Shut Up and Dance (Black Mirror)

Kenny (Alex Lawther) returns home from his restaurant job to find that his sister Lindsey (Maya Gerber) has unintentionally infected his laptop with malware. He accidentally downloads an anti-malware trojan, which allows unseen hackers to record him masturbating through his webcam. They contact the adolescent, threatening to leak the footage if he refuses to comply. At work, a text summons Kenny to a location away in 45 minutes. Feigning illness to leave, he frantically cycles there and is met by another blackmail victim (Ivanno Jeremiah), who passes Kenny a box containing a cake. Ordered to deliver the cake to a hotel room, Kenny meets Hector (Jerome Flynn), whom the hackers also contact. He had arranged to commit adultery with a prostitute and fears he will lose custody of his children if his wife Penny (Leanne Best) finds out. The two are told to drive to a set of coordinates. Stopping for petrol, they meet Karen (Natasha Little), a friend of Hector's wife, who requests a lift home. Hector drives recklessly in order to get her there so that he and Kenny can then continue to their destination to meet the strict deadline. Tasked with using a gun concealed in the cake to rob a bank, Hector insists on being the driver, leaving Kenny to perform the robbery. Despite urinating in his panic, he steals a bag of cash and flees the scene with Hector. Hector is instructed to destroy the car, while Kenny takes the money to a drop site in a forest in Wittenham Clumps. He meets another victim (Paul Bazely), who explains they are to fight to the death while being filmed through a drone, and the winner earns the money. Kenny's opponent deduces that, like himself, Kenny has been targeted by the hackers for being a pedophile. Kenny attempts suicide, but discovers the gun from earlier is empty, and the other man attacks him. Arriving home, Hector is texted a Trollface, learning the blackmailers have disclosed evidence of his infidelity to Penny regardless. The others' information is also released. A shellshocked Kenny staggers from the woods, injured and traumatized after the fight. His mother (Camilla Power) phones him, shocked and disgusted that he has been "looking at kids" as seen in a video watched by Lindsey and her friends. As she begs Kenny to tell her none of it is true, he hangs up, also receiving a trollface image as police arrive and apprehend him. ==Production==

Whilst series one and two of Black Mirror were shown on Channel 4 in the UK, in September 2015 Netflix commissioned the series for 12 episodes (split into two series of six episodes). In March 2016, Netflix outbid Channel 4 for the rights to distributing the third series, with a bid of $40 million. Due to its move to Netflix, the show had a larger budget than in previous series. "Shut Up and Dance" is the third episode of the third series; The titles of the six episodes that make up series 3 were announced in July 2016, along with the release date. A trailer for series three, featuring an amalgamation of clips and sound bites from the six episodes, was released by Netflix on 7 October 2016. Two days prior to the release of series 3 on Netflix, Den of Geek! published an interview in which Brooker hinted that the episode is "a grimy, contemporary nightmare" set in London, with no science fiction elements. Conception and writing The episode was co-written by series creator Charlie Brooker and William Bridges, who was new to the television industry. Bridges pitched three ideas to Brooker and executive producer Annabel Jones and although none of them were developed further, he was sent a draft script of "Shut Up and Dance" to work on. Brooker stated that the absence of science fiction elements from the episode was a "very conscious" decision, noting that science fiction is also absent from series one episode "The National Anthem" and series two episode "The Waldo Moment." He commented that the "weird, British, colloquial nasty humour" and "seediness" of the episode is similar to "The National Anthem." Director James Watkins had previously directed horror films Eden Lake (2008) and The Woman in Black (2012), which Lawther says made Watkins "really [learn] the craft of sustaining incredible suspense over long periods of time." The ending features Radiohead's "Exit Music (For a Film)," initially included as a temporary track during editing. The producers received permission from Radiohead to use the song as they liked Black Mirror. ==Analysis==

The episode was found to be the most similar to prior Black Mirror episodes out of those in the third series. Pat Stacey of the Irish Independent noted that it is the only episode of the series set entirely in England, Sean Fitz-Gerald of Thrillist wrote that it is a "dark thriller" which is both "a very atypical and very classic Black Mirror story." The episode's tone was seen by Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph as the "most nihilistic" Black Mirror episode to that point; he commented that its "vision of humanity" is "uncompromisingly negative" and that it leaves an "acrid aftertaste." Sophie Gilbert of The Atlantic compared the episode to previous episodes with contemporary settings—series one's "The National Anthem" and series two's "White Bear" and "The Waldo Moment." She also compared it to the 2001 special episode "Paedogeddon!" of the television news satire Brass Eye, which Brooker co-wrote. "Paedogeddon!" aimed to "lampoon the kind of moral panic and mob fury that's unleashed whenever the subject of child abuse is up for debate." Fitz-Gerald, Gilbert and Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club commented that the episode's themes resemble those in "White Bear." Handlen wrote that the audience must question "the danger of unsupervised vigilantism even when the victims arguably deserve what's coming to them," calling Kenny a "still sympathetic" character "not deserving" of his punishment, though he is "disturbed and troubled and in need of some serious counseling." Josh Dzieza of The Verge commented that the anonymous hackers mark "a bit of a departure" for the programme, which usually does not feature "overt villains." Mullane analysed that the hackers' identities do not need to be revealed as they are "effectively a stand-in for The Internet: all-seeing, all-knowing, and extremely dangerous." The supposed malware remover that Kenny downloads is called "shrive," a word from Middle English meaning "to prescribe penance" (the same root word is used for Shrove Tuesday). Gilbert commented that in light of this, "the gauntlet Kenny, Hector, and others are forced to run throughout the episode seems to be a kind of punishment for their sins, but at the end, none of them are forgiven." ==Reception==

Rotten Tomatoes reported that 67% of critics have given the episode a positive review based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Terrifically tense and twisty, "Shut Up and Dance" is well-paced and incredibly unsettling, leaving viewers stunned and with a greater distaste for humanity than normally evoked from an average episode [of] Black Mirror." "Shut Up and Dance" received ratings of five out of five stars by Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph, four out of five stars by Pat Stacey of The Irish Independent Handlen concurred that Lawther is "the real stand-out" of the episode, and Stacey found it "fantastically tense," and Handlen wrote that the episode is "never boring, but it's not all that engaging, either." • 8th – Matt Donnelly and Tim Molloy, TheWrap • 8th – Corey Atad, Esquire • 15th – Charles Bramesco, Vulture • 18th – Ed Power, The Telegraph • 19th – Aubrey Page, Collider • 19th – Travis Clark, Business Insider Following the fifth series, Brian Tallerico of Vulture rated Lawther's performance as Kenny the eleventh best performance in the show. Additionally, Proma Khosla of Mashable ranked the 22 Black Mirror instalments excluding Bandersnatch by tone, concluding that "Shut Up and Dance" was the second most bleak after "The Waldo Moment." The episode also appears on critics' rankings of the 19 episodes from series 1 to series 4: • 4th – Eric Anthony Glover, Entertainment Tonight • 17th – Steve Greene, Hanh Nguyen and Liz Shannon Miller, IndieWire Other critics ranked the 13 episodes in Black Mirrors first three series. • 4th (of the Top Ten) – Brendan Doyle, Comingsoon.net • 10th – Mat Elfring, GameSpot • 11th – Andrew Wallenstein, Variety • 13th – Jacob Hall, /Film • 13th – Adam David, CNN Philippines Some critics ranked the six episodes from series three of Black Mirror in order of quality. • 1st – Jacob Stolworthy and Christopher Hooton, The Independent • 2nd – Liam Hoofe, Flickering Myth ==See also==