White Bear (Black Mirror)

Plot

A woman (Lenora Crichlow) wakes up in a house and realizes she has amnesia. She is surrounded by images of a small girl (Imani Jackman)—whom she assumes is her daughter—as well as photos of herself and a man (Nick Ofield). She leaves the house and notices several people recording her on their phones who ignore her pleas for help. A masked man arrives and opens fire at her with a shotgun. She flees and meets Jem (Tuppence Middleton) and Damien (Ian Bonar). Jem and the woman escape the masked man, who kills Damien. Jem explains that a mysterious signal began appearing on television and over the Internet, turning most of the population into passive voyeurs who do nothing but record everything around them. The woman and Jem are unaffected, but they are also a target for the "hunters", unaffected humans who act sadistically. Jem plans to reach a transmitter at "White Bear" to destroy it and stop the signal's effect on the area.

As they travel, a man named Baxter (Michael Smiley), who is also unaffected, picks them up. However, he drives them to a forest where he holds them at gunpoint. As the woman is about to be tortured, Jem kills Baxter. They continue traveling to the transmitter, while the woman has visions of past and future events. When they reach the transmitter, two hunters attack them. The woman wrestles a shotgun away from a hunter and fires at her attacker, but the gun only sprays confetti.

The walls open to reveal an audience applauding after observing the escapade; Jem, Damien, and the hunters are revealed to be actors. The woman is strapped to a chair, and Baxter appears and explains everything. Her name is Victoria Skillane, and the girl in the photo is actually a six-year-old girl named Jemima Sykes. Victoria and her fiancé, Iain Rannoch, abducted the girl a few miles from her home. Iain tortured and killed the girl and then burned her body, while Victoria recorded his actions on her mobile phone. The "White Bear", originally the victim's teddy bear, became a symbol of the nationwide search and the murder investigation. The symbol on the television was identical to the tattoo that identified Iain, who committed suicide in his cell before the trial. Having tearfully pleaded guilty, insisting she was "under Iain's spell", Victoria was sentenced to undergo a daily punishment where she would feel the same feelings of terror and helplessness that the victim had.

Victoria, who still has no clear memory of these events, is driven back to the compound past a crowd who, encouraged by the staff, are baying for her blood, and returned to where she awoke. As Victoria is shown footage of Jemima, Baxter places electrodes on her head, wiping her memory of the day's events. Over the end credits, the new day's events are seen from the point of view of the "White Bear Justice Park" staff and the park visitors who play the part of those filming Victoria.

Production

Brooker originally envisioned the episode as "a straightforward [zombie] apocalypse story", featuring the same woman who was to be a journalist;— the same signal would be affecting people all over the world. It was to end with a public crucifixion, although Brooker does not specify if it is the main character who dies. The twist ending was not in the original script, and it was only when they were scouting for locations on a former U.S. Air Force base, where he saw a fence that he came up with it. He said: "I saw the housing, a gas station, and I saw this fence running around outside the place. I was like, 'That's interesting, there's a fence. A fence. A fence!' And the twist suddenly occurred to me." Brooker then rewrote the script in two days "in a bit of a fever dream". He noted that he had never changed a script so "dramatically" so late in the production process.

In fact, he rewrote it four times and the original idea came to him when he was directing the zombie series Dead Set. During the shooting of a scene in which a character is chased by a zombie, some school kids appeared and started phone-filming and taking photos. He considered it to be "an interesting and frightening image, because they're standing there, not intervening". Brooker converted it to a script for Dead Set, in which "a photo spread over social media had unlocked this primal urge for people to be voyeurs of agony". Although the idea was given the green light, they did not have the budget to do it. Brooker had other ideas that were removed from the original script because they would be complicated to do. He said he could use these ideas in a sequel story which would involve the main character finding messages that she had left for herself on previous days as the process of erasing her mind starts to not function. However, as the location for the episode no longer exists, he felt it would be more practical to create a graphic novel instead of recreating the scenario.

Themes

Despite the similarities to real murder cases, David Sims noted the focus is not any single case, arguing that when an "abhorrent crime" occurs people create "totem[s] of hatred and evil" through the murder's figures. He said "Brooker is examining and heightening" what he calls the "lurid media frenzy" trend. Lambie declared there are "allusions to real-life witch hunts often led by red-top newspapers", while Aubrey Page of Collider.com said it touches "the tabloidization of criminal cases". Simon Cocks of Screen Anarchy at first considered "it could merely be an allegorical representation of the internet(sic) (which it is, but it's also much more)". He said it discusses "how we currently process information and how we as a society treat the most shocking of news stories". Roxanne Sancto of Paste wrote it is aimed at "the media and its tendency to turn horrific news stories into national spectacles, riling people up to the point of mass panic and violence in the process". Alfred Joyner of International Business Times stated "the argument is that in the media notorious criminals must be demonised to appease the public's insatiable appetite to see that 'justice' is served". Joyner believes that Brooker implicates the viewer with the story's credits scene, noting "we're the ones with the smartphones, passively absorbing abuses to human rights and decency, and yet revelling in the image from the safety of the screen". With this, Brooker "implicate[s] the viewer into the media they consume".

