The Most Mind-Blowing Easter Eggs From ‘Black Mirror’ Season 7

For the first half of Black Mirror’s run, it seemed likely but not definite that its episodes existed in a shared universe.

Then creator Charlie Brooker declared in a Season 4 featurette that the whole series was connected, and all hell broke loose. Fans rushed to find Easter eggs throughout the Black Mirror Extended Universe, discovering previously hidden connections and discussing the subsequent implications with glee. With Season 7, Brooker has clearly accepted that this is a compelling aspect of his show and has sprinkled more Easter eggs throughout the season than ever before. Let’s break some of them down.

“Common People”

The first episode of Season 7 unfurls a formidable web of callbacks, nudging in references to Season 3’s “San Junipero” and even Season 7’s “Hotel Reverie.” (A movie theater is advertising Brandy’s movie.) However, the episode’s real power move comes when Amanda gives her students a lesson on the robotic bees weaponized in “Hated in the Nation,” indicating that those little demon bees exist in the Mirrorverse. Then Amanda’s mind suddenly goes Spotify Basic and she unleashes an ad about the honey candy HoneyNugs, which viewers may notice is manufactured by the company Ditta. That’s where Maria works in “Bête Noire,” the very next episode. Maybe she invented HoneyNugs before becoming Queen of the Universe!

“Bête Noire”

Popeyes doesn’t exist in the Mirrorverse for copyright reasons, so Mirrorverse inhabitants are forced to eat at Barnie’s Chicken. Maria memorably misspells the company’s name in “Bête Noire,” but it’s also where the doomed Kenny from “Shut Up and Dance” worked before being Black Mirrored, i.e., having his life fall apart. Meanwhile, Verity’s LinkedIn page lists WayHaven Travel, which was also seen in “Shut Up and Dance.” Why does this episode have so many connections to “Shut Up and Dance” that are predicated on where characters have worked? Is it because “Bête Noire,” like “Shut Up and Dance,” is about a character being manipulated by a malevolent force? Or does Charlie Brooker have a room in his house covered with printed out fake LinkedIn profiles of every character he has ever created?

“Hotel Reverie”

Season 7’s worst episode (fight me) shows the employees in Awkwafina’s studio using computers manufactured by TKCR. That’s Tuckersoft, the same company behind the technology in “San Junipero,” “Playtest,” “Bandersnatch,” and “White Bear.” So is this company good or bad or what? In some episodes they’re restoring our faith in humanity while in others they’re making babies cry. They could be the new Dharma Initiative. In any case, one of Awkwafina’s co-workers is also wearing a Space Fleet T-shirt. You know, the Space Fleet from USS Callister, which is now canonically a real show!

“Plaything”

This episode’s most obvious bid for Mirrorverse domination is that it partly takes place at the Tuckersoft office where the interactive Mirrorverse movie Bandersnatch was set. As a bonus, Colin Ritman (Will Poulter) and Stefan’s old boss (Asim Chaudhry) show up despite this being ten years after the events of Bandersnatch, indicating that they and Stefan (Fionn Whitehead) have survived. Charlie Brooker has gone on record saying that this is merely one of many alternate universes that were created when players interacted with Bandersnatch and generated multiple endings. That is, just like in “Bête Noire,” there could easily be universes in which all of these characters are still dead.

“USS Callister: Into Infinity”

Besides being an obvious sequel, “Into Infinity” also canonizes Miley Cyrus’s Ashley O from “Rachel, Jack, and Ashley Too.” One of the gamers in the episode has a banner of her. However, the real Gagatina Boots of “Into Infinity” comes at the end of the episode. As Nanette (Cristin Milioti) watches Walton (Jimmi Simpson) getting carted off by the FBI, a news ticker at the bottom of her TV announces the release of Hotel Reverie on Streamberry, the debut of the video game Thronglets 2, and the resignation of the Chief Technology Officer of RiverMind (the morally bankrupt brain-hijacking company featured in “Common People.”) As a cherry on top, it also announces that Michael Callow, the pig-screwing Prime Minister in “The National Anthem,” has matriculated into a vet school. Seems like his interviewer may have missed something! However, if Thronglets 2 is coming out, then it won’t be long before everyone on Planet Earth becomes a non-violent vegetable, so Callow probably won’t have time for a casual pork in the office anyway.

So, there you have it … Every episode of Black Mirror is connected, all of its plot points are canon, and no one is safe, ever. As for how it’s even possible from a metaphysical perspective that all of the events from Black Mirror can exist at the same time, I’ll leave that up to some other poor writer to figure out. For now, I’ll just sit back and relax and wait for the Thronglets to hijack my brain so that I can be freed from the political reality of 2025.