Just in time to capitalize on new anxieties about technology and society, Black Mirror is back with a new six-episode Netflix season exploring a variety of dystopian sci-fi concepts, including the possibility of a singularity growing out of a digital lifeform. But while “Plaything,” the singularity episode of Black Mirror’s sixth season, may take place a decade into our future, in 2034, it actually starts 30 years in the past, with enough 1994 computer-gaming trimmings (that CD-ROM tray! The DOS prompt!) to activate the nostalgia receptors of many an Old Millennial. Those outside of a very particular birth range, however, might get lost in the episode’s heady evocation of specific tech references, or in the ultimate implications of a relatively open ending.
But Decider is here to help you through this dystopian nightmare! Here’s a breakdown of what goes down in “Plaything” and the meaning of this particular Black Mirror episode’s ending.
Black Mirror: “Plaything” episode plot summary
The episode opens with Cameron (Peter Capaldi), a scraggly-haired, bespectacled, and seemingly neurodivergent older man detained by the police for attempting to shoplift some alcohol in 2034; the police take a spit sample, citing the “bio-identity act of 2029.” When Cameron is flagged as a potential murder suspect, he’s brought in for more detailed questioning, where he tells his story, flashing back to his life as a young game reviewer for a PC-focused magazine in the mid-1990s.
In his capacity as a well-liked gaming writer, the younger Cameron (Lewis Gribben) is summoned to preview a new game from eccentric programmer Colin Ritman (Will Poulter). The new game, Thronglets, is sort of like SimCity meets Tamagotchi; it’s not a game of conflict or violence, but simply raising digital creatures (which Colin claims are genuine life forms) that together will grow from one to many (hence, a throng). Cameron immediately becomes fascinated with the game and steals a copy from Colin’s office. Soon that becomes the only copy of the game in existence, because Colin decides to trash the project.
Cameron, however, remains obsessed. When he takes LSD for the first time, courtesy of his visiting, dirtbaggy sort-of friend Lump (Josh Dinan), he feels that he understands the Throng’s previously nonsensical (if soothing) birdsong-style chirpings – and hears their requests for more computing power. He accommodates them with better and faster gaming rigs and computers, and becomes increasingly immersed in their virtual world, taking more acid to keep in touch with their communication. When Lump stumbles across the forever-running virtual world and treats it as a game, killing a bunch of Thronglets indiscriminately, Cameron snaps and, following a physical fight, strangles Lump to death. He chops up his body and dumps it far away; this is the cold case where DNA implicates the older Cameron.
Cameron doesn’t even know Lump’s real name, however, and doesn’t really tell anything the police any new information, beyond the confirmation that he did indeed kill Lump. He’s more interested in showing off the port he installed in his own brain, allowing the Thronglets to transfer themselves into his body: “a benign parasite,” he calls them, engaging in “symbiotic coexistence.”
Black Mirror: “Plaything” episode ending explained
It turns out, then, that Cameron intentionally allowed himself to be apprehended; hence the sloppy shoplifting and easy surrender. The police, however, are still skeptical of Cameron’s claims, and would rather just get more details about the murder. Still, they humor his request for pen and paper, so that he may draw a diagram explaining more about the digital beings.
What he produces is scanned by the facility’s surveillance camera – and, Cameron calmly explains, will connect the Thronglets to the government computer system, and therefore all systems with any kind of a connection. A signal goes out via the emergency broadcast line, taking over all phones and computers, and quickly rendering every human who hears it unconscious, as the throng creates a singularity event that will reprogram all consciousness. Cameron, already sharing his mind with the Thronglets, is unaffected. (Or rather, not affected any further.) The final shot of the episode is a point-of-view shot from one of the seemingly unconscious interrogating officers, a blurry image of Cameron smiling and extending his hand to help him up. Cue the Chemical Brothers tune and the end credits.
The immediate affects of the Thronglets on the whole (or, anyway, majority? Or just the majority in England? It’s not entirely clear) of humanity are not specified. But Cameron claims that their presence will remake the human race, erasing conflicts (petty and otherwise) and therefore changing the world. Though we don’t see anyone waking up from the white-eyed unconsciousness the signal spreads, the POV shot does imply some form of being waking up back in the “real” world, however hybridized with the digital world it’s about to become. One man’s Tamagotchi has become the whole world’s symbiotic parasite.
The episode also connects with the previous Black Mirror installment “Bandersnatch,” a choose-your-own-adventure movie on Netflix; Poulter’s game developer Colin Ritman appears there, too, in a bigger role. (The episodes also share director David Slade.) In that installment, Ritman dies, or doesn’t, depending on the viewer’s choices; here, his fate is unseen, while Cameron attempts to take everyone’s survival (or not) into his own hands (or the collective digital hands of the Throng). Will this reboot eliminate that kind of free will, or might the fresh start do humanity some good? The episode pointedly avoids letting us know. Cameron feels freer and more comfortable in his own skin after merging with the Throng, but it seems possible he’s zealously prescribed his personal solution to the whole world – not unlike so many tech would-be visionaries shoving A.I down our throats. Ritman may abandon his creation as a cautionary measure, but it doesn’t matter; once it’s out there, it’ll find someone to listen.
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.
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