SPOILERS are ahead for Black Mirror Season 6 episode “Demon 79.” Stream the episode now with a Netflix subscription, and then come back for this breakdown.
A new season of Black Mirror is here, finally, after fans of the science-fiction Netflix series (like myself) have waited on it since the last season in 2019. And, while the first four episodes certainly bring more messed up concepts based on tech for audiences to get into, between the already viral “Joan Is Awful” premiere episode or the true crime vibes of “Loch Henry,” the finale “Demon 79” is something out of left field and new for the series. There’s no technology terrors in sight, it’s straight-up supernatural horror. It’s an unlikely and out-of-character move for the series, but I loved the execution of it all and need to talk about it.
Demon 79 follows a lonely woman, played by Sex Education’s Anjana Vasan, who makes friends with a demon -- played by I May Destroy You’s Paapa Essiedu -- to murderous consequences, and I absolutely loved what I watched. Let’s get into what worked about Demon 79 and the intriguing questions the concept raises for the future of the show.
Demon 79 Is An All-Time Great Episode
Demon 79’s protagonist is a sales assistant at a shoe store living in Northern England in 1979. She regularly experiences racism and misogyny at her workplace, which has her daydreaming of violence in order to get through the day. However, things really shake up for her after she’s forced to eat her Biryani in the basement of the store, after her coworker complains about the “lingering” smell, and finds a mysterious talisman. As she soon finds out, the talisman is home to a demon who tasks her to kill three people over three days otherwise the world as she knows it will end.
I love that the demon takes the form of one of the members of the disco group, Boney M. It’s one of those eccentric details that separates the good from great. There’s also a really worthwhile discussion to be had about Needa having to confront her rage about the racism and misogyny in her life as she decides who she’s alright with killing for the greater good. She settles on offing people who are less than saints, but in the end she cannot complete the task in time to save the world. She ultimately decides to go live in eternal damnation with her only friend, the demon, who shook up her life in the first place.
It’s a chilling horror concept that illustrates the uphill battle of trying to fit into the world as a minority when the odds are stacked against one, Though, it has nothing to do with technology, I think it sits among the best Black Mirror episodes.
But It’s Not Really Black Mirror, It’s Red Mirror…
As Demon 79 continued to unfold, I found myself fully immersed and entertained with the episode, yet wholly confused as to what makes it Black Mirror. Upon further investigation, I realized that it never claimed to be Black Mirror. The episode is actually labeled as “Red Mirror,” something we’ve never seen from the series until Demon 79. The title makes sense because rather than some form of screen being the “mirror” to hold up reality to, it’s the horrific violence and blood of the concept that is actually staring back at the audience. Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker explained the distinction to RadioTimes, saying this:
Demon 79 opens with a 'Red Mirror presents' title sequence, marking it out as 'different-from-yet-adjacent-to' Black Mirror. This is because, typically, Black Mirror has focused on tech dystopias or media satire, whereas this story has a stronger supernatural element, harking back to 1970s horror. The episode is almost unclassifiable.
In other words, Brooker very much knows that Demon 79 is different than your average Black Mirror episode and labeled it as such. He also said this:
[Whether there’s more Red Mirror] depends what people make of it and how it gets received and this, that and the other… It was really really useful as a sort of refresh - a reset. When Black Mirror started, it was 2011 and at the time, there weren’t many shows that looked like it or there weren’t many shows where someone looked at a smartphone frankly, let alone obsessed over one and sat there staring at it until it ruined them. It felt like there’s quite a few shows with dystopian sci-fi technical themes.
Brooker makes a good point. When Black Mirror first hit the scene, it was more unique to see storylines speak to the horrors of technology. These days, it seems we are always inundated with stories about A.I. and world-ending tech that I’m not surprised that the creator felt the need to change up the constraints of storytelling for himself. Considering the results are incredible, I’m gunning for a Red Mirror spinoff series next, or something of that sort.
How Demon 79 Could Be A Game Changer For The Netflix Series
Charlie Brooker is a talented writer who we’ve been counting on for Black Mirror for over a decade now. The Netflix series has become an absolute phenomenon, but I can see how the show’s premise could be backing him into a corner lately. He’s explored so many what-ifs surrounding how technology is really messing with us as a society or has the power to, it would be fun to see him explore more of the bigger questions about our society as it is after Demon 79.
I really loved the way the episode adapted one pitfall of humanity many can relate to with a supernatural horror story, and I could see how that could be expanded through other original stories for Brooker to run wild with.
What other supernatural forces in our belief systems and iconic mythos of our culture, perhaps like angels, ghosts, vampires, mermaids, etc, could be turned into messed up storylines for the Black Mirror to explore? While, it seems like Brooker is holding off on Red Mirror until he sees how it's received by audiences, it seems like a natural way for the creator to transition his storytelling into another avenue to terrify us in completely new ways.
