“I think there’s a more emotion this season than in many previous seasons.” says series Black Mirror architect Charlie Brooker. “Common People is not an upbeat story, but we’ve got a little more positivity generally over the season. Hopefully it’s a good blend. All human life is there.”

With the premiere of Season 7, Black Mirror returns to its unnerving roots in Episode 1, Common People, a story that blends technological satire, emotional depth, and speculative “what if it was real?” which is the essence of Black Mirror.”

Set in a not-so-distant future dominated by the hauntingly plausible “RiverMind” technology—a neuro-integrated subscription service that keeps people alive while monetizing their consciousness—Common People poses a simple, but gnawing question: How much of your mind are you willing to lease out to survive?

The Premise: Digital Resurrection and Capitalist Afterlife

At the heart of Common People is Amanda, played by Rashida Jones, whose partner Mike (Chris O’Dowd) suffers a life-altering accident. In a desperate bid to keep him alive, Amanda opts into RiverMind, a system that rents out a person’s cognition to generate revenue—via ads, emotional programming, and even physical computing labor while asleep.

As Brooker points out, “It started as a comedic idea about someone spouting adverts all the time. And then it got sadder and sadder.”

RiverMind’s tiers are darkly hilarious—Lux (set to serenity mode), Plus, Standard, all the way to the basic Common model —clearly aimed at current subscription models that are breaching privacy, moral and ethical norms. Not to mention the constant pressure to upgrade.

Returning Faces, New Roles

Jones, no stranger to the Black Mirror universe (she co-wrote Season 3’s Nosedive), was brought in under mysterious circumstances. “Nobody said anything to me. I just got a blind offer. And I was like, yeah, great,” she says. Despite the ten-year gap between projects, she seamlessly stepped into her role of Amanda,

Amanda’s journey is one of psychological attrition—what begins as a romantic, even noble sacrifice becomes a descent into “commodified personhood.” One of the episode’s most powerful tensions is that Amanda is both the product and the customer. Earner and spender.

Jones masterfully balances these contradictory states. “There’s this weird thing when you’re older and have aging parents or a partner—you have to make decisions for them, even when they’re unconscious,” she reflects. “It’s terrifying.”

While Jones drew on her personal experiences for her character, she asked, “What if the situation between Amanda and Mike was reversed? Do you think she would have made the same decision for him? And how do you think she would have handled it all differently? There was a lot of decision making.”

“But it was almost a non-choice. She was either going to never exist again as he knew her, or he had this opportunity that he could not pay for, but he would figure it out because he could have her back. It’s sort of very romantic.”

The Saleswoman: Tracy Ellis Ross as Gaynor

Tracy Ellis Ross brings disturbing nuance to Gaynor, a RiverMind spokesperson and user who convinces Amanda to sign up. Ross approached the role from the inside out: “You can’t play somebody as evil. No one walks around thinking, ‘I’m an evil person.’”

Ross constructed a full backstory for Gaynor—complete with a husband, two sons, and an accident of her own. “Her husband made the decision for her,” she shares. “And that’s what she needed to do to continue not only her well-being, but also getting better.”

From subtle costume changes to the color of her lipstick, Ross used visual cues to mirror Gaynor’s descent into deeper RiverMind involvement. “Her lipstick got darker as she got deeper into RiverMind,” she explains, using cosmetics as a proxy for moral compromise.

The horror is amplified when you consider that Gaynor sells the very system that enslaves her—and she’s rewarded for like multi-level marketing. “Part of my backstory was that the more she sells, she gets a cheaper price. She gets credits in her account,” Ross reveals.

What’s So Funny?

The episode was pitched to the director as more comedic, according to Roads. “She called it a couch sitter”—the kind of episode that emotionally flattens you by the end.

Jones adds, “The sense of comedy comes from a sense of realness in humanity. It’s not like, ‘Let’s do a joke.’ It’s instinctive. That makes all the difference.” 

Chris O’Dowd: The Quiet Anchor

Chris O’Dowd’s who plays Mike—the husband Amanda is fighting to save—anchors the episode emotionally.
Best known for his comedic roles, O’Dowd reveals surprising dramatic range, adding layers of humanity and authenticity that elevate the emotional stakes. “He’s not just funny. He’s deep,” says Jones.

Themes: Monetization of Humanity

A large part of Common People is a scathing critique of “enshi*ification,” a term coined by writer Cory Doctorow. Brooker references it directly: “It’s the sort of degradation of digital services over time.”

RiverMind’s evolution mirrors this perfectly. The service initially feels beneficial—Amanda gets time with her partner, and her “subscription” makes it possible. But as we see in a late-episode reveal, RiverMind begins to mine Amanda’s brain for computational labor in her sleep. Even worse, other users can “license” her personality traits.

The satire is sharp and timely. Much of Amanda’s dialogue comes in the form of “ad breaks,” including a glitch where she spouts perfectly-timed product pitches. “We had to get the tone right,” she explains. “I had to be selling, but not too hard. The ads needed to speak through my personality.”

She also had to perform moments of existential decision-making while in “serenity mode”—a manufactured emotional state provided by RiverMind Lux. “I’m making dark decisions, but I’m playing them as serene,” she says.

Final Thoughts: Would You Do It?

As always, Black Mirror leaves us with a question rather than an answer. Would you do it? Would you sacrifice your agency, your soul, your consciousness to keep someone else alive—or to be kept alive yourself?

Common People is an episode about modern survival—not just physically, but emotionally and economically. It’s about love, control, systems that turn human emotion into billable data, and the awful beauty of hope in a world that profits off your pain.

[More: “Twilight Zone Meets Tales Of The Unexpected” Charlie Brooker On ‘Black Mirror]