“Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too”, the third episode of season five ofBlack Mirror, is an uncharacteristically upbeat story. Directed by Anne Sewitsky, it revisits many familiar themes of the sci-fi anthology series — such as artificial intelligence and memory storage — but with a particular flavor of optimism.
While it does not delve deep into the mechanics of fame (unlikethe episode “Fifteen Million Merits”), “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” is still an effective portrayal of how celebrities are packaged for profits. It is also one of the fewBlack Mirrorepisodes thatdo not end on a bleak note.
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What Is Black Mirror’s ‘Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too’ About?
The episode first introduces Rachel Goggins (Angourie Rice), a lonely teenager who is trying to settle in a new school while coping with her mother’s passing. She lives with her older, septum ring-wearing sister Jack (Madison Davenport) and their father Kevin (Marc Menchaca), a rodent exterminator who is occupied with inventing a “ground-breaking mousetrap alternative”. On her fifteenth birthday, Rachel receives Ashley Too, an AI robotic doll that is modeled after Ashley O (Miley Cyrus), her favorite pop idol (a similar concept has also been shown inthe episode “White Christmas”). With bubblegum pink hair and glowing eyes, Ashley Too is almost nauseatingly chirpy, dispensing empty platitudes like “If you believe in yourself, you may do anything”. Rachel immediately becomes attached to the doll, which gives her the confidence to participate in the school talent contest. After a “makeover” from Ashley Too, Rachel dances to Ashley’s song on stage— only to slip during her performance and embarrass herself. Jack, who is concerned (and mildly disgusted) by the influence of the doll on Rachel, steals it and hides it in the attic. She lies to Rachel that she has thrown it away instead, creating a rift between the two.
In reality, Ashley O is nothing like her sunny virtual counterpart. She is struggling to write songs that do not clash with her ‘brand’, and wants to reinvent herself. However, her exploitative aunt and manager Catherine (Susan Pourfar) discourages her “obtuse” experimental music and constantly gives her pills to subdue her. Ashley continues to feel more like a ‘product’ — “You’ve got 20,000 fans out there waiting to see the you they love,” as Catherine reminds her — motivating her to break from the contract that binds her to her aunt. When Catherine finds out that Ashley has been hoarding her medicines, she crushes them to powder and adds it to her food,putting her in a “chemical coma”. News reports state that this is the result of a shellfish allergy, and a sympathetic Jack returns Ashley Too to Rachel, who refuses to activate it again.
How Does ‘Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too’ End?
Fast-forward to six months later: Ashley is still in coma, but that has not stopped Catherine from monetizing her name and talent.Using unexplained, groundbreaking technology, she is able to probe Ashley’s comatose brain and extract new songs that she records using the voice mimicry software that had been developed for Ashley Too.
During a news segment on Ashley, Rachel’s Ashley Too inadvertently receives the “Ashley, wake up” command from TV, and malfunctions after learning about its real self. Jack and Rachel plug it into their computer to fix it and unknowingly remove the doll’s limiter, which was allowing it to only use four percent of Ashley’s brain (the part that “deals with press junkets and promos”). Without that barrier, Ashley Too channels Ashley’s real (and snarky) personality —or a “synaptic snapshot”. It shares the truth about Catherine with Rachel and Jack, and they all drive off in Kevin’s mouse-eared van to Ashley’s home to save her. While Jack pretends she is from a pest control service to fool Catherine’s team, Rachel and Ashley Too discover the coma-bound Ashley. Believing that her human self would not have wanted to live in a vegetative state, the doll unplugs Ashley from life support. This backfires, however, and she wakes up instead.
Together, they all escape and head towards where Catherine is presenting Ashley Eternal to potential investors — a scalable and controllable hologram of Ashley that can perform at multiple locations simultaneously. While being pursued by the police for running a red light, Jack reaches the venue and crashes through the equipment. Ashley gets out of the car and comes face-to-face with a now defeated Catherine.
The scene cuts to Ashley (now performing as ‘Ashley Fuckn O’) singing a song “about my shitty aunt” at a dive bar, with Jack on bass. Rachel and Ashley Too watch from the audience, while Kevin tries to explain his new invention to a disinterested bartender. Two former fans of Ashley O leave the show, calling her new look and music simply “awful”.
“Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” touches on thecurrent state of the entertainment industry, which tends to commodify creativity. From introducing a line of mass-market toys (that are clones of Ashley’s consciousness) to mellowing down her song for the sake of marketability accurately depicts how celebrities are nothing more than manufactured creations of the industry. Cyrus, whose own transition from a teen idol to a more mature artist, talked about the episodein an interview with The Guardian: “It really portrays the overt exploitation of artists and that numbers usually eclipse the creative most of the time.”
In an interview with EW, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker stated that the idea of Ashley Eternal came from the rise of holographic versions of artists (like Prince and Amy Winehouse): “It’s notable these people often pass away in extremely tragic circumstances. They’ve been chewed up by the fame industry and now they’re being resurrected. It’s extremely ghoulish.” In the episode, the audience seems to rejoice in the idea of a hologram (of a person who is almost dead) performing on stage for them — once again showing the extent to which technology can take away power from the artist.
