The performances are fine, but can’t save this cornball mess that gets further and further away from its ostensible themes of grief and the manipulation of even the highest-paid artists with each ride in a rat-shaped van. doll whose design looks like a really high-end oil diffuser, is untethered, but the overall feel is the same. There are way more swear words once Ashley Too (Cyrus), the A.I. Instead of the incisive, candy-colored experiment of “Nosedive,” what we have here is essentially a Disney Channel Original Movie, in which two polar-opposite sisters (Angourie Rice and Madison Davenport as the Rachel and Jack of the title) find their way back to each other after being isolated by their mother’s death. The season-five finale represents the biggest departure from the series’ tone and palette, but it’s a wide swing that fails to connect. The world of “Rachel, Jack And Ashley Too” is one in which there are millions of Miley Cyruses and Charlie Brooker is the writer of an unofficial Hannah Montana sequel-so, dystopian business as usual. It’s not just the over-the-top ending that weakens the episode even creator Charlie Brooker admitted it was a rushed execution for an intriguingly ambitious concept that needed more time in development. The episode ends with Jamie homeless, watching as Waldo becomes the new face of a repressive global authority. Slowly losing control of the situation, Jamie eventually rebels and tries to smash the public face of his character. But soon the obnoxious creation enters an upcoming local election, and Waldo’s popularity explodes when one of Jamie’s rants about the hollow nature of career politicians goes viral. There’s nothing in the premise that doesn’t feel perfectly fitted to the show’s metier: Jamie, a wannabe comedian, has been reduced (in his eyes) to being the snide voice of a foulmouthed animated blue bear named Waldo, a creation that performs Ali G-style trick interviews eviscerating puffed-up British politicians. Political propaganda in the digital age is one of Black Mirror’s most common touchstones, but the issue doesn’t get the subtlest of workouts in “The Waldo Problem,” the season-two finale. The Ryuichi Sakamoto score is aces, though. But there’s too much thumb-twiddling about granting his request to speak to Smithereen founder Billy Bauer (Topher Grace, doing the smarmy twerp thing that’s served him well post- Spider-Man 3), and the intimacy of the storytelling fails to yield anything more impactful than a straight-faced variation on one of the most stinging and oft-cited Black Mirror critiques. “Smithereens” eschews “The National Anthem”’s online voyeurs to form a tight (albeit transatlantic) circle around its hostage negotiations, and a few shots of Scott going off the rails in intense close-up very nearly sell the claustrophobia.
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Andrew Scott ( Sherlock’s Moriarty, but, more recently and relevantly, Fleabag’s “Hot Priest”), helps prop the episode up with his portrayal of an aggrieved ride-share driver who kidnaps an employee of a social-media colossus, becoming a minor viral sensation in the process. What could be the tensest hour of Black Mirror’s fifth season gets sabotaged by slack pacing and a reveal that verges on PSA. But you’re still in the air when “Shut Up And Dance” pulls the second rug out from under your feet, and beneath it Black Mirror as its worst self: No moral center, just doling out punishment for the lulz.
The escalation is nausea-inducing, playing on IRL and online vulnerabilities right up to the point where all viewer sympathies are thrown into question. A more overcast take on the type of smartphone-truth-or-dare featured in the YA novel Nerve ( and its eventual film adaptation, which debuted a few months prior to season three), the episode approaches greatness when it’s a breakneck technothriller, boosted by lead performances from baby-faced The End Of The Fucking World star Alex Lawther and Game Of Thrones scoundrel Jerome Flynn. “Shut Up And Dance” gets two shots at that target: One that hits, and one that goes way wide of the mark. Sometimes a twist can enshrine an episode in the anthology-television hall of fame other times, it completely undermines everything that comes before it.
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