Black Mirror Season 6 Episode Loch Henry Skewers True Crime
Open Netflix anytime and the “Trending” menu is inevitably crammed real crime—Tales of murder, cults, scandals and moreall with a stylistic touch that makes salacious stories seem like emergency drama.complete-trashy experience. black mirror knows you can’t take your eyes off real crime, a subject that will test you Episode of the sixth season “Hole Henry.”
Loch Henry concretely addresses Netflix’s very own brand of true crime – where the details of monsters, victims, and grisly evidence can vary, but the visual execution tends to have a reassuring sameness that any regular viewer will recognize. “Atmospheric piano chord”, muses Pia (body, body, body‘ Myha’la Herrold) as she envisioned the opening shot of the documentary in which she and boyfriend Davis (Peaky Blinders‘ Samuel Blenkin) hopes popular outlets like Streamberry, black mirroris the absolute Netflix clone. The couple, who met at film school, head to Samuel’s Scottish hometown to cover a local naturalist, but his plans change when Pia learns of a horrific event that rocked the community decades earlier has. It’s not something Samuel is particularly keen to revisit, but he can’t avoid the topic when Pia begins to question why the quaint village is a ghost town and not teeming with tourists.
Below we discuss the twists and turns in the plot of Loch Henry. So if you haven’t seen the episode yet, here’s your notification.
Loch Henry is directed by Sam Miller (I can destroy you) and written, like all of Season 6, by black mirror Creator Charlie Brooker. No time is wasted in establishing the setting (beautiful scenery) and the dynamic between the main characters as Davis and Pia drive to the cozy cottage where his mother Janet (Monica Dolan, who played a very different character in season five) stayed ) lives black mirror episode “Smithereens”), awaits her arrival. Despite some culture clashes and generational awkwardness, Janet is clearly happy to welcome her son and his girlfriend. These early scenes are peppered with little things that come into play later: the lingering presence of Davis’ father Kenny, a police officer who died several decades earlier and is greatly missed by his wife but less remembered by his barely surviving son to him; Janet’s stack of VHS tapes containing seemingly every episode of the 1980s British crime drama Bergerac; a vintage camcorder that happens to be in the house; and the fact that Pia has no cell phone reception. In just under an hour, “Loch Henry” has to make his premonition efficient.
While Davis is committed to the documentary’s original subject matter, one can’t blame Pia for being adamant about making a move once she learns of the area’s bogeyman. The story is courtesy of pub owner Stuart (Daniel Portman, game of Thrones“Podrick Payne) – a cheeky childhood friend of Davis’s, who jokes about pronouns and vigilance while acting like a charming but tactless bulldozer. This lack of filter proves useful to the increasingly inquisitive Pia, triggering a flashback from hell as Davis and Stuart delight her with the details: In 1997, a honeymoon couple suddenly vanished into thin air. Circumstances were so puzzling that the story briefly garnered raving headlines until Princess Diana’s death grabbed the news, and apparently it was.
“See you one day,” says Pia with an eager glow in her eyes, and the old friends finish their story, which picks up again in the bar where they are now sitting. It was then run by Stuart’s father (The Mummyis John Hannah), a man who now lives in a state of perpetual intoxication. One night, a regular named Iain Adair – a nondescript village boy – started acting strange, making strange statements and threatening his neighbors. Shortly thereafter, the young man shot his parents and then himself, and also managed to shoot (nonfatal) the police officer who had followed him home: Davis’ father Kenny. Pia is thrilled to hear that investigators subsequently discovered Iain’s secret torture dungeon and evidence of many more victims. It is juicyand be Exactly the kind of true crime stories that would devour Netflix or Streamberry: “Quaint little village, but this Hannibal Lecter guy has been running a death den for years? … The details are so awful, that’s it irresistible‘ calls Pia.
Davis needs a little more convincing – his father was badly injured after all, something he reminds Pia of: “realnot damn content“- but he’s coming over. Stuart is thrilled and predicts the film will bring vacationers back to town. “I even have a drone you can use!” he crows because it wouldn’t be a Netflix-style documentary without tons of aerial footage. He also has a treasure trove of archival material kept by his late mother on the case, which he is happy to share despite his father’s grumblings. The wheels are turning for the triumph of true crime!
But of course… that’s it black mirror, meaning there is always another shoe waiting to be dropped. First, Pia and Davis must find a production team to fund their film, and the haughty manager they speak to is initially unconvinced. you need one Hook-“something unseen, unheard, unexplored,” which is why they end up breaking into Adair’s boarded-up basement, a highly cinematic and spooky place, carrying Kenny’s camcorder to the max Blair witch vibrations. As far as black mirror In the episodes that follow, Loch Henry is surprisingly light on technology issues. But the shoe we’re waiting for is about to drop in a big way thanks to some vintage technology: one of those Bergerac vhs The tapes Pia discovers also contain irrefutable evidence that Davis’s parents—the late cop and the soft-spoken widow who bakes shepherd’s cakes in the next room—were immensely enthusiastic participants in Adair’s horrific crimes. We see grainy footage of terrified victims bound and screaming through their gags. We see Janet dancing around in a glitter mask and latex nurse outfit wielding a drill.
The foreboding isn’t entirely subtle in Loch Henry, but the tension is nonetheless razor-sharp. The story quickly switches from “Loch Henry” to Loch Henry, a title that discerning viewers may discover on the Streamberry menu in another Season 6 episode with some very metathemes: “Joan Is Awful.” With that distinctive, evocative piano chord and opening drone shots, the episode becomes the very essence of a true crime film, crafted exactly as we envisioned it – starring Davis and Pia as the filmmakers who stumbled upon the greatest story of their careers .
Only Pia is dead because she accidentally died while fleeing Janet’s house in fear. After her secret was discovered – and she failed to track down Pia – Janet took her own life and left behind a pile of murder memoirs labeled “For Your Movie”. All Davis has now is Stuart, who was correct in his prediction Loch Henry would lure tourists back to the area, and the dingy producing team that hogs the mic if the documentary inevitably wins a BAFTA — and who are already greedily planning a dramatic series adaptation of Davis’ story.
It’s all too real for Davis, but like it or not, it’s definitely “fucking content” now. And as it turns out, as black mirror explores the idea of a tragedy being exploited for a specially curated kind of entertainment and is set in one of the most compelling episodes yet. A secret torture bunker hidden beneath a farmhouse, a filmmaker with a fleeting personal connection who sets out to document the story only to find he is more connected to her than he ever realized? You can see why Streamberry jumped at it Loch Henryand why Loch Henry is such an entertaining episode. The details are so awful, that’s it irresistible.
black mirror Season six is now streaming on Netflix.
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