Eulogy

Phillip is contacted by A Guide to co tribute towards a eulogy for his former girlfriend Carol.

Eulogy sees a huge change up in pace and style, initially I wasn't sure, by the end of it, I was blown away. It's heartbreaking, it's poignant, it's clever, it genuinely is what Black Mirror is all about.

If you've had a break up, especially a bad one, this will make you think l, it exposes the bitterness we can feel, the desperation to try and forget painful memories.

Paul Giamatti was phenomenal here, what an outstanding performance, he's terrific from start to finish, we get to know Philip for 45 minutes or so, but I felt like we knew his entire life experience.

Lots of goodies to look out for once again, check the branding on the bottle of Cola for example.

Is it just me, or does this episode have something of a happy ending once again, surely Paul's life is made all the better by the experience.

Captivating.

9/10.

Paul Giamatti. I need not say more, but will anyways. Each season 7 episode has been so profound, that the science fiction aspect merely feels like it is in the room, but not in the spotlight. I am a huge lover of this genre, but I found these episodes to be even more than the genre itself. The concept of this episode was simple enough, and it wasn't so far fetched as Black Mirror can be. But somehow it impressed me beyond any other episode. Was it Giamatti? Was it the premise? I think both, but mostly the actor. He wonderfully portrayed the human element of love, regret, grief, and pain. What it is to live and to love. The end scene captured those complex feelings of being human. Wow. The words escaped my lips as I watched Giamatti emote on the screen. What a wonderful portrayal.

Paul Giamatti here is unbelievably good as a person who has spent the majority of their life grieving the loss of a deep connection, full of self pity and self loathing and never attempting to see things from another perspective. This perspective is helpfully (or hurtfully) provided by a "guide" who is there to probe his memory to find at least one good one to be presented at a funeral a few days hence.

It's a deeply raw, emotional exploration of a tragically doomed love that never had a chance due to timing, circumstances, and the usual unknowable follies of the young.

I connected more with the source material here than I was expecting, and it hit me like a truck. 10/10.

To me this is up there with the best Black Mirror episodes of all time, but for a very different reason. It didn't have a thrilling twist or an idea for a technology or dystopic future that blew my mind. Rather, it was just essentially the evolution of what used to be the low/mid-budget film. This was better acted, paced, and more unique than 99% of these type of films (which now go direct to streaming) in 2025.

Giamatti is one of the great character actors of present day (I actually rode an elevator with him in a NYC apartment building, not realizing who he was at first, when visiting a friend 15 or so years ago and he was a super friendly & warm guy on top of that, despite often playing prickly a-holes, but I digress).

I could see some not liking this as much for the very reason I loved it - this is an episode that uses a unique technology as a vehicle to tell a very human story, one we can all understand even if we haven't experienced it. That's when this show is at its best imo. The tech is a cool idea, but it's not the primary focus of the story. I would argue most of the iconic episodes like USS Callister, The Entire History of You, the Hamm Christmas one I'm blanking on the name of, etc all fall into this category as well. We remember the tech but that's not what makes them affective, it's the very real human emotions like jealousy, insecurity, arrogance, etc that drive these stories and the tech is just how that happens. Compare that with some others like the robot dog ep, or Men Against Fire, or Hated in the Nation, etc and there's some entertaining TV but there's also a reason they're not as iconic and timeless.

Anyway, point being, Black Mirror is back (for the most part) imo after a very disappointing last few seasons, and I'm very happy to see a return to this type of story telling, as opposed to what the last few seasons had become, losing the emotional/human side often, or at least it becoming secondary.

Overwhelming emotion, and by far the best acting of the series. It doesn't always take some big twist for an episode to truly blossom or stand out, and this is a prime example of that. I would consider this one of the best episodes of Black Mirror to date. Paul Giamatti carries the load of this episode, delivering a polarizing performance of a man in the tail end of his life who remembers one of his greatest mistakes in a slow and painful way. There is no large twist but the revelations we find out at the end left me standing up clapping at the brilliance. I would highly recommend this episode to anybody who enjoys pure story mastery.