A review of Black Mirror S3E6: Hated in the Nation

Welcome back dear reader. Today I will be doing another review on my blog. This time I will be reviewing the popular Netflix series Black Mirror, writing specifically about Season Episode “Hated in the Nation. If you are unfamiliar with the show, Black Mirror is a Netflix sci-fi show that depicts our modern life’s consequences with future enhancements in technology. Each episode is an individual story that does not require watching any episode beforehand, meaning that you can pick and choose which episode you want at any given time without missing out on any plot details. Each episode tries to delve into a unique part of technology in the near future, with this episode the main centerpiece of technology being AI bees and social media. The story style of each episode is unique as well, with this episode being a detective style story. Major spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen the episode yet so I advise you to read further only if you’ve seen the episode.

The story is about a police detective named Karin Parke, who has been summoned in front of a court to tell them the story of an event that she was involved in in the past. The event in question is a story that really makes the viewer sit on the edge of their seats to figure out what might have been the cause of the mysterious murders to happen. Together with her colleague Blue, Karin tries to solve the deaths, or murders, of several individuals that all had vague and bizarre passing into the afterlife. It starts relatively simple, you would think, but then it wouldn’t be a detective episode if you find the solution within the first 15 minutes. After some research, the detectives soon find out that the victim was targeted on social media by a certain hashtag named #deathto, where users would antagonize people they felt were horrible enough that they deserved death. This is one of the parallels the show draws with our modern society, where social media can be used in a very negative manner. After the death of another victim to #deathto, the story focusses on the centerpiece technology of this episode, AI bees, who crawled themselves into the victims and killed them. These bees are active all around the UK to pollinate flowers, as the real bees in this world have gone extinct here.

This sets the bees up for a huge doomsday scenario; what if the bees were to go rampant? As the episode takes place over a manner of a few days, the protagonists of the story have to hurry on finding a solution from stopping the epidemic from escalating further, but alas. instead of having the story play out by the books and preventing the epidemic go further, the detectives essentially fail in what they are doing, subverting the expectations of the viewer by letting the bad guy win and unleash hell on all the users of #deathto. There is a small bit after the hearing of the story where one of the detectives, Blue, managed to find the culprit and tries to do something against him , but what she does is left out and for the viewer left to decide.

I do have to say that I was really amazed with the depth of technology in this episode, as I have had with every episode I watched from Black Mirror. The bees were truly horrifying in their concept, as they are presented as this undefeatable entity that could kill anyone. The story was also really amazing, with it depicting the bee technology and social media in a realistic way with lots of explaining on how the bees work. The acting was also really well done and the way the characters were made the episode so much more filled with life. I do have 2 negative opinions on the episode however. First regarding the antagonist. Usually, the antagonist is shown either early in the episode or somewhere in the middle, but in this episode he is shown somewhere at the end. This is most likely because the bees were meant to be portrayed as the real enemy in this episode, which is acceptable but still a shame that the person behind it is even showed so late in the episode. Second is the final part of the episode, with the confrontation of the hacker behind the bee epidemic, which felt a bit too forced as closure for the story. All in all, it was a great episode that will certainly get a rewatch from me in the near future.

Thank you for reading and see you on my next blog post!