Black Mirror season 7 is a thrilling and futuristic anthology series from the brilliant mind of creator, Charlie Brooker.
Each episode of Black Mirror tells a different twisted tale of modern sci-fi dystopias. Over six episodes in season 7, an anthology of captivating realities is built piece by piece. From AI to infinite timelines, different themes, characters and plots unravel over the course of each unique episode. Tackling these futuristic and complex themes can quickly become complicated though, leaving much to be studied and understood.
Here's a recap of everything that happened in Black Mirror season 7 episode 3.
It opens on a black and white movie trailer for Hotel Reverie by Keyworth Pictures. Renowned doctor, Alex Palmer, encounters tragic heiress, Clara Ryce in this romantic flick. There’s promise of romance, but Clara’s husband Claude is plotting her death.
It cuts to the Keyworth Pictures movie lot in modern day. A meeting between two women over the collection, Judith Keyworth and Kimmy. Judith explains they’re not making any movies and that they’re in serious debt. She's tried to sell the collection, but no-one wants it. She explains that no-one’s interested in old movies anymore now they can have new ones. She can’t afford to hire new actors and Kimmy tells her that her company actually has an affordable way to take an old movie like Hotel Reverie and recast the lead with a contemporary Hollywood star. She says it won't cost much as much because they’ll only need 96 minutes of the actor's time. As Judith starts to worry that it's AI, Kimmy says it’s real and hands over the brochure to the company, Redream.
Elsewhere, Brandy sits alone in her home. She listens to a voicemail from her agent offering her a job. She goes to meet him and he explains the role stars in every scene, but Brandy says it’s only a supporting role for a lead man. She says she’s only given roles when it’s a victim or sexy sidekick and she doesn’t want to be pursued anymore, she wants to be the pursuer. She references Casablanca and Brief Encounter, but her agent has never heard of them. They then talk about Hotel Reverie. He says they’re recasting the lead and she says she wants it.
Back at Keyworth, Judith and Kimmy are told no A-listers are interested in the role, apart from Brandy Friday. They're happy to have her and say she can have the lead. At home, Brandy is watching Dorothy Chambers’s screen test for her role as Clara in Hotel Reverie. She notices a death newsreel for Dorothy and clicks it, hearing that she died from an overdose of sleeping pills at home.
Brandy’s door buzzes and she gets a delivery. Her agent calls her and tells her she’s been cast as the lead and the info pack she just received will explain what happens next. But, the Clara role in this flipped version is confidential. She opens the package to a Blu-ray of Hotel Reverie and papers, but misses a USB that drops to the floor.
It cuts to the Redream team setting up their tech to start filming. Brandy arrives and as Kimmy begins to explain, she realises Brandy didn’t look at the USB with the info pack on it. Kimmy panics and tells her that they’re going to perform the movie right now in real-time and that they’ll have Brandy working amongst a built reality. She asks Brandy to lie down on a table as she attaches a ‘mesmeriser’ to her temple.
Kimmy says once Brandy is inside, she’ll have a moment to adjust while the opening titles role before she has to start. She lays on a bed of tech that transports her and suddenly she’s suited up and on set, despite her physical body still laying on the bed in the real world. The characters load around her and she interacts with a box on the side that she can physically touch.
Kimmy speaks to her through the mesmeriser, that can no longer be seen. She speaks back and explains how insane it is to be on the real set, in black and white. Kimmy gives her directions to get in position. She says the characters all think they’re real and the world is real, too. When asked if they’ll accept Brandy as the woman she is, Kimmy explains the characters are AI and will believe only what they’ve been told, which is that Brandy is Dr Alex Palmer. Kimmy tells her to keep the story going and continues to direct her.
The titles run and Kimmy calls action. In the hotel, Clara arrives and it’s still Clara played by Dorothy Chambers as it always was. She starts to act and Kimmy calls for Brandy to begin her lines. The team watch on as Brandy delivers her lines on time and word perfect. Though when they get to a part in the movie where Brandy is supposed to play the piano, she can’t. Kimmy asks her why she can't because she did in a previous movie role, but Brandy explains that it was a backing track. The team panic as the misplaying of the piano sets the story off track. Then they realise that if Clara doesn’t leave the table as she would’ve done by being emotional about the piano music, she might drink the poison cocktail heading her way by Claude and his henchman, Otto. The tech team are tracking levels and say if it goes to red, the film collapses.
