"Smithereens" is the second episode of the fifth series of the British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. Written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by James Hawes, it premiered on Netflix on 5 June 2019, alongside "Striking Vipers" and "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too". In the episode, the rideshare driver Chris (Andrew Scott) takes hostage the intern Jaden (Damson Idris) of Smithereen, a large social media company, making a demand to contact the company's CEO Billy Bauer (Topher Grace).
The episode was inspired by an experience Brooker had in a car hired via Uber when the driver got out unexpectedly to get a bottle of water. He also began a story around how a person grieves the loss of a loved one differently when their life is permanently inscribed in social media. Smithereen is similar to the social media website Twitter and Bauer was compared to its CEO at the time, Jack Dorsey. Most filming took place in England, but Grace's scenes were filmed in Spain. Scenes were shot roughly in chronological order, at Scott's request, and his inability to drive was a challenge for the production.
The major theme in "Smithereens" is the power social media companies wield and their products' adverse effects, primarily their designed addictiveness. Critical reception was mixed: Scott's acting received widespread praise and a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award, but reviewers mostly criticised the episode's storyline and the simplicity of its message. It was ranked poorly compared to other 'Black Mirror' installments.
Plot Chris Gillhaney (Andrew Scott) is a rideshare driver in London. He has sex with Hayley (Amanda Drew), a woman from his group therapy, who has been trying to guess the password to her late daughter's Persona account to find out what led to her suicide. One day, Chris picks up Jaden (Damson Idris), an employee at the social media company Smithereen. Chris abducts him at gunpoint but is furious upon discovering that he is a newly joined intern. A police officer sees Jaden in the back seat with a bag over his head and pursues with her partner. In the chase, Chris veers to avoid two teenage cyclists and stalls the car in a field. An additional contingent of police arrive, led by CS Linda Grace (Monica Dolan).
Chris aims to speak with Smithereen CEO Billy Bauer (Topher Grace). He sends a picture of Jaden at gunpoint to Jaden's superior. Word gets to COO Penelope Wu (Ruibo Qian) in the U.S., who speaks to Chris. However, Billy is on a solitary retreat. As police visit Chris's listed address, Smithereen gather much more information through Chris's social media profiles. Formerly a teacher, Chris lost his fiancée Tamsin in a car accident with a drunk driver three years earlier and has been planning a kidnapping for weeks. The hostage negotiator David Gilkes (Daniel Ings) speaks to Chris, but Chris has researched negotiator tactics and leverages the hostage so that David leaves.
Smithereen record Chris while he is on hold. Chris notices the police's behaviour changes after he lies to Jaden that the gun is fake; bystanders overhear the police and post the misinformation on social media. He threatens to shoot Jaden in five minutes unless Billy calls him; despite Penelope and the FBI's protestations, Billy does so. Chris reveals that he believes himself responsible for the car accident that killed his fiancée; he was checking a Smithereen notification when the cars collided, but the other driver was blamed. Chris and Billy agree that Smithereen has been designed to be as addictive as possible and Billy says he was planning to quit as CEO. Chris implies he will now kill himself, but Billy begs Chris to let him help. Chris thinks of a last favour: ask Persona to give Hayley her daughter's password.
Chris tries to release Jaden, who urges Chris not to attempt suicide and then fights to take his gun off him. At Grace's orders, snipers fire into the car as the pair struggle. Around the world, people check their phones, then continue on with their lives.
Production
A fifth series of Black Mirror was commissioned by Netflix in March 2018, three months after the release of series four. Initially part of series five's production, the interactive work Black Mirror: Bandersnatch increased in scope to the point where it was separated from the series and released as a standalone film; it premiered on 28 December 2018. Although previous series of the programme produced under Netflix contained six episodes, series 5 comprises three episodes, as series creator Charlie Brooker viewed this as preferable to making viewers wait longer for the next series. The three episodes—"Striking Vipers", "Smithereens" and "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too"—were released on Netflix simultaneously on 5 June 2019. As Black Mirror is an anthology series, each instalment can be watched in any order.
Conception and writing "Smithereens" was written by Brooker, who wanted the series to contain an episode without any futuristic technology, to remind viewers that Black Mirror is not solely a science fiction show. Previous such instalments include the first episode, "The National Anthem", and season three's "Shut Up and Dance". The two initial sparks for "Smithereens" were a question about how a person deals with the loss of a loved one whose life has been recorded in social media and an experience in a rideshare car booked through Uber. In the latter, the driver unexpectedly got out of the car and looked for something in the boot, while Brooker realised he was unaware of where they were. The driver was just getting some water.
