User:Blusolace/The Entire History of You

"The Entire History of You" is the third and final episode of the first series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by the creator of Peep Show and Fresh Meat, Jesse Armstrong, making it the only episode of the series not written or co-written by creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker. It was directed by Brian Welsh, and first aired on Channel 4 on 18 December 2011.

The episode, set in an alternative reality where most people have "grains" recording everything they do, see, or hear, and allowing them to playback their memories in front of their eyes or on a screen, tells the story of Liam (Toby Kebbell), a man who starts suspecting that his wife Ffion (Jodie Whittaker) might have had an affair.

"The Entire History of You" received positive reviews. In 2013, Robert Downey Jr. optioned the episode to potentially be made into a film by Warner Bros. and his own production company Team Downey.

Plot
Young lawyer Liam Foxwell (Toby Kebbell) leaves a work appraisal that he felt went poorly. He belongs to a portion of society that has a "Grain" implanted behind their ear, which records everything they see and hear. Using a remote, a user can watch a "re-do", playing their memories back directly to their eye or a video monitor. While returning home, he repeatedly watches the re-do of the appraisal and is troubled by a seemingly insincere phrase from his employer.

Later that evening, Liam makes a surprise appearance at a dinner party where his wife Ffion (Jodie Whittaker) is with her friends. He finds her talking to a man he does not recognize — Jonas (Tom Cullen). As the party continues, Liam becomes concerned that Ffion seems too fond of Jonas, as she is the only one laughing at his crude jokes. When Liam and Ffion return home, he goads her into talking more about her history with Jonas. She admits that she used to be in a relationship with Jonas, but her accounts regarding the length of their relationship are inconsistent, and Liam subsequently becomes paranoid. The conversation turns heated and they get into a fight. Eventually, Liam backs down and apologizes to his wife. They proceed to have sex by watching re-dos of previous sexual encounters.

Afterward, Liam leaves the bedroom and watches re-dos of the party to scrutinize Jonas' behavior, all the while drinking heavily. By morning, when Ffion comes downstairs, Liam drunkenly demands more answers from her about Jonas. Ffion refuses to answer and returns to bed. Liam then drives to Jonas' home where he forces his way in and assaults him. Liam demands he erase all memories of Ffion from his Grain or he will forcibly remove it, which can lead to vision and brain damage. Jonas complies and deletes all such memories on a video monitor. Liam leaves and crashes his car drunkenly into a tree and then passes out. Regaining consciousness, Liam replays the last few memories before the crash to figure out what happened, discovering that Jonas had a memory of sex with Ffion about 18 months ago, near the same time that she conceived her daughter, Jodie.

Liam angrily returns home and confronts Ffion about it. She admits she and Jonas had sex after Liam had temporarily walked out over an argument, but claims that they had used a condom and insists Liam is Jodie's father. Liam demands she shows him the re-do of the event to prove that, but Ffion claims she deleted it. Liam becomes more hostile, demanding she shows him the blank space on the Grain where she erased it. She tries to then delete the memory but Liam physically stops her. In tears, she reluctantly reveals the re-do she had kept from 18 months ago and plays it, which verifies that she and Jonas had unprotected sex and implies that Jonas may be the father of their child.

Sometime later, Liam is alone in the house, playing back happier moments with Ffion and Jodie. Liam goes to his bathroom and uses a razor blade to cut out the Grain from behind his ear, a flurry of memories flooding his consciousness before the screen cuts to black.

Major Themes
Major themes throughout the episode of "The Entire History of You" the device that played a major role in the themes is the "Grain" implant. The Grain allowed characters to control others by their memories and allowed the broadcasting of movies on other devices. The Grain allows others to uphold their integrity and not lie because every moment is replayable. Chia said, "nobody can make blatant lies and get away with it, because there’s always video evidence waiting to be accessed".. Being able to replay the entire day one had it can be played only for that person to see or for others to see on a screen. Chia said, "this technology records everything your eyes can see — even if you aren’t actively focusing on something — and allows for video playback (called “re-dos”) and zoom/enhancing, either on a TV or in your eye (using a lens of some sort)". For hobbies and enjoyment characters replayed their day for satisfaction. They also replayed memories of them having intercourse for them to enjoy having intercourse in the moment. Chia said, "in your spare time, you don’t watch TV, you re-watch your day, or revisit a euphoric memory".

