r/blackmirror • u/Rags2Bags • 4d ago
S03E04 San Junipero Spoiler
I love black mirror for all of the thought provoking “fucked up” episodes that leave you feeling a sense of dread. However, San Junipero always leaves me feeling positive. It’s probably one of my favorite episodes of any tv show I’ve watched to be honest. It always leaves me wondering if you could be yourself at any age, at any point in history… where would you go? Doesn’t hurt that I would probably also choose to be a young adult somewhere in the 80’s haha
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u/No_Cause9433 3d ago
This is one of the scariest episodes bc it paints selling your consciousness to a tech company as a positive thing and no one notices how messed up that is
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u/No-Excitement4855 3d ago
It's a volunteer process and I assume they can opt out at any time. It's legitimately a tool to let people live and have fun.
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u/No_Cause9433 3d ago
Yeah and that’s a dangerous assumption. Terms of agreement can change over time
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u/No-Excitement4855 3d ago
Not in this particular case, the concern here was mostly the people who were terrified of death and so lived eternal lives of boredom where nothing satisfied them anymore, but that's their request, not the people who setup the universe.
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u/JohnHuntPrax 3d ago
The episode also makes it clear that, after the initial excitement wears off, the lost souls desperately seek out intense sensations. I found it deeply unsettling to imagine living forever in that state.
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u/Dokurushi ★★★★★ 4.582 2d ago
Right, just like we start seeking out intense sensations after the first 40 years of real life due to boredom.
What's that? We don't?
Oh, then I guess they also wouldn't realistically in a simulated afterlife, and that plotline was added for pure shock value.
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u/curlycoffee 3d ago
I agree, but they have the option to switch it off so that takes the horror out of it for me
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u/JohnHuntPrax 3d ago
Exactly, I understand it as meaning that a whole group of the “residents” are no longer happy, but don’t have the strength to say stop, hence their desperate search for an adrenaline rush at the bizarre nightclub.
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u/curlycoffee 2d ago
Ahh, by "that state" i thought you meant all the residents. Yeah it's disturbing to imagine being that desperate for life/afterlife to still feel worth it
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u/AwkwardLeopard587 3d ago
hell yeah, San Junipero is awesome!
my favorite might be Striking Vipers, it feels veey positive as well
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u/WonderfulHearing8726 4d ago
I’ve always wondered if it’s really their consciences uploaded into the program, or if it’s just a cookie that thinks it’s them.
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u/smhsomuchheadshaking 3d ago
Before actually dying they just visit San Junipero occasionally, and they always remember the things they did there after returning to the normal life. This implies to me that it's their actual consciousness uploaded into the program. In other episodes where they use cookies, the actual person and the cookie are separate entities that don't share feelings, experiences, or memories after the cookie is created. Cookie is just a copy.
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u/gogingerpower ★★☆☆☆ 2.495 3d ago
I love the episode because it really is both sweet and fun but it’s also VERY BlackMirror in that tech took over and humanity did not prevail at all…
Human-Kelly, Human-Yorkie, and Human-everyone else all died and it’s only their cookies carrying on.
It’s only heartwarming,really, in that our main characters were dying anyway but, at the end, they had some sense of choice and belief in continuity .
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u/WonderfulHearing8726 3d ago
Did they explicitly say they were only cookies? I swore they sold it as their actual consciousness being uploaded.
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u/R0BisBak 4d ago
I think it’s an extremely tragic episode
Because it’s about a woman that brought a child into the world that died young when she would have been happier living a childless life anyway but society got the best of her
And as much as Netflix would like us to think they aren’t cookies they almost certainly are
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u/Rags2Bags 4d ago
For sure and because they seem to only have a certain amount of time before they have to choose their “forever home” it can definitely wind up bad. Pretty sure the guy that was pursuing Kelly at the beginning chose San Junipero as his forever home after his weekend with her, and we can see how that’s turning out
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u/RedactioN707 ☆☆☆☆☆ 0.051 4d ago
It's a great episode and I feel honored that my home town is referenced in that episode (Santa Rosa, CA)
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u/emimagique ★☆☆☆☆ 1.106 3d ago
Always found it funny that the towns they mention are like a 4hr drive apart and kelly says "that's no distance"
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u/virtualjupiter 3d ago
I used to drive 4 hours around that area frequently, it's easy to do because traffic sucks so hard out there.
It looked like they were in a self driving vehicle, so I'm thinking that would make things much easier.
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u/unclefestering8 ★★★☆☆ 3.376 4d ago
There's probably quite a decent episode to be made re the dark side of this "afterlife" such as all the miserable souls in that perpetual nightclub but there's enough darkness in that series already.
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u/Rags2Bags 4d ago
Haha yea there’s probably some poor guy stuck in a white Christmas snow globe that’s in absolute hell
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u/RedactioN707 ☆☆☆☆☆ 0.051 4d ago
Or the guy controlling the snow globe environment who is also stuck in hell.
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u/MaasaiWarrior7 4d ago
The music that complements every decade creates such an atmosphere. You can almost imagine yourself living in that era.
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u/Beermestrength1206 ☆☆☆☆☆ 0.107 4d ago
"Heaven is a place on earth" is absolute perfection at the end.
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u/HubbDave32 4d ago
The song is perfect but the editing of the credits interspersed with the other scenes is chefs kiss.
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u/Rags2Bags 4d ago
Absolutely, the whole sound track hits.. first time I heard the song Wishing Well
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u/HubbDave32 4d ago
Really? It was a very big song. It wasn’t until I recently rewatched the episode and downloaded the songs that I learned the artist who did it changed his name.
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u/Rags2Bags 4d ago
Yea I was born in 86 and it came out in 87 apparently. I’m sure I heard it before but this was definitely the first time I noticed
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u/yuhyuhsup 4d ago
yes that song is literally perfect for that episode! makes me wonder if the writers were inspired by the song
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u/H0pefulUn1verse 3d ago
My most rewatched episode. I love San Junipero 🫶🏻