Black Mirror: Bête Noire

April 10, 2025 11:48 AM - Season 7, Episode 2

Confectionary whizz kid Maria is unnerved when her former schoolmate Verity joins the company she works at - because there's something altogether odd about Verity, something only Maria seems to notice.
posted by EmpressCallipygos (23 comments total)

This seemed to drop the ball at the very end, no?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:40 AM on April 11

Yeah, felt like they weren't sure what to do with the idea they would just have a quick spot out and reverse. Basically tagged a science fictional trope on to the antagonist and then had a shootout to resolve - not very interesting or satisfying.
posted by biffa at 4:14 PM on April 11

So I think part of this episode could be about the impact of unresolved trauma from bullying. No matter what Verity accomplished, she didn't experience any joy because of what happened to her so all she had left was to make other people miserable. But if all these alternate realities exist, why not call forth the one where she had therapy, and it worked. I mean she could have had actually gotten all the benefits of therapy without bothered to do the work. It just didn't make sense to me.

But then it takes that weird turn near the end. It doesn't feel like it was set up or earned. It also makes me question what the hell was I supposed to take away from it. I'll add I didn't think reality manipulating necklace was that satisfying of an explanation for what was happening.

So while I thought Common People was well done, this one was a big fail for me.
posted by miss-lapin at 4:51 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]

Surely there must be a reality where the bullying never took place? Like, Bernies used to be Barney's (but I guess lived experience can't be changed - then why not have someone else use it on her?).

The "alternate realities" was seriously under-explored. Like, in order for the probability of X happening, a whole lot of (improbable?) ABCs also have to happen to make X happen, where ABCs are weird/ unpleasant.

The entire episode was mainly infuriating for me.
posted by porpoise at 7:03 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

Well I thought it was a fun little story. I like wish stories. It's got good pacing and very solid acting from the two leads which keeps it humming along. I thought the ending was appropriate since Maria is obviously not a good person either, but it's a little pat and cynical.

Maybe it could have used a line about how wishing to not feel bad doesn't work.
posted by fleacircus at 3:06 PM on April 13 [2 favorites]

After the first microaggression I was rooting for Verity to fail, so I was fine with the ending.
posted by Julnyes at 8:04 AM on April 14

I liked it. I thought "the pendant controls a reality changing quantum computer" was fairly well telegraphed after about half way thru the episode. The pendant itself felt more like magic than high tech, but that didn't bother me. It felt like the writers had so many ideas they wanted to explore but couldn't because the revenge plot was front and center (a good choice in my opinion). So they shoehorned the fantastical elements of a magic wish granting pendant into the last 5 minutes, which was admittedly odd, but it didn't really ruin anything for me. The episode set a compelling mood and kept me intrigued and engaged.
posted by grog at 1:47 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

You need the Mandela-effect–driven insanity. The torment comes from the fact that only the tormentor and the tormentee know the truth. It's hard to build a plausible science-fiction-y framework where that's possible, so I guess they had to fudge quantum computers by overstating their capabilities by 1000% instead of just 250%.

porpoise: "Surely there must be a reality where the bullying never took place? Like, Bernies used to be Barney's (but I guess lived experience can't be changed […])."

But the boyfriend's lived experience changed! He said it had always been Bernie’s! They just made up an arbitrary set of rules where only Verity and the object of her revenge fantasy actually stay the same!

---

Anyway: the ending wasn't exactly elegant, but I think Black Mirror is very belatedly reacting to its bleak reputation and is maybe trying to imagine a greater range of plot resolutions. Or maybe it's just that this specific episode was so very bleak and seemed destined for a very, very depressing ending — and they wanted to subvert expectations.

