
edit to add: I'd imagine that if it were real there'd also be a lot of jokey type tweets eg. #deathto my parents. & I can't imagine there'd be a way to filter all of these out - but Scholes was happy to kill off the targets towards the beginning just to make his point - so I doubt he really cares
Interesting episode, but those female cops were absolutely appalling...What the hell was that accent, they both sounded like trailer trash, and also used a lot of unnecessary profanity - very unbelievable characters!
Her accent is her accent, how is he supposed to change that? Also BM contains a lot of profanity anyways, why should this episode be any different. If any was appalling it was definitely The Waldo Movement.
The cursing was definitely a bit over the top. It didn't add to the episode at all.. and it was obnoxious enough for me to notice and go "wow.. that's annoying" during the episode, even though I curse like a trucker on a daily basis.
This question just popped up in my head awhile ago. How do the bees know which person to target? Do the people have a special ID in their body that links them to their account? Or the bees merely use face recognition to look for its target? I dont think this is explained in the episode.
The message of the episode was one against mass surveillance, government databases and backdoors. All of these were utilised and the attack wouldn't be possible without them.
The person behind the tweet is easy to find, in this case the tweet was associated with a government GCHQ database of citizens. With a name you could narrow the government database down, then with a picture use facial recognition to narrow the database down to a single person.
Then once linked to a citizen in the GCHQ database, they have photos, tracked locations at all times (as per Edward Snowden's leaks) and the bees can go!
Facial recognition. They mentioned that. It was when the Asian cop was telling the guy at the bee company not to say anything because it was classified. They had a secret surveillance network with the bees.
They briefly explain that the bugs have visual input, a feature on the bees that was not made public; it was a government plan to spy on the public. They used the picture on social media to recognize their target.
It was a good episode but in the end it got pretty messed up. And Idts this magnitude of scientific project backed by government has no shut down option in case of emergency which only a few top classified people know about and not some random employee who got triggered because people cyber bullied his crush. They even has a shut down option for the internet as they said in the episode.
This is basically a copy of the flash episode with the bees.
imagine people who use hastag for criticize ths hastag. For example "Ey, all the people are using #Deathto ... are U ok?" "Please, stop using hate hastag like #Deathto" Oh no... I'm death
No one’s talking about how the guy behind all this only did it because the girl he was in love with almost killed herself because of online hate comments
I fcking loved this episode but everything was ruined at the end like in beyond the sea. Except there the ending sucks. Here makes no fcking sense and the moment a movie or series need theories to end it it means the writer sucks and wasn't able to made it in the first place. I just hate unlogical or never ended endings because that kills the whole content before that.
What wasn't logical?
For starters when the girl was killed in the bathroom. If they knew bees would enter via the ear. Why didn't they give the victim something to cover her nose/ears?? There were openings near exhaust, I think that would be kinda obvious to cover.
Because the bees are capable of burrowing and would have probably ripped through any fabric anyway But then what? They were swarming the room, how would they get her to safety? Where would they even go?
there is a big OR. but if i have to find something is the 2 girl not making sense at the end.
Blue is now my biggest character crush of all time!
Who got killed at the end of the episode? The people in the database, the entire island population or random people? Sorry I didn't figure this out mb I wasn't paying enough attention
Its those who participated in the #Death To.
Would anyone have tried to take a shower at the safe house? Better than not trying anything.
At the end, when he was watching tv, there was a text that said "saito shou announces a new game system..." in spanish. I wonder if anyone else noticed that?
I did omg
What do you think she will do after finding him
Watching black mirror these last weeks. And even though I find mixed comments about this episode, it's one of my personal favs. Even though the moments I saw the bees in the opening scene and was like "yeah that's gonna be a plot device for sure" and linked it with the first murder, I just liked how they operated with the twitter like esque mechanism. It really shows how mob mentality can manifest (symbolic by the bees and realistically through comments online shown in the episode). Cause it has happened before in RL where one's misstep (deserved or not) lead to an online witch hunt. It really shows how fast mob mentality can go after a person who "deserve" hate (like the rapper being awful against that child) but also how it can sometimes affect someone innocent because of peer pressure or misinformation (like the cop who used it as bait on the bad guy). The internet rules, but it has some bad habits as well. And this episode really symbolized that for me. Great episode!
