Fifteen Million Merits

Fifteen Million Merits
Episode information
Season	1
Episode	2
Air date	December 11th, 2011
Length	Unknown
Writer	Charlie Brooker Kanak Huq
Director	Euros Lyn
Episode guide
Previous	The National Anthem
Next	The Entire History of You

Fifteen Million Merits is the second episode of the first season. It was written by Charlie Brooker and Kanak Huq, and was released on December 11, 2011.

Overview

A satire on entertainment shows and our insatiable thirst for distraction set in a sarcastic version of a future reality. In this world, a society of people live in an enormous, enclosed space with a video screen covering nearly every surface offering personalised entertainment. They earn their living by riding on exercise bikes in order to power their surroundings and generate currency known as Merits, which can be used to buy food, goods, virtual accessories for their Dopple, and to skip advertising that frequently interrupts everyday activities. Overweight people are considered second-class citizens, and either work as cleaners around the bikes (where they are verbally abused) or are humiliated on game shows. 

Bingham "Bing" Madsen (Daniel Kaluuya) has inherited 12,000,000 merits from his dead brother and has the luxury of skipping advertisements as often as he wants. He notices Abi Khan (Jessica Brown Findlay) while exercising one day, and develops feelings for her. On another occasion, he overhears Abi singing in the toilet and encourages her to enter an X-Factor style game show called Hot Shots, where winners get to move into more lavish spaces and out of the slave-like world around them. Bing manages to pursuade Abi and, feeling there is nothing "real" worth buying, purchases the ticket for her which costs him almost all of his merits. He accompanies a nervous Abi to the audition, where the latter is required to drink a beverage called "Cuppliance" that is claimed to help settle her nerves. 

Although Abi's rendition of "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is" impresses the three judges, Hope, Charity, and Wraith (Rupert Everett, Julia Davis, Ashley Thomas) and the crowd, they state they have no more room for an "Above Average Singer" and Wraith offers her the chance to be an actress on his pornography show WraithBabes. After goading from the judges and crowd, Abi reluctantly agrees despite Bing protesting offstage. 

Bing returns to his cell without Abi and very few merits, and continues his daily routine listlessly. One day, while playing a game in his cell, an advert for a new episode of WraithBabes featuring Abi appears. Bing does not have enough merits to skip the ad, and he also is not allowed to look away as the automated systems wait for him to continue watching it while also making a high pitched beeping noise that gets progessively louder the longer he covers his eyes. Bing finally loses his temper when he finds he cannot leave his cell until the ad finishes, and proceeds to bash one of the screens until the glass shatters. Bing eyes one of the larger pieces and the empty Cuppliance container Abi drank earlier and gets an idea; he hides the two items under his bed and spends the next several months aggressively earning merits on his bike, as well as being frugal with what he purchases in order to re-earn 15 million more merits and buy another Hot Shots ticket. 

Prior to his audition, Bing hides the shard of glass in his pants and stands patiently in the waiting room every day without expression, until he is called in due to the judges wanting a contestant with a different ethnicity. He also feigns to the stage hands that he already drank his Cuppliance by showing them the empty container and walks onto the stage. 

Bing starts with a dance number that impresses the judges and crowd, but stops his performance suddenly and draws the shard of glass, threatening to kill himself live on the show if he does not get a chance to speak. Wraith encourages him to do it, but the other judges decide to hear him out. Bing begins to tearfully rant about unfair the system is and how heartless people have become, and express his hatred for how the judges took away, corrupted, and sold the only thing he thought was real. Instead of taking his words into consideration, all three judges praise Bing for his "performance" and Hope offers him his own show, where he can rant about the system all he wants. 

Bing accepts the offer and, some time later, he is shown finishing one of his rants via livestream while holding the shard of glass to his neck. He now lives in a penthouse-like cell that is much bigger than his original, and the episode ends as Bing pours himself a glass of orange juice and stands staring out of the side of his room onto a green forest stretching into the distance. The forest appears to be real and not on a screen, as a parallax effect can clearly be seen as the camera zooms out. 

Cast

• Daniel Kaluuya as Bing
• Jessica Brown Findlay as Abi
• Rupert Everett as Judge Hope
• Julia Davis as Judge Charity
• Ashley Thomas as Judge Wraith
• Paul Popplewell as Dustin
• Hannah John-Kamen as Selma Telse
• Kerrie Hayes as Glee
• Matt Stokoe as Guard

Trivia

• Although the second in the running order, this was the first episode to be written.
• Charlie Brooker stated the idea for this episode originated from his wife Konnie Huq (who co-wrote the episode and is credited under her birth name Kanak Huq) when she remarked that he'd be happy in a world where every wall was a screen.