Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 1 Ending Explained: Mike’s Fate in Chapter Common People
Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 1 is now available on Netflix, allowing thousands of people to enjoy its six new episodes. So, if you already gave it a try in the first chapter of his seventh installment, titled “Common People”, perhaps you were left with some doubts about their outcome. In this note, I present your final explanation (ending explanation). It is worth specifying that episode 07×01 of the production is directed by Ally Pankiw, has a script by Charlie Brooker and Bisha K. Ali, and develops throughout 57 minutes of footage. In addition, in its cast, there are stars like Rashida Jones, Chris O’Dowd, and Tracee Ellis Ross, just to mention some names. The story begins when a medical emergency leaves a teacher in a coma. So, struggling to save her, her desperate husband enrolls her in Rivermind, a high-tech experimental procedure that will keep her alive. However, as usual in the dark universe of “Black Mirror”, it turns out that everything has a price.
Black Mirror Season 7 starts with a devastating episode titled Common People, which immerses us in a technological nightmare where the despair and dependence of large corporations reach extreme levels. Mike, an ordinary worker, tries to save the life of his wife, Amanda, who suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. The solution seems to come when Rivermind, a corporation that mixes healthcare with tech exploitation, offers you a free experimental operation. But nothing is free: Rivermind uses Amanda’s brain to keep her servers running, leaving her body alive but enslaved. The marriage must pay a monthly subscription for Amanda to stay alive, trapped in an existence between wakefulness and unconsciousness. Mike, who just wanted to save her, ends up being a prisoner of a ruthless system, ready to squeeze every last drop of his resources and dignity.
Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 1 Ending Explained: Mike’s Fate in Chapter Common People
ATTENTION SPOILERS. Towards the end of the episode “Common People” of “Black Mirror”, we moved a year after discovering that -actually- Rivermind It was a company that took advantage of its clients’ needs to make them pay higher and higher subscriptions if they wanted to have a normal life. In this way, we see that Mike and Amanda are completely exhausted, having lost their jobs in the middle of the fight to keep up with the new levels of the company. The truth is that Amanda can hardly be a functional person, and Mike, another of his teeth, has been removed to acquire the subscription Lux as an anniversary gift to his wife. Thus, our protagonist decides that it is time to die, so she asks her partner to end her suffering while she “is not”. That is, when he makes an announcement … since -at that moment- the woman is not aware of what is happening around her. In that sense, fulfilling the wishes of his beloved, Mike suffocated Amanda with a pillow until his death. A fact that, without a doubt, leaves it visibly affected. After this, we observe him going to his office, where the screen of Dum Dummies is open and waiting for more humiliating moments from him. Mike, with a knife in hand, closes the door behind him, looking directly at the camera and concluding the story.
Does Mike Die? What About Amanda?
The end of the episode is a brutal blow. Mike, desperate, sells the crib that Amanda had kept in the hope of one day having children. With that money, he manages to buy just 30 more minutes of “life” for his wife. In one last painful act of love, Mike decides to end Amanda’s suffering by suffocating her with a pillow. She dies, finally released from the torture Rivermind had subjected her to. But Mike, consumed with guilt, cannot live with the burden of having ended his wife’s life. The episode suggests that Mike is also killing himself, although we don’t see him explicitly on screen. The last time we saw him, he took a paper knife and headed to the room from which he had been making self-injurious videos to earn money. Everything indicates that he plans to broadcast his suicide live, hoping that at least his death will have some economic value. A heartbreaking ending that shows how Rivermind not only destroyed one life, but two.
Is There Anything Left of Amanda?
Although Amanda physically dies, there is a disturbing possibility that part of her consciousness has been caught in the Rivermind network. As explained by Gaynor, the representative of the corporation, they copied a part of his brain in order to control his body using a synthetic tissue connected to the Rivermind cloud. However, they have likely cloned their entire minds, creating a digital replica that could be used for future corporate purposes. This hypothesis is even more disturbing when we consider that Gaynor herself may have been a victim of Rivermind, replicated and used as a puppet to lure more people into the company’s death trap. Amanda, although released from her physical body, could remain a prisoner as a digital consciousness within Rivermind‘s servers.
Rivermind: The Most Sinister Corporation of Black Mirror
Rivermind represents the darkest side of dehumanized capitalism. Amanda and Mike never had a real choice: subscriptions were not optional but a conviction in disguise. Rivermind increased rates and offered “payout improvements” to extend Amanda’s life or even the possibility of having children, but it was all a trap to squeeze every last drop of her resources. Desperate, Mike even resorted to doing self-injurious acts on an online platform called Dum Dummies to earn quick money. The series draws a parallel with the stark reality of people who go into debt to unsustainable levels to meet real-life medical expenses. Ultimately, Rivermind was the true villain in this story, enslaving Amanda to her last breath and forcing Mike to sell his dignity and, ultimately, his life.
The Bitter Final Reflection of Black Mirror
The episode ends poetically and devastatingly. Mike, after selling the crib to buy half an hour more for Amanda, ironically observes how the couple who buy it plans to burn it in a video clip. So you see your family dreams go ash. Finally, in the last symbolic scene, the shot centers on Amanda’s feet in bed, recalling the opening scene of the episode where the feet of both appeared. Now, only she remains. Mike has ended his wife’s agony, but he cannot continue living with guilt. The conclusion of this first episode of season 7 of Black Mirror leaves a strong message: corporate exploitation not only destroys lives but also dreams, families, and the dignity of people. As always in the series, technology is not the real monster; it is those who use it to enrich themselves at the cost of human suffering.