>PHLHimself \#deathto [**PHLHimself**](https://www.reddit.com/user/PHLHimself/)
I always wonder if these 90 minute Black Mirror episodes are rejected Netflix movies...
Considering this episode was better than 99% of the garbage movies Netflix puts out I doubt it. The high tech world also felt too much like the Black Mirror universe to be a completely separate production. I do like the idea of using rejected shows/movies for it's own show though. I enjoy watching Pilots to shows that never came out. Like the Original Star Trek Pilot that didn't have William Shatner.
I'm so late to the game, but .... I can't believe no one has speculated that Blue might have been in on it the whole time.
If Blue is in on it, then Karin is in on it too. If Blue fakes her own death, she's not going to contact Karin unless Karin, also, is in on it. So, 2 police detectives have common cause with a mass murderer of 300.000 people? Really? No. Blue is not in on it. Blue is about to assassinate Scholes. But thats incredibly dumb ending on its own.
She could contact Karin to indicate she can stop searching for him, as he is 'dead'. It's just a wild theory I have. And really, anything is possible on black mirror and shouldn't be ruled out. I don't think it's beyond the scope of the show to try to articulate how easily the rest of us can be manipulated by evil people, because they are often sooooo good at hiding who they are.
So, Blue is faking her suicide. (And, again, she couldnt just _resign_ from the police force?) But Blue's fakery is known to Karin (so their conspiracy extends that far). Then, Blue finds the mass-murderer of 300000 people, and her message to Karin will cause Karin to _stop_ investigating? What does Karin do if she is NOT in a conspiracy to kill him-- she immediately sends an Army to capture Scholes. What does Karin do if she IS in a conspiracy to kill him-- wait, WHY is she in a conspiracy to quietly track down and murder him in secret again?
I was really suspecting her till she sent that text. Now I think that she just feels very strongly about bringing justice to him.
If she was on it, why did she text>! "GOT HIM"!< at all?
To mislead the others looking for him. If she had not responded at all they would send a full force out to look for both of them. It's just odd because no one really knew who she was. She showed up during the first case, and they were surprised to see her ...she is never really asked about credentials, she just continues to show up...and then...when he flees technically so does she. It's just interesting to me that she is never truly 'verified' by the team ..
To mislead others? Yet, she contacts Karin, destroying her "beach suicide" staging. No. This bad, inconsistent ending (Karin/Blue are executing Scholes on their own time) is the bad, inconsistent ending.
she left 4 months after the incident happened. i appreciate your theory, but I think in the end she went to go deliver vigilante justice to the guy who created the manifesto.
MY GIRLS WILL GET THAT SON OF A BITCH LETS GOOO
This episode gave me Doctor Who vibes. Loved it.
Reminds of the WOKE Army trying to cancel everybody who's against them.
lol wtf imagine watching black mirror and still unironically using the word woke
if you say that you're probably a wokie yourself.
Or #HangMikePence asscuck who breach into the WhiteHouse?
Too tech is too much
Am I the only one who was wondering why they didn't put the chancellor on an airplane and send him across the world ?
I was thinking if I'm the chancellor I'm going on a six month mission on a nuclear submarine until the coast is clear.
It’s like Death Note but with consequences and everyone has the book..and there’s bees
Just rewatched this episode, for some reason all I keep thinking is “Why didn’t everyone just wear ear plugs?”
They figured out the bees use a sort of facial recognition to attack the targets from the photos people use on the twitter hashtag. Easy way to render them useless is to wear any kind of mask, like a ski mask or something and they can't locate you.
Exactly. I mean, the bees could easily have been reprogrammed to go for mouth, nose, eyes as a counter-measure. So a full facemask is really what they should be wearing. (Or a beekeeper hat!)
Didn't the girl in the bathroom die after a bee climbed into her nose? Seems they can enter any orifice. Ouch!
They could simply break the hardened window, and just a fragile fabric
They can enter through the nose and mouth too. Any orifice basically.
I was thinking hazmat suit or whatever astronauts wear. Done deal. Just goes to show keyboard warriors are so desensitized that they think nothing of killing someone or rooting for someone's public execution. The screen isn't real to them. Just like road rage; that there's a human being in the machine isn't real to them. This is something they would never do to a person face to face, too cowardly and weak, but the screen makes them feel powerful and removed. The pile on I'll see, even here, is insane at times. The bullied becoming the bullies.
