The second season ofBlack Mirroropens with the quiet and intimate “Be Right Back”, directed by Owen Harris (who also made “San Junipero” and “Striking Vipers”). One of the most poignant episodes of Netflix’s sci-fi anthology series, it explores the lengths that people are willing to go to, when coping with loss and grief.
Black Mirrorcreator Charlie Brooker revealed his inspiration for the episodein an interview with Time Out: he came across a deceased person’s name when he was deleting unneeded contacts from his phone once, and he believed that erasing it would be “weirdly disrespectful”. An idea emerged later on: “What if these people were dead and it was software emulating their thoughts?”
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What Is Black Mirror’s ‘Be Right Back’ About?
“Be Right Back” introduces a young couple, Ash Starmer (Domhnall Gleeson) and Martha Powell (played by Hayley Atwell), who have just shifted to a remote cottage, which also happens to be Ash’s childhood home. Martha is happy and comfortable in her relationship — even if Ash does spend too much time on his phone, or is not as attentive to her needs in bed. The day after they move in, Ash leaves to return the van they had rented, but gets killed in a crash on the way. Martha is left alone in an unfamiliar house, where she robotically performs mundane tasks, day after day.
While she is in mourning, her friend Sarah (Sinead Matthews) signs her up for an experimental service against her will,which reconnects the living with the deceased. The AI system in question createsa digital version of Ashby scouring the internet for whatever he had posted, tweeted or e-mailed during his life, to replicate his personality and enable Martha to chat with him online. An overwhelmed Martha calls it “obscene” and “sick”, refusing to give it a chance. However, she soon discovers that she is pregnant and, when her sister Naomi is not available to talk, she resorts to messaging the artificial Ash for comfort. She uploads old photos and videos to the database so that the bot could be a more accurate version of Ash, and even talk to Martha on the phone in his voice. She now spends most of her days on call with him, neglecting Naomi’s calls, as it provides her with an illusion of a connection to Ash.
After an ultrasound appointment, she accidentally drops and breaks her phone, which causes her to have a panic attack. She is devastated that she may have lost Ash again and, once reconnected to his digital replica, tearfully says that he is “very fragile”. This is when he reveals how she can overcome the limitations of their interactions: by getting him his own body.
How Does ‘Be Right Back’ End?
A delivery soon arrives of a blank, synthetic body. Martha places him in the bathtub with some electrolytes and nutrient gel — and, just like that, Ash is there in the flesh. With similar mannerisms and behavior, the simulated version of Ash seems to offer Marthasome semblance of a life they had together. He looks like Ash on “a good day”, and he even pleases her sexually. But it takes just a day to make her come to terms with the fact thathe is still a shadow of Ash. He is devoid of any real emotions, any authenticity. Due to the limited range of information he is given, the android cannot replicate certain habits and traits that his counterpart had. He calls a Bee Gees’ song “cheesy” when, in reality, Ash had told Martha that he was a fan. An old picture from his childhood had an emotional story attached to it — which his digital version just calls “funny”. He does not eat, sleep, or breathe, and it finally becomes too “eerie” for Martha. He occasionally questions her on how to be ‘himself’, which frustrates her to the point that she hits him and tells him to leave the house as he is just “not enough of him”.
She wakes up the next morning to find him in the yard, as he is not allowed to go beyond a certain distance from his activation point, unless Martha is with him. She then drives him to a cliff and orders him to jump. When he agrees, she becomes even angrier and tells him that the real Ash would have resisted. When the android starts pleading, she lets out a loud scream.
The scene cuts to several years later, on Martha’s daughter’s (Indira Ainger) birthday. The house has been renovated, apart from the attic, where Ash now stays. Martha opens its door as her daughter wishes to take a slice of cake to him. While she converses with him, Martha regains her composure at the bottom of the step ladder and climbs up to join them. This echoes what Ash had shared with Martha earlier: when he had lost his brother and father, his mother had stashed their pictures in the attic as that is “how she dealt with stuff”. At the end of the episode, Martha also fails to gain closure byclinging on to an artificial replacementof the man she loved.
“Be Right Back” presents a universal story of love and loss. It poses questions about the extent to which technology can substitute genuine human connection, as well as the dangers of relying on it in vulnerable moments. Grief-stricken as she is, Martha cannot pretend for long that her new companion is nothing more than a cheap imitation. He has only been programmed to respond in algorithmic ways — also raising the point that social media users just present a hollow version of themselves online.
