Black Mirror: Striking Vipers

[chase_acow]

"Black Mirror: Striking Vipers | Official Trailer | Netflix" (Watch on YouTube)

I'm not very fond of the series. I noped out of The National Anthem and that was it until Anthony Mackie did this one. Afterward, I went to the internet to ask which episodes were the most watchable, and liked two out of their top five. Haley Atwell and Be Right Back was boring and I skipped through it. USS Callister was engaging and I really liked the twists. Nosedive featured Bryce Dallas Howard trying to social media her way to the upper echelon and I liked the ending, but it took me three hours to get through my nerves and cringes. The National Anthem I did eventually finish and felt meh about. The Entire History of You about recording everything a person sees and I actively hated it.

Let me tell you the first bit of Striking Vipers features an incredibly hot monster Mackie. I love that jacket, and that smile and how much he likes the idea of role play. I want to try iconing if I ever get my desktop back from the shop. I didn't think I used it too much but the last two weeks has been sad.


The episode also features Pom Klementieff who plays Mantis in the MCU as an avatar in the virtual reality game Striking Vipers, and she's real good though I'm not sure about the character.



I don't think the internet likes this episode, but I can't decide why. I don't know if the question the episode trying to spark is about black masculinity, black queerness, the sliding scale of porn to infidelity, monogamy, or male ennui? Or something else? My problem is that the episode seems so shallow. If I don't know what the question is, how am I supposed to answer it?

The acting is really good though, I thought everybody hit it out of the park. Mackie and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II have great chemistry together the friends to friends-with-benefits arc was interesting. I like that Danny (Mackie's character) was willing to throw down and kiss in real life to try to find the boundaries of their infatuation. I just feel bad for his wife who wanted to keep trying and demanded he either be her husband or get thee behind her satan. He decides to be her husband -> mostly though he does backslide and lose any sympathy I'd kept for him.

However, I like the ending where Danny and Theo agree to have a night free from each other. She gets dolled up and goes out to let strangers tell her how beautiful she is so she can pick one to play with. Danny goes into the living room and switches on the VR.

Like I said, it's hard to keep talking about the episode when there are a dozen different topics you could argue, and the consequences shown in the episode don't point to a solid question, and I'm still not sure if the consequences were positive or negative.

ps tagging with twilight zone, because I can't see myself posting about black mirror again