Hotel Reverie ending explained as fans perplexed by Black Mirror episode
The episode is a love letter to vintage movies
WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Black Mirror Hotel Reverie
Black Mirror season seven is here with the six new episodes to binge through.
Among the episodes is Hotel Reverie, paying homage to black-and-white movies such as Brief Encounter and Casablanca.
The story boasts a stellar cast including Insecure’s Issa Rae, Succession and Killing Eve’s Dame Harriet Walter, Crazy Rich Asians’ Awkwafina and The Crown’s Emma Corrin.
Hotel Reverie deliver up a bittersweet, romantic tale and serves as a spiritual successor to San Junipero - here’s a look at how the episode ended.
Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker told Netflix’s Tudum about the conclusion to Hotel Reverie: “I knew exactly what the ending should be.
“That [Dorothy and Brandy] have this sort of long-distance romance, it felt bittersweet.”
Black Mirror Hotel Reverie ending explained
Hotel Reverie focuses on an ailing, historic film studio trying to get a new lease of life through rebooting its archival movies using new AI technology.
Keyworth Pictures’ head Judith Keyworth (played by Walter) manages to nab Hollywood A-lister Brandy Friday (Rae), who takes on the gender-swapped male lead role in the classic black-and-white movie Hotel Reverie.
Brandy plays Dr Alex Palmer in Hotel Reverie, which stars her favourite actress Dorothy Chambers (Corrin) as love interest Clara.
Brandy enters an AI generated version of the 1940s film through a programme called Redream, which requires her to wear a disc on her temple.
Inside the movie, Brandy starts to realise her love interest is more than just a “computer lady” and is a sentient being with thoughts and feelings.
Nonetheless, Brandy needs to make sure they story plays out and hit certain story beats to ensure the movie ends in the way it was intended.
They are on a tight schedule with a toilet commercial due to shoot in the studio space after them.
However, a glitch involving spilled coffee on a computer sees Brandy trapped inside the movie with Clara for several months.
During this time, Clara walks to the edge of the movie and out into the ether where she absorbs knowledge about the real-life Dorothy and becomes even more aware.
There is a mutual attraction between the pair and they fall in love with an uncertain future.
Sadly, the computer glitch is soon corrected and Dorothy is reset as Clara, forgetting her time with Brandy.
A heartbroken Brandy gets to the end of the movie and says the final line, which brings her out of the program.
The reboot of Hotel Reverie is a success but Brandy is left longing for Dorothy, who died by suicide decades earlier after a troubled life.
During the course of the episode, it transpires Dorothy was a lesbian but due to the social restrictions of her time could never be with another woman.
In the final scene, Brandy uses Redream to talk to Dorothy on the phone as she reconnected with her lost love.
Brooker added about the final scene: It’s an open question as to what will happen next, because we’ve shown that there’s the ability to go in there, and who’s to say that they’ve been limited to that?”
Black Mirror season 7 is streaming now