Black Mirror Season 2 Episode 2 Recap – White Bear

A girl wakes up from her sleep with a headache. She sees both of her wrists bandaged. Medicine is scattered all over the floor. She opens the window and sees that the place is unfamiliar to her. She turns off the TV in front of her. “Hello,” she says, checking if there‘s anyone inside the house with her. She goes down the house and immediately gets some water to drink. She roams around the house and sees a picture of a girl. She gets the picture, and suddenly, her mind flashes back to the scene with the girl in the picture. She turns off another TV screen in front of her. She gets a jacket, wears shoes, and gets outside.

Nobody is around, but she sees some people inside some houses, staring at her from their windows. They are all recording her on video through their smartphones. She asks them if they know who she is because she can’t remember anything. Someone takes a picture of her and runs. She tries to chase her, but she is too late to catch her. A car stops on the sidewalk. A person wearing a mask gets down from the vehicle, holds a shotgun, and shoots at her. She runs to save her life.

Suddenly, people leave their houses and record her while she‘s running. No one is helping her. She approaches a girl in a gas station and asks for her help. The girl sees the man holding a shotgun. He shoots, so she starts to hide. Her friend is about to go out of a shop, but she stops him from going out. She runs to the shop while the other girl in limbo follows her. The two strangers plan to get out through the backdoor, but it‘s digitally locked. The girl in limbo asks in panic why the man in the mask is trying to kill her, and why are the people outside just watching and filming them but not helping. “Where the fuck have you been?” the girl from the gas station asks and tells her to get the fire extinguisher. She tells what Damian, the other guy, must do while she breaks the digitally-locked backdoor.

The man in the mask successfully breaks the glass window and enters the store. Damien stops him by hugging his legs. He gets shot. The girl breaks the door just in time for them to run. They hide behind trash bins. As she looks at the shooter, another flashback comes into her mind. Every flashback gives her a headache. They run again, but a car passes by, so they hide. The girl asks again who they are and why they look like such. The other girl tells her they like scaring people. They are like hunters looking for their prey. She tells her they need to run through the hole in the fence nearby.

They run and hide in one of the houses. She tells the girl in limbo to duck because some onlookers have cameras in their houses. It‘s how the hunters will find them. The girl in limbo panics, but the girl from the gas station tells her to get it together, or they will both get killed. Panicking, the confused girl shares she woke up in an unfamiliar house, but she doesn’t even know if it‘s her house. She can’t remember anything. She doesn’t even know who she is. But the girl who saved her insists she must know something.

She shows her a photo of a girl and tells her that the girl in the photo might be her daughter. She asks the girl from the gas station what is happening. She confirms if the girl in limbo really doesn‘t know what is happening, so she starts to explain there was a signal, like pictures, flashing pictures flashed on the TV screens or anything with screens. She flashes back again and sees the same description; she says she saw it. The onlookers have found them, so they switch places to hide. The signal did something to people like almost everyone just became onlookers. They started filming and just watched like spectators. They don’t care what will happen to those who are not one of them. Nine out of ten people were affected. They are not one of those nine.

She doesn’t know how what happened. She just calls them hunters. They seemed normal, but when they realized they could do whatever they wanted, like taking stuff, nicking cars, and doing everything they liked with things and people, it got worse until it got out of control. It looks like they are in a television game. The girl in limbo asks what they must do. They need to get out and break the transmitter that connects to everyone. They need to go to the south. There is only one safe zone, and they need to knock it out. “White Bear,” says the girl from the gas station. Another flashback happens. This time the picture gets almost clear. It‘s her having a picnic with her two best friends. The little girl from the picture is also seen. She starts to panic, so the other girl tells her to get herself together because they need to be safe.

She walks out of the house and confronts the onlookers. She asks them questions, but they just continue recording while laughing at her. She throws something at the onlookers, so they run, leaving the phone they‘re using to record. She picks it up to look at it, but the other girl stops her and tells her not to look at it because it‘s dangerous. But she still looks at the phone. Immediately, a series of flashbacks happen: the young girl, another lady who looks like her, and a guy wearing a hat. Then a voice is heard saying, “Jemima.”

The hunters found them, so they run. A van stops in front of them. The driver tells them to get in. The girl in limbo hesitates but eventually goes in. She asks the driver who he is because he looks familiar, but she can’t really remember. She tells him she knows him. The guy challenges it by telling her to tell him where they first met. She can‘t answer. The other girl tells him they‘re going south because there‘s a transmitter there. He says he will not drive them there; instead, he knows a safe place for them — the woods.

While in the woods, he asks each one of them about themselves. They also ask him about his weakness. He tells them he will get it. When he comes back, he is already holding a shotgun, pointing it at them. He tells Jemima to wear something and put her hands on the other girl‘s shoulders. He tells them to walk in the middle of the woods and follow whatever he says. They stop in the middle of the woods. He tells the other girl to remove the balaclava from the girl in limbo. They see people hanging dead in the middle of the woods. He tells them to get down there. After a few steps, he tells them to stop and kneel. Onlookers start to come out. Someone calls him, so the girl from the gas station runs away from him. He shoots at her, but he misses.

The girl in limbo is left. The guy leads her to a log and gets a drilling gun while saying they will show something people will like. He holds the drilling gun on her back, but he stands back when he hears a gun click. The girl who ran earlier is pointing a shotgun at him. She shoots him dead and tells the girl in limbo that there’s more like him along the way. They leave. The onlookers swarm at the guy‘s dead body, holding their phones while recording.

They are on their way to White Bear. While on their way, they talk about what they will do once they arrive. They will burn it. She has been planning everything. Someone takes their picture, so she starts to have some flashbacks. The confused girl tells the other girl to turn around; she remembers everything. But the other girl just carries on breaking the gate lock. She doesn‘t trust the memory of the confused girl.

A series of flashbacks replay in her memory. They enter the area and the room where the transmitter system is. The other girl turns off everything she thinks is connected to the transmitter while the confused girl looks around, trying to remember something through the symbol scattered all over the place. Gasoline is poured into the whole room when the hunters enter the room. The girl gets stabbed. The girl in limbo steals the gun from the hunter and shoots him. She gets even more confused when it just shoots confetti. The stage behind her opens, and she sees everyone clapping. They force her to sit on a chair and tie her there.

The hunters, Damian, and the girl from the gas station bow down before the cheering crowd. The man from the woods comes out and tells her who she is and why she is there. Her name is Victoria Skillane. Together with her fiancé, Iain Rannoch, they kidnapped a kid named Jemima. His fiancé killed the kid by burning her body while she was filming. She gets taken back to her room. The guy hosting the show spills medicine on the floor and puts a device on Victoria‘s head to wipe her memory clean. She screams for help once the device starts. The crew sets the stage up again. The next day, Baxter, Jem, and the others brief the visitors on what they can and cannot do. White Bear is the name given to the Justice Park where Victoria is held. White Bear became a clue in the search for Jemima Sykes.

Our Thoughts

Technology has its advantages and disadvantages. Using technology to fight crime and deliver justice may be good, but everything has its limits. A person is a person, whether good or bad, evil or saintly. We are all given equal rights to live. How are we different then from those who can stomach enacting evil deeds, if we ourselves do the same when we see them in chains?