Black Mirror S7E3 Recap: “Hotel Reverie” --- Not a Dry Eye in the House

The following recap contains spoilers for Black Mirror S7E3, “Hotel Reverie” (written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Haolu Wang).

Welcome, dear reader, as we continue to review the Netflix series Black Mirror with Season 7 Episode 3, “Hotel Reverie.” Now, I’m going to confess up front here that I’ve not really been following this series. I was, however, under the impression Black Mirror episodes were always bleak and depressing. This was fun and downright charming even.

The episode is a bit clunky at times, far from perfect, but it has a good heart. This is one of the rare Black Mirror episodes where the technology does not backfire on the humans and bring about a host of unforeseen horrific consequences. It’s not a cautionary tale. I dare say it is even tad hopeful about where we are headed with the technology in this case.

An eager woman with a big grin sits in a chair, hands folded on a desk in front of her, leaning forward, movie posters in the background — *So which Ryan are we calling first?*

A Maybe Meta Commentary

We start out the episode looking like it’s going to be a meta commentary on Netflix (a.k.a. Streamberry, in the Black Mirror universe) mining “vintage” IP for cheap and easy remakes. They are even playing out the oft-memed trope of replacing the “middle-aged British white guy” with a black woman who even turns out to be gay. “Brilliant,” as Kimmy (Awkwafina) declares.

There’s a lot more film industry insider experience in the initial setup. Judith Keyworth (Harriet Walter) struggling to keep her family’s studio afloat in modern times yet refusing to use the term “content.” Brandy Friday (Issa Rae) struggling to find a lead role outside of “Sundance misery porn.” Her sort of sleazy agent, and the desire of studios to land a “Ryan” for their lead roles. It’s all a little tropey as we start to settle in for what might turn out to be another Hollywood story about life in Hollywood.

Brandy stands in the hotel lobby with a slightly perplexed look on her face — *This is insane*

An Entirely Self-Sufficient Fictive Dimension

However, all that preamble gets tossed out the door once Brandy Friday arrives at the studio in England. Now we step into the Black Mirror of it all. The gee whiz tech that can “mesmerize” the actor into a fully interactive simulation with AI-driven supporting characters. Kimmy’s crew monitoring things like “narrative stress” and “romantic interest” on little screen widgets. Turns out this is basically going to be a holodeck episode of Star Trek.

For the most part, shockingly, the tech actually works and does its job. It’s the non-tech bits that get screwed up. Brandy drops the USB stick from the envelope, so she’s going in complete naïve. Kimmy has no time to explain everything because they are running late and only have the stage for two hours. More inexplicably, the entire story of Hotel Reverie hinges on the piano scene, and yet no one thought to ask Brandy if she can actually play the piano.

Kimmy's crew sits in the darkened stage at various computer workstations, a projector shines off-screen from the back — *The Redream Team*

No Liquids Near the Tech

Of course, the tech does eventually fail in classic holodeck fashion when Chekhov’s coffee cup gets knocked over and spills on a server. The “extraction routine” becomes non-responsive and can no longer just pull Brandy out. The “chronographic tempo” is also knocked out of whack, so that Dorothy and Brandy spend several months trapped in the simulation. There’s a fifty-fifty chance their star may die in there.

You could also say the tech fails when Clara (Emma Corrin) connects with the echoes of Dorothy running through the data set that she is based on. Though to be fair, that failure is also triggered by the inept actions of the humans, when Brandy she blurts out the actress’ name instead of the character’s name. While she never has any issue confusing the rest of the cast with their actors, she’s a little more invested in her costar. Was she already a little bit in love with Dorothy coming into this shoot? Hmm, could be.

Close up on Clara's face, with pitch blackness in the background — *Clara is exposed to the full data pool*

Into the Breach

Now only Brandy and Clara remain active in the simulation. All the other characters are paused, and Brady is cutoff from Kimmy’s voice in her ear. Brandy freaks out a little bit and delivers some harsh exposition to Clara. She tells Clara that she’s not real. This whole world is a movie, a kind of play in the mind of a machine. She tries to apologize later, acknowledging that she is kind of not real either, being an actress herself, like Dorothy.

The next day, Clara ventures out on her own to find a way out and instead breaches the fringe of the simulation. She gets “exposed to the full data pool,” learning about Dorothy’s life, her love, and ultimately, her death. She returns to find Brandy defiling the piano once again. She takes over at the bench, taking control of her narrative, and tells Brandy to watch and learn. The folks back at the studio even get a glimpse of her at the piano, confused by the scene not being in the script.

It turns out that Clara, Dorothy—whoever she is at this point—knows how to play “Clair de Lune.” And we proceed to get one of the best montage scenes I think I’ve ever seen. Her playing the song with Brandy coming up behind her. The tech crew scrambling back in the studio to fix things. The two living out the next couple months frolicking among their frozen compatriots. All overlaid atop of each other seamlessly. Quite impressive.

Clara and Brandy in bed, Clara staring into Brandy's eyes from her pillow in Black Mirror Hotel Reverie. — *Pillow talk*

Save State in Five, Four…

Then it comes to an end. The people on the outside are back in Brandy’s ear and they want to restore the movie to the last save state. Brandy tries to explain that Clara knows who she is, and they’ve been living out a life together. Kimmy, thinking she is reassuring her star, says not to worry, Clara won’t remember anything that happened. Too stunned to stop it, Brandy is yanked back to when Clara and Alex Palmer first kiss back in Clara’s hotel suite. Clara is dutifully back on script and Brandy can’t seem to get a “real” reaction out of her.

There’s still one plot-convenient glitch to deal with. Alex Palmer has to say her famous final line to trigger the end credits, and only then will they be able to extract Brandy out of the simulation. Brandy contemplates her own version of Dorothy Chamber’s suicide. She could just not say the line and let her actual body out there die, but her “spirit, consciousness, whatever,” would stay in the simulation with Clara forever.

Crystal stands before Kimmy and Judith with notes in her hand — *Crystal earns her story credit*

The Third Act

Even with Brandy maybe, hopefully, talked out of digital suicide, they still must get the narrative arc back on track. Rewrite in hand, they send Alex across the street to the set of a new scene: interior, police station, night. With four minutes to go before the murder attempt, Brandy pounds out the beats and backs away, telling Inspector Lavigne to “remember this face” like an opium-addled maniac.

On the rooftop, Alex Palmer arrives just in time to save Clara from being forced over the railing. Alex and Claude initially grapple for the gun, and then Claude gets his hands around her throat. Out of nowhere, shots ring out. Clara, with her newfound agency, has shot her husband and the police are on the way. It’s different, but it works. Alex can still say the last line.

However, Brandy goes even further off-script and tries to take the fall for Clara. She can’t let her go to jail forever. This time when Clara tells her she loves her, Brandy immediately responds back “And I love you.” That’s the confirmation Clara needed. Asking forgiveness, she snatches the gun away and brandishes it at the police as they arrive.

Brandy, crying, holds Clara dying in her arms — *“I’ll be yours for evermore.”*

Say the Line, Brandy

A lot of ink has been spilled in recent years over what we are going to do if and when artificial intelligence achieves consciousness. But the people who really know what they’re talking about will tell you that is not the point. In the infamous Turing Test—it doesn’t matter whether the AI is conscious or not, what matters is whether we perceive it to be conscious. With that in place, what happens next is not a test of their humanity, it’s a test of ours.

This re-integrated Clara is built on the same information that Brandy was feeding herself while researching the movie. The same YouTube clips flashed before her eyes when she stepped out into the void. She, more than Brandy, understands that she is just a construct. She saw what happened to the real Dorothy and made what little bit of an afterlife she could here with Brandy.

Ironically, she can callously shoot the police inspector on the rooftop because she understands he is no more real than she is. None of this is real. Only Brandy is real. Clara sacrifices herself to ensure Brandy leaves the simulation. She is not worth crying for. She only asks that Brandy remember her. At Kimmy’s insistent urging, Brandy finally says the line and we have an ending.

Judith Keyworth wipes a tear from her eye — *Not a dry eye in the house*

Quick Takes

A couple of quick takes on the rest of the episode and other tangentially related things:

My first introduction to Emma Corrin was when they played the lead role in Murder at the End of the World, which I reviewed in 2023. Having gone into this episode blind, I was so pleased to find them starring in this episode.
There’s a fun bit of foreshadowing as Brandy sits at home blankly watching her Roomba bump into a planter, unable to navigate the obstacle.
The courier hints for us that Brandy was forced into a studio-driven relationship with her male costar just as Dorothy was with hers.
Even if Brandy could have played the piano, there was an even more enormous assumption that she would just know how to play the song “Clair de Lune” specifically.
OK, I’m just going to say this, while I like Issa Rae well enough and I absolutely adore Emma Corrin, the two do not have the best screen chemistry together. Not for me anyway. YMMV.
The black and white portions of this episode are just gorgeous, I must say. There’s a fun clip on YouTube of the cast doing a panel at BFI where they discuss some of the technical aspects of getting that look just right, such as wearing purple lipstick.
The scenario of Brandy and Dorothy getting to live out several months of their life while outside only minutes pass reminds me so much of The Magicians episode “A Life in the Day.” I highly recommend it.
Boy, remember the uproar when Ted Turner began colorizing old back and white movies?

Brandy sits in her home looking down at a laptop off screen in front of her, smiling big — *Brandy doing her research into the part*

Best lines of the episodes:

“But try telling that to the public. I think you’ll find them…” “NFI?”
“Oh, my God, she’s doing chopsticks.”
“Dead dog confirmed. I repeat, dead dog confirmed.”
“Will I get a story credit?”
“See this banana? Not yellow.”
“Sleeping in the lobby makes you look like a hobo.”
“I love you.” “Mm-hmm.” “Mm-hmm?”
“Will it work?” “Don’t ask me. You called it ‘great.’”
“How confident are we?” “4.5.” “Out of?” “I’ll tell you later.”
“I was born in a cage. I should die in a cage.”

Dorothy Chambers sits in a plush chair holding a phone receiver to her ear with a smile on her face — *More than a chatbot girlfriend*

Conclusion

This will certainly go down as one of the lighter episodes of Black Mirror, without the usual techno-paranoia and dystopian future. Much of the tech here seems barely a year or two away. After all, we already have “artificial personas” that are serving as companions, advisors, and even therapists to humans.

And now Brandy is gifted with her own chatbot girlfriend. Brandy told her agent that she wanted something she could escape into, both for her career and her personal life, and here it is. It’s the same audition scene Brandy was watching at the beginning of the episode. In this scene, there is no Clara, she is all Dorothy. She is intrigued by person on the other end of the call. For that kind voice, she has all the time in the world.

All images courtesy of Netflix