Well, that was horrifying, wasn't it? In perhaps the darkest of all the Black Mirror season six episodes, "Beyond The Sea" promised us a retro-futuristic look at space technology and ended with not one but two almighty bloodbaths, as well as two men staring into a loveless void for eternity.
The standout episode from the new series features Aaron Paul, Josh Hartnett and Kate Mara in an alternate version of the 1960s, in which a human replicant programme has been created. David (Hartnett) and Cliff (Aaron) are both astronauts sent up into a space station for a six-year mission, and their cyborg clones are left down on earth with their wives and families. But the technology is so advanced that the real-life men in space are able to jump back into their duplicate bodies down in the earth, so normal life can resume for a few days a week.
Which is all fine and dandy, until a nature-loving death cult (including the actor Rory Culkin) shows up and causes everything to career out of control. But while most of the violence is off screen, the ending is left a little ambiguous. Let's pull it apart to see what it all meant.
A third of the way into the 80-minute film, the cult show up at David's house, and as they believe the "natural order" of humanity has been perverted, they kill David's wife and children while he's forced to watch. Then, if that wasn't enough, they set his replicant on fire. The real David up in the space station is completely devastated, to the point where he's almost catatonic.
Cliff and his wife, Lana (Mara) obviously feel for David, and Lana suggests an idea: why doesn't David jump into Cliff's body, enabling him to come back down to Earth for a bit of rest and recuperation. You know, just to process what has happened?
David thinks it's a great idea, and agrees to do so. It proves cathartic, as David-as-Cliff breaks down, crying into Lana while she gives him a much-needed human hug.
The trip becomes a more regular event, with David saying thank you by painting a picture of the couple's house. But he begins to take liberties when he hits Lana and Cliff's young son after he throws paint onto his landscape masterpiece, and David then makes a move on Lana (in the same way he did with his late wife, by slow-dancing to the song Beyond The Sea, hence the title of the episode).
But this romance isn't reciprocated, as Lana tells David that it's too confusing for her: him hitting on her in her husband's body (well, quite). Lana speaks with Cliff and tells him that David's visits have to stop.
Cliff then finds a shrine of drawings dedicated to Lana in David's space bunk and confronts him over whether he's having an affair with his wife, and the pair get into a fight. When Cliff jumps back down to Earth he also confronts Lana, who tells him that while nothing happened, she's lonely and alienated from him as her husband: "For a moment, it felt like my husband was back and he saw that I'm real".
With an agreement between the couple that David will no longer return, Cliff transports back into space but can't help but wind up David, telling his space friend that the thought of him made Lana want "to vomit".
Later, Cliff receives an emergency message, calling him back to the space station, where David tells him to don the full gear and head out into space, as their tubing is broken. Cliff gets on with the operation, but when he tries to enter back into the space station, David ignores him. Hands up if you thought this was going to be the ending?
In actual fact, it's so much worse. David lets Cliff back in, telling him he's just been to the bathroom. But when he's given back his belongings, his tag is missing, which is used by the men to travel back to Earth - it's been in David's pocket. When Cliff runs to his bunker, he returns to Earth fearing the worst. He's not wrong. Again, while violence is implied rather than shown, we see replicant Cliff with blood all over him, bloodied handprints on the walls. Then he sees a sight that causes him to break down crying, suggesting that Lana and his son have been murdered by David.
The final scene is Cliff, sobbing, walking back into the communal room in the space station. David, staring at him, slowly nods, all but confirming he is responsible. He kicks the chair next to him out defiantly, almost suggesting that Cliff join him. With one replicant set on fire and hacked to bits, and the other one presumably either decommissioned or imprisoned for murder, both men are unable to ever return to Earth again. Here they are, tethered together, two widows, out in space for eternity, with one of the men forced to live alongside the murderer who killed his family. Cheery stuff, eh?
Black Mirror series six is streaming on Netflix now.