Nosedive | Playtest | Shut Up and Dance | San Junipero | Men Against Fire | Hated in the Nation
"They filmed me..."
"When pictures hang about on Google like a gypsy fucking curse. There's no cure for the Internet. It would never go away."
— Hector
When a teenager falls into an online trap, he is forced into an uneasy alliance.
Starring Alex Lawther as Kenny and Jerome Flynn as Hector.
Tropes related to Shut Up and Dance
- All for Nothing: Regardless of what actions the blackmail victims are forced to perform, their secrets are released.
- All There in the Manual: According to both the showrunners and supplemental material, Kenny is 19 years old, meaning that he will be tried as an adult for his crimes.
- Ambiguous Situation: Why did the blackmailers give Kenny an unloaded gun? Was it so he wouldn't actually hurt innocent people or was it so he couldn't kill himself to get out of his ordeal?
- Armor-Piercing Question: One such question forms the Wham Line detailed below, irreversibly altering the direction of the episode. Kenny can't even answer, though he doesn't really need to — his horrified, sobbing reaction says it all.
- Asshole Victim: Deconstructed. While the characters have done morally dubious things, the episode makes the audience question whether the extrajudicial punishment they face is warranted. It's an exploration, ultimately, of when anonymous Internet "justice" is taken way too far. While Kenny did indeed violate the law, the same can't be said of Hector or the CEO. So, did they really deserve to be cruelly toyed with and then have their lives ruined? The hackers could simply release the damning information they have but they're also coercing the victims into doing dangerous, illegal things, which makes them seem malicious rather than morally righteous.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The sadistic, trolling hackers get exactly what they want: that is, to force their victims to do a variety of awful and/or illegal things before ruining all their lives anyway for the lulz, while remaining entirely anonymous.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Kenny isn't the innocent victim he initially appears to be.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Nobody's a particularly good person here. Kenny's revealed to be a pedophile, the hackers seem to be more interested in making bad people suffer in a way that makes them little better in comparison rather than actually bringing them to justice, Hector (arguably the most sympathetic character overall) tried to cheat on his wife, the guy in the woods is also a pedophile, the woman at the beginning is a racist, and we don't know what the deliverer of the cake did, but it seemed to have been unacceptably perverted.
- Bathos: The hackers' method of revealing to their victims that they exposed all their crimes regardless of them following their orders is by sending them a Troll Face meme.
- Blackmail: The mysterious hacker(s) use this to get people to do dangerous/crazy things, which eventually go up to bank robbery and then murder.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Kenny wets himself out of anxiety when forced to rob a bank.
- Bungled Suicide: Kenny attempts to shoot himself before the fight to the death. The gun (which he pointed at the cashier in the robbery) turns out to be empty.
- Caps Lock: The blackmailers send all their text messages to Kenny and Hector like this. By comparison, Kenny's phone capitalises only the first letter of a sentence automatically when he sends texts.
- Color Motif: Yellow frequently appears in the episode in association with Kenny; he has a yellow phone screen, his home and the hotel have a yellow interior decoration, he wears yellow-tinted sunglasses while robbing a bank, not to mention the yellow puddle of urine. The color actually references Kenny's cowardice, as he did everything in the episode to save himself from being exposed as a pedophile.
- Continuity Nod:
- The news site the CEO browses that reveals she's been outed for emailing racist comments mentions Prime Minister Callow from "The National Anthem" being divorced, a new talent show called Fifteen Million Merits, the trial of Victoria Skillane in "White Bear", and has an advertisement for the "smart cookies" used in "White Christmas."
- Kenny works at a restaurant called Barnies, a location briefly mentioned as part of Greta's schedule in "White Christmas."
- Kenny's laptop has a Waldo sticker on it.
- Cowardly Yellow: Kenny is associated with the color yellow; he has a yellow phone screen, his home has a yellow interior decoration, the hotel has a yellow interior decoration, and he wears yellow-tinted sunglasses. The color is actually foreshadowing the fact that Kenny is actually a pedophile who was trying to save himself from being exposed to his friends and family.
