If you haven’t seen the first episode of Black Mirror‘s sixth season, be warned. There will be spoilers.
Black Mirror was created by British satirist Charlie Brooker in 2011, originally airing on BBC’s Channel 4 (for those based in the states, there are a handful of general non-cable or premium channels in England. Think of Channel 4 as their version of Fox when it first started airing The Simpson, back when they took risk on more “out there” programming).
Brooker has had a long and storied career, most recently writing and producing the hilarious Netflix mockumentary Cunk on Earth which currently has a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, but Black Mirror is likely his most famous creation.
To describe the show as simply as possible, if you haven’t seen it, imagine The Twilight Zone if it focused on the dangers of technology. It’s an anthology show, where each episode is a standalone storyline with a completely unique cast, story, and ending.
The first season notably featured one of the first appearances of now-Oscar-winner Daniel Kaluuya (who immediately shows how it was not a surprise he’d end up winning an Oscar), and it aired two 3-episode seasons on BBC as well as a Christmas Special (featuring Jon Hamm).
It’s now a flagship series on Netflix, and has featured big-name stars like Bryce Dallas-Howard, Topher Grace, and even Miley Cyrus.
The show is, let’s say, bleak. But it’s also engaging. Storylines involve using robotic technology to address grief, what happens if a hacker blackmails someone into criminal activity based on what they found from their computer’s camera, and uploading one’s consciousness into a digital “heaven.”
It has won 6 Primetime Emmy’s. But until the release of its sixth season on Netflix today…it has never featured a classic poop scene.
They have now.
Jane Is Awful stars Annie Murphy (best known for her Emmy-winning performance as Alexis on Schitt’s Creek, easily one of the best shows with a very Poopable name). She plays a middle-manager at a tech company, named Jane, who left a toxic relationship, but finds herself tied down to a “bland” fiancé.
Her day starts with her having to fire a co-worker. Shortly after, her ex reaches out to her for a drink. She eventually consents. While the two have a moment where they kiss, she decides to leave and go home to her bland, but loving, partner.
When she gets home, she and her fiancé settle down to watch a clear parody of Netflix (it even has the same telltale “ding” when starting a show).
Deciding what to watch, they see a new show called Jane Is Awful, with a picture of Salma Hayek playing the main character who has the exact same distinctive hairstyle as Murphy’s Jane.
The “show” has Hayek playing Jane portraying an exaggerated portrayal of what Jane had done that very day, obviously freaking her out and eventually leading to her fiancé leaving her when he sees her kiss her ex-lover.
On top of that, “the board” at her company watched the show, and decided she had given out company secrets based on lines in the show.
When she tries to sue this fake-Netflix, her lawyer informs her that, unfortunately, the terms and conditions form she signed allows them to use anything they can retrieve from her phone.
Essentially, she consented to be spied on, and they could do whatever they wanted with what they heard.
How could they make a show so fast? It was all CGI.
Salma Hayek consented to let her likeness be used in any project, for a fee. Which gave Jane an idea. A Poopable idea.
She was going to make sure future episodes of the show involved something awful.
She knew she had to poop
Specifically, she had to poop in the most insane way possible.
Her thought process? If she did something absolutely insane, the show would have to create that, making Salma Hayek do whatever she does, no matter how crazy.
So she chomps down on four hamburgers, pours whiskey into a bottle of ex-lax, and sets her timer. With an impressive knowledge of her bowels, she dresses as a cheerleader, ties her hair up into pig-tails, and draws on her face with lipstick before barging into a church during a wedding ceremony.
Blaring an air horn and shouting, “Merry Christmas, one and all!” she lets her bowels run loose, with the decency of shouting, “Get the kids out of here!”
This scene is fatefully recreated by Salma Hayek’s CGI avatar in Jane is Awful, much to Jane’s delight.
We then cut to the real Salma Hayek, who says, “Never in my wildest nightmares, I thought I’d see myself defecting in a church.” As she complains to her lawyer, who tries to insist that it’s “the character Jane”, and not her, she asks, “And whose face do they have? Salma Hayek’s face. So whose anus is doing the sh*tting?”
But the contract was airtight. Salma Hayek could be portrayed doing anything up to or even “beyond defecation.”
“Doesn’t my as*hole have any rights?” Hayek rightfully asks. Unfortunately, in the Black Mirror universe, it does not.
Hayek ends up confronting Jane, who does apologize, saying, “I’m sorry…I shat in a church.” Together, Jane and Hayek devise a plan.
When Hayek enters the studio office looking to destroy its servers, she asks to use the bathroom. She insists she go to a private restroom since, “Because of your show, every time someone sees me coming out of one of those, all they can think of is hot birria coming out of my bottom.”
This is a very Poopable episode.
We won’t give away the shocking twist at the end, other than to say Michael Cera shows up (this show really knows how to get some top-billing talent).
But we’ll just leave you with this. Annie Murphy dressed a cheerleader to ruin a wedding with a public poop in order to have Salma Hayek ruin a wedding with a public poop, so the constitution of America says we have to tell you about it.
If you have a Netflix subscription, we recommend checking out Black Mirror, and if you have any thoughts on the new season, feel free to drop them in our comments!
Neil