Episode no. Series 3
Episode 2 Written by Charlie Brooker | Directed by Dan Trachtenberg Running time 57 minutes | |
Original air date 21 October 2016 (2016-10-21) | ||
"Playtest" is the second episode of the third series of British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. Written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Dan Trachtenberg, it premiered on Netflix on 21 October 2016, together with the rest of series three.
Contents
The episode tells the story of Cooper (Wyatt Russell), an American stuck in London during his travels around the world, who accepts a one-time job offer from a video game company, SaitoGemu, to be able to afford his return to America. Hannah John-Kamen co-stars as a girl Cooper meets in London.
Plot
As Cooper (Wyatt Russell) leaves his home to travel the world, he keeps ignoring his mother's calls, feeling unable to connect to her following his father having developed Alzheimer's and dying. In London, Cooper meets and spends the night with Sonja (Hannah John-Kamen), a tech journalist. The next day, he learns his credit card number has been stolen, and he is left without money for a return trip. He returns to Sonja's and shows her Oddjobs, an app which lists jobs; he sees one nearby related to a video game company, SaitoGemu.
At the company, Cooper is guided by Katie (Wunmi Mosaku) to a white room to test a new technology. Despite her telling him to turn his phone off for security reasons, he switches it back on when Katie leaves, to send Sonja a picture of the technology. When Katie returns, she injects a miniature device into the back of his head. During the initialization process Cooper's mother calls, but Katie cancels the call. Cooper plays a game of Whack-a-Mole, using the chip's 3D graphics technology, and then is invited to participate in a beta test of another technology. Katie introduces Cooper to the company owner, Shou (Ken Yamamura), who presents the technology, which probes his brain for information on things that scare him. Katie then takes Cooper to a mansion, leaving him alone with just an earpiece with which to communicate with her. After enduring a few small jumpscares interspersed with nervous conversation with Katie, Cooper finds his earpiece malfunctioning.
Sonja shows up at the house unexpectedly and tries to convince Cooper that the game is dangerous. He initially thinks she is another hologram, but soon she stabs him with a knife as he runs away from a mutant spider. Cooper kills her, and, after Cooper experiences some pain, the knife and the wound disappear, as does Sonja. Katie resumes talking in Cooper's earpiece, telling him he needs to go to the "access point", as he wants the test to stop. He does as ordered, but Katie then reveals that there is no access point. She then starts asking him basic questions, and he realizes he is losing his memories. Desperately, he removes the earpiece, but he still hears her voice. He then smashes the mirror and attempts to remove the miniature device with a piece of glass. At this point, Katie and Shou appear, saying the technology has gone too far into his brain and cannot be shut off.
Cooper wakes up, back in the room where Katie and Shou started the experiment; according to Katie and Shou, only 1 second had passed since the experiment began. Shou apologizes for the terror he caused Cooper, saying the game was not designed to go that far. Cooper returns home to his mother, but she does not recognize him and starts dialing his number in her phone. It is then revealed that Cooper died in the white room because of his phone interference after a 0.04-second experiment, and that he called out "Mom" as he died.
Production
Hannah John-Kamen appears in this episode as Sonja, after appearing briefly, in an unrelated role, in the series one episode "Fifteen Million Merits". In an interview in October 2016, Charlie Brooker revealed that they were initially going to have the song John-Kamen's character sang in "Fifteen Million Merits" playing on the radio in the background in the episode but were unable to due to a licensing issue.
The extra twist at the end of the episode was not in the original treatment, but Brooker decided to add it after conversations with Trachtenberg. He also admitted that the extra twist was partly inspired by Mallory Ortberg, who wrote in an article: "Next on Black Mirror: What if phones, but too much?". Trachtenberg also revealed that the casting of Wyatt Russell as Cooper led to the character's rudeness being toned down so that the audience is "rooting for him to learn a lesson". Moreover, Brooker revealed that the episode had many video game easter eggs, including BioShock, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Resident Evil references.
Critical reception
Adam Chitwood of Collider described the episode as one of the major highlights of the season in a "genuinely terrifying video game-centric episode".