Conception and writing
"The Entire History of You" was written by Jesse Armstrong, making it the only episode of series 1 in which series creator Charlie Brooker did not have a writing credit. Executive producer Annabel Jones says that they were looking for a satirical writer whose stories "still have meat". Armstrong was a sitcom writer, best known for co-creating Peep Show, which uses point-of-view shots, and had met Brooker several times previously. Armstrong had independently been considering the exponential growth of memory capacity in computers and pitched an idea relating to the importance of "being able to forget things" in relationships.

The episode's first draft was too long; Brooker conceived of several consequences of the Grain such as people going to the cinema to have affairs as their Grains were turned off for copyright law reasons. The story was scaled down to focus on a "domestic bubble".

Casting and filming
Brian Welsh was hired as director, based on the recommendation of producer Barney Reisz. Welsh had little industry experience; he focused on Toby's performance and the exploration of jealousy. Scenes were filmed with different intonations and improvisation.

Toby Kebbell stars as Liam Foxwell, while Jodie Whittaker was cast as his wife Ffion. Whittaker was hired immediately following her audition. Casting director Shaheen Baig comments that the pair are similar actors, as both are "very emotionally open" but "subtle and complex". Between takes, Kebbell would remain focused and the two were given notes privately by Welsh, so they each did not know how the other was going to act.

The memory technology is known as a Grain as it is the size of a grain of rice. The characters control it with a small circular remote that the crew called a "pebble". Production designer Joel Collins designed the Grain app to resemble tree rings. To distance the episode from science fiction, Collins used materials like stone, wood and metal. The episode is set in 2050 and has a "mid-century" feel based on 1950. It uses point-of-view shots to show the characters' memories.

The sex scene between Liam and Ffion was originally conceived as the characters having sex while watching an earlier sexual encounter on the bedroom television. Due to logistical difficulties, the characters instead watch the footage replayed in their pupils, which have the visual effect of being "milked out". Brooker describes the scene as feeling "downright haunting", whereas the first incarnation was "amusing and a bit sad".

During post-production, the creators grew concerned that a certain combination of takes led Liam to be deemed unlikeable. Subsequently, the final edit was altered to a focus on a side of Liam that was considered funnier.

Analysis
Following the episode's broadcast, Brooker noted that some viewers misinterpreted the ending in that the child is not Liam's or that he had murdered Ffion after watching her re-do of time spent with Jonas. The episode has a lot of grey areas that leave room for interpretation. Brooker clarified that the ending was to state that Ffion had moved out of the house with her child sometime after despite having proven Liam is the biological father.

Armstrong and Brooker both sympathize with Liam to a limited extent. Armstrong describes the technology as something that enabled Liam's pre-existing jealous tendencies. Brooker calls Liam "a weak, frightened, flawed person" who acts as "a bit of a bully" towards his wife but notes that this all stems from insecurity. Jones calls Liam "obviously obsessive" but comments that him ripping the Grain out maybe a moment of "slight redemption". Brooker comments that if there is a moral, it is that Liam "shouldn't have gone looking for something that was only going to upset him". Being in a relationship is a give and take connection with the other person. Brown stated, “Jesse Armstrong once said being able to forget things is very important in relationships”. When technology evolves the is a shift in communication techniques. People would prefer to do things the new way even though the old way of doing things still works fine. Having up to date technology gives people more reasons to play on their gadget than to have a conversation face to face. Boren said, “connecting to digital technology disconnects users from people around them and their immediate environment”.