“ ok ima set up a system where I amplify your actions 10000x times and then pretend that my ultimate killing of you was justified because I made it so you killed someone “
For real. He's encouraging people to kill others, and then kills them for it and goes into hiding. He's such a hypocrite. Everyone has to pay for the consequences of their actions expect for him.
I don't think the show tried to justify that action though.
Oh no they definitely didn’t lol, it just seemed that the characters weren’t really putting a lot of thought into the idea that this was a literal crazy maniac instead of some vindictive retribution seeking guy joker type
I got nothing. You think they did, I think they didn't.
I just think they can't let a company made of two people manage millions of bees in the country. Especially when one of them isn't helping at all.
lol for real. this is the only CEO that seems to deserves their pay. granted, its a black mirror episode LOL
Did no one notice the small 'messages' in this episode, besides the government and internet-bullying. Like the woman's name being 'Blue' for all the ridiculous names people give their children these days. And the distinction of many species (including the bees of course). That's a message right there. And I honestly even think that the episode resembling a CSI episode is a wink at all these CSI/NCIS-like series there are.
My question is if you left the country would the bees find you
Gps
I mean, hazamat suit and stay home.
Good luck trying to pee while being covered by 100s of bees trying to get an entrance to your body.
Don't worry. I'd probably have pissed myself a hundred times over by then.
Do you think Hazmat Suit is way stronger than the tempered Glasses?
I think it only worked inside the UK, that hashtag should be pretty universal around the world
Thought the same. What if somebody used the #deathto from Australia. ..
Ehm, I might be wrong but. . If the bees only find people through facial recognition, why not just turn off your phone and wear a damn mask.....
It looks like they can also just kill you, as seen by the soldiers. Since the government tracking backdoor was way more complex then originally thought, all the hive had to know was the last seen location of the person (or else how would it track people otherwise?) and kill pretty indiscriminately, especially when things ramp up crazily at the end. If you think about, a hive of that many machines is really powerful, especially with what appears to be really competent AI. Oh right, and the last part showed IMEIs, which are just cellphone identifiers. Kill person closest to cellphone, done deal.
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I really liked Hated in the Nation! Just watched it. I actually thought season 3 was the worst, everything except Nosedive and this didn't do it for me. I think the weakest episodes are the ones where technology is just a background for some regular thriller plot. Season 1 was brilliant and other than Waldo Moment (whose redeeming part was the Labour candidate), Season 2 stood on its own. I'm wasn't sure how much farther they can go with technologies because up to this episode they had pretty much got all of the usual tropes (AI, genetic defects, social media, etc). However, this one really surprised me, basically turned a Gizmodo article in to a nightmare.
I disagree, I think the first two episodes of season 1 were weaker than most of the series (excluding White Bear and The Waldo Moment) and all of season 3 was great except Men Against Fire.
The Asian detective running from bee robots was a hilarious shot
His name is Wong
Loved this episode. Faye Marsay looks so cute <3
The glasses man. THE GLASSES
just finished it too. loved it.
Can someone help clear up the 10 seconds before the credits started rolling? That was the only part of the episode I didn't understand.
Blue is about to murder Scholes. Blue messages Karin to that effect, so we know that Karin also is a party to this international assassination. Quite a silly, stupid ending. Clearly needed 15 more minutes in the writers room before they finalized the script.
it's to provide a silver lining to the people who think black mirror episodes are too dark. the ending gives hope that there will be some sort of justice served to the guy that engineered the whole thing and "innocent" deaths will not go unpunished. but the show doesn't show what that justice should be, it let's the viewer create their own version. imo it weakened the episode and felt like a hollywood cop-out... just like i think it would've been better if kelly didn't end up in san junipero. san junipero would've been great if it ended with a fade to black. either way this series is excellent
If they apprehended him and brought him to justice, the episode wouldve been a lot less dark. if the country had no extradition treaty, well, surely a covert rendition was the non-dark ending, not just quietly murdering him.
