Watched the whole season over the weekend with my girlfriend and I loved all of it. "Beyond the Sea" and "Loch Henry" were my favorites (which isn't a surprise considering they my most anticipated episodes) while hers was "Joan is Awful." We're both not big horror fans but "Demon 79" was on the right side of the edge for me, complete with 70s horror film vibes. "Mazey Day" felt fairly typical despite its surprising twist, but Zazie Beetz did an excellent job carrying the whole thing.
"Beyond the Sea" is a classic sci-fi story that did a great job in combining and balancing existential horror and real horror. That said, I'm eternally grateful that we didn't actually see any of the murders (especially of the children), just the bloody messes. The whole cast is terrific but Aaron Paul is absolutely
mesmerizing in his dual roles and hopefully he gets recognition during the awards season. He certainly had plenty of experience performing a miserable, tortured soul thanks to
Breaking Bad (and dual roles thanks to
Westworld!), but these two roles were significantly different from Jesse Pinkman and the story is better for it. I know it's beside the point, but I was left with the lingering thought about how Cliff could explain the murder of his family to NASA. Is there anyway to prove which mind was in the replica, and if so, why wasn't NASA monitoring that situation after the murder of David's family? Not a big deal either way, but those thoughts stuck with me long after the episode.
"Loch Henry", in turn, felt like a classic
Black Mirror episode old. Not just the United Kingdom setting and the technology twist (albeit vintage instead of advanced), but also the largely remote, even claustrophobic feeling of the whole story. Despite the obvious found-footage horror parallels, my mind kept thinking back to those early
Black Mirror episodes and I loved the show was able to return to its roots in that manner. Even though I knew another shoe was going to drop, especially with the presence of John Hannah lurking in the background, it still wasn't what I expected (yeah, I was fooled by the obvious red herring). While "Hated in a Nation" remains my favorite and "San Junipero" remains the gold standard, I do hope that, if we get more seasons, the show continues to return to its roots like "Loch Henry" did.
"Joan is Awful" is also a classic episode with its heavy commentary on technology (maybe even heavy-handed but I don't mind), combining the dual issues of phone surveillance and streaming proliferation (as well as Booker's recurring theme of exploited sentient AI). Kudos to Netflix for letting the show being so blunt about Netflix itself but I imagine they realized that it probably won't matter ultimately. And while those themes are the obvious crux of the episode, I have to admit that I was completely drawn in by all of the stunt and layered casting. I was particularly amused by Lolly Adefope and Wunmi Mosaku's casting as Joan's lawyer because I initially confused the two when I first started noticing their respective works (
Miracle Workers for Adefope and
Luther and
Loki for Mosaku, although I actually first saw them in
QI...and
Black Mirror, respectively).
I'm watching the episode 1 and, as an European, the most shocking thing until now is how simple and fast is firing someone in the US, ruining their life.
But American companies complain when employees don't give two weeks notice, accusing them of being unprofessional and of not understanding what damage they are doing to the company.
I hold on to my "socialist dystopia".
Some of it depends on what state you live in. I live in Georgia which is a "Right To Work State", that means that you can be fired for any reason and they don't even have to tell you why. They also cripple the unions so even they can't protect you. I got laid off from an office job at a construction site about 7 years ago and they just come and get you, then have security follow you out. I was unemployed for months because I couldn't get a similar job. Hooray for "freedom" of capitalism.
Yuuuup. I recently experienced the same thing (in Georgia, too, although it was a federal job) and you're right,
Skipper, that hypocrisy is pretty damn maddening.
