Crocodile - 4x03

[NurseRatched]

"Crocodile" is the third episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by Charlie Brooker and directed by John Hillcoat. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.

[NurseRatched]

I think this was my favorite, even though I didn't 100% believe Mia would have unraveled quite so deeply. It could happen, I'm sure. I don't have time at the moment to really write, but I want to give a shout out to ICELAND. WOW. The landscape was mesmerizing. I also think my very favorite Black Mirrors are those episodes where you start out having sympathy for a character & by the end, you've flip-flopped over to disgust or disbelief! Later, peeps!

[DawnFae]

I thought that Mia was a victim from the very beginning, hanging with a selfish boyfriend that only thought of himself when he made the corpse of the biker he killed (by accident) disappear into that icy lake.

He coerced and manipulated Mia into becoming his accomplice in hiding the deed he was responsible of.

After years of drinking heavily he got sober and wanted to ruin Mia's life by "making amends"!
Wasn't it way too late for amends? He didn't give a crap about how Mia would handle the fact that they threw the body of someone's husband or father or "fill in the blanks" in that icy lake and now, to escape his tormenting feelings and emotions he was about to ruin Mia's life a second time! It had always been about him even when what he was about to do sounded "noble" and the right thing to do. It would not have righted anything at this point in the contrary Mia's life would have been ruined because she had the most to lose. Maybe her way of dealing with that dark secret was to throw herself into hard work and that afforded her a comfortable life (materially speaking) but deep down she was miserable.

No wonder Mia lost it in that moment and killed him. I am not saying that what she did was okay but she kind of had no choice but go mad and react violently after she covered up for him all those years and at a terrible cost to her mental health (she became a drinker too).

After that it was all Murphy's Law getting her trapped deeper into the cruel net of that dark story.

The device was a creepy accessory of a greedy world. The insurance agent wanted the double bonus so she walked into her grave so to say. Had nobody thought of such a possibility when they sent agents with the device to violate people's minds and threaten them with the police if they didn't want to have their brains picked?
I found this memory device violating and the perfect tool to gain unprecedented control over people and their lives and surely not for their own good. Why go to such extremes? The insurance agent had 2 other witnesses but what they said was still not enough to sort out the case and pay the guy who got injured. And even after Mia confirmed seeing the accident happen she still had to go and spy on her memories. Nobody can actually estimate the speed of the vehicle with absolute certainty so what was that about? I suspect that the insurance agent wanted to get absolute proof that the culprit was the pizza delivery vehicle so that the insurance company could sue the pizza delivery company for big money.

The rest was a series of consequences from the first crime Mia's boyfriend committed and the mad world wanting to get more control over people and their lives plus being in the wrong place at the wrong time type of situation.

The guinea pig bit was just too much! They treated it as a camera with a hard disk but is this even possible?
If they put a camera there because the parents wanted to watch over their blind baby it would have had more meaning but I guess the writer wanted to push the whole memory device thing to the extreme and went a step too far in my humble opinion.

The story was cruel to Mia from the get go. Even after she committed all those horrible crimes because she was unhinged and was in defense mode trying desperately to protect the life she carved out for herself, they showed us the choir with the kids singing about how they can be anything they want and how a new start is always possible only to send the police after her based on guinea pig "memories" if that is even possible. I am not sure that a guinea pig brain would form the same "images and / or movies as a human brain would but that is another story. Perhaps the scary message is, technology is out to get you and your life if you let it fall in the kind of greedy hands we've seen in this Black Mirror episode...

[NurseRatched]

Super interesting perspective, DF. Mia's persona didn't scream "victim"
to me; they were both wasted, he was driving & he killed the biker. However, out of desperation, he does the absolute wrong thing & convinces her to join him in this dreadful horror. She's still an adult. She still has some sort of responsibility to speak out & pay the "karma bill" up front. But neither one does. In fact, she appeared to me to be the strong,
conniving one! She became a huge success in her field; somehow, she was able to partition off the past & gain wealth and recognition for her skills as an architect. He became a miserable alcoholic. No matter how you look at it, it's quite the psychological study.

The device was a creepy accessory of a greedy world. The insurance agent wanted the double bonus so she walked into her grave so to say. Had nobody thought of such a possibility when they sent agents with the device to violate people's minds and threaten them with the police if they didn't want to have their brains picked?

Totally agree on this point!

And the guinea pig! Almost made me laugh at the end of such a macabre episode. Seemed pretty clownish to be able to retrieve visual memories from a pet like that... I am not sure that a guinea pig brain would form the same "images and / or movies as a human brain would but that is another story."

Thanks for your insightful review, DF! I do like reading other points of view on things.

[Lori]

Another enjoyable episode, albeit violent. I hated that she killed the baby. Ugggh!!! I think the titles of these shows are interesting too. 'Crocodile'. I get it. A violent killing machine by nature, but mostly a survivor. Supposedly 240 million years. Factoid: The Egyptians revered crocodiles. Their river god Sobek is modeled after one. Entire crocodiles families were mummified and placed in sacred tombs with gold bracelets placed on their ankles. (Now you know.)

His quick decision to throw the body in the river, knowing with the ingestion of alcohol he would most likely return to prison and all that entails, tripped Mia over the edge and effectively made her an immediate accomplice. Had he hesitated it may have given her time to alter his action. Yes, she had less to lose then he by doing the right thing. However, with time this obviously became more difficult.

Mia displayed the same weakness after the fact when confronted with his remorse and need to confess. She basically annihilating every possible witness to her actions, having had the benefit of many years to analyze just what she had to lose.