The former idea developed into a story where the protagonist was trying to get into the social media account of somebody who died by suicide, but Brooker thought it would be "extremely superficial and cheap, and also weirdly slightly intrusive" to give a "glib reason" for a character's suicide. In the final episode, the secondary character Hayley has this storyline, but the contents of her daughter's Persona account are not shown. Brooker said, "Really, she's probably just going to open another box of questions by going in there".
Executive producer Annabel Jones described Chris as "overwhelmed" and said that he "feels like an onlooker" over society. Discussing the psychological effects of technology, Brooker said that he used to "reach for a cigarette first thing in the morning" as a chain smoker, and now does the same thing with his smartphone for a "similar reward-feedback loop". Jones gave the example of a homescreen showing the number of unread emails as gamification, one of many features that witness how phones are "subtly and incrementally... designed to absorb you".
Billy Bauer was written to embody a Silicon Valley entrepreneur: Brooker said that Billy thinks himself a "switched on, liberal, hippy kind of guy". He was not written to be a "cartoon villain" or resemble any particular social media CEOs, though Brooker did take inspiration from a ten-day retreat taken by then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Jones commented that Billy is "as lost as" Chris and feels "out of control".
Brooker described the episode's ending, in which strangers are seen looking at their phones, as a message about how the characters' lives were "reduced to ephemeral confetti that just passes us by". The "most important day" of Chris's life and maybe Jaden's is "reduced to the level of a pop-up".
Casting and filming
Having previously talked to Brooker about appearing, Scott joined the cast of "Smithereens" as he was "really gripped by [the main] character." He described himself as less interested in technology than "the idea of the vulnerability of people that a simple mistake can be made at any given moment and you can blame it on yourself or you can blame it the powers that be". Per Scott's request, most of the episode was shot in chronological order, so that he could "slowly reveal" more of Chris's character. He said he was "as playful as possible" when acting, aiming to perform "in as many different ways as possible". One difficulty in filming was that Scott did not know how to drive a car. Production mounted a car on top of a mobile platform and instructed Scott to mimic steering to go along with filming.
Topher Grace—who had recently filmed for BlacKkKlansman (2018)—played Billy Bauer. He had been looking to vary the types of characters he played and was a fan of the show, having particularly enjoyed season two's "Be Right Back" and other episodes which "are more emotional than technology-based". He was surprised while reading the script when he reached Billy's appearance, having built up an expectation that he would be more villainous. He said that similar tech company founders had "created their own legend" and that he expected Billy to stand out in a crowd and have a distinctive "relationship with spirituality". For this reason, Grace wanted Billy to be bald but after discussion he ended up with a bun. Grace told an interviewer that he was unsure of whether Billy was "as trapped as he says", but that he does not personally like "people like this". Damson Idris played the Smithereen intern Jaden. His first Black Mirror audition was for the series three episode "Men Against Fire".
Director James Hawes had previously directed "Hated in the Nation" in the third series. Most of the filming took place in England, overlapping with production of Bandersnatch. Urban scenes were filmed in various downtown London locations. Some footage was shot in Harrietsham, Maidstone in Kent and in a field near Gravesend around June 2018. The Fairbourne Reservoir in Kent was used as a location for boardroom scenes. Grace flew to the UK to watch Scott's acting and briefly meet him before the filming of his scenes in Spain. To help Grace match the emotional intensity of Scott during the phone call, an actor was hired to read Chris's lines offscreen—usually the person in such a role is not a professional actor.
Soundtrack The episode's music was composed by the Japanese artist Ryuichi Sakamoto, known for his electronic music and soundtracks. It incorporates synthesisers which, according to Pitchfork reviewer Daniel Martin-McCormick, create "rising tension", "a looming state of emergency" and are "steadfastly integrated" with the episode. The soundtrack was released as an album two days after the episode's premiere.
Analysis
Charles Bramesco of Vulture and Matt Reynolds of Wired found the episode to have a police procedural style, similar to the third series episode "Hated in the Nation". Atypical for the genre, the gathering of intelligence is speedy, due to the power of the social media companies, rather than forming the majority of the episode's runtime. "Smithereens" is set in 2018; David Sims of The Atlantic said it "could've been pulled from today's headlines". He drew the connection that as with "The National Anthem", it showcases a news story which "begins to spiral out of control online". Vox reviewer Aja Romano found that it "blends a hefty mix of bleak nihilism and social satire" and "comes across like a thesis statement for the series as a whole". Louisa Mellor of Den of Geek saw a "black comedy of errors" in Chris's plan quickly going wrong in several ways, and Sims commented that the episode showcases "classic hostage tropes" including "the panicked cops, the slick negotiator [and] the snipers looking for a shot through their scopes". Stephanie Dube Dwilson, writing for Heavy, noted an absence of an "unexpected" or "incredibly dark" twist, as many prior episodes employ.