10 Horrific Fates Suffered By Black Mirror Characters
If this is what the future holds, we don't want anything to do with it...
In an update regarding the future of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker stated that audiences probably didn't have the "stomach" for "stories about societies falling apart", so it may be some time before we see new instalments to this anthology series. It's a shame because no other programme has come close to Black Mirror's stinging critique on the direction new technologies may take modern society.
While the series isn't always doom and gloom (thank you San Junipero), this social commentary show has never been afraid of showing the gruesome dangers of emerging technologies. Many characters, regardless of their morality, have suffered horrors almost Lovecraftian in nature. Murder and madness run rampant in practically every episode, as characters try and navigate (often unsuccessfully) these high tech worlds that are scarily familiar to our own.
In Black Mirror, something as simple as doing one's job may be enough to send them down a path to their untimely demise. In many of these cases, however, death may be the preferable option in a few of these horrific fates. And if it wasn't clear enough, a spoiler warning is most definitely in effect.
10. Hated In The Nation - MRI Madness
Hated in the Nation is set in a slightly futuristic UK where self-driving cars are becoming the norm, and robotic bees (ADIs) help pollinate the UK, all the while a deadly Twitter game has led to a string of deaths.
This police procedural follows two detectives, DCI Parke and her shadow DC Coulson, as they discover someone has remotely hacked the ADIs to kill whoever gets tagged the most in tweets using the hashtag '#DeathTo'. How do the ADIs kill people, you ask? By burrowing deep inside their brain by any means necessary. Ouch.
This skin-crawling murder technique leads to a fair few nasty demises. After the police discover the killer is using the initial victims as bait, the ADIs target anyone who's ever used the '#DeathTo' hashtag. Unfortunately, this twist of fate leads to the tragic death of DS Nick Shelton, who only used the hashtag in an effort to discover the hacker's identity. While an emotional punch to the gut, the most horrific termination has to go to the second victim, Tusk.
Tusk is a rapper who is targeted by '#DeathTo' tweets after insulting a young fan on a talk show. After suddenly screaming and suffering from a seizure in a parking garage, the screeching rapper is taken to hospital and undergoes an MRI scan. This was probably the worst mistake, however, as the MRI machine's magnetic fields tear the ADI out through his skull. Messy.