Michael Suarez
The following recap contains spoilers for Black Mirror S7E1, “Common People” (written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Ally Pankiw)
“You will never understand
How it feels to live your life
With no meaning or control
And with nowhere left to go”– Pulp
The moment Dum Dummies was shown, I knew where things were headed, yet the first episode of Black Mirror’s Season 7, “Common People,” isn’t about inevitability. It’s more of a comment on what the regular people of the world must do to literally survive. It is one of creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker’s more obvious episodes in terms of themes, but I believe that approach ultimately served the story he told.
Mike (Chris O’Dowd) and Amanda (Rashida Jones) begin the episode on the day of their anniversary, and it’s clear that these two are in love and are enjoying life, even as they haven’t been able to get pregnant. As Amanda says, they’re hoping for a “happy accident,” but there’s already a crib in their home, so clearly, this is something they want. She’s an elementary teacher, ready to talk to a student who is being bullied or another student dealing with change in his life. Amanda seems like a good person, as does Mike, who works in construction.
He has a co-worker named Shane (Nicholas Cirillo), and he’s the one who shows Mike a site called Dum Dummies where people down on their luck do really messed up things to themselves for money, such as drinking their own urine. It’s not subtle, and as I said before, it’s clear that either Mike or Amanda will be on this site eventually. Before we get there, however, things take a turn after their anniversary when Amanda collapses in her classroom. She ends up in a coma, presumably never regaining consciousness ever again.
Thankfully, there’s a new procedure called Rivermind that will essentially copy Amanda’s mind and save it so that a surgeon can go in and remove the tumor that’s killing her. After, a synthetic part of her missing brain will be placed there, where it will be able to communicate with servers hosting Amanda’s mind via the cloud. For the time being, she wouldn’t be able to travel, she’d sleep about two hours more a night, and there would be a subscription fee of $300 a month. Mike thinks this over and decides he wants his wife to have her life back, so he signs up for it.
Things seem fine at first, but as they travel out to celebrate their next anniversary, it turns out that Rivermind is changing a few things. This is the first of many un-oh moments that make this one of the more thematically resonant episodes of Black Mirror in a few seasons. It turns out that Rivermind is changing up the tiers. For $500 more, they will be able to travel and gain access to a wider coverage area. Mike picks up extra shifts, they begin saving money, and they see one another less and less. Still, they both seem to believe it’s worth it until Amanda starts spewing ads.
This happens without her even knowing about it, and it threatens her job. The good news? There’s a new tier. For an additional $1000, no ads, a wider coverage area, and access to an app. This tier is called Rivermind Lux, and the app allows one to control his or her own mind, basically. Want to feel more confident, more easygoing? Just raise that part of your mind, and that’s that. Obviously, Mike and Amanda can’t afford it. Even with Mike now appearing on Dum Dummies.
Yes, Mike has begun making money through the site, doing some pretty awful, degrading things in the name of the almighty dollar. Once Rivermind Lux comes into play, Mike keeps pushing things, eventually revealing his face. Bad idea. Shane finds out and basically tells everyone at Mike’s job. Push comes to shove, and Mike hurts Shane and is fired.
What now? They can’t pay the bills, so they’ll be dropped down to the lowest tier with ads, which means Amanda will lose her job. Not only that, but they can’t even try to get pregnant now because that costs extra. Because of course it does. Everything costs something. By the episode’s end, Mike and Amanda understand the real cost of living in the modern world.
Is Brooker saying anything original with this episode? Not really, but his straightforward approach towards the themes of “Common People” feel angry. He wants us to feel for Mike and Amanda, and I certainly do. Neither begins the episode as a bad person, and neither becomes a bad person. They are victims of a system that takes advantage of regular, decent people. I think of not just the subscription model of Netflix (oddly enough, the very app that has Black Mirror in its library), which goes up exponentially as time goes on. There’s also the medical industry.
People die because they cannot afford an operation or medication. This isn’t an exaggeration. It happens. Rivermind sounds great, and it technically allows Amanda to continue to live, but at what cost? And I don’t simply mean money. The world moves because of money. We work for it, we strive for it, and we live because of it. The so-called gig economy exists because things cost too much. This isn’t changing anytime soon.
