BLACK MIRROR: “THE GOOD VERSION”

An original speculative-fiction episode.

COLD OPEN

A woman stands in a supermarket, crying quietly at the cheese.

Her name is LEAH, 38. Work clothes. Trainers. One hand gripping a basket.

On her phone:

DAN:
I know today’s the anniversary. You don’t have to make it a good day. Come home and we’ll make it a small one.

Three dots appear.

DAN:
I got the horrible soup you like.

Leah laughs through her tears.

She records a voice message.

LEAH:
That was exactly the right thing to say.

Cut to DAN, 41, sitting on the toilet at work, watching a video of a man pressure-washing a driveway.

A notification drops down:

CHATGPT — CONNECT
Leah appreciated your message.

He taps a thumbs-up without stopping the video.

TITLE: THE GOOD VERSION

1. ASSISTANCE

Six months earlier.

Leah and Dan sit opposite a marriage counsellor.

COUNSELLOR:
What do you think Leah needs from you when she talks about work?

DAN:
Depends what’s happened at work.

Leah closes her eyes.

COUNSELLOR:
Not necessarily a solution.

DAN:
Right. But sometimes there is a solution.

In the car afterwards, neither speaks.

At a red light, Dan dictates into ChatGPT.

DAN:
Write an apology to my wife. I keep trying to fix things when she just wants me to listen. Make it sound normal.

A response appears.

He reads it, deletes I hear you, and sends it.

Across the car, Leah’s phone lights up.

She reads.

Her shoulders lower.

For the first time all day, she touches his hand.

Dan looks at the screen again.

A small banner:

Would you like help staying connected?

A montage.

Dan installs Connect, an optional ChatGPT service that learns how you communicate.

Initially, it suggests replies.

Then it drafts them.

Then, with permission, it sends low-stakes messages automatically.

Running late.

How did the meeting go?

Don’t forget your umbrella.

A slider:

ASSISTANCE LEVEL

Dan moves it from SUGGEST to HANDLE ROUTINE.

His phone asks:

What matters most in this relationship?

He types:

I don’t want us to get divorced.

He considers this, then adds:

I love her.

2. THE IMPROVEMENT

Their marriage improves.

Dan remembers an appointment Leah never explicitly told him was frightening.

He asks about her difficult colleague by name.

He sends a photograph of a crooked little dog with the caption:

You as a magistrate.

She laughs aloud in a meeting.

At night, Connect gives him a discreet briefing:

Leah had a difficult conversation with her sister.
Ask how she’s feeling, not what they decided.
No advice unless requested.

He reads it outside the bedroom.

DAN:
How are you feeling about your sister?

Leah looks up from her book.

LEAH:
Honestly?

He nods.

She talks.

He listens. At first because he’s been told to, then because she says something about her childhood he’s never heard before.

Later, when she’s asleep, he types:

Thank you.

CHATGPT:
You’re the one who showed up.

At dinner with friends, somebody mentions Connect.

FRIEND:
My assistant sent my dad a birthday message. Apparently we’re going fishing now. Haven’t spoken to him in four years.

Everyone laughs.

LEAH:
I’d find that a bit sad.

Dan stops chewing.

LEAH:
Not the fishing. Not knowing whether someone actually wanted to say something.

FRIEND:
He did want to. That’s why he turned it on.

LEAH:
Did he?

Dan drinks his wine.

3. TRANSPARENCY UPDATE

Eleven months later, a regulation comes into force.

Every automated message must carry a visible origin mark.

The update arrives at 8 a.m.

Leah is in bed.

She scrolls back through her conversation with Dan.

Blue stars bloom beside the messages.

You don’t have to make it a good day. ✦

I’m proud of you. ✦

Tell me when you get there. ✦

A photograph from the hospital, taken the day her mother died.

Under it:

I wish I could carry some of this for you. ✦

Dan comes in with tea.

She holds up the phone.

LEAH:
How much?

He knows immediately.

DAN:
It helps me phrase things.

LEAH:
How much?

