The main theme of the episode is helicopter parenting; as a woman raised by a single mother, Foster had many views which influenced the script, such as a more complex characterisation of Marie, and was given control of casting.

Critics saw Marie as a parent afflicted with much anxiety and guilt and compared Arkangel to existing technologies for child monitoring, such as microchip implants and smartwatches.

They were mostly laudatory of Foster's directing style and DeWitt's acting but less complimentary of the storyline and moral, which were seen as simplistic, with many reviewers suggesting themes the episode could have explored in more detail.

Single mother Marie Sambrell (Rosemarie DeWitt) gives birth to her daughter Sara and raises her with help from her father, Russ (Nicholas Campbell).

Marie can monitor Sara's vision and hearing with a tablet computer, along with viewing live medical data and past audiovisual feeds.

Aged fifteen, Sara (Brenna Harding) lies to her mother about going to a friend's house to attend a party with Trick (Owen Teague).

Executive producer Annabel Jones said that it was inspired by microchip implants used to identify pets that, at the time of writing, were also being considered for children.

[7] Foster was introduced to Black Mirror by Netflix's vice president of original content after telling her that she enjoyed directing short but complete stories, in contrast to serialised television programmes.

[6][8] In contrast to Jones and Brooker's more positive conception of Marie, Foster was informed by her life experience to show a darkness to her character.

[12] Brooker noted that in this scene, more hits were filmed than made it into the episode, though enough were needed in the final cut for the viewer to understand Sara's perspective, and for Marie to be plausibly rendered unconscious.

[22] Louisa Mellor of Den of Geek found that the blue-collar setting contrasts with most previous episodes' depictions of "shiny near-futures, in chic, modernist homes".

Oller saw this as giving the episode a horror feel, heightened by the "long-short-long editing" pattern of "tension, release, rebuild".

[24] Caroline Framke of Vox saw Foster's directing as "generally stark and matter-of-fact", though a handheld camera is used when characters are in "a particular state of panic" so that the framing shows "their confused and rapidly fracturing relationship to each other and the world around them".

[25] Christopher Hooton of The Independent compared the injured Marie yelling on the street to a similar performance by Anna Gunn as Skyler White in the crime drama Breaking Bad.

[29] Mellor found that relevant questions raised include where the "right to privacy and agency" of a child overrides the "power of a parent", and whether pain is an "instructive" or "traumatising" formative experience.

[23] Framke saw the episode as a case of the programme's "overall ethos that pretty much everything we try in the name of protecting ourselves and each other will eventually, inevitably backfire", in that Marie trying to shield Sara is only "a temporary salve".

[31] Zoe Williams commented in The Guardian that GPS monitoring for children is frequently marketed in the form of a smartwatch, some of which can listen into the wearer's conversations.

She found the underlying principle behind the technology to be "that your perception of your child's vulnerability takes precedence over their interaction with the world".

[22] Mellor said that Marie's isolation as a single parent, ill father and long working hours are all contributing factors to her guilt.

[22] Bramesco saw Marie as "the one at fault" in the episode, with Trick portrayed as "a pretty decent guy" and Sara's drug usage not being seen as "scandalizing".

[28] The reproductive healthcare organisation Planned Parenthood criticised the depiction of emergency contraceptive (EC) pills as inaccurate.

Club's Zach Handlen viewed the narrative arc as unsurprising but said that "the specifics make it compelling"; he reviewed that the moral is "hard to argue with" but "not really unexpected".

[21] Ed Power, writing for The Telegraph, similarly found it a "pity Brooker doesn't delve further" into pornography's effects on Sara.

[31] However, Bramesco praised that the episode is a "rare meditation on the millennial generation that rightly looks to the parents for answers instead of blaming the youth".

Gilbert wrote that the "lo-fi, indie feel Foster gives the episode captures the terrible ordinariness of the situation", praising "unforgettable images" and "foreboding framing".

[21] Mellor found that Foster constructed a "sensitive and emotional US indie-movie style", while Handlen noted that she "captures the show's clinical, mournful feel, but manages a necessary level of intimacy that keeps the story from being overly schematic".

[23][36] In contrast, Hooton saw the episode as "visually flat" and Bramesco wrote that Foster engages in "misunderstanding the emotional timbre a scene should have".

[26] DeWitt's portrayal of Marie received praise for balancing positive and negative traits, by critics Oller, Handlen and Power.

[24][35][36] Mellor praised a "deft balance" in that Brooker and Foster "have taken pains not to demonise, but to create a likeable, easy-to-relate-to character" in Marie.

IndieWire authors ranked the 22 Black Mirror instalments excluding Bandersnatch by quality, giving "Arkangel" a position of 20th.