Nosedive

**Nosedive** is the first episode of season three of *Black Mirror*. It was written by Charlie Brooker, Michael Schur, and Rashida Jones, and was released on October 21, 2016.

## Short Summary

A woman desperate to boost her social media score hits the jackpot when she's invited to a swanky wedding. But the trip doesn't go as planned.

## Full Summary

Lacie Pound (Bryce Dallas Howard) lives in a world where anyone can rate your personality out of five stars, from your friends to strangers you meet on the street. Obsessed with being received well, she currently has an approval rating around 4.2. She lives with her brother Ryan (James Norton), who has a lower approval rating than her, and she is eager to move out. She learns that to be able to afford to live in an exclusive estate, she must have a rating of 4.5 or above, and is informed the best way to improve her rating is to socialise with people in the higher circles of society. Her old friend Naomi (Alice Eve) contacts her and asks her to be her maid of honour, which Lacie delightedly accepts. Naomi, who has a rating of 4.8, has many upper-class friends and lives on an exclusive and idealistic island. Lacie believes if she nails a perfect maid of honour speech, she will be flooded with enough 5-star ratings to pull her approval up to the 4.5 she needs.

At the airport, Lacie is informed her original flight has been cancelled, and she needs 4.2 to get a seat on another. However, due to a row with Ryan and several unfortunate encounters with strangers, her rating has dropped into the 4.1s, so she is refused the seat. She causes a scene at the airport, and security drops her rating a whole star for 24 hours, to 3.1, and inform her that all downvotes will incur a double multiplier. This means that she can only hire an old model of a car so she can drive to Naomi's wedding. When the car loses charge and she cannot find a way to charge it, Lacie decides to hitchhike but her rating, which has now descended to below 3, puts people off picking her up with some people ranking her down for no reason as they drive past. Eventually an older woman driving a truck, Susan (Cherry Jones), offers to give her a ride. Lacie initially refuses Susan's rating is 1.4 but eventually accepts. During the drive Susan reveals she too was obsessed with ratings, until her husband missed out on vital cancer treatment because he was in the low 4s rather than the high ones. Susan now drives a truck with a rating below 2. Naomi calls Lacie and tells her not to come due to her rating, which has dropped below 3. She admits that she only invited Lacie in the first place because having an old school friend in the low 4's would play well with her guests and help improve her own rating.

Lacie gets drunk and decides to go anyway, breaking into the island and gatecrashing the wedding reception. She drunkenly performs her speech, embarrassing herself and ripping into Naomi for sleeping with her boyfriend when they were younger. All the guests subsequently rank her down causing Lacie's rating to plummet to 0.6, though Lacie is unfazed by this. She attacks Naomi's new husband, Paul (Alan Ritchson), with a knife when he tries to restrain her. She is arrested, has the technology removed, and is placed in prison. However, she finds herself surprisingly happy, exchanging insults with the prisoner opposite (Sope Dirisu), without fear of being ranked down.

## Cast

* Bryce Dallas Howard as Lacie Pound
* Alice Eve as Naomi Blestow
* Cherry Jones as Susan Taylor
* James Norton as Ryan Pound
* Alan Ritchson as Paul
* Daisy Haggard as Bets
* Susannah Fielding as Carol
* Michaela Coel as Airport Stewardess
* Demetri Goritsas as Hansen
* Kadiff Kirwan as Chester
* Sope Dirisu as Man in Jail
* Clayton Evertson as Ted
* Andrew Roux as Electro Station Attendant
* Anjana Vasan as Space Cop
* Colin Moss as Anthony
* Nambitha Ben-Wazi as Glam Woman
* Jeffery Davenport as Cab Driver
* Ntokozo Majozi as Jack the Barista
* Justin Munitz as Keith
* Zandile Madliwa as Alien Girl
* Kevin Otto as Pastor
* Shane Zaza as Chuck
* Abubakar Salim as Airport Guard
* Nathan Ohene Djan as Holographic Boyfriend
* Jennie Nielson as Woman in Car
* Deon Lotz as Man in Car
* Daniel Newton as Kid on the Quad Bike
* Rebecca Newton as Kid's Younger Sister
* Lewelyn Van Den Berg as Male Jogger
* Blessing Mamuesa as Glam Woman's Son

## Notes and Trivia

* This episode is considered to be one of the most terrifying one by the audience.
* This episode garnered 8.5/10 rating of IMDb, making it the 3rd highest rated episode.
* Bryce Dallas Howard gained a lot of weight for this episode, because Lacie's weight played an important part in the episode.
* When Bryce Dallas Howard and Alice Eve checked their Uber ratings, Bryce's score was 4.8 and Alice's was 4.5 Which is ironic, as in the show, Alice's character Naomi has the score of Bryce in real life (4.8) and Bryce's character Lacie wants the score which Alice has in real life!(4.5)

## Gallery

### Episode Stills

 Specials | • White Christmas • Bandersnatch •