Black Mirror S7 Episode 1 Common People: A reflection on facing dilemmas and navigating how far is too far in a capitalist world.
When do you draw a line? When you reach the edge of your breaking point or when you don’t recognize who you are anymore?
‘Common People’ introduces an ordinary couple Amanda [Rashida Jones], an elementary school teacher, and Mike [Chris O’Dawd] , a welder with a desire to start a family. Having a modest yet content life, Amanda and Mike enjoyed each other’s company and looked forward to July 4th, their regular anniversary trip to Juniper. A rustic mountain lodge a few miles away from the town they lived in, Juniper served mediocre live performances and greasy burgers, something Amanda and Mike found comfort in.
One fateful day, their lives take a grim turn when Amanda passes out at her workplace. A malicious brain tumor, so fatal that she may never regain consciousness.
Mike’s world crumbles beneath his feet, however he is referred to Gaynor [Tracee Ellis Ross], who introduces him to a world abound with experimental medical treatments. Rivermind is a start-up, having the ability to clone a patient’s brain to a mainframe. The purpose of this experiment is to stream the patient’s consciousness through Rivermind’s mainframe and then channel it back to the original source.
The catch behind this groundbreaking technology? It costs $300 per month and has few restrictions. Amanda requires more sleep per night and is unable to leave her current coverage zone until Rivermind expands worldwide.
It feels surreal. Mike wonders if all this even works? But there she was, Gaynor standing right in-front of him. A living proof success story of Rivermind, Gaynor too was like Amanda. After a life-altering accident , she too has a subscription to Rivermind where she found herself adjusted on a cloud based server, where she took the opportunity to turn her life around.
If it requires working overtime to bring Amanda back to life, Mike decides to take his chance on Rivermind. What could possibly go wrong?
Amanda recovers, all thanks to Rivermind: a life stream channeling her consciousness. Mike has to work overtime for the Rivermind subscription, while Amanda continues working as an elementary teacher. Things take a bleak turn when Amanda unconsciously blurts out contextually relevant commercials in between conversations.
They live off paycheck to paycheck until July 4th, when Mike decides it's best to splurge on their annual trip to Juniper lodge. As they drive their way to Juniper, Amanda passes out as she leaves the coverage area.Frightened, Mike drives back home and finds Amanda regaining her consciousness. Turns out, Rivermind has upgraded to Rivermind Plus, a subscription of $500 more which gives the user benefits of expanding their coverage area, free from in-between commercials.
As time passes by, Mike finds himself physically and mentally exhausted from working overtime. Amanda finds herself struggling in her workplace when she unconsciously blurts out commercials, posing concerns of losing her job.
Mike finds himself falling down the rabbit hole of capitalism with skyrocketing healthcare costs and revamped subscriptions. As Mike runs out of options he chooses live streaming on DumDummies, a platform where viewers on the internet pay him to do obscene things to himself. A live stream where Mike destroys his life for a life stream to save Amanda. The bleak cycle of him surrendering his life for a subscription to Rivermind.
It gets to a point where Mike loses his job and now, they can’t afford to pay for the Rivermind subscription fees, a point where they have to draw a line and put an end to their misery.
The episode is a critique on how the healthcare system is utterly capitalist and manipulative in nature. It is a reality of human response to desperation, how Common People choose to go too far and find it difficult to draw a line for themselves. To make ends meet, Common people like you and me could potentially fall prey to this vicious cycle of living half lives. A situation where you sacrifice quality of life, a system which made a husband kill himself with every passing time on a livestream to provide a few minutes of serenity life stream for his wife.
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