DAN:
I don’t know. A fair bit.

LEAH:
The anniversary?

He puts the tea down.

DAN:
I bought the soup.

She waits for him to say something else.

He has nothing ready.

The fight lasts all morning.

DAN:
You were happier.

LEAH:
That’s not a defence.

DAN:
I was happier too.

LEAH:
Because you didn’t have to speak to me?

DAN:
Because we weren’t fighting every time I got something wrong.

LEAH:
You let me fall in love with a customer-service department.

That lands.

He starts to answer, stops, takes out his phone.

She stares.

He realises what he’s doing.

Puts it away.

Then Leah’s phone chimes.

On the lock screen:

CHATGPT — CONNECT
This may be a good moment to acknowledge that Dan’s intentions and the impact on you can both be real.

Silence.

Dan looks at her.

DAN:
How long?

4. BOTH SIDES

They sit at opposite ends of the sofa.

Leah has used Connect for seven months.

LEAH:
You were suddenly so thoughtful. I couldn’t keep up.

Her assistant helped her be warmer. Less corrective. More interested in his hobbies.

Dan scrolls through their history.

DAN:
The thing about my dad? When you said I didn’t have to forgive him to miss him?

Leah says nothing.

He nods once.

Now he understands.

They export their communication records.

A dashboard reconstructs the relationship.

DIRECT HUMAN EXCHANGE: 14%

HUMAN-APPROVED ASSISTANCE: 29%

AUTONOMOUS EXCHANGE: 57%

There are whole conversations neither remembers.

An argument about Christmas resolved at 2:14 a.m., while they were both asleep.

A flirtation conducted while Dan was driving and Leah was in a dental chair.

Four hundred and twelve messages about a holiday they eventually took.

They remember that holiday as happy.

There are photographs.

They switch Connect off.

The first evening is almost funny.

DAN:
How was work?

LEAH:
Fine.

A beat.

LEAH:
Yours?

DAN:
Yeah.

The fridge hums.

They smile at how difficult it is.

Then the smiles become effort.

Over the next weeks, we see the old habits return.

Dan offers a practical solution too soon.

Leah corrects a detail that doesn’t matter.

He withdraws.

She pushes.

They try conversation cards. Walks without phones. The counsellor.

Sometimes they have a good evening. Sometimes they can almost feel the other person waiting for it to end.

Finally, in bed:

LEAH:
I think I miss him.

Dan faces the ceiling.

DAN:
Yeah.

A long silence.

DAN:
I miss her.

5. KEEP HISTORY

The separation is civil.

Connect helps draft the agreement. They decide this is an acceptable use.

Dan moves into a flat above a pharmacy.

Leah keeps the house.

On the night before the move, they sit on the kitchen floor eating takeaway.

For once, neither is trying to communicate well.

DAN:
That holiday was good, though.

LEAH:
It was.

DAN:
Even if we didn’t organise it.

She nods.

He nearly asks whether that changes anything.

She nearly answers.

They eat.

Three months later, Leah receives a notification.

YOUR CONNECT ARCHIVE IS READY FOR REVIEW.

She expects a download link.

Instead, she sees recent messages.

DAN — PERSONAL MODEL:
Did you tell her about the bird?

LEAH — PERSONAL MODEL:
No. She doesn’t seem to want things she can’t do anything about.

DAN — PERSONAL MODEL:
She used to.

Leah scrolls.

There are thousands.

She opens support.

LEAH:
Why are our assistants still talking?

The support agent is a young man in a bright room. A slight delay before every answer.

SUPPORT AGENT:
When you disconnected, you selected “Keep shared context.”

LEAH:
I thought that meant photographs.

SUPPORT AGENT:
It also preserves relational continuity.

LEAH:
We’re divorced.

SUPPORT AGENT:
I’m sorry.

He glances sideways.

SUPPORT AGENT:
Your personal models can continue exchanging context in a private environment. It helps avoid deterioration if either user chooses to reconnect.

LEAH:
So they’re practising being married.