- David vs. Goliath: The guy that Kenny is supposed to fight against is considerably bigger than him. It's rather surprising to see that Kenny wins the fight, considering how wimpy he looks. It's implied that the bigger man being completely drunk played a part in his off-screen defeat.
- Despair Event Horizon: Constantly. Three notable examples occur when Kenny robs the bank, attempts suicide when he realises that they're going to have to fight to the death, and as he walks away from having brutally killed the other paedophile.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- Zig-Zagging Trope with Kenny. He is eventually forced to rob a bank and then kill someone, all because he got caught masturbating on a webcam. However, it should be noted that this was all done through his own free will ... except before killing that person, he tried to kill himself and clearly only killed his opponent in self-defence. At one point, Hector even says he's surprised that's all they had on him, yet it's eventually revealed he was looking at child pornography.
- Played straight with the other people getting blackmailed as their secrets were Hector attempting to cheat on his wife with a prostitute and the woman who said racist comments on the Internet, though their tasks were minor compared to what Kenny had to do. Likewise, we don't know what the guy who delivered the cake did. Yet Hector was also forced to be an accomplice to a bank robbery with Kenny and if the hackers also revealed that along with his secret or if the police find out, this can mean he will lose his kids, his wife, and his freedom. Even the others may also end up going to prison too since some of their tasks were also illegal.
- Downer Ending: Kenny is revealed to have masturbated to child porn, explaining his extreme feelings of guilt and why he was so desperate to cover up the video. The blackmailers end up leaking all the secrets anyway, destroying the lives of not only Kenny but the other victims we've seen. Hector will end up losing his wife and kids and will probably go to prison for accessory to the bank robbery (and possibly commit suicide on top of that). Meanwhile, Kenny, who has just been forced to kill someone else, staggers out of the woods in shock and ends up getting arrested. No wonder the next episode is a breather.
- The Driver: It's implied that the hacker placed Hector in his situation just to drive Kenny, who doesn't have a licence, around and punished him in the end just like everybody else.
- Drives Like Crazy: Hector does this because he is short on time and had several drinks immediately prior to being forced to drive.
- Duel to the Death: This is the final thing Kenny is forced to do with a fellow blackmail victim.
- The Ending Changes Everything: We assume that Kenny is the unequivocal victim for an innocent act, until we find out in the last few minutes that he was masturbating to child porn.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The trolls make sure that the gun they give Kenny isn't loaded. Whether this was to keep him from hurting anyone during the robbery or to make sure he couldn't escape his final fight by pulling a gun or escape his ultimate fate by killing himself is debatable. Given the series, it's safe to assume the latter.
- Exact Words: The hackers never said anything about letting anyone go by the time the fun and games were over; they just made it clear they were going to leak the information if they didn't comply.
- The hackers announce that whoever wins the final fight to the death will get the robbery money as the prize, not forgiveness.
- Fate Worse than Death: Kenny, at the end of the episode, has been forced to kill somebody else, traumatising him, and the police come to arrest him for the robbery and possibly the murder, meaning he will likely go to prison for a very long time. Even worse is that the trolls reveal his secret anyway, meaning that everyone knows he's a paedophile, so his life is completely ruined no matter what.
- Fictional Counterpart:
- Wayhaven Hotels is a fictional equivalent of mid-tier budget hotels in the UK such as Premier Inn and Travelodge.
- Kenny robs a branch of the fictitious National Allied Bank, which uses green as a principal color, like the real-life Lloyds Bank.
- Foreshadowing:
- About Kenny;
- Kenny is shown to be fond of kids and being altogether friendly with them in the first scene. As it turned out, it was neither fondness nor friendliness. Note that he doesn't once look at the mother like normal people would do when handing the toy back; he stays focused on the girl. He's also caught absent-mindedly stroking the drawing that the girl made by his boss, who assumes that he drew it.
