Essay: Analyzing Themes in Black Mirror's Metalhead Episode

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of the Black Mirror episode "Metalhead." The essay examines the episode's plot, which follows Bella as she attempts to escape a robotic dog in a post-apocalyptic setting. It explores the themes of artificial intelligence, the dangers of over-reliance on technology, and the erosion of human emotions in a technologically advanced world. The essay discusses the episode's black and white cinematography, its minimalist storytelling, and its effectiveness in conveying a sense of dread and isolation. It also delves into the episode's commentary on the human condition, highlighting the contrast between human vulnerability and the cold efficiency of AI. The essay references key scenes and plot points, such as the search for teddy bears and the final confrontation, to illustrate the episode's central arguments and its impact on the viewer. Furthermore, it incorporates relevant academic sources to support its analysis of the episode's themes and messages.

Running head: NETFLIX EPISODE METAL HEAD
NETFLIX EPISODE METAL HEAD
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author's Note:

1NETFLIX EPISODE METAL HEAD
Thesis statement: Metalhead of Black Mirror suggests that the human beings are allured by the
artificial intelligence but it is leading to engulf them gradually.
The aim of this essay is to discuss the summary of Metalhead the fifth episode of the
famous Black Mirror series. The episode only has 41 minutes duration but effectively conveys
the message of the story. Metalhead is the fifth episode of the anthology series of Black mirror.
This particular episode Metalhead lashes by in the series of instinctual action vignettes and there
is not any more takeaway and words of cautionary to be gleaned. This particular series of Black
Mirror is about technological anxieties as well as possible future. Metalhead is entirely filmed in
black and white while flowing the predicament of Bella trying to escape from the robotic dogs.
The situation captures the sudden collapse of the human society. It relates the threat of depending
upon artificial intelligence in a great deal. The human being is thinking to improve their lifestyles
by using artificial intelligence but this is growing heavy for them. To Card (2017), they are
falling into the trap of advancement of technology that is gradually engrossing the human
civilization as captured by the storyline of Metalhead.
In this particular episode has simple plot yet received positive reviews and has been
compared to The Terminator as both of these worked feature machines chasing humans. The
message of this episode has been highly debated among the viewers as the reviewers have been
discussing questions regarding the artificial intelligence and the box of teddy bears in the final
shot. The episode only has 41 minutes duration but effectively conveys the message of the story.
In addition to this, the acting of Maxine Peake in the character of Bella and direction of David
Slade has made the episode successful.

2NETFLIX EPISODE METAL HEAD
The plot of this episode starts with Bella, Clarke and Anthony driving to a warehouse in
order to find something so that pain of Jack gets relieved and his life is saved. Clarke hijacks a
van and with his companions broke into the warehouse. Here they find the box they were
searching but this was guarded by a four-legged robot dog (Imdb.com 2018). Anthony is killed
by the dog the climbed down and shoots shell with shrapnel containing trackers. Bella flees
without the box as well as her companions. She escapes with her car and Clarke was following
with his van. However, this robotic dog jumps into the van and kills Clarke. The artificially
intelligent dog starts to drive the car chasing the car of Bella. She diverts her path through a deep
forest but halts abruptly when she reaches a cliff edge.
Bella then uses some pliers for extracting the trackers which were embedded in her leg
helping the robot dog to track her way. She throws those trackers into the river so that the dog
thinks that she is dead. Then she uses her walkie-talkie and the whole episode shows how
earnestly and helplessly she us trying to connect the human beings around her. However, she
cannot hear the man on her other side. One the face of death, Bella could only remember the
memories of her beloved Ali and Graham. She manages the person on the other side to give a
message so that he can pass it onto her loved ones in case she is killed by the monster robot dog.
Bella runs here and there into the forest and climbs a nearby tree. The dog robots however
manage to find her and chases. These scenes from the episode reveal that fact that humans are
filled with emotions which the machines do not possess. The whole story is based on emotion of
human beings when three people dare to get a child thing and face extreme danger. In this story
the viewers can find the sharp difference of the intelligence of the human beings with the
artificial intelligence (Génova & Quintanilla Navarro, 2018). The former is connected with
emotions and the letter is not. AI works under any circumstances ignoring any type of condition