I would've liked a version where her wishes at the end didn't escalate so very sharply — she went from dying of a gunshot wound to empress of the universe in 30 seconds — but I suppose that’s part of the point. Verity had that power and probably went straight to empress of the universe, then checked off everything on her live-a-million-lives bucket list, then got bored and made up new, cruel games to play. After another few weeks I suppose Maria will start exacting revenge on her enemies just because there's nothing else left to do.
posted by savetheclocktower at 9:02 PM on April 14 [2 favorites]

Black Mirror gaslights viewers by releasing subtly different versions of Bête Noire

"Which version of the episode viewers get access to on their Netflix account appears to be completely random, but the streamer has yet to address the multiple variations."
posted by fairmettle at 5:57 AM on April 15 [8 favorites]

I enjoyed this one. I loved the loud horror stings for each day, and the slow escalation into the impossible (I didn't pay enough attention to the hat to be sure if it had changed or not). I thought the ending was absolutely fine. I'm not sure exactly what resolution would be satisfying here; we clearly set up that Verity has a magic locket with finger activation, so our "hero" needs to shoot her quick before she can change reality again.

And the final stinger of being queen of the universe is cute, but also with a touch of sadness/horror. Verity obtained no pleasure from this, and I suspect neither will she.

Re: the explanation, obviously it works better if it's magic, but I think we can make it work even in the framework provided. Basically, Verity does not want to modify herself. She wants to be the person she was when she made the locket, but having done something cool. So if she used the locket to do therapy on herself she would be a different person. Same with how she altered reality but let Maria be aware of it every time.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 6:15 AM on April 16

Cannon Fodder: "So if she used the locket to do therapy on herself she would be a different person. Same with how she altered reality but let Maria be aware of it every time."

There's a part I can headcanon but which I would've appreciated had they addressed it directly: some sort of explanation of how Maria is on the journey with Verity. Everyone else's lived experience has changed whenever Verity does a quantum switcheroo; only Verity and the target of her torment hop together to the parallel universe. Otherwise Verity wouldn't know what a “nutallergy” was either.

So if there had been some sort of evidence of a… chip? transponder? very small sticker discreetly placed onto the nape of Maria's neck? when she and Verity first talked to one another in the bathroom, it would've tracked a bit better for me.

Maybe it's all in there and just isn't stated out loud. (I've already had like three “aha!” moments thinking of ways that Verity had changed reality that I hadn't picked up on. Maybe a rewatch would reveal something subtle. But this was so unnerving to watch the first time that I'm not in a hurry to go back.)
posted by savetheclocktower at 4:05 PM on April 16

"Which version of the episode viewers get access to on their Netflix account appears to be completely random, but the streamer has yet to address the multiple variations."

This is really cool! As I imagine a lot of people must have, I stopped in the middle of the Barnie's/Bernie's argument and wound it back to find that, for me at least, Maria was right, so there wasn't much tension for me from that point on about whether she was losing her mind or whatever. It may have been a different experience for people who rewound and found Maria was wrong.

Although I liked this much better than "Common People" (I in fact only watched this because I saw part of it over someone's shoulder by accident and realized Siena Kelly was in it, and, well), I did reach a similar point of impatience with it when it dawned on me exactly how long they were going to spend dragging out the premise. In its early years, an episode of Black Mirror often felt like a compressed feature film. These both feel like one-act plays stretched to an hour.

That said, I at least thought the show finally came all the way to life at the end, when suddenly -- finally -- it all seemed less than predictable. I also didn't mind Verity getting killed, because Verity was awful.

Bullying is a serious subject, but I don't think this is a very serious take on bullying. To be honest, I'm not sure whether to think Maria even really bullied Verity; Verity isn't even in the same universe she started out in, and Maria was never in it!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:34 PM on April 16 [1 favorite]

The more I think about it, that Maria remembers the conditions of any given timeline that Verity has just left is a Russell T. Davies-shaped plot hole -- for instance, Maria does not lose a nut allergy so much as she is altogether replaced by a Maria who never had an allergy to nuts -- but w/e
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:28 AM on April 17

I don't think this is a plot hole, Verity directly addresses this. She chooses a reality where everything is different but she and Maria stay the same. To accept this we have to accept that Verity is able to somehow give mental commands that can modify reality appropriately, and also accept that such a universe would exist.

