This article is a recap of Netflix’s Black Mirror episode “Nosedive.” There are spoilers and discussion regarding the episode’s plot.

“Nosedive” would have you believe that it’s about what it might look like if Pinterest, Instagram, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle site Goop took over the world. Phones firmly in hand, everyone rates the interactions they have with one another and the photos they post on their profiles — no matter how banal — on a scale from one to five stars.

Every rating affects a person’s overall standing. The higher your rating, the more perks you get; the lower your rating, the harder you have to work to keep yourself afloat.

And holy shit does Lacie (Bryce Dallas Howard) work for her stars. She practices her determined, manic grin in the mirror, then plasters it on before marching into her version of battle: being as pleasant to everyone as possible in exchange for precious points.

But Lacie’s plateaued around a 4.2, and with some hard work and skillful sucking up to “high-quality people,” she just knows she could tip herself into the 4.5 “premium user” range that comes with perks, discounts, and, maybe most importantly, prestige.

So when Lacie’s childhood friend Naomi (Alice Eve) — a premium user with a sterling 4.8 rating — asks her to be the maid of honor at her wedding, Lacie sees it as an opportunity to give a speech in front of a entirely premium crowd — which, if it goes well, would boost her rating to that coveted 4.5.

As directed by Joe Wright — the man behind the sweeping romances Pride and Prejudice and Atonement — this world is drenched in pastels, its edges smoothed, a smile fixed on its face.

If you think too hard beyond the basic mechanics of the world “Nosedive” presents, it makes less and less sense, even if it is glancingly clever and even funny (a given, since the script was written by Parks and Recreation’s Mike Schur and Rashida Jones). But when it gets into the emotions this aggressively agreeable world suppresses, it can be fantastic.

So okay, this world doesn’t make much sense (3 out of 5 stars)

Black Mirror is generally thought of as being an uncanny thermometer for how the modern world is evolving in regards to technology and pointing out just how absurd our lives can be. On that front, “Nosedive” is ... fine.

Schur and Jones’s commentary on the way we construct our lives online and how superficial it all can be is surface-level stuff. Lacie takes a picture of her latte art and posts it with a glowing review before sipping it and realizing that it’s actually terrible. Everyone at Naomi’s wedding is pristine, their noses wrinkling delicately when Lacie crashes through and destroys the delicate ambience Naomi curated.

Whereas “Shut Up and Dance” — a weaker chapter than this one, though my colleague Todd VanDerWerff disagrees — at least scared me enough to make sure my webcam was covered, “Nosedive” barely made me think twice about the way I interact with people online. Within an hour I was back to constructing the perfect Instagram story, starring some gently falling autumn leaves (while I frantically mopped spilled coffee from my new dress offscreen).

What stuck with me far beyond the facts of this alternate reality was exactly how Lacie finds herself screaming in pure fury by the end of the episode, broken and tired and, despite everything, relieved.

The unlikely star of “Nosedive” is anger

A good third of this episode is entirely devoted to Lacie’s quest for a higher rating, which gets repetitive even as Howard gives it everything — everything — she’s got. When Lacie gets a win, her forced shrieks of joy to assure the other person that they made the right choice rating her 5 stars out of 5 made my jaw instinctively clench. Howard’s Lacie is so chipper it’s startling even to the people who live in this reality, which is upbeat practically by mandate.

Slowly, eventually, “Nosedive” starts to chip away at Lacie’s story.

In her determination to nail her maid of honor speech and get the points she’s sure she deserves, Lacie starts to let everything else go by the wayside. She stops pretending to care about anyone who can’t help her rack up points, from the desperate 3.1 at work to her own lazy brother and, finally, the airport employee who informs her that all flights to Naomi’s city have been canceled.

And here’s where things get interesting.

In her shock and frustration, Lacie’s practiced manners shatter to pieces. She erupts in bursts of anger she almost can’t control. “Fuck!” she screams, desperate. “Can’t you just fucking help me?!”

Not only can the employee not help her, but she gets security involved. Lacie is immediately docked a full point and punished with “double damage” for 24 hours to keep her on her best behavior.

Thankfully for the episode, Lacie does not comply. Furious and scared, she charges her way toward Naomi’s wedding any way she can. She settles for a shitty rental car she’d never get if she were still a 4.2; she hitchhikes when it breaks down. With every setback, that smile she practiced so diligently in the mirror falls apart, and both the episode and Howard become so much more compelling.

In the episode’s best scene, Lacie, out of options, ends up getting a ride from a truck driver with a dismal 1.4 rating. Played with perfect “who gives a shit?” disdain by Cherry Jones, the trucker shares the story of how she, too, was obsessed with her rating, until her husband got terminal cancer and all the stars in the world couldn’t cure it.

“So I figured,” she tells Lacie with a grin, “fuck it.”

After telling Lacie how amazing it felt to let loose — “like taking off tight shoes” — she tells Lacie she should try it sometime. Though Lacie insists that she couldn’t, oh, she mustn’t, Howard’s eyes nonetheless light up with the hint of a spark.

So by the episode’s final scene, it’s not exactly surprising that Lacie ends up engulfed in righteous flames — but it is spectacular.

Black Mirror season three is currently streaming on Netflix. Read the rest of our episode reviews and recaps here.