Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for Black Mirror S7E6, “USS Callister: Into Infinity” (written by Charlie Brooker & Bisha K. Ali & William Bridges & Bekka Bowling and directed by Toby Haynes)
The setup for “USS Callister: Into Infinity” is about what one would have expected from a sequel to “USS Callister.” The digital clones we got to know in the original episode may have escaped the grasp of Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons), but they now find themselves in the broader Infinity game, where they are very much mortal.
Brief exposition informs us that Shania has been killed, which may be a workaround for the fact that Michaela Coel is not back for this episode, but it also serves to make clear the stakes of the scenario our digital friends find themselves in. Besides the threat of death, they need credits in order to operate within the game world (maintain their ship, etc.), and this has led them to robbing game players of their credits just to be able to get by.
In the real world, these players have been lodging complaints against the Callister company, not just because they have been robbed (it’s unclear whether that is against the rules of Infinity) but because those who did so do not have player tags, and that’s definitely not allowed. According to Kabir (Paul G. Raymond), it shouldn’t even be possible.
But when Kabir tries to bring the issue to the attention of James Walton (Jimmi Simpson), the latter is preparing for an interview with Kris El Masry (Bilal Hasna), a reporter from the New York Times, and he dismisses Kabir’s concerns out of hand. That leads Kabir to quit.
Unfortunately for Walton, he soon wants Kabir’s help, as his interview isn’t some kind of fluff piece to promote Infinity but rather an interrogation about what Bob Daly was up to. Did he use illegal tech to digitally clone people and insert them into the game? Does that explain the bandits?
We know the answer is yes, but Walton actually doesn’t until Nanette (Cristin Milioti) discovers the truth and shares it with him. The two then proceed to get Daly’s computer out of a box so that they can enter the game and find the digital clones of themselves, and we learn that Walton has never played Infinity. He actually has no understanding of how it works.
Meanwhile, within the game, Nanette et al. land on a plan to create a new bubble universe that they could cut and paste themselves into in order to escape the perilous circumstances they find themselves in. But it turns out the only way to do that is to access the source code, aka Heart of Infinity, and that requires permission from either Daly or Walton.
They had thought that the digital clone of Walton was dead, until Karl (Billy Magnussen) mentions that he has an empty room on the ship, which leads Nanette to surmise that Walton must have respawned on a planet when they passed through the wormhole. They track down the planet, as the Walton and Nanette IRL do the same.
Digital Nanette finds digital Walton in a savage state, and he introduces her to his friend Rocky. It’s a rock with a face drawn on it, and for some reason there is a hole in the back…
Anyway, the IRL versions of Walton and Nanette show up as players and it becomes clear that Walton intends to kill the digital clones because they are illegal and represent a threat to his company. Nanette is opposed to that idea and seems to be winning the argument until Walton goes rogue, grabs a gun and kills digital Karl.
When he’s killed in retaliation, Walton is booted from Infinity and he doesn’t know how to get back in even though it is not hard. Regardless, Nanette exits as well to stop him from re-entering. She steals his nubbin and storms out of the building as the two argue. Then she gets hit by a car and ends up in a coma.
Walton calls Kabir in the middle of the night and offers him a raise in exchange for his help. He is thus able to get back into the game, but not until the digital version of Walton has informed the others about what they’ll find in the Heart of Infinity.
We flash back to when Walton and Daly met, and get some scenes of them working on Infinity in Daly’s garage. When Bob complains that there is only one of him to check the details of everything he creates, Walton gets the idea to deploy the very illegal digital DNA cloning device that he’d previously bankrolled in order to create a digital Bob who could work around the clock. This is what lies within the Heart of Infinity: a digital clone of Robert Daly who does nothing but code the game.
Digital Nanette goes to ask this copy of Bob for help. Meanwhile, IRL Walton re-enters the game and invites everyone the crew has ever robbed to their location. He then exits to sit back and watch them die.
Thus, the climax of “USS Callister: Into Infinity” involves players descending on the ship to destroy it, while Nanette talks to digital Daly. Once she’s informed him of what the IRL version of himself has done (and that he’s dead), Robert expresses surprise at the idea that he’d behave that way. He’s a nice guy, so it’s hard for him to believe that he could have become so cruel and abusive.
If anything justifies the existence of this sequel episode, it lies within these scenes. Robert is meek and socially awkward. We can again feel some sympathy for this version of this character who has not yet done the terrible things the IRL version of him would go on to do. He offers Nanette a choice between saving the crew of the USS Callister as a whole and transplanting her consciousness into the flesh and blood version of herself, who is never going to wake up from her coma otherwise, but it turns out this was just a test. It’s like an episode of Space Fleet! We can do both!
There is something almost a smidge adorable about Bob’s ruse, even as it’s pretty messed up given the circumstances, but that’s quickly lost as it becomes clear that he intends to copy and paste the digital clones instead of doing a cut and paste as Nanette requested. This will mean that the crew on the ship will die (though they’ve been copied) and that digital Nanette will stay right where she is with Bob (though she’ll also have been copied into her IRL body’s brain).
He insists that he’s not going to do anything weird. He just wants company. But, as Nanette protests, we see how easy it is for Daly’s switch to flip. He takes her mouth away, in parallel with what Captain Daly did to Nanette in the original episode, and it’s clear that when he can exert power over others, he can’t help but abuse it.
No sympathy remains, as when Nanette throws an ax into Daly’s skull it feels like he’s earned it.
The death of digital Bob triggers a kill switch and Infinity begins to be deleted. Nanette struggles to find the right floppy disk to enact the plan she and Daly had been discussing, but ultimately finds one she thinks is right and inserts it into the drive.
Meanwhile, Walton learns that Infinity has been deleted from the company servers, along with all backups. He goes on the run, but is eventually arrested, with everything that he’s done coming to light.
We learn that as Nanette watches the news. She woke up in the hospital, as planned, and the crew of the USS Callister survived in a bubble universe as intended. The wrinkle is that this universe is inside of Nanette’s mind, so they can see what she sees, etc. She’s working on that.
In the meantime, they all settle in to watch the latest episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
