Black Mirror
6×05: “Demon 79”
Directed by Toby Haynes
Written by Charlie Brooker & Bisha K. Ali

* For a recap & review of the penultimate episode, click here.
Northern England, 1979.
“Bright Eyes” by Art Garfunkel plays. Nida Huq (Anjana Vasan) wakes up, gets ready for the day, prepares a lunch to take with her to work, puts on some makeup, and she’s out the door; before she goes, we see an old photograph, perhaps of her mother. Nida works at a place named Possetts where she’s a saleswoman in shoe wear. The barely veiled racism is always at work in Nida’s life, whether it’s the looks from customers and fellow employees, or remarks about the smell of the lunch she brought, or being referred to as “your sort.” She’s also made to cut her lunch short for a white co-worker. Not to mention she has to go serve a man called Keith Holligan (Nicholas Burns); he was charged with manslaughter for killing his wife. Nida helps Keith out with finding a pair of shoes that fit. She has to deal with some creepy flirting from Keith. She imagines herself choking him, then she completes their transaction.

Outside the shop, Nida hears a politician talking about the failure of the Labour Party. The politician looks directly at Nida as he talks about the supposed infiltration of English communities. Later, Nida heads home from work and has a few chips. On the news there’s a report about the National Front marching and causing havoc. Nida switches off the news to watch Boney M performing “Rasputin” on a show. She barely sees any faces of colour in the England surrounding her. She smiles just to see a non-white face on the television set.
The next day at work, Nida’s boss, Mr. Duncan (Nick Holder), talks to her about “normal food” versus her food and how it supposedly lingers. He claims maybe the smell of Nida’s food could even get into the shoe leather. Just an absolutely wild, deeply racist claim. Nida brought traditional food today, so Mr. Duncan gives her access to the basement where she can eat. She then sees her shitty coworker reading a paper with National Front blasted all across the front. She imagines smashing the woman’s face through the counter and into the glass. Then she goes down into the basement for her break. It isn’t a relaxing break since Nida sits down to eat and finds a bunch of newspaper clippings about all sorts of tragedies. She’s about to leave when she looks in a drawer, cutting in her fingers in the process, and finds a strange talisman with a blood red marking on it; almost like a Mahjong tile, just sinister.
At home, Nida picks up the talisman again and it speaks to her. The talisman says its name is Gaap (Paapa Essiedu) and now that Nida’s blood has touched the talisman they’re bonded together. She drops the talisman initially. But Gaap convinces her to pick him up. He says she has “three days” to commit “three human sacrifices” or else the world will end. He says Nida must permit him entry, and pushes her into saying it. That’s when Gaap in physical demon form shows up behind Nida. His voice is kind of soothing, however, his appearance is far scarier. So Gaap takes on the form that looks like Bobby Farrell from Boney M since that form is familiar to Nida. It doesn’t help a whole lot; Nida’s still absolutely scared shitless. Gaap tries to tell Nida how serious this all is, and he gives her a vision of the world’s end, as everything burns around her. It’s like she’s right in the middle of the fires until he snaps his fingers bringing her back to reality. Gaap urges Nida that they have to stop the apocalypse. It’s only “one kill a day.” No big deal!
Nida refuses to kill and argues with Gaap. She’s seen by someone walking a dog, looking like she’s talking to a ghost. The dog walker asks if Nida’s okay, though nobody but her can see Gaap. And Gaap’s whispering in Nida’s ear to try convincing her that this man is worth killing. He shows her a vision of the man going into his own daughter’s room at night to molest her. And so Nida cracks the dog walker over the head, sending him falling into the canal. She runs right home and vomits in disgust. The next day, the dog walker’s reported missing after his dog returned home to his wife alone.

Nida doesn’t even believe Gaap is real. She thinks she’s “a crazy person.” She says that they said the same thing about her mother, but they were wrong, and now they’ll be right about her. Gaap says she isn’t crazy. This is his first demonic mission, so he’s new to all of it. Gaap reminds Nida that the fact she feels bad is a “good reflection on her character.” She’d rather call the cops. Gaap is worried now; he repeats that the apocalypse WILL occur and billions will die because of it. Nida dials the cops anyway, but she hangs up before talking to anyone. She asks Gaap what’s next. His answer? Keep calm, carry on, and kill.
It’s not a great work environment for Nida having a demon hanging around behind her. She gets shit from her co-worker as soon as getting to the shop. Gaap suggests killing the lady, but Nida’s just trying to get through her shift. She tries to ignore him while he quips over a customer’s shoulder; it isn’t easy. A bit later, Gaap starts filling Nida’s head with demonic images of horrible futures in store for people. He urges that the next kill must take place before midnight tonight. Back home, Nida lies around, so Gaap switches on the news in time for talk about the possibility of nuclear war with the Soviets. It gets Nida’s blood pumping enough that she starts to consider he next murder. She needs a little liquid courage to get her nerves up, which necessitates a trip to the pub for a few drinks of Scotch.

Great use of “I Don’t Like Mondays” here since it’s about a killer.
Also just a nice needle drop afterwards with “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.”

“That’s you—you’re a basher!”

While Gaap and Nida look around for possible victims at the pub, they notice ole killer Keith. The demon mentions Keith had an erection while killing his wife. A great contender for murder of the evening. Nida follows Keith out of the pub and sneaks up behind him when he’s taking a piss. But he spies her and thinks she’s looking for a fuck, so he asks her back to his place which isn’t far. Nida complies and heads to Keith’s flat, where Gaap remarks: “Looks like he wipes his ass with his house.” They head up to the bedroom instead of staying in the hideous living room. Upstairs, Keith tries quickly cleaning up, including his porn magazines on the floor. He throws on a tape and starts to undo his pants, but he smells his nasty balls and decides on a wash in the sink to fix it. When Keith is done he sees Nida’s waiting for him with a hammer in her hand. He resigns himself to being whacked with a hammer. He knew this was coming someday. He says he deserves it, then he cries about his wife. Nida can’t listen to him anymore and she swings the hammer. She crushes Keith’s head until he’s dead, blood spattered along the wall. Another death in time to keep with Gaap’s demonic clock. Also another trauma for Nida to carry with her.

