Black Museum (Black Mirror)

"Black Museum" is the sixth and final episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker, with one part adapted from Penn Jillette's short story "The Pain Addict", and directed by Colm McCarthy. The episode first premiered on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.

The episode is presented as a series of three stories told by Rolo Haynes (Douglas Hodge), proprietor of the remote "Black Museum" to his solitary visitor Nish (Letitia Wright), all involving various exhibits related to cutting edge technological connections and transfers with the human brain that Rolo had developed in his scientific career.

Plot
Nish (Letitia Wright) visits the remote Black Museum while waiting for her car to recharge. The proprietor, Rolo Haynes (Douglas Hodge), offers to show her around the "authentic criminological artefacts", providing histories of some through flashbacks in the episode.

One object ties to Haynes' past as a neurological research recruiter. He persuaded Dr. Peter Dawson (Daniel Lapaine) to get an experimental implant that let him feel the pain of others in order to aid in medical diagnosis. However, Dawson became addicted to using his patients' pain for sexual arousal. Removed from the hospital, Dawson was arrested for torturing and killing a homeless man, but ultimately fell into a coma.

A second object is a stuffed monkey. Haynes had convinced a man named Jack (Aldis Hodge) to transfer the consciousness of his comatose wife Carrie (Alexandra Roach) into his own brain, letting her share his sensations. However, this became a toll: Jack had no privacy and Carrie had no agency, particularly with their child Parker. Jack began dating Emily (Yasha Jackson), who convinced Jack to transfer Carrie into the stuffed monkey, limited to speaking only two phrases. Parker received the monkey, but soon grew tired of it, and Haynes claims Carrie's consciousness is still within the toy.

Haynes shows Nish the museum's centerpiece, a holographic projection of Clayton Leigh (Babs Olusanmokun), a convicted murderer. While Clayton was on death row, Haynes convinced him to sign the rights to his consciousness over as to provide for his family. Haynes demonstrates the ability for visitors to holographically recreate Clayton's execution and create animated copies of his suffering packaged in little souvenirs.

Haynes comments on the temperature in the museum as he begins to asphyxiate. Nish reveals herself as Clayton's daughter; she had sabotaged the museum's air conditioning and given Haynes poisoned water. Nish tells Haynes Clayton was innocent but the state never overturned the conviction, and the exhibit has attracted sadists and racists preying on Clayton's plight. As a result, her mother overdosed on pills and alcohol.

Haynes passes out. Nish transfers his consciousness into Clayton's hologram, then activates the simulated execution to its maximum level, putting her father to rest. She leaves the museum with the stuffed monkey while removing a device from the air conditioner, which shorts out and starts to burn. As the museum is engulfed in flames, Nish drives away and converses with her mother, who shares her consciousness, both happy to have avenged Clayton.

Production
Whilst series one and two of Black Mirror were shown on Channel 4 in the UK, in September 2015 Netflix commissioned the series for 12 episodes, and in March 2016 it outbid Channel 4 for the rights to distribute the third series, with a bid of $40 million. The 12-episode order was divided into two series of six episodes each.

The first story, involving Dr. Dawson, was based on a short story, "The Pain Addict", written by magician Penn Jillette early in his career. Jillette had written the story based on the personal experience of being ill in a Spanish welfare hospital in 1981, where it was difficult to get a diagnosis due to the language barrier. Jillette came up with "The Pain Addict" from this experience, where there would be technology that allowed a doctor to understand what pain a person was suffering, but, as described by Jillette "this guy gets addicted to it and starts beating people to feel their pain. He also goes through S&M and all he wants to do is jack into Jesus on the cross. He wants to feel that pain." The idea was published as a short story in the anthology Would, Could, Should. Jillette had been trying to shop for a better venue for this story, and brought up the idea when he had an opportunity to talk with Charlie Brooker.

Around two years later, Brooker contacted Jillette to explain that "Black Museum" would be an anthology episode, and wanted to use "The Pain Addict" as part of it. Jillette allowed him to use the story, though Brooker did the necessary modifications for his show. Jillette then worked with Brooker to help suggest the idea of a framing story, which would involve a washed-up Las Vegas carny running the Black Museum outside of Vegas. Jillette wanted to audition for the role of the carny, but the production was too far along to change the casting. Brooker still took Jillette's past performances as part of Penn & Teller and his documentary series Bullshit! as inspiration for Rolo. The episode took a month to film; locations include Nevada and Spain.