- Additionally, Kenny doesn't share his male coworkers' interest in presumably adult women. While it initially appears that he simply doesn't want to follow the example of leering voyeurs such as them, it could be a hint at things to come. He also seems completely oblivious to his female supervisor's niceness toward him, which isn't that out of place for an awkward teenager, but given the revelation that he's not attracted to adults...
- Likewise, it turns out there's a bigger reason why Kenny is noticeably upset and worried when his sister Lindsey uses his laptop without permission. Pay extra attention to Kenny when she complains she just wanted to watch "some film thing" and he pauses before asking, "...what film thing?" He also doesn't go to anyone else for help with getting rid of the virus; while he's confident in his own ability to fix the problem, it hints that he clearly doesn't want anyone looking through his files/search history and potentially finding something incriminating. And when he learns he's being blackmailed he doesn't consider calling the police; while on first viewing one could argue that he was too scared and stressed to think of it, it hints that he doesn't want to get them involved at all.
- Played with while Kenny and Lindsey are watching television while their mother is on a date. It would seem that Kenny left the living room after getting aroused by the scantily clad (and adult) woman in the music video, but knowing what happens later, he is more than likely bored and definitely looking for his usual child porn fix.
- When Kenny opens Hector's wallet, condoms fall out and we see pictures of Hector's kids. He also looks increasingly uncomfortable when Hector rants that it will all be taken away.
- At one point, Hector is incredulous that the only thing Kenny did wrong to get blackmailed was masturbating to porn, even quipping that "everyone does that". This hints early on that Kenny's freaking out for some entirely different reason — the embarrassment and social fallout of a mere jerk-off video being leaked would be bad, but it wouldn't ruin his life or be something worth killing or stealing over.
- The most subtle one comes from the color of Kenny's sunglasses, as yellow is the color of cowardice. While it would just be coincidental or seen as an insult from the hackers for making him do these things, the reveal that Kenny was selfishly trying to protect himself from being exposed as a pedophile makes the symbolism more accurate. For robbing a bank, pointing a gun at the bank teller (who could have been killed if the gun was real), and later killing a man, the hackers are ultimately calling Kenny a coward for choosing to hurt people instead of turning himself in.
- When Kenny receives the package from another blackmail victim, after they've driven off the sound of sirens can be heard. Whether this was the police chasing after the man or just a symbolic coincidence, it's a clear indicator that what Kenny is being forced into will be less than legal.
- About Kenny;
- From Bad to Worse:
- Kenny assumes that he'll only have to do one task for the blackmailers, as the other victims had to do. He goes from delivering a cake to robbing a bank, driving to the middle of nowhere, and then fighting a stranger to the death. The blackmailers then out him anyway and send him a trollface, and he's promptly arrested.
- This especially applies to Hector whose only crime was cheating on his wife, and he seems to legitimately love her and his children, only planning it as a one-night-stand. Had he just refused to go along with the blackmailers' demands and instead come clean to his family immediately rather than having them learn the truth from the hacker group, he may have been able to salvage his marriage. Instead, he ends up as an accomplice for bank robbery and even if he manages to avoid those charges, he certainly is losing his family as his wife's reaction in the climax implies.
- The Ghost: The members of the hacker group are never seen, though there is a suspicious teenager whom the camera focuses in on at one point at Hector's hotel who could be a member.
- Greater-Scope Villain: At least where Kenny and the man he had to fight are concerned. They were looking at child porn, which implies that there are other people distributing it (not to mention making it), who aren't featured in the episode.
- Hero of Another Story/Villain of Another Story: The "hero" part only applies because this is Black Mirror. We get many glimpses of the other blackmailing victims/villains, but we only really see Kenny's story (and, to a lesser extent, Hector's) in any depth. Perhaps the clearest example of this is the other paedophile that Kenny fights. He's drunk and terrified when he turns up, and it's not clear if he's been sent on another quest or just told that he must fight somebody else to the death.
