NetflixBlack Mirror Season 7 has landed, and with it comes the anticipated USS Callister sequel, Into Infinity, which features a cameo that may just solve one of the Netflix show’s biggest mysteries.
Every standalone episode of Black Mirror results in a dark twist of some sort, whether it be the reveal of a crime witness (in the form of a literal guinea pig) or the horrifying discovery that the protagonist will be trapped in a simulation for millions of years.
But when it comes to the Netflix show’s first ever “Red Mirror” episode, ‘Demon 79’, the ending was a rare happy one – and beautifully ambiguous – as Nida (Anjana Vasan) and her Boney M demon friend Gaap (Paapa Essiedu) jumped into an eternal void.
Given it involved murders, demons, and the end of the world, there’s always been speculation that the whole thing was in Nida’s head, and that Gaap didn’t exist. However, Black Mirror Season 7 changes everything. Warning: spoilers ahead!
USS Callister: Into Infinity cameos change Black Mirror’s Demon 79
NetflixIn the final battle against the USS Callister crew, both Nida and Gaap cameo as vengeful Infinity players, which not only changes the meaning of the ‘Demon 79’ ending but also confirms that the pair are real.
You see, if the events of the Black Mirror Season 6 episode were fabricated in Nida’s mind as she committed a series of murders under the instruction of Gaap, then there’s no way they’d both show up as players in the VR game.
So, this leaves us with one of two explanations. Firstly – you’re going to need to hear me out on this one – it could be that the events of ‘Demon 79’ were all part of a different VR game, and Nida and Gaap were their characters.
When they head off into the void at the end, this just means they exited the game and went back to being regular people. Then, sometime in the future, they started playing Infinity instead, hence their appearance in the USS Callister sequel.
NetflixIf true, this would also solve another mystery: why ‘Demon 79’ was presented as a “Red Mirror” episode instead of a Black Mirror one. On the surface, it was because the story didn’t feature any modern technology – a key ingredient in most of the Netflix show’s tales.
But if the entire episode was actually taking place inside a VR simulation we weren’t aware of, that would not only bring it back into Black Mirror territory, but also give the twist an extra layer of meaning – the kind the show is known for.
However, there’s a second explanation for Nida and Gaap’s USS Callister cameos: they really did enter the void, which allows them to traverse digital and physical realms at their whim, including the Infinity universe.
If this is true, then ‘Demon 79’ is a Red Mirror episode through and through. If you recall, the final sequence saw the literal end of the planet, something that hasn’t yet occurred in the Black Mirror universe (which is connected via the show’s countless Easter eggs), suggesting it exists in a separate reality.
Or, maybe none of this is real, and we’re all just trapped in one giant Black Mirror episode ourselves…
For more on Black Mirror Season 7, check out our explainers of ‘Common People’, ‘Bête Noire’, ‘Hotel Reverie’, ‘Plaything’, and ‘Eulogy’.