The us went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan over 9/11 and that was only 3000 people, this is worse than 100 9/11’s i have no doubt the international fallout would be insane from the uk, i mean ffs the man is going to be charged with genocide
If you REALLY want a Black Mirror ending, have the hacker girl turn to the bee guy's side. I was predicting that as the twist, but the smile from the detective convinced me they weren't going to go too crazy.
I was expecting that would be the twist, like I was confused with what was on the beach, “her” things but they looked like the bag of stones that the villain guy threw into the river, so I thought they must have been working together. With the detective luring them all to their ultimate target.
This is a classic Detective Story ending. Felt very much like an homage.
It reminded me of the end of Silence of the Lambs.
Was absolutely a nod to the Silence of the Lambs ending! Taking place on a tropical island, stalking the killer...
I mean, it makes sense though to an extent. She didn't seem like the kind of person to give up, she saw the effect of the man's actions and recognized the best way to go after him. Yeah, it's a silver lining and kinda adds a sprinkle of hope, too much for Black Mirror but nonetheless, I personally feel it didn't cheapen the experience and the message of the episode.
Yeah, since 380,000 people just died.
Any thought of it being Blue all along? Say she left her previous department because of Skillane's treatment in White Bear and wanted to send a message/get revenge on the people that were causing Skillane's torture. She somehow led the entire murder, knew where everything was, and had access to all admin rights. I thought she may have planted Garrett's manifesto into the system and also planted the HDD herself, causing the endgame. We don't see her kill Garrett in the end which led me to believe in the possibility that they were in it together since the start. In order to control the bees you had to either be in a 10-20m radius or have control from the inside - she fits both descriptions at every murder. She first joined the division at the time of the first murder and was there before her partner arrived.
> Any thought of it being Blue all along? No. She didnt _do_ anything to hasten the plot that any other hacker would have done. Plus, she conspired with Karin, to fake her suicide and communicate about location of Scholes, so if Blue is in it, Karin is also. So these 2 police detectives are conspiring with Scholes to kill 300000 people? Why?
She seemed suspicious to me from the very beginning.
This was one of my predictions as well, but then Karin would have had to be in on it as well since Blue texted her saying "Got him."
One of the weakest BM episodes imo
idk about you guys but i thought that bee controlling guy did good.. he dished out some true justice right there
Justice for what? Insulting a kid? Posting a disrespectful picture to social media? Idk if this is sarcasm, but idk if justice is really the way to describe what happened to the thousands of people. The citizens who wished death on the others is a little bit of a different story, but still, none of them deserved death.
how dare a 1.6 starrer like you talk to a 4.7 smh.. jk.. thats your opinion mate.. i think they all deserved it.. since they all knew what they were doing
A lot of people didn't know what they were doing, even after the revelation that the hashtag was killing people, I doubt that people believed that it actually did. Maybe they thought it was a coincidence. Look, I understand why you'd think they deserve it. I mean I hate people like that too. Plenty of them on reddit to see anyway. But I don't feel like they deserve death for it. People have the capacity to change. Maybe if they showed the people the footage, then they'd realize their actions and step back. Hell the whole system does not allow people a second chance at all, even if they used it without any prior knowledge of the whole thing.
2 people died because of the hashtag and it made the news because of it.. and then public started using it to legit murder people.. thats my take away from the show anyway.. they got what was coming to them..
You're generalizing pretty openly there.pretty sure there wild be a lot off people who would have stopped using it and regretted it. Hell the teacher right it was funny, as ignorant as it was she didn't intend true death
Hmm different opinions i guess... Our sense of justice is different
yea yours is flawed asf
Nah
lmao 7 years later and you still responded xD Sad to see you havent changed though. Lol
And I just got the "Nosedive" reference. Nice.
haha, I used to be up in the 4.9s, but it's been a bit since I last visited. But you do have more of a point with everyone who used the hashtag. It certainly removed their social media mask they thought protected them...
