Bête Noire

two titled bet Noir. Now this was a pretty decent episode, not my favorite, but still a pretty solid episode, just with some of the topics that it was talking about and some of the things that it tackled. I did like it. I really did that ending, however, only crap that thing was powerful. That woo boy howdy that any But before we get into any of that, spoiler alert,

we are going to be talking about the episode. So if you have not yet watched Bette Noir, head on over to Netflix check out that episode, and then come on back for the discussion. Let's get into it now. This episode is started off typical Black Mirror fashion. You've got Maria who is in well, she has a she's developing a new flavor of something using a type of a jam. I forget exactly what is called and she uses her boyfriend as the guinea pig. I mean, how

often does that happen? Right? You know, we come up with a new creation in the kitchen, and you know, you gotta have guinea pigs to try it out, and you use your family member, whether it be spouse, whether it be boyfriend, children, who knows, but you always use something. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever, you know, made a new creation in the kitchen and you just use somebody else as your guinea pig. I mean, I know I've been used. I've been used several times by

new creations. I think it's kind of common practice. But anyway, we come to find out that Maria is in the R and D department of a food company, where, at least in this case, she brings a new twist to an old favorite, a type of candy bar. And when she's at work, it starts off with, you know, she's behind the glass with some of her colleagues. There are some people in a taste testing room about ready to

taste her new creation, and in walks Verity. She's a little late to the party, but she comes in, she sits down, and we come to find out by the conversation that Maria is having it you know, back behind the glass, that her and Verity used to go to school together, that she was a bit odd and she

was a little bit of a computer geek. And Verity ends up saving the taste test because nobody really likes it whenever they first take, you know, whenever they first take their little sample bite, they don't really like it. She gives another gives it another chance, and she's like, oh well, it's actually ten times better, and she gets everybody else to try it too, and lo and behold,

everybody's kind of liking it. After the taste test, Marie is in the bathroom and walks Verity and they have a little bit of a reunion talking about the good old days, you know, with how school was back in the day. We come to find out that, you know, there was a rumor that went around about Verity, and Verity is actually going to be interviewing for a a position there at the company, in the R and D department. Maria's like, no, I don't know of any such job opening.

She's like, oh yeah, well I've seen it online and it's like, oh well, okay, my department she has the interview, she gets accepted, and Maria is she's kind of skeptical about things. She really is, and we actually come to find out through watching the episode that she's very leary a Verity because she's actually feeling kind of guilty about their past, and Maria doesn't necessarily trust her, doesn't think that Verity belongs, you know, that type of thing going on.

And Maria she's talking with her boss and she's like, you know, you need to do a better job checking her background, and he's like, Okay, I'll look into it if it's going to make it happy. Later on at home, she's talking with her husband or I'm sorry, Maria is talking with her boyfriend, and we come to find out a little bit more about their history. Whenever they were in school. We found out that Verity it was rumored that she had a relationship with one of her teachers.

We found out about her nickname, We found out a few things right, definitely some bullying was going on, and we find out that Maria definitely does not like Verity being there. She definitely does not want her working in the same department that Maria is working. Definitely does not want that at all. For whatever reason, and we really don't find out the full depth of that reason until, you know, basically towards the end and the next day. This is whenever things start getting weird. Oh wait, I

forgot something. I got to backtrack a little bit because they're having a discussion and this was before things really start getting weird, right, But they're having a discussion about a chicken company called Barney's. Now Maria is convinced that it's Bernie's. She is definitely convinced of the name. She's like, no, it's absolutely Bernie's. B er I know it is. I have a boyfriend who used to work there. He still

has the hat. I see it all the time. And they end up googling it, and lo and behold the computer Google. The search engine says Barney's bar in Ies, and it's like huh. And she goes home and she looks at the hat, and the hat at this point says Barney's, and I'm like, Okay, now I'm curious. So at this point, seventeen minutes and ten seconds into the episode, I rewind it virtually all the way to the beginning because I have to know what did this hat say?

