Shut Up and Dance (''Black Mirror'')

"Shut Up and Dance" is the third episode of the third series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and William Bridges, and premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016, together with the rest of series three.^[1]

The episode tells the story of Kenny (Alex Lawther), a teenager who is suddenly blackmailed by a mysterious hacker who owns a compromising video of him. One day, the hacker gives him strange tasks to do; as he follows orders, Kenny realizes that many other people, including an older man named Hector (Jerome Flynn), are also blackmailed into strange actions by the hacker.

The episode received very positive reviews.

Plot

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

Teenager Kenny (Alex Lawther) returns home from his busboy job to find that his sister has borrowed his laptop and infected it with malware, which he attempts to remove. However, an unseen hacker gains access to the laptop's camera and later records Kenny masturbating to a video played on it. The hacker emails Kenny, demanding his mobile phone number, threatening that otherwise the video of him masturbating will be sent to everyone in his contacts list. Kenny reluctantly complies. The hacker further instructs Kenny to keep his phone's location-services enabled, so the hacker can track him at all times, and to be prepared for later instructions.

When Kenny arrives at work the next day, he receives a text from the hacker, directing him to a location 15 miles away, and giving him only 45 minutes to get there. Feigning sickness, he leaves work and frantically pedals his bicycle to the coordinates, arriving with seconds to spare. There he is met by a man on a scooter (Ivanno Jeremiah), also nervously acting on instructions from the hacker, who gives Kenny a box with a cake inside, and confirms the transaction on his phone before leaving.

Kenny is texted further instructions and travels by bus to deliver the cake to a specific hotel room, where he finds Hector (Jerome Flynn). As Kenny tries to explain why he is there, Hector receives blackmail messages of his own, along with instructions for the two of them to take the car the woman had left earlier, to a specific location out of the city.

En route, Hector reveals that the hacker caught him in flirting with and hiring a prostitute, and he is determined to fulfill the hacker's requests so as not to face divorce and lose custody of his children. Kenny tearfully answers that they recorded him masturbating. They are delayed by the need to stop for fuel, and a chance encounter with an acquaintance of Hector's (Natasha Little), and must drive recklessly to get to their destination on time.

Upon arrival, they are directed to use a gun, hat, and sunglasses concealed in the cake, to rob a nearby bank. Kenny says he can't do it, but with the justification that he's the experienced driver, Hector coerces him to take the role of robber. A nervous wreck, Kenny urinates himself during the robbery, but succeeds in getting a bag full of cash, and they get away.

Hector's final instruction is to destroy the car, and Kenny is instructed to carry the money to a drop-off point. They part ways and Kenny walks the rest of the way into a nearby wood. There Kenny meets a man (Paul Bazely), who is also a thrall of the hackers, with a camera-equipped drone. The man explains that they are to fight while the hackers observe through the drone, with the money going to the winner as a prize. Kenny asks how they will know when the fight is over, and the man observes that his life is "over" if he doesn't go along. He asks Kenny what the hackers are blackmailing him for. Kenny tearfully protests that he merely looked at some pictures, but the man guesses that – like him – Kenny had been caught looking at child pornography.

As they are ordered to start the fight, Kenny pulls out the gun. He first points it at the man, then puts it under his chin and pulls the trigger, but it isn't loaded. The two fight hand to hand, as the drone looks on.

Hector returns home to his family, but receives a final message from the hackers (a trollface), and finds that they have already reneged on the deal, and sent his wife the evidence of his infidelity with the prostitute. The other victims have also had their sensitive information released despite complying with instructions, receiving the same trollface.

Kenny, bloodied from the fight, staggers from the woodland with the bag of money. He receives a hysterical call from his mother, who is shocked by the video she's been sent of him masturbating to images of children. Stunned, he ends the call, then receives the trollface image, as the police arrive. He offers feeble resistance as they apprehend him.

Production

In an interview, Brooker revealed that the story went through many different iterations, and some did not include the final twist.^[2] He revealed that in one version of the story, there was no reason why the events were happening, and in another 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] Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph rated the episode 5 out of 5, describing it as "soul-scorching [and] relentlessly riveting".^[4] Matt Fowler of IGN similarly praised the episode, saying that it leaves the viewer "utterly shaken", and that it was a "remarkably heart-pounding episode".^[5] In the Daily Mirror, Suchandrika Chakrabarti gave the episode 5 out of 5 stars, summarising that the episode is "very simple, but incredibly effective" and "the least-technical episode of Black Mirror on Netflix, but among the very scariest".^[6]

Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic compared the episode to "White Bear", another episode in the series wherein a seemingly innocent person turned out to be a criminal.^[7]

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B+ rating, complimenting Black Mirror's "willingness to force moral questions that make everyone feel awful", and saying that the episode was "never boring, but [...] not all that engaging, either".^[8] Adam Chitwood of Collider stated that although 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".^[9]

References

External links

• "Shut Up and Dance" on IMDb