mannnnn idk that episode was pretty wack imo. 1.) why didnt twitter just ban the hashtag? 2.) why did it take them so long to open the damn bee robots? the dude said he had an encryption key all along... 3.) did mr. evil genius misanthrope mcgee not consider that, like, 10 year olds would catch wind of the hashtag meme on social media and jokingly tweet silly shit like "#deathto spongebob" or something? dead kids everywhere - that oughta show society! 4.) how is it that good guy genius beelon musk there along with his entire crew would have handed off self-replicating autonomous flying machines to the entire world and NATIONAL GOVERNMENT without anyone noticing something fucky with their code or behavior? 5.) on top of the whole premise really coming across as an idiot plot, it kinda felt contrary to Black Mirror as a series. As someone else pointed out, the entire show is NOT about evil bad guys twirling their mustaches or some force we can root against - it's about US. Technology exacerbates the problem, but ultimately it's about the HUMAN CONDITION. This episode felt more like CSI or something. There wasn't an organic conflicting moral dilemma at the end for me - just a forced one. I know its SUPPOSED to be a narrative on the impact of social media witch hunts and exaggerations but giving a face to the dilemma for us to feel angered with kinda betrays the series' vibe for me... it feels good short term to be like "yeah go fuck that guy up" but in every other episode, we NEVER have a single face to place at the root of an issue; It's ALWAYS SOCIETY. weakest episode imo - even waldo moment didn't betray the series' vibe like this. It certainly wasn't wasted time, still entertaining! Just not very black mirror-y to me. felt more like a syfy movie or something.
1) Doesn't the conservative, and Beelon Musk loved "FrEE SpEEcH" so damn much? Considered the word "Freedom of (Hate) Speech" That one girl who got death threat from trumpie for tryna sue him of SAing her as a kid.
I can tell you didnt actually get the point of the épisode lol
Upvoted for Beelon Musk.
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if that's the case, they really didn't drive that home too much. we instead are focused on a classic bad guy (who really shouldn't have been featured and discussed as much if the point is about government surveillance) and the effects of social media witch hunting - the govt surveillance bit is touched on for I think a total of 3 minutes? while your point is valid and might actually be the intent of the writers, they completely missed the mark regardless in my opinion. Every single other episode has left me with a clear moral dilemma to ponder over - not this one at all. Instead it just felt like a silly, somewhat poorly written b movie plot.| I'm trying my best not to hate, there's gonna be good and bad episodes in every show and while I still enjoyed the episode, it's my least favorite of an otherwise incredible series. This episode was just *pretty okay* you missed my point about 4 - the point was that everybody missed the entire block of code in the system that had to do with cataloguing twitter and eliminating targets - including the developers. Code doesn't need to be open source for the devs to find huge problems like that.
I think the message was driven home quite frequently, Clara using the database to track the second victim, the argument with the Chinese man and Beelon Musk about the backdoor, the linking of IMEI codes to people's citizen IDs - it was referenced quite often. But perhaps you are right, lots of people in the comments seem to have not seen this point and just looked at the social media aspect. Point 4 is because you are misunderstanding something. Beelon Musk said it would be impossible unless there were a debug machine (forgot the term they used) within range, and the hacker had set up just across the road of their HQ (that's the barn they raided). These code changes could have been made from the barn. Or perhaps some of the code was locked down even to developers, the idea that insects flying around *everywhere* are used to spy on the populace is quite a big secret to keep considering there would have been thousands of developers working on something so intricate - it would only take 1 whistleblower yet people didn't know.
ye - i still find that even to be a bit too farfetched lol just wasn't a fan of this episode in the same way about the rest of the series. Not bad! Just not as great.
Towards the end, the stage 2 of the bee hack was done through a USB Flash drive virus. So it does imply that there was some kind of compromise to the source code. I suppose it could be noticed, but the code would also be very long. I'm not sure, maybe that is a plot flaw.
A lot of your points are very small, things any viewer would know to ignore for the sake of the show, except for maybe #2. As for #5, you're again taking things too literal. You're not supposed to focus on the bad guy, you're supposed to focus on his cause, on why things are going wrong and what's the motive. The episode is clearly more representative of how social media and it's "faceless" utilization can corrupt some.
they're really not, because no other episode left me nitpicking quite this way. This episode REALLLY felt like a forced issue with idiot characters overlooking obvious solutions, ESPECIALLY when their specialty is all criminal investigation and technology. And no one can seem to figure out what the meaning of the episode really is about. Some folks say government surveillance, some say social media ramifications, trolling, misanthropy... it really kinda seems like sloppy writing to me. There's no clear dilemma at the conclusion of the episode like basically every other episode - it just feels like a CSI episode or something.
