"Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" is the third and final episode of the fifth series of the anthology series Black Mirror. The episode was written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Anne Sewitsky; it was released on Netflix on 5 June 2019, alongside "Striking Vipers" and "Smithereens".
It follows Ashley O (Miley Cyrus), a pop singer whose creativity is restricted by her controlling aunt, and Rachel (Angourie Rice) and Jack Goggins (Madison Davenport), teenage sisters who have recently lost their mother. The doll Ashley Too, owned by Rachel, is a clone of Ashley O's personality. Brooker based the episode on a sitcom script he had written years prior, about a punk band who are hanged and return to life to find their manager profiting off their deaths. It was also informed by holographic performances featuring deceased artists.
The executive producers thought Cyrus would be perfect for the role, but were surprised when she agreed. Filming took place in late 2018, for five weeks, in Cape Town, South Africa. Ashley O performs "On a Roll" and "Right Where I Belong" during the episode—these are adaptations of Nine Inch Nails songs. "On a Roll" was released by Cyrus, subsequently appearing on several national music charts as well as receiving a Guild of Music Supervisors Award nomination.
Critics found it to be more upbeat than most Black Mirror episodes. Ashley O's storyline was compared to Cyrus's own life, along with those of other figures in the music industry. Some reviewers analysed personality traits of Rachel and Jack as a reaction to their mother's death. Most critics found the episode lacking in structure, writing quality, exploration of themes and characterisation of Rachel, but Cyrus's acting received acclaim.
Plot After the death of their mother, Rachel Goggins (Angourie Rice) and her bass-playing older sister Jack (Madison Davenport) live with their father Kevin (Marc Menchaca), who spends most of his time attempting to invent and promote mouse-control devices. Having recently moved, Rachel has no friends. For her fifteenth birthday, she receives Ashley Too (voiced by Miley Cyrus), an interactive artificially intelligent robotic doll of her favourite pop star Ashley O (Miley Cyrus). Ashley Too encourages and tutors Rachel, who treats her as a friend, but their relationship annoys Jack. Rachel dances to Ashley O's song "On a Roll" at a school talent contest, but fumbles the end of her routine and leaves the stage embarrassed. Jack blames Ashley Too for Rachel's chagrin and hides the doll; Rachel accuses Jack of suppressing both Rachel's and her own creativity.
Meanwhile, the real Ashley O is unsatisfied with her life and wants to reinvent herself as a rock musician. When she writes broody music and does not take the medication given to subdue her, her controlling aunt and manager Catherine Ortiz (Susan Pourfar) laces her food with drugs to render her comatose. She and the unscrupulous Doctor Munk begin to extract commercially viable music material from Ashley's brainwaves. When the news reports that the coma was caused by a shellfish allergy, Jack apologetically returns Ashley Too to Rachel, who shows no interest.
Six months later, Ashley Too reactivates and begins to glitch out after seeing a news report on Ashley O's coma. Jack connects the doll to the diagnostic software Kevin uses for his humane mousetrap inventions and removes a limiter. Ashley Too reveals herself to be a duplicate of Ashley O's entire consciousness, and persuades Rachel and Jack to look for evidence of Catherine's crimes at her house. Jack inexpertly drives them there, then poses as a pest control technician while Rachel takes Ashley Too to where Ashley O lies comatose. The doll unplugs the life support to let her real self die, but it transpires that the machine was actually perpetuating the coma and Ashley wakes up. Jack and Rachel subdue two staff members with Kevin's mouse stunner and a sedative syringe and flee the house with both Ashleys.
Ashley O directs the group to a venue where Catherine is debuting Ashley Eternal, a holographic replacement for Ashley O. Pursued by the police after Jack runs a red light, the group drive through the back entrance of the venue, dismaying Catherine and astonishing the crowd as Ashley O emerges on stage.
During the credits, Ashley O (now billed as "Ashley Fuckn O") performs the song "Head Like a Hole" in her pop rock style at a smaller venue, with Jack on bass. Rachel and Ashley Too watch while Kevin talks to the bartender about the venue's pest control. Two dissatisfied fans leave the concert as Ashley crowd-surfs.
