'Eulogy', the best episode of 'Black Mirror' in years.

In a series known for projecting sinister and dystopian futures, Black Mirror surprises with Eulogy, the fifth episode of its seventh season, a slow-paced, intimate, and deeply emotional chapter that shifts away from technological satire to offer a serene reflection on memory, guilt, and the human need to close life cycles.

Eulogy, directed with delicacy and elegance by Christopher Barrett and Luke Taylor (surprising given their backgrounds in music videos), and masterfully starring the great Paul Giamatti, is based on a simple yet powerful premise: reliving memories through technology that allows one to (literally) enter old photographs.

However, despite the futuristic aspect, what actually matters here is not the technology itself, but the emotional purpose that it is put to. There are no global dangers or uncontrolled artificial intelligence to put us in peril. The true difficulty is emotional and internal: what happens when we remove someone from our lives who we still find painful to remember many years later?

Phillip, the protagonist, is not the victim of a scheme, but of his own choices. By removing all images of his ex-girlfriend Carol, he eliminated the prospect of reconciling with his past. The episode makes this act the emotional center of the plot and, through a methodical narrative, encourages us to understand loss from a hushed, almost claustrophobic, and very piercing perspective.

What distinguishes Eulogy is its sensitivity. Unlike in previous episodes, technology serves as a possibility for redemption rather than a warning. And, in a television landscape increasingly reliant on quick effect, this episode dares to be patient, introspective, and uncomfortable. It's essentially an elegy. Not so much for the lost person, but for the part of us that went with them, that 'died' and never came back.

It goes without saying that Paul Giamatti's performance is the episode's centerpiece. The actor captures both the bitterness and fragility of a man torn apart by his past, making every glance, silence, explosion of rage, and breakdown heartbreaking.

True, its speed may not suit everyone. The lack of a major climax or final revelation may frustrate fans of Black Mirror's usual shock (sometimes artificial or poorly executed). However, for those who are drawn in by its melancholy tone, Eulogy is one of the series' most emotionally resonant episodes to date. In my opinion, the best, most interesting and most significant of the series' seven seasons written by British Charlie Brooker.

Its one flaw, if you can call it that, is that it asks more of the spectator than many other episodes: patience, empathy, and attention to detail. It is neither comfortable nor easy to digest. But, like pain, it does not intend to be. It is, on the contrary, a dosage of nostalgia that anyone may experience as their own, reminiscing about former loves, loved ones who are no longer with them, and how those losses have marked and influenced their way of life.

Eulogy, a work addressing the fragility of memory and the difficulties of changing the past, reveals that even in a screen-filled world, the greatest technical distortion remains within our ‘heart’.