It sucks that “Common People” is one of Black Mirror’s most realistic episodes. It posits the world as it is now, with only Rivermind as the fantastic element. Even a site like Dum Dummies doesn’t feel unrealistic to me. If you showed me an equivalent that exists on the dark web, I wouldn’t be surprised, not in the least. But what has this drive to make more money taken from people who really need it? It destroys them.
Mike and Amanda are real people. I know them. I’m pretty much them. I have a job, but it doesn’t pay well. If anything serious were to happen to me, I would have very few choices available. I could use all of my savings and go broke, I could get another job and sleep less, or I could just suffer and die. That’s bleak, but it’s the truth. What options do Mike and Amanda really have? Of course, the counterargument to this is that Mike never had to sign up for Rivermind, and Amanda never had to go along with it once she woke up.
It, of course, is never that simple, no matter what anyone says. Do I have free will? You get I do. Do I have as much free will as a wealthy person? I do not. Mike and Amanda could choose to have Rivermind Lux, but what would they have to do to get it and keep making payments on it? How long would they be able to sustain that kind of life? I suppose they could simply not pay anymore, and Amanda could simply go back into a coma and eventually die. It’s a cold, detached option, but it’s there. Still, I cannot stop thinking about how much easier their lives would be if they had money to make payments to ensure Amanda could live as she always had and that Mike could go on living without going onto a site like Dum Dummies and hurting his mind, body, and soul.
Money can’t directly buy happiness, but since money makes the world move, it’s clear that it has some function in happiness. I know that the times in my life when I got paid well, I had less stress and managed a better lifestyle. It’s difficult now, and it has been for a long time. That’s not going to change anytime soon. In fact, I’m positive things are going to get worse.
Does that mean “Common People” is advocating for more inexpensive treatments for people with less means than others? I don’t believe so. I believe the episode is arguing against the system itself, something that, again, is not all that original. Still, I can’t help but root for what’s being said here. Enough with the tiers, with making desperate people pay outrageous money, and for people like Shane, who find it all hilarious.
I saw the big moments coming. It wasn’t a surprise when Mike began appearing on Dum Dummies, and the final few minutes didn’t come as a shock. That’s not a criticism. Charlie Brooker wanted us to know what was coming. There’s something to the idea of a tragedy unfolding before our eyes. The moment Gaynor (Tracee Ellis Ross) from Rivermind mentioned the original $300 monthly subscription fee, I knew that was going to be the downfall of Mike and Amanda.
Chris O’Dowd and Rashida Jones are excellent as Mike and Amanda. Within the opening scene, I cared about them. They’re likable, sure, but more than that, they’re relatable. I don’t relate to Tracee Ellis Ross’s Gaynor from Rivermind. I don’t care that she uses Rivermind Lux to adjust her emotions. That just makes her cold. She knows this is all wrong, and she uses her money to subscribe to Rivermind Lux in order to manipulate her own mind to not feel bad about not caring. Shane? He’s a despicable human being, and I don’t feel the slightest bit bad about what happens to him.
These four characters make choices in this episode that define who they are. Is Mike really doing all of this for Amanda? Or is he doing it to keep her around? Can he be doing it for both her and himself? Is that possible? I don’t know. As for Amanda, she struggles, and I do wonder if she sticks with it because Mike wants to stick with it. I wonder if it was the same way with their attempts to get pregnant. Regardless, they seem to be pretty selfless in how they treat one another. If anything, they’re lucky to have one another. Not all of us have someone.
This is key because, in the end, all they have is one another. Mike commits one more act of love before the end comes, and I fully understand it. Brooker and episode director Ally Pankiw earn the ending. All in all, I loved this episode, but as with other episodes of Black Mirror, I don’t have much of a desire to rewatch it ever again. This one hit a bit too close to home, and the pity of it is, as cynical as it sounds, the world as I know it is the very world from “Common People.” Money is too much a part of everything.
We will all die one day, but it would be nice to die with dignity. Some will have that chance, while others will not. Mike and Amanda didn’t, and you know what? It didn’t have to be that way.
