Black Mirror season 6: All episodes reviewed and explained

Episode 5: “Demon 79”

Like “Mazey Day,” the final episode of the season gets pretty bonkers pretty fast. Shoe department store worker Needa (Anjana Vasan) is generally under appreciated and forced to face racism and misogyny regularly in her 1970s UK workplace. Needa isn’t prone to confrontation and often swallows her anger over this abuse, with the occasional fantasy about meting out bloody, violent retribution as a salve.

When she’s forced to start taking lunch in the musty basement of the store on account of her co-workers not liking the smell of her Indian food, Needa stumbles on a strange rune hidden in the former owner’s desk. As she picks it up she pricks her finger, getting some of her blood on it. Later that night, at home, she suddenly hears a voice speaking to her.

It’s the demon Gaap, played with mischievous aplomb by Paapa Essiedu. So that he won’t terrify her quite so much, Gaap takes the form of a pop star whose music Needla likes and informs her that by activating the rune, she has set an apocalypse in motion. Unless she sacrifices three people by murdering them over the course of the next three days, the world will end in a fiery blaze.

This is another pretty out-there concept, but “Demon 79” makes it work by committing to it so fully that you can’t help but be swept along for the ride. The episode utilizes its ’70s aesthetic, as well as the fantastic chemistry between Vasan and Essiedu, to great effect. Essentially, the entire rest of the episode boils down to a funny demon trying to convince a reluctant, fairly normal person to go around killing people. There are mishaps along the way, and Needa is understandably reluctant to become a full-fledged murderer.

One of the things that helps her is that Gaap can see people’s futures and pasts; it’s easier to kill someone when you know they are a sexual predator who’s abusing their own daughter. Gaap often volunteers this information without being asked, or forces Needa to see visions of these misdeeds to strengthen her resolve.

Some of the situations Needa finds herself in are funny; others are surprisingly heartbreaking. If “Beyond the Sea” was too long and “Mazey Day” too short, “Demon 79” is just long enough to give its wacky story the room it needs to wrap up on its own terms without overstaying its welcome. We have more than enough time to come to care about Needa and Gaap’s fates; this murder mission involves consequences for the demon too, since if they fail he will be cast out into the lonely void of darkness away from all his demon cohorts.

This multi-day murder spree culminates with a nice bit of societal commentary, as Needa overhears a sleazy politician named Michael Smart (David Shields) promising to return Britain to more xenophobic times. She insists that Gaap use his powers to foresee Smart’s future, which is filled with horrible deeds that will push the country into dark times. Finally making a choice to kill someone fully of her own volition, Needa decides Smart will be her third and final sacrifice.

She never quite gets to finish the deed though, as the police finally catch her while she stands over Sharp with her trusty head-crushing hammer. The following interrogation casts doubt on whether the entire thing was just in Needa’s mind the whole time…until the clock strikes midnight and sirens begin blaring. As nuclear missiles rain down on England, Gaap offers to take Needa with him into the void so that they can share eternal banishment together. The episode ends with them walking off to their fated end, while a nuclear apocalypse whites out the screen behind them.

Black Mirror Bullet Points

• Gaap dials 666 for the headquarters to ask about why the rune didn’t register one of Needa’s kills. (It was because the second man she killed had murdered someone, thus disqualifying them from the ritual because they’re “already playing for home team,” as the demons put it.)
• When Gaap shows Needa the politician’s future, she sees how he will plunge Britain into a darker, racist period of governance. One of the visions she sees is a robot dog. These featured prominently in the Black Mirror season 4 episode “Metalhead.”

Verdict

“Demon 79” is an interesting episode; conceptually it strays pretty far from the show’s usual focus on sci-fi ideas, but it still feels like Black Mirror, with its subversive story and gleefully bleak ending. Ultimately it is a little less powerful than some other episodes of the series, but it’s executed so well it doesn’t really matter. It’s a weird, compelling way to end the season, perfectly encapsulating both its strengths and weaknesses.

Episode grade: B

Season grade: A-

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