Black Mirror Season 7’s episodes ranked

Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for Black Mirror Season 7.

It’s sometimes eerie, sometimes heart-wrenching and sometimes just plain old quirky, Black Mirror is all this and more. And Season 7 ticks all the boxes. The anthology series is the brainchild of Charlie Brooker, who gave the audience six entrancing episodes with Season 7. Black Mirror follows the dysfunctional lives of people in a dystopian world lead by advanced technology.

Each episode delivers a story that touches on real-life problems but with a Black Mirror twist. From going on a space adventure with USS Calister: Into Infinity to feeling the bitterness of a lonely man in Eulogy, the hit Netflix Series has delivered one of its best seasons yet. While some of the content may make the audience uncomfortable, the core of Black Mirror, which looks at the complicated relationship between human beings and technology, continues to prevail.

Disclaimer: This article contains the opinions of the writer.

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Black Mirror Season 7’s episodes ranked

6) Bête Noire

Cast - Siena Kelly, Rosy McEwen, Michael Workéyè, Ben Bailey Smith, Amber Grappy, Ravi Aujla, Elena Sanz, and Hanna Griffiths.

This trippy episode revolves around Maria (played by Siena Kelly) and her old high school acquaintance Verity (played by Rose McEwen). Maria is a successful executive at a food company, which Verity joins out-of-the blue. Maria, who previously enjoyed the company of her colleagues and also performed well at work, finds Verity strange. Maria, who was popular in school would recall to her boyfriend of how Variety use to be this awkward teenager, who was obsessed with computers.

Each day, Maria finds herself in some unexplainable situation, which she ultimately links to Verity. She quickly figures out that there is more to Verity than what meets the eye. And though she tries to bring it to everyone’s attention, Verity always finds control over the situation. Maria seems to be the only person in the room to be aware of everything that is going wrong.

Bête Noire takes the term ‘gaslighting’ to a whole new level. The episode explores the repercussions of bullying and how things said in jest can sometimes have lasting effects. While the technological aspect finds a limited place in the episode, it is the overall human need for retribution that takes precedence.

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5) Hotel Reverie

Cast - Emma Corrin, Issa Rae, Awkwafina, and Harriet Walter.

AI in entertainment industry has been a topic of conversation for a long time now. Even the previous season’s episode titled ‘Joan Is Awful’ showed how far AI can go in the world of television and movies. In Hotel Reverie, the audience is taken to the black-and-white set of an old Hollywood movie that stirs up memories of classics such as Casablanca and An Affair to Remember.

Kimmy (played by Awkwafina), a representative for the AI company called Redream, introduces Keyworth Studios to the future of cinema as they get ready to remake the Hollywood classic with a popular actress, Brandy Friday (played by Issa Rae). All she needs is about 90 minutes to create a new movie. Brandy does not understand what she is getting into. Kimmy puts Brandy into the software, where she replaces the lead actor. After a few initial hiccups, she finally settles in, only to again be disrupted by a technological problem.

While everything else stops, Brandy and Clara aka Hollywood starlet Dorothy Chambers (played by Emma Corrin), her love interest in the movie, bond off the screen, literally. But their rendezvous is short lived as Brandy must return to the real world and leave behind Clara. While the technology in the episode may seem exaggerated, the basic human relationship set against the beautiful canvas of the black-and-white movie is heart-warming.

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4) Plaything

Cast - Peter Capaldi, Lewis Gribben, James Nelson Joyce, Michele Austin, Will Poulter, and Asim Chaudhry.

Plaything follows a crime investigation that takes you through the complex mind of a man whose world revolves around a software called Thronglets, which gives the users a unique experience of caring for cute digital creatures. The episode opens in a convenience store where an eccentric man, Cameron (played by Peter Capaldi), steals a beverage. When the police check on him, it is revealed that he is wanted for a murder case that happened almost 40 years ago.

During the investigation, the police insist on knowing the name of his victim, but Cameron instead starts sharing his story. The flashback takes the audience to 1990, where a younger Cameron (played by Lewis Gribben) is a video game reporter. He meets the genius programmer Colin Ritman (played by Will Poulter), who created the software called Thronglets. The mysterious software has small yellow digital creatures who multiply as you take care of them. They make squeaky noises to communicate with the user. But it is just a humming sound that no one can follow.