Kimmy instructs her to sit next to Clara instead and apologise for the bad piano. She distracts Clara saying there’s a goose, so she can throw away her poisoned drink. Clara doesn’t appreciate the joke and the team watch as Clara’s attraction falls on the scale. As Brandy tries to stop her leaving, she shouts out Clara’s real name, Dororthy, before reverting back to her character. She asks why she called her Dorothy and Brandy says because she reminds her of a Dorothy. She says the Dorothy she knows everyone thought was fine, but on the inside she was… Clara interrupts and says, blue. Kimmy tells Brandy to follow Clara into the garden.
Brandy asks Clara to talk to her about her worries and she says she doesn’t want to burden her. Clara explains that Claude doesn’t notice her anymore and Brandy calls him crazy. The romantic interest levels rise. She explains that she feels sorrowful, but Judith and Kimmy are confused as to how she’s recalling these emotions when she’s just AI. One of the team explains their Clara's AI is informed by the original performance of Dorothy and for this, Dorothy actually used her own life to inspire the character. There’s echoes of her throughout the dataset, but when she heard her name, she’s evolved into a new dimension that isn’t really accommodated by what they built.
As Brandy speaks to her more, the romantic interest increases and Clara explains how she’s never met someone like her. As she leaves, the team tell Kimmy that Brandy won’t be on screen for two minutes so they can talk. Meanwhile, a character's dog drinks the cocktail and dies. In the technology, they notice a plot hole forming. The dog’s owner was supposed to have drunk the cocktail when stealing it in the original movie, which would’ve called a detective to the hotel who meets Dr Alex and Alex helps him diagnose his allergies, to which the doctor then saves him from being shot in the final scene. They need to meet for the final scene to make sense. The team are able to watch how an alternate ending will form. Judith says it’s over and Kimmy says they can reset, but Judith says they’re out of time.
Kimmy instructs Jack on her team to pull Brandy out, but he can’t. When Clara’s AI evolved, a stack overflow has stopped the exit code from working. To get out, Brandy needs to make it to the end credits. If they turn it off, Brandy’s consciousness will be left in there and Brandy in the real world would die. They’re tasked with finding a workaround in the story to get it back on track and get Brandy safely to the end.
Kimmy explains to Brandy that they need to change the plot, but she tells her to reset. Kimmy tells them she can’t. They decide to skip to the next day where Brandy and Clara go sightseeing together. Kimmy warns Brandy that she’ll feel the time jump. They’re in the hotel lobby and Brandy bumps into Clara to start the scene. She goes to invite herself a long, but Clara invites her first. The team are worried Clara is thinking for herself. After the sightseeing, they arrive back and Clara twists her ankle. Brandy takes her back to her room and Kimmy instructs her that things will get heated. As Brandy feels her ankle, Clara asks her to feel a little higher and Brandy reaches up her leg.
They’re interrupted by the second murder attempt, a scorpion in the room. Brandy tells Clara not to move and captures it in a glass. Clara, thankful, kisses her. The team note the romance levels are peaking. Judith quips that Clara wasn’t like this with the original Dr Alex. As they’re watching, Jack spills his drink into the computer and they lose picture. With no input, Brandy can’t hear anyone and the music has stopped playing. Everyone’s frozen inside the movie but Clara and Brandy. Brandy calls for Kimmy, but no-one replies. She leaves the room panicked and Clara follows her.
Meanwhile, Jack is trying to reboot. He says it’s still running, but they've lost connection. Brandy is calling for Kimmy while Clara follows her around growing more frightened. She says she can’t explain to Clara what’s happening because she won’t get it. She shouts out that the movie is over, but no-one replies. Clara doesn’t understand and Brandy tells her to look around at everything in black and white. She holds up fruit and explains it’s not real colours. She doesn’t understand. Brandy asks Clara about being a kid, about her dad, but because this doesn’t exist in the movie, she doesn’t remember anything. She gets more and more upset.
Then, Brandy mentions that Dorothy is the real Clara. Then, she tells her her full name Dorothy Chambers and something changes. She’s upset and runs off. In her room, she stares at herself in the mirror. Brandy comes to see her and apologises. She doesn’t let her in but she begins to explain that she’s not real either, she’s an actor and her name is Brandy. She’s not sure she’s making sense so she says sorry again and walks away.
