The ending of Black Mirror episode 2 made it abundantly clear that vengeance was all Verity had been looking for since the very beginning. I guess the way she drank the almond milk in front of her old foe, Maria, was a declaration of war in itself. In cinema, a character’s choice of drink says a lot about them. Milk, which is often associated with infancy, in this case, could represent that Verity still held on to their childhood grudges. [Spoiler Alert] In school, Maria had started a rumor about Verity where she told a loudmouth, Natalie Caine, that Verity and their computer teacher, Mr. Kendrick, were having an affair.
The rumor destroyed her whole teenage life, which was the reason Verity sought revenge against her old classmates. It was quite a tragedy that the computer genius had achieved everything in life with the help of a reality-changing computer machine, yet she couldn’t forget the past humiliations that had left a hole inside her. She yearned for closure, which was the reason she came back into Maria’s life so she could punish her for what she had done to Verity in school. Verity’s drinking and spilling milk also represent Verity’s triumph over Maria. Through her act, she demonstrates her strength, how she had successfully conquered the innocent by consuming it. But the question I want to ask is: did Verity really deserve to die? I guess what Maria, Natalie, and the others did to Verity was wrong, but it doesn’t give her any right to kill someone, right? So, yes, Verity did turn out to be a creepy milk-drinking villain, but what was worse, after her death, it was Maria who replaced her. Maybe it was the pendant, a source of unfathomable power that corrupts anyone who possesses it. It’s an endless cycle and, sooner or later, Maria will suffer a similar fate to her schoolmate. With that said, let’s take a look at everything that happened in Bête Noire’s ending and what may happen to Maria in the future.
Verity Toyed With Maria’s Reality
In episode 2’s ending, Maria was quite shocked when she found out that Verity lived in a huge and lavish mansion. I mean, all she could do was wonder why this woman had applied for a research assistant job in the R & D department of her food company. Well, thankfully, she didn’t have to wait too long to get her answers. Money wasn’t exactly on Verity’s mind. It was revenge she had been looking for. She wanted to punish Maria for the rumor she had started about her in school. Maria’s made-up scandalous story took a toll on Verity’s mental health and derailed her life completely. But that wasn’t the end of it. The rumor forced Mr. Kendrick to take a transfer from the school. The thing is, Mr. Kendrick was the only friend Verity had. She spent most of her time in the computer lab because it was the only place that didn’t make her feel like an outcast. When Verity confronted Maria in the present and asked her why she’d circulated a false rumor, Maria couldn’t come up with a reasonable answer. She said she was jealous of her, or maybe she wanted Natalie off her back. Well, it could be possible that there wasn’t any reason at all and Maria just made up the whole thing for her amusement without considering the fact that a harmless fiction would end up destroying two people’s lives.
Mr. Kendrick’s departure broke Verity down completely. It took away the only friend she had, and she blamed Natalie, Maria, and all the bullies for her loneliness. As the title of the episode suggests, these were the people she despised the most. Maybe it was her miserable life that motivated her to design a quantum compiler, a set of algorithms through which she could pick things from the infinite timelines and bring them to her reality to change the “present.” I guess it needs to be mentioned here that Verity’s little computer couldn’t change the past, because if she could have been able to do so, ‘it would have been her first move instead of traumatizing her classmates in the present.
Verity’s computer helped her to rule the world. It made her the unconquerable mistress of the universe, but it turned out it wasn’t enough to fill the void inside her, the trauma that had been haunting her from her teenage life. She wanted to fix it so she could get closure, and the only way she could do so was by confronting the classmates responsible for her misery. At first, she targeted Natalie and toyed with her reality, which convinced her that she was losing her mind. Natalie was eventually pushed to the brink of madness, forcing her to take her own life. However, before dying, Natalie had told her that it was Maria who started the rumor, so after killing Natalie, Verity targeted Maria too, so she could turn her life into a living nightmare. She started it by changing “Barnie’s chicken” to “Bernie’s chicken” and then rewriting a few emails here and there, making Maria doubt her own sanity. The old classmate changed Maria’s reality in real-time so she started to believe that she was losing her grip on herself. To Verity’s surprise, Maria reached her “boiling point” by Friday only, meaning it only took her five days to shake Maria’s spirit. Well, it seemed like Maria was never a worthy foe.
Maria Stole Verity’s Life
All those parallel realities and the immense power at her disposal couldn’t fix the hole inside Verity. She believed it was vengeance that would soothe her aching heart and therefore tormented Maria’s perfect life to the point she would have no other option but to kill herself. However, things didn’t work as she had planned in the end; Maria used Verity’s own device against her. Verity had used her pendant to bring in cops from another parallel reality so they would arrest Maria for trying to kill Verity, but before the officers could take her in, she took one of the officer’s guns and shot Verity point-blank. And as soon as Verity died, Maria changed the finger ID and stole her device. Now, it was Maria who controlled the quantum compiler, and with such an immense power at her disposal, she chose to have what Verity had. She made herself the mistress of the universe. This tells me that Maria actually started the rumor because she was really jealous of how Mr. Kendrick treated Verity in the school, and in order to take a dig at her, she spoke ill of her classmate and her computer teacher.
Maria Will End Up Dead Like Verity
In Black Mirror episode 2’s ending, Maria had the entire multiverse in her control, and she could do whatever she wanted. She could be anywhere she wanted. The possibilities are endless, though there’s one thing that’s for certain. She will eventually get bored like Verity. And when that happens, she will start digging up her past so she can find some satisfaction in life. The issue is, once you have seen the entire universe, I don’t think there’s anything that will interest you any further. Consider a reality where Verity may have actually accomplished what she had set out for. She had killed Maria. But then what? She would be looking for another target, another goal, and she wouldn’t have found any; she would have killed herself out of sheer boredom. So, the moral of the story is, that it’s not the destination that brings you satisfaction but the struggle that gives one a euphoria of peril… the kind of exhilaration that keeps them alive.
