Black Mirror – Season 6 Episode 3 “Beyond the Sea” Recap & Review

Beyond the Sea

Episode 3 of Black Mirror Season 6 sees us whisked back to 1969 for an absolute tour de force of tension, great acting and a solid, thought provoking theme. David Ross has the idyllic life with his kids and partner Jessica. Everyone seems to know who David is, but they’re also incredulous to his existence, commenting how he seems “so real”.

That night, after getting all hot and heavy with his partner, David receives a notification on his wristwatch and he has to go.

Contrasting this is another man, Cliff, who has a much quieter life with his partner Lana and his son, Henry. He’s recently moved out into the countryside to be away from crowds, but his son is cold and rather frosty toward him. Cliff also receives a notification on his watch at the same time as David, and together they end up hooking themselves up to individual chairs, which sends the pair back up to a spaceship.

They’ve been brought back due to a warning, something which sees Cliff head out into space to fix up. The mission seems to be a success and the pair, once more, return to their lives back on Earth.

Cliff heads back to greet Lana, who’s in bed reading. She wants to throw a party for the locals, giving Henry a chance to meet new people. Cliff is not so sure though, showing their differing values and headspaces.

Elsewhere, David awakens to see a whole bunch of cultists in his house. There’s a clear nod to Charlie Manson here, as they all have their own names and believe they’re doing God’s work. They want to see the “machine” before they eventually force David down against the counter and cut off his arm. And what’s underneath? Well, it’s a whole bunch of wires. “You are nothing natural, friend,” The Cultist coldly retorts, proceeding to smack his hand to pieces.

David and his family are held hostage, and the former is forced to watch as his family are slaughtered. Eventually, they light the place on fire and burn it down. While the cultists are apprehended, mostly thanks to them turning themselves in, David’s life has, quite literally, gone up in flames.

Over at Cliff’s house, he receives a call in the middle of the night about David’s fate. He heads back up to the spaceship, where he finds his comrade beside himself with grief, huddled over in hydroponics. He doesn’t want to talk to Cliff, who’s put in a precarious position. With his replica on Earth destroyed, David is forced into isolation the entire time.

So what of Cliff? Will he choose to be with his companion? Or rotate between Earth and the spaceship? After all, there’s still another four years of the mission to go, with two having already been completed. And even if Ground Control could create another replica, what has David got to go back to?

David watches the funeral for his family up in space, forced to stay alone with his thoughts, while Cliff alternates his time between the ship and Earth. While out fishing with his son, Cliff receives an emergency report about an airlock issue. It’s David, and he’s in an entranced state, seemingly looking to jeopardize the whole mission and potentially kill himself.

Should he do something up there and mess up the mission, that would consequently mean Cliff would be lost too. Lana suggests that he should let David use Cliff’s link but to keep all of this from Henry. So David, now inside Cliff’s body, awakens to find himself in a brand new life. He takes in the sights and sounds, marveling at various insects, the air and even the touch of leaves. It’s all too much for him though and he ends up crying, with Lana comforting him.

When David returns to the ship, he shakes Cliff’s hand and thanks him for the experience. The thing is, it’s clear that David is not ready to let go of this quite so soon. Left alone, he begins sketching. Cliff is shocked at David’s talent, so the latter suggests using Cliff’s replica to draw out an oil painting as a thank you gift. That will take some time though, but Cliff talks it over with Lana, who eventually agrees.

They’ll do one hour a week, with the canvas and paints set up in the barn, just while Cliff does his physical up in space. There are clear divides growing though, with Lana getting closer to David and seemingly more distant with Cliff. At one point, David convinces Lana to drive out to the hardware store to pick up oil for the paintings. They also go to the bookstore as well, where the cashier gets talking about replicas and Cliff’s partner, David, unaware of who’s in front of him. He even recommends a sci-fi book to her.

When the pair switch again, the earthbound Cliff finishes the painting, drawing out Lana on the pad. And when they begin dancing together, reciting the same moves as David had with his wife, Jessica, Lana gets cold feet and hurries off to get some water. Lana is not happy and refuses to cheat on her husband, pointing out how David is just a guest and not her actual husband.

Cliff, returning to Earth, learns what’s happened and believes they should let David finish his oil painting as a sort of closure before coming up with an excuse to prevent him from returning again. With the treadmill not working and David down on Earth, Cliff roots around in David’s bunk, where he finds nude drawings of Lana.

David returns to the spaceship, where he admits he has nothing left, and doesn’t shy away from the drawings either. “You have it all and you don’t even care,” David bitterly retorts, giving Cliff plenty of food for thought. In fact, Cliff starts to doubt his wife, especially when he realizes that she’s been lonely this whole time.

Unfortunately, it also has the knock-on effect of causing David and Cliff to drift apart, with the latter calling him a conman and a snake. All of this hits fever pitch when David brings Cliff back to the ship, revealing that there’s another issue outside the ship. David though, leaves him there stranded while he visits Lana and Henry one more time. When he returns, under the pretense of “using the bathroom” Cliff realizes that something is amiss. He scrambles back down to Earth, where he finds the place is a gruesome murder scene. Blood stains the walls, leading down to where Lana and Henry have been killed by David.

Cliff returns to the spaceship, distraught and grief-stricken, where David offers him a seat.

The Episode Review

While the plot is rather predictable, the acting from Aaron Paul and Josh Hartnett absolutely carries this chapter. The slow descent into madness, while adding in alt-tech from 1969, brings back that classic Black Mirror feel.

The opening to this episode also explains why the replicas couldn’t be in space, given the implications of the mission, with Cliff mentioning to Henry how he’s “not used to the grip”. With the engineering needed for outside the ship, it now becomes clear why humans have the replicas down on Earth and not the other way round.

The narrative makes good use of the themes of communication and trust, interweaving that around paranoia, loneliness and grief. In the end, David wants Cliff to feel exactly the same way he does, leaving him with absolutely nothing to go back home to. Cliff and David are forced to live with each other’s anger and sorrow, and they can’t just outright kill one another given this is a two-man mission.

That final shot, with the camera zooming out and showing just how alone they really are, speaks volumes about both their physical location and also how alone they both are now.