Warning: Spoilers for Black Mirror Season 7, Episode 3 “Hotel Reverie” are in play.
There are always going to be opposing opinions in the world, whether the 2025 TV schedule is the battlefield or not. With an anthology series as polarizing as Netflix’s Black Mirror, those viewpoints tend to collide even more forcefully, especially when you’re talking about something like “Hotel Reverie’s” heartbreaking ending in Season 7.
After actor Issa Rae shared her feelings on what that conclusion means to her, I totally agree with her sentiment. In fact, I think she’s provided me with the ultimate argument against another Black Mirror ending that fans love to credit as being the “happiest.”
I Totally Agree With Issa Rae’s Read On ‘Hotel Reverie’s’ Bittersweet Twist
If you haven’t watched Black Mirror’s Season 7 spin on deep fakes and Casablanca, this is your last chance to jump out. Thankfully, myself and other the journalists on hand for the recent roundtable experience celebrating this Netflix subscription booster saw the episode, and used that knowledge to cut to the heart of those final moments in “Hotel Reverie.” As far as Issa Rae is concerned, she didn’t hold back when addressing CinemaBlend and more about how she sees that tear jerking finale:
To me personally, no, it’s not a happy ending. It’s sad, it’s bittersweet. Yes, you get this connection, but like for me, so much of falling in love with someone is sharing those memories together, and being able to recall when it happened … And even if they do reconnect, it’s still so isolating for Brandy, because you can’t tell your friends without sounding batshit crazy. Like, ‘You guys will never believe what happened. And yeah that’s my girl.’ That’s really sad to me, in a way.
The short short version of what happens in “Hotel Reverie’s” climax is as follows. After Hollywood star Brandy Friday (Rae) falls for a computer simulation of Dorothy Chambers (Emma Corrin) in the titular film, the ending to this Hollywood classic is altered. With Chambers’ in-universe character dying in the picture’s last reel, a new tragic ending is introduced within this Black Mirror riff on a cinematic classic.
While Brandy Friday returns to the real world, her heart is still with the representation of Emma Corrin’s tragic starlet that resides solely in the machine world. However, since this is the world that created a device as sinister but as desirable as “The Nubbin,” the white button-shaped device that threads together several of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian tales, there’s one final twist.
A copy of Dorothy’s digital model is sent to Brandy herself, allowing her to talk to Dorothy whenever she wants. Which feels happy when it first happens, but it then starts to take a darker turn if you look at it the right way – just like the ending to another Black Mirror classic.
“Hotel Reverie” Further Proves That “San Junipero” Isn’t Black Mirror’s “Happiest” Ending
Frequently considered one of the best Black Mirror episodes, Season 3’s “San Junipero” is a story I see cropping up just as often when it comes to discussing the few “happy” endings in the overall anthology. It’s true that Gugu-Mbatha Raw and Mackenzie Davis’ star-crossed lovers do technically wind up together at the end, but the method by which that takes shape is where Charlie Brooker’s dystopian tendencies color it in a different light, for me at least.
Which leads me to the final part of Issa Rae’s interpretation of the ending to “Hotel Reverie,” as I believe she hit the nail on the head when it comes to my feelings on the matter. Drawing from her previously expressed feelings above, Rae provides a caveat that paints a potentially happier picture:
I do think the beauty of it is being able to understand that the love that she felt was real, and the experience she had was real. And understanding that she has a template or the mold for the connection that she can try to find in the real world. … So I’m mixed about it. I would have to watch it again and maybe I might have a different perspective, but in feeling it, it felt happy-sad. Bittersweet.
Envisioning a scenario where Brandy Friday takes those feelings and uses them in her actual life is something that almost makes this Black Mirror story quite optimistic. Also, considering that the episode I do think has the happiest ending, Season 4’s romantic romp “Hang the DJ,” has a spiritually similar solution, I can see it happening. Meanwhile, the ending to “San Junipero” is still bittersweet, but in a totally different way.
Those final moments of “elder Kelly” (Denise Burse) letting her human form go, while arriving eternally in her forever youthful spot on TCKR System’s servers, are still absolutely chilling. It’s only made worse to watch these events play out against the tune of Brandie Carlyle’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth.”
While Kelly did get some time with Yorkie in the real world, it was to expedite her request to be euthanized – which was already a controversial point of order with her family. That’s a bittersweet ending to be sure, but one with the final message that this romance was only ever really given a chance in virtual reality.
As always, I concede that the court of public opinion may rule that I’m wrong in this scenario; and that’s part of the fun with Black Mirror. One person’s bittersweet finale is another viewer’s depressing sign that technology has truly won.
I’m sure some people out there think that “Common People’s” ending is somehow cheery; but that should be an admittedly small pool. Whatever your outlook may be, you can catch all of Season 7, as well as previous seasons, through Netflix’s streaming library. Nubbin sold separately… for now.
