Note: This story contains spoilers from “Black Mirror” Season 7, Episode 6: “USS Callister: Into Infinity.”
Nearly a decade after filming “USS Callister” for “Black Mirror” Season 4, creator Charlie Brooker reunited the cast and crew — including stars Cristin Milioti and Jimmi Simpson and director Toby Haynes — for a sequel episode, titled “USS Callister: Into Infinity.”
“It was like it was only six months since the last one — that’s what happens in the story — but it was like nine years,” Simpson told TheWrap, while Milioti noted returning to the same characters and sets felt like a “head trip.”
“In our dynamics as the cast and crew, it felt like we were right back, even though I hadn’t seen some people since we wrapped seven years before; it felt like we clipped right back into place together,” Milioti said.
“The casts’ schedule [and] availability, getting Toby back, was a gargantuan task,” Brooker told TheWrap, adding that “it was a real challenge getting the all the narrative plates spinning again.”
Though the original “USS Callister” episode left off with the crew breaking free of Captain Robert Daly’s (Jesse Plemons) private universe to enter into the full “Infinity” multiplayer game, “USS Callister: Into Infinity” picks up with Milioti’s Nanette leading the charge on navigating the dangers of their new surroundings, including attacks from other players and a lack of resources — a realization that Milioti imagines hit the crew “pretty quickly.”
“I would imagine that pretty fast they realize that this is not good and that they can die,” Milioti said. “This is a whole new set of rules once they enter this game.”
After real-life Nanette sees footage of her clone while investigating reports of illegal “Infinity” players, she and Walton (Simpson) enter the game and come face-to-face with, well, themselves — or more accurately their clones, who bring the real Nanette and Walton back on board the Callister. Nanette is determined to figure out a solution, but Walton turns on the clones — hoping to erase their existence since they’re “illegal” — and kills Billy Magnussen’s Karl Plowman.
With Walton only caring about avoiding legal implications in the situation rather than the real-world ethics, Simpson noted he took inspiration from “a couple of read-world billionaire tech CEOs that are making big moves to satisfy their ego and selfishness without making any time to consider how it will affect the rest of humanity,” namely, Elon Musk.
“I think that’s what we’re all grappling with right now in real life, and the repercussions of that and what we’ve done,” he added.
The crew remains road-blocked on how to escape “Infinity” until Clone Walton reveals to Clone Nanette that, well before the game was launched, real-life Walton used illegal cloning technology to clone Daly to live in the heart of Infinity so that he could keep expanding the game’s universe. While Clone Walton understands the gravity of imprisoning Daly with illegal technology, Simpson is sure the real Walton didn’t stay up at night full of guilt.
“That’s the thing with men in power making thoughtless decisions, they’re not thoughtful people, so they’re not up at night going, ‘that was kind of sh—ty,’” Simpson said, adding that Walton is “knocked back down to Earth” when he is cloned. “I love that Clone Walton, has moved a lot laterally and upwardly regarding his take on what it means to be a member of humanity, as opposed to running it.”
With that discovery Clone Nanette decides to enter into the heart of Infinity to make her case to Clone Daly to create a world that’s separate from the game for the crew to peacefully inhabit, prompting her to encounter Plemons’ Daly in a surprise return.
“She’s face to face with the person who’s fully and completely ruined her life, and it’s a version of him that might have goodness inside and seemingly does, but, similar to the first one, [has been] driven mad by loneliness,” Milioti said. “His behavior is inexcusable, even if you understand or attempt to understand where it comes from.”
While in the heart of Infinity, Clone Daly mentions he could place Clone Nanette’s consciousness into her real-life comatose body and save the rest of the crew, but mentions he would want to keep a clone of Nanette to keep him company, to which Nanette objects, leading to Daly attacking Nanette. Nanette eventually kills Clone Daly, activating a kill switch that deletes the entirety of “Infinity.” And by the time Nanette wakes up again, she’s in her real-life body in the hospital, but quickly realizes the USS Callister crew is now living within her head.
The ending is a significant departure from what Brooker initially had in mind for the sequel, which would have seen a “Wizard of Oz”-esque goodbye sequence for the crew. But it was Haynes who pitched the idea of the crew now living in Nanette’s head — an idea Brooker was initially hesitant to embrace.
“I was like, ‘But we’ve done that … We can’t do that again.’ And he was like, ‘Why can’t we? That makes it more ‘Black Mirror,’ ” Brooker recalled of his conversation with Haynes. “I, ultimately, annoyingly, had to concede he was right, because it’s a much more ‘Black Mirror’ ending to leave them in this — it’s the coach hanging over the edge of the cliff from ‘The Italian Job.’ It’s like they’re better off than they were, or are they type situation. It felt darkly comic.”
For Simpson, had the crew all found freedom at the end, it wouldn’t have rung “truthful,” and getting them out of immediate danger felt “satisfying.” “Like so many of life’s decisions, we’re thrust into a new situation that we didn’t exactly plan before,” Simpson said. “This makes very poetic sense, that this is their next step.”
While Milioti admits it’s a “horrifying” existence, she said Nanette isn’t “too eager” to find another solution to get the crew out of her head.
“I wonder if — it’s open to interpretation — she doesn’t want to let go of the power she has in that dynamic, and also she would be lonely as well,” Milioti said. “They’re the only people in the world that understand what she’s been through and … she might not be ready to fully give that up.”
“Technology can kind of make us immortal, but ultimately, it’s these real-life connections that make everything make sense,” Simpson said of the ending. “You’re just adrift in space or online or whatever you are, until you’re actually connecting with other humans.”
With the characters trapped in a new, twisted situation, Brooker isn’t closing the door on revisiting the USS Callister in another follow-up episode, saying “maybe we could try again, so never say never.”
Simpson said he would be all in on returning to “Black Mirror,” while Milioti said “it depends … on what the idea it is, and what Charlie would want to do.” “It’s a great group — you could dig into all the different dynamics there for a long time,” Milioti said.
“Black Mirror” Season 7 is now streaming on Netflix.
