It would not be wrong to call Black Mirror‘s sixth season one of the most anticipated shows in 2023, mainly because the new season dropped after a long gap of four years. The first episode of the season, “Joan Is Awful,” managed to engage the audience because its plot revolved around a fictional streaming app called Streamberry.
Since the popularity of streaming platforms has greatly increased in the last few years, it is understandable why Black Mirror decided to dedicate an entire episode to it and explore how it can act as a double-edged sword, especially with the actual rise of artificial intelligence and supercomputers. Moreover, the episode is led by a talented cast, including Annie Murphy, Salma Hayek, and Michael Cera.
The primary plot of Joan Is Awful is that a quantum computer (called “quamputer” in the episode) is capable of generating entertainment content in real time based on the lives of actual people. The episode itself takes place inside the quamputer, and it gets destroyed at the end. As a result, the ending is quite confusing for the audience, so let’s analyze it in detail.
Satirical Take on Streaming Platforms
“Joan Is Awful” takes a bold step to satirize the streaming culture that has become prevalent around the world, especially considering that Black Mirror was released on Netflix. The episode shows Joan’s (Annie Murphy) life turned upside down when Streamberry, a fictional streaming app with a similar logo to Netflix, decides to make a TV show based on her life and show her actual life to the entire world.
Salma Hayek plays Joan in Streamberry’s show, and Joan gets her attention by defecating in a church. Appalled by this entire incident, Salma Hayek tries to get the show canceled, but her lawyer lawyers tell her that she sold her “digital likeness” to the streaming platform and they can use it anyway they want.
While such kinds of agreements might seem too far from reality at first, recent events, including the SAG-AFTRA and WGA Strikes, have revealed that the streaming platforms are, in fact, using similar legal agreements, especially for background artists. It shows that Black Mirror has maintained the trend of having a unique and futuristic take on technology while also depicting some kind of possible reality.
Who is the Real Joan?
The majority of Joan Is Awful takes place within the quamputer in which multiple realities and shows are taking place simultaneously. This type of story can be confusing for the audience, and so a major question in the episode is who is the real John.
At first, the viewers are led to believe that Annie Murphy’s Joan is real and Salma Hayek’s Joan in the Streamberry show is fake. However, it is eventually revealed through Michael Cera’s character, Beppe, that both of these Joans are fake and playing a version of the real Joan called the “Source Joan.” The Source Joan is revealed to be an average person played by Kayla Lorette, who appears at the very end of the episode. It is also revealed that all the events unfolding in the episode have been taking place at the AI-generated Fictive Level One.
Interestingly, the episode is confusing not only for the audience but also for the cast. Murphy revealed that she was asking Charlie Brooker, creator/writer, about the episode’s plot till the very last minute. Hayek also said that she relied on Murphy to understand the technology involved in the episode, but they were still left confused by the entire plot.
Role of Quamputer
Quamputer is a supercomputer that Streamberry is using to create an infinite number of AI-generated worlds containing a variety of content based on real people. Beppe is the one who tells Joan and Hayek that they are living in an AI-generated world, and the character of Joan is played by various actors in different worlds. Moreover, Beppe reveals that the destruction of the quamputer will kill everyone in different digital worlds.
Murphy’s Joan assumes that all of her actions are based on the decisions taken by the actual Source Joan, so she must destroy the computer. However, it is important to note that some of the actions of Hayek’s Joan are different from Murphy’s Joan in the Streamberry show, so there is a chance that Quamputer is capable of creating different realities with varying behaviors. Nevertheless, Joan ends up destroying the quamputer and, hence, kills all the versions living in it. The final scenes reveal that Source Joan had made the same choice and was escorted out by the security of Streamberry.
What Does the Ending Mean?
Joan Is Awful ends with an epilogue in which Source Joan became friends with Annie Murphy and opened a coffee shop while being under house arrest. Overall, it is possible to interpret the ending of this episode in many different ways. The primary message it gives is that despite massive advancement, AI systems have limited creative capabilities and can only act on human data. It reflects Booker’s opinion about ChatGPT and other AI tools.
The director, Ally Pankiw, has also said that the episode depicts the horror women feel when their personal lives are made public for society’s consumption, and they lose control over their own image. While the episode deals with various themes and interpretations, it is overall a creative episode led by comedic performances, so you can enjoy it without even overthinking its message.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
