My Weekend Crush

The night is too often dark and full of terrors. But sometimes, just sometimes, it hands us these little gifts. These precious surprises. These unexpected moments of grace. “San Junipero” is one of those little gifts. If you know anything about “Black Mirror,” the anthology series that adds a dark technological spin to the “Twilight Zone” concept, you know happily ever after isn’t necessarily its thing. But I had heard about its “San Junipero” episode since last fall when it premiered. But then life, and the horrifying world, got in the way.

But this month, finally, I found the time and head space to sit down and watch. To really watch. And, goodness, am I glad I did.

If you haven’t watched already, I really don’t want to give too much away. Figuring it all out for yourself is such an essential part of this journey. Through the whole episode I felt as if the answer was right there, so close, I could graze it with my fingertips. But I never got their until they wanted me to, until at last I could embrace it.

But the set-up is a flashy good-time girl named Kelly (the vivacious Gugu Mbatha-Raw) meets a bespectacled quiet girl named Yorkie (Emily Blunt look-alike Mackenzie Davis) in 1987. They’ve found each other in San Junipero, a place of seemingly endless, all-night parties. And there’s an attraction, almost instantly. Which is fought because these things are always fought. But then it isn’t. And there is Belinda Carlile. Forever.

Plus, and again I do not want to give too much away, it features perhaps the most clever subversion of the Bury Your Gays trope to ever be seen on screen.

The questions evoked by “San Junipero” are the biggest ones there are. What is a happy ending? How long can love last? Who defines consciousness? Is the 80s your era?

What I will say, because you should really experience this for yourself, is that at times it seems we have so few shots at happiness in this world. And even when we find it, it can be so fleeting. So when you do, enjoy the hell out of it. Enjoy it for as long as you can – however long that may be. We make our own happy endings. Happy weekend, all.