Because of its involvement with death, resurrection has inevitably become tied to many horror story plots. One of the most famous cases of resurrection comes from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, which would become the inspiration for many later horror works. The “Black Mirror” episode Be Right Back follows the same story as Shelly’s, with Martha as Dr. Frankenstein, social media posts as the graveyard body parts, and new Ash as the Monster. As with any good adaptation, the themes and details within the story have changed to more effectively explore contemporary fears or curiosities; in this case, Be Right Back not only explores the possibility of resurrection, but also looks at the disconnect between someone’s social media presence and their personality.
One of the defining features of this episode was its simplicity. With the exception of the cliff picnic scene, the sets are all bland and forgettable. The characters live very average lives. In fact, the characters themselves aren’t anything to remember. Even the insane technology used to resurrect someone is just brushed aside and never explained in depth. Unlike other “Black Mirror” episodes, there is no physical conflict or grotesque action (like bestiality in S1E1, genocide in S3E3, or sadistic Star-Trek-inspired prisons in S4E1). Instead, this episode relies more heavily on the emotions surrounding the situations the characters are in– something that can’t be shown with images, but can have just as big of an impact.
Fake Ash represents two things: the idealized form of the dead and the shallowness of our online personalities. He is a picture perfect copy of his human counterpart, but is lacking in just about every human capacity possible. The major aspects of Ash’s personality, like his wittiness and kindness, are there, but the more ignorable or less desirable features that would never be presented on social media are missing. Martha can’t handle having only the enjoyable aspects of Ash because she already knew and appreciated the traits that made Ash less perfect. His idealized form made him very one-dimensional, so the relationship between the two also became one-dimensional and unenjoyable. Martha quickly realizes the shallowness of his online persona as fake Ash seems to always be reminding her of his inauthenticity. Fake Ash is essentially a form of human hypermediacy. All of this seems to be reminding the viewer that, for many people, online profiles are NOT them, only the idealized and shallowest versions of themselves.
This episode does a good job at doing what “Black Mirror” does best: it forces you to think about your own choices in the real world. Maybe you don’t have the desire to resurrect a loved one, but you probably do have a Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter account. As Martha steps up into her attic-prison and the screen cuts to black, I like to think the directors wanted the audience to be left staring into that black mirror while considering their own digital presence. Ash is representative of how dangerous and harmful the idealized versions of people can be, so I definitely found myself filled with existential dread (most episodes do this, though) while looking through my own Twitter and Instagram feeds.