"Crocodile" is the third episode of the fourth series of the anthology series Black Mirror. It was written by series creator Charlie Brooker and directed by John Hillcoat. The episode first aired on Netflix, along with the rest of series four, on 29 December 2017.
The episode follows Mia (Andrea Riseborough) fifteen years after she helped her friend Rob (Andrew Gower) cover up a hit-and-run death, as she commits several murders in order to cover up her past crimes. Meanwhile, Shazia (Kiran Sonia Sawar) is an insurance investigator who uses a "Recaller" that can project people's visual memories onto a screen. The writers were inspired by Nordic noir and by a similar memory technology in series one's "The Entire History of You". The first draft featured a male protagonist and Scotland as its setting. It was filmed in Iceland.
The episode garnered mixed reviews. Critics mostly found its bleakness and violence to be excessive, with further criticism of the plot twists. Some reviewers found the Recaller technology to be interesting, but not meaningfully explored by the episode. Riseborough and Sawar's acting, as well as the visual aesthetics, were acclaimed.
Plot
Driving intoxicated after a party, Rob (Andrew Gower) hits a cyclist on a mountain road, killing him. Rob's companion Mia Nolan (Andrea Riseborough) helps him throw the body off a cliff into a lake.
Fifteen years later, Mia is married with a nine-year-old son and works as an architect. After she delivers an important presentation, a newly-sober Rob meets her at her hotel. He is going to write an anonymous letter to the victim's wife, after seeing a news article indicating she never moved on, but Mia is afraid the letter will be traced. An argument ensues and Mia breaks Rob's neck, killing him. Out of the window, she notices a self-driving pizza delivery truck hit a pedestrian. Playing pornography in the room as an alibi, she disposes of Rob's body.
The pedestrian is visited by Shazia (Kiran Sonia Sawar), an insurance investigator who uses a "Recaller" to view his memories, as best as he can picture them, on a screen. She finds a woman he passed on the street before the incident, who directs her to a dentist, who saw Mia looking at the accident from her hotel room. In each case Shazia makes them smell beer from the nearby brewery and replays a song that played in a passing car to strengthen their memories. Hoping to get bonus pay from a quick investigation, Shazia makes a lengthy drive to meet Mia.
A tense Mia only allows Shazia in when told that refusal will be reported to the police. Mia tries to divert her memory away from the accident but fails, and Shazia sees memories of both of her killings. Shazia tries to leave but her car does not start and Mia smashes the window, knocks her out and ties her up in a shed.
Mia disbelieves Shazia's promise to keep the information secret, and uses the Recaller to learn that Shazia had told her husband Anan (Anthony Welsh) her whereabouts. Mia kills Shazia, drives to her house and, masked, kills Anan as he bathes. As Mia exits, having removed her mask, she sees the couple's baby son babbling in front of her and kills him so as not to leave a witness. However, the baby was born blind.
Police use the Recaller on the baby's pet guinea pig, which had observed the final murder. Officers then quietly arrive at the ending of Mia's son's school production of Bugsy Malone, where she is in the audience.
Production
Whilst series one and two of Black Mirror were shown on Channel 4 in the UK, in September 2015 Netflix commissioned the series for 12 episodes, and in March 2016 it outbid Channel 4 for the rights to distribute the series in the UK, with an offer of $40 million. The twelve-episode order was divided into two series of six episodes each, with "Crocodile" in the latter group. The six episodes in series four were released on Netflix simultaneously on 29 December 2017. "Crocodile" is listed as the third episode, but as Black Mirror is an anthology series, each instalment can be watched in any order.
Writing and casting
The episode was written by the series creator Charlie Brooker, with Annabel Jones as executive producer. It was inspired by the series one episode "The Entire History of You", which featured a personal implant that a person could use privately to review their memories. According to Jones, they considered what the situation would be like if these memories were not private, developing a "cat-and-mouse type drama" that would highlight the importance of memories, and to what lengths someone with a secret would go to conceal them.