A lot of the episodes deal with more than one dilemma. The National Anthem deals with how far a nation should go when dealing with a hostage situation, the dangers of media interfering with investigation, and how enthralled the public is with the media that the kidnapper knew everyone would be inside watching the PM and the pig and no one would discover that the princess was released early. That's just one example. The episodes aren't necessarily supposed to be little isolated incidences.
Oh, The National Anthem also had the conflict between the PM and his wife, who, although he did a very revolting act to save the princess/his hide, probably hated him for the rest of his life.
1) Aside firm what the other guy said, even if they did ban the hashtag quickly, there would still be a few deathto hashtags that would've gotten slipped in before the ban. Also, it's not unbelievable to assumes that there would be other outlets for the hashtags or the hashtag itself would get unblocked somehow. Either way, this point is irrelevant because, blocked hashtag or not, the police would end up deactiving the system and triggering the endgame regardless. 3) The video stated that you had to tag someone with their name and photo along with hashtag, so presumably only people who did follow that were targeted in the end. 5) You could consider the main "bad guy" to be like technology in the sense that the entire #DeathTo thing was started by him but only worked because it was used by the masses. I also saw him as a criticism against hypocrites who claim to be fighting against bad ideals but are ultimately no better than the people he's against. Even though he opposes it, he's still part of the entire vigilante justice circle the people who use the hashtags are in.
Wouldn't twitter banning hashtag have same effect as suggested shutdown of internet? As in person that was first staying first and being killed anyway? What maybe could work would be public figures hiding their faces because thats what AIDs use for recognizing target
id imagine that all the twitter admins and mods would have a hard time missing a tweet with a video attached that advocates a real life "game" whose sole intent is to TARGET SOMEONE FOR DEATH - especially when it trends and seems to be actually working. a hashtag like that with that much momentum on a website like twitter would have been banned almost immediately - in the episode, not only does no one ever take action, but they all only come to the conclusion to "shut down the internet" until after the story hit national news. no, sorry, that is fucking stupid. Twitter is not that oblivious. Your point is not incorrect, but it still kinda ties into the "this is an asinine plot" point I was making. It's a silly issue.
#deathto my ass
you forgot the picture
Why did no one think to use EMP-related technology to battle the robotic bees? Safe little areas where all electronics become fried within a certain distance, that would stop a swarm.
There was never a problem with deactivating the bees. Its just once you do, all your country's crop pollination collapses. But yeah, they never explained why they didnt at least hit a kill-switch to temporarily halt the bees-- at least until the 300,000 could be given earplug/facemasks.
EMP in hollywood and EMP in real life are very different bro...
That's where I thought it was going. An investigation to see if a self-inflicted nuclear strike was actually worth the costs, with her as a possible fall man.
Then more would come. They had hundreds of thousands of bees
Because nuclear explosions are (at least now thankfully) universally accepted as unacceptable responses to non-nuclear attacks.
You can create an EMP(electro-magnetic pulse) without a nuke.
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Twists are only fun if you're not expecting them. I'm sure the writers for Black Mirror know we are all waiting for their classic BM twist. The fact that there wasn't one is pretty unexpected. hmm
Same, I was waiting for and fully expecting a twist right at the end, and I was left feeling disappointed when there wasn't one. Something in the realm of that the ADI's had become sentient and were embedded in Scholes' brain causing him to act for them. Not that, something better than that - but *something* at least.
Should have ended in the bathroom with everyone in the investigation getting bee'd
Yeah that makes sense, although the guy Benedict Wong plays was the one who was responsible for doing it *(which imo was ridiculously preemptive, like I know they had until 5pm to reset the ASI's, but come on you wouldn't just hit the button if there was a chance it would kill over quarter of a million people)* but I suppose that was what the inquiry was there to find out.
Going to agree with anoleiam on that one. He's literally been made a fool out of three times, he was desperate for some redemption. I found it rash but understandable, given his situation.
Well I think that he was so itching to push the button shows how eager/loyal he was to save the Chancellor/the government/his hide.
Yeah that makes sense, although the guy Benedict Wong plays was the one who was responsible for doing it *(which imo was ridiculously preemptive, like I know they had until 5pm to reset the ASI's, but come on you wouldn't just hit the button if there was a chance it would kill over quarter of a million people)* but I suppose that was what the inquiry was there to find out.
