In this YouTube review, the host provides a comprehensive walkthrough of the Black Mirror episode “Hated in the Nation.” He begins by noting the episode’s unusually long runtime (about 80 minutes) and its structure as a detective‑style narrative that feels more like a standalone film than a typical anthology episode. The reviewer outlines the central plot: a social‑media‑driven “hate‑vote” game where high‑profile individuals are up‑voted for death, leading to a series of mysterious murders. He explains the reveal that autonomous, bee‑like drones—referred to as artificial bees—are being weaponized to carry out the killings, and connects this fictional technology to real‑world research on micro‑drone swarms and national‑security concerns. Throughout, the host draws parallels to the earlier Black Mirror episode “National Anthem,” highlighting similar themes of political power, media manipulation, and the danger of technology when misused. He emphasizes that the episode critiques not technology itself but the misuse of it, arguing for a nuanced view of technological advancement. The review also touches on the episode’s political commentary, noting the Home Secretary’s self‑preserving actions that exacerbate the crisis, and reflects on Charlie Brooker’s talent for making near‑future threats feel disturbingly plausible. The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to like, subscribe, and share their thoughts on the episode.
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Hey you, welcome back to the channel. And guys, today we're going to review Black Mirror episode Hated in the Nation. And guys, we've been going a little bit out of order. Black Mirror is done in a way where its episodes are pretty much standalone. You can just come into this and you can watch these episodes and, uh, you know, basically, uh, pretty much conclude that story within itself, although there are many connections in the Black Mirror universe. So let's talk a little bit about what we got with this episode. Did like this episode. Definitely not one of my favorite episodes, but I thought it was a well-done episode. It felt like a— if I felt engulfed in this episode like it was a movie. Now I'm pretty sure that this was a lot longer, uh, than your standard Black Mirror episode. This thing felt maybe about an hour 20 minutes or something. It felt like a full-scale movie, uh, and that's kind of what I took from it. Although many are, you know, like their own kind of standalone movies, but it It does at some points for me feel like a serial, whereas this kind of felt like a, uh, just like a, like a pretty, you know, a pretty good size, uh, length of runtime movie. But it's a kind of detective cop, sir, uh, solving murders episode as we got to see. And I was fine with that. I, I found it interesting. I was kind of in a mood of right off of that Uh, not gonna get a lot of the weird bizarre endings, uh, that mess with your head. But, uh, I, I start to reflect a lot back on National Anthem, and I was kind of some parallels in National Anthem with this, and this felt very National Anthem-ish. Uh, also, uh, as far as the mapping out the type of, uh, world this is happening in the universe. And it felt very near future, social media type, uh, and of course this episode had a lot to do with, uh, social media, which I think kind of moved my attention back to National Anthem once again. But, um, this had to do with murders, had to do with the internet being involved, social media being involved, and, um, this weird game we got to see that was happening, where people were actually selected or voted up to, um, as some of the worst people on social media. You know, a lot, even in today's age, we have these social media celebrities, if you will, that say outrageous things, do outrageous things, whether it be racially sensitive things or whether it things that, uh, make people uncomfortable, immoral things, and, and, um, they become hated overall by the community, uh, from what they say and the actions they take online. And there is a type of, uh, literal, a literal end to their careers, uh, in some cases, right? It's, it's the end, the murder of a career. But in this particular episode, we get a literal, uh, uh, murder of them, uh, in the taking of their lives when they have, uh, engaged in this behavior that is unacceptable to the masses of people. And through this game They're selected by, upvoted by the community, and they usually find, we find out that they die shortly after that as something kills them. And we can't quite figure out early on in the beginning what's killing them. They're dying these mysterious deaths. We're under the assumption as we got to see that it's people committing some type of murder. Uh, um, and, uh, it's later that we find out that there are these, uh, artificial bees that are, that are killing everyone. Now, this kind of splits this whole thing in half for me, where we're dealing once again with technology being, uh, so powerful, and, uh, if we're not careful with the technology, it could lead to our downfall. So That's a common thing, a theme in Black Mirror, and we're— it's getting split in half and that, and then it's still this detective story, right, that's going on. Um, and, uh, um, so we found out that the bees were actually what were killing these people. Now, to kind of divide it up a little bit, go on the scientific side of it a little bit, uh, the technology side of it, the, the idea of these drone-like the bees as weapons is an actual real concern and threat to national security. And such ideas have been in defenses, hopeful defenses against such ideas have been looked into and proposed, although not exactly sure what the answers would be. We have seen experimental drones that are very small in size that can form a collective system where they work together, where they can pilot themselves together. And this is what we got to see in this episode. And what made it so scary was not only the realism of it, but the fact that they can create these little small artificial drones or artificial bees as they did, or whatever type thing they could think of that would be able to enter your body and destroy your body from the inside out, killing you. Uh, on the good side of a scenario like that, uh, one thing that's just come up, come up over many years now, uh, is the idea that we were losing bees, that bees were no longer going to be around to, uh, to spread pollen to various crops and plants, and thus would lead in global starvation. That without the bees, we would not be able to feed this entire world. And so once again, we have to go back to technology in an effort to balance the ecosystem and try to fix the problem. Unfortunately, as we got to see, the solution was also the problem. Um, and that's a common theme in technology and doomsday scenarios with technology, that this technology was created initially to serve a good purpose, and it did. Now it's being misused. And I also just want to say this about that, that I think it's very, very important that we make these distinctions because many times I hear this argument about how technology is going to