The Entire History of You

Litigation lawyer Liam Foxwell attends a performance appraisal. Agonising over it, he repeatedly watches the "re-do" on his "grain", an implant which records footage from a person's eyes and ears. Arriving at a dinner party for his wife Ffion and her friends, he finds Ffion laughing with Jonas. Throughout dinner, Liam scrutinises Ffion's reactions to Jonas, whose engagement recently ended. Jonas jokes about a time when his fiancée was waiting for him in bed while he was downstairs masturbating to a re-do of him having sex with a different woman. The other guests react negatively at this joke. Another guest, Hallam (Phoebe Fox), talks about how she lacks a grain after being "gouged"—an attacker cut into the skin behind her right ear to steal her memories. Improper removal of the grain can blind the victim. Liam invites Jonas to his and Ffion's house, but then exaggeratedly remembers how late it is and Jonas leaves. Ffion invites the babysitter Gina (Mona Goodwin), who was looking after their daughter Jody, to sleep upstairs. Liam asks Ffion about Jonas, and she identifies him as a brief paramour from Marrakesh. She says they dated for a month, but Liam shows a memory of her saying that she dated "Mr. Marrakesh" for a week. The discussion becomes heated, Ffion referencing Liam's former obsession over another man Dan, and Liam calling Ffion a bitch. They reconcile and have sex while watching memories of their past sexual encounters. Afterwards, Liam goes downstairs and drinks copiously while watching re-dos of the dinner party. When Gina awakens, Liam asks for her opinion on the memories. Embarrassed, Ffion gets Gina to leave. Liam interrogates Ffion further. She now says that her relationship with Jonas lasted six months. Liam drives to Jonas's house—ignoring his car's warnings that drunkenness invalidates his insurance. Jonas is unhappy to see him. They both enter the living room along with Hallam, who apparently spent the night with him, which Liam scoffs about. Liam begins to drink more while asking Jonas passive aggressive questions like if the lamp in the room is from Marrakesh, if he had sex with Hallam to later watch as re-dos, and if he masturbates to pictures of Ffion in the room, all while playing it off as just a joke. Jonas continuously tells Liam to leave, which he ignores. This escalates into a fight between the two. Liam wakes in his car, which crashed into a tree, and replays his memories. Assaulting Jonas, he made him delete his recorded memories of Ffion. While this happened, Hallam called the police. Liam spots Ffion’s memory of Jonas in his bed. He asks Ffion about it. She lies at every step until Liam presses further: after Liam left home over an argument about Dan, Ffion had drunken sex with Jonas around the time Jody was conceived. Aggressively, Liam demands she play the memory, and she does. Later, in an empty house, Liam re-watches memories of Ffion and Jody. He uses a razor blade and tweezers to remove his grain, and the screen cuts to black as he pulls it out. ==Production==

The executive producers Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones began work on Black Mirror in 2010, having previously worked together on other television programmes. The programme was commissioned for three hour-long episodes by Channel 4, taking its budget from the comedy department. Brooker's production company Zeppotron produced the show for Endemol. "The Entire History of You" was the third episode to air, on 18 December 2011. Conception and writing "The Entire History of You" was written by Jesse Armstrong, making it the only episode to not give a writing credit to creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker. Executive producer Annabel Jones said that they were looking for a satirical writer whose stories "still have meat". In a 2018 interview with Yahoo! Movies, Armstrong reported that the project was in "development hell", commenting that no progress was being made but that he was still interested in the project. He suggested that Team Downey's option had lapsed. ==Analysis==

Though Armstrong was known as a comedy writer, the episode contains little humour. In comparison to the previous episodes, "The National Anthem" and "Fifteen Million Merits", David Sims of The A.V. Club found it made for more uncomfortable viewing and Sam Richards of The Telegraph found it to contain less satire. Al Horner of GQ called it the "most emotionally harrowing" episode, Brendan Doyle of Comingsoon.net writing that although the episode is "exceptionally dark", it ends with "a small ray of hope". Shelli Nicole of Architectural Digest analysed that the "cool jewel" colours in Liam and Ffion's house relate to their mistrust and detachment. Reflective surfaces are prominent, including a mirrored coffee table, which allows the couple to look at themselves rather than each other. Sims analysed that the episode's exposition is gradual. Brooker commented that if there is a moral, it is that Liam "shouldn't have gone looking for something that was only going to upset him". ==Reception==

Critical reception On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the episode holds an approval rating of 89% based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 7.00/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Examining how technology amplifies human characteristics, the emotional punch of 'The Entire History of You' comes from positing that we don't need futuristic technology to ruin a relationship – we can do it all by ourselves." It received ratings of an A− in The A.V. Club and three stars in The Telegraph and GamesRadar+. Richards critiqued that the grain "wasn't so crucial to the trajectory of the story" as "jealous people will always find ways to destroy their relationships". • 1st – James Hibberd, Entertainment Weekly • 1st – Morgan Jeffery, Digital Spy • 2nd (of the Top Ten) – Gina Carbone, CinemaBlend • 2nd – Aubrey Page, Collider • 2nd – Ed Power, The Telegraph • 4th – Travis Clark, Business Insider • 5th – Charles Bramesco, Vulture • 6th – Corey Atad, Esquire • 7th (of the Top Seven) – Al Horner, GQ Meanwhile, Brian Tallerico of Vulture rated Kebbell's performance the third best of Black Mirror, praising him for a "heartbreaking" performance as "a man whose world collapses around him and who gets to watch it fall again and again and again." Other critics ranked the 13 episodes in Black Mirrors first three series: • 3rd – Andrew Wallenstein, Variety • 4th – Mat Elfring, GameSpot • 5th – Adam David, CNN Philippines • 6th (of the Top Ten) – Brendan Doyle, Comingsoon.net • 7th – Jacob Hall, /Film ==See also==