ProfessorLobo
Banned
Agreed
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San Junipero (Black Mirror S03E04) might be my favorite episode of TV ever
- Thread starter AuthenticM
- Start date
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It was a great episode up until
the forced "deathmatch". It was cheesy, unrealistic, and hampered the reveal of the main character's secret.
I don't see too many similarities to White Bear beyond
the most broad idea of a villain protagonist reveal
Ordinaryundone
Member
Go read/watch Johnny Got His Gun and tell me if you still feel that way afterwards. There are far worse fates than death.
Apple Turnover
Banned
Also a distinct possibility. I'd certainly fall in that category, the unknown after death is a terrifying prospect.
Also, that plays into why Kelly decided as she did: she had the choice of maybe
reuniting with her lost loved ones in death
spending eternity with Yorkie
and I think she sees it as an adventure. She doesnt have to stay with yorke forever, I mean even if there are no expansions and san junipero is all there is, they have multiple decades to be in.
She was just not ready to go yet I suppose
Road of Ease
Member
It's a great episode, but I'm surprised at how it's interpreted as having a happy ending and that the unsettling things about it
don't seem to bother people...
(the fact that they're dead and part of a huge mainframe)
Ordinaryundone
Member
The thing that bothers me is that, if the technology becomes mainstream and it becomes common for people to upload their consciousness into computers rather than die, what happens then? Do we just have to deal with having tons of servers sitting around with the souls of dead people on them? Can we go in and talk with them, maybe party with grandma? Should we? Presumably part of the simulation working as intended involves the people inside of it not being actively aware of it. Whose put in charge on maintaining them, what happens if the power goes out or they get broken somehow?
It raises all the same questions as the heads in jars museum from Futurama but without the comedy angle.
It raises all the same questions as the heads in jars museum from Futurama but without the comedy angle.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Yeah, this is my biggest problem with the episode as an episode of Black Mirror. This episode depends on you being religious, or at least believing in Heaven (hence the song), so if you are agnostic/atheist, you can't help but see it as a happy ending.
I still think it would have been a better episode if
Yorkie was actually a 20 year old girl choosing to kill herself to escape her homophobic parents than a 60+ year old coma patient.
This is what makes the episode so great in my eyes.
Here you are quick in the beginning of your post to point out there's nothing after death, and are quick to accept the woman's decision to betray her faith and follow her heart because San Junipero is "real" and "tangible"....
But what your failing to see is that in order to believe the ending is truly a happy one, you still have to have faith. Just faith of a different kind than simply religious, faith in eternal love. They are going to be spending eternity together, after all.
They don't mention the Quagmire as a random throwaway. If you remove all the suffering and misery from reality, as well as give us an eternal time in this "heaven on earth", then what your left with might not be humanity at all. And that's what has people saying this episode is bittersweet imo, because at the final shot,
when you see the server farms, you really have to question if the people in San Junipero are still "human
Its a matter of perspective, perspective on the elements that make a human human in the first place.
Ordinaryundone
Member
Also the relgious aspect of a creator in charge of your life and universe. Regardless of if OUR world has a god San Junipero absolutely has outside beings in charge of maintaining it. What happens if they are negligent, cruel, or just get tired of paying for the electricity? Bye bye to
your heaven
I guess I don't agree with your assertion that something is better than nothing. Relative to other Black Mirror episodes I thought this fell on the happier side, but I thought it was still a downer. Even if you have the option to log-out of this new life, you're afterlife ultimately still relies and depends on everything that is still human, including accidentally having the power kicked out or a DDOS attack by some Russian teen. That's a bit nightmarish to me, and with no accountability from the dead the epitome of selling false hope to the most vulnerable.
arts&crafts
Member
I can watch s3 without watching S1 and 2 right? If I recall, each episode is a stand alone story? I watched the first 2 episodes of the 1st season.
Dreams-Visions
Member
BlackGhost
Banned
Also known as the greatest love story ever told!
Ok I'm exaggerating just a bit. But really was a great ep
Ok I'm exaggerating just a bit. But really was a great ep
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Sure, but there's no sign of any of that in the episode itself. I could just say maybe the future in this world is like Star Trek and everyone lives in harmony and world peace so you wouldn't have to worry about any of that.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
All those people in the Quagmire are creepy
.
The hospital was kind of assholes for not allowing
old or dead people
The hospital was kind of assholes for not allowing
coma girl to stay in SJ as long as she wanted. She wasn't going to have a problem like the others disassociating reality.
