‘Black Mirror’ season 7, episode 3 ending explained: What happens in ‘Hotel Reverie’?

Black Mirror season 7 has finally arrived on Netflix, and there’s one particular new episode of the tech-centric horror series that’s really got viewers talking.

• READ MORE: ‘Black Mirror’ season seven review: Charlie Brooker’s twisted universe at its most absorbing

Titled ‘Hotel Reverie’, episode 3 of the hit anthology series takes viewers back to the golden age of cinema – by way of an AI technology called Redream.

The episode stars Issa Ray as Brandy Friday, an A-list actress who uses the tech to live out her fantasy of starring in an old romantic classic. While going back in time, she falls in love with Dorothy Chambers (Emma Corrin), who stars in original 1940s drama as Clara.

Other cast members in the episode include Awkwafina as Redream representative Kimmy, Harriet Walter as Keyworth Pictures studio head Judith Keyworth, and Stanley Weber as Clara’s husband, Claude.

Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker has described ‘Hotel Reverie’ as “a spiritual sequel” to the fan-favourite queer episode ‘San Junipero’, and the similarities are clear to see.

But how does ‘Hotel Reverie’ end? Here’s everything you need to know about Brandy and Dorothy’s AI love affair and whether they live happily ever after.

What happens at the end of the ‘Black Mirror’ episode ‘Hotel Reverie’?

Thanks to Redream, Brandy is able to transport herself into the 1949 black-and-white film Hotel Reverie, playing a gender-swapped version of the lead character, Dr. Alex Palmer. It’s there that she’s able to live out a romantic encounter with Clara through the narrative of the film.

In the closing scenes of Hotel Reverie, Brandy stops Clara’s husband, Claude, from murdering Clara. Claude then attempts to strangle Brandy and push her off the hotel roof. Seeing this, Clara shoots and kills him, but she is promptly gunned down by the police in response.

“Don’t cry for me. Remember me,” Clara tells Brandy before dying in her arms.

Brandy then reluctantly utters the film’s final line, causing the simulation to end and returning her to the real world. The actress then wakes up on the soundstage as Kimmy and Judith greet her, both visibly affected by the movie’s new emotional ending.

The final showdown differs from the film’s original ending, which featured Claude getting arrested by the police and Dr. Alex Palmer and Clara ending up together.

Do Brandy and Clara end up together in the ‘Black Mirror’ episode ‘Hotel Reverie’?

Not quite. After the “reborn” version of the film is released, Brandy returns to her Hollywood home to discover a package on her doorstep. It contains a present from Redream: an old rotary phone.

Brandy uses the phone to contact Clara, who surprisingly answers. And despite not knowing who Brandy is, Clara romantically tells her she’s “got all the time in the world” to talk.

In a glowing five-star review of Black Mirror season 7, NME wrote: “Brooker’s sharp-eyed intelligence and eerily prophetic lens on society is also very much in tune. It’s not all about the twists either. These news episodes, especially the cine-literate ‘Hotel Reverie’, merit a second viewing – but that is par for the course in the Brooker-verse. As they say in the final episode, “a tiger cannot change its stripes”.

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