Shut Up and Dance (Black Mirror)

"Shut Up and Dance" is the third episode of the third series of Black Mirror, starring Jerome Flynn and Alex Lawther. It was written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and William Bridges and premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016.^[1]

Plot

A woman (Susannah Doyle) drives a car into a car park, nervously leaving the keys in one of the wheel arches, before being texted and leaving.

Kenny (Alex Lawther), a teenager, needs to install a malware remover on his laptop after his sister has borrowed it without permission to illegally stream movies. Using the first search link, a website called "Shrive", he manages to clean up the virus. An unseen hacker gains access to the laptop's webcam, and records Kenny masturbating in front of his computer. Getting an email from the recorder, Kenny realises that he has been hacked and turns off his laptop. The hacker emails Kenny again to give him his phone number or the video of him masturbating will be released to everyone he has in his contacts. Kenny reluctantly does so. The hacker tells him to keep his phone on and charged at all times and to keep his location services on so the hacker knows where he is. The hacker also tells Kenny to wait until he is "activated".

While Kenny is at work, he receives a text from the hacker, who demands him to go to a rooftop car park at 12 noon or they will release the video. Feigning sickness to his boss (Hannah Steele), Kenny manages to get there in time, meeting a motorcyclist with a package. The motorcyclist is also a victim of the hacker, having been told to come there too. The motorcyclist (Ivanno Jeremiah) gives Kenny a package with a cake inside, and takes a photo of him, verifying he has given the cake to him. Kenny is told to deliver the cake to a man in a hotel room. Eventually being let in, Kenny meets Hector (Jerome Flynn), who is texted by the hacker. After vomiting and drinking a bottle of spirits, Hector accepts the situation. Kenny is told to take Hector's photo to confirm the delivery. The pair are then told to go to the hotel car park and use the car that the woman dropped off.

The pair are ordered to drive to a specific location out of the city. Hector reveals that the hackers impersonated a prostitute who was meant to meet him at the hotel room. As a married man, Hector is determined to fulfil the hacker's requests so as not to lose access to his children. As he tells Kenny that the hackers accessed his entire hard drive to find explicit images and messages, Kenny breaks down in tears, apparently realising that the hackers have done the same to his computer. The pair just manage to reach the location, and are then told to look inside the cake. They find a gun, a hat and sunglasses and are then told to rob a nearby bank. Deciding that Kenny should go, Hector waits in the car as the getaway driver. Kenny manages to rob the bank despite his extreme fear (to the point that he wets himself during the robbery), and the pair escape; told by the hacker to go to a field.

Hector is told to destroy the car alone, whilst Kenny is told to go into a nearby woodland park (Wittenham Clumps) to deliver the cash. The pair part ways. Kenny makes his way into the park, meeting a man (Paul Bazely) with a large box containing a drone. Revealing himself as another victim of the hacker, he tells Kenny that they must fight to the death and the winner takes the money, as the drone that the hacker controls watches them from above. The man asks Kenny what evidence they have against him; a tearful Kenny says he just looked at some pictures. The man asks "how young were they?", revealing that Kenny is a paedophile (as is the man) and had been masturbating to child pornography. Kenny, still having the gun, points it toward the man, then turns it on himself, but finds that it was empty all along. The two engage in a fight, as the drone looks on.

Hector returns home, getting another text from the hacker: a picture of a trollface. Hector then finds that his wife knows that he hired a prostitute. The other victims of the hacker who complied with their demands have also had their sensitive information released, getting text messages of the picture. Kenny walks away from the woodland, bloodied and with the bag containing the stolen money. He receives a call from his mother, telling him evidence of him masturbating to child pornography has leaked online, and hysterically demanding to know what he has done. Kenny does not answer as the hacker again sends the image of the trollface. Suddenly blue lights appear. Kenny turns from them and limps solemnly towards the camera, eyes closed in silent acceptance, as the police come to arrest him.

Production

In an interview, Brooker revealed that story went through many different iterations, and didn't always have the final twist in it.^[2] He revealed that in one version of the story, there was no reason for why the events were happening, and another where the roles were reversed with Jerome Flynn's character having the extremely dark secret.^[2]

Critical reception

Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter praised Alex Lawther's performance in the episode calling it "one of the best things of 2016".^[3] On the other hand, Adam Chitwood of Collider noted that whilst it wasn't a "bad episode", it was a "frustratingly tense one [...] [and] a bit too long and has one of the darkest throughlines of the season".^[4] Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph rated the episode 5 out of 5 describing the episode as "soul-scorching [and] relentlessly riveting".^[5] Matt Fowler of IGN similarly liked the episode noting how it might "leave you utterly shaken", and the fact that it was a "remarkably heart-pounding episode".^[6] Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic compared the episode to "White Bear", another episode in the series where a seemingly innocent person turned out to be a criminal.^[7] Martin Meany of Goos3D rated the episode 5 out of 5, commenting on how simple it was for the central character to become caught in a web and that viewers were likely to "pop a post-it note" over their webcams after watching.^[8]

References

External links

• "Shut Up and Dance" at the Internet Movie Database