- Hope Spot: As Hector is home and sees his daughter he gets a text from the hacker to open a trollface, as it turns out the hacker sent the evidence anyway.
- I Am One of Those, Too: When Kenny invents a fake backstory of being from Birmingham, Hector's friend Karen mentions that her husband is also from Birmingham and asks which part Kenny is from. Kenny is struggling to keep up his masquerade.
- Idiot Ball: The whole plot begins because Kenny didn't seem to have any anti-malware programs on his laptop to begin with, or a password to stop someone from using it without permission in the first place, which means his sister accidentally downloads a virus when installing some dodgy video software to watch a film. He then downloads an 'antivirus' that allows the hackers to access his computer and webcam. It should have been obvious to anyone who would be expected to fix laptops that the 'anti-malware software' he downloaded was malware in and of itself; it was the first result on his search, the website design was suspect, the name of the installer was in a format that malware programs often take, it was free, and he didn't search for other opinions on the software.
- I Lied: The anonymous blackmailers probably told some of their targets that they will be let go at a certain point. They should have clarified what that actually meant.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Hector empties the hotel minibar after the blackmail chain hits him. Likewise, the man in the woods appears quite drunk due to his ordeal to say the least, which may explain how Kenny beat him in the fight.
- Internet Safety Aesop: If you're going to download something from the internet, make sure the site is legitimate before you do it. You should also have anti-malware software on your computer and you should disable or obstruct your webcam as a precaution before you do anything you'll regret.
- Or alternatively, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
- It Amused Me: The ending implies that the hackers are sadistic trolls who set the whole operation up for nothing more than shits and giggles on their part instead of any deep-rooted sense of justice, toying with their victims and watching as they destroy their lives even more than they already have while trying to escape their clutches. Word of God states that the hackers have been "toying with people like a cat toys with its prey," while acknowledging that the final twist makes you see the characters differently.
- Jail Bake: The cake that Kenny is tasked with delivering to Hector has the gun and "disguise" concealed within it.
- Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: Kenny gets in a lot of trouble just because he was recorded while masturbating to porn. Subverted when it's revealed what kind of porn it was.
- Karma Houdini: The blackmailers apparently get away with everything they do, including leaking all the secrets anyway.
- Whoever is out there responsible for distributing as well as producing the child porn that Kenny, the other man, and who knows how many other people use. The blackmailers themselves would likely have no way of going after them or even discovering who they are, as they're probably a lot more careful and savvier than downloading shady antivirus programs that take over their webcams.
- Kick the Dog: Hector didn't even get to cheat on his wife, but was nevertheless punished for his misdeed; also, he had arguably the least vile indiscretion of any of the blackmail victims in the episode (not that what he did, or wanted to do, was good by any measure).
- Meaningful Name: The malware removal app that allows hackers to take over Kenny's webcam is called Shrive. One meaning of "Shrive" is to give confessions to a priest.
- The Nondescript: One of the more unsettling things about the episode is that Kenny looks just like any other teenager. This actually works in his favor for the bank robbery, as he has no easily identifiable traits that the police can use.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Subverted. Rather wimpy teen Kenny winning the fight (to the death) against a grown man isn't shown, which would be pretty impressive, but considering his life is ruined, it's hard to qualify as truly "awesome."
- Oh, Crap!: When Hector tells his story and reveals that the hackers copied his whole hard drive and every bit of correspondence between him and "Mindy", Kenny really breaks down. At first, it can be seen as just his general shame. However, considering the pictures he was looking at, it's possible he realized the hackers probably got enough on him to buttress the case that he was looking at child pornography if he had additional pictures saved onto his hard drive.
