Black Mirror Season 6: The Bandersnatch Reference You Probably Missed In Episode 1
Contains spoilers for "Black Mirror" Season 6 Episode 1 — "Joan is Awful"
"Black Mirror" loves putting little references to previous episodes into their newest seasons, and Season 6 is no exception. Pretty early in the very first episode, there's a glaring reference to not just the following episode of the season, but also one of the most iconic installments of "Black Mirror" — which came with a huge twist of its own.
In the Season 6 premiere, "Joan is Awful," the titular Joan (Annie Murphy) goes about her day... only for her to watch it all unfold later on a show within the show also called "Joan is Awful," which stars Salma Hayek going through all of the exact same things our Joan just went through. When the show premieres, Joan, her assistant Eric (Jared Goldstein) and an employee she recently fired, Sandy (Ayo Edibiri) all queue it up on their own devices, only to watch themselves portrayed on the show as well. Sandy's viewing is particularly important. While she's cruising through the fictional service Streamberry to find "Joan is Awful," she stumbles across a different series called "Finding Ritman" complete with a cover photo of Will Poulter... who played the presumed missing and probably dead Colin Ritman at various points throughout Netflix's 2018 interactive special "Bandersnatch."
Who is Colin Ritman, and what happens to him in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch?
Long before he showed up as Adam Warlock in "Guardians of the Galaxy 3," Will Poulter played a major role in Netflix's choose-your-own-adventure special "Bandersnatch," which dropped as part of the "Black Mirror" universe in December of 2018. Immediately, you're put in control of Stefan Butler (Fionn Whitehead), who wants to adapt his favorite puzzle book "Bandersnatch" into a video game. When he starts working with a video game developer, he meets Poulter's Colin Ritman, an irreverent and famous game creator who encourages Stefan to think outside the box. Ultimately, when the two take hallucinogens together at Colin's house, it's not quite clear what happens to him; depending on what you choose, Colin jumps off the balcony and is declared missing, or he shows up later at Stefon's house to check on him (at which point you can just straight-up kill him).
We all know the "Black Mirror" stories are set in the same universe, and clearly, Streamberry — meant to mimic and lightly mock Netflix — made its own true crime series based on Colin's story and disappearance. Post-"Bandersnatch," there's no way to tell what really happened to Colin, though it does seem like he probably jumps off his own balcony and dies... and within the "Black Mirror" universe, they clearly don't know either.
What else happens in Joan is Awful?
"Joan is Awful" opens the sixth series of "Black Mirror" with a two-pronged message focusing on the rise of AI technology and the loss of privacy, especially when it comes to your own likeness. When Joan realizes Salma Hayek is playing her in a deeply unflattering Streamberry series — which leads to her boyfriend leaving her and the loss of her job to boot — she starts causing total havoc, at which point Salma gets involved herself (as herself). Together, Joan and Salma head to Streamberry to take down the ridiculously named "quadputer" that's running an enormous content machine, taking advantage of normal people who signed agreements without reading them as well as celebrities who agreed to lend their likenesses to the service.
It turns out, though, that the Joan we're seeing also isn't Joan; it's Annie Murphy, because this entire operation is CGI all the way down. (This is explained by Michael Cera, a programmer who seems to understand the gambit better than anyone.) When the Annie Murphy-Joan smashes the quadputer, she undoes the simulation, allowing the real Joan to emerge... and they form a close friendship, even though they're both also placed under house arrest.
The new season of "Black Mirror" is streaming on Netflix now.