The role of the showstopper simply couldn’t have gone to someone more worthy. The unlikeliest femme fatale, the doe-eyed Nida, couldn’t be further from the stereotypical glamor-dripping portrayal of a good-girl-gone-bad that usually caters to the male gaze. Here’s a girl who’d send chills down your spine with just how deep her violent impulses run. Season 6 of Black Mirror draws the curtains with a bittersweet tale of human corruption–if you can even call it that, considering the contexts of the corrupt and her victims.
Spoilers Ahead
Newest Member Of Boney M
Can you really blame Nida for subduing her justified rage with fantasies of putting her insufferable, racist coworkers’ faces through the glass display shelf? Because I don’t. That’s the least that has a shot at comforting her when Vicky scrunches her bland nose at Nida’s lunch and her boss, being quite the racist degenerate himself, banishes her to the basement. The meek are certainly not blessed as it only gives people the idea that they can walk all over you. But the only thing meek about Nida is her demeanor. There’s evidently a volatile cauldron of rage brewing within her. What’s also quite fascinating about Nida, and is true of a lot of introverts in general, is that solitude doesn’t rattle her. She’s infinitely more comfortable in the eerie, dusty basement than she is up there among people she can’t stand. But what she totally doesn’t expect to stumble upon is a supernatural talisman. What she expects even less is accidentally bringing a demon home by activating the talisman with a drop of her blood. I guess no one ever actively thinks that if they’re haunted by a demon, the demon better be at least funny and fashionably dressed. But Gaap would be a dream come true if you were actually looking for a devil on your shoulder, being an absolute blast while menacing you into killing three people if you don’t want the world to end up in flames. He’s nice enough to dress up like “the guy” from Boney M whom Nida has recently gotten a crush on.
How Does The Killing Spree Go For Nida?
Even for someone who needs to repeatedly remind herself that she’s a good person and she’s incapable of taking lives, when the only other option is to kill the whole world and everyone in it, Nida doesn’t really have a choice. The thing about Gaap is, he’s quite the softie himself. Even though he has the choice to scare Nida into submission, he chooses to help her through the process. Demons get a bad rap for nothing. Completely aware that failing to corrupt her would shoot him into oblivion to spend eternity alone, Gaap prioritizes Nida’s comfort over everything else, including his damnation. And if she’s got to take lives, she might as well make it worth her while and take out some scum. So even though the first kill leaves her wailing and throwing up, she knows that she’s saved a little girl from her predator of a father. And what better choice for the next kill than the guy who strangled his own wife and got off on it? For someone like Nida to be that smooth wielding bricks and hammers and bashing brains in, it truly goes to show that even the quietest, most docile people are capable of the unimaginable if the right buttons are pushed. What Gaap has unleashed is the hound of fury who’s been feeding off of the rage she hides within. Even an actual demon badly underestimated Nida’s capacity for violence when he thought that she was too mild to kill with a knife. RIP, Keith’s very unfortunate brother! Talk about wrong place at the wrong time!
‘Demon 79’ Ending Explained
It wouldn’t be a Black Mirror episode if it hadn’t set a turbulent backdrop for our fascinating protagonist to wreak her havoc in. If it already wasn’t evident from Gaap’s very British accent, the place we’re smack dab in the middle of is a very troubled 1979 England. The racist dehumanization that has sadly become a part of Nida’s everyday life isn’t just limited to her. If not the entire country, the racist, depraved part of it is hankering for a “better day” that would help them shoo off the immigrants who are “stealing” their jobs. Standing as the pretty-faced devil and a scheming conservative candidate who plans to send the country down a frenzied spiral is Smart. Covering up the venom he holds inside with sweet words and a charming personality, Smart plans to win over both sides with the promises he knows are false. You’d think that Nida would be done with her tasks by the third kill. But apparently, killing a murderer doesn’t count. Would you judge me if I said that I was absolutely looking forward to Nida making her murderous fantasies about Vicky come true? But even I would admit that Smart is a far better candidate. It’s insanely adorable to see just how much Gaap has come to care about her well-being.
Even when Nida has shed her fears and has become infinitely more confident, instead of being on board, Gaap is terrified that her volatile confidence would lead her down a path where she herself would get hurt. Harming her in any way is the last thing on his mind. If anything, Gaap probably sees some of himself in Nida. Both stumbling onto a pursuit that threatens to wreck up their very existence, it’s no wonder that the chemistry between Gaap and Nina is palpable. Nida may have gone rogue and grown determined to extinguish the vile creature that is Smart, but the repercussions of killing a public figure will definitely be grave. So, when he’s trying to convince Nida to choose another victim, he’s essentially trying to keep her from being incarcerated or worse. But Gaap isn’t one to communicate his true feelings right away. But what changed in Nida?
While you were swooning over the leather-jacket-clad newly anointed vigilante, you might have also noticed the look on her face as she saw the little girl whose life she’d saved by taking out her father. It’s knowing that even though her life might get screwed up beyond repair if she kills Smart, she’d still be saving countless innocents, which ignites a self-destructive fire in the girl who once had a hard time making eye contact with people. So, paying heed to no warning, Nida drives her car straight into Smart’s and is only about to smack him the second time with her trusty hammer when the detective gives her a hug and calms her down. Now here’s a theory that I’d like to indulge in.
When Nida’s task is halted and the time runs out, we know for a fact that she wasn’t hallucinating any of this. But when the detective walks out to see the world going to hell, what he says does make me wonder if he hasn’t himself had a brush with a demon like Gaap. That would also explain why he was kind to Nida when he caught her red handed. You could say that he’s seen enough criminals in his career to know which ones are actually evil. But what detective would proceed to hug a furious murderer when she was still holding the bloody hammer in her hand? This time around Black Mirror doesn’t just tease you with the possibility of a love story only to lead you down a terrifying path. As the ending scene suggests, what Gaap and Nida have found with each other is unconditional companionship. No judgment for the wrongs they’d been compelled to do and just a silent acknowledgment of their feelings that they believed would make eternal damnation slightly tolerable. And dare I say, maybe even fun!