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It takes a while to spot what's sci-fi about Black Mirror's best episode

It takes a while to spot what's sci-fi about Black Mirror's best episode

The episode opens in 1987, with a theater playing "The Lost Boys," a movie about two brothers who realize their California town is filled with vampires. Is that a clue?

A car radio is playing the contemporary hit, "Heaven is a Place on Earth."

Enter our protagonist, Yorkie, played by Mackenzie Davis from "Halt and Catch Fire."

"Am I dreaming?" asks a guy on a TV display.

In walks the other lead, Kelly, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, with a guy hassling her. He says: "Could you please stop? We’ve only got a couple of hours so let’s use it." She replies: "I am using it."

Moments later in a club, Kelly sits down next to Yorkie to try to lose that guy. "Go along with whatever I say," Kelly says.

"I need to talk with my friend here, ok?" Kelly says. "She’s sick. Like 'sick months to live' sick." Yorkie chimes in: "five, actually."

The two women get a drink. Kelly says she likes Yorkie’s glasses: "People try so hard to look how they think they should look. They probably saw it in some movie. But I like these. They’re authentically you."

"So you’re new here?" Kelly asks. "Wow, ok! Oh my God! We have to dance to this."

Yorkie lasts about 20 seconds on the dance floor before running outside.

Kelly joins her: "Sorry I pushed you into it," she says. "Saturday night’s once a week. It’s like no time. I get impatient."

Yorkie says everyone was looking at them—two girls dancing. Kelly tells her people are less uptight than they used to be. Yorkie confesses that she’s never been on a dance floor before, that she never does anything fun, and that she is engaged.

But her fiancé isn’t here. "Wanna go to bed with me?" Kelly asks. "We could be back at mine in like [snap]."

Yorkie, clearly torn, says she can’t.

Yorkie walks alone in the rain.

The camera pans down to a full moon in a puddle and cuts.

The show jumps forward in time.

13 minutes have passed, and we still have almost no idea what’s going on. Yet there's an engaging story and something mysterious happening. As the show continues, we see how radically different this world is from ours—yet how realistic it might be.

The other unusual thing about this episode? It's got an optimistic ending.

"I really wanted to create something that felt different from what we’re used to at the moment, and I think that’s what’s really refreshing about it," director Owen Harris told The Hollywood Reporter. "It’s this world where you’re allowed to dance around to Belinda Carlisle, it’s a world of guilty pleasures but, because of the look and the feel of it, it’s larger than life, which makes everything a little bit more optimistic."

Simply said, we wouldn't mind if someone really made San Junipero.

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