You Have to Re-Watch These Black Mirror Episodes Before Season 7

Black Mirror is set to return for Season 7 on Netflix. The science-fiction anthology series will be back with six episodes, at least two of them feature-length. The plots haven’t been fully revealed yet, but we learned quite a bit with Netflix’s first trailer and photos for Black Mirror Season 7 dropped. The most important reveal is the first direct sequel in the series to this point: a follow-up to the Season 4 episode “USS Callister.” We also learned that characters from the interactive film Bandersnatch will return for another story, possibly cementing some of the plot points in that “choose your own adventure” feature from 2018.

“Fans of the show will recognize the cast of a certain spaceship from one of our episodes reappearing,” creator Charlie Brooker previously told Netflix. “We’ve done a sequel for the first time in Black Mirror history. Normally, I kill off all the characters at the end of an episode, [but] I kept some of ’em alive. I’m growing as a human.” He also teased the “embarrassingly stacked cast,” including Awkwafina, Peter Capaldi, Paul Giamatti, Emma Corrin, Cristin Milioti, Issa Rae, and a few other familiar faces.

Mixed in were a lot of familiar themes and a few callbacks to past episodes, meaning folks have a month to get refreshed on Black Mirror before it returns. It’s a nice long weekend binge, even if you want to take time working through Bandersnatch a few times to unlock all the story avenues.

Scroll down for the episodes you’ll want to prioritize to prepare for season 7.

USS Callister

As Brooker confirmed, there is a sequel to season 4’s standout episode that started as a look at a frustrated game developer creating sentient clones of his co-workers in his multiplayer game, “Infinity.” Jesse Plemon starred as Callister Inc. CTO Robert Daly, the creator of the Infinity game, with CEO James Walton. His disdain for Walton and abuse of power in the virtual world take a dark turn, but the episode switches up to follow the clone of new hire Nanette Cole (Milioti) as she rebels against the game with her clone crewmembers on the virtual ship.

It’s an emotional ride that makes you rethink its character’s motivations and look at the darker side of a story that easily could’ve been the plot of a teen ’80s comedy. Instead, it’s a look at free will, the sentient nature of our creations, and how your toxic qualities are still toxic, despite you suffering poor treatment from others.

Bandersnatch

The interactive Black Mirror film arrived on Netflix in December 2018, offering one of the few successful attempts by the streamer to make interactive content. The plot follows a young programmer working on a “choose your own adventure” game based on the fictional book Bandersnatch. It’s a trippy odyssey that can see Fionn Whitehead’s Stefon discover his father’s hidden experiments on him, travel through time to meet the original Bandersnatch author, murder several people, or even watch a future where his daughter is attempting to adapt Bandersnatch as an interactive film.

Will Poulter and Asim Chaudhry are returning in Black Mirror Season 7 as Colin Ritman and Mohan Thakur, seemingly cementing certain plot points from Bandersnatch for continuity going forward. It’s not clear if this will have any continuation of the film if it’s even warranted. But it does at least look like we’ll be getting another episode dealing with video game development, combined with a healthy dose of mental illness, judging from the trailer.

Hang the DJ

The use of technology to explore our dream scenarios, relive our memories, and determine our futures is a common theme in Black Mirror. The peak for the series we’ll discuss in a bit, but there are other great examples like Season 4’s “Hang the DJ.” Frank and Amy are using a new electronic dating device called Coach, boasting a 99.8 percent success rate for people finding their lifetime partner. These matches and dates can be short, lasting minutes or hours. But others last for years until finally reaching their life-mate.

A major twist reveals creates an emotional episode with tight performances by Georgina Campbell and Joe Cole. This type of commercial tech, and the melding of humanity and technology seem to be a big part of Season 7, so this could be a good episode to set the stage.

