'Black Mirror' episode 'Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too' falls short of its potential

In Season 5, Black Mirror doesn't feel as foreboding as it once did. Two of the three episodes end on a surprisingly hopeful note. The shock value has lessened, perhaps because we've grown numb to its ideas as the real world has started to catch up.

That's exactly why Season 5's final episode feels like such a missed opportunity. "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" left me with one lingering question: Why did they gloss over the concepts it introduced instead of continuing to stretch its own bizarro limits?

This episode had the potential to examine the profound and dangerous effects the tech it involved -- mind cloning, self-aware dolls, artificial intelligence, hella realistic holograms -- yet it feels half-baked in its efforts. It never expands to cover the humane and scientific depths of it all.

Don’t get me wrong: “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” is still the best, most delightfully over-the-top episode this season. But the bar wasn’t set high by the previous two to begin with.

The episode introduces Ashley O (Miley Cyrus, perfectly cast), a musician who wants to reinvent herself, but whose aunt/manager is too controlling to let that happen.

Enter Ashley Too, a doll modeled after the pop singer's apparent funky personality thanks to brain mapping. The toy, which copies Ashley O down to her pink bob hairstyle, makes for the perfect gift for superfan Rachel (Angourie Rice) -- much to the chagrin of her sister Jack (Madison Davenport).

As Ashley Too bonds with Rachel and starts asking deeply intimate questions about her life, you're bound to assume this doll is Black Mirror's version of Amazon's Alexa "accidentally" listening in on its customers.

Instead, Black Mirror subverts this expectation by turning Ashley Too into a friend for the girls -- even skeptical Jack. It's not a bad twist, but it takes away the opportunity to explore the impact of spying via the artificial intelligence that we now welcome into our homes.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Rachel is being trained by Ashley Too to dance and perform like her for a school event. The scene with Rachel dancing to a provocative song on stage as shocked parents look on is meant to make you ponder the arbitrary nature of celebrity influence.

It's an interesting and timely theme, but the episode only hints at it when they could've explored it to capacity. I would assume the impact of having a mind-clone of your favorite celebrity at home would be more significant and less casual. We never get to see Rachel freak out enough, which is what I would have done if Mindy Kaling decided to map herself into a toy that I could purchase, converse with, and learn from like she's really present with me.

By not letting characters deal with the emotional fallout of the technology at hand, "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" falls short of the insight Black Mirror has done so well in the past. Season 2's "Be Right Back" is one of the best episodes of the series because Martha (Hayley Atwell) has to face the consequences of her decision to create an android version of her dead husband. Her grief resonates even if the wild circumstance does not.

In another scene, Ashley O's aunt Catherine (Susan Pourfar), six months after the singer has been in a coma, displays an extremely large hologram of her on stage. "Ashley Eternal" will perform like the real singer would have, with new music extracted out of her brain. The audience barely flinches at the thought of an almost-dead person's super-sized virtual body blowing kisses at them.

In most Black Mirror episodes, the characters are familiar with the futuristic technology. We're supposed to be awed, not them. But in this case, the hologram is an unusual milestone for their universe -- and the reaction is still crickets. How are viewers supposed to feel anything when we don't see those onscreen feel it, too?

Once Ashley Too becomes self-aware and guides Rachel and Jack with what to do next, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe she would turn on them? Maybe an entire army of evil dolls would show up to take over the world after saving their OG form? Maybe Rachel herself would decide to step up as a new version of Ashley?

The episode delivers an optimistic ending for the heroes, circumventing the show's typically bleak look at life. That hopefulness worked for "San Junipero" and "Hang the DJ" because we were treated with sufficient emotional investment in the characters. But that's not the case here.

While "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" does present fascinating central players and an unpredictable storyline, it barely scratches the surface of its own ideas. The first half seems to build toward the promise of something wild, through its haunting choice of background score and pivotal shots like of Ashley Too chilling in Rachel and Jack's apartment.

But by neglecting its own sinister tropes despite all the elements of a cautionary tale about technological advancements in "Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too," Black Mirror isn't able to elevate the episode from being a fun romp to a deadly specialty.