Episode

Arkangel

After nearly losing her daughter, a mother invests in a new technology that allows her to keep track of her.

Air date:

December 29, 2017

Writer:

Jodie Foster

Director:

Charlie Brooker

Air date:

Writer:

Director:

December 29, 2017

Jodie Foster

Charlie Brooker

Storyline

Marie is an overprotective mother of Sara since she was born. When Sara is a little girl, Marie loses her in a playground and decides to experiment a new technology to control what Sara can see or not and track her, implanting a chip in her. When Sara is a teenager, Marie promises to remove the parental controls from the device and put it aside. One night, Sara stays until late hours making love with her boyfriend Trick in his van by the lake and Marie restarts the device, seeing what her daughter is doing. What will Sara do when she discovers what her mother did?

Trivia

‍A stuffed "Waldo," the character from S2E3, can be seen in Sarah's stroller when the two enter the park.
There is a poster in Sara's room for Tusk, who is a musician seen in the season three episode, Hated in the Nation (2016)
The memory recall interface in the Arkangel program when Marie is reviewing Sara's memories is similar to the Grain memory interface in Season 1's "The Entire History of You."
Arkangel is the first episode of Black Mirror directed by a woman.
A young Trick exposes Sara to a series of videos depicting violence, one of them a clear reference to the iconic horror film series Saw. Paul Braunstein (Anthony) played the character Ryan in the most recent installment Jigsaw.
Set in and around the Harrisburg/Lancaster/York area in the state of Pennsylvania. The phone number for Rex Pharmacy where Sara's mother shops has a 717 area code.
On the refrigerator while Sara is a child, the magnets on the top door "bm" pay homage to the show.
Several devices shown are modified Apple devices. The Arkangel tablet charger is an iPhone charger. The desktop computer is an iMac with a modified screen and the desktop keyboard is an Apple Magic Keyboard with modified keys.
The sequence on the beach at 26 minutes in is a direct homage to the opening scene of Stephen Spielberg's Jaws.
Some filming took place in Toronto, Canada.
While the show is set in and around the Harrisburg/Lancaster/York area in the state of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, York and Lancaster are municipalities in Ontario where the show is filmed.
Tusk, the rapper in "hated in the Nation(3.6)" who mocked a kid and later died to a bee, is on a poster in Saras room when she is sixteen.