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Consider Black Mirror’s “Bête Noire” a parable on gaslighting.
The darkly funny Season 7 episode follows Maria (Siena Kelly), a successful food researcher whose world is upended when her former classmate Verity (Rosy McEwen) joins a focus group to test Maria’s miso-flavored Hucklebuck candy bar.
There’s something off about Verity, who quickly embeds herself in Maria’s life by applying for and immediately landing a job as a research assistant at the company — a role Maria had no idea was even open.
Maria, a stickler for getting the facts right, grows increasingly frustrated with Verity over seemingly small transgressions. For instance, a discussion about the fast food restaurant Barnies (which fans will recognize from the Season 3 episode “Shut Up and Dance” and Season 6’s “Joan Is Awful”) intensifies when Maria corrects Verity for calling it “Bernies ‚”— only to find that she was wrong all along. Or was she?
Later, Maria misses a morning meeting she didn’t know was happening, and then Verity claims Maria left out a recipe ingredient that she was sure she included. Maria reaches her breaking point when she’s framed for drinking their colleague Luisa’s (Hannah Griffiths) almond milk, which she couldn’t possibly have done because of her serious nut allergy.
After watching Verity chug the milk right in front of her, however, Maria is baffled and outraged when video footage pins her as the culprit. And when she tries to explain her nut allergy to her colleagues, they have no idea what she’s talking about. It’s as though nut allergies don’t exist. That sends her over the edge.
How does “Bête Noire” end?
Maria lunges at Verity over the incident and is promptly sent home to take a break and seek help. Instead of rest and relaxation, though, she confronts Verity — who’s living in a huge mansion, mind you — about everything that has happened. Their altercation turns physical, and Verity uses her necklace to summon the police, simply by saying they are there, and officers come barging through the door. Per Verity’s command, the cops believe that Maria broke into her home and threatened her with a knife. But as Maria is being handcuffed, she grabs the officer’s gun and kills Verity. She then takes control of Verity’s necklace and commands it to alter this reality so that she is empress of the universe.
“It’s fun to make it look like [Maria’s] absolutely lost everything in the last few moments and then have her triumphantly, phoenix-from-the-flame style, use this device to get out of the problem she’s in,” creator and executive producer Charlie Brooker tells Tudum. “It’s kind of a joke ending, but hopefully it’s slightly absurd.”
The original script proposed a slightly darker ending. Maria “was written [to be wearing] almost fascist gear” at the episode’s conclusion, Brooker explains. But in the finalized version, Maria takes on more of a pop-star look. “It’s more Game of Thrones,” he notes. “A little bit Beyoncé meets Khaleesi.”
How does Verity’s necklace work?
As Verity explains, the necklace is a remote that’s connected to a series of computer servers she built to alter reality. “Technically, it’s not really changing anything,” she says in the episode. “It just retunes our corporeal frequency to one of the parallel realities where whatever I’ve said has always been true.”
Why does Verity target Maria?
We eventually learn that during their school days, Maria was behind the rumor that Verity had an affair with a teacher, which resulted in Verity being mercilessly bullied.
“Maria doesn’t admit that that’s what happened, and she doesn’t explicitly apologize or explain,” Kelly, who plays Maria, tells Tudum. “I like the idea that you can have two people who have different truths, and there are different memories of it.”
That Maria doesn’t remember why she even started the rumor is painful for Verity, who chased happiness across different realities (including one where she marries Harry Styles and another in which she’s empress of the universe) to no avail.
“It’s our choice whether we hold onto something or choose to let go [of it],” McEwen, who portrays Verity, adds. “The fact that Verity was never able to do that is kind of heartbreaking.”
Brooker sees the parallels between Verity and another Black Mirror villain.
“She reminds me slightly of Robert Daly from ‘USS Callister,’ in that you’ve got a powerful tech genius who’s clearly fucked up,” he explains. “They are people who are in pain, but that isn’t justifying what they’re doing.”
What happened to Maria and Verity’s schoolmate Natalie?
Before Verity set out to destroy Maria’s life, she first went after Natalie, her high school bully and Maria’s friend. A phone call with Natalie’s husband reveals that Natalie killed herself after suffering a nervous breakdown. She had grown paranoid and accusatory in the weeks leading up to it, having been gaslit by Verity.
What does “bête noire” mean?
The French term refers to something that one either detests or is extremely annoyed by. The title is referenced when Gabe (Ben Bailey Smith) introduces Maria to their boss, Mr. Ditta (Ravi Aujla), as their “chief wizard” of “Chili Flake Bête Noire fame.”
Brooker reveals that the episode could have had an entirely different name.
“We weren’t quite sure what to call it. It was called ‘Ring of Truth’ at one point because there was an earlier version where Verity had a ring rather than a pendant,” he says. “I kept thinking that was a bit too on the nose. I like the titles to always be slightly mysterious.”
Stream all six episodes of Black Mirror Season 7 now.
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