Andrew Liptak of The Verge said it "present[s] people as victims in technology's hands", while Joyner commented it denotes that "the way in which we are spoon-fed an almost constant stream of information through technology has turned us into passive consumers". Mark Monahan of The Telegraph considered it is "not much of a stretch to imagine", in the real world, the "mute zombies incapable of doing anything but gormlessly filming stuff on their smartphones". Leigh Alexander of Boing Boing says "The voyeurs are possessed of a visible, quiet eagerness that you’ve seen on anyone looking at the world through a smartphone’s video recorder ." She felt the episode reflects how violence is easily accessed on the Internet and quickly arouses people's attention. She noted, "you can view the episode as a critique of all kinds of themes: Mob mentality, reality television, even the complicated treatment of women in the justice system ... Primarily, though, this episode is a critique of our deep, often-unexamined mass desensitization, or at least a dread portent of its potential to grow. It aims to ask: To what extent can you stand by and watch horror before you are complicit, punishable?" Morgan Jeffery of Digital Spy commented its theme is "society as dumb voyeurs - so desensitised to violence and terror that we can turn real-life horror into entertainment". Jeffery also dubbed it "a dark parody of ... recording events on our phones, often incidents of a violent nature, at the expense of stepping in and doing our part to correct the situation". Jon O'Brien of Metro identified "the concepts of human empathy, vigilantism and murder as entertainment", and James Poniewozik of The New York Times stated it "touches on themes of cruelty and vigilantism".

Monahan commented that the episode "mocked, above all, our insatiable, voyeuristic, neo-Medieval thirst for supposedly 'real-life' pain and humiliation repackaged as entertainment". Sam Parker of The Huffington Post stated it represents "a cruel society's fantasy of 'real justice'". Parker concluded it contains "the idea that our compulsion to document our lives is replacing our desire to participate in it, like the people who see violence break out ... and decide to film it rather than intervene. The fact Victoria was a murderer allows them to accept her suffering, but it's the mobile phones that allow them to enjoy it - after all, she's just a character on their screens." Liptak considered it depicts "some form of perverted justice", while some of TheWrap's staff members wrote "it's a sharp critique of armchair prosecutors". Page said it deals with "the glee of remote punishment we regularly dole out via the anonymity of the Internet". Corey Atad of Esquire commented it is "about our social appetite for punishment", while Weber included Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish as "bonus reading" to understand the episode. While Sims stated "the great parallels between Victoria's own torture and the crime she committed, are undeniable", Joyner considered it to be central to its critique. When her crime is revealed, Joyner wrote, "the construction of the White Bear centre becomes apparent now, as a real-life karmic experience for the general public who wish to see biblical retribution".

Sims said Victoria's suffering made it "brutally tough to watch" and made the viewer sympathise with her. Alexander called it "uncomfortable", but Lambie affirmed that while it is "nasty ... it's more than mere attention-seeking" and that there is a "certain sense of morality underlying" it. He said it "explores how human empathy breaks down when individuals are reduced to an image on a screen", and concludes "... that whether it's directed at the innocent or the guilty, cruelty is still cruelty". Sims commented that with the repetition of Victoria's suffering "we can't help but sympathize. At the same time, we're being asked to sympathize with someone whose crime was unforgivable, and we're given very little context into her mental state, since her mind has been erased so many times that the crime is barely a memory." Sancto felt the episode "plays with the viewer's emotions" so as to have the viewer sympathise with Victoria, "making it all the more difficult to find a moral stance on her story in the end". Atad asserted it ultimately lead viewers to reflect upon "their own thirst for so-called justice and the competing value of empathy". Gareth Dimelow of Sabotage Times concluded it leaves the viewer to ponder: "If someone has no recollection of their crimes, can they be effectively punished? Does our societal bloodlust for vengeance make us just as dangerous as the criminals we seek to discipline?" Although he agreed it is "a genuinely chilling and morally complex idea", Richard Edwards of GamesRadar found that "Brooker doesn't come down on either side of the fence, leaving you to make up your own mind".

Joyner stated the episode uses "the idea of having what the viewers are led to believe as reality exposed as a sham". Alexander affirmed this could be interpreted as questioning "the assumptions we bring to the things we see – we can capture nearly any issue from all angles and pin it to virtual glass forever, but still only own a piece of the story, the unknowable remainder filled in by our own preconceptions". Alasdair Stuart of Bleeding Cool commented it "builds on this idea of the reflection that you know is fake but can't look away from and internalizes it". With the plot twist, Stuart said, "we're shown exactly what's been a reflection of the truth all along; everything". He also affirmed it questions "our own fundamental need to be the hero or heroine of our own story".

Reception

"White Bear" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 at 10 pm on 18 February 2013. According to the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board, the episode was viewed by an estimated 1.2 million viewers, which was 7.2% of the British audience. This was lower than the second series premier, "Be Right Back", which was watched by 1.6 million people (9%). Brooker opined that "White Bear" is definitely the episode that provides "the most visceral, holy shit reaction from viewers", while Hibberd deemed it a "fan-favorite".

