"Black Museum" is the sixth and final episode of the fourth series of anthology series Black Mirror. It was directed by Colm McCarthy and written by series creator Charlie Brooker, with one part adapted from a story by Penn Jillette. The episode premiered on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017. The episode is divided into three stories, told by Rolo Haynes (Douglas Hodge), the owner of a remote Black Museum. He tells the visitor Nish (Letitia Wright) about the backstories of exhibits, which involve his previous employment in experimental technologies.
"Black Museum" was filmed over a month in Spain and Nevada, United States. A horror episode, its themes include race and technology. The set contained a large number of Easter eggs referencing previous works in the series. "Black Museum" was met with mixed critical reception: most reviewers found its storyline and characterisation poor and the final plot twist proved polarising. The episode generally received weak rankings by critics in comparison to other Black Mirror episodes. However, Wright received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and a Black Reel Award nomination for her acting.
Plot
Nish (Letitia Wright) visits the remote Black Museum at a filling station. The proprietor, Rolo Haynes (Douglas Hodge), explains backstories to the museum's crime-related artefacts, starting with a hairnet device.
Rolo previously recruited people for experimental medical technology. In a flashback, Dr. Peter Dawson (Daniel Lapaine) agreed to test an implant that made him feel the physical sensations of the person wearing the hairnet. He learned the feeling of many conditions and was able to diagnose patients quickly. After experiencing a man dying, he became aroused by his patients' pain. Addicted to it, he started mutilating himself and murdered a homeless man, which caused him to fall into a coma.
In the present, the air conditioner is broken, so Nish offers Rolo water. Moving on to a toy monkey, Rolo describes how he convinced Jack (Aldis Hodge) to transfer his comatose wife Carrie's (Alexandra Roach) consciousness into part of his brain, so she could experience his physical sensations and communicate with him. Jack and Carrie became aggravated by their lack of privacy and agency, respectively. Rolo offered Jack an ability to "pause" Carrie. Months later, Jack unpaused her, and they eventually agreed for her to be unpaused on weekends only. Jack began dating Emily (Yasha Jackson), who wanted Carrie to be deleted. Rolo transferred Carrie to the toy monkey, which could feel sensations and say two phrases ("Monkey loves you" and "Monkey needs a hug"). Carrie and Jack's son Parker was soon bored by it. The monkey technology became illegal, so Rolo was fired.
The museum's centerpiece is a holographic Clayton Leigh (Babs Olusanmokun). Rolo insists he was guilty of murder but Nish reminds him of conflicting evidence. While on death row, Clayton signed up to Rolo's exhibit: when a visitor pulls a lever, a conscious hologram of Clayton receives the electric chair, and a souvenir copy of him experiencing electrocution is made. The exhibit was immensely popular. As Rolo begins to asphyxiate, Nish continues the story, revealing herself as Clayton's daughter. After public protests, attendance to the exhibit dwindled to sadists and wealthy white supremacists, who left Clayton's hologram in a vegetative state. His wife and Nish's mother Angelica (Amanda Warren) overdosed the day after she saw him. As revenge, Nish sabotaged the air conditioner and gave Rolo poisoned water. Nish transfers Rolo's consciousness into Clayton's hologram, then electrocutes it, which creates a souvenir of Rolo's suffering.
Nish takes the monkey containing Carrie with her and sets the museum on fire. She converses with her mother, whose consciousness is inside her head, like Carrie's was with Jack.
Production
Whilst series one and two of Black Mirror were shown on Channel 4 in the UK, Netflix commissioned the programme for 12 episodes (split into two series of six episodes) in September 2015 with a bid of $40million. In March 2016, Netflix outbid Channel 4 for the right to distribute the series in the UK. The six episodes in series four were released on Netflix simultaneously on 29 December 2017. "Black Museum" is listed as the last episode, and was also one of the later episodes to be made. Production overlapped with various stages of each of the other five episodes' productions.