Earlier in the episode because they have this hat like sitting on the countertop virtually front and center. I mean it wasn't technically center, but it was definitely front so that this way you can see the hat. And I'm like, i gotta check this out. And it definitely said Bernie's in the beginning, and I'm like, Okay, something's going on here. I mean, this is a Mandela effect worse as I've ever seen, and you know, Fidella effect. And they even

talk about Mandela effects in this episode. You know, they talk about the the monopoly guy whether or not he had the monocle right, And I remember other different Mandela effect things. I remember the about the cornucopia that was in the Fruit of the Loom logo. I remember about various movies, one of which being a movie that Shack started called Shazam from way back in the day he was a genie. And this is a movie that is

actually hard to find. I mean I remember having this movie back whenever it was on VHS, so that tells you how long ago this is. But this is something that isn't even found in Shaq's filmography. And there's been other things, different things that were spelled different ways, apostrophes that were in different places. You know, do you remember any type of Mandela effect things from things how you remember it from back in the day to how people

may remember it now. Are there any particular that you remember? Is there anything that you know happened one way but nobody else seems to remember? And like with the Fruit of the Loom cornicopia, that one's interesting because even though you can find pictures and evidence that there was a cornucopia, there are people in the company that say, no, it's not like that. The cornucopia has never been in the logo,

we don't know what you people are talking about. I mean, you want to talk about gas lighting, I mean, holy crap, And they talk about that in the episode. I mean you want to talk about gaslighting? I mean, holy crap Mandela effects? Are there any that you remember from your childhood that other people just don't seem to remember the same way that you did? Now, Like I was saying before, you know, this is whenever this episode makes a turn because you know, uh, Maria gets to work and Verity

is like, why are you late? You missed the meeting, and Maria is like, what meeting? There was no meeting? I don't know what you're talking about. I said, yeah, the email was sent out. It's like, oh, it must have went to my spam folder. Holy crap. And then we see Verity get this weird look on her face, right, she gets this weird look on her face, this strange expression, and she walks around, she walks around the counter. She opens up the mini fridge and she just she pulls

out this this container of almond milk. She rips open the seal and just starts guzzling, you know. And I was like put off by this. I mean I really was. I was like, what in the world is going on? Because I mean just the complete shift in facial expression, in in a posture, and in everything about Verity, Like it was a change that was like that, and I'm like, what in the world is going on? The look on her face, everything, what she did, It was like, holy,

what's going on? I mean, this was this was my your I don't want to say, your first indication that something is definitely going on here, but it was definitely off. I mean, I don't know if I was thinking robot, I don't know if I was thinking aliens. I mean, like I had no idea I mean, it was just it was just so strange, so out of place. It just felt weird. It felt wrong, you know. And after she gets done guzzling as much as she can of

the almond milk, she drops it onto the floor. She walks back around the counter and goes and sits down in her seat, and by now everybody else shows up from the meeting, and her boss is like, why weren't you at the meeting, And Maria's like, I didn't know about the meeting. It must have went to my spam folder, you know that the email was sent out. I didn't get it. It must have went to my junk folder.

I have no idea. And then the gal who actually owned the almond milk comes around to the other side of the counter, sesus sitting on the ground, and was like, dude, what is going on here? Somebody took this drank it dumped it on the floor. What the heck? I bought this thing brand new today. And then Verity pipes up and she's like, well, I didn't want to say anything,

but it was Maria that did it. She got this weird look on her face and she just opened it up and started drinking and Maria's like, no, that is absolutely not what happened. And then their boss is like, well, we can just watch the video. There's a camera right there. We can watch the video and see exactly what happened. And so they did. And while they're watching the video, what we see y'all play on screen is not what we've just seen happen, I mean, because the story that

Verity actually came up with is what we see. And it's like, dude, that's not what happened. What in the world is going on? Holy crap, this is just weird, right.

