Black Museum (Black Mirror)

"Black Museum"
Black Mirror episode
Promotional poster
Episode no.	Series 4 Episode 6
Directed by	Colm McCarthy
Written by	Charlie Brooker
Original air date	29 December 2017 (2017-12-29)
Running time	69 minutes
Guest appearances
Douglas Hodge as Rolo Haynes Letitia Wright as Nish Daniel Lapaine as Dr. Peter Dawson Aldis Hodge as Jack Alexandra Roach as Carrie Babs Olusanmokun as Clayton Leigh Emily Vere Nicoll as Madge Yasha Jackson as Emily Amanda Warren as Angelica

"Black Museum" is the sixth episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker, with parts adapted from the short story Pain Addict written by Penn Jillette, and directed by Colm McCarthy. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.

The episode is presented as a series of three stories told by Rolo Haynes (Douglas Hodge), proprietor of the remote "Black Museum" to his solitary visitor Nish (Letitia Wright), all involving various exhibits related to cutting edge technological connections and transfers with the human brain that Rolo had developed in his career.

Plot

Whilst waiting for her car to charge, Nish (Letitia Wright) comes across the Black Museum, which houses "authentic criminological artefacts". She meets the proprietor, Rolo Haynes (Douglas Hodge), who gives her a tour where he recounts the stories of the artefacts he has collected, shown in flashback during the episode.

In his past, Haynes is a neurological research recruiter and persuades Dr. Peter Dawson (Daniel Lapaine) to take on a neurological implant that allows him to feel the physical sensations of others. Dawson uses this to feel the pain of his patients; over time, he is able to recognise a vast range of illnesses and provide very accurate diagnoses. Meanwhile, Dawson also uses the interface during sex with his girlfriend, increasing pleasure for both of them. A senator who has been poisoned is brought into the hospital one night and Dawson continues using the implant as the patient dies. After passing out, Dawson awakens with the side effect that he now experiences pain as pleasure. He begins to use his patients' suffering for personal sexual arousal. He is removed from the hospital and, addicted to pain, begins mutilating himself. Realising that he cannot inflict fear (and thus, further pleasure) on himself, Dawson tasers and kills a homeless man with a drill. He is arrested, but falls into a persistent vegetative state.

In the present, Nish offers Haynes water as the museum's air conditioning is broken, and Haynes tells another story about a stuffed monkey. Haynes convinced a man named Jack (Aldis Hodge) to transfer the consciousness of his comatose wife Carrie (Alexandra Roach) into his brain. Carrie initially enjoys sharing the sensations that Jack feels in the real world, particularly hugs with their son Parker. However, shared consciousness begins to take a toll on the couple, as Jack has no privacy and Carrie has no agency in the real world. Haynes allows Jack to control Carrie's thoughts by "pausing" her. Jack meets Emily (Yasha Jackson), and the two begin seeing each other. Emily pressures Jack to transfer the consciousness of Carrie into a stuffed monkey, which is given to Parker. The toy can only speak two phrases, "Monkey loves you" and "Monkey needs a hug". Carrie is furious, but Emily threatens her with deletion if she does not behave. Eventually, Parker grows sick of the toy and abandons it, though Carrie is still trapped inside. In the present, Haynes tells Nish that the transfer of Carrie was declared illegal and led to his firing. Haynes then reveals that Carrie is still inside the stuffed monkey in the exhibit, since it was also illegal to delete her.

Haynes and Nish move on to the main attraction of the museum: a dismal hologram projection of Clayton Leigh (Babs Olusanmokun). Haynes coaxes convicted murderer Clayton to sign over the rights to his post-death consciousness when he is on death row. After his execution, Clayton is reborn as a hologram inside Haynes' museum. Clayton is used for an electric chair simulation, where visitors can pull a lever to make Clayton experience the pain of the electric chair. They can then leave with key chain souvenirs that contain a preserved copy of Clayton eternally in agony.