Cause and effect. Paying the Piper. ...Another thought-provoking Black Mirror. These are all done so very well!

[DawnFae]

Her last kill was so very horrible! I guess that by then she was gone in the sense that she was crazy, a single minded killing machine as you put it. The question is, without the pet memories would she have continued to live with the horrors of her actions?

I tend to think that she would have self-destructed by committing suicide or by drinking herself into the grave.

The first time she helped her boyfriend getting rid of the body, she had much less to lose than he did but later she had the most to lose and she did not want to pay a second time around for him, as the bill was too high and from her perspective for nothing.

Furthermore, he did not give her the chance to do anything about it. He basically had his mind set on ruining her life and she saw that as unacceptable to her.
The real question is, was she capable of being a heartless killing machine all along or was she acting as such under duress?

Time and again, she had moments of hesitation, of wanting to spare the person who became a danger to her but it was not possible in her mind because she did not want to lose everything. But what was she attached to so much?
Was it her son of 9 years and the prospect of ruining his life when her reputation would be ruined?
Or was it actually her "success"?
Did her success keep her "sane" while she lived with feelings of shame and guilt after the ice lake incident?

We didn't have much to go on in the story other than her raw emotions and fast but deadly reactions to them.
All fascinating questions and I agree that she had to pay for her actions no matter what her reasons were. Was the message also: humans beings are dangerous predators who would do anything to protect themselves when their safety and their possessions are threatened?

Is such a violating memory device still justifiable even in the face of such consequences?
Was the insurance agent not another predator on the prowl but her "prey" was a more dangerous predator that hunted her down and killed her and her loved ones?

Mia seemed to have a huge physical force when she killed her ex boyfriend and when she grabbed the agent out of her car?
The first kill was half an accident, the second one was deliberate and cold. The whole story was extremely disturbing.
Why did they have to kill the little one in the story? She could have kept some of her humanity and would have made the story more impactful imho.

I thought the memory device was the crocodile because of the way it opened and closed its "mouth" making or breaking people's lives.

The whole thing escalated from one kill to another as we have seen in many crime movies and stories because a kill will never solve the problem. It all comes back to haunt the killer in one way or another...
Was the final message: this is a crocodile eat a crocodile world?

[DawnFae]

Another scary thought: everyone became a potential "monitoring device" in this Black Mirror world by default and by law. Cameras showing things about other cameras...

[NurseRatched]

Her last kill was so very horrible! I guess that by then she was gone in the sense that she was crazy, a single minded killing machine as you put it. The question is, without the pet memories would she have continued to live with the horrors of her actions?

I tend to think that she would have self-destructed by committing suicide or by drinking herself into the grave.

Agree, ladies; the fact that the little one was blind seemed like a cruel slap when you consider it. Even more senseless! I do wonder about the aftermath if she hadn't been caught. Was she such a sociopath at that point that she could just live with herself?

I wondered what everyone made of the title. Good ideas, Lori and DF. So, am I the only one who liked this episode & what does that say about me

Spoiler:

[Lori]

Ha! You evil elf...

I liked it! It wasn't my favorite and it was a little too diabolical for me, particularly with the baby. Yet, that aspect of the show gave credence to how very far she had fallen.

DF - you are most likely correct that the title is related to the machine. It really ate people alive, didn't it? I also was amazed at that skinny little lady's ability to haul a big old dead man around, but it is well documented that people attain amazing strength sometimes when emotionally distraught. *See those moms who lift cars off their kids or fight crocodiles, etc. There is a story where a mom saw a croc take her child when she looked out the kitchen window. She bolted down to the shore and fought that sucker and saved her child. I would probably trip on the way down, break my teeth, and pass out. Thank God I was never tested! Still, it seemed a little off as her adrenaline wore off that she would be that strong.

[Dee]

I thoroughly enjoyed your discussions, ladies. Not much is left for me to say, you've covered most of my feelings and thoughts about it.

I Have found this a very good episode, but I agree with you, the end with the guinea pig was a weird mixture of clever twist but also utter nonsense. How will they make the little fluffball remember? It might not have even taken notice, busy munching on his carrots, but even if it looked that way, why would it replay those memories? Oh dear.

I also thought, they had all this high technology equipment to solve insurance claims and crime but no CCT cameras in the hotel and the carpark? Very annoying.

But these practical issues (and Mia's amazing strength) aside, I thought the episode was very interesting and yet again thought provoking.

Mia's predicament was very difficult indeed. She chose to cover for her friend and the more time passed, the more trouble she would have been in herself, had she decided to come clean. But she decided to bury it all. But the cost of that was very clear: she was so detached and emotionally thwarted, she never even kissed her child, she just threw herself into her work to keep her mind occupied, I guess, then drank to keep the demons away.

I thought the Crocodile was Mia. A cold blooded, ruthless murderess. "Crying crocodile tears"... yes, she cried. But more for herself than for the people she killed.

Something we were discussing afterwards was how a memory retriever like this would make these kind of murders more common. Children, especially. Any bystanders. Eliminating all potential witnesses. It really is truly horrific.

I found the episode to be like a nightmare. It is in fact one of my recurring nightmares that I've killed someone (unintentionally, and I never know the person) and I need to deal with the consequences (and I don't ever seem to choose to call the police either ) so I had some sympathy for Mia, trying to cover he tracks and protect her life and family. But the deeper she got sucked into her mission, the more monstrous she became, the harder it was to feel any sympathy for her. She lost all her humanity by the end. She's become a crocodile.

[Dee]

Nice musical callback to Season 1's "Fifteen million merits":