As the team hurry to get back to the movie, Jack reveals that time inside the movie is running a lot faster than time is for them. Meanwhile, Dorothy comes downstairs to the hotel lobby and meets Brandy. She asks where she’s going and Dorothy says she’s finding a way out. She insists Brandy doesn't come, but when she steps outside everything is frozen. There’s nowhere else to go and she sees it’s just a painted wall. Reaching her hand towards it, it disappears through. The team back in the studio notice when Dorothy does this. They say she breached the fringe. She does it again and then she steps entirely through into a darkness. Kimmy discusses that because she’s stepped through, she has been exposed to the full data pool, which is a bad thing.
Black Mirror Hotel Reverie ending explained
Dorothy sees news articles about herself, as well as seeing herself getting ready for the movie with make up and catching the eyes and smiling at another woman on set. Her and the other woman talk and laugh, but it’s always overshadowed by Alex. There’s memories of her at home alone and she even recalls her own death. To this, she falls back into set where Brandy is practicing the piano. She tells her they’re stuck their together, but Dorothy sits down at the piano. Dorothy plays the Claire de lune, like Brandy was meant to play. Brandy goes over and touches her on the back of the neck.
Days pass and the pair enjoy each others company more and more, leading to intimacy. Days turn to months inside the movie, whereas it’s mere minutes outside as the team still work to solve the problem. One morning, as they lay in bed, Dorothy tells Brandy she loves her and she says she does too. She’s wondering if the only reason Clara feels that way is because she was programmed to feel that for Alex. But Dorothy explains Brandy isn’t Alex Palmer. Finally, Jack gets the movie back into a safe state and Kimmy can speak to her, though in voice only. They don’t have visuals until they reset.
She speaks to Brandy and explains there was a hardware issue. They need to continue where they were and that they’ll reset from the scorpion scene. Kimmy explains once they reset, Clara won’t remember anything since the safe point. As they count down, Brandy panics and tries to hold onto Clara, but the scene resets to their kiss. Kimmy has to feed Brandy her lines as she’s still stuck in everything that happened. Suddenly, Brandy goes off script.
As she exits the scene, she talks to Kimmy who tells Brandy that she needs to get to her last line to get extracted. Brandy asks what would happen if she doesn’t say the line. She explains she’d be stuck in there forever and that her body would die, but her consciousness would stay there with Dorothy. Brandy thinks about this, but decides to carry on with the scenes. Brandy eavesdrop on Claude’s murder plots and so she goes to tell Clara.
Finally, a workaround has been found. One of the team suggests that Brandy runs to the police station to warn them about Claude and meet Levine that way, diagnose his allergies and earn his trust for the final scene. Kimmy tells Brandy what to do.
When she gets to the police station though, the old lady who lost her dog to the poison is there reporting the murder. Brandy has to hurry her lines to Levine in order to get up to the roof in time for the final murder attempt and scene. Brandy reaches Claude just in time as he's pulled out a gun on Clara. She jostles the gun out of Claude’s hand when a shot fires off into a light, alerting the police. He begins to strangle her and pushes her against the roof railing.
Before he can push her entirely off, Claude is shot in the back twice. As he turns around, it’s Clara holding the gun. Now, the police will come and arrest Clara, but there’s enough time for Brandy to deliver her final line. Kimmy explains to Brandy what’s happening, but she doesn’t want Clara to get arrested and spend forever in a cell. Brandy picks up the gun and tells Clara they'll say it's her who shot Claude instead. Clara tells Brandy she loves her and she says it back.
The police arrive and Clara says she's sorry, but grabs the gun from Brandy. Before Levine can say he knows Brandy like the original movie, Clara shoots him dead. Then, the police around him shoot her twice and she drops to the ground. Holding Clara in her arms, Clara says her final line. While the team wait for Brandy to say hers, her real-life body is going into shock. Kimmy begs her to say it and finally, she does. As Brandy sobs over Clara's death, they extract her. Brandy returns, but she’s still crying.
It cuts to a trailer for Hotel Reverie Reborn, the new version with Brandy. She’s watching it on her phone and as she returns home, there’s a package waiting for her from Kimmy. Inside, a note says that Kimmy had Jack create this gift for her. She plugs in a hard drive and plays the recording. It’s the test tape of Dorothy as she waits for the phone to ring. There’s a phone in the package that Brandy connects to her computer and calls Dorothy. She picks up and they talk.
All episodes of Black Mirror are available to stream on Netflix now.