Brooker had previously looked to cast Letitia Wright in an episode of the third series of Black Mirror, but she became unavailable. During the casting process for "Black Museum", Brooker considered Wright ideal for the run, but at the time she was finishing shooting on Black Panther. She was able to provide a self-tape audition with help from Daniel Kaluuya, who had previously starred in "Fifteen Million Merits" and was co-starring with her in Black Panther.

Daniel Lapaine appears in this episode as Dr. Peter Dawson, after appearing in an unrelated role in the series one episode "The Entire History of You".

The episode is structured similarly to "White Christmas", a previous episode of Black Mirror, as both feature three separately told stories that progress towards an overarching plot by the end.

Marketing
In May 2017, a Reddit post unofficially announced the names and directors of the six episodes in series 4 of Black Mirror. The first trailer for the series was released by Netflix on 25 August 2017, and contained the six episode titles.

Beginning on 24 November 2017, Netflix published a series of posters and trailers for the fourth series of the show, referred to as the "13 Days of Black Mirror". On 6 December Netflix published a trailer featuring an amalgamation of scenes from the fourth series, which announced that the series would be released on 29 December.

Easter eggs
"Black Museum" includes Easter egg references back to each previous Black Mirror episode, according to director Colm McCarthy; many were placed by set designer Joel Collins. Collins said that he wanted to make the set a "hidden celebration of six years of Black Mirror". For example, Jack is seen reading a "Fifteen Million Merits" comic, and the museum's entrance includes a screen showing a picture of Victoria Skillane and later a mannequin with a black balaclava and the white two-pronged symbol from "White Bear". Many museum artefacts are taken from previous episodes, for instance: an autonomous drone insect (ADI) from "Hated in the Nation"; the lollipop Daly uses to clone Walton's son in "USS Callister"; the tablet used by Marie in "Arkangel"; the bloodied bathtub where Shazia's husband was murdered in "Crocodile". The two rats shown to Dawson by Haynes are named Kenny and Hector, referencing the characters from "Shut Up and Dance". The episode also makes multiple allusions to "San Junipero", featuring the company TCKR, naming a hospital Saint Juniper's and showing Yorkie and Kelly's dresses in the museum.

Separately, one wall of the museum includes a number of death masks; Brooker identified these as busts of the various crew that have worked on the show.

Score
Cristobal Tapia de Veer composed the music for the episode, which was released through Lakeshore Records on 19 January 2018. A music sampler was released earlier, on 27 December 2017, on both his YouTube and SoundCloud.

de Veer commented on the score, stating “The beginning, discovering the Black Museum, that was going to set the tone for the rest of the show. The music morphed in many ways throughout the three stories, then goes back to where it started with the Black Museum, although with a sense of accomplishment, but also a sense of doom.”

Critical reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the episode has an approval rating of 73%, based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 6.54/10. The Guardian stated the ending "seemed to retread old ground", but "given that there's nothing like Black Mirror on TV, it's a minor quibble." A review from The A.V. Club called the episode "a dud" that "seems to confirm all of the series' most dismissive criticism". Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic considered the three narratives to be uninteresting. Entertainment Weekly called it "the only outright stinker of the season". Boston Globe dismissed it as "riddled with needless callbacks to episodes past". The Telegraph stated "the performances are serviceable although seldom spectacular". The Economist stated the narratives "illuminate nothing interesting, settling instead on the claim that everyone enjoys inflicting cruelty, given the chance"; similarly, Variety complained that the episode "hinges on people repeatedly choosing to be stupid and/or evil".

Other critics were more positive. Tasha Robinson of The Verge stated "“Black Museum” keeps a potentially scattered story on track without digressing into generic complaints about modern culture." Jason Parham of Wired commended the episode as "the most important of the season", writing "It’s a victory, and an ending that defies the natural biology of the series." Noel Ransome in Vice judged that the episode provides him and other black viewers a rare sense of "satisfaction". An Independent review stated the three narratives were "engrossing".

NPR labelled the episode "solid", though not as good as "USS Callister" and "Hang the DJ".

Critics were divided on whether they joined in with celebrating Nish's revenge. Parham approved her actions as "a way to fight for what you believe is right", while Gilbert rejected the "eye-for-eye justice" of Nish's deliberate torturing of Haynes.

Awards and accolades

References

External links
 

Category:2017 British television episodes
Category:Black Mirror episodes
Category:Museums in popular culture
Category:Television episodes written by Charlie Brooker
Category:Television programs based on short fiction