Every major Black Mirror twist, ranked by shock factor

If you didn’t see the Shut Up and Dance twist coming, I don’t know what to tell you

10 months ago

In the history of Black Mirror, the show has a handful of episodes that hinge entirely on the success of a monster twist. I’m not just talking a small reveal or a character being a bit shady – I’m talking full on TWIST, that changes everything we thought we knew and means when you next come to watch the episode you’ll watch the whole thing in a completely different way. Not all of these twists are a success – so I ranked all of what I’d consider the biggest Black Mirror twists, ranked by their shock factor alone.

6. Shut Up and Dance

The big twist of Shut Up and Dance is that Kenny was being blackmailed because he was masturbating to child pornography. A lot of people had their minds blown by this reveal, but I never thought it landed. To me, it was always obvious that that was what was being hinted at. From Kenny being friendly to the kid in the opening scenes at his job to the fact that would someone really be doing all that goes on in this episode if they’d just been caught having a hand shandy to regular porn? Be for real.

5. Black Museum

Black Museum is just an episode always doing too much. Jack of all trades, master of none. The final big twist that Nish is Clayton’s daughter coming for revenge just feels a bit janky and it all gets wrapped up a bit too neatly. We’re jumping around so much this episode it’s hard to even care.

4. Mazey Day

Okay – this is the most ludicrous twist of them all. But this isn’t a ranking of how good the twists are, it’s a ranking of how shocking they are. And of all Black Mirror twists, you cannot deny this one is shocking. It’s also dreadful. Nobody expected Mazey Day to be a werewolf because why the fuck would we when we’re watching Black Mirror and not American Horror Stories? Anyway, yes – it’s shocking.

3. Loch Henry

I had the twist in Loch Henry in the back of my mind from when David and Pia started interviewing her and she was acting shifty, but that doesn’t take away from how horrific it is when Pia stumbles on what Janet and Kenneth did to their victims with Ian Adair. Watching Pia and Davis react to it makes the twist work all the more.

2. Joan Is Awful

I’m sorry, but if you claim you saw the Annie Murphy twist coming you are a LIAR. So good, so euphorically chaotic.

1. White Bear

The twist of White Bear is of such a magnitude that it honestly makes watching the episode again almost impossible because it’s just impossible to see Victoria as a hero when you know what she’s done by the end. The fact she’s a child murderer and is at the White Bear Justice Park where people pay to see her go through the same punishment day after day and have her memory wiped. The flip Black Mirror does here where it makes our hero into a villain is something it tries to do again with its twists, but never more potent than it was here with White Bear. Masterpiece, really.

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