For the former, really there's nothing to say but "this power is essentially magic with a sci fi name". For the latter, it's actually entirely possible. Imagine a universe where nut allergies don't exist and this drama plays out, and then the entities Maria and Verity materialise. This is, obviously, exceedingly unlikely, but it is entirely possible at any point for a set of molecules to suddenly coalesce into a thinking being; a sort of Maxwells demon scenario.

Again both are absurd but the answer really is that Verity is a witch, but with a sci fi twist
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:18 PM on April 17 [1 favorite]

Hmmmm. Yeah, I guess we have to accept both that the other reality exists, and that the other reality is absolutely the same in all other respects; the second condition is the one that makes it really far-fetched to me. But you're right, this isn't even science fiction at this point, it's pure fantasy. I felt last season like Brooker was more interested in doing a supernatural horror show than more Black Mirror, and...well...I think I would enjoy that show more than Black Mirror! So this is fine, for me.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 1:54 PM on April 17

It may have been a different experience for people who rewound and found Maria was wrong.
Maria isn't (originally) wrong in either version of the episode; the whole point of giving people different episodes is to have us, the viewers, doubt our own recollection (Mandela Effect!) if we talk it over with someone else. If the hat said "Barneys" at the beginning of the episode you saw, the Internet search will show "Bernies", because Verity changed reality. If the hat said "Bernies" at the beginning of the episode, the Internet search will show "Barneys", because Verity changed reality.
posted by mistersix at 2:06 PM on April 17 [2 favorites]

this isn't even science fiction at this point, it's pure fantasy.

This sort of thing is annoying. If you want to give her a magic amulet, just say so. Handwaving about quantum computing and alternative timelines is just bullshit.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:09 PM on April 19 [1 favorite]

Cannon Fodder: "I don't think this is a plot hole, Verity directly addresses this. She chooses a reality where everything is different but she and Maria stay the same."

No, because it's not just that they stay the same. They are taking a journey together. They are simultaneously jumping to parallel universes together.

Recall the final gaslighting experience with the almond milk. We end up in a universe where nut allergies do not exist… but where Maria has distinct knowledge and memory of them, and of all of Verity’s prior torment. You'd have to imagine that that universe's version of Maria is also already on the cusp of being driven insane, and for the exact same reasons as in the universe we just left.

The catharsis for Verity (such as it is) comes from the fact that she retains the memory of everything she's done, and the torment for Maria is that she retains everything she knows about the universe she started in.

As I mentioned upthread, this still isn't a plot hole if you believe that Verity can “tag” someone to go on these journeys with her, and that's easy to believe. If Verity can universe-hop, she can certainly bring a friend.

The plot hole comes from the fact that all of their co-workers and their boss are aware of this several-day-long escalating drama at the workplace, and presumably that Maria has been wrong every time. They do not universe-hop with the pair, or else they'd also remember the name of the chicken place or what a nut allergy is, and would feel nearly as tormented as Maria despite not being the object of the torment. But they know that Verity and Maria are having a beef and that Maria is coming off like the crazy one every time. Why is it happening in those universes?

It's a bit too easy to explain this away by reasoning that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, because this requires an uncountably infinite number of parallel universes.

Anyway, I don't mind. This episode is specifically about the vibes — about a poignant way in which someone could very quickly be driven mad. It's fine to hand-wave it away at the end with a supercomputer and a tiny pendant with a button. I'll take an episode like this any day over a Beyond The Sea — something that has very high ambitions and doesn't come close to attaining them.
posted by savetheclocktower at 9:16 PM on April 19

Recall the final gaslighting experience with the almond milk. We end up in a universe where nut allergies do not exist… but where Maria has distinct knowledge and memory of them, and of all of Verity’s prior torment. You'd have to imagine that that universe's version of Maria is also already on the cusp of being driven insane, and for the exact same reasons as in the universe we just left

Well what I'm saying is that the Maria which was in the universe without but allergies, who presumably did not have one was replaced by our Maria. That is an event of extremely low probability, but (maybe?) technically possible: every person is a collection of atoms, so all that happened was a spontaneous rearrangement of Maria and Verity into their original selves.