The episode was mainly well received and it appeared on several lists of the series' best episodes. Sancto deemed it the best episode among the first seven first because its theme was presented "in a chilling manner", while O'Brien ranked it as second best. He called it "an intense watch from start to finish" and said "it's the episode which undoubtedly packs the biggest emotional punch". Page elected it fourth best among the thirteen episodes, asserting that "what [it] lacks in pointed societal commentary, it no doubt makes up for in its ability to truly disturb. One of the series' few 'gotcha' episodes, 'White Bear' has put off many a viewer as spinning on a cheap twist, but despite the fact that the episode's impact does turn on a reveal, there's little in the episode that even feels remotely done before." Mat Elfring of GameSpot placed it fifth out of thirteen, labelling it "the most successful horror episode to date". Atad ranked it seven out of thirteen, saying it "begins a dystopian horror reminiscent of 28 Days Later, but where it ends up is far more disturbing". Out of the thirteen, Hibberd ranked it eighth, higlighting "a twist you won't see coming" and noting that "most [would] rank this episode much higher; I just happened to like the rest of the episodes better". Moreover, Stuart said it "may be one of the best hours of TV produced [in 2013]" - it is "certainly one of the tidiest". He emphasised how it transits from "John Wyndham stuff" to horror and then action, and commended its final twist. He concluded: "The last fifteen minutes of White Bear are amongst the most blisteringly angry pieces of television I've ever seen."

It is considered to have "one of the most shocking twists on Black Mirror", as Jenelle Riley of Variety puts it, some time before the third series started. Writing before the third series, Margaret Lyons of The New York Times said it is "the most outright disturbing" episode of Black Mirror. Right after it aired, Cocks deemed it "the single darkest episode of Black Mirror so far" and considered its twist to be "nothing short of genius". Sims rated the episode a B+, stating that it "is, by a significant margin, the most disturbing episode Black Mirror has produced...The twist is a smart one, brilliantly concealed and smartly revealed, but once the point is made, it is made over and over again." Lambie praised its "fearsome pace" and highlighted "its subtle approach", with sparse dialogue, that gives "the events and performances greater impact". He concluded: "its horror-infused drama leaves us unsure whom we can trust or what will happen next, and its last act is truly gut-wrenching". Monahan gave the episode 3.5/5 stars, and wrote that "the half-time twist was one I doubt anyone saw coming" and the episode "was an exciting and efficient piece of narrative rug-pulling".

Jane Simon of Daily Mirror said that "White Bear" lacked the "instant emotional tug" of the series opener. She commented that, a third of the way through the episode, she had lost hope of its concluding well, "[...] the acting was unbelievable, the script was riddled with horror-film cliches, the violence was a bit over the top [...]", but that by the end she "turned out to be absolutely dead wrong on every single count". Joyner praised it as "stylistically ... breath-taking" with "intense action", but felt "the themes come across as particularly flat" and "hardly original". He was disappointed until the "remarkable twist" showed "what's more interesting here ... the steps that are taken throughout the final 20 minutes" that have "crafted an hour of television more bold and daring than I've seen in a long time". Jeffery commended how "the viewer is never in danger of getting bored" and said "this is Black Mirror as full-blooded horror", while criticized the characters and the final sequence as "a little overlong and obvious". TheWrap's staff was divided; while some found it has a good social critique, others considered it to be "least effective when it goes for horror".

Regarding the acting and the characters, Sims and Monahan praised Middleton's performance. On the other hand, Simon said "Crichlow's talent was wasted by a script that required her to do little more than pant in breathless terror." Monahan stated "by the end of White Bear I had rather had my fill of Crichlow's wailing". Parker called her a "scared witless victim" and commented Crichlow "just keeps crying and staring at the world in disbelief. It's a harrowing performance with no arc or resolutions, just sheer fear and distress." Lambie said: "If there's a criticism to be levelled at the first two-thirds of White Bear, it's that Victoria's carried helplessly along by events." Jeffery criticized the fact "Victoria maintains one emotional level across the episode ... she's tearful, panicked and terrified throughout", but he remarked it was not Crichlow's fault, while praising Middleton and Smiley as "uniformly excellent." Cocks was more favorable, calling it "impressive ... how fully Crichlow commits to her performance". He also attributed to her performance "one of the episode's greatest accomplishments ... how much it makes audience members feel as though they are in the position of this lost woman with no memories". Edwards asserted she gave a "tour de force performance" that is "an excellent, convincing portrayal of a frightened, confused woman".

Some reviewers were less favorable. It was ranked eleventh out of the thirteen episodes by Charles Bramesco of Vulture, who said its message is "lost beneath a simplistic twist that pulls a switcheroo and [it] fails to do much else". Parker was even more critical, comparing the first 45 minutes to "a low-budget, low-quality version of 28 Days Later" saying it is full of "horror movie clichés". Ultimately he stated, "It’s basically the worst thing he’s ever written, which, you come to realise, is the whole point."