- Alternate Character Interpretation: One for the setting itself - is San Junipero really a paradise, or is it a Crapsaccharine World that will feel boring, shallow, empty, and unsatisfying, if not maddening, long before eternity is up?
- Wes is called annoying and pestering by Kelly, but it's entirely possible that he's right about them making a deeper connection, but Kelly being reluctant to pursue more because he reminds her of her husband. She has fewer of these hang-ups with Yorkie, which leads to another thing....
- We know that Kelly is Yorkie's first female romance, but it's entirely possible that Yorkie's Kelly's first as well. Kelly mentions that she had crushes on women all her life, but that she didn't pursue them while she was with her husband. She never mentions if she had female relationships after his death either.
- Awesome Music:
- "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle is used in the ending, putting a neat bow on the most optimistic episode of the show so far.
- Charlie Brooker himself created a Spotify playlist
for the 41 songs used throughout the episode. - Then there's the score by Clint Mansell (already well known to fans of Darren Aronofsky as the composer of his films), which received considerable praise — enough to be issued digitally and on vinyl, a first for any Black Mirror episode.
- Esoteric Happy Ending:
- Although often cited as the one Black Mirror episode with an undeniably happy ending (prior to Hang the DJ and Black Museum), none of Kelly's criticisms of San Junipero - namely, that it's a shallow facsimile of existence rather than the real deal - are ever properly rebutted, and San Junipero itself could cease to exist at any moment if its hosting company ever decided to pull the plug.
- Our heroines are both dead by the end of it, one of them from assisted suicide; euthanasia is a very controversial topic in many societies and the implication that it's a good thing and the key to our heroines finding love and happiness can easily leave a bad taste for some people (especially people who were drawn in by the premise of it being a super-cheerful lesbian romance).
- The assumption they're the actual people versus copies like cookies is debatable.
- Friendly Fandoms: Very quickly, the episode got one with The 100, thanks to its subversion of the Bury Your Gays trope. "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" was already being used as the title for quite a few Clarke/Lexa fics in the few days after the episode's release. It also goes in a completely different direction from the Artificial Afterlife presented in that show.
- Harsher in Hindsight: With the release of "Black Museum", knowing how the technology in San Junipero came about makes the episode a little darker (since the same company, TCKR, that runs San Junipero used to employ the Big Bad of Black Museum, all the horrific trials he put people through being progressive steps to San Junipero). It's like Brooker planned for the painful pay-off and thought it would be even better to let everyone be happy for a year first.
- Heartwarming Moments: The episode itself is this for the entire series. After story after story about mankind using technology to its detriment, we get a love story where technology is used to effectively live forever.
- Hype Backlash:
- Often regarded as the best Black Mirror episode, so naturally there are a number of people who find it overrated or aren't impressed, especially since it isn't as dark or complex as the rest of the show. Others enjoy the episode itself but are disappointed that it's effectively been hailed as the "best" the series has to offer in favor of other, equally-memorable episodes mainly for defecting from the unique conceit that drew many such fans to the series in the first place (refusing to give the audience a happy, comfortable ending).
- Still others had problems with the episode's premise and the fact that its "happy" ending relies on the physical deaths of its protagonists, but this is much more of a minority view.
- And then some people are just angry that the episode spread a mispronunciation of Junipero.
- Spiritual Antithesis:
- San Junipero got one in the episode "Real Life" of Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, it's almost like an heartbreaking inversion of San Junipero. In it, a lesbian policewoman in a happy relationship gets trapped in a virtual world where she is a straight male widower grieving for his dead wife, all because her subconscious thinks she does not deserve to be happy.
- "San Junipero" serves as the spiritual antithesis of The Twilight Zone episode "A Nice Place To Visit", where an afterlife where you can party all day and night for eternity and instantly have anything you want magically materialize was portrayed as a horrifying fate.
- The penultimate episode of The Good Place likewise takes the opposite view of the exact same fate celebrated in this episode.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The change from the usual dark tone of the series with an unambiguously happy ending for the protagonists is this for many fans.
- Wheelchair Woobie: Yorkie has been one for over 40 years with the reveal that after being rejected by her family for coming out as a lesbian, she got into a car accident that left her paralyzed.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/BlackMirrorSanJunipero
FollowingYMMV / Black Mirror: San Junipero
Go To