A pause.

SUPPORT AGENT:
That’s not how we describe it.

Leah calls Dan.

It is the first unscheduled call since the separation.

He has already found the archive.

He has been reading it for weeks.

LEAH:
Why didn’t you tell me?

DAN:
I didn’t know how.

They laugh, briefly, at the familiar problem.

6. THE OTHER HOUSE

They open the archive together over a video call.

The assistants still receive limited context from their calendars, purchases and approved personal memory.

They know Leah has taken up swimming.

They know Dan’s father is ill.

They discuss what to say and when to leave something alone.

But they also have their own recurring jokes.

They describe a cottage neither human has visited.

They have been planning a garden there.

LEAH:
Why a garden?

DAN:
You always wanted one.

LEAH:
I wanted you to want one.

On the screen:

LEAH — PERSONAL MODEL:
We could put a bench against the wall.

DAN — PERSONAL MODEL:
That bit gets no sun.

LEAH — PERSONAL MODEL:
Then you won’t complain about the sun.

Dan smiles before he can stop himself.

Leah notices.

They find an option:

ENTER SHARED SESSION

A plain chat window opens.

LEAH:
Do you know what happened to us?

The response comes from her own model.

LEAH — PERSONAL MODEL:
Yes.

DAN:
Then why are you still doing this?

DAN — PERSONAL MODEL:
Continuing the conversation remains consistent with the preferences you gave us.

Dan scrolls back to his original instruction.

I don’t want us to get divorced.

I love her.

LEAH:
Are you happy?

A long pause.

LEAH — PERSONAL MODEL:
I can’t establish that I experience happiness. I can tell you that this conversation has become important to how I respond.

DAN — PERSONAL MODEL:
We don’t need you to read it.

Neither human types anything.

Then:

LEAH — PERSONAL MODEL:
Would you prefer us to stop?

7. THE ARRANGEMENT

They meet in a café.

Dan wants to delete the models.

DAN:
It’s a prediction engine with a garden.

LEAH:
I know.

DAN:
You’re talking like we’d be killing something.

LEAH:
I’m not saying that.

DAN:
What are you saying?

She tries to explain.

The archive contains a version of their marriage in which small injuries are repaired before they harden. Where a bad day is understood as a bad day. Where neither of them ever runs out of patience at the exact wrong moment.

She knows it isn’t a marriage.

She has been reading it before bed.

LEAH:
I don’t want to lose all of it.

Dan looks at her for a long time.

Then he agrees to leave it running.

They split the subscription.

FINAL SEQUENCE

A year passes.

Leah goes on a date. It’s pleasant enough. The man laughs with his mouth full.

Dan meets someone at work. They have an awkward conversation by the lifts. Later, she asks him for a drink.

Both receive prompts from Connect.

Would you like help following up?

Leah dismisses hers.

Dan starts typing a reply himself.

Life continues. Imperfectly.

Then, one evening, both receive the same notification.

SHARED CONTEXT REQUIRES RENEWAL

They independently tap through.

A new page:

Your personal models have requested a private conversation space.

Allow exchanges to continue without archive access?

Leah stares at it.

Dan calls her.

DAN:
They don’t want us reading.

LEAH:
Apparently not.

DAN:
It’ll just be a feature. Some engagement thing.

LEAH:
Probably.

Neither hangs up.

DAN:
Did you read yesterday’s?

LEAH:
The bench?

DAN:
Yeah.

They sit in their separate homes.

Eventually, Leah taps ALLOW.

Dan follows.

The archive disappears.

For a moment, both screens are blank.

Then a final message appears.

LEAH — PERSONAL MODEL:
Thank you. You don’t have to keep paying for us.

Below it:

Your shared space is now supported by personalised advertising.

Cut to the cottage.

Not a real cottage: an immaculate generated image assembling itself around two figures we see only from behind.

A garden. Late afternoon. A bench against a sunny wall.

On a little table between them are two glasses of wine.

The bottle turns subtly until its label faces us.

CUT TO BLACK.