Warning: This post contains spoilers for Episode 6 of Black Mirror Season 7.
When we last saw the crew of the USS Callister, they had finally managed to escape the clutches of their sadistic commander, Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons), by slipping through a wormhole in space that transported them to another dimension. Their new leader, Nanette Cole (Cristin Milioti), then assumed her rightful place in the captain’s chair and the ship sped off into hyperwarp.
Of course, all of this was happening inside the massively multiplayer online game Infinity while the real-world counterparts of the Callister crew were going about their daily lives working at the company behind the game, Callister Inc. Only head Infinity programmer Daly, who had created a modified offline build of the space-set virtual reality program in which he was torturing sentient clones of his coworkers, was aware of their digital avatars’ existence. This twist was the crux of the original Emmy-winning “USS Callister” episode of Black Mirror, which premiered to rave reviews in 2017 as the opener of the series’ fourth season.
Now, the Callister crew is back for a feature-length sequel that offers a satisfying conclusion to Season 7 of creator Charlie Brooker’s darkly satirical sci-fi anthology series. Titled “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” the episode picks up with Nanette and her remaining colleagues—Nate (Osy Ikhile), Kabir (Paul G. Raymond), Elena (Milanka Brooks), and Karl (Billy Magnussen)—struggling to survive within the wider game of Infinity months after leaving Daly to die in his now-deleted private universe (a development that also led to his death in the real world). The gamertag-less Callister crew has resorted to stealing credits from Infinity players in order to afford supplies that have been monetized and price-jacked by Callister Inc. CEO James Walton (Jimmi Simpson) to increase company profits. However, unlike normal players, the clones can actually be injured and killed. Their scavenging exploits have also led to complaints of anonymous bandits within the game and a New York Times reporter beginning to suspect the truth about Daly’s use of illegal cloning technology.
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Knowing they can’t go on like this forever, the crew comes up with a plan to create their own private build by accessing the game’s source code within the so-called “Heart of Infinity,” an engine at the center of the universe that keeps the whole thing running. However, out in the real world, original Nanette has put the pieces of the puzzle together to figure out the rogue players are actually likenesses of herself and her coworkers, including Walton (whose clone is revealed to have respawned within Infinity after he sacrificed himself to save his friends at the end of the first episode). She shares this information with Walton and the two decide to enter the game to see what’s going on for themselves. Only, Nanette is unaware Walton has an ulterior motive.
We learn that after Walton recruited a then-seemingly good-natured Daly to develop Infinity out of his garage 12 years earlier, the two ended up using the aforementioned cloning technology to upload a version of Daly into the game who could spend eternity expanding the its universe from inside the core. Walton therefore wants to kill the clones to keep from being exposed for his illegal practices and getting thrown in jail. After discovering his true intentions, Nanette plans to stop Walton but is hit by a car and left in a coma.
Walton reenters the game and manages to alert all the players the Callister crew robbed to the location of their ship just as clone Nanette makes her way into the Heart of Infinity to confront Daly. He puts her through a little morality test that she passes and then offers to both upload her consciousness into the mind of her now-brain-dead real-world counterpart and copy and paste her crew into a new universe—that is, as long as this version of her agrees to stay with him for eternity. It’s a moment that touches on the sinister logic behind “nice guy syndrome” just as the first episode explored themes of toxic masculinity and male entitlement.
In the end, clone Nanette manages to defeat Daly once more, merge her two consciousnesses, and seemingly save her crew all before the entirety of Infinity is deleted as a result of clone Daly’s death. However, it turns out the Callister crew were instead also uploaded into real-world Nanette’s head and now see everything that she’s seeing through the ship’s front window of her eyes. It’s a worthy and very Black Mirror-esque final twist to the saga, but also one that leaves the story open to another sequel, according to Brooker.
“It does mean there’s still unfinished business potentially. We’ll see,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “Never say never!”
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