No way this technology comes out to help old people instead of putting us in Sword Art Online.
The nurse guy said the law didnt let people in for more than 5 hours at a time per week. Maybe they didnt take cometose patients into account?
It could also be used as a prison, the the christmas episode with jon hamm... shit, maybe its the same tecnology.
damm. didnt think f that
Vermillion
Banned
Tbf, that's pretty much a different universe.
Give it to Black Mirror that its "happiest" episode
Black Mirror subverts so much stuff that it subverts itself, in an interview Brooker said he specifically framed the episode in the 80s to shock people who expect only futuristic stuff in the series, same with how the story ends.
I do disagree with OP, because starting with this episode and continuing with the rest is a bleak path into an existential crisis, better to watch it last
has the two main leads die and leaves you ruminating for hours.
Black Mirror subverts so much stuff that it subverts itself, in an interview Brooker said he specifically framed the episode in the 80s to shock people who expect only futuristic stuff in the series, same with how the story ends.
I do disagree with OP, because starting with this episode and continuing with the rest is a bleak path into an existential crisis, better to watch it last
Yep it was perfect. I don' care about list wars but it was a perfect episode inside a great series.
Never has "heaven is a place on earth" sounded so apt and good.
Maybe stop reading hype about things you have yet to see?
Never has "heaven is a place on earth" sounded so apt and good.
Maybe stop reading hype about things you have yet to see?
John Rabbit
Banned
I didn't find the end of this episode happy either. It's melancholy, like the entire series.
Davey Cakes
Member
This was the episode that introduced me to (and sold me on) the series.
Well done, and the use of 80s aesthetics and music was the cherry on top.
Well done, and the use of 80s aesthetics and music was the cherry on top.
I started with two episodes from S3 (San Junipero and Nosedive which I also loved) then jumped to S1 then S2. You can basically just go in order of story preference.
Not good advice, the energy from here convinced me to watch the show with San Junipero being the most anticipated, fell flat because of it.
Later Alligator
Member
least favorite episode of the series for me
with "Shut Up and Dance" being my favourite
with "Shut Up and Dance" being my favourite
I actually don't have a least or most favorite episode, The Waldo Moment had a weak ending because it was abrupt, and Men Against Fire was a little bit too obvious, but besides that, this series is excellent, the fact the rankings vary so much between people is a testament to that.
Bornstellar
Member
Surprised it's considered a happy ending when every other episode of the show enforces the idea that digital consciousness does not transfer, but is copied, so essentially the two main characters end up believing something they profess not to (life after death) with a false basis. The way I interpreted it is that they don't live on in SJ, but the server gains an additional pair of "cookies".
Commanche Raisin Toast
Member
Don't forget right before the end one of them mentions
Agreed though that it's an amazing episode and the same sex relationship aspect didn't feel forced. It felt natural and normal. That's the kind of representation I'd like to see more of. (Side note: even though The 100 is kinda bad, the gay relationships are handled pretty well IMO)
that you can leave at anytime, as in, you will die in SJ and your data will just be deleted basically. So neither of them are stuck there forever. It's more like an indefinite second life until you feel like dying for good.
Agreed though that it's an amazing episode and the same sex relationship aspect didn't feel forced. It felt natural and normal. That's the kind of representation I'd like to see more of. (Side note: even though The 100 is kinda bad, the gay relationships are handled pretty well IMO)
Sanjaaaaaaaay
Member
My girlfriend of 4 years parted with me for a woman she had been working with.
We got together the other night and watched this episode and just cried hugging eachother.
It's beautiful.
We got together the other night and watched this episode and just cried hugging eachother.
It's beautiful.
Dreams-Visions
Member
Tell that to the kid with the porn stash on his computer.
Lan Dong Mik
And why would I want them?
I realized after reading this thread I hadn't seen "The Entire History of You"
Just watched it
Fuck...that was brutal. Probably a top 5 BM episode for me.
Just watched it
Fuck...that was brutal. Probably a top 5 BM episode for me.
Hard not to consider it a happy ending, unless you're religious and think they've trapped their souls in a man-made purgatory. Even if all the characters do is create digital copies of themselves (though I felt the fiction of the episode asked us to believe they somehow did more than that); they've still created sentient progeny capable of feeling love for each other. Whether or not that's for eternity, whether or not they eventually go mad...That's irrelevant, in the same way it would be for any human story which wraps up with the characters in a good place.
