YMMV / Black Mirror: Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too

Black Mirror YMMVSeries FiveStriking Vipers — Smithereens — Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too

• Angst? What Angst?:
  • After coming in possession of her full intellect, Ashley Too doesn't seem to have any issues with the fact that she is trapped forever in a limited robot body. Quite the difference from Carrie from "Black Museum", although it might be a bit justified as she has more freedoms than being trapped in a monkey toy with only two methods of expressing herself.
  • Ashley O is a mess after she wakes up from being in a coma for six months, but has more or less recovered by the next scene.
• Bizarro Episode: A rather unique case for Black Mirror. This episode is more on the Denser and Wackier side of things, with the only real technology explored the Ashley Too doll using Ashley O's true personality and the machine that extracts her thoughts into music. While the first half of the episode is legitimately poignant and sad, it's also one of the only episodes of the series to have a hands-down happy ending.
• Complete Monster: Catherine Ortiz is the wicked aunt of the pop star Ashley O who has been exploiting her niece all her life, abusing her whenever Ashley doesn't listen to her demands and drugging her to keep her more docile. Catherine would also develop millions of robotic dolls dubbed Ashley Too, all of whom are sapient copies of Ashley whom Catherine has trapped inside the dolls, giving the fully aware copies only 4 percent of all functions. Upon learning that Ashley is not taking Catherine's drugs, she drugs Ashley's food, deliberately putting Ashley in a coma and keeping her in that vegetative state as she forcibly probes her mind for music while destroying all the sapient Ashley Toos that were recalled. Creating the holographic Ashley Eternal after continuously exploiting Ashley's comatose state for six months, Catherine orders her own niece to be killed, believing her to be of no further use to her.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Ashley Too, especially during the second half of the episode.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Revelations about the nature of Britney Spears' conservatorship under her father Jaime, which saw him more or less assume complete control over her life, finances, and creative output, make the portrayal of the relationship between Ashley O and her aunt Catherine even more unsettling.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Not only does this episode mimic the plot of a Disney Channel Original Movie, it happens to mimic a specific DCOM, 2004's Pixel Perfect.
  • On Hannah Montana, the show that this episode homages, Lilly's alter-ego Lola wears a pink wig very similar to that worn by Ashley O.
  • This mashup from more than six years ago blended Nine Inch Nails' "Head Like a Hole" with Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe". Guess what "On a Roll" is meant to cover?
  • Charlie Brooker once expressed his opinion on Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana in his usual style on How TV Ruined Your Life. One has to imagine how he'd have reacted to being told he'd be working with her one day.
• Just Here for Godzilla: For this episode, a lot of people were interested with just how Black Mirror would portray a character played by Miley Cyrus.
• Memetic Mutation: Referring to the episode as a Darker and Edgier Hannah Montana sequel/spin-off/reboot/etc., since it has Miley Cyrus once again playing a pop star with a secret double life.
• Misaimed Fandom: While there isn’t anything particularly wrong with liking the music from the episode, a lot of people completely miss the point of what the episode was trying to get across, particularly the part about how the music industry exploits its idols and the fact that Ashley O was an embodiment of that to tackle the subject.
• Moe: Ashley Too is undeniably adorable.
• Signature Song: The episode drills "On a Roll" into your head, especially in most scenes with the restrained Ashley Too doll.
• She Really Can Act: Miley Cyrus both as Ashley O and the voice of Ashley Too. The episode has had a mixed response, but her performances have been unanimously praised.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some people disliked this episode because it deviates too much from other Black Mirror episodes, as it's heavier on the comedic gags (such as when Rachel and Jack drive to rescue Ashley O) and an ending that is unambiguously happy, even more so than the series' least cynical episodes like "San Junipero" and "Hang the DJ".
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Rachel's character arc just kind of drops off in the second half of the episode following the talent show, after which she has no further scenes from her perspective, leaving her conflict in the first half unresolved. It's especially weird because her character motivation (a desire to make friends and fit in) is given much more focus than Jack's musical inclinations, but in the end, Jack is a successful musician performing with the reinvented Ashley, while Rachel is their groupie, with no indication that she's changed at all or made any friends during the Time Skip besides Ashley and the now sentient Ashley Too.
• Uncertain Audience: This episode is a pitch-perfect parody of a Disney Channel Original Movie in a Black Mirror format, but the overlap between those two fandoms might be too narrow for enough people to really appreciate the X Meets Y crossover.
• The Woobie: Ashley O. Throughout her life, she's been relentlessly abused by her aunt and was forced to create a fake image of herself as a pop star, from which her aunt exploited her fame and money. She later gets drugged by said aunt and put in a coma so that the aunt could steal her songs and revamp it into the genre she wants.

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