Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Is the Ending of Black Mirror’s ‘San Junipero’ Exactly As It Seems?

By 

Jackson McHenry

Spoilers ahead for those who haven’t watched this particular episode of Black Mirror yet.

It’s already ruined our lives, according to the rest of Black Mirror, but now, the internet would like to ruin “San Junipero.” By most accounts, that episode, which centers on a romance between Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Kelly and Mackenzie Davis’s Yorkie, interrupts the rest of the cynical gloom of the rest of season three of Black Mirror like sunshine breaking through the clouds (or rants about the Cloud). The two characters turn out to be avatars of two near-dead humans, and by the end of the episode, both cheat death and decide to live with each other in San Junipero’s Belinda Carlisle afterlife.

Black Mirror

Courtesy of Netflix.

Inside “San Junipero,” Black Mirror’s Uncharacteristically Beautiful Nostalgia Trip

Charlie Brooker and Gugu Mbatha-Raw explain the choice to focus on a same-sex couple without giving them a tragic end.

by LAURA BRADLEY
OCTOBER 28, 2016 9:00 AM

“San Junipero” is not your typical Black Mirror episode. The sunny installment in Charlie Brooker’s typically gray, murky dystopia has no sense of foreboding. There’s no dubious technical advance threatening to destroy anyone’s life as she knows it. There’s just a beautiful love story, heartwarmingly portrayed by Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis. The episode has been lauded not only as one of Black Mirror’s most accomplished yet, but also as a rare find among TV offerings in general: a story starring a same-sex couple that doesn’t end in pure tragedy.

Brooker said that in writing “San Junipero” he aimed “to upend the notion of what a Black Mirror episode was.” The show started out with the goal of telling a wide variety of stories, after all.

“I’d read some people going, ‘Oh, it’s going to Netflix; it’s all going to be American now. It’s all going to be little kids playing baseball.’ And I thought, Ah, fuck you, then, O.K. California. Haha!,” Brooker said with a laugh.

Brooker and Mbatha-Raw sat down with Vanity Fair to discuss the episode, Brooker’s choice to focus on two women, and what it was like to bring the story to life. But before you read on, make sure you’ve seen the episode. Spoilers a-plenty ahead.

The story of San Junipero: why Charlie Brooker's Emmy-winning vision of Heaven will live forever

Helen O´Hara

18 SEPTEMBER 2017 • 7:40AM

In January 2015 the humourist Mallory Ortberg summed up Charlie Brooker’s tech-anthology series Black Mirror as “What if phones, but more so?”. The science fiction show focuses on how high technology and low entertainment can magnify our flaws and destroy our relationships.

Black Mirror / San Junipero wins at Emmys, as Charlie Brooker urges crowd to 'physically make love'

Mackenzie Davis and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Black Mirror: San Junipero

Black Mirror: San Junipero wins at Emmys, as Charlie Brooker urges crowd to 'physically make love'

 Telegraph Reporters 

18 SEPTEMBER 2017 • 8:49AM

Netflix's sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror took two awards at last night's Primetime Emmys, with show creator Charlie Brooker winning both Outstanding Television Movie and an Outstanding Writing award for the episode San Junipero, a futuristic love story.

Black Mirror, season 3, San Junipero, review / 'Charlie Brooker's dark sci-fi has never felt bigger'

Black Mirror, season 3, San Junipero, review: 'Charlie Brooker's dark sci-fi has never felt bigger'

Robbie Collin, film critic 

21 OCTOBER 2016 • 7:19PM

With its move to Netflix from Channel 4, its ad breaks duly shed, and its season length doubled to an invitingly bingeable six-pack, Black Mirror has never felt bigger. Though conceptually speaking, Charlie Brooker’s dark science-fiction anthology series has always been a heavyweight.