In the present, Haynes begins to asphyxiate. Nish reveals herself to be Clayton's daughter: she hacked the museum's AC and poisoned the water she offered Haynes. She asserts that her father was actually innocent, but the state never overturned the conviction, and early protesters lost interest. Meanwhile, the museum lost traction, and Haynes was forced to allow wealthy sadists and racists to torture Clayton to the limit of his virtual consciousness, turning him into an empty shell. This caused Nish's mother to take a "bottle of pills and a bottle of vodka". Haynes passes out, and Nish transfers his consciousness into Clayton's hologram. She pushes the electric chair simulation to its maximum, allowing Haynes to experience the full force of the torture and finally putting Clayton's consciousness to rest. Taking the stuffed monkey along with her and a souvenir of Haynes in eternal agony, Nish returns to the car. Nish converses with her mother, who is revealed to share her consciousness with Nish, as Carrie did with Jack. Nish drives away, her mother shedding joyful tears as the museum is engulfed in flames.

Production

Whilst series one and two of Black Mirror were shown on Channel 4 in the UK, in September 2015 Netflix commissioned the series for 12 episodes, and in March 2016 it outbid Channel 4 for the rights to distributing the third series, with a bid of $40 million. The 12 episode order was divided into two series of six episodes each.

The first story in this episode was based on the short story "The Pain Addict" written by Penn Jillette in the 1980s.

The first story, involving Dr. Dawson, was based on a short story, "The Pain Addict", written by magician Penn Jillette early in his career. Jillette had written the story based on the personal experience of being ill in a Spanish welfare hospital in 1981, where it was difficult to get a diagnosis due to the language barrier. Jillette came up "The Pain Addict" from this experience, where there would be technology that allowed a doctor to understood what pain a person was suffering, but, as described by Jillette "this guy gets addicted to it and starts beating people to feel their pain. He also goes through S&M and all he wants to do is jack into Jesus on the cross. He wants to feel that pain." Jillette had planned to use the story in one of his first books along with his show partner Teller, but the publisher rejected it for being too dark. Jillette had been trying to shop for a venue for this story, and brought the idea when he had an opportunity to talk with Charlie Brooker. Around two years later, Brooker contacted Jillette to explain that "Black Museum" would be an anthology episode, and wanted to use "The Pain Addict" as part of it. Jillette allowed him to use the story, though Brooker did the necessary modifications for his show. Jillette then worked with Brooker to help suggest the idea of a framing story, which would involve a washed-up Las Vegas carny running the Black Museum outside of Vegas. Jillette wanted to audition for the role of the carny, but the production was too far along to change the casting.

Daniel Lapaine appears in this episode as Dr. Peter Dawson, after appearing in an unrelated role in the series one episode "The Entire History of You".

The episode took a month to film; locations include Nevada and Spain.

Marketing

In May 2017, a Reddit post unofficially announced the names and directors of the six episodes in series 4 of Black Mirror. The first trailer for the series was released by Netflix on 25 August 2017, and contained the six episode titles.

Beginning on 24 November 2017, Netflix published a series of posters and trailers for the fourth series of the show, referred to as the "13 Days of Black Mirror". On December 6, Netflix published a trailer featuring an amalgamation of scenes from the fourth series, which announced that the series would be released on 29 December.

Easter eggs

"Black Museum" includes Easter egg references back to each previous Black Mirror episode, according to director Colm McCarthy; many were placed by set designer Joel Collins. The episode makes many allusions to other episodes of Black Mirror, such as the "Fifteen Million Merits" comic Jack reads and the museum's entrance having a screen showing a picture of Victoria Skillane from "White Bear". Many museum artefacts are taken from previous episodes, for instance: an ADI from "Hated in the Nation"; the lollipop Daly uses to clone Walton's son in "USS Callister"; the tablet used by Marie in "Arkangel"; the bloodied bathtub where Shazia's husband was murdered in "Crocodile". Additionally, the episode makes multiple allusions to "San Junipero", featuring the company TCKR, naming a hospital Saint Juniper's and showing Yorkie and Kelly's dresses in the museum.

External links

• "Black Museum" at IMDb