Black Mirror Season 7 positions the stunning "Hotel Reverie" as the spiritual successor to Season 3's "San Junipero," with both episodes featuring queer love stories that play out in simulations of different eras.
The 1980s-themed "San Junipero" sees sparks fly between Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis), two elderly women who are able to live as their younger selves again in the titular simulated beach resort town.
Meanwhile, "Hotel Reverie" takes its cues from classic Hollywood romances, sending actor Brandy Friday into a simulated remake of the film Hotel Reverie. There, she falls for an AI construct of the film's main character, heiress Clara Ryce-Lechere (Emma Corrin). Due to Brandy's presence and some technical mishaps, Clara learns that she isn't real, and that she was played by the troubled, closeted actor Dorothy Chambers. The realization emboldens her to chase her own happiness, and she and Brandy go on to have their own classic romance. Unfortunately, it's cut short by tragedy. First, the simulation resets to a moment before Clara's discoveries; then, Clara is shot by police in a deviation from Hotel Reverie's original final scene.
Still, "Hotel Reverie" tries to fashion a "San Junipero"-style happy ending in its last moments. Brandy receives a package from Redream, the people behind the Hotel Reverie remake. Inside is a drive containing a simulation of one of Dorothy's old screen tests, during which she comments that she foolishly keeps waiting for the prop phone to ring. But ring it does thanks to the other part of Brandy's package: a phone that can call this construct of Dorothy. The two begin a new conversation as the episode ends, their reconnection clearly meant to be a hopeful, if bittersweet, nod to the love Brandy and Clara shared.
But as soft piano music closed out my first viewing of "Hotel Reverie," my reaction was not one of hope, but of worry. Because as much as Black Mirror plays this ending as a happy one (and by Black Mirror standards, I guess it is), it's actually far from it.
"Hotel Reverie"s ending is haunting, not happy.
The AI construct of Clara whom Brandy meets in Hotel Reverie finds self-awareness over the course of the episode. Even after being reset, she still recalls a major turning point in her journey: Brandy mistakenly calling her Dorothy. That moment is enough to send Clara down her own path with her own agency, even if it ends in death.
But the Dorothy construct Brandy receives isn't the same one she fell in love with, nor does she have the same agency that Clara did. Yes, Brandy could tell her the true nature of their connection over the phone, but what would happen next? Clara would realize she's trapped. And with Brandy unable to enter the simulation beyond the phone, there's simply no way for them to exist in the same reality again.
It's a fact that's both heartbreaking and sinister. Dorothy is presumably confined to the screen test room, as Redream likely wouldn't create an entire (and expensive) simulated world for her to inhabit. Meanwhile, Brandy can continue to exist in the real world and go about her day-to-day life. Yet with her loved one confined to a simulation and always just out of reach, how long until she loses hope? (One could even liken the human-AI disconnect to Season 2's downright depressing "Be Right Back.") The arrangement is enough to drive either mad.
Compare this skewed final power dynamic to "San Junipero," which ends with Kelly and Yorkie as equals in death in the simulation, their consciousnesses plugged in next to each other. By contrast, one half of the Brandy-Dorothy pairing will always be in a simulation, and therefore at a disadvantage.
Dorothy tells Brandy over the phone that she has "all the time in the world" to talk to her, but she doesn't realize just how true that is. Her entire world is this phone call; she exists only to be called and spoken to. In an attempt at a romantic gesture, Redream has instead commodified Brandy and Clara's love (not unlike what they did with Hotel Reverie Reborn) and turned Dorothy into what is essentially a conversation bot.
Elsewhere, Brandy laments being put in a box at the start of the episode, but that's ultimately just what Redream has done to Dorothy. To paraphrase Hotel Reverie's iconic final line, they've shipped her off to be Brandy's forevermore — and that's a haunting thought.