And throughout all this, you know, Maria loses her job, and you know, Maria is trying to link up with wonderful old classmates, and she ends up calling the husband of Natalie, which is one of the persons one of the people that she sees in a photographs that has Verity in the background, and she's definitely wanting to touch base with Natalie to find out if Natalie had or I'm sorry, if Verity had reached out to Natalie because of their past, and she ends up calling the husband, well,

she ends up calling Natalie, but it's the husband that picks up and we come to find out that Natalie actually committed suicide. It's like whoa. And Maria is prying and prying and prying, and she's getting a little belligerent with this. I mean, she's definitely very much off putting. And she basically gets told by the husband, don't call back, I don't ever want to talk to you again, hangs up on her. Maria loses her job after a blow up at work and she ends up following Verity home.

And whenever she follows her home, she comes to find out that Verity is living in this nice mansion. She breaks in and she sees this computer, this server, a pretty good sized server, right, and she sneaks in. She goes upstairs, and she sees this, all this stuff that just makes no sense to Maria whatsoever. She sees Verity like on a throne. She sees Verity as a on the cover of a magazine. She sees a picture of Verity with her in a spacesuit like she was an astronaut.

She sees all this stuff makes no sense whatsoever. And she was able to figure out that whatever Verity was doing, she was using this pendent in order to do it. And so the mission that Maria had in breaking in was getting this pendant. She ends up locating it, but by the time she does, Verdy had finished with her shower, because that was, you know, how she was able to get up there unseen and unheard because Verity was playing some music per duoud. Verdi gets done with the shower,

Maria goes and hides under the bed. Verity shuts off the music, and Maria is freaking out hiding underneath the bed, trying to use the pendant in the same way that Verity had used the pendant, and whenever Maria hit the button, the computer made a noise that Verity understood full well what that noise means. So she gets up out of the bed and she calls out, get out from under the bed. I'll call the police. Marie comes out from under the bed, and that's where we find a bunch

of things out. We find out that, you know, one, we found out that Natalie didn't just kill herself. She

was pushed to it by Verity. And Verity was even bragging because it took Verity a month to push Natalie to those ends and basically was able to do the same thing to Maria in a week, So she was kind of bragging about that, and Verity had found out through Natalie that it was Maria who actually started all of the nasty rumors about Verity, and it was like, holy crap, and we found out that the rumors weren't true and that the teacher whom she was accused of

having relations with was just a teacher that was nice to her, the only one that was nice to her. And she got into computers because computers just made sense, and she built this computer, quantum computer, and this quantum computer had the ability to shift her into a reality that matched exactly what she wanted that reality to be

an alternate universe, if you will. And basically Verity said that it didn't matter what she did, because Maria was like, why don't you just make yourself, you know, queen Emperor, and Veritie's like, Emperor the universe. Yeah, I've already done that. That was like the first thing that I did. And Verity said that it didn't matter how much she did,

what she accomplished, what the universe looked like. She still had that hole because of how she was treated in school, and she basically framed Maria for breaking into well not really breaking in her home, because Maria definitely did that but framed her as a Maria tried to kill her in her own home. And this is where things went from bad to worse because Maria reaches back, grabs the gun in the officer's holster, points it at Verity, pulls the trigger. Holy crap, I did not see that coming.

I mean, dude, I did not see that coming. I'm us that my mouth must have dropped and hit the floor whenever that happened. I was shocked. I was like, oh, holy crap, I didn't expect that at all. Did you Did you see that coming? Did you know what was going to happen? Because I absolutely did not. It was a complete shock to me. It absolutely was. She she ends up getting shot like in the shoulder, and she

basically gets close to Verity's body. She makes it to where she can control the computer, and she tells the cops to oh, well, you know, she obviously killed herself. You don't need to take me into custody. These are not the George you're looking for. In fact, you want to worship me because I am Empress of the universe. Taking this thing full circle, because the first thing that Verity said that she did was make herself Emperor of the universe. And hear the first thing that Maria does

is make herself Empress of the universe. Holy crap. I mean this one was Wow. It was a neat episode. It really was. I thought that was definitely interesting on it, especially with some of the topics that it that it introduced and talked about, because well, first we have the obvious and we've already touched based on this one the

