Opening Scene:

1. What can you say about the colour scheme used in this scene?

The opening scene has a pastel colour scheme, with a lot of pinks and purples. I also observed that Lacie’s
clothing adheres to this colour scheme as her outfits are all in pastel colours, mostly pink and purple. This
pastel scheme could signify false happiness.

2. What does she see in the mirror? How can she see that? Why is she laughing?

Lacie sees her own rating in the mirror. Her eyes are covered with a lens that allows her to rate people,
which is how she could see the rating in the mirror. She begins to smile and laugh at the mirror to practice
her internet personality as she has to keep up a ‘happy’ appearance all day long and on the internet.

Coffee shop scene:

1. At the coffee shop, what is everyone doing? Do you think people already do that?

At the coffee shop, everyone is on their phones. This is similar to people in the real world, who are usually
on social media as well, but in the show, they rate each other and exude false happiness, which so far doesn’t
happen in the real world.

2. Does she like her coffee? What is most important to her?

Lacie doesn’t like her coffee, but based on the previous encounter, it seems that she gets it everyday anyway.
She doesn’t seem to care about the coffee, but cares more about posting it on social media, and then if she’s
getting good ratings because of her coffee. She also takes a bite from the cookie, but spits it out; she took a
bite in a specific way so that the cookie would be a certain way in her post.

Elevator scene:
1. What do they do before talking to each other?

They say their hellos and then scroll through each other’s social media feeds to look for things to talk about.
Lacie sees a picture of Bethany’s cat, so she brings it up, and Bethany does the same with Lacie’s job at
Hoddicker.

2. How would you describe Bethany and Lacie’s interaction?

I would say that their interaction was very forced as they don’t seem to actually like each other. Bethany
showed veiled contempt for Lacie's job, and looked down on her for working at Hoddicker, whereas Lacie
seemed jealous of Bethany for her job at Blankman-Harper, and her fake smile actually falls for a second.
Their laughs are also incredibly superficial, showing that nothing really amused them in the conversation

Office scene:
1. Why is Chester bringing smoothies to everyone?
Chester brings everyone smoothies to try and boost his rating and make people like him more. Like one of
their colleagues says, “Ches is kissing ass. Trying to scrape himself back,” by bringing everyone organic
smoothies from the farmer’s market.

2. Why is Chester’s score so low?

Ches’s score is low because him and Gordon broke up, and everyone has taken Gordon’s side, which is why
they down-rated him, reducing his score.

3. What are her colleagues’ reactions when she accepts the smoothie? Why?

When Lacie accepts the smoothie from Ches, her colleagues look up from what they’re doing with disgusted
expressions on their faces. When she even pretends to like the smoothie and rates him up, they give her a
contempted look. This is odd because everyone usually tries to hide their emotions and keep up a happy
appearance all the time. They react this way because they’re all against Ches in his breakup, and aren’t
talking to him.

Ending:
1. What do you think the ending means?

In the ending, Lacie is finally free from the pretense that she had to keep up in society. This change is
accompanied by a change in the colour scheme: as Lacie is pulled through the doors into the sunlight, the
scene becomes darker, and when she takes a mugshot, it is a dark purple. The colours only get darker, and
her separation from society is clear when her social media lenses are taken out, finally giving her a clear
view of life, free from ratings and false happiness. Her prison cell is grey, and all of the characters in this
scene (the jail officers and her other inmate) wear greys, which is unusual in real society. Lacey stands out
with her pastel dress. When her pink dress falls to the floor, it contrasts with her grey surroundings: this is
meant to symbolize her cutting the last remnants of her ties to society. Then, even her face becomes grey as
her mascara smudges against her eyes. The windows of her cell are clear, which signifies transparency and
truth, something that was not present in the pastel society.

She begins to cry when dust falls from the ceiling, because she had previously never noticed the little things
in life, and the dust is a sign of imperfection that wasn’t there in society. This is when she actually smiles for
the first time, a real smile that tells us she is finally free from society. And when she laughs, it isn’t fake, and
is more freeing.

