The Black Mirror episode “Mazey Day” stars Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2, Atlanta) as Bo and Danny Ramirez (Top Gun Maverick, No Exit) as Hector, paparazzi photographers who set out to investigate the disappearance of a young actress named Mazey Day.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the episode’s creator Charlie Brooker (Cunk on Earth, Fifteen Million Merits) balanced typical Black Mirror storytelling and so-called “Red Mirror” storytelling, storytelling moments where the show leans into its supernatural and horror elements. “That one, I flip-flopped between making it a Red Mirror and a Black Mirror. And then I thought, ‘Fuck it, it is Black Mirror — because otherwise, we were blowing the slightly outrageous twist that happens there,’” he said. “I was just trying to experiment a bit with what Black Mirror was. I don’t want to sit here feeling like I’m in a box where I have to write an episode about NFTs or whatever’s on the tech pages today. That’s not what the show was ever intended to do. If you look at our first episode, you can tell it was obviously designed to be startling and surprising, and weird. So I was trying to sort of reconnect a bit to that.”

Further, Beetz discusses her character Bo, and how Bo has a monstrous side to her. “In terms of monstrosity, I actually think my character is sort of filled with self-loathing, and I think that is a lot of her emotional drive,” she said. “I certainly think there’s money involved. I think that there is a little bit of a lack of empathy for somebody who has more privilege than her involved, and choosing to not empathize with that person’s situation to certain degrees — because I think my character wavers. But I think self-hatred propels a behavior that isn’t necessarily conducive to the good of mankind.”

Ramerez also discussed how his character’s actions are influenced by the system. “I look at it more as a tragedy than a monstrosity in regard to the way the system itself is laid out,” he said. “Anyone that engages in the system is on either side of it. You could justify someone being mad at their privacy being invaded, but you could also justify someone like Hector or Bo crossing that threshold because we are in a society where you need money to pay the rent.”

The sixth season of Black Mirror is now streaming on Netflix.