Crocodile
Black Mirror Season 4 Easter Eggs
Crocodile is one season four’s most sinister episodes, in which Mia, a successful architect, and young mother, goes on a brutal killing spree to keep secret the ghosts of her past. Minutes after having made the split-second decision to wrestle Rob to the ground and violently choke him to death, Mia quickly throws together a plan to sneak the body out of the building. Having drawn the curtains and ordered room service so that she can use the mobile tray to move the body to the parking lot, Mia orders a pornographic film, presumably so she has an alibi as to her whereabouts. What you might not have noticed, though, is that before she settles on which film to order, Mia cycles past “Wraith Babes”, a throwback to the popular Fifteen Million Merits episode from season one. There’s also a title under the “Classics” category in the hotel’s video-on-demand section pictures a robot bee from the episode “Hated in the Nation.”
The sharpest observers may have noticed that the automated Pizza delivery car that causes the accident is the same company that delivers Robert Daly’s pizza in USS Callister.
After Shazia learns that someone in the hotel witnessed the accident, she tries to ascertain who was staying in the room. The concierge isn’t able to reveal Mia’s identity because he claims there is a strict privacy policy in place after their computer was hacked by tabloid newspapers. Journalists were searching for the name a prominent man who was caught there with a male prostitute. That man was a judge on Hot Shots in Fifteen Million Merits.
Another nod of the hat to Fifteen Million Merits in Crocodile is the song “Anyone Who Knows What Love is”, which has become somewhat of a reoccurring theme song for the series in general (it was used in season two’s White Christmas as well). As mentioned in our story and ending explanation, the song is usually a sign that something bad or unusual is about to happen. Crocodile is no exception, as the song ominously used to help the recaller device conjure more accurate images of the subject’s memory, and it forebodes Shazia’s ill-fated visit to Mia’s house.
Other musical references in the episode include the children’s play, which is a rendition of “Bad Guys” from the musical Bugsy Malone, the 1976 starring Arkangel director Jodie Foster.
