Black Mirror Season 6 Episode 1 Ending Explained: “Joan is Awful” Are Joan and Salma Hayek in a Simulated Reality?
What is the ending of Joan is Awful explained? Black Mirror Season 6 Episode 1 presents us with a scary story on the limits of streaming services, regarding the vulnerability of the privacy of its users. Thus, in the following lines, Mag tells you everything you need to know about its outcome. Joan Is Awful is an episode directed by Ally Pankiw and written by Charlie Brooker. It centers on a woman who discovers that the Streamberry platform (much like Netflix) has turned her life and her secrets into a dramatic series, starring a famous Hollywood star. Salma Hayek, in that sense, sees how his reality slowly transforms into a nightmare. In addition to the Mexican interpreter, the cast includes Annie Murphy, Michael Cera, Himesh Patel, Rob Delaney, and Ben Barnes. You can learn more about them in this note about the cast of season 6 of the show.
Black Mirror Episode 1 “Joan is Awful”: Summary
The first place in the standings is all for the first episode of Black Mirror Season 6, Joan is Awful, the most ironic, funny, captivating, and innovative of all. The one told by Joan is Awful is a story that unites all of us, a reflection on the sharing of personal data and privacy, a push to make us understand how much every day we allow devices to take over our lives and assume their power. With a brilliant performance by Salma Hayeck and Annie Murphy, Joan is Awful tells the story of a woman whose life is adapted as a TV series by a streaming platform without her knowledge.
Of the five new episodes, it’s the most classic, the one that best fits into the Black Mirror canon. A “meta” episode, in which Netflix plays along and jokes about itself, allowing Brooker to use the graphics and sounds of its interface, creating a new platform, Stream berry, on which a supercomputer loads a TV series inspired by the life of one of its subscribers. It is also the most ironic episode, in which dialogues and interpretations (Annie Murphy and Salma Hayek above all) manage to strike the balance between the grotesque and the parody of themselves. The only flaw: the ending was a bit too rushed.
The first episode of Black Mirror should be summed up like this. Open Netflix, search for Black Mirror Season 6 , and play. “Joan is awful” Reads the title: get to Know Joan, her Husband, and her work environment. It feels like a classic catalog drama series. Then Joan sits on the sofa, turns on the TV, “Tudum” and Streamberry opens a Netflix alter-ego. There’s a new series on Netflix about Joan, and it’s called Joan in Awful. But we are watching an episode of the same name. Are we Joan? Is Joan the one on our screen or hers? The short circuit has started: welcome back Black Mirror.
This meta-Netflix episode, between Truman Show and Enemy (Villeneuve’s film based on Saramago’s novel The Duplicate Man), is the extreme outcome of a sentence: “You accepted the conditions“. In the era of the proliferation of stories, in which everything becomes accountable and to be recounted, a streaming platform exploits the neuroses of the subjects, their fragility, and fears, to “surge their involvement“. You don’t need space technology or science fiction: reality is enough to be disturbing, one for all, like the horoscope. And no one can be as pungent as Black Mirror in slamming it in our faces.
Black Mirror Episode 1 Ending Explained: Ending Explained
Towards the end of the chapter, Joan finds out that she consented to Streamberry’s use of her data by signing the app’s terms and conditions during installation. Furthermore, it is revealed that the company is using a quantum computer to produce the entire show in CGI. In other words, the real Salma Hayek is not recording the show: the actress gave up the rights to her image so that it can be used by the platform in new productions, thanks to advanced technology.
Realizing that the series shows everything that happens in her life, Joan decides to get Hayek’s attention, by defecating in a church. She has a premise in mind: which celebrity would she like to see on screen in those circumstances? Unexpectedly, Salma goes in person to our protagonist’s house and confesses that her hands are practically tied. The contract she signed gives the company absolute freedom over the use of her image. So, Joan convinces the star to break into the Streamberry offices and destroy the computer together.
Are Joan and Salma Hayek in a Simulated Reality?
The two women manage to reach the computer, where an unexpected twist occurs: Michael Cera’s character explains that they are all in a simulated reality. The truth is that the Joan we met throughout the entire episode is the fictional version of the executive. In real life, the actress Annie Murphy is the one who gave up her image rights and, practically, we have been in a chapter that can see the “original Joan”.
These are the simulation layers we know about in the Netflix series:
- The real Joan, who watches her life portrayed by Annie Murphy.
- The Joan of Layer 1 (Annie Murphy), who sees her life portrayed by Salma Hayek.
- The Joan of Layer 2 (Salma Hayek), who watches her life portrayed by Cate Blanchett.
- The Joan of Layer 3 (Cate Blanchett), who observes her life portrayed by an unknown actress.
