What Does White Bear Say About Modern Society

Recap:

This episode starts off with our main character, Victoria, waking up in a house; dazed and confused. Her neck hurts as well as her head. She does not seem familiar with her surroundings. She first notices the bandages on her wrists and the pills in the floor; which later we learn are meant to help convince her that her memory loss is due to a suicide attempt. She then sees the television on with some strange symbol on it. Victoria opens the window to see that outside, there is no one in sight. Her confusion continues. She then catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and it seems as though she doesn't recognize her own reflection as she stares and touches her face. Victoria then ventures downstairs where she finds the same symbol on another television. She also finds a picture of herself and a man, later learned to be her fiance, Ian Rannoch. There is a picture of a young girl attached to the photo of Victoria and Ian. Because of this and a painful flashback of the little girl playing, Victoria assumes the girl to be her daughter. Eventually, Victoria goes outside and discovers people in the windows staring at her and recording her. She tries to reach out to them for help but to no avail. A man, wearing a mask with the same symbol from the television, pulls up and begins to chase Victoria with a shotgun. As Victoria runs from the man, more onlookers appear however they only follow and record what is happening to Victoria instead of helping her. Victoria runs all the way to a gas station where she meets two people filling up a car. They all run into the gas station to get away from the man with the gun. In an attempt to escape, one of them is shot, while Victoria and the female character escape out the back. The chase continues adding in two more killers. Victoria and the female character make their way towards White Bear to "knock out the transmitters" that apparently affect people's minds making them into onlookers. Eventually the pair make it to White Bear where Victoria is revealed to be an accomplice to  the murder of the little girl, Jemima. It is also revealed that the entire ordeal is a part of some twisted amusement park that is for criminals. They reset Victoria's memory each day and have her go through the same situation ever day in an attempt to serve her "justice". The operators of the park and the people that pay to enter the park want Victoria to experience the same scared and confused feeling that Jemima felt before she was murdered.

My Thoughts: 

I found this episode to be really interesting. It kind of raised questions about our society today. My initial idea was that this episode would serve as a piece that touched on how people are always glued to there phones even in dangerous situations. Often recording the happenings instead of actually helping the victims. However, as the episode came to an end, I began to believe that this episode was made to question society as a whole. The entire act and situation, was it justice? I'm on the fence about it because I believe that the situation under certain conditions would be the best way to show Victoria what she did to Jemima. On the other hand, I don't believe that erasing her mind every single day and repeating the situation over and over again is justice; it is torture. As I question how the same situation could be redone to be less torturous, I come to a wall. The mind erasure is necessary to put Victoria in the same mindset as Jemima. But thinking about it, I don't believe that the situation needs to be repeated every day for however long White Bear decides. Another question that comes to mind is are we punishing the same Victoria? When Victoria first awakens, she has no clue as to who she is. She doesn't know her name, anything about herself, and she doesn't even recognize her own face. So with that in mind, can we say that this mind erased Victoria is the same as the accomplice Victoria? I don't think I can. I think people are defined by the way they were raised and the experiences they have had in life. With Victoria's mind being erased, she lacks these experience that made her into the accomplice. So in the end, I would have to come to the conclusion that White Bear is torturing an innocent person because of the extremeness of the punishment and the mind erasure. In real life application, this may be the case with schizophrenic felons and other mentally ill incarcerated people. However, I do not believe that this case would apply to other felons that are fully aware of the reasoning behind their punishments and have obtained those experiences of the crime committed.