Black Mirror Season 4 Episode 5 Recap – Metalhead

Bella, Clarke, and Anthony are inside the car, going somewhere. She asks Anthony to open the candy wrapper for them. Anthony comments that Bella is the only one who can stand the candies. Bella replies they‘re the only things left. Anthony says the pigs are all gone. The field they are looking at used to have so many pigs in the area. He says the dogs took care of them. Clarke says he doesn’t want to be like pigs because it’s undignified. Their noses are on the same level as their assholes. Bella corrects him and says pigs have a snout, not a nose. Clarke says they are all the same.

They stop at an abandoned warehouse. Bella talks about her promise to her sister that they will help someone inside the warehouse. She also mentions they could get batteries inside. Anthony gets out of the car and throws a stone at the other car to see if people are inside. Bella and Clarke get out of the car on Anthony‘s signal. Anthony tells Bella to leave the engine on. Clarke reminds Anthony and Bella to take five minutes, and he starts to walk separately from them. He checks the van while Bella and Anthony go inside the warehouse. Anthony breaks the van’s windows and starts to hack their machine. Clarke gets nervous.

Bella and Anthony continue to look for something inside the warehouse — 95-DY42 — a box. They find what they are looking for, but the moment Anthony gets the box,  he sees a robot behind it. The robot fires, and it hits Anthony’s face. The robot rains gunshots on Anthony. Bella gets out of the warehouse and calls Clarke. He‘s still trying to hack the system, but he does it just in time. Bella drives the car off as Clarke follows her. The robot continues chasing them. It jumps into the van Clarke is driving and shoots Clarke’s head. The robot takes control of the van as it continues to pursue Bella. She loses control of the car. She almost falls off the cliff but steers it away; her head hits the steering wheel. She loses consciousness.

The robot scans if she is still alive or not. It sees Bella still alive. She‘s about to fall off the cliff while inside the car, but she regains consciousness. The robot gets in the car, but Bella gets out of the car before it falls down the cliff with the robot. The robot is still working with an arm broken. It starts to find Bella again. Bella finds a place to hide near the river. She cleans her gunshot wound, removing the device that can make the robot detect her. She puts it in a bottle and throws it in the river.

Bella continues to run away. She tries asking for help using her radio, but no one is answering her. The robot finds the chip in the river. It scans the area again. Bella gets a connection. She tells them to whistle if they can hear her, and she gets a response. She tells them she can’t talk for long but explains they found a dog in the warehouse, and it killed Anthony and Clarke. She apologizes to them. She also tells them to let Ali reach her apology for continuing despite the situation being impossible. They just want to help Jack.

While Bella is talking to her friends without moving in her position, the dog gets nearer to where she is. It sees her blood, leading it to where she is at that moment. She tells them she must find some hideout to rest for the night. She tells them to tell Graham her mom loves him if she can’t make it back. She tells them she will try to come back and ends the communication. She starts walking, but she sees the robot and runs fast into the woods. She climbs on a tree and stays as quiet as possible. Still, the robot finds where she is. It starts to climb on the tree.

Luckily, it falls. It tries to climb again but fails again because the dog’s other arm is broken. The dog stays in his place and waits until Bella comes down the tree. Bella is sleeping up in the tree when she nearly falls. The robot becomes alert, getting ready for Bella’s fall, but Bella climbs her way up again. She notices something is blinking in the robot and tries something. She throws candy at the robot. It moves, but it immediately starts to recharge again. Bella counts down from 1,000 to 1 and does it repeatedly until the robot doesn’t move anymore. She gets down from the tree and runs again. Bella reaches the dead end. She needs to climb the wall before the robot recharges its battery. She successfully climbs to the other side and runs towards the car she sees, but it‘s locked.

She sees a house. The key is inside. She tries to reach it, but it falls on the floor. She still manages to get it. She gets inside the house and starts to find the car keys, but she has difficulty finding them. She roams around the house. She finds two shotgun ammo and a piano. She loses focus, but she regains herself and starts moving again. She walks upstairs; then, she smells something awful. She gets shocked and starts to cough because of what she is seeing — a man shot himself with a shotgun. She takes the shotgun from the dead man and finds the car keys in his pocket. She loads the shotgun.

Bella cleans her hand in the toilet. The robot gets to the wall. It can’t climb up, but it successfully hacks the wall system to open it. Bella is still inside the toilet. She gets something to clean her wound. She covers her wound so it won‘t get infected. The robot is already inside the house. It gets a knife.

The water stops flowing. She already knows the robot is inside the house. She tries to hide, but it still finds her. Bella splashes some paint on the robot, and it temporarily loses its sight. She runs towards the car and gets inside, but the vehicle is not starting. Bella is losing hope until she thinks of a plan. The robot chases Bella again, but she is not in the car anymore. Bella comes out from the back of the car, points the shotgun at the robot and shoots it in the head. It stabs her, but she shoots it again.

The robot fires the shrapnel that detects a person‘s location, then it dies. Bella is looking at the mirror. She is trying to remove the device on her face with a knife when she sees it blinking. She realizes something. She uses the device to communicate with her friends. She tells them she contacted them to say she can‘t return anymore. She also tells them to say she‘s sorry to Ali and that Ali should kiss Jack for her. She apologizes for not making her promise come true. They tried their best. She also tells Graham she loves him. Bella also tells everyone she has always loved them. She ends the call and also ends her life before the robots come to her and kill her. Back in the abandoned warehouse, Anthony‘s dead body still lies there, and a bunch of teddy bears is scattered on the floor. The teddy bears are from box 95-DY42, the box Bella, Anthony, and Clarke were trying to get.

Our Thoughts

The things you are willing to do for the people you love. They know it is dangerous. They know it is impossible. But Clarke, Anthony, and Bella still tried and risked their lives to give Jack the gift he always wanted. They want to make him happy, and they are willing to sacrifice their life to see Jack‘s precious smile. Was Ali right when she told them they are insane for still doing it? They didn’t have a chance to stand against those heartless yet advanced dog robots, detecting everyone everywhere. Yet, we cannot judge, especially in their situation. It‘s a picture of how heartless technology can be, especially in the hand of a ruthless controller.