https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7uFcpF0pXk

Black Mirror
6×02: “Loch Henry”
Directed by Sam Miller
Written by Charlie Brooker

* For a recap & review of the Season 6 premiere, click here.
* For a recap & review of 6×03, click here.
Janet McCardle (Monica Dolan) receives a visit in the Scottish countryside from her son Davis (Samuel Blenkin) and his girlfriend Pia (Myha’la Herrold). There’s a bit of awkward, near-racist banter from Janet, though mostly just out of ignorance instead of malice. Davis and Pia are actually going to shoot a film about “a man who watches eggs” and one of the “last holdouts against the commodification of nature.” Janet doesn’t quite get the documentary and she doesn’t get any of Pia’s progressive conversation, either. Later that night, Davis tells Pia about his father, who was a cop; apparently he was very sick before he died and Janet had to take care of her husband a lot before the end. They find an old camera, so they turn it on and have a little sexy fun. Not so sexy when mom is in the room nearby, but, oh well.

The next day, Davis takes Pia to the nearby loch, as well as the local inn. At the inn they meet one of Davis’s old chums, Stuart King (Daniel Portman), who’s quite the character. A warm and piss-taking reunion from Stuart who jokes about pronouns and diversity. He helps run the inn and bar with his father, Richard (John Hannah); they don’t have what you’d call a good relationship, especially since the inn’s ready to go under. Pia doesn’t know why there aren’t more tourists around in such a beautiful place. And Stuart says it’s because of Iain Adair. Apparently, Iain “tortured and killed people.” We hear the story from Davis since part of it involves his father.
Once upon a time in 1987, a couple in their 20s rented a local cottage for their honeymoon when the area was still popular with tourists. They’d been there a week. When they were supposed to leave, their belongings were found in the cottage but there was no sign of the couple. Davis’s father was called in to investigate. Yet weeks and weeks went by with no signs of the couple. Then Princess Diana died and the media moved on. Eventually one night Iain was drinking at the inn and was “talking weird.” He makes comments about the missing poster of the couple and threatens to shoot the inn up. Later, Davis’s father went up to check on Iain only to get shot in the shoulder. Then Iain shot himself after killing his parents. In the cellar, police found an old bunker where Iain had a “torture room” where he’d torture and kill people. The missing couple were found, along with more victims. A horrific history in that small town.
After hearing the terrifying story of Iain Adair, Pia wants to do a true crime documentary on his sordid tale. It isn’t something that Davis wants to do. Pia sees a true crime doc on something wild like Adair would be a hit. She’s ready to make the film on her own if Davis won’t be part of it. He’s not so willing to make content out of what led to his father’s death. Pia assures that a doc would help Davis’s father be remembered correctly as one of Iain’s victims, but it’s not enough to convince him yet. She keeps on pushing for it, even when they’re sitting at the table after dinner. At the inn, Pia tells Stuart the idea and he believes it’s something that would help bring tourists back. Davis finally gives in and says yes to Pia’s documentary concept. One good thing: Stuart has a big box full of stuff that his mother kept from back when Iain committed his crimes, like a personal archive. A good place for Pia and Davis to start. Stuart’s father isn’t happy about it all, though. Richard says his son shouldn’t have given those things to Pia and Davis. Neither does he believe they should be making a movie out of a tragedy.

Great needle drop in this episode with “People in the Front Row” by Melanie.
Davis and Pia go about compressing all the news reports and all the tragedy into a piece of content for entertainment digestion. Richard hears his son giving an interview in the inn and he gets very angry, calling Stuart a “parasite.” Davis and Pia go back to the house working on more of the documentary, editing down Stuart’s interview. Janet finds out that they’re doing a project on Iain instead of the egg guy. She isn’t mad. She wants her husband’s real story to be known, and if the documentary helps it seems she’s fine with it. She blames Iain for ruining her and her husband’s lives. Janet even agrees to do an interview for Pia and her son. Later at a production company, Pia and Davis pitch their project with the personal angle involving Davis’s father. A producer wants “something unseen, unexplored” to make the doc viable.

And so now, Pia, Davis, and Stuart go up to the old Adair house, using a crowbar to get themselves through a window. They’ve brought an old camera to do some recording, hoping they’ll be able to beef up the documentary with fake footage to make it seem like old forensics footage. They’ve also brought a little “stage blood” and lemon juice to make it look like fluids splashed everywhere under a blacklight. But there’s already enough stains all over the floor already when the blacklight’s turned on. It’s not like anybody came in to clean the place after Iain was hauled away. They get out of the “death dungeon” full of the creeps. In the vehicle on the way home, they sing an awful, disrespectful song replacing the lyrics of “In the Navy” by The Village People with horrifying lyrics about Iain’s crimes. This whole sequence, from the time they got into the old house, to the song in the van, shows how they’re not taking such a tragic history seriously; it’s truly become fodder for content.
The trio wind up in a car accident after they run into Richard on the road. (And what was Richard doing out there, anyway?) Davis has to stay in hospital overnight because he hurt his neck, so Janet takes Pia back to the house with her, planning to get some food into her son’s girlfriend. Janet gets cooking while Pia goes upstairs to do some work on their footage. At the hospital, Richard visits Davis, saying they have to stop doing the documentary. At the house, Pia finds a piece of recording later on one of the tapes which features Iain and the missing couple, along with Mr. McCardle.
The real history is that Davis’s father was a partner to Iain, as was Janet. Absolute terror, particularly for Pia, who witnesses the gruesome killing of the couple at the hands of Janet and a power tool. Just in time for a bit of dinner, too! Pia has to sit with Janet and eat shepherd’s pie while the mask from the video hangs on a wall behind Mrs. McCardle. The girlfriend slips away to the bathroom and calls Davis but can’t get a signal. She then makes an excuse for Janet, saying she has to get some air, and leaves the house. Janet quickly discovers one of her tapes in the VCR upstairs, knowing there’s far more than old detective show on it. She immediately goes looking for Pia in the car.

Janet catches up to Pia, but Pia runs off into the darkness while the old woman searches for her. Pia winds up trying to cross a river and cracks her head on a rock, slipping into the water and getting carried away. Janet frustratedly screams “Cunt!” into the air, sure that her world is about to come crashing down. She heads back to the house and pulls a shoebox from under her bed filled with souvenirs and photographs from the times her and her husband and Iain tortured their victims. She goes about stacking up all the videotapes with evidence on them. She writes a note for her son. Then she prepares a noose and puts on her creepy mask. After that, she hangs herself upstairs.

At a later date, Davis is interviewed about everything.
Soon there’s a Streamberry documentary about Davis and Pia’s attempt to make a true crime documentary, only for it to end in horror and more tragedy. Everything’s very stylised for maximum shock, like lots of true crime docs we see on Netflix these days. Richard is one of the only people left to give a proper interview about the real story all those years ago. All the gory details about the McCardles and Iain come out finally in Loch Henry: Truth Will Out. Down the road, Loch Henry wins a BAFTA, to the delight of everyone in the small town, especially Stuart considering the inn is booming again with the tourism that’s come as a result of everything.
There’s no happiness for Davis at the centre of everything. He’s still traumatised by it all, obviously. There’s already a drama set to be produced based on the documentary; more trauma to be revisited. Davis once wanted to exploit his father’s story and now it’s something he wishes he could escape. All that remains now is utter loneliness for Davis, and there’s only the emptiness of fame and fortune; everybody and everything else is dead.