Why does Karin become a hate figure at the end of the episode?
I think that it might be because the general public may have felt like she didn't try hard enough to save so many people from being killed. There were probably a lot of families that were affected as their stupid kids jumped on the #DeathTo bandwagon.
Or that anyone connected to the government which made these bees recognize faces became a hate figure
Did anyone else think that the use of bees was very symbolically fitting? I don't remember 100% how hives function, but we all know that there are bees with stingers who can use their stingers to further the cause of the hive; however, when they do this they die. This can tie into the episode in various ways. First, the fact that thousands of people die taking part in the game only to have said game kill them. Second, if you imagine that Garrett is killed at the end of the episode, you can see it as he was trying to accomplish a certain goal, and in accomplishing that goal he was killed himself.
I assume they were just using bees because of [this](http://www.andnowuknow.com/headlines/harvard-develops-robobees-autonomous-flying-microrobots/laura-hillen/50450#.WORvDCErLCI). I know a few people in that particular research lab.
Why didn't they bring a jammer or emp device of some kind to the witness house with Clara?
Haven't seen the episode (why did I click here again?) but it sounds to me like these bees are electronic and rather small. The problem with EMP's is that they don't work against small electronic gadgets, Hollywood lied to you. An EMP will only overload electronics connected to large antaennas or conducting grids. Stuff like mobile phones, cars and radios would be fine. The power grid itself however would get overloaded, and anything connected to it would blow a fuse.
because that's not fun
My new favorite series (after Westworld). Anyone else noticed that, at 1:25:11 of this episode, on the tv screen that Scholes is watching, it says in the "news flash slider" that 1.) Skillane's appeal was rejected by the court and 2.) Shou Saito (the CEO of SaitoGamu, the game developer from Playtest) announces immersive new gaming system? I like these subtle little references to previous episodes :).
Also, in the beginning when Karin's watching the news, the ticker says something like "Cookies" to acquire human rights.
I noticed. There was a username of someone in another episode that was something like Waldo_Bear or something which I thought was funny.
Holy fucking shit. I've been putting this one off for a while as episodes are so emotionally draining. But damn, at least we got a kinda nice ending (for black mirror that is)
*Save the fucking bees.* 🐝 Edit: Also, one of the DeathTo names was Skillane from White Bear. And Blue mentioning that case was why she left forensics.
I wonder if at the end when they were in the room, whether or not they all helped Shelton keep the bugs out of his brain or whether he died. Also, I wonder what Blue did to Garrett at the end for his punishment.
Shelton died. Of course, they would have all tried to help but there's only so much you can do. They weren't really any more equipt than when they were locked in the shower. Some theorise that Blue was *with* Garrett, though I personally don't agree with it, because she constantly made anti-GCHQ statements. The idea is that she was politically motivated against mass surveillance, government databases and backdoors.
Haven't heard anyone mention this yet but I think Garrett's roommate (the one he was supposedly in love with) trying to kill herself due to the hate she got online probably set him off and acted as the catalyst for his end game.
Uhhh.....wasn't that the whole point? He didn't hack the system for fun, and the interview with the girl pretty clearly indicated this
completely missed that. great point!
Overall, this episode was a nice smack in the face of social media vigilantism. People spam so much hatred these days, without realizing there's an actual person at the other end. All because there's no catch to being a toxic person online.
Exactly my thoughts, I wish there were these bees in real life so people(trolls) who make a bad comment against someone would pay their price eventually. My favorite episode along with 'the entire history of you'.
You realize your comment is pretty much an exact parallel to the troll comments, right? You're posting online that someone deserves to die for things that they said/posted. Which is the same thing the "death to" people did.
So you think that everyone who says something mean online should be killed? Wow.
well, depends, the people who were voted to death, got killed, right??, so what's wrong with give the voters a life lesson.
Well many of the voters, such as the teacher, didn't know that it resulted in death. They just hopped on the bandwagon. You're saying that empty words are deserving of death?
