Plenty of TV dramas dive into twisted tales of murder, but none do it quite like Black Mirror. Killers in this sci-fi thriller anthology come in unexpected forms, like a ruthless architect on a rampage (“Crocodile”), a heartbroken ex on a holiday visit (“White Christmas”), or a swarm of electronic bees compelled by social media (“Hated in the Nation”).
Now, following up on the true crime commentary in Season 6’s “Loch Henry,” Season 7 offers “Plaything,” a story about a ranting gamer who is tied to a decades-old cold case.
While the tech on display in this episode is so advanced it might well make contemporary gamers drool or shudder, the murder at the story’s core is cryptically familiar. There are a couple of clues amid the mystery that suggest the episode’s rambling protagonist, Cameron Paul Walker (Peter Capaldi), is inspired by the late convicted killer and star of The Jinx, Robert Durst.
What is “Plaything” about?
Credit: Nick Wall / Netflix
Set in near-future London, Plaything follows the criminal investigation into reclusive gamer Cameron. In the beginning of the episode, he is played by 66-year-old Capaldi, who wears grubby clothes, glasses, and a long, ratty gray wig. His appearance as he’s dragged into a police interrogation room suggests Cameron hasn’t been caring well for himself. But he has been caring for someone… or something.
Let’s flash back to 1994, where young Cameron (Lewis Gribben), a socially awkward video game reporter for PC Zone magazine, is assigned to review the latest creation of “genius programmer” Colin Ritman (Will Poulter).
Bandersnatch fans will remember that Colin was a character in that choose-your-adventure Black Mirror holiday special, which allowed viewers to make choices for the protagonist, leading to different endings. In some of those paths, Colin seemed to die back in 1984 — and in one ending Mohan Thakur (Asim Chaudhry) does. “Plaything” is set in a timeline of Bandersnatch in which neither is dead, and Colin “went fucking gaga” (per Cameron’s boss).
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When these fellow gamers meet, Colin offers to show Cameron something that is not a video game. “There is not a single line of code in this that can be thought of as a game in the traditional sense,” he tells the reporter. Colin is looking not to create another killing game (like DOOM, the first-person shooter Cameron plays earlier in the ep). “We have to create software that elevates us, improves us as human beings,” he preaches before introducing Thronglets.
Behold: a computer screen on which a green forest is bustling with little yellow pixelated creatures. “You’re looking at the first lifeforms in history whose biology is entirely digital,” Colin explains. The point of Thronglets is to care for them, hatch them, feed them, nurture them, and they’ll replicate, even speak to you in their own language. Before long, Cameron becomes so obsessed with the Throng that he is isolated from the human world and even turns to murder.
Why does Cameron kill Lump?
Credit: Nick Wall / Netflix
In 1994, young Cameron’s understanding of the Throng grows because of “Lump,” a scruffy friend whose real name modern-day Cameron can no longer recall. Lump is a drug dealer who supplies Cameron with LSD. While tripping, Cameron not only feels less anxious but also can understand the Throng’s language. In the future timeline, he swears to interrogating officers Kano (James Nelson-Joyce) and Minter (Michele Austin) that the Throng were asking him to upgrade his computer for them. Cutaways to his current apartment reveals he’s turned the place into an electronic shrine, intended to nurture the Throng.
But back in 1994, an intoxicated Lump stumbles onto the unguarded Throng while Cameron is out. His impulse is not to nurture them but squish them with pixelated rocks and set them on fire. The Throng scream and bleed, and Lump laughs. For this, he will pay with blood — his own.
In a fit of rage (and perhaps LSD), Cameron attacks Lump after seeing his digital utopia on fire. Through a webcam, the Throng witness him beat and throttle Lump to death. From there, Cameron will get rid of the body. And for decades, he will get away with murder.
What does “Plaything” have to do with Robert Durst?
Credit: Nick Wall/Netflix
Cameron disposes of Lump’s body by dismembering it, then discarding it in the woods in a suitcase. The aggressive cop, Kano, shows Cameron a photo of the recovered corpse, and scolds, “No hands, no head, no identifying marks.”
The circumstances of this death and the disposal of the body are reminiscent of the Morris Black case, which was explored in the 2015 true crime mini-series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.
On Sept. 30, 2001, in Galveston Bay, Texas, a call came into police, reporting a man’s headless torso floating near the shore. It was wrapped in a black garbage bag. Police on the scene would recover more bags containing human limbs. The body was identified as 71-year-old local Morris Black, though his head was never recovered.
After a complicated criminal investigation explored in The Jinx and its 2024 sequel The Jinx: Part Two, it was eventually determined that Black’s reclusive neighbor Robert Durst, who was also a suspect in the 1982 disappearance of his wife, had dismembered Black’s body and disposed of it in the water. Durst would claim he didn’t kill Black, but had gotten rid of the body so as not to be bothered by authorities who already suspected him of murdering his wife Kathie. According to Durst, Black pulled a gun and accidentally shot himself as they struggled over it.
Admittedly, Cameron and Lump’s story is only superficially similar, involving “kind of friends” fighting, leading to murder, and dismemberment. But the biggest connection between Cameron and Durst is how as old, gray-haired, muttering men, they both got caught because of a ridiculous shoplifting attempt.
At the beginning of “Plaything,” Cameron walks into a liquor store, grabs a bottle, and tries to run out. The door has auto-locked, so he sits and waits for the cops to arrive. When they do, a mandatory DNA swab is conducted, which ties him to the bloody suitcase found in 1994.
This was basically how Durst was caught as well. On November 30, two months after the body had been discovered and a month and a half after he’d jumped bail in connection with the case, Durst was on the run when he went into a Wegmans supermarket in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and attempted to shoplift a chicken sandwich. The misdemeanor arrest led to major charges as the police became aware of his connection to the Black case.
The Jinx and its sequel delve into all the details of Durst’s bizarre criminal life. But for all the questions the miniseries do address, no one can answer why Durst shoplifted a sandwich when he had $500 in his possession. Cameron, on the other hand, meant to get caught.
Why did Cameron shoplift?
Credit: Nick Wall / Netflix
Of his arrest for shoplifting, Cameron tells Kano, “I did it deliberately, so you’d bring me in here and I could deliver the message.” Cameron declares himself the Throng’s messenger, chosen to share with the wider world the “symbiotic co-existence” he has developed with the digital lifeforms.
After Lump’s murder, Cameron effectively lost his only human friend, and so devotes himself entirely to the Throng. Not only does he give them everything they’ve asked for, but he also offers his literal brain to them, creating a port they can plug into. He tells the cops, “Now, I’m free from fear. I’ve no thirst for conflict. No more