Mandela effect. Again, is there any Mandela effect that you remember from whenever you were younger that you remember a certain way but other people may not, or maybe just the mainstream doesn't remember it the same way that you do. Do you remember whether or not the monopoly man had a monocle? Do you remember the cornicopia in the Fruit of the Loom logo? Is there anything else that you remember differently than other people? Let me know, Send me

an email hoh at thehohoshow dot com. Now, another subject that this Puppy really gets into and talks about is bullying, and it talks about the effect that it has from a victim standpoint and a perpetrator standpoint, because you know, that's one of the things like Okay. Now, bullying is something that is tackled and talked about in a lot of different series, a lot of different movies, a lot of different instances where it has done and handled handled

in different ways, and this one was this one. You know, either you can be a victim of or you can rise above. And Verity definitely took this to a It changed everything about her. It defined her, you know what I mean, like it deaf defined her and the only way that she felt that she could get through it was through revenge. But it definitely had an impact on Maria though as well, because she lied to herself, changed

her identity, changed her environment. Well not okay, she changed her own involvement in the bullying of a Verity because she convinced herself that somebody else actually did it. And it was only after being hit with the truth by Verity did she even come clean to say, yes, okay, I'm the one that did it. But you know what, you never heard out of Maria, you didn't hear and I'm sorry I was wrong. I shouldn't have done that.

You know. Yeah, there may have been a kids will be kids kind of a thing, and there was definitely a you know, you have this supercomputer that can do an absolutely amazing thing, why don't you just change it? And that's where Verie says that I tried, and that's when she went on her mission of revenge. Have you ever had something happen to you that you know in your past that just defined you? Was it something that you wished that you could change given the opportunity, would

you change something? I mean, I know there are some several instances in my past that I would love to just beat the everloving crap out of myself and just be like, straighten up, you know, definitely. I mean I know people who you know, got hurt at a very young age and they have a scar. And I know other people that has had things bad happen to them that the scar has them. You can be a victim of or you can rise above. It's a difference in mindset.

How is you know? We all have tragedies that happens in our life. I mean, everybody has their own story, and everybody's story is unique to them, and one person's hell may be nothing to somebody else, but everybody has

their own hell. Everybody has their own experiences that they've been through, things that they don't like things that has affected them, and Maria in how she treated Verity was no different in Verity's response to how she was treated was no different because what happened with Verity, tragic as it was, definitely showed you of what could happen on

the extreme level when revenge is what consumes you. And then it gets into the whole alternate universe thing because of this supercomputer being able to shift somebody into a different reality, a reality of their own making, per se, what would you do with that one? I mean, would you make yourself empress or emperor of the universe? Holy crap? I mean that was just whoa right? I mean, somebody upon getting that type of power to actually shift the universe,

to change the reality that they're in. And it's like the first thing that Maria does is the first thing that Verity does being Empress of the universe. I mean that was just that was interesting, right, because I'm remembering back to the you know, to the magazine cover to her being an astronaut, and I mean, who knows what else Verity ended up doing because she could because she

had the power to do it. Interesting stuff. Given that kind of power, would you do that, you know, And that's even ignoring the possibility of there being alternate universes where you know, whatever you think may be is you know, I mean, there's all kinds of discussions about that when I know Albert Einstein has had different theories on alternate universes and alternate realities and whatnot. So that's that's ignoring

all of that. But it's the computer that has the ability to do that, a supercomputer of what do they call it? Quantum computer? Yeah, interesting stuff, interesting stuff, the ability to shift your reality. Would you do that given the opportunity, given the chance, would you shift reality? And what kind of reality would you shift into? Or would you more want to mess with time? That one's interesting.

So this this episode, it was it was definitely a little on the different side, but I thought it was pretty good. I really did some of the topics, some of the things that had tackled, definitely getting into the Mandela effect. It definitely made me question what I had seen, what I had read throughout the episode. It definitely made me rewind and rewatch because that Mandela effect. That one threw me for a loop, it really did. So anyway,

that's all I got for y'alls. That is it, y'alls having yourself a great one and I will see you in the next one. Thank you for listening to the Black Mirror podcast. If you would like to join the conversation, you can comment on this episode a spreaker dot com or go to the ho host show dot com. Forward slash form in the discussion board for this