V4mp

Explore V4mp

Find your next route. Get back to playing.

← Back to season 4
Black Mirror · Season 4 · Episode 5

Metalhead

Contains spoilers for this episode.

Bella, Anthony and Clarke travel through an abandoned landscape to recover a box from a warehouse. They hope its contents can comfort a dying child. Behind the box waits a four-legged machine that sprays them with tracking fragments and kills Anthony. Clarke attempts to escape in a van, but the machine kills him too. Bella drives away alone, pursued by a hunter that does not tire or negotiate.

She removes a tracker from her leg and sends it down a stream, buying time until the machine follows her blood. In a tree, she repeatedly wakes it by dropping sweets, draining its power enough to climb down and flee. An empty house offers supplies, vehicle keys and a shotgun beside its dead occupants. The machine recharges and enters behind her, adapting a knife to replace its damaged limb.

Bella blinds its sensors with paint and uses the car's stereo to draw it close. Her shotgun destroys it, but its final projectile embeds more trackers across her body. Seeing one at her throat, she realises she cannot safely remove them all. She radios a farewell, uncertain anybody can hear, and raises a blade as other machines converge. The warehouse box lies open with teddy bears spilling out. The episode leaves the wider collapse unexplained, concentrating on the cost of trying to bring a small comfort home.

About the series