I think we’re all so used to Black Mirror being quite dark that when we get a more upbeat episode (in some ways) we automatically say it’s bad. Was this one any good though? Well…

Rachel, Jack and Ashely Too follows two teenage girls called Rachel and Jack. Rachel is obsessed with a popstar called Ashley O who brings out a new interactive doll that works with AI. Jack however does not feed into this fan culture and finds the doll takes over Rachel’s life and becomes her only friend.

Alongside this the real Ashley O is being tormented by her manager and doctors, who control her through medication and not allowing her to branch out from her style. This is reminiscent of Kesha and Britney but on a lighter scale. In the end she falls into a coma when her manager crushes her un-eaten pills into her food but still makes music from her by reading her brain waves.

This is when things get weird. So Ashley too (the doll) starts acting weird when she sees her real life human in a coma on TV. The girls manage to unlock the doll to its full potential and it seems all of Ashley O’s brain has been implanted into the toy. This means the toy is able to try and save her real life self. It’s all very odd.

And this is where it dropped off for me. I felt the ending was too strange and just seemed unbelievable. I get it’s set in the future but the doll taking the girls to her real life body and then saving that person seemed very over the top. The humour didn’t really gel with the dark tones of the manager’s control and the ending felt very rushed and like there was supposed to be more.

While I enjoyed season 5 I definitely think it ended on a low point with this episode and I probably won’t watch it again.

What did you think?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding