Black Mirror Season 4 To Feature an Episode Based on Penn Jilette's Dark Story

Black Mirror is one of the best shows you can watch on Netflix right now. The way the show reflects the dark truths of reality and portray them with cool science fiction and dystopian concepts make it a fascinating series to watch. All three seasons and a Christmas special are available to watch on Netflix so be sure to check that out if you haven't yet. I'm so excited to watch Season 4, and although creator Charlie Brooker hasn't released any details about the upcoming episodes, we now know that it will feature an episode based on a dark story written by famed magician Penn Jilette.

In Jilette's latest episode of his Sunday School podcast, he talked about the time he met Brooker, and Jilette shared a story with Brooker about being sick in a Spanish welfare hospital in 1981. The language barrier between him and the medical professionals prevented a diagnosis, and no one knew where he was. This experience was the inspiration for the unpublished story that he describes to be so dark. Penn said:

"During that time, I got this idea for this short story called 'the Pain Addict.' I was postulating a future where you could put a gizmo on your head and feel someone else's pain. So there would be doctors whose whole job it was to feel pain and say 'His left arm is broken. That's not actually apendiciitus, that's a cancer thing.' They felt every pain. Like prizefighters and childbirth and child cancer. And this guy gets addicted to it and starts beating people to feel their pain. He also goes through S&M and all he wants to do is jack into Jesus on the cross. He wants to feel that pain. I wrote this story. It was the first story I wrote when I got a computer. When we did Penn and Teller's first book, we had short stories in it. I submitted this and the editor said 'That's too dark.' I've been trying to find a place for this story, which I thought was really good. I tried to write a comic book and they said no. I pitched it as a movie and they said no. So I told Charlie Brooker all of this and he said 'Oh, pain addict. That's good.'"

So after 36 years of carrying his story, Jilette finally found the perfect home for it with Black Mirror. It definitely fits the themes and tone of Black Mirror. The Pain Addict will be one of the three stories featured in the Season 4 finale, and it will be called Black Museum, and here's how Jilette describes the episode:

"And then two years later, [Brooker] started calling me up a lot and for the [finale] of the nextBlack Mirror, they're doing a thing called 'Black Museum,' which is three stories tied together as one, like they did with 'White Christmas.' We went back and forth. Charlie Brooker writes everything. There wasn't a chance of me actually typing. I sent him my short story. We brainstormed for a few hours. It ended up being that the whole story was framed by a carnie in Vegas who has a museum that includes the helmet that was worn by the original pain addict. He's telling the story to a young woman who was at the museum. He's this washed-up carnie guy, 20 miles outside of Vegas, running his little museum there."

It sounds like the episode will compel us with its multi-layered plots, and it looks like Charlie Brooker and Penn Jillette were able to develop a unique and engaging story that will most likely please fans of the show.

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