Black Mirror season 6: All episodes reviewed and explained
By Daniel Roman
Episode 3: “Beyond the Sea”
“Beyond the Sea” is an 80-minute epic that follows David (Josh Hartnett) and Cliff (Aaron Paul), two astronauts in the late 1960s who have robotic “replica” bodies on Earth. When they’re not working on pressing matters on their space station, the two astronauts can use a specially designed key to send their mind into their replicas while their physical bodies sleep.
It’s a heady concept, though not one we haven’t seen before in things like Avatar. If “Loch Henry” put the sci-fi side of the series on mute, “Beyond the Sea” hooks it up to the speakers. It’s also an extremely character-driven piece; the differences between Cliff and David’s family lives are explored fairly early on, with David and his wife having a more passionate metropolitan life together while Cliff and his wife Lana (Kate Mara) have moved out into the countryside and are experiencing some strain.
The way Black Mirror explores the replica concept is pretty cool; it’s an idea that makes sense in the context of astronauts, giving them a way to still see their loved ones while they’re up in space for years at a time. Paul, Hartnett, and Mara all bring their acting A games, and the performances are a big part of what makes this episode work. What holds it back from being quite as good as it could be is the length. “Beyond the Sea” feels like it’s about 20-30 minutes longer than it needs to be.
Following the brutal murder of David’s family and the destruction of his replica by an anti-robot hippie cult, he and Cliff eventually come to an agreement where Cliff allows David to go to Earth using his replica. It starts out as a one-time thing, but David keeps asking for more and more…up to the point where he becomes obsessed with Cliff’s wife and tries to seduce her.
While the near-affair was somewhat predictable, it goes in a far darker direction than I expected. Lana turns down David; she and Cliff may have a strained relationship, but she has no interest in being seduced by another man who is clearly playing her. The viewer sees David use some of the exact same moves with Lana that he used with his own wife during the episode’s opening, and it is skin-crawlingly creepy.
Cliff eventually finds out that Davis has been trying to put the moves on Lana after discovering a bunch of naked drawing that David has made of her on the space station. Cliff and Lana reconcile and Cliff cuts David off from using his replica.
It doesn’t take. Hartnett goes to dark depths as he convey’s David’s dark side; David tricks Cliff so he’s trapped outside the space station, allowing allow David one last trip to Earth where he murders Cliff’s wife and son in an attempt to teach him about the pain of loss he’s endured since losing his own family.
It’s a horrific, dark, somewhat ambiguous ending. After discovering the bodies of Lana and his son, Cliff returns to the space station, where David invites him to sit. The episode ends with them having a staredown as the space station continues drifting through space. Since it is a two-man vessel, neither can kill the other without sacrificing their own life. Instead, they’re stuck up there together.
While “Beyond the Sea” was plenty compelling, its long run-time feels excessive. There are elements of greatness here, but it doesn’t have the thematic ambition and tight plotting of the previous two episodes. But it makes up for that with sheer horror; this is one of the more disturbing episodes of the season.
Black Mirror Bullet Points
- In one scene, Lana is reading Valley of the Dolls, a book about three cosmopolitan friends trying to make it as actors in the big city. David takes this as evidence that he was right about her being a social butterfly. But Lana rebukes him, saying it’s a guilty pleasure read. This is a good analogy for their relationship, with David making possessive assumptions that aren’t quite accurate.
- Speaking of books, at one point David is reading Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, which is a collection of short stories that deal with the intersection of technology and human psychology. He also recommends a Robert A. Heinlein book called The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress to Lana. Have to love sci-fi books sneaking into a sci-fi show!
- Aaron Paul needs a special shout-out for his acting; since his replica is inhabited by multiple different characters, he really had to pull out the stops. He nails it. The scene where he breaks down in tears as David is a particular showstopper.
Verdict
“Beyond the Sea” is ambitious, but it drags. “Beyond the Sea” is a character study about transferring trauma and jealousy; it isn’t as high concept as this show often gets. It’s still excellent by any standard, but the preceding two episodes blow it away.