Crocodile (Black Mirror)

Did You Know?

• The episode was filmed in Iceland.
• The first draft of the script featured a male protagonist and Scotland as its setting.

Plot

After a drunken car ride home from a party, Rob kills a cyclist on a mountain road. His passenger, Mia Nolan, helps him dump the body off a cliff into a lake. Fifteen years later, Mia has a husband, a nine-year-old son, and a career as an architect. Following a big work presentation, a now-sober Rob meets her at her hotel. He wants to send an anonymous apology letter to the victim’s widow, who he learned never moved on, but Mia worries the letter could be traced. They argue, and Mia snaps his neck. Looking out the window, she sees a self-driving pizza truck hit a pedestrian. She puts on porn to create an alibi and disposes of Rob’s body. An insurance investigator named Shazia visits the injured pedestrian. She uses a device called a Recaller to project his memories onto a screen. From his hazy recollection, she finds a woman on the street who sends her to a dentist, who remembers Mia watching the accident from her hotel window. To sharpen each witness’s recall, Shazia has them smell beer from a nearby brewery and replay a song from a passing car. Hoping for a quick bonus, she drives to meet Mia. Mia reluctantly lets her in only after being told that refusing would trigger a police report. Mia tries to steer her own memories away from Rob’s death, but fails. Shazia sees both killings in Mia’s mind. When Shazia tries to leave, her car won’t start. Mia smashes the window, knocks her out, and ties her up in a shed. Using the Recaller, Mia learns Shazia told her husband Anan where she was. Mia beats Shazia to death, drives to her house, and kills Anan while he bathes. Leaving, she sees their baby son babbling and kills him to eliminate a witness. Police later discover the baby was born blind and couldn’t have seen anything. They use the Recaller on the family’s pet guinea pig, which witnessed the final murder. Officers quietly arrive at the end of Mia’s son’s school performance of Bugsy Malone, where she sits in the audience, crying silently.

Production

Netflix commissioned twelve episodes of Black Mirror in September 2015, and in March 2016 it secured UK distribution rights from Channel 4 with a $40 million bid. The order was split into two six-episode series, with "Crocodile" belonging to the second group. Series four was released on Netflix on 29 December 2017. "Crocodile" is the third episode, but because Black Mirror is an anthology, episodes can be watched in any order. Charlie Brooker wrote the episode, with Annabel Jones as executive producer. It was inspired by the series one episode "The Entire History of You," which featured a personal implant for privately reviewing memories. Jones said they explored what would happen if those memories were not private, creating a "cat-and-mouse type drama" about the importance of memories and how far someone with a secret would go to hide them. The original script involved a woman who, at age two, saw her mother die, making her anxious and fearful. Brooker compared this to a virtual reality river trip: one person might have a pleasant experience, but an unlucky person could be attacked by a crocodile immediately and remain anxious for the rest of the game. This analogy gave the episode its title. The episode was first conceived with a male lead. Andrea Riseborough read the script to audition for the insurance investigator, but she liked the protagonist's arc and asked if the role could be rewritten for a woman. Brooker and Jones found the change interesting; Jones asked, "How often do you see a mother reduced to this level of desperation?" Riseborough argued her character could find physical strength through desperation. Brooker noted that "the panicking male murderer is practically a trope," making the gender swap "refreshing."

Analysis

The episode draws on Nordic noir for its visual style, a genre rooted in Scandinavian crime fiction. Critics have also noted psychological thriller elements, along with what one described as a standard set of crime-drama plot points. Shazia serves as the story’s detective figure. Multiple reviewers consider this one of the bleakest installments of the series, with an unrelenting pessimism running through the narrative.

Mia’s house mirrors her personality: it seems bigger on the inside than outside, hinting at hidden depths, and its many glass windows stand in contrast to the heavy stone and concrete used in its build. One critic describes Mia as traumatized by her own actions yet unable to stop the murderous path she has started down. Another sees the episode’s message as the idea that everyone has a capacity for murder buried deep within them. Before she begins killing, Mia is shown trying to be a good mother and wife while also striving to excel as an architecture expert. A reviewer notes that as a white woman, Mia benefits from a presumption of innocence, making her an effective and unlikely killer. The same critic points out that most of her victims are people of color, drawing a comparison to the film Get Out, which portrayed white femininity as the quiet, calculating source of violence.

Mia’s situation is compared to the video game Until Dawn, where every decision triggers a chain of butterfly effects. Another critic observes that Mia never reads the End-User License Agreement for the Recaller device, and suggests that Shazia may have lied about the legal requirement to use it, since she earlier implied Mia could opt out. If Mia had read the EULA, she might have declined to use the Recaller, and the subsequent murders would never have occurred.

Reception

Critics were split on this episode. Many agreed the technology was an intriguing idea that deserved more development, and the ending was seen as needlessly bleak, though the acting was praised and the visuals were considered attractive. On Rotten Tomatoes, 53% of 19 critics gave positive reviews, averaging 6.39 out of 10. The site described it as "beautiful but blunt," adding that its "nightmarish concept can't quite overcome its own shallow nihilism." Ratings included three stars from both Vulture and The Telegraph, 2.5 stars from Den of Geek, a 7.1 out of 10 from Paste, and a B− from The A.V. Club.

Several reviewers found the story lacking. One called it the "thinnest from a conceptual standpoint" of the season, noting there was "not a lot to this story" and that the plot becomes "clear" once the Recaller device is explained. Another felt it "doesn't feel all that innovative," while a third said they felt "emotionally and intellectually unfulfilled." A fourth critic found it "a little too predictable." On the positive side, one reviewer praised it as "stunning to look at, very sick and very funny."

The episode's bleakness was a common point of criticism. A Vulture writer described it as "filled with so much brutal, senseless violence," comparing it unfavorably to "Black Museum." Another critic called it "grossly over the top" and "the most mean-spirited" Black Mirror episode yet. A third wrote that it "didn't seem to have much of a deeper point."

Some critics did see value in the concept. A Wired reviewer said the episode "raises genuinely interesting questions about technological advancement," though he questioned how the Recaller would become "universally accepted." Others felt the device's design had "a lot of potential" that was "largely wasted," and that the episode "never really takes advantage" of the idea of memory distortions. One critic found it "frustrating how much time the episode spends developing its technology without that development actually leading to anything relevant," while another noted "there seemed to be no broader message to justify the horror." However, one reviewer saw the Recaller as "a fascinating example of how science-fiction does not need vast budgets to play with interesting ideas."