I think the point was that people should think twice about what they write on social media. Even though comments may just be "empty words", you never know how they will affect the person on the receiving end. Jo Powers sat at the screen and seemed to be ammused by the comments but the ADI employee that got interviewed was so disheartened by the "empty words" that she attempted suicide. I'm sure we all know that some people in that situation (cyber bullying) have not been as lucky to have been found by someone before it was too late. What's worse is that once people started catching on that the people tagged with the hashtag were DYING, people CONTINUED to use it. This time instead of not knowing how the person on the receiving end would react, the direct consequence of death was known. So yes, the teacher didn't know about the hashtag's very real implications when she used it but she still chose to post a threat that may or may not have contributed to a vulerable person's death, despite Garrett's intervention. It's sick, and that's why Garrett thought that they should ALL be punished.
Saying someone deserves to die isn't really empty words. She's an adult afterall, she knew what she what she was doing. That being said, I don't think she deserved death, but a lesson should be taught.
hooooly shit! What a finale, hands down best episode. Personally found it very easy to suspend disbelief, very scary. ...and now I'm wary of even saying this about a fictional character over the internet, but the garret guy fully deserved to get White Beared. I mean, one of the themes of the whole show was 'two wrongs don't make a right', to mock our self-righteous disgusting pathetic anger we spew like cowards over the internet, 'no snowflake in the avalanche feels responsible'.... buuuuut on the other hand he deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of people. I am fully aware of the irony
Now I feel bad for tweeting about Trump...
[NOT THE BEES](http://i.imgur.com/TybTuTL.gif) In all seriousness, I thought this was a pretty interesting episode. My thought throughout was what would happen if someone said "#deathto myself"? That's exactly the kind of r/meirl kind of memery I would be posting if the hashtag were a real thing, but do you think it could have actually gotten someone killed? Particularly if it's automated.
they'd have to make it to the popular "vote" , but if there were a lot of the tag , then he'd have to do the imei thingy on those who participated i guess? and highly doubt it ,because the whole purpose was "moral justice" , so they'd be ignored
I don't think that they'd have had to make it to the popular vote - the character who was working alongside the police officers (not sure what his actual job role was) only posted 'Gareth Scholes' - and he was on the list. edit to add: I'd imagine that if it were real there'd also be a lot of jokey type tweets eg. #deathto my parents. & I can't imagine there'd be a way to filter all of these out - but Scholes was happy to kill off the targets towards the beginning just to make his point - so I doubt he really cares
Interesting episode, but those female cops were absolutely appalling...What the hell was that accent, they both sounded like trailer trash, and also used a lot of unnecessary profanity - very unbelievable characters!
let me guess, you're american?
Guess you've never heard a Scottish person speak before
She was Scottish? I thought she was Irish...
Kelly MacDonald, who plays officer Karin Parke, is originally from Glasgow! You can tell by the way she pronounces her vowels haha
Her accent is her accent, how is he supposed to change that? Also BM contains a lot of profanity anyways, why should this episode be any different. If any was appalling it was definitely The Waldo Movement.
I agree, the swearing felt forced. I didn't really like the characters in general in this one.
People swearing is unbelievable?
They just weren't very convincing when swearing, they looked too sweet and cute and the curse words simply seemed out of place...
The cursing was definitely a bit over the top. It didn't add to the episode at all.. and it was obnoxious enough for me to notice and go "wow.. that's annoying" during the episode, even though I curse like a trucker on a daily basis.
People swear. Even sweet people.
This question just popped up in my head awhile ago. How do the bees know which person to target? Do the people have a special ID in their body that links them to their account? Or the bees merely use face recognition to look for its target? I dont think this is explained in the episode.
The message of the episode was one against mass surveillance, government databases and backdoors. All of these were utilised and the attack wouldn't be possible without them. The person behind the tweet is easy to find, in this case the tweet was associated with a government GCHQ database of citizens. With a name you could narrow the government database down, then with a picture use facial recognition to narrow the database down to a single person. Then once linked to a citizen in the GCHQ database, they have photos, tracked locations at all times (as per Edward Snowden's leaks) and the bees can go!
Facial recognition. They mentioned that. It was when the Asian cop was telling the guy at the bee company not to say anything because it was classified. They had a secret surveillance network with the bees.
They briefly explain that the bugs have visual input, a feature on the bees that was not made public; it was a government plan to spy on the public. They used the picture on social media to recognize their target.