Ollie Pooch
In a perfect world, we'd all be homersexual
Same here. Reminded me of childhood, old friends etc. it was bittersweet, but what an amazing episode. I found it incredibly powerful.
KenzinFive
Member
Precisely, it's a bit like "The Doctor Dances" from the 9th Doctor/Eccleston era of Doctor Who:
the entire two-parter had been scary and miserable and dark. You're expecting something to go wrong or someone to not make it like pretty much every episode and because The Doctor's life is basically suffering. So when the Doctor figures out how to actually, truly save everyone and yells out "Just this once, everybody lives!", it surprisingly hits pretty hard. What would have been a cop-out deus ex machina ending in any other show feels cathartic and joyous.
Of course, Black Mirror/San Junipero is this on a much better and more powerful scale.
With the rest of the show being so goddamn bleak, the one "happy ending" we get is a powerhouse.
Ploid 3.0
Member
I didn't think that because of White Christmas, or Soma, WC just made the possibility of this scenario more likely to me. Maybe if we had more time with that world they would have said if it really were their ghosts (Ghost in the Shell), and not something they told sick, or old people on the brink of death to make them feel calmer about dying.
Immortal Technique
Member
Best Black Mirror episode. Best TV episode of 2016.
Great story, so powerful, and explores the implications of advancing technology as smartly and thought-provokingly as any installment of BM ever has.
Great story, so powerful, and explores the implications of advancing technology as smartly and thought-provokingly as any installment of BM ever has.
AuthenticM
Member
There is nothing in the episode suggesting that the ending is anything but happy. At no point did the episode raise the question of the people in San Junipero being real people or clone-copies. It's the same for the logistics of the maintenance of San Junipero. It's not a thing. By raising these questions yourselves, you are bringing additional and external information in the interpretation of the episode, which is a thing to be avoided. Everything you need to interpret a work is in the work itself.
When you're done watching one of the zillion romantic-comedies that Hollywood churns out and the credits start rolling, do you think to yourself "well divorce rates are super high these days, so the ending isn't a happy one"? Because that's kind of what's happening here.
Yep. I absolutely agree. As an atheist,that doesnt believe in an afterlife, from my perspective it's a truly happy ending.
Apple Turnover
Banned
I'm inclined to disagree with you. I see Black Mirror, especially this most recent season, as taking current issues and extrapolating them, admittedly to extreme levels. It's almost a series of cautionary tales; a potential road we could be travelling down in the not-so-far future.
I think NOT thinking beyond what's presented in the episodes is a disservice to the story. If we aren't expected to ponder the implications of San Junipero and the
afterlife/are they real or clones, etc.
the server room
Yorkie and Kelly reconnecting at the beach house?
On the surface, yes, it's a tale of young love with a happy ending. But dig just a little deeper, it's so much more, and deserves to be examined from every angle.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Usually romantic comedies have a person shut their brain off. Black Mirror makes people think. You are asking people to turn off their brains.
Precisely, although I do think it's entirely intentional that the episode leads superstitious people to interpret omg machines, unnatural!!!! as bleak; and is perhaps a more provocative episode for them for that reason.
And for those who didn't care for the tone, and feel the show should always be somewhat dystopian: I don't think Brooker's aim is necessarily to rail against the technological evolution of Facebook culture every episode. I don't think the black mirror he's holding up for viewers needs to always reflect ugliness. He's a satirist, and while he's certainly cynical, I don't think of him as a dyed-in-the-wool cynic.
Edit: There's a big difference between accepting that this episode unequivocally tells a story of two people which ends happily in tone, and turning off one's brain and ignoring the broader questions raised by the universe in which the story takes place.
For example, I think White Bear is deliberately absurd to the point of ridiculousness (still fantastic, just less reflective of reality than other episodes); and that the universe in which it takes place is less thought provoking than any of the other episodes. I think of it as every bit as anomalous as San Junipero.
The One Who Knocks
Member
While I agree with this, even in the episode itself there is plenty to give you doubts over precisely how happy or positive it is, and highly disagree with AuthenticM's comment that people are looking for what isn't there in questioning the ending's apparent happiness. As animlboogy stated,
the presence of and comments about the Quagmire raise serious doubts over one's emotional state after being subjected to San Junipero for an extended period, the sense of survivor's guilt generated by losing somebody who never got the chance to go to San Junipero and then going yourself, the comments on how San Junipero is a graveyard where nothing happens forever and you do anything just to feel something, the limited size of San Junipero, the fragility of their relationship throughout the episode largely due to them having dramatically different lives, and the showing of the server room at the end
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