It’s a weird time to be binge-watching The Americans, which is what I’m currently doing since I have a one-month trial of Amazon Prime.
What else is in this world? Oil spills, civil war, the murder of civilians, a terrifying president-elect and a possibly more terrifying cabinet. Other things, too, of course. Many more hopeful and cheering, but damn.
It’s hard to compare right now to earlier times–when we didn’t have the ability to know every terrible thing that was happening in the world, or the confusion that comes with a vast glut of often conflicting information, or the feeling of impotence at being unsure of what you can do to make any difference, other than protest and throw money at problems–but compared to recent times alone, right now feels pretty rock-bottom.
Given that it feels like we’re living in a Black Mirror episode, two plotfinders: Both of these are Black Mirror-esque, but are definitely not Black Mirror. I’ve seen them all (not the whole third season, but the shows I’m trying to find are from before season three came out).
SPOILERS will be included eventually, because, well, I’m trying to *find* these episodes/shows/whatever they are, not recommend them to people. But I’ll put them in white so you don’t have to see.
1. This was the more Black Mirror-like of the two. It’s about a young woman (I believe British) who keeps getting terrifying emails that show a video of someone wearing a hoodie murdering someone. The implication is that she’s next. The woman is very timid and when she goes to work her coworker tries to talk to her but she’s afraid.
SPOILER below (highlight to read):
**It’s her. She’s the murderer. She puts on her hoodie and murders people in an elevator.
2. This was less like Black Mirror but had the same sort of uncanny horror feel. It’s about a guy who opens a portal in his house that lets him trade places with an alternate-universe sort of version of himself. There’s some weirdness with his alternate-universe wife, who looks like his regular wife but seems to have some kind of shoe fetish or murder fetish (I may have been sleep while watching this).
SPOILER:
The alternate universe version of the protagonist doesn’t want to go back to the alternate universe and traps the protagonist there by sealing the portal or whatever. I think.
