The first episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror’s 6th season is the delightfully meta Joan is Awful. (Spoilers follow, and I heartily recommend watching the episode before continuing this article). The premise, which the episode pursues with gleeful abandon: Joan (Annie Murphy) is astonished one night when attempting to find a show to watch, she and her boyfriend Krish stumble upon a show called Joan is Awful, and not only is Salma Hayek playing a lady named Joan with the same haircut as Joan, but the events of Joan’s life in the episode are the same as Real Life Joan’s down to the very last very private detail. Many, many people watch this episode– “Everyone” according to one character — and things do not go well for Joan. She visits a lawyer who informs her that because she accepted the terms of use for Streamberry (that’s the Black Mirror Netflix knockoff) and the terms allow them to use her life for whatever they wish, up to and including using a quantum computer to recreate a CGI version of everything she does, there’s nothing he can do.
Wait, CGI? Yes. Salma Hayek is in the show, but she isn’t in it in it, you know? She has licensed her likeness to the streamer and the Quanputer does the rest (Incidentally, the Salma Hayek in her world is played by the AI likeness of Cate Blanchett). This is one of the befuddling details that leads Real Life Joan to hatch a harebrained scheme. If she does something outrageous, Real Life Salma Hayek will have to put a stop to the entire show, right?
The outrageous act involves the aftermath of a bag of burgers and a church, and has the intended effect, mostly. Hayek has her own scene with a lawyer in which she finds that Streamberry has the full legal right to depict her doing everything Joan does, including taking a dump on a church floor.
Salma visits Joan and the two decide their only path forward is to rid the world of the Quanputer for good, and this is where things start to go off the rails. The pair succeed, they end up under seemingly permanent house arrest but are able to live satisfying, fulfilling lives and…that’s it? It’s disappointing to see such a biting satire up to that point lose its fangs.
Far better if the episode had more to say about AI and the corporations that use it. I picture an ending in which both Real Life Joan and Hayek are killed infiltrating Streamberry HQ. This should kill the show dead, right? Not at all. The Quanputer has watched Joan long enough to learn her behavior and it can not only convincingly pull off AI Salma Hayek but plot and stream a beat by beat future for both. This is at least closer to what the episode earned and deserves.