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 five comprises three episodes, as the 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
The episode was written by Brooker. It was based on a comedy sitcom script from years prior about a 1977 punk band whose members are hanged by a Conservative minister and return to life to see their manager exploiting their deaths for profit. It also took inspiration from real life holographic performances of dead artists such as Prince, Whitney Houston, and Amy Winehouse; Brooker found the holograms "ghoulish" and noted that the subjects "often pass away in extremely tragic circumstances". He also considered AI as a means for creating a program which could imitate John Lennon's songwriting or serve as a celebrity virtual assistant. Brooker said that the episode is not disparaging pop music, but criticising inauthenticity in music. According to Brooker, an unused idea saw Catherine revealed as non-human, either with her face being removed to display the machinery behind it, or with her disappearing "in a puff of smoke". In the final episode, after her Ashley Eternal plan fails, she looks at the camera and breaks the fourth wall.
Casting
Brooker and Jones thought Miley Cyrus would be perfect for the part of Ashley O, but did not expect her to be interested, or that they would get a pop star for the role. However, she was a big fan of the programme, and within a couple of days of their reaching out, she accepted the offer. She found the script's portrayal of the music industry realistic, in terms of its "overt exploitation of artists" and the way in which decisions are driven by performance metrics rather than creativity. Madison Davenport played Jack. She auditioned without knowing that the episode was part of Black Mirror, and was only told about the scene where Jack distracts a bodyguard from investigating Ashley O's IV drip removal. She was sent the full script a few days prior to filming. Angourie Rice, who plays Rachel, auditioned later in the process and knew that it was for Black Mirror.
The executive producer Annabel Jones said that the episode was about a musician trying to find her identity and "break out from the commercial machine". Jones said that Cyrus's personality matched how the episode gets more "heightened and sarcastic and satirical" as it progresses. She also said that Cyrus brought vulnerability to the role, despite her punk-like persona. Cyrus related to Ashley O's desire to explore other genres, something she did after becoming an adult. Cyrus said that her parents took an active role in her career and focused on getting a manager who would take care of her, in stark contrast to Ashley O's manager Catherine. Cyrus contributed ideas about her character's clothing and appearance. She also spoke to Brooker about enjoying a recent performance to a mostly older audience who were not recording the experience on their phones. Some dialogue and ideas from this conversation inspired aspects of Catherine's presentation of Ashley Eternal.
Filming and editing While the episode takes place in America, for financial reasons the filming went ahead in Cape Town, South Africa, taking place six days per week for five weeks. After Cyrus was spotted at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront during filming in November 2018, rumours began that she would appear in the fifth series of Black Mirror. Cyrus said that she was able to "get into Ashley" as she was isolated from friends and family. Problems in her personal life informed her emotions when portraying Ashley O's life breaking down. On the day that she filmed the scene where Ashley O wakes up from the coma, Cyrus had lost her home to a California wildfire. She used the events to inform her acting, though she had to take some breaks during filming the scene.
The Ashley Too doll's movements were partly captured during the shoot, and partly computer-generated imagery. Two crew members controlled her movements—one for her head and arms, and the other for her wheels—and the doll spun around and spoke in real life. Some parts, however, required the actors to film with a green-screen stick, and the doll was added in during editing. The driving scenes were filmed on a sound stage. The final scene was filmed in a Cape Town bar over the course of a few hours, on Cyrus's last day of shooting, with Davenport saying that it "felt like... a small punk venue". Davenport knew how to play the guitar, but learned the bass guitar over the course of a fortnight for her part in "Head Like a Hole". Cyrus and Davenport recorded the audio in a music studio.
Music
Songs performed by Ashley in the episode are adaptations of songs from Nine Inch Nails: "Head Like a Hole" was retitled "On a Roll", and "Right Where It Belongs" was changed to "Right Where I Belong". A rewrite of "Hurt" to "Flirt" was made but not included in the episode. "On a Roll" was released via YouTube on 13 June 2019 and added to various music streaming services on 14 June. It subsequently charted in several countries, including peak positions of 18 in New Zealand and 65 in the UK. Billboard ranked the song 28th in their list of the 100 Best Songs of 2019.
During the writing process, Brooker contacted Trent Reznor, the lead vocalist and songwriter for Nine Inch Nails, with a synopsis outline and an explanation that he wanted to adapt their music into pop songs. Reznor—whose songwriting partner Atticus Ross produced the soundtrack to the series four episode "Crocodile"—was a fan of the show and approved. Brooker said that the humour arises from the fact that the pop versions are "insanely positive" and "full of empty affirmations". As an example, "On a Roll" changes the original lyrics "Bow down before the one you serve" to "I'm stoked on ambition and verve". Reznor said that the songs were "wonderfully absurd" and "really funny" in context. He found it "strange to hear [his] music come through the blender and back". Isobel Waller-Bridge, sister of the actor and writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, received a credit for adapting the episode's music.
Analysis