Arkangel ★ ★ ½
As a young child, the thought probably crossed your mind that your mother had eyes in the back of her head that could always see when you were up to no good. ‘Arkangel’, directed by Jodie Foster, is essentially this idea articulated through technology. The episode is much smaller and contained than the remainder of the season, portraying a single mother Marie (Rosemarie DeWitt) who decides to implant an Arkangel chip into her infant daughter. This special chip allows GPS tracking, health updates, a view of her child’s vision, and parental controls. The resulting narrative watches as the relationship between Marie and her daughter (Brenna Harding) begins to crumble under the increasing strain of the chip’s presence.
Thematically, the episode is a mix of ‘The Entire History of You’ and ‘White Christmas’, extracting motifs from both and molding them to fit the modern idea of “helicopter parenting”. In this way, ‘Arkangel’ is the closest Season 4 reaches to its roots, but it’s not necessarily better off for doing so. The ability to spy on your child well into their adolescence is certainly a troubling one, but a premise that can’t help but feel tired and wasted here.
Essentially, the heart of the episode is this: the availability and presence of a technology like Arkangel has the potential to inflict massive damage on a parent-child relationship. Even if the parent opts to avoid spying on their child’s actions or whereabouts, the mere ability to do so suggests distrust. While this idea is definitely intriguing, it was already better explored in ‘The Entire History of You’ through the lens of couple infidelity. If I hadn’t already seen that episode, I would actually probably think this was quite a good one. With previous seasons as a reference though, it makes it difficult for me to rate this episode any higher.
‘Arkangel’ also examines into the notion of parental controls on life. What if you could censor out every inappropriate or scary image into a inoffensive, pixelated blur? Again, this is too close to a subplot in ‘White Christmas’, which introduced blocking people in real life. The goals of the episodes’ respective technologies are admittedly separate, but the sentiment is far too similar for any seasoned Black Mirror veteran to not feel a wave of déjà vu. Ultimately, ‘Arkangel’ just isn’t unique enough to stand out.
This isn’t to say that it’s a poorly-made 52-minute program. On the contrary, Jodie Foster’s direction is strongly-felt and much appreciated. The editing is also clever, depicting Sara grow older by the oscillations of a swing set or trips to school. The acting doesn’t quite hit the same mark, however, with only Rosemarie DeWitt’s Marie being of any memorable significance.
In a self-contained bubble, ‘Arkangel’ is an enjoyable enough watch, but considering the show’s prior three seasons, you would have to inflict some serious retrograde amnesia onto yourself to not see the similarities with older, more compelling episodes. All in all, the episode is just average, but still worth a look.
Teleccentric 