Demon 79, Season 6, Black Mirror (2023)
Perfectly balanced crime and humor; the latest Black Mirror episode does it all.
The newest season's final of the successful British TV show, depicts an authentic portrait of the human condition, as we see a young woman deals with her demons, quite literally.
Nida is a daughter to an immigrant family (probably a single parent mother, who's dead, but we aren't sure), that works at a department store selling shoes.
Every day, Nida wakes up to her boring existence, made even worse by the presence of the other, extremely obnoxious, woman that works with her.
We get the usual: lonely-person-hates-life setting, on top of her experiencing racism left right and center, as she gets hold of a mysterious token and sparks the plot line.
The token summons the most flamboyant embodiment of a demon, who informs Nida she has to kill three people in three days, to save the world from flaming up to bits.
Nida is horrified. Gaap - the demon, lays out the deal: kill a person a day for three days straight, and you'll be good, so as the rest of humanity, and me (him).
Gaap's interest in Nida becoming a murderer is some kind of final exam in the weirdest demon internship ever.
As Nida rushes out of her house upset and understandably confused, Gaap follows her, and very conveniently, they stumble upon a man on a walk with his dog, alone, in the dark. He notices Nida (Gaap is only visible to Nida) and before one gets to say Jack Robinson, the man, who turns out to be a sexually abusive father, is dead, having Nida bashing his head with a brick.
Gaap can show Nida every person's true, real nature, and as they both settle she is more of a bashar than a stabber; she asks Gaap to help her find some bad people to kill.
This mixture of utter horror and blame of her own doings, and an unstoppable excitement in the face of this bizarre adventure - is humanity to a tee.
Nida starts hesitant but soon gets the hang of it.
She proceeds to kill two other men (one bad - on purpose, one good - unwillingly) but having killed a murderer (the bad one), which she finds out is not allowed, since the demons have a -don't kill a killer policy- she needs to find another.
There's certainly a message here to be heard regarding the perpetual hierarchy of crime, even morality itself; situating child sexual abusers less 'bad' than murderers.
The episode ends with Nida's fail to kill a politician whose plans for the future looks disturbingly similar to Germany in the 30's-40's, and thus, the world do flame up to bits.
Nida's persistence in wanting to only kill the evil politician, although she could have easily killed the sweet policeman (annoyingly good at his job) and ending the deal, is so charmingly relatable.
First horrified, than empowered, Nida decides to make lemonade after being hit in the face with lemons, probably her entire life.
Gaap, who is doomed to an eternal hell-styled punishment, having failed to make a murderer out of Nida, invites her to come along, and so she does.
Somehow, this almost poetic ending is comforting, more than anything else.
The fabulous chemistry of this two very talented actors makes you smile as the two leave for hell hand in hand, and earth starts exploding in the background.
Anjana Vasan's (Nida) capability to be vulnerable yet so fierce at the same time is nothing short than outstanding. Both Nida, and ironically Gaap, are so painfuly human - dancing away on the line of morality, between good and evil.