Ep 2. Fifteen Million Merits

In the world of "Fifteen Million Merits," people pedal stationary bikes to earn currency called Merits, which can be used to buy necessities like food and housing as well as to purchase entertainment and upgrades for their virtual avatars. The episode follows Bing, a young man who spends most of his time pedaling to earn Merits. He despises the soul-crushing monotony of his life, and his only solace is watching a talent show called "Hot Shot" on the screens everywhere – that is, until he hears a woman's voice singing beautifully in a bathroom stall.

Bing immediately becomes enamored with the voice and sets out to find the woman behind it. He convinces his newfound friend Abi to audition for "Hot Shot," but the show's judges are unimpressed with her and offer her a demeaning, sexually charged role in a reality show instead. Bing is too poor to buy her freedom, but he eventually manages to scrape together enough Merits to enter an empty booth where he can vent his frustrations by throwing virtual darts at a likeness of one of "Hot Shot's" judges.

However, a chance encounter with the judge soon escalates into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Bing. He is granted an audience with the judge, who offers him a chance to take Abi's place on the reality show, which requires daily sexual acts for the amusement of viewers. Bing is initially repulsed but sees it as the only way to earn enough Merits to escape his life of drudgery and perhaps even make a meaningful statement about the culture he despises.

As Bing rises within the ranks of the reality show, he becomes increasingly frustrated with the hollowness of the entertainment industry and the lies that surround it. In the show's climactic scene, he delivers a scathing monologue against the system before smashing everything in the studio, as he laments that his best option for escaping this world is by taking part in heaping on the dehumanizing entertainment.

The episode is a stark critique of our obsessions with consumer culture, social media, and body image. It offers a chillingly prescient look at a future world where the monetization and commoditization of human emotion, thought, and creativity have gone way too far.

Overall, "Fifteen Million Merits" is a profound meditation on the intersectionality of power, technology, and entertainment, with a vision that is as bleak as it is compelling. While it may be a difficult watch at times, it is also a profound commentary on our society's thirst for validation, and it serves as a cautionary tale about the cost of pursuing a vain, superficial kind of fame and success.