Hated in the Nation (Black Mirror)

"Hated in the Nation" is the sixth and final episode of the third series of Black Mirror, starring Kelly Macdonald, Faye Marsay and Benedict Wong. It was written by series creator Charlie Brooker and premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016.^[1]

Plot

DCI Karin Parke (Kelly Macdonald) has been summoned to a hearing to discuss her involvement in a case. On May 15 of the previous year, journalist Jo Powers (Elizabeth Berrington) is found dead at home with her throat cut. Powers had recently been subjected to online death threats after she published a column critical of a disabled activist’s suicide. Karin investigates Powers’s death and meets up with new partner, Blue (Faye Marsay), who has transferred from a cyber forensics department due to being 'changed' by a child kidnapping case she solved. Parke initially believes Powers was murdered by her husband, but rules him out.

Parke discovers Powers had been targeted with the Twitter hashtag #DeathTo, used against people who become public hate figures. Powers's autopsy reveals an Autonomous Drone Insect (ADI), developed to counteract the acute collapse of the bee population, lodged in her brain. The ADIs were created by a company named Granular, and employee Rasmus (Jonas Karlsson) learns that they were locally hacked. He and NCA officer Shaun Li (Benedict Wong) are assigned to the case. The following day, a rapper (Charles Badalona) known as Tusk, who had also become a target of internet hate, has a seizure and is hospitalized and sedated. During a subsequent MRI analysis to determine the cause of the seizure, an ADI is pulled from Tusk's brain by the magnetism of the MRI machine, killing him instantly. Parke and Blue link the deaths to a website promoting a "Game of Consequence" where Twitter users can vote to kill a hated public figure, with the victim selected via the #DeathTo hashtag. Parke and the investigation team take the next target (Holli Dempsey), whose "virally" distributed photo urinating on a military war monument had attracted outrage, to a safe house, but are unable to save her; an ADI burrows into her brain, but the swarm leaves Parke and Blue unharmed. Blue realizes that the ADIs find their targets using advanced facial recognition software, and this can only be possible if Granular had access to government records. Blue confronts Li and he is forced to admit that the government is covertly using ADIs for mass public surveillance, as this was the only incentive to back the project with the funds necessary to make it successful.

Use of #DeathTo grows rapidly after the public learns that the "game" really does kill people. The situation becomes critical as the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Ben Miles) climbs to the top of the "Most Hated" list and is the current top target. Parke interviews a former Granular employee who attempted suicide after receiving online hate, who then reveals that her flatmate Garrett Scholes (Duncan Pow), also an ex-Granular employee, saved her life. Parke’s suspicions are confirmed when the ADI found inside Jo Powers’s brain turns out to contain a manifesto written by Garrett. The manifesto further states that he wanted to force people to face the consequences of their actions and not be able to hide behind online anonymity. Garrett had left the country six months previously, but the manifesto includes a selfie taken on his phone, allowing Blue to trace his location at the time.

A raid of Garrett's hideout unearths his disk drive, which contains a system for sending out ADIs. When connected to the ADI system, it downloads a list of everyone who has ever used the #DeathTo hashtag. The list contains the participants' names, faces and mobile phone IMEI. Parke works out that Garrett had merely used public figures as bait; his plan was to use the ADIs to kill all those participating in the "game". Blue and Rasmus try to find a way to shut down the system, but Parke thinks that Garrett has led them into a trap and that the "deactivate" function may actually be a command to kill the targets. Against Parke's instruction, Li triggers the system. For a brief time, it appears Granular has regained control of the system, but ultimately Parke's theory is proven correct and the ADIs proceed to kill the 387,036 people on the list.

In the present day, Parke explains at the hearing that Blue went missing and is presumed to have committed suicide. Parke herself becomes a public hate figure because of the case. She receives a text message from Blue, who is still alive and secretly working with Parke to track down Garrett Scholes. Blue has found him in South America and tells Parke they have finally "Got him".

Production

According to Brooker, the episode is inspired by "Scandi-Noir thrillers like The Killing and Borgen".^[2] The episode is also partly inspired by Jon Ronson's book So You've Been Publicly Shamed.^[3] It is the longest episode of Black Mirror at 89 minutes.^[4] In an interview in October 2016, Brooker revealed that there were characters in the episode who could recur in the series in the future.^[5] The episode was inspired by a public backlash after Brooker wrote "Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr – where are you now that we need you?" in a satirical article about George W. Bush in The Guardian in 2004.^[6]

Critical reception

Adam Chitwood of Collider noted that the episode was the "most thematically relevant... of this new batch, with a direct connection to the ugly side of social media and its lack of consequences."^[4] Suchandrika Chakrabarti of the Daily Mirror rated the episode 5 out of 5 describing the episode as an "illuminating, compelling watch".^[7]

Continuity

There are two Easter eggs for the second episode of the series three Playtest.

• at 59:42. The top listing of Twitter post shows Harlech Shadow as being even more successful than #DeathTo.
• at 1:25:12, the ticker says "Shou Saito anuncia nuevo sistema de juego".

At 12:25, Blue and Parke reference the 'Rannoch cases'. Iain Rannoch was Victoria Skillane's fiancé and the principal criminal in series two episode two, White Bear.

At 3:15, The news ticker says "US Military announces MASS project", relating to the implants that are central in Men Against Fire.

See also

• So You've Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson's book about online shaming and its historical antecedents, which partly inspired the episode.
• At 6:01, there is an article title "What if phones but too much?" visible on the character's monitor, referring to Mallory Ortberg's review of the second season.

References

External links

• "Hated in the Nation" at the Internet Movie Database