As the most popular of Black Mirror episodes, Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too draws in a great number of viewers for “exposing” the management teams behind pop stars with a wonderful portrayal from Miley Cyrus.

Black Mirror is a series of stand-alone dramas on Netflix where each episode focuses on the negative impacts of a futuristic world on individuals and overall society. As this is one of my favorite TV Shows, my passion blog will be my review of the most notable episodes and my view of the deeper meanings behind them. In my seventh blog post, I will be looking at Season 5, Episode 3: Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too.

The episode follows sisters Rachel and Jack. Rachel is a big fan of Ashley O and receives a robotic doll of her for her birthday, Ashley Too. Rachel becomes obsessed with the toy, which begins to annoy Jack. When Rachel performs an Ashley O song for a talent show at her school, she falls and embarrasses herself, causing Jack to hide away the Ashley Too doll. Rachel blames Jack for suppressing her creativity.

While this occurs, viewers also get to follow Ashley O. Ashley O wants to follow a rock music path, but her management is pressuring her to continue singing and writing pop music. When Ashley tries to stand up for herself, her manager, Catherine, drugs her, forcing Ashley O into a comatose state.

Months later, a news report about Ashley O airs on TV, which triggers Rachel’s Ashley Too robot to activate. Ashley Too claims that it is a clone of Ashley O’s consciousness and begs Rachel and Jack to expose Catherine. Rachel and Jack drive to Catherine’s house, and instead of finding evidence to frame Catherine, they find Ashley O’s unconscious body. The Ashley Too doll is able to unplug the medication that Ashley O was receiving, causing her to wake up. Ashley O starts her new career under the name “Ashley Fuckn O”, producing her own rock music.

This episode truly does an incredible job at how society limits creativity for the sake of “public image.” We see this with Rachel, who wants to be a singer just like Ashley O, but her sister Jack tries to suppress her because she believes that Rachel is embarrassing herself. This also occurs with Ashley O, who wants to be a rock star, but her management wants her to continue to be a pop singer. Using Miley Cyrus as Ashley O was also an excellent creative decision, as Miley herself started from pop music and is now slowly transitioning into rock. It almost seems as though Miley’s own story is being portrayed hyperbolically, since she has been vocal about how her past management forced her to be someone that she wasn’t.

But the one main take away I got from this Black Mirror is that it isn’t technology that we should fear— we should fear lack of creativity.