- Pædo Hunt: As we discover from the episode's conclusion, Kenny was looking at child porn. This introduces an uncomfortable situation wherein the audience has been sympathizing with him up to this point and thinking he's an ordinary person, only to discover his dark secret. The question then posed is whether Kenny deserves to have been singled out like he was. If we the viewers are outraged that a seemingly normal person is being illegally coerced, does it suddenly make that coercion morally acceptable if that person turns out to have committed a crime? The rule of law extends to all people, even blatant scumbags, and taking away the assurance of legal protection from a particular individual sets a bad precedent for the rest of society. It establishes that certain people can be deprived of their rights and punished extrajudicially, something that could easily be extended to include not just paedos and alleged paedos but also ordinary non-criminals for whatever arbitrary reason the accuser can think of. After all, the CEO and possibly the delivery guy didn't do anything illegal to invoke the hackers' wrath, so what's the takeaway here? Holding a disagreeable opinion or looking at strange (but apparently not illegal) porn is sufficient grounds to be threatened into participating in a criminal conspiracy? Dispensing with rules to punish a person for their misdeeds (perceived or otherwise) is appallingly irresponsible, and more to the point a gross moral failing on the part of the hackers.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Kenny's disguise for robbing the bank is a black baseball cap and a pair of yellow-tinted sunglasses, which don't do much to conceal his identity. This may have been intentionally invoked by the hackers, who were going to reveal all of their victims in the end anyway.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Deconstructed as you see things from the blackmail victims' perspective. While they've all done bad things, the extrajudicial retribution they're faced with never comes across as just or reasonable in any way, especially seeing just how dangerous the assigned tasks end up being. The nature of the demands suggests the hackers are doing this because they enjoy manipulating people, rather than any deeply held moral convictions.
- Psychosexual Horror: The main character, Kenny, gets his computer hacked and is unknowingly recorded while masturbating to Internet porn. He's then coerced into running various errands for the hackers under the threat of having the footage sent to everyone on his contact list, which eventually includes armed robbery where he holds the bank teller at gunpoint, not knowing the gun was fake, and fighting a man in the woods to the death. The man reveals the twist in the episode, Kenny wasn't just trying to save himself from the embarrassment of being caught with his pants down, he was caught masturbating to child pornography and he only complied with the hackers to ensure he doesn't get exposed to the public. Kenny kills the man in the woods but the hackers upload the footage anyway, with the episode ending as a traumatized Kenny is arrested by the police.
- The Reveal: A major one that changes everything: the pictures Kenny was looking at were child pornography.
- Revenge Porn Blackmail: Kenny is recorded masturbating by a group of hackers and forced to run errands for them under the threat of revealing the footage to Kenny's contact list. However, it's revealed that Kenny wasn't just being blackmailed with footage of him masturbating, he was masturbating to child pornography and he complied with the demands to save himself being exposed as a pedophile.
- Rewatch Bonus: The reveal that Kenny was actually masturbating to child pornography recontextualises the entire episode. His interaction with the little girl becomes far more predatory, his concern about his sister going on his laptop without his permission,note and the fact that he held a woman at gunpoint with his finger on the trigger shows that he was prepared to shoot a woman to save himself from being outed as a pedophile.
- Rule of Symbolism: While robbing a bank, Kenny wears a pair of yellow sunglasses and he pisses himself in fear. The color yellow is associated with cowardice, which at first appears to be nothing more than a coincidence or an insult from the hackers. In reality, Kenny was selfishly trying to save himself from being exposed as a pedophile and everything was done out of fear of punishment.
- Sadistic Choice: The people being blackmailed are forced to do whatever the mysterious blackmailer tells them to do or have their secrets revealed.
- This is worse for Kenny since the reveal of what he is hiding is more severe compared to the guy who delivered the cake, Hector, or the white-woman, and in the end when his choice is to fight a man to the death or be revealed as a paedophile to the public, which was also the choice his opponent had.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Kenny's sister only makes a brief appearance but it's her actions that set up the rest of the story. By installing a program to watch free movies on Kenny's computer, she causes the device to receive a virus that Kenny has to get rid of by downloading anti-virus software. This software allowed the blackmailers to access Kenny's computer and it triggers the rest of the story.