A lonely Cameron gets addicted to the software and later realizes that he can understand them when he takes acid. What ensues is chaos as Cameron commits a violent murder, followed by an attempt to make Thronglets part of the real world. The episode explores the aspect of how technology is rapidly replacing basic human interactions and how things can spiral from it.

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3) Eulogy

Cast - Paul Giamatti and Patsy Ferran

Eulogy takes us on an emotional roller coaster as we relive the highs and lows of a lonely man. Phillip (played by Paul Giamatti) is contacted by a technology company to take part in an immersive memorial for which he is asked to share his memories of his old girlfriend, Carol. After he receives a kit, an AI guide (played by Patsy Ferran) takes Phillip through the photographs and other keepsakes from his younger days. But none of it shows Carol as he had either cut her face out or scratched it.

As Phillip shares about his time with Carol, we learn about how the two once shared a beautiful relationship. But things end on a bitter note. The AI guide reveals that she is Carol’s daughter and wants to understand their relationship.

Phillip still holds a grudge against Carol, but as he looks through the memories using the astounding technology, he realizes that his life could have been different if he had known things that he knows now. The episode is beautifully painful. The show ends on a positive yet somber note about missed relationships and how a few overlooked moments can change the trajectory of life.

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2) Common People

Cast - Chris O’Dowd, Rashida Jones, and Tracee Ellis Ross.

One of the more heart-breaking episodes to emerge from the Black Mirror Universe, Common People takes a look at how problems concerning people with lesser means remain the same despite technological advancements. The episode follows a lovable couple, Amanda (Rashida Jones) and Mike (Chris O’Dowd), living a middle-class life as they save money little by little with the dream of having a baby one day. Amanda is a teacher at a local school who suddenly collapses in class. Mike learns that she has a brain tumor that cannot be cured. However, there is a new experimental technology called Rivermind, which can help her.

The company’s sales representative (Tracee Ellis Ross), a user of the technology as well, introduces him to do the world of Rivermind, a subscription service for people like Amanda. While the subscription rate starts at $300 a month, as time goes by, the price starts increasing. Mike, who loves his wife deeply goes to extremes to help with the exorbitant costs. The financial pressure starts taking a toll on them.

From the Rivermind Common, where Amanda’s regular life is disrupted thanks to her delivering advertisements randomly to Rivermind Lux, where she gets to live her best life, the couple is caught between the hard realities of life. The episode brings forth the problems associated with the health care system in the world where the rich can afford the best care while the common people continue to struggle.

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1) USS Callister: Into Infinity

Cast - Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson, Billy Magnussen, Milanka Brooks, Osy Ikhile, and Paul G. Raymond.

With a mix of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Inside-Out (yes, you read it right), the episode brings back Nanette Cole (played by Cristin Milioti) as the captain of the USS Callister in the Infinity online universe. This follows the episode titled USS Callister from Season 4 of Black Mirror, where programmer Robert Daly (played by Jesse Plemons) created the online game for which the company CEO James Walton (played by Jimmi Simpson) took credit. This leads to him creating clone versions of his co-workers in the infinity universe that ultimately ends in his death.

In this season, we find Nanette trying to get credit points from real-time users as the people onboard the USS Callister are untagged players, who exist in that universe illegally. As Nanette in the real and online world tries to make sense of the anomaly, she discovers that Walton had a role to play in Daly’s illegal DNA-cloning activities. The illegal activity even caught the attention of a journalist.

Nanette tries to keep her crew alive and deal with the problems raised by real-life Walton. Her life hangs by the thread in both worlds, as she must come up with a solution quick. USS Callister: Into Infinity has a feature length runtime of 90 minutes. The episode is a satirical take on space adventure franchises such as Star Trek, which has a loyal following. The special effects in the episode have gone a notch up from its predecessor and the upgrade adds to the overall mind-bending vibe the episode offers.

Watch Black Mirror Season 7 on Netflix.

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