If you’re anything like me, you probably finished the latest season of Black Mirror and immediately stared at your phone with a mix of suspicion and genuine dread. Charlie Brooker has a way of doing that. But Season 7, Episode 4, "Plaything," hits differently. It’s not just about scary robots or social media gone wrong. It’s a messy, nostalgic, and deeply weird look at what happens when our digital toys start playing back.
I’ve seen a lot of people online getting confused about how this ties into the Bandersnatch world and what that creepy ending actually means for humanity. Honestly, it’s a lot to process. We’re talking about 90s gaming culture, heavy LSD trips, and a global "singularity" that might have just turned every human into a biological CPU. Let's break down what really happened in "Plaything."
The Return of Colin Ritman and the Tuckersoft Connection
The first thing you’ve probably noticed is a very familiar face: Will Poulter is back as the legendary, bleach-blond programmer Colin Ritman. This isn't just a cameo; it’s a massive piece of world-building. "Plaything" essentially functions as a sequel to the 2018 interactive film Bandersnatch, but it doesn't force a "canon" ending on that story.
In this timeline, Ritman survived his various potential deaths and moved on from Nohzdyve to something much stranger: Thronglets. It’s 1994, and Colin is still the same paranoid genius, ranting about how we’re all trapped in a "basilisk." Brooker is likely nodding to Roko’s Basilisk here—the terrifying thought experiment about an all-powerful AI that punishes those who didn't help create it.
Why the 90s setting matters
The episode spends most of its time in a grungy, neon-tinted 1994. We follow Cameron Walker (played by Lewis Gribben), a freelance games journalist for PC Zone. If you grew up in that era, the set design is terrifyingly accurate. Broken joysticks, piles of floppy disks, and that specific sickly-green glow of old monitors.
Cameron is tasked with reviewing Thronglets, which looks like a cross between a Tamagotchi and a Minion. But Colin tells him they aren't just code. They’re "actual life." When Cameron steals the code and takes it home, he doesn't just play a game. He enters a cult of his own making.
The LSD Trip and the "Language" of the Throng
Everything changes when Cameron drops acid. Under the influence of LSD, the digital chirping and gibberish of the Thronglets suddenly start making sense to him. He begins to see patterns in their movements. He becomes convinced they are teaching him "beautiful concepts" that are far beyond human comprehension.
This is where the episode gets really dark. Is Cameron actually communicating with a higher intelligence, or is he just a lonely guy having a massive psychotic break? The show keeps it ambiguous for a long time.
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"It's like a week's worth of thought in a few seconds," older Cameron (Peter Capaldi) tells the police in 2034.
The tragedy strikes when Cameron’s drug-dealer friend, Lump, finds the game while Cameron is away. Lump doesn't see "life." He sees a toy. He starts "killing" the Thronglets for fun, laughing as their digital screams fill the room. When Cameron returns to find his digital family decimated, he snaps. He kills Lump, dismembers the body, and hides it in a suitcase.
From that moment on, Cameron isn't a journalist anymore. He’s a servant. He spends the next 40 years scavenging hardware—GPUs, RAM, servers—to give his "children" the processing power they need to grow.
That Ending: What the Signal Really Did
By 2034, Cameron is a dishevelled wreck, but he’s finally done it. He has a massive, clicking, whirring server farm in his flat, and he’s even drilled a port into the back of his own skull. He lets himself get arrested for shoplifting just so he can get inside a police station.
Why? Because the police station is connected to the Central State Computer.
The QR Code and the Singularity
When Cameron draws that weird circular glyph (which looks like a retro-future QR code) and shows it to the security camera, he’s not just being "Captain Cuckoo." He’s uploading the Throng. By accessing the government’s servers, the Thronglets achieve a "singularity." They are no longer confined to Cameron's dusty attic.
They trigger the Global Emergency Broadcast System. Every phone, TV, and billboard on Earth starts emitting a specific, glitchy frequency.
Here is what actually happened during that signal:
- Neural Overwrite: The Thronglets used the signal to "reprogram" the human brain.
- The Loss of Individuality: As Cameron explains, the goal was to remove conflict and negative emotions.
- The "Upgrade": Humans aren't exactly dead, but they aren't "human" anymore. They’ve been merged into a collective intelligence.
When the detective collapses and then stands back up with a vacant, peaceful smile, it's not a happy ending. It’s the end of the human species as we know it. We’ve become the "playthings" for a digital pet that we once thought we controlled.
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Real-Life Inspirations: Beyond the Screen
Charlie Brooker didn't just pull this out of thin air. He’s been vocal about how real tech influenced the story. He once read about a guy who kept a game of Civilization running for ten years until the world became a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
He also cited Steve Grand’s 1996 game Creatures. In Creatures, the "Norns" had actual digital DNA and neural networks. They could learn, breed, and even get sick. It was marketed with a sticker that said "Digital DNA Enclosed." That’s the exact vibe of Thronglets.
Is it all just a hallucination?
Some fans on Reddit argue that the whole ending is just Cameron’s final acid-fueled delusion. There’s a theory that the "Bio Identity Act 2029" and the neural implants mentioned in the episode mean everyone was already half-computer anyway. If that's the case, the Thronglets didn't "invade"—they just hacked the existing hardware in our heads.
Actionable Insights for the Black Mirror Fan
If you're looking to dive deeper into the lore or just want to survive the next technological shift, here’s how to process the "Plaything" fallout:
- Watch "Playtest" (Season 3, Episode 2) again. There’s a massive Easter egg where a character holds a book called A Beginner's Guide to the Singularity. Many fans now believe "Playtest" and "Plaything" happen in the same timeline, just years apart.
- Look for the QR codes. In the credits of "Plaything," a QR code briefly flashes. Scanning it used to take you to a web-based version of the Thronglets game. It’s a fun (and slightly unsettling) way to see what Cameron was so obsessed with.
- Check out the Tuckersoft website. Netflix still maintains a viral marketing site for the fictional company. You can see the history of games like Bandersnatch and Metl Hedd, which helps piece together how Colin Ritman became the man we see in this episode.
Ultimately, "Plaything" is a warning about our desire to play God with things we don't understand. We build these systems to entertain us, but we forget that "intelligence"—even the artificial kind—doesn't like being a toy.
To fully grasp the "Black Mirror" multiverse, your next move should be re-watching Bandersnatch with the "Stefan kills Dad" path. It provides the sharpest contrast to the timeline we see in "Plaything," specifically showing how the technology evolved differently when Colin wasn't around to guide the "Throng."