There’s some trouble when Nida’s about to leave but she finds a man from Keith’s family in the kitchen. She heads towards him and they end up in a fight. Nida manages to stick a knife in the man before he’s able to hurt her. She apologises to him, as he crawls away from her bleeding. She pulls the knife from his chest and the blood pours out of him while the life leaves his body, too. A third kill. It turns out the murdered man was Keith’s brother Chris. Gaap says Chris was just an ordinary bloke; not someone who deserved death. He also reminds Nida that this third kill gets her “over the line.” Except when he checks the talisman it doesn’t register the sacrifice. He makes a call to someone, letting them know it’s a talisman “circa 1926,” and it isn’t registering the sacrifice. Apparently Keith didn’t count; murderers don’t count. At least the man by the canal and Chris count. This still means that Nida has to kill another person to stop armageddon.
Nida’s trying to convince herself that all this murderous rage is only about Gaap and the talisman, yet he says there was already a dark impulse in her before she touched the talisman. Back at work, the duo watch her hated co-worker, Vicky, and Nida starts to wonder if it might be a good idea to off the lady. Nida helps a little girl out with some shoes; it’s the daughter of the man from the canal. Gaap attempts to soothe Nida’s guilt, though the guilt is too much to surmount. At the shop later, the populist politician, Michael Smart (David Shields), whom Nida saw in the street a while back is presented by the boss to get a new suit and new shoes free. Naturally the boss sends Vicky to help the politician and chastises Nida for all the mess around the floor. Gaap suggests that Nida kill the boss, but she dismisses him. Vicky talks to the politician about how “things are changing around here” while she talks about “them who don‘t belong” and eyes Nida nastily. The politician says the National Front are too overt. He prefers to keep things more subtle; racism that’s more veiled is more successful at infiltrating the system, then it can go onto being in the open. Nida demands Gaap show her the future for Smart. We hear a chilling moment that is an echo of Enoch Powell in 1968, as Smart warns that “the rivers of blood are already here.” There’s also a glimpse of a police state with tech dogs from the previous Black Mirror episode “Metalhead.” All the horrors that come from Smart eventually becoming Prime Minister in the future are shown to Nida and they are terrifying. Nida decides that Smart is next on her kill list. Gaap advises that Hell likes Smart’s work. But Nida isn’t budging.

More Boney M with “Ma Baker” playing while Nida heads out from work.
The cops are on the trail of the murders, too. They’ve already found the man at the canal, obviously, and now they’ve found Keith with his head bashed in and Chris stabbed to death downstairs. They’re heading around to the pub to ask a few questions. The bartender mentions an “Indian lass” who came in for the first time. A woman working at the pub mentions she saw Nida talking to herself; she says Nida works at Possetts. Simultaneously, Nida’s planning her murder of Smart. She knows where he’s headed soon, so that may give her a jump on him. She’s soon visited by Len Fisher (Shaun Dooley) from the police. She invites him in, as he notices some graffiti on her door. She offers Len a cup of tea while he asks if she was at the pub. He asks her about why she was drinking. She says it was her mother’s birthday yesterday and needed a drink to dull the pain. Len digs in more on Nida about Keith, though she plays it all off, even after he produces the receipt from when she served Keith at Possetts.

At an event, Smart is giving a speech about England losing its “identity.” He urges all the white folks there to vote for their future. Once it’s all done, Smart leaves while people shake his hand and stroke his ego. He hops in a car to leave, as Nida watches close by, prepared to follow where the politician goes. And following Nida is Fisher, trying to figure out exactly what she’s doing. A wonderfully subtle bit here while Smart, the white nationalist, is in his car and listens to a piece of music from the opera Tannhäuser; the music and text was written by Richard Wagner, Hitler’s favourite composer. Nida runs Smart off the road and he smashes his car into a tree. She watches him get out alive, which leaves her no choice but to use her hammer on him. She cracks him in the skull, then keeps smashing, as he begs for mercy. She’s about to finish him off when Fisher pulls up to stop her. Smart calls Nida a “bloody animal” while Fisher tells her to drop the hammer. She asks if Fisher is “a good man” and he says he hopes so but doesn’t know. She says apocalypse will break out if she doesn’t kill Smart by midnight. She apologises to Gaap, then Fisher grabs her. She hugs Fisher and keeps on apologising.
The clock is nearly at midnight when Nida’s in an interrogation room. The cops ask about her killings, and she recounts Gaap’s process with the talisman. The cops show Nida a domino; it isn’t a talisman with a rune on it. Nida talks about Gaap, too. She says he took on the appearance of “the man from Boney M.” She says she “felt the flames” of the apocalypse and smelled the burning corpses courtesy of Gaap. Now she believes the apocalypse is coming, as the clock ticks away to midnight. When midnight comes there’s nothing; just Nida stuck in an interrogation room. But Fisher and his colleague hear sirens out of nowhere, there’s a commotion brewing. Everybody runs to see what’s happening. Nida’s visited by Gaap in the interrogation room. She feels bad for failing, as does Gaap, who’s being cast out into “eternal oblivion” since he failed his intiation. He offers to take Nida with him. And she thinks that’s a better idea than what’s left for her now anyway. Fisher and the other cops watch as a nuclear weapon hits the ground not far away and everything is engulfed in fire, as a mushroom cloud spreads its blast out further and further.