BLACK MIRROR, 7.2 – ‘Bête Noire’
Confectionary whizz kid Maria is unnerved when her former schoolmate Verity joins the company she works at… because there's something altogether odd about Verity, that only Maria seems to notice.
Experiencing déjà vu or the Mandela Effect is a borderline hallucinatory experience, where the hard edges of the fact-based reality that encircles us in every waking moment blur to a fuzzy line. The distant horizon of all that we take for granted in our awareness of this world isn’t just suddenly drawn into focus, it becomes a vanishing point upon doing so. This is exactly what afflicts Maria (Siena Kelly), the protagonist of Black Mirror’s second episode in its seventh season, “Bête Noire”. A ‘confectionery whizz kid’ (i.e. someone who comes up with new ingredients for junk food), she’s an accomplished professional whose entire identity is thrown for a loop when she encounters Verity (Rosy McEwen), a food tester for her new product idea and former classmate.
When they were at school together Maria was one of the popular kids, with Verity being her opposite in this regard. But time has levelled out this playing field, with Verity proving to be quite the people-pleaser and social butterfly upon succeeding in her application for a position in Maria’s field. Specifically, she’s now working in the same division as our protagonist, whose mind is beginning to fray once she notices that simple things, irrelevant facts whose existence she took for granted, are slipping away from her. The chicken shop ‘Barnie’s’ doesn’t just become ‘Bernie’s’ (much to her horror), it’s always had this title. Maria misspells the word ‘carrageenan’ in an email sent to Verity, but the clash between her perspective and reality is far more grave than that, as she will later learn that all traces of this word has disappeared from their correspondence. And that’s just the start of these troubling occurrences.
Little by little, a common theme emerges. Just as Maria’s sanity is beginning to fray, Verity is always connected in some way to this downfall. Clearly, there’s more to their time at school together than Maria would like to admit, especially when she overlooks her role in the bullying Verity suffered. And while it’s true that this leads to some predictable pay-offs along the way, watching a regular person’s world being contorted into a nightmare out of thin air is fascinating.
This is a twisty, unnerving episode that makes it feel like the series has gone back to its classic roots. Well, “classic” is only somewhat accurate, since the ice-cold brutality of the first two seasons of Black Mirror has been absent for years now. Americanising the show from its third season onwards dulled its edge, and while that’s mostly an unwelcome change, it also allows for more maturity at points, as demonstrated in “Bête Noire”. Verity might be Maria’s focus, with McEwen masterfully portraying the maddening ambiguity of a woman who is seemingly ruining this protagonist’s life, yet appears sweet and good-natured at all times, but it’s Kelly’s performance that makes this episode so engaging. We know as much as Maria does when it comes to her life beginning to unravel, so it’s wonderfully enraging to see that this world no longer coheres around logic, with our protagonist appearing increasingly deranged to those around her.
The heart of this episode lies with what Maria refuses to admit to others, and most crucially, herself. It bleeds out in ways that emphasise the subtlety of Kelly’s performance, like when she reveals information about Verity to Kae (Michael Workeye), her boyfriend. She does not gleefully dive into the sordid details (however fictitious they may be) about Verity supposedly engaging in a sex act with a teacher. Instead, it’s only Maria’s need to gossip that doesn’t contain a hint of subtlety, while her keen interest in sharing information that puts down others is teased out just enough to gain valuable insight into who she really is.
Who you are in that painful maelstrom of unwelcome emotions and raging hormones never truly leaves you; at least, not according to the logic of this episode. And while “Bête Noire” fails to stick the landing, first by implying a denouement that it hasn’t yet earned, then pivoting to a more punk-rock ending that’s too abrupt and self-satisfied to be anything other than a slap in the face, lingering trauma and bullies’ mindsets are transformed into compelling dramatic forces here.
Most intoxicating of all is the frustrating irreality of this waking nightmare that Maria has been plunged into. It’s amplified greatly by a tightly plotted script, which never strays from its focus and is very precise and economical with how it approaches world-building and plot developments. “Bête Noire” doesn’t just keep viewers on their toes, it also confirms that, almost 15 years since Black Mirror’s pilot episode, Charlie Brooker hasn’t lost his touch.
UK | 2025 | 50 MINUTES | 16:9 HD | COLOUR | ENGLISH
Cast & Crew
writer: Charlie Brooker.
director: Toby Haynes.
starring: Siena Kelly, Rosy McEwen, Michael Workeye, Ben Bailey Smith, Ben Ashenden, Hannah Griffiths & Amber Grappy.
