“You’re just a performance...”

The Black Mirror episode "Be Right Back" was a transcendent, beautiful piece of work that is dense with rich moments that explore the connections we share as humans and how they can never be replaced if the lines are frayed. Not only that but I feel like this episode also leans towards the fact that our social media profiles are by no means a true reflection of reality. Social media just shows us what others choose to share with us. Thus true life and virtual lives should be deemed and treated as separate entities, as one is clearly not a true reflection of the other. The gist of the story is that a woman, Martha, loses her longterm boyfriend,Ash, when he is sadly killed in a car accident. Martha enlists in a program that mimics her deceased companion’s conversational tendencies after being urged by a friend at Ash’s wake. Now, through the phone she is able to talk to Ash again. The relationship of course deepens, and she wants more. That’s when “Ash” brings up the robot-ish body. Martha buys the blank plastic corpse and leaves it in a bathtub for a few hours. Soon after her boyfriend walks downstairs, looking, speaking and acting exactly the same. But it’s just not the same, which we know from the start, but Martha has to learn bit by bit, mannerism by mannerism, behavior by behavior.

I loved the use of The Bee-Gee’s “How Deep Is Your Love?” and that it’s how “Ash” reacts to the song playing that snaps Martha into action, with her driving immediately to lovers’ leap. Once they’re at the cliff, she tells him to jump. At first, he says okay but she really just wants him to fight like the old Ash would have. “You’re just a performance of stuff that he performed without thinking, and it’s not enough,” she says. 

When she tells him how the real Ash would have reacted, he puts on that character element and starts crying and pleading. After seeing Ash cry and beg she then shifts back to inaction. Thus showing us that despite the evident flaws and problems, she has with Ash, Martha chooses to keep him perhaps for her own selfish needs. She would rather put-up with the issue rather than being the one to have to make the hard decision to fix it. And so she stuffs him in the attic with the other not-quite-forgotten things we keep at arm’s length.