Mazey Day (Black Mirror)

Plot

In 2006, paparazza Bo snapped a male celebrity in a motel with another man. He tried to buy the photos for $500, but she sold them for $300 each. The celebrity later killed himself. Her colleagues Hector, Whitty, and Duke showed no sympathy. They hounded a woman whose sex tape had leaked; Whitty threw misogynistic insults at her and threatened to sue when she fought back. Bo decided to leave the business. Actress Mazey Day walked off a film set in the Czech Republic after a hit-and-run while drunk on wine and hallucinogenic mushrooms, then vanished. A $30,000 reward was offered for the first photo of her. Bo, facing pressure from her flatmate Nathan about unpaid rent, found Mazey at a film producer's mansion by following a takeaway place Mazey had mentioned in a magazine. That night, Mazey wrecked the living room, and Dr. Babich arranged a weekend stay at a New Age rehab. Bo tailed the car, but the driver stopped at a diner and slashed her tires. She called Hector to take her on his motorbike to the compound; Hector didn't know Whitty had put a tracker on the bike, so Whitty and Duke showed up soon after. The four paparazzi broke in and found Mazey chained in a cabin with goats. While Bo freed her, the others snapped dozens of pictures. Mazey told them to get out. When the full moon appeared, she turned into a werewolf. Whitty and Duke kept shooting photos and were killed. Bo and Hector tried to flee; a car hit Hector's motorbike, and the werewolf attacked the driver as Bo and Hector ran through the woods. They reached a diner and begged police officer Clay to call for backup. Bo grabbed for his gun, and he started to handcuff her. The werewolf arrived and killed or injured everyone except Bo, who shot it with the officer's handgun. As Hector died, he handed Bo his camera. Mazey, bleeding badly and back in human form, begged Bo to kill her. Bo gave her the gun, and as Mazey aimed it at her own head, Bo readied her camera. A gunshot rang out.

Production

After the fifth season of Black Mirror dropped in 2019, the show went on a break. Executive producers Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones left House of Tomorrow and moved to Broke and Bones, which kicked off talks about who would control production rights. In May 2022, Netflix confirmed a sixth season was on the way, with Broke and Bones handling production while Banijay, House of Tomorrow's parent company, kept ownership. Brooker wrote "Mazey Day," which at 40 minutes is the shortest episode in the series. He explained that setting it in the early 2000s meant it took place before smartphones turned everyone into a paparazzo, when it was much harder to fake photographic proof. The first episode written for season six was "Demon 79," a horror piece set in 1979. Brooker said that episode, branded as Red Mirror, gave him a fresh angle for the show, one more about "people are fucked up" than "tech is bad." When crafting "Mazey Day," he thought back to the very first episode, "The National Anthem," which he said "was obviously designed to be startling and surprising and weird." A Red Mirror title sequence was created for "Mazey Day," but Brooker initially went with the Black Mirror opening to hide the supernatural twist. As of April 2025, Netflix has switched the opening sequence to Red Mirror. Casting news broke in July 2022, naming Zazie Beetz, Clara Rugaard, and Danny Ramirez as Bo, Mazey Day, and Hector. Uta Briesewitz directed, and Udo Kramer designed the sets. Beetz noted that filming happened in June 2022. That month, the Spanish paper Diario Sur reported a Black Mirror episode was being shot in Málaga province under the working title "Red Book," with locations in Marbella, Estepona, and the Loasur studios in Coín. Beetz said running through the woods at night felt dangerous, though some nighttime scenes were actually filmed during daylight.

Analysis

Mazey Day marks the first time Black Mirror has included supernatural elements, and it also leans into fantasy, a genre the show rarely explores. Technology plays a smaller role here than in most episodes; like The National Anthem and Smithereens, the only tech that appears already exists in the real world, with the camera being the main example. The episode sets itself in 2006 by opening with the announcement of Suri Cruise’s birth, and an iPod plus a reference to the Iraq War help place the time period. It also nods to Sea of Tranquility, a fictional show seen in earlier episodes. Celebrity culture takes center stage, similar to Fifteen Million Merits and Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too. Critics have compared the character Mazey to Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, both of whom were heavily chased by paparazzi in the early 2000s. Juliette Harrisson of Den of Geek noted that the image of paparazzi snapping photos of a wounded or dying woman echoes the death of Princess Diana, which is also mentioned in Loch Henry. Louis Chilton of The Independent linked the celebrity suicide captured in Bo’s photograph and the resulting media frenzy to the real-life death of Caroline Flack. Like Loch Henry, this episode takes aim at mass media and follows characters who seek out information that puts them in harm’s way. Abigail Miller of Screen Rant described Mazey as being hunted like an animal, stripped of her humanity, while Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone argued that paparazzi culture turns everyone into animals. Abbey White of The Hollywood Reporter said the episode asks what it really means to be a monster. Andrew Webster of The Verge compared the way Bo is drawn into chasing Mazey to the classic heist-film pitch of one last job. During a car crash, Mazey hits a werewolf, which bites her as she climbs out of the vehicle. A full moon is visible in the sky at the time, and police later report finding a human corpse at the scene. At first, the audience thinks Mazey’s distress comes from guilt and addiction. The twist is hinted at by her doctor’s dialogue and by the goats left at the rehab center for the werewolf to eat. Mazey listens to Muse’s Supermassive Black Hole, a song famously used in The Twilight Saga, a series about werewolves and vampires. The production team knew about this connection before the episode came out, but they did not intend it as a deliberate reference.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, "Mazey Day" scored a 57% approval rating from 14 reviews. Critical ratings varied widely, with two stars from Vulture, i, and The Independent, three from Den of Geek, and five from The Daily Telegraph. Several critics, including Rosenstock, BBC Culture's Neil Armstrong, and Times' Judy Berman, ranked it as the series' worst episode, while Paste's Leila Jordan considered it among the show's worst. On the other side, The A.V. Club's Kayleigh Dray called it one of the strongest, and Den of Geek's Alec Bojalad found it average.

The episode's critique of paparazzi culture drew widespread criticism. Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson felt it would have been more timely 15 years earlier, with Armstrong and The Independent's Nick Hilton agreeing the theme felt heavy-handed and outdated. Chilton noted the same ideas were handled more inventively in the 2014 film Nightcrawler. Esquire's Rachel Dodes labeled the moral "trite," and i's Emily Baker stated it was "already widely accepted" that a "ferocious appetite" for celebrity misery was wrong. Webster argued the short runtime prevented nuanced exploration of the premise, and Sepinwall found it the sixth series episode "most in need of extra time." Bojalad, however, saw the brevity as a strength, praising it as a "cautionary tale about human nature."

The werewolf twist at the end also faced backlash. Rosenstock found it lacking both narratively and thematically, while Sepinwall thought it was unintentionally comedic. Harrisson argued the supernatural element broke the show's genre promise, suggesting viewers would experience "far less of a nonsensical shock" if they watched "Demon 79" first. The New York Observer's Laura Babiak reported feeling no suspense or horror. IGN's Samantha Nelson compared it to From Dusk till Dawn, noting that film pulled off a tonal shift successfully, whereas "Mazey Day" undermines its twist "by trying to make its final moments emotionally stirring."