3NETFLIX EPISODE METAL HEAD
(Crane, 2015). In every turn of the story this theme has become implicit and connect the idea that
humans do not harm machines but the machines can kill human as they cannot think or analyze
but follow the instructions only (Hollnagel, 2014).
After this, Bella finds two corpses rotting in their upstairs bedroom. This devastating
image disturbs bit Bella as well as the viewers. She then taks the car keys along with a shotgun
from these corpses. Despite the fact that Bella through power drainage will stop the dog to attack
any further but it has already recharged (Forbes.com 2018). This artificial intelligence in it helps
the dog to gain admission to that compound through interleaving a leg into the slot. Here the
chase of the dog towards Bella takes an interesting turn. She leaps out to throw paints over the
visual sensor of the dog and then throws the can of paint to the room’s corner (Imdb.com 2018).
It cases the noise and able to climb into the car. The first death in this story reveals that there will
be more cruelty than expected. To Proctor and Van Zandt (2018), it seems that the human beings
have no importance in this world of artificial intelligence.
In the final scene, Bella gets into a bathroom. In the mirror she sees few shrapnel
embedded wounding her face. She understands that she cannot survive hence tries to kill herself.
she thinks her death to be more peaceful than the attack of the robot dog. She lifts a knife, and
notices a shrapnel piece in her throat. This made her think about her beloved and she speaks into
her walkie-talkie. Now she is unaware of the fact that she can be heard but says goodbye to her
loved ones Ali and Graham (Forbes.com 2018). The story ends when she puts her knife on her
throat then the scene shows the landscape focusing dogs approaching and investigating to find
Bella. On the contrary, in the warehouse, the box that the trio tried to find initially and for which
all of them died, contents dozens of teddy bears spilled on to the floor.

4NETFLIX EPISODE METAL HEAD
Therefore, from a plot perspective, this episode of Black Mirror could be pitched as its
take on The Terminator movie, distilled down its simplest way. The roving dog robot hunting
Bella is ravishing and the dog guard will not stop till it catches her. As mentioned before, it is not
an ordinary robot but it is a Boston Dynamics-style robot, having wonderful and sleek design
like a high-end gadget. This robot has an unyielding diversity of tools in it at its disposal. Despite
having all the improved tooled and technologies it cannot replace the importance of human
emotions which is barely needed in every aspects of lives. Artificially intelligent machines can
delete their creators that is human beings from existence as they hold no value for lives or any
emotions in their systems. Thus, this episode like other four episodes of Black Mirror series is
just like a disturbing reminder tough which the writer has conveyed that the dark future is
coming and this is not going to stop until everything gets diminished.

5NETFLIX EPISODE METAL HEAD
References:
Card, S. K. (2017). The psychology of human-computer interaction. CRC Press.
Crane, T. (2015). The mechanical mind: A philosophical introduction to minds, machines and
mental representation. Routledge.
Forbes.com. (2018). 'Black Mirror' Recap: 'Metalhead' Is Strong, Simple, And Deeply
Unsettling. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2018/01/05/black-mirror-recap-metalhead-is-
strong-simple-and-deeply-unsettling/
Génova, G., & Quintanilla Navarro, I. (2018). Are human beings humean robots?. Journal of
Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, 30(1), 177-186.
Hollnagel, E. (2014). Human factors/ergonomics as a systems discipline?“The human use of
human beings” revisited. Applied ergonomics, 45(1), 40-44.
Imdb.com. (2018). "Black Mirror" Metalhead (TV Episode 2017). Retrieved from
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5710984/
Proctor, R. W., & Van Zandt, T. (2018). Human factors in simple and complex systems. CRC
press.