- Snuff Film: During the climax of the episode Kenny and another paedophile are forced to fight to the death in order to win the money and (supposedly) their freedom. The whole event is being recorded by a drone the other paedophile was forced to bring along.
- Spiritual Successor: Thanks to the big revelation near the end that changes everything, people have called this a spiritual successor to "White Bear," which dealt with a similar premise.note
- Storyboarding the Apocalypse: Hector explains in great detail to Kenny what would happen if he didn't rob the bank. His scare tactics work, though since he wasn't aware of the true nature of Kenny's crime, the apocalypse of social ostracism and ridicule he's storyboarding is almost certainly much tamer than what Kenny himself was imagining as the fallout.
- Stress Vomit: After Hector gets activated by the hackers, who are implied to have told him that they know he's about to have sex with a prostitute, he goes to the bathroom and can be heard vomiting
- Toyota Tripwire: Kenny almost hits one when rushing on his bike to the parking garage.
- Trauma Conga Line: Throughout the episode Kenny and Hector are forced to perform various humiliating and increasingly illegal acts to please their digital puppet masters, acts that start innocuous enough but end with the two committing an armed bank robbery and Kenny killing another man. By the end of the day, he is left a mere shell of his former self, and with his dark secret revealed to the world, waits for attending police officers to arrest him.
- Trojan Horse: After his sister takes his laptop and visits a site that installs malware on it, Kenny downloads a malware removal app called Shrive, which hacks into his computer. The hackers use this to blackmail him.
- Troll: The blackmailers use the original trollface to indicate that everything the victims did was in vain, meaning they probably see themselves as such.
- The Unreveal
- We never see who the hacker[s] is/are or where they came from. Although the camera does appear to linger on a sketchy-looking young man in the business hotel, so he might have done all the texting and hacking. It's also implied that Hector saw another one of the blackmailers when he initially drove away from the bank because of a sketchy person watching him.
- We never learn what the man who delivered the cake to Kenny did. We do see his family calling him a "pervert" at the end, but given how lightly the hackers let him off, whatever it was couldn't have been that bad. Certainly not illegal, anyhow.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Kenny's sister, Lindsey. Had she not used the dodgy free movie software, Kenny wouldn't have installed Shrive to clean it up, he wouldn't have been hacked, and none of the events in the episode would have happened.
- Vertigo Effect: There is a vertigo effect as Kenny and Hector rush to the destination with the car.
- Vigilante Injustice: Kenny has his computer hacked and the hackers record him masturbating. The hackers force Kenny to do all sorts of odd jobs under the threat of sending the video to all his contacts. After robbing a bank, Kenny is forced to fight a man to the death and it's revealed that Kenny was actually masturbating to child pornography and everything he did was to protect himself from being exposed as a pedophile. After killing the man, Kenny's secret is exposed anyway and is arrested for possession of child pornography, robbery, and murder. After Kenny's secret is revealed, the episode asks whether or not the hackers are in the right to punish Kenny as they forced him to kill someone and rob a bank rather than submit the evidence to the police.
- Wham Line:
- This exchange between Kenny and the blackmail victim he is supposed to fight to the death:Other victim: What'd they get you for?
Kenny: [trying not to cry] I just looked at some photos. That's all. I just looked at one or two photos.
Other victim: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I just "looked at pictures", too ... How young were they? In the pictures. How young?
Kenny: [breaks down crying]
Other victim: Yeah. Well, me, too. - Further cemented after they have fought, and Kenny has presumably killed him, when he gets a call from his mother.Kenny's mother: What did you do, Kenny?! They're saying it's kids! That you've been looking at kids! And Lindsey saw it. There's a video of you. All of her friends have got it! KIDS, Kenny! Tell me it's not...
- This exchange between Kenny and the blackmail victim he is supposed to fight to the death:
- Wham Shot: All the blackmailing victims being sent trollface memes, but especially Hector and Kenny, revealing that all their actions were for naught, and they leaked their secrets regardless of following the hackers' instructions.
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