Of course if we accept that the multiverse can produce this by pure chance, then in principle Verity doesn't need her machine at all. That is, by pure chance there will be a set of universes where all this happens anyway and the machine has nothing to do with it.

I mean, yeah obviously it's nonsense, but there's a small border line of plausibility hidden in there
posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:41 AM on April 20

this requires an uncountably infinite number of parallel universes

An infinite number of anything is uncountable, surely? Isn't that how infinity works?
posted by Grangousier at 2:59 AM on April 20

An infinite number of anything is uncountable, surely? Isn't that how infinity works

Countable infinity is a mathematical idea that you could, in principle, count it. For example, you could count the even numbers (the first is two, the second is four, etc).

Basically we call an infinity countable is if we could manage to assign a "natural number" (1,2,3...) to each number within it.

Cantor was able to prove that certain types of infinities are not countable, the most well known example being the real numbers (the set of all numbers, which includes numbers like the square root of 2 and pi).

So in some sense an uncountably infinite is much larger than a countably infinite one.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 5:11 AM on April 20

Cannon Fodder: "Of course if we accept that the multiverse can produce this by pure chance, then in principle Verity doesn't need her machine at all. That is, by pure chance there will be a set of universes where all this happens anyway and the machine has nothing to do with it. "

Yeah, this is why I wouldn't have guessed that this was your argument — it doesn't seem to be satisfying for Verity. She only derives satisfaction from the torment if she gets to experience it; it's not enough for her to know that there theoretically exists a universe in which that torment is happening. The machine has to be doing something that allows her to be rewarded by this experience — and by the experience of being on the cover of a fashion mag, and being an astronaut, and being empress of the universe.

Grangousier: " An infinite number of anything is uncountable, surely? Isn't that how infinity works?"

This is how I tend to visualize it: there are an infinite number of integers (1, 0, -14, 65536, etc.) and an infinite number of real numbers (-2.10101, π, 420.69, etc.). But there are infinitely more real numbers than there are integers. We can prove this: the range between 0 and 10 (inclusive) has eleven integers but infinitely many real numbers.

It feels applicable in this case because the plot seems to demand not just that there are an infinite number of parallel universes… but also an infinite number of universes that can that have continuity with the current universe except for whatever detail Verity wants to change in order to torment Maria.
posted by savetheclocktower at 11:12 AM on April 20 [1 favorite]

Yeah the more I think about the sci fi idea (which clearly is not designed to be thought about) the more I think about quantum immortality.

This is a slightly silly concept where if you truly believe that there is a multiverse where every possibility exists then you could make a deal. You will randomly (perhaps using nuclear decay) pick some lottery numbers. Then, if your numbers don't come up, you commit to some method of ending your own life. The idea being that while in the vast majority of universes you will die, the one that matters is the one where you continue to exist, and in that you win the lottery.

It's an odd concept that makes muddy the concept of who a person "is". That is, as I said above there really isn't a way to distinguish with Verity's machine somehow causing the changes, and the changes just happening by chance. In both cases the Verity and Maria that we follow experience the same thing. This is also a ship of Theseus problem. If suddenly an instance of me replaces an alternate version of me is that new thing me?

Related concept here (explored in Soma and sort of San Junipero) is the concept of uploading. Suppose I can make a perfect copy of me to live in a simulated world. That copy will live in bliss for eternity. So I of course press a button... And then stand around disappointed that nothing has changed for me. There is a perfect version of me who thinks of himself as me who experienced suddenly appearing in paradise... But theres also a physical version of me staring helplessly at the machine.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 3:36 AM on April 21