Arkangel

Similar to “Hang the DJ,” this episode revolves around people using tech to solve the life struggles many have navigated alone in the past. In “Arkangel,” the show dives into the world of parenting and the privacy of children in a tech-filled world. Via the titular monitoring implant, a mom named Marie (Rosemarie DeWitt) can track her daughter’s activities, vital signs, and visual recordings. She can see everything her daughter sees, leaving the door open for obsessive disaster as the young girl grows up and demands more independence and privacy. By the time mother and daughter are butting heads over womanhood, things end poorly.

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San Junipero

Similar to season 5’s “Striking Vipers,” this instant classic deals with commercial tech, simulated reality, and digital immortality. It’d be difficult to ignore this episode in general, given its emotional punch and positive conclusion. It stands out and gives the series an episode that doesn’t seem to end in tragedy.

“Vipers” ends in much darker fashion than “San Junipero,” so this puts the award-winning entry ahead. But both could be necessary viewing for the upcoming season and “San Junipero” is worth it.

White Christmas

The 2014 year-end special for Black Mirror starred Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm as Matt, a former “cookie” trainer, who is chatting with “Joe” after both are left disgraced in their career and personal lives. Hamm is involved due to his involvement in a dark web group that watched others seduce women through their eye implants, ending in disaster after a murder-suicide against one of the group members. Joe, played by Rafe Spall, is at the cabin after his wife blocked him in the Z-Eyes implants they have, stopping him from communicating with her before a scheduled abortion they argued over. These stories are great and it’s a worthy episode that touches on being blocked by society and parallels with “cancel culture.”

Be Right Back

Hayley Atwell and Domhnall Gleeson hold down this Season 2 Premiere episode for the series, which follows a couple torn apart by a car accident who turn to A.I. under the influence of grief. Atwell plays Martha, who lost her boyfriend Ash (Gleeson) and uses a service that searches and aggregates her late partner’s social media to create an imitation of Ash to interact with.

Themes include the commodification of our memories, our digital footprints becoming our representatives after we’re gone from life, and the pitfalls of trying to solve humanity through tech. There’s a lot to unpack – especially if you’ve experienced loss yourself in life.

The Entire History of You

Implants, implants, implants! Toby Kebbell’s Liam and Jodie Whittaker’s Ffion play a couple on the outs due to a breach of trust. That tension is further aggravated by the “grain,” an implant that allows a person to replay their memories like their eyes were camera lenses, or cast that memory footage to a screen to display them like a PowerPoint presentation.

Relationships are difficult enough without technology injecting itself into the situation. Introducing the ability to look back at memories and forcing others to play back their memories is the type of “bad seed” that grows into real damage.

Playtest

Considering the return of “USS Callister” and characters from Bandersnatch, this gem with Wyatt Russell should be added to your re-watch list. It follows Russell’s Cooper as he tests a new augmented reality game using a device that is implanted into the back of his neck. He plays an AR version of Whac-A-Mole and tests a horror game that uses his own fears to learn and adapt, and it seems to send him on a mad scramble after the test goes awry.

The important aspect to take in here is the pitfalls of wearable tech or implants. It also reflects how our fragile bodies remain fragile no matter how advanced our tech becomes. We are still weak against our human nature.

Nosedive

The first episode of Black Mirror‘s Season 3 also acted as its introduction to Netflix after making the jump from Channel 4. “Nosedive” stands out due to hitting very “close-to-home” for viewers, and for the performance of Bryce Dallas Howard as Lacie. Seemingly taking a cue from China’s social credit system and the bulk of the world’s addiction to social media, the episode shows how a person’s social rating — picture it as an Uber star rating – can determine socioeconomic status and ability to enjoy certain aspects of daily life. Lacie is rated at 4.2 and wants to reach 4.5 so she can afford to move into a new apartment.

The world was already bad enough due to social media, with disinformation and oversharing rampant. While we’re not locked into a system where social media status dictates things like medical care or access to travel, it is at the level of undermining elections and lawmaking. Fittingly, being sentenced to life in prison is more freeing than having to live in the social rating system. Incarceration is preferred to dancing like a fool for a decimal point.

Black Mirror streams on Netflix.