Grain
A "Grain" is a microchip implanted behind their ear, which records everything they see and hear. Using a remote, a user can watch a "re-do", playing their memories back directly to their eye or a video monitor. The grain had a good image to help emergency response get the first account of what happened. Brown said, "the officers use the grain for fist hand evidence since what they need to see is in front of them. Without the grain a citizen is seen as a liar". The other good in the grain was that it helped with defining what future employees what they are like and how they go about life. Brown stated, "employers use the grain to see if the potential employee values align with the company values". The episode had an advertisement for the grain the item this episode revolves around. The basis of the episode was to show how improvements to technology can have a negative impact on society. Boren said, “the ad casts brain implants in a positive light in the commercial to attract the population that doesn't have them”. After the friends of Ffion got together they bashed Liam for not wanting to talk about his work appraisal. Black Mirror Analysis showed that "Liam is made to feel bad because he doesn’t want to replay his memory with is friends." The advertisement and the other friends who do have the grain frowned upon the individuals who did not have grains. In the video Black Mirror Analysis, it was said, "peer pressure encourages people who don’t have the grain to get it". If you did not have a grain you were looked at as trouble because the grain is a societal norm. Brown said, "in society going grainless is associated with bad habits and criminal activity. After all the damage that he had created in his life, he noticed how the one common cause of his overreactions was the grain. Boren said, “Liam’s decision to cut out his brain implant symbolizes his realization that the benefits of brain implants are not worth the costs”.

Analysis of the Main Characters
Liam is the protagonist that finds out first hand how technology can seem to be a great asset, but in the end, it is detrimental to his wellbeing. Brown stated, "he uses the grain to prove his point and get his way with others". With this grain being the help he gets to solving his intuition he thinks about things too deep. Brown, said, "he over analyzes every mannerism, every word that is said, and he obsesses over things out of his control". With all of the negative thoughts going through his head he did not once think about the good that came out of the situation. In Black Mirror Analysis video it is said that, "Liam is so busy looking for the negative in every situation that he doesn’t recognize the positives". Liams looking trough everything extensively caused him to second guess his feelings and relationship. Brown stated, “Liam is obsessive and insecure”. Liam assisted in the many factors that caused his relationship to fail by digging too deep to prove himself right. Boren said, “Liam misuses and overuses the brain implants, eventually leading to Liam and Fiona’s divorce”.

Ffionis accused of having an affair with Jonas. The issue here is trust and honesty because the relationship she was in currently was not done. Brown said, "Liam walked out on Ffion for five days and she said they were on a break". Once Liam started following the tracks Ffion left behind he was able the piece together what happened in the time period that he stepped away. Brown stated, "Ffion is a compulsive liar as she tries to hide what she has done in the past". As Liam started backtracking he started second-guessing if their child belonged to him. She was flawed by hiding the truth from him. Brown sais, "she allowed Liam to raise another man’s kid thinking it was his own". Throughout the episode, she was running around in circles trying to cover her tracks before she got caught. Liam had her replay her past with Jonas involved as that he could know the truth. Lewis stated, “Ffion only crime is misleading her husband to protect him from the kind of emotional doodlebug he explodes on himself”.

Critical Reception
The A.V. Club rated the episode an A-, concluding: "[A]s a creepy, up-to-date parable that still tells a tale as old as time, 'The Entire History of You' is pretty outstanding. It builds to a climax the audience may well have predicted (Liam forces Ffion to show him her most recent encounter with Jonas), but we are smartly spared from seeing. Every time a character plays back something on their grain, their eyes glow dully as the images are accessed, giving them a demonic look. I'm sure that was an intentional decision." Den of Geek said: "As is often the case in science fiction, 'The Entire History Of You' explores the pitfalls of future technology. Given our current appetite for sharing carefully selected chunks of our personal lives on the Internet, the idea of people in the future recording and sharing memories isn't too much of a stretch and the way the episode depicts it is quite convincing and extremely eerie." The Daily Telegraph gave the episode 3 out of 5 stars, and wrote: "This was the least effective of the Black Mirror dramas, because the technological element wasn't so crucial to the trajectory of the story. Jealous people will always find ways to destroy their relationships without the recourse to memory databanks." Metro gave the episode an A, writing: "Tonight's final episode of Black Mirror however left me sitting in front of an appropriately black screen with the expression of a man who has just witnessed the murder of an entire litter of kittens."