2. Why are the characters insulting each other? What does it say about freedom and prisons in
this world? Is Lacey happy?

Lacie and her inmate begin to insult each other as they previously never had the opportunity to be brutally
honest about someone to their face. They’re finally releasing their bottled-up opinions of each other as they
don’t need to care about losing their ratings (they’re already at 0). It’s ironic because they’re only truly free
when they’re in prison. In society, they never had the freedom to express themselves, but now that they’re in
prison, they can say whatever they want without caring what the other person thinks. It’s strange how, in this
world, the prison has more freedom than society. We also see that Lacie actually begins to laugh; an
exhilarating laugh that comes from finally being able to say what she wants to say. Even her inmate begins
to laugh, and when they begin to scream “fuck you!” their faces erupt in a freeing smile as they finally
escape society.
Let’s think about it
1. Do we meet any non-white characters? What are their ratings? What jobs do they do? What
does this say about society?

We meet two real black characters: Chester and Jack. Both their ratings are below four (Chester is a 3.1 and
Jack is a 3.7), and Chester’s drops even further, eventually barring him from the office as he goes below a
2.5. We see that both of them perform servile activities to bring their score up: Jack is a barista, serving
coffee and giving customers extra cookies for a rating boost, whereas Chester serves his colleagues
smoothies to get his ratings up. The other black character is the man in the house Lacie goes to visit, in a
hologram in which he is shirtless and feels her up. This tells us that the society disregards minorities, which
gives white people the opportunity to live better lives. They even live in better houses because of their
higher ratings, an opportunity that the black characters do not have.

2. The truck driver is the story of society. Comment.

The truck driver says that she was initially perfect, and led her life according to society’s standards, but
when her husband became sick, she realised that she wasn’t truly happy, and that even her high rating could
do nothing to save her husband. This made her think about what truly mattered in life, and how real things
like life and death cannot be affected by artificial standards such as ratings and scores.

3. What do you think your rating would be? Explain why?

It scares me to admit it, but I think that if I lived in the Nosedive society, I too would try to up my ratings to
live in the best house and have the best life. I think I would probably become like the truck driver, Susan, or
like Lacie’s brother, Ryan, eventually, and maybe have a rating of 3.2 or 3.3, depending on where I am in my
journey in realising how corrupted the society is.

4. Give your review of nosedive. Give your opinion of the episode.

I think this episode was extremely terrifying because the society portrayed in it, however dystopian it seems,
isn’t very far off from our current society. I hated watching the episode because I couldn’t help but feel the
discontent that anyone in the society would feel. The irony is that however false everyone in the show acted,
it gave me a very real picture of what social media could create.

5. If such an app existed, would you use it? Why or why not?

I would never use such an app, because I think it can really harm our self worth and cause us to try and
become someone society would like, rather than be who we really are. I think people are worth more than
others’ ratings of them, and an app like this would ruin that, creating a very unequal and false society.

6. Do you feel you sometimes publish things that will be ‘liked’ rather than things you actually
like on social networks? Give examples.

Yes, I sometimes make my posts in such a way that more people will like them, especially with regards to
my overall feed. For example, although I may want to use a white background, the brown background looks
better on my feed, so I would take pictures against that. Also, I think people often use filters to create a post
that people will like.
 7. Do you think the world painted in this episode is very different from ours? How?

I don’t think the society portrayed in this episode is very different from ours, as they too care too much
about other people’s impressions of them. The only difference is that their society is a more extreme version
of ours, in that there is actually an app and a lens that makes people care about other people’s opinions in
their society. Even in our society, people like to take pictures of food and post them on social media, which
happens in the society in Nosedive. While we may not fake laughs and smiles to the extent that they do, we
still stop ourselves from being truly honest and expressing our real feelings at times, which happens a lot in
the Nosedive society.