Black Mirror‘s “Demon 79” is the best episode of season 6. Period. No take backsies. And it’s all due to Anjana Vasan and Paapa Essiedu. Their chemistry is on point from the very first moment they meet; him a scary AF demon named Gaap and her a lonely shop girl named Nida who is wondering if she’s truly lost her mind because this doesn’t happen to the average girl, something that she’s always thought herself to be. And before you know it, they’re wrapped up in a dangerous situation where Nida has to murder three people to prevent the apocalypse. And Gaap is there to guide her.
But don’t be fooled by the whole preventing the apocalypse thing. This is a love story above anything else. Because this demon sees her. He knows her potential and he fans the flames. Sure, he doesn’t want to end up in an endless void. But there is something about Nida that he encourages completely and with a sense of there being greatness there. This support enables Nida to blossom, letting those intrusive thoughts that she had always squashed down come to the forefront in catastrophic yet liberating ways. And by the end of it, she is a transformed woman who gets the man, or the demon, and comes into who she was always supposed to be.
There’s also the fact that there was a gentleness between them. When Gaap first appeared, he transformed into the most beautiful man *swoon* to stop her from freaking out. And he spoke to truth all the things that she had been thinking about. In turn, when he expressed his own fears, Nida bonded with Gaap about how it sounded similar to her life and stepped up to make sure that he wouldn’t suffer that fate. And I honestly thought that I was never going to see a happy ending for them because if there’s anything that you learn about Black Mirror, is that it’s a shitshow that doesn’t end well for a lot of people. But this episode really surprised me.
Even when Nida went and did her chaotic own stuff, and ended up at the police station, Gaap came back for her. He knew that if he was going to fail, he wanted her by his side. And there was something so sweet about the way that he asked her if she wanted to come with him and the hope in her eyes. Because she’s always wanted to be chosen. Or just seen for who she really is. And it took a demon and the apocalypse to find that person or demon. Nida saying yes felt like her making her final stand where she was saying goodbye to her old life and hello to the person that she currently is.
At the end of the day, “Demon 79” is a love story. It’s about the similarities between two people, I still consider them people even though one of them is a demon, and how they found happiness, hope, and a sense of belonging. Sure the world is over and they’re in an endless void. But they’re together. And they’re together in a way that is unapologetically them and where they accept each other for who they are. If that isn’t love, if that isn’t something that you wouldn’t want to see more of, I don’t know what to tell you. Because this was romantic as fuck and I need to see more of both of Nida and Gaap.
Black Mirror is available on Netflix.
