Black Mirror’s S6 E1 Is Basically The Matrix, but Scarier and More Realistic

Black Mirror ’s season 6 has just premiered, and Joan Is Awful is, well, awful.

We did our waiting (four years of it, but thankfully not in Azkaban), and Charlie Brooker finally heard our pleas for another season of our favorite science fiction drama. Boy, did he deliver!

Series 6 of Black Mirror consists of five episodes in total, but the first one is arguably the most terrifying, and here is why.

A woman named Joan finds herself in a tricky situation: her daily life is being accurately depicted on a television series, and Salma Hayek is the lead of the show!

Joan isn’t thrilled with her day-to-day routine because she thinks her life is too boring (that’s about to change), her bae Krish is too “safe” (that’s why she cheats on him with her ex Mac), and she doesn’t feel important to her own story.

Later that day, Joan comes home where Krish insists on checking out the new Streamberry show called Joan Is Awful, which accurately portrays Joan’s day (though brought to the screens by Salma Hayek), and that’s how he finds out she cheated on him.

In the show, Joan watches another Hollywood star, Cate Blanchett, play her on TV. As the episode unfolds, Joan’s life is crumbling, and she and Salma team up in a fight against the streaming service Streamberry.

They cook up a plan to put an end to the show and hurry to the quamputer room (at the company’s office) only to find out that Joan isn’t the “Source Joan” – she is just one of many multiverse Joans, played by a digital likeness of Annie Murphy (the actress who plays the original Joan).

Joan (Annie) destroys the machine, and Joan 1.0 and Annie are set free to do whatever they want with their life without anyone watching. Joan finally feels like the main character of her life.

This episode has captured the concept of the multiverse and shown it from a different (and much scarier) angle. Basically, Joan Is Awful is The Matrix reinvented, but more realistic. It really makes you wonder… What if we are all digital and just playing our parts with no free will?

That’s a terrifying meta-thought, and with the AIs on the rise, it could totally come to fruition in a few years’ time. Hopefully, by then we won’t be as interested in other people’s business.