destroy human beings, right? But it's not really technology, is it? It's the misuse of technology. And, uh, right, and of course we can make an argument like that about anything, right? We can, we can make philosophical arguments about people making bad choices that, uh, and, uh, destroying people. So, uh, I just want to, you know, put that out there, that I think we should be very, uh, careful with that and not so much demonize technology, uh, you know, until we, uh, you know, look at it as a whole. So that's what's happening here, and So someone's controlling these, uh, these drones, these bees, and, and it's all mixed up with the social media frenzy. Again, going back to how people are hated in social media, hence the title Hated in the Nation. These people who do these, uh, things that aren't acceptable, and now technology is being used to seek them out and actually kill them. And, uh, when these things come after you, as we got to see They're very small. They're very, um, versatile. They can move anywhere. They can hide. They're like stealth, right? They use like a type of, uh, and so they're, they're able to get past you and they can enter very small cavities, right? So there's not a lot of defense against them. You can't shoot them. You can possibly burn them or what have you. And, uh, um, They're also very interesting because that's another thing we've talked about in technology, the ability for these autonomous type of drones and artificial, um, uh, bots, uh, able to replicate themselves. So now you got an issue where they've come online, they can keep recreating themselves, and then they can, uh, basically, uh, become a huge problem that can't be stopped. And then with the cases with the bees, they're able to act just like bees. That's part of their algorithm, to act, to behave like bees. So they're still building these hives like a bee would, but they're not producing honey in the hives. They're going within these hives, inside these hives, and they're building other, uh, these autonomous artificial bees. Um, and we get to find out who our, um, who's behind this, uh, who's controlling this technology, a person by the name of Garrett Shows. And he's, uh, basically, um, uh, come to this road where his career was destroyed, uh, by, uh, social media. And now he's using this social media coupled with this technology to go after people who are sought after by these media personalities, these social media celebrities that are hated and their careers are destroyed by the masses of people. And he puts together this, you know, this whole entire game where all the participants now are now going to be murdered over 300,000 of them. And, and of course, the bees— this is as they have hives and colonies all over the world, as their purpose was to pollinate and to feed the entire world. This is no issue of them. And we got to see all of these horrific deaths, these, um, deaths in which people were helpless, that there was no amount of protection. And this, coupled with a military application can be quite devastating. And so, uh, you know, so we basically— this is why there's this type of congressional hearing, uh, where our main character— I believe her name is Katie. I believe her name is Katie in the episode. She's the lead detective, but she has to go to this hearing to try to bring everyone up to speed as to how did this occur what happened at the hands of Gears Schulz, who seemingly gets away at the end. But we get to see that Katie's, uh, uh, partner detective has actually faked her death, is in, is in close to apprehending him, in pursuit of him. Um, another kind of reference for me back to National Anthem was the part where the I believe it was his title is the Home Secretary, kind of reminded me of, uh, the Prime Minister in National Anthem, where we get to see firsthand, uh, politicians pretty much in a lot nowadays, how we, uh, label them and how we, uh, have, uh, uh, how we look at them, how we view them, right, as these very self-preserving career-saving type individuals who will do anything to stay in power and who will do anything to save their own necks. And of course, this kind of throwback to National Anthem with the Prime Minister, Home Secretary, same thing as he's been, uh, put on the list in the game is he's a politician nobody likes. And so, uh, He wants to just shut everything down, and the shutting down is what actually causes the over 300,000 deaths. It's all connected together. In order to save his own neck, he has one of his aides do this, and now as a result, we get all these people dead just from this politician wanting to save his own neck, his own life, which is kind of the picture that is painted with our politicians today. And so I just found that all interesting. It just reminded me so much of National Anthem. But guys, yeah, I like this episode. It's a different type of Black Mirror episode. Yeah, I would go and say it's just the same on par like National Anthem. There is a very realistic feel to it, and maybe that's where Charlie Brooker, I think, does the most damage, right? I think some of the most disturbing and horrifying things are things that are much more possible right now in our day and time, uh, when a person can reflect on how easily something can happen, like what we got in National Anthem. And like what I believe we've gotten in this episode, because we've— we actually have drones about this size now that can fly around. And even if they can't enter into your body and destroy you from the inside out, due to some kind of type of technological limitations, whether it be power. Like in this case, we got to see the bees were actually solar charged, and that's how they were able to operate autonomously, autonomously have a power source. You know, maybe the way the circuits are done on many of our micro drones now, if you will, there may be some greater limitations with them, I'm sure, than what we got here. But the idea of what a swarm of flying drones, or even just unmanned drones that have certain weapon systems or capabilities that are small on their own, those things can do to a, to the security of a nation and of a city is all quite disturbing. So the producer here, the creator, Charlie Brooker, I think he knows how to exploit that and scare the ham sandwich out of us. So anyway, guys, I like this episode. Tell me if you thought it was okay. I am— this is part of season 3, you know, we skipped ahead a little bit of season 4, but I don't think it hurt the reviews I'm doing at all. I do think it's important if you're going to do a review on Black Mirror in this fashion and just come in in different episodes as standalone episodes Uh, just for your own reference points, I, I would say it's probably a good idea to, uh, to watch several of these episodes first yourself. And I say that because, uh, you can reference them to other episodes. There are a lot of Easter eggs, there are a lot of common threads there. But guys, that's all I wanted to say about this, um, episode of, uh, Black Mirror: Hated in the Nation. Guys, if you like content like this, don't forget to like and subscribe. And until next time, Take care.
