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'Black Mirror' Season 5 Trailer Teases New Tales Of High-Tech Terror

By Kristy Puchko | Streaming | May 15, 2019 |

By Kristy Puchko | Streaming | May 15, 2019 |


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Black Mirror is back! The sci-fi series that’s titillated, terrified, and traumatized us is returning in June with its much-anticipated fifth season! And creator Charlie Brooker has three new stories coming our way, with a slew of stars you can spot in this tantalizing trailer.

Are you confused? Excited? Unnerved? Good. That’s that Black Mirror sweet spot.

Season 5 of Black Mirror features Anthony Mackie, Miley Cyrus, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Topher Grace, Damson Idris, Andrew Scott, Nicole Beharie, Pom Klementieff, Angourie Rice, Madison Davenport, and Ludi Lin. But we don’t yet know the premises of these three new entries or even all of their names! However, some clues might be sussed out of the released stills.

First up, Andrew Scott of Sherlock and Fleabag brings his wild-eyed hotness to Black Mirror seemingly as a gunman gone mad.

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The image above and the one below are connected, in that both of their file names contain the word “Smithereens.” Could that be the title of this episode? And if so…what does it mean!?

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The only other released image whose file name contains a clue is this one, which features Pom Klementieff and Ludi Lin. The phrase “Striking Vipers” can be found in the file name. Could that be the name of this episode? Or perhaps the video game these two seem to be a part of? Or both?

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You might wonder how the above image ties into the other arcs the Black Mirror trailer sets up. And the still below might be our answer:

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The Anthony Mackie ep is labeled as “Episode 1” in these stills. And here he is playing a video game, which might be “Striking Vipers.” But that still gives us little insight into what the plot of this one might be. And the other image from it isn’t much help there.

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That leaves us with the final image, which the file name suggests is from episode 3.

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From the trailer, we can assume this is a story about a lonely girl named Rachel (Angourie Rice) who finds comfort and friendship from a Siri-like little bot with a cute haircut. A cute familiar haircut. Let’s look back at the trailer for a second.

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If you play back the trailer, Miley Cyrus seems to be playing a pop star whose stage persona has the same pink bob as the bubbly bot. And at the 35-second mark, it sounds like Cyrus’s voice coming from it. But we also see Cyrus in an offstage look, being cryptically told, “You’ve got 20,000 fans out there. Knock ‘em dead.”

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Could this ep then be about how tech and social media has given fans greater access to celebs than ever before, and how that can create a dangerous blurring of personal boundaries? Or could it be flipped to explore how such a connection can grant incredible power to the famous over impressionable minds? And where does man-bun Topher Grace factor into all of this?!

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Is he some Mark Zuckerberg/Jack Dorsey figure who—as Scott rants—has everybody hooked on his all-consuming “thing?” And what carnage might that bring?

We’ll find out when Black Mirror’s fifth season hits Netflix on June 5. Until then, feel free to speculate wildly.




Kristy Puchko is the film editor of Pajiba. You can follow her on Twitter.



Header Image Source: Netflix