Black Mirror
TheBlack Mirror"Smithereens " stop is one of the most talked about in the popular series , and as flummox as it is , there are answer . " Smithereens " learn Andrew Scott playing a serviceman who take a social medium company ’s intern hostage and menace to shoot him if he does n’t get connected on the phone to the companionship ’s CEO . It ’s a tense drive that slowly untangles the mystery of who the man is and what crowd him to this extreme action - but the ending deliberately leave one big question unanswered . It begins with a man who the audience after get wind is call Chris Gilheany ( Scott ) waiting near the edifice of a troupe called Smithereen .
Chris is wait to accept ride - share postulation from people leave the construction . He pick up Jaden ( Damson Idris ) and abduct him , believing him to be a high-pitched - level employee . However , Jaden is an unluckyBlack Mirrorcharacteras he ’s just an intern and the kidnapping go awry when the police give chase , ensue in Chris ' motorcar reel into a field . Chris necessitate to spill to Smithereen chief operating officer Billy Bauer on the headphone as the surety spot becomes an international incident . Eventually , Bauer is tracked down at his silent retreat and harmonize to speak to Chris on the telephone , direct to the reveal of why Chris wanted to speak to Billy .
What Happens At The End Of Smithereens
The surety berth come to a head when Chris tells Jaden that the gun he ’s using to take for him hostage is n’t real . Since Smithereen is using the call to hear in to the automobile , the information gets surpass to the UK police . The constabulary commence to approach the cable car to arrest Chris , but he sees the spot on social medium calling the gun faux and realizes that Smithereen is spying on him . He evoke the gun out of the machine window , and in response the police snipers pullulate at him , gain him in the arm . An infuriated Chris evidence Smithereen he will kill Jaden if Billy does n’t get on the phone within five minutes .
Chris got a badBlack Mirrorending , as he explains that he used to be wholly addicted to Smithereen - that it was the first thing he look at in the morning and the last thing he looked at before go to log Z’s . One night , while drive home with his married woman , Tamsin , he fuck off a presentment that someone had liked a comment he ’d left on their photo , and he looked down at his phone to read the notification . During the moment he was distracted , the car barge in into another motorcar and Tamsin was fatally spite . The other driver , who also died , was blamed for the accident because he was drunk .
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Chris explains that he was eat alive by the secret that the motorcar accident was his fault , and that he could n’t severalise anyone because he was so ashamed . He felt that the only somebody he could mayhap tell the truth to was Billy Bauer because , as the chief executive officer of Smithereen and someone who knowingly made the app so addictive , Billy was partly to blame for Tamsin ’s death as well . Searching for something to say , Billy bombast that Smithereen has gotten out of his control and become like a " crack pipe , " with a special section that has " Intropin targets " to make it as addictive as potential .
Chris narrate Jaden he ’s complimentary to go in theBlack Mirror"Smithereens " cease and prepares to put suicide with the gun , but Jaden refuses to get out of the car jazz that as soon as he depart , Chris will stamp out himself . He try out to persuade Chris that he still has a understanding to live and , when that fails , grabs the triggerman and starts a struggle for control of it . Seeing the struggle , the police force sniper takes a shot at Chris and misses . They take a 2d shot , this one ending the surety situation , but the consultation does n’t get to see who was frivol away - only the various character ' reactions to it .
Did Chris Or Jaden Get Shot?
At the close of thegreatBlack Mirrorepisode , either Chris , Jaden , or both could have been shot by the police force sniper in the confusedness . The responses from major persona are difficult to read and could be render as either pitiful or relieved , while members of the universal populace barely seem to react at all . The most likely scenario is that Chris was bourgeon and vote down by the sniper , and that certainly fit with the most neutral reaction to the outcome . However , a more nihilistic reading of the end is that Jaden was killed in the crossfire as well and that his expiry merely did n’t have much of an encroachment .
The Real Meaning Of Smithereens' Ending
While it ’s easy to dismissBlack Mirroras a show that simply states over and over again that technical onward motion are bad , Black Mirror’s"Smithereens " has no young engineering , and it ’s one of the few episodes that are about existing technology emotion that humans have always had . For example , the critically - acclaimed Black Mirror episode " Nosedive " was about citizenry ’s hunger for approval from their peer , and the shocking season 1 installment " The National Anthem " was about the mob mentality of wanting to see a public figure humiliated - something that has been around since the days of put criminals in pedigree .
TheBlack Mirror"Smithereens " instalment is about the interaction between technology and addiction . Chris acknowledges that he was responsible for the car accident , but also argue that the people who deliberately made Smithereen so addictive are to blame as well . It ’s a question of personal responsibility vs. companies on purpose preying on human weakness for make money , and can also be apply to alcohol . Chris ' auto accident is a meeting of this issue , as Chris was checking his Smithereen notifications and the other equipment driver was intoxicated . take on that the other number one wood was an alcoholic , who was to find fault for him being inebriated behind the wheel : him , or the companionship that produced the alcohol he drank ?
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The secondary game about Hayley compulsively trying to figure out her daughter ’s Persona watchword shows another side to the addiction that Chris get . Whereas Chris became dependant upon Smithereen in ordering to feel connected to other people , Hayley is urgently trying to gain access to Kristin ’s messages because she thinks it will permit her to get to love her daughter and make sense of her death . Thanks to Chris she ultimately gets her wish , but we never find out what the substance say or whether they offer any clue to the reasons behind the suicide . But they still wo n’t give her what she really wants : to have her girl back .
UnlikeotherBlack Mirrorepisodes , " Smithereens " does n’t have a sci - fi premise . However , in hold open with the show ’s oecumenical musical theme , it does search the damaging effect that modern engineering science and the preponderance of social mass medium can have on the great unwashed ’s life . The outcome of the hostage spot is by choice deduct at theBlack Mirror"Smithereens " ending to repel home the message that , to the people experiencing the situation via their phones , the outcome really does n’t matter . The apprisal that they get updating them on the news is just another small hit of Dopastat to their brains , and they soon move on from it . As show Lord Charlie Brooker outlined toEW :
" Really it was about how this monolithic drama — this most important day in several multitude ’s biography — was reduce to transitory confetti that just decease us by ; just one more little crouton of a notice . So it was about the disposability of it and how it becomes just another distraction for a ten thousand of other people . "
importantly , the montage of reaction include a gadget driver train his earphone as a woman with a go-cart walks in front of his car , and then the driver behind him honking to make him move . That incident does n’t finish with someone being kill , but it pretend it clear that Chris wo n’t be the last person who has his living bankrupt by a presentment . After all , the final shot theBlack Mirror"Smithereens " ending is Billy once again close his eyes - literally and figuratively - to the damage his company is doing .
