Black Mirror is back, and this time, with a not-so-far off dystopia of subscription hell. “Common People,” season 7, episode 1, sits in familiar territory, at the intersection of technology and capitalism.
We meet Amanda (Rashida Jones, glowing even in techno-doom) and Mike (Chris O’Dowd, sweetly bumbling, as per contractual obligation), your average working-class couple trying to live, laugh, and love in a world where actual brain function is paywalled.
When Amanda suddenly collapses from a brain tumor and is deemed a hopeless medical case, a tech conglomerate called Rivermind offers a groundbreaking sitting at another, worse intersection—healthcare premiums and Spotify tiers.
How does this Rivermind thing work?
Rivermind proposes replacing the affected part of Amanda’s brain with synthetic material that streams her consciousness from the cloud, and even offers to do the surgery free of charge. Mike is left to choose between funeral planning and Spotify Premium for the soul; but more expensive, and with worse ads.
At first, our girl Amanda is going to be okay—the tech works, and she and Mike share a few blissful moments of low-resolution romance. Suddenly, in a complete shock to absolutely everyone, Rivermind starts doing what tech companies do best: upcharging. Want Amanda to remember your anniversary? That’s a Rivermind Plus feature. Want her to blink regularly? You’ll need Lux.
Here’s the rub. The titular common people in “Common People” are just that. Amanda is an elementary school teacher, and Mike works in construction—premium tier funds are not exactly liquid, or solid, or gas.
And it’s not just about keeping up with the Riverminders. Throughout the day, Amanda literally takes an ad-break, losing all consciousness as she repeats the ad copy that you skip on every podcast ever. These ads, engineered to be ultra-targeted based on her surroundings—her husband in bed, her student’s ugly shoes, or mid-lesson in her classroom—put her job in jeopardy. If she stays on her current subscription tier, she’ll lose her job. If she upgrades to go ad-free and otherwise human, they’ll be homeless. Sound familiar, insurance companies?
Okay, so what do they decide?
Enter DumDummies: a Fiverr-esque platform and symptom of the gig economy. Mike, desperate to afford the mounting expenses, resorts to performing degrading acts for money on the platform. His descent to total degradation begins with gags like a mousetrap on the finger or drinking a glass of his own urine, and ends with the man fully pulling out his teeth. Late stage capitalism, but make it slapstick!
This nightmare goes on for years, with the couple’s only respite coming in the form of Rivermind gift cards, giving Amanda small pockets of time in Lux mode, able to control her own emotional state via app and live without mid-sentence ad breaks.
In the end, our common people are living their worst lives. In a moment of for-purchase serenity in their backyard, Amanda asks her beloved to cut the cord and cancel the subscription.
In the episode’s most gut-wrenching line read, Amanda says, “do it when I’m not here.” After her Lux booster window closes, she almost immediately slips into an ad-read. Mike covers her face with a pillow until she becomes motionless, and then walks into his DumDummies dungeon with a box-cutter and shuts the door on us.
What does it mean!?
“Common People” is frighteningly current; with echoes back to one of the series’ most respected episodes, “Be Right Back.” This is the second time Charlie Brooker is telling us to let a dying person stay dead, but Silicon Valley just won’t listen.
One of the more disturbing aspects of the episode is the integration of this “cutting edge” technology into the medical sector. Rivermind is recommended—albeit, under the table—to Mike by the doctor who informs him of his wife’s condition. The Rivermind spokesperson, a wonderful Tracee Ellis Ross, meets him in her hospital room. He was given a well-positioned option in a desperate state of mind.
It’s been three years since the last season of Black Mirror, and the best writers in the business didn’t spend that time writing a basic romp about corporate greed. “Common People” says much more about a system where consciousness and health are commodified, injecting technology into the most intimate aspects of human existence.
To everyone in the back shouting “delete your data from 23&Me,” this premiere was for you.
