Black Mirror: Ranking Every Episode From Worst To Best
5. Be Right Back
With Black Mirror’s love of telling dark stories, there are plenty to episodes to shock and scare us. But Be Right Back does something different: it’s an instalment that will leave you in tears.
The story uses technology to ground itself in the present, but its themes are timeless, with Charlie Brooker turning his gaze to death, grief, and love. To put a Black Mirror spin on this, he looks at the question of what happens to a person’s online profile after they die, what should you do with their phone number in your phone’s contacts, and advancements towards living on beyond death.
What we get is a savvy drama from a tech standpoint, but a profound, sad one as an analysis of grief and the ways in which it can affect people. Hayley Atwell and Domhnall Gleeson both five beautiful performances as Martha and Ash, a young couple tragically torn apart, with the latter dying in an accident but then living on as an android.
Surprising, sentimental without ever being schmaltzy or too saccharine, and with a poignant, powerful, and very much human story, this is one of Black Mirror’s saddest, but also one of its absolute best.
[JH]