Black Mirrormostly ponders on the horrors and wonders of technology, with each episodeset in a dystopian future. However, “Smithereen”, the second episode of the fifth season, hits a little too close to home. The story takes place in 2018, and its blunt portrayal of social media addiction makes it more relatable than any otherBlack Mirrorepisode.
Directed by James Hawes (who also made“Hated in the Nation”), “Smithereens” is more in line withthe episode “The National Anthem”with its themes of social satire and nihilism — and an outcome that is rather too plausible.
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What Is Black Mirror’s ‘Smithereens’ About?
The episode opens with Chris Gillhaney (Andrew Scott,best known forSherlock), a driver for a ride-hailing service called Hitcher in London, meditating in his car outside the office of a social media company named Smithereen. After dropping off a customer, he is seen at a restaurant where he seems to be on the edge while everyone else taps away on their phones. Later, he meets a woman, Haley (Amanda Drew), from his grief counseling group, whom he ends up spending the night with. She shares that she has been trying to guess the password to her late daughter’s Persona account, so she could go through her messages for anything that would explain her suicide.
One day, Chris accepts a ride request from Jaden Tommins (Damson Idris), who has to reach the airport. Upon learning that he works at Smithereen, Chris lies that there is an accident ahead and takes an alternate route. Jaden is too engrossed in his phone to notice that they are in a remote area, until it is too late. A panic-stricken conversation with Chris, who is now holding a gun, reveals that Jaden is just an intern at the company. Frustrated, Chris orders him to restrain his wrists and get into another car that is parked there, with a bag over his head. As Chris drives ahead, two police officers (Ambreen Razia and Callum Collaghan) spot Jaden and follow them.A police chase soon follows, and Chris’s car eventually stalls in a field. As more police officers arrive, led by CS Linda Grace (Monica Dolan), Chris threatens to shoot Jaden if they come any nearer.
He then demands Jaden to contact his superior who could put him in touch with Billy Bauer (Topher Grace), the tech mogul who created the micro-blogging platform. A series of conference calls follow, involving the COO Penelope Wu (Ruibo Qian) from the Silicon Valley office, FBI agent Ernesto Cruz (Jorge Cordova) and other company executives. Chris is kept on hold, unaware that Smithereen has manipulated the line so they can hear what is going on at his end. Based on his online activity, Penelope groups him in data clouds to determine his motive. It is revealed that Chris lost his fiancée Tamsin in a car accident three years earlier, after which he stopped using the app. He got his Hitcher account most likely from the dark web, to hide the fact that he only picks up passengers from outside Smithereen’s office. Meanwhile, the police track down the owner of the car and visit the given address. They discover that it belongs to Chris’ mother, who died just recently.
Billy is informed of the situation while he is on a 10-day silent retreat in Utah. He agrees to talk to Chris, but is strongly advised against it. At this point, everyone overhears Chris tell Jaden that the gun is not real, and the police begin to surround him. Chris spots them and, after checking the bystanders’ posts on Smithereen, he fires his gun in the air to prove that it is, in fact, real. He declares that he will shoot Jaden if Billy does not talk to him in the next five minutes.
How Does ‘Smithereens’ End?
Billy decides to bypass the corporate red tape and invoke “God mode” to get Chris’ number himself and call him directly. At first, Chris is in disbelief when he hears Billy on the phone, but then launches into a monologue and his story finally unfurls. He was driving home with Tamsin on the night of the accident, when he checked a notification from Smithereen while she was asleep. It was at that moment that a car collided with theirs. Tamsin eventually died two months later and, since the driver of the other car was drunk, the blame was placed on him — making Chris feel even guiltier. “Bit of user feedback for you there,” he says to Billy. “Maybe factor that into your next update”.
Billy admits that his platform is designed to be addictive, “to keep people engaged”, but there is nothing he can do to control it anymore. When he learns that Chris is about to commit suicide, he tries to convince him not to — but to no success. Chris asks him for one last favor though: to ask Persona’s CEO to tell Haley her daughter’s password.
Chris cuts Jaden free, but the latter (now sympathetic) begs him to not take his life and attempts to take the gun from him. The police watch the struggle from outside and, believing that Jaden is in trouble, fire a bullet. The episodeends with an ambiguous montageof Billy and others around the world checking a notification on their phones for a moment — only togo back to their own lives. Does Chris manage to kill himself, or does the sniper’s bullet hit him? Is Jaden shot accidentally instead? Or do both of them survive? Apparently, it does not matter.
In an interview with EW,Black Mirrorcreator Charlie Brooker describes how the characters’ lives have become “ephemeral confetti that just passes us by”.While talking to IGN, he emphasizes how the “most important day” of Chris’ life has been “reduced to the level of a pop-up”. “Smithereens” demonstrates how social media addiction may not be the fault of technology, but of humans themselves — a point thatBlack Mirroralso raised inthe episode “Striking Vipers”. Even the characters who are aware of its failings cannot fully detach themselves from social media (for instance, to escape the effects of other apps, Chris uses a meditation app on his phone). Moreover, no justice can be found when this obsession leads to tragedy, as the large conglomerates will always remain unaccountable.
The episode also highlights the dangers of untrustworthy Uber drivers and invasion of privacy online – as shown when the Smithereen team is a step ahead of the law enforcement when they gather data about Chris.
