Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too

For her 15th birthday, Rachel Goggins (Angourie Rice) receives a new AI robot named "Ashley Too", which has a personality modeled after Rachel's favourite pop idol, Ashley O (Miley Cyrus). Rachel begins to treat Ashley Too as a friend rather than a toy, much to the annoyance of her older sister Jack (Madison Davenport). Ashley Too convinces Rachel to dance to Ashley's song "On a Roll" at a school talent contest, but the routine ends badly when Rachel falls. Jack hides Ashley Too and tells Rachel that she threw it away.

Meanwhile, the real Ashley O is frustated and unsatisfied with her image and writes songs that her manager and aunt Catherine (Susan Pourfar) believes will undermine her growing success. Catherine discovers that Ashley has been hoarding the medication she is given to counter her darker moods. One night, Catherine laces Ashley's dinner with a large dosage of this medicine, inducing a coma. To explain her absence, Catherine tells the media that the coma was the result of a severe allergic reaction to shellfish. Upon hearing the news about Ashley, Jack gives Ashley Too back to Rachel.

Six months later, Ashley Too is activated by a news report on Ashley O's condition, whereupon she learns that Catherine has been extracting music from Ashley O's dreams for a new album, coupling scans with the voice recordings made for the Ashley Too robots. When Ashley Too malfunctions, the girls hook her up to their father's computer and unknowingly remove a "limiter" mechanism - without the limiter, Ashley Too has a full digital copy of Ashley O's mind.

Ashley Too convinces the girls to take her to Ashley's home to collect digital evidence from her real self's laptop. They taunts and bluff their way past Ashley's bodyguard, only to have Ashley Too disconnect what it believes is Ashley's life support with the intent to euthanize her. However, it turns out the equipment was keeping Ashley in her coma. Ashley O wakes up from her coma and they all escape, racing to the venue where Catherine is presenting Ashley Eternal, a holographic replacement for Ashley O that can perform at music tours. They run a red light and are pursued by a police car. They crash onto the stage; when Ashley steps out, Catherine realizes her plan has failed.

Some time later, Ashley is shown performing with Jack as an alternative rock musician called "Ashley Fuckn O" while Rachel and Ashley Too watch. Two of Ashley's former fans walk out, disappointed in their idol's new direction.

External video
"Black Mirror: Season 5" The trailer for series five of Black Mirror.
"Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" The trailer for "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too".
"On a Roll" Official music video for "On a Roll", the remixed version of "Head Like a Hole", sung by Ashley O (Cyrus).

Series 5 of Black Mirror was released on 5 June 2019 and produced by Netflix. Production began with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, an interactive film which grew in scope to the point where it was decided to separate it from the series and release it as a standalone film that premiered on 28 December 2018. Although previous series of the programme produced under Netflix contained six episodes, series 5 comprises three episodes, as series creator Charlie Brooker viewed this as preferable to making viewers wait longer for the next series.[1] Netflix released a trailer to the fifth series on 15 May 2019 and an individual trailer for "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" on 21 May.[2][3]

The episode was written by Brooker. It was based on a comedy sitcom script that he wrote years prior about a punk band whose members are hanged by a Conservative minister and later return to life to see their manager exploiting their deaths for profit. The episode took inspiration from real life holographic performances of dead artists such as Prince, Whitney Houston, and Amy Winehouse; Brooker opines that the holograms are "ghoulish" and notes that the figures who are subjects of such holograms "often pass away in extremely tragic circumstances".[4]

Executive producer Annabel Jones said that Miley Cyrus was able to convincingly bring personal experience and vulnerability to the role of Ashley, as well as handle how the episode's mood "gets increasingly heightened and sarcastic and satirical".[4]

While the episode takes place in America, the filming took place in and around Cape Town, South Africa; Brooker stated the series has not filmed in America as it is too expensive there, and they can get similar settings from other locations around the world. Cyrus' involvement with the series was first hinted as a result of filming around November 2018.[5]

Songs performed by Ashley in the episode are remixes of songs from Nine Inch Nails: "Head Like a Hole" was retitled "On a Roll", and "Right Where It Belongs" was adapted into "Right Where I Belong".[6][7][8] Trent Reznor, a fan of Black Mirror, approved of the adaptations with Brooker's rewritten lyrics to make the songs more "chirpy".[9][10] A rewrite of "Hurt" to "Flirt" was made but not included in the episode.[6] Brooker commented that music videos have been made for all of the songs used in the episode, which Netflix will release over time. "On a Roll" was released via YouTube on 13 June 2019[11] and added to various music streaming services on 14 June.[12]

The episode holds a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 40 critics, indicating mixed reviews. It is the lowest-rated episode of the show to date along with "The Waldo Moment".[13]

Alexandra Pollard of The Independent rated the episode four out of five stars. Criticising that the first half of the episode has poor pacing, Pollard notes that "there is a slight over-abundance of ideas", but praises the latter half of the episode as a "fun, high-concept heist film".[14]

Adam White of The Telegraph gave the episode three out of five stars. Calling the plot "needlessly fragmented" but "thematically prescient", he observed the script relied on "vaguely banal statements on the vapidity of pop and the lack of care afforded to some of its most profitable stars". However, he praised the last third of the episode for its tonal shift and for Cyrus' "enjoyably potty-mouthed performance".[15]

David Sims of The Atlantic praised the episode as a "bizarre and intermittently fascinating bit of pop-music melodrama", although he believed it required "tighter editing". Sims commented that the episode had several disparate themes: the effect of their mother's death on Rachel and Jack, the actions of music labels and their influence on artists, and the potential for a performing holographic musician. He praised Cyrus' performance, particularly as the voice of Ashley Too.[16]

In her review of series 5, Jennifer Bisset of CNET said about the episode: "Brooker chooses to focus on wilder, more fantastical tech over the human connections... the result is more humorous than profound", adding that "the emotional setups see little pay-off".[17]

Michael Love Michael of Paper Magazine and Christopher Rosa of Glamour noted parallels with the Free Britney movement.[18][19] In the episode, Ashley O is held and drugged against her will by her aunt, who serves as her handler. In April 2019, a whistleblower alleged that Spears’ father, who serves as her conservator, institutionalized her against her will for refusing to take her medication.[20]

• "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" at IMDb