Black Mirror S6: Beyond the Sea explained
NetflixThere’s a lot going on in Black Mirror Season 6 Episode 3, ‘Beyond the Sea’, so we’ve broken down what happens, including its twist and whether it’s a sequel to Season 4’s ‘USS Callister’.
Charlie Brooker has always been at the forefront of biting satirical commentary with his shows Screenwipe, Gameswipe, Newswipe, Weekly Wipe, and Year Wipe. Netflix’s Black Mirror sees Brooker take these skills and combine them with his love for genre flicks and impeccable storytelling abilities.
The dystopian sci-fi anthology series is one of the most bonkers, original shows on TV today, highlighting the malicious infiltration of technology in our daily lives while delivering delightfully dark scenarios – who else could pull off a depiction of the UK Prime Minister shagging a pig on national television?
Season 6 is no different, with the third episode transporting us to a fictionalized 1969 as two astronauts, played by Aaron Paul and Josh Hartnett, are on a mission aboard a spaceship. Things take a twisted turn when a Black Mirror-esque technology has indelible consequences on their lives. Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Black Mirror: What is Season 6 Episode 3 ‘Beyond the Sea’ about?
The episode sees Aaron Paul’s Cliff and Josh Hartnett’s David on a mission in outer-space. Concurrently, they are able to spend much of their time on the ground with their families thanks to cutting-edge technology that generates a robotic body double.
All they have to do to transport back to earth is use what looks like an army tag – they pop it into a computer, fall asleep on their space beds, and – as we’ve seen many times in previous seasons of Black Mirror – their consciousness is transported into their doubles, which lay resting until they are activated.
Cliff and David only have to go back into their real bodies when issues need sorting on their spaceship and for routine fitness checks. It’s a smart setup, one that juxtaposes modern technology with a vintage setting once they’re back on earth.
NetflixHowever, things take a sinister turn when a Charles Manson-like character and his followers break into David’s California home. They think what he’s doing is “unnatural”, and they kill David’s wife and two children in a disturbing scene.
They also destroy his robotic avatar, leaving him stuck up in space with no one to talk to other than the occasional check-in from Cliff. And if that weren’t bad enough, we learn that they’ve still got four years left on their mission.
Realizing that David’s slowly losing his mind, Cliff decides to allow him to use his link and spend time at his rural house, with his wife and son for company. It does him good, but it’s not enough – as an avid artist, Cliff allows David to go back to earth in his body double for an hour a week in order to paint a picture of their home.
As time goes on, David and Cliff’s wife Lana (Kate Mara) grow close. Up until now, she’s felt lonely and isolated, with her marriage to Cliff appearing lifeless and sterile. With David on the ground, she begins to get her spark back as she admires his passion for art, books, and music.
As you might imagine, things start to get seriously complicated from here, especially when David tries to seduce Lana, only for her to reject his advances. Cliff then discovers a number of nude drawings of his wife in David’s sketchbook – a troubling revelation considering David draws from memory.
When confronting his wife, he soon finds out that nothing happened between the pair, but it would have if it were up to David, causing a great deal of tension. While back on the ship, David asks Cliff if he can borrow his link one last time in order to say goodbye to Lana and apologize to her in person.
Black Mirror: ‘Beyond the Sea’ twist explained
When Cliff refuses David’s request, he does the unimaginable: feigning an issue with the ship, he steals Cliff’s link, transports his mind down to earth, and butchers Cliff’s family.
Yes, it’s dark, but did we expect anything less?
Even though we know there’ll be twists in Black Mirror, they’re never what we think they’re going to be. Some might assume that David finds a way to steal Cliff’s link forever and leave him stuck up in space.
But the clue arrives when Cliff fights with David following the revelation that he had tried to seduce Lana. After getting punched in the face, David says: “Why can’t you see? I don’t have anything. You have no idea what it’s like to be me. Everything I had… gone. Just destroyed. You don’t know.”
NetflixShortly after this, David makes the bold move of asking Cliff to use his link one last time, but Cliff responds: “The thought of you returning makes her vomit. She says that you’re a snake. A conman. The worst kind. The arrogant kind. She won’t have you anywhere near her. She is mine.”
Something in David appears to break in that moment. We know he’s got a sinister plan brewing, but we just don’t know what it is. While Cliff is on earth, David calls him back up with a fake issue, and at one moment it looks like he’s going to simply lock him out of the spaceship.
However, David eventually lets him back in, only to reveal that he’s got Cliff’s link in his pocket. “What did you do?” Cliff asks him, before running to the bed and putting the tag in the system. As soon as his consciousness reaches his avatar, he walks into their home and finds David has murdered Lana and their son.
A broken Cliff returns to the ship where he is confronted with David, sitting in a chair with an angry yet devastated look across his face. He kicks an empty chair to the side, indicating for Cliff to sit beside him. Now they both know how it feels to lose everything.
Black Mirror: Is ‘Beyond the Sea’ a sequel to ‘USS Callister’?
No, ‘Beyond the Sea’ isn’t a direct sequel to ‘USS Callister’ – but there are some similarities that could potentially make it a distant prequel if you squint hard enough.
The reason fans made the assumption is two-fold. Firstly, Aaron Paul made a cameo in ‘USS Callister’, voicing a character known as ‘Gamer691’. And secondly, Cliff and David’s spaceship, which was teased in the trailer, looks similar to that of Paul’s anonymous gamer’s in ‘USS Callister’.
Then there’s the fact that both stories are partly set in space, and the beds they use when transmitting their consciousness into their avatars look similar to those featured in ‘USS Callister’. Only the scenario is flipped on its head – in the Season 4 episode, the real characters are situated on earth and their digital copies exist in space.
However, the narratives and styles are very different. What’s more, ‘Beyond the Sea’ is directed by John Crowley, while ‘USS Callister’ director Toby Haynes takes on Season 6 Episode 5, ‘Demon 79’.
The only way it could work is if ‘Beyond the Sea’ is a prequel to ‘USS Callister’, and Cliff had somehow lost his way following the brutal killing of his family. After all, his Gamer691 character was a nasty piece of work, one who tried to take out Nanette’s digital copy (Cristin Milioti) and her team just moments after they broke free from Captain Daly’s (Jesse Plemons) evil clutches.
NetflixPerhaps, after the events of ‘Beyond the Sea’, he grew embittered towards life, and as technology progressed, he started to spend his time in a simulated reality, taking vengeance on anyone who came his way. This is all just speculation at this point, although considering Black Mirror exists within its own connected universe, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.
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Black Mirror Season 6 is streaming on Netflix now. Check out more of our coverage below:
- Black Mirror S6 review
- ‘Joan is Awful’ explained | Episode 1 cast
- ‘Loch Henry’ explained | Episode 2 cast
- ‘Beyond the Sea’ cast
- ‘Mazey Day’ explained | Episode 4 cast
- ‘Demon 79’ explained | Episode 5 cast
- Black Mirror S6 soundtrack
- Black Mirror Season 7
- Black Mirror S6 Easter eggs
- What is Red Mirror?
- What is the Waltonville Claw?