We ’re breaking down Season 3 ofBlack Mirror , which is now streaming on Netflix . you could read our interview withseries Almighty Charlie Brookerand sift through our retread and analyses of other new episodes " Nosedive,““Shut Up and Dance,“and " Hated in the Nation . " Here , we take a look at Episode 5 , " Men Against Fire . "
There ’s a toilsome - to - accept - away cramp in the back of a human throatthat twitches whenever dystopian visions of the succeeding blur into the present . This is the sensationBlack Mirrorlives for , and I certainly sustain from it during " Men Against Fire , " an episode that even creatorCharlie Brooker says spooks him . In " Fire , " mankind views the human beings through 2d screens glued to their faces , the line between war machine and police is completely languish , xenophobia ignites a dumb genocide , and authority figures strong - subdivision the picayune guys into execute immoral design . Remember : This is dystopian fiction , not the 2016 election season .
With shades of28 Days LaterandThe Parallax eyeshot , " Men Against Fire " is a shagged entry ofBlack Mirrorthat ends with a wild lick to our noggins . Our hero Stripe ( up - and - comer Malachi Kirby ) spend a magnanimous chunk of the episode blow by " rophy , " edacious mutate android who , grant to marching orders , can infect the vestal - full-blooded . fit with MASS , a electronic computer eye implant that exhibit mathematical function , auto - target artillery , and makesex - Google Glass employeesvery , very depressed , Stripe and his troop plow through the infected countryside with a raucous remorselessness that makes the satirical soldiers ofStarship Trooperslook like the do - gooders fromM.A.S.H.They desire to bolt down cockroach and they want to kill them now , now , now .
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You know what comes next . After Stripe ’s passel malfunctions – gift him the most unexpected four - way in sci - fi television history – the military pawn discovers the roaches are really fangless , clamber humans . The disease part seems to be rightful ; they do have problems , just not ones anyone in the government is uncoerced to cure . The solution is militarise eugenics order through augmented digitise imaging . Unlike spoken orders , the human thinker can reason with ostensible realism . Brooker , of path , find an even harsher short letter to end on ; there ’s no financial support out of MASS for Stripe . Either he spends his spirit blind by the army , in a prison house of his mind , or run back on the front lines of killing innocents . He pick out the latter , as many might . As many do .
Do you see what Brooker wants you to see ? " Men Against Fire " is a catch - all metaphor for how we deal with the voteless extremity of our global society . The black Americans impacted by police violence are the roaches . Groups target by Brexit - fueled xenophobia are the R-2 . Citizens of warfare - snap Aleppo , a " human-centered nightmare " that " has fundamentally fall , " fit in to Republican candidate Donald Trump , and the Syrian refugees escaping the civil war are the forget me drug . strain through social media and you ’ll find politicians and pundit campaigning to sweep the suffering under a carpet . " Men Against Fire " imago if the compression of computers into wearable devices could turn those Twitter smear campaigns into our physical percept of the existence .
The " smart " contact lense is on the way . While Google ’s international " Glass " wearable attain a snag , the party is n’t slowing down efforts to put a estimator in your eye : in 2014 , the company patented for bright contact lenses that contain a very wireless silicon chip up to of monitor a wearer ’s glucose level , and this April , itpatentedan intra - opthalmic gimmick that communicate with laptops and smartphones , power itself using bodily energy , and is inject into the centre . Samsungis also researching and patenting ocular devices , in hopes of allow wearer the top executive to snap photos with the literal blink of an eye . Let ’s hope the first wave forfend the Samsung Note S7 wrick .
Through all the vehemence , the most disgraceful good turn in " Men Against Fire " is Stripe ’s discover how he wound up with MASS in his nous . His nefarious " psychiatrist " ( Michael Kelly ofHouse of Cards ) shows the soldier a video of the day he enlisted . He needed an out . " Part of what you ’re accord to is not substantiate you ’ve been put in this body politic , " an off - filmdom voice evidence the slouched , flippant kidskin . " That ’s kind of funny , valet de chambre . "
The moral apocalypse is a choice , Brooker insist . If we ’re aware of what we ’re signing up for , cautious of what we ’re being fed , and empathic to the discord around us , maybe we ’ll bypass it . If we ’re seduced by sales pitches , we may end up like Stripe : a beautiful married woman , a white picket fence , and total ignorance . One valet de chambre ’s dystopia is another man ’s utopia .
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