"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.
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 journalist Cooper meets in London.
Video Playtest (Black Mirror)
Plot
As Cooper (Wyatt Russell) leaves his home to travel the world, he keeps ignoring his mother's phone calls, feeling unable to connect to her following his father's death due to early-onset Alzheimer's. In London, Cooper meets and has sex 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. While the bank sorts out his funds, he returns to Sonja's and shows her Oddjobs, an app which lists short-term jobs; he sees one nearby related to a successful video game company, SaitoGemu, known for their horror games. When he gets confirmed, Sonja urges him to get a photograph of any of their games' technology, hoping to land a scoop.
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 implants a "mushroom", a miniature computer, into the back of his neck. During the initialization process Cooper's mother calls, but Katie cancels the call. Cooper plays a game of Whac-a-Mole, using the mushroom's augmented reality technology that alters Cooper's senses. With the test successful, Cooper 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 through the mushroom implant, 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. Cooper fights Sonja and manages to kill her, but not before he rips the skin off her face. Cooper, after experiencing mental and physical pain, suddenly notices that the knife and the wound have disappeared, as has 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 based on his fear of ending up like his senile father. Desperately, he removes the earpiece, but he still hears her voice. He then smashes the mirror and attempts to remove the mushroom 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, rendering him to a childlike state.
Cooper wakes up, back in the room where Katie and Shou started the experiment; according to Katie and Shou, only one 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, and they remove the mushroom safely. Cooper returns home to his mother, but she does not recognize him and starts dialing his number on her phone. Cooper wakes up again, and it is then revealed that he has been in the white room all along, and that all events subsequent to the initial test are part of the "playtest", including him waking up in Shou's office. Due to Cooper's phone ringing during the upload, the game was interfered with and Cooper dies in the white room after a 0.04-second test, shouting for his mother in his final moments.
Maps Playtest (Black Mirror)
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 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".
Cultural references
The episode contains a number of video game-related references, as both Brooker and Trachtenberg were former video game journalists before becoming names in the television and film industries.
The video gaming magazine Edge helped Brooker to create a number of fictional covers of their magazine for the episode. Trachtenberg included several of his favorite video games as props on a shelf in Sonja's room. When Cooper is told to enter a room with the access point by Katie, she tells him "Would you kindly open the door?" The "would you kindly" is a phrase from BioShock, used by the antagonist to facilitate mind control of the player-character. According to Brooker, Trachtenberg insisted on including this reference within the episode. Cooper's last name is revealed to be Redfield, which Brooker used as a nod to the characters of Chris & Claire Redfield from the Resident Evil franchise.
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".
References
External links
- "Playtest" on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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