The Steamy Black Mirror Episode You Probably Shouldn't Watch With Others
Throughout its six seasons, "Black Mirror" has had a rich history of taking technological innovations and turning them into haunting nightmare fuel. Though its creator, Charlie Brooker, has tackled the subject of video games before with the Season 3 episode "Playtest" and the interactive movie "Bandersnatch," the writer had a different take on the medium in mind for the Season 5 premiere, "Striking Vipers."
The "Black Mirror" episode follows Danny (Anthony Mackie) and Karl (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), two college friends who have drifted apart over the years. However, as the two begin reconnecting by playing the titular game online, they soon find that there's more to do in the game than simply fighting each other repeatedly.
As they enter the game via VR headsets, the old friends discover an attraction between their in-game avatars and follow it to its natural conclusion. However, as this changes their friendship demonstrably and makes Danny wonder if he's cheating on his wife, Theo (Nicole Beharie), this "Black Mirror" episode gets into some interesting dilemmas.
The episode poses lots of interesting questions about sexuality
Since "Striking Vipers" features plenty of in-game copulation, the "Black Mirror" episode can be a bit of a racy watch. Still, the questions that it's asking about sexuality are very intriguing. For instance, are the friends bisexual, or is the game just allowing them to experience things they might never be able to in real life?
After all, as one of them now inhabits a female body in the game, the sex that they're having is heteronormative, even though they're both men outside of the game. Furthermore, if you could have sexual intercourse in VR, would that be considered cheating or just another form of self-pleasure?
These are just some of the moral quandaries at the heart of this "Black Mirror" episode, and they leave the viewer wondering how they might approach this kind of situation were the technology available for them to have these kinds of interactive experiences. Furthermore, if you could live as the opposite gender in a game, how would that change the dynamic between men, women, and trans or non-binary individuals?
While "Striking Vipers" doesn't really answer any of these questions definitively over the course of the episode, it does provide arguably the most entertaining and interesting episode to emerge out of the fifth season of "Black Mirror."