Do you ever watch an episode of Black Mirror and anticipate basically every dour turn it will take while you’re still several scenes ahead? That was my experience for the first 70 minutes of “Beyond the Sea,†an 80-minute slog that illustrates exactly why some people dislike this show.
It begins with a simple but smart, high-concept premise: In this alternate 1969, astronauts running tests on the space station are equipped with a link to hyperrealistic machine replicas of themselves back on earth. That allows them to essentially carry on with their lives unimpeded while their physical bodies are in space, spending time with their families on a daily basis.
We see that play out in the opening stretch of “Beyond the Sea,†which crosscuts between David (Josh Hartnett) and Cliff (Aaron Paul), two fathers with vastly different home lives. While David is good-natured, humble, and affectionate, Cliff is stern, quiet, controlling, and traditional. While David has a healthy sex life with his wife, Cliff barely touches or even speaks to Lana (Kate Mara). And while David’s family is happy with their beautiful California home, Lana seems put off by their new remote life near Cape Ann.
When Cliff and David are called back to space for errands or for mandatory “physicals†to keep their real bodies active, they just plug back in and wake up from suspended animation; it’s all so seamless, allowing for a work-life balance that real astronauts simply don’t have. But what happens if something befalls your replica? We find out when David is woken up on earth by a group of intruders from a hippie cult led by the Charlie Manson–esque Kappa (Rory Culkin). They call David “unnatural,†chopping off his replica’s arm and leaking green goo everywhere. It doesn’t stop there; they not only destroy the replica altogether, but they butcher David’s whole family, deeming their actions unnatural too.
Beyond the devastating trauma of losing everyone he cares about, the incident totally robs David of his life on earth; it’s impossible to make a new replica when he’s in space, and they’ve only completed two years of a six-year shift up there. Whenever Cliff is spending time at home, David is stuck alone in space, left to mourn his family and contemplate ending his own life. Killing himself would doom Cliff too, so Lana comes up with an obvious solution: Cliff could loan his link to David for an hour, letting him borrow Cliff’s replica to spend some time out in nature. Sure enough, the first trip is a success, with David finally experiencing some catharsis when he plays with a friendly caterpillar and breaks down crying.
If you’re like me, this is where it becomes obvious where the story is heading: One trip turns into a weekly appointment, with David routinely spending time with Lana during Cliff’s physicals. The ostensible purpose is letting him paint their house, reconnecting with an old hobby, but a sort of love triangle inevitably forms: Lana is clearly yearning for her husband’s attention, and here’s a man who looks and sounds like her husband handing it to her. David offers sci-fi recommendations — a contrast to the stiff and religious Cliff, who doesn’t read — and gives her a brief painting tutorial, allowing the sexual tension to fester. They become even closer on a trip to the hardware store in town, after which a bookseller recognizes “Cliff†and offers her condolences for what happened to David’s family.
This stuff shouldn’t be boring; it’s an intriguing idea to explore the bizarre experience of watching different personalities inhabit the body of a loved one. But in practice, the way it plays out just feels slow and dull, full of pregnant pauses that don’t contribute to anything; you could watch this episode on 1.25x or 1.5x speed and glean everything you need. This is a dark marriage story like “The Entire History of You,†combined with a story of grief like “Be Right Back,†but it has neither the heart-pounding momentum of the former nor the emotional power of the latter.
Aaron Paul is a good actor, and he does a nice job creating a subtle distinction between Cliff and David, conveying slightly more self-assurance and warmth when David is in control. But the word slightly is key here: The distinction could stand to be a lot less subtle. One of the chief joys of watching an actor play dual roles is observing the contrast, but there’s little delight to be found in watching Paul transform into a marginally more affectionate guy.
Of course, part of what draws Lana to David is exactly that: When she looks at him, it’s easy to believe she’s hanging out with a younger, happier version of her husband, like the Cliff she originally fell in love with. It’s easy to get caught up in that fantasy — as she does when their dancing starts to get heated. David tries to convince her that it’s fine, that Cliff would never know if something happened between them, but Lana angrily accuses him of “wearing her husband like a suit.†When it comes down to it, she’s not in love with another man; she’s in love with Cliff. It’s all there in their exchange: “I know the way you look at me.†“At you?â€
They both keep the interaction quiet, though Lana makes an effort to end the arrangement by mentioning to Cliff that David smacked their son for wrecking his painting. What really derails everything is Cliff’s discovery of David’s Lana drawings. It leads to the big confrontation we’ve been waiting for: Cliff punches David, and David goes off on him for taking his perfect life for granted and neglecting his lonely, untouched wife. He’s not wrong, even if he crossed a clear boundary by making a move on Lana.
This leads to a big confrontation between Cliff and Lana, where everything comes out: She wanted David to touch her because she is lonely all the time, especially when Cliff is around. He’s a “shadow†who doesn’t treat her as “real.†All of this is fine and good, a logical, emotional climax to the story we’ve been following, but it still feels hollow to me; we never get a sense of why Cliff is the way he is and how exactly he plans to change. Even in the Lana-David scenes, we don’t really see her open up or become a livelier version of herself.
Back in space, David apologizes and asks if he can use Cliff’s replica one more time to apologize to Lana and say good-bye. But Cliff cruelly, if understandably, denies him that, making up some mean message from Lana and claiming, “For all time, she is mine.†At this point, I thought I knew where this episode would end: with some variation of David killing Cliff and somehow taking over his life using his dog-tag key. I’m not sure it would logically make sense — as Cliff notes earlier, one of them dying would doom both, and he couldn’t simply live as a replica forever — but I figured it would entail something along those lines.
But what happens instead is even more disturbing. As expected, David fabricates some damage to one of the ship’s coolants, so Cliff takes a look, leaving his dog tag inside. David does let him back in a few minutes later, but Cliff quickly learns what he was busy doing: returning to earth to kill Lana and their son using the replica. When he returns, teary-eyed and at a loss for words, David kicks him a chair, inviting him to sit down.
It’s an admirably twisted ending, more fucked-up than either of the men actually dying. Instead, Cliff is forced to live with the man who killed his family — an arrangement that, fittingly, puts him in basically the same position David has been in for most of the episode. In the end, what David wanted most wasn’t female companionship or the opportunity to touch grass; he just wanted someone to understand what he was going through. Putting Cliff through the most unimaginable tragedy is the darkest possible way of ensuring that.
But the impressively grim resolution doesn’t make up for an episode that is far too long, paced far too slowly, with barely a sprinkle of humor or relief from the tonal monotony. There’s so much potential to the replica idea, but the episode doesn’t really take advantage of it. And despite the time we spent with these characters, I don’t feel like I know them outside of their traumas; we never really got the chance to see any real friendship develop between the two men, only quiet respect, so the “now they get each other!†ending doesn’t land as it should. In a way, I’m more curious about what comes after that ending than the events that led up to it. For Black Mirror, that’s never a good sign.
Easter Eggs
• Is there any particular reason the replicas couldn’t be used in space while the actual humans are on earth?
• I really would like to see Aaron Paul play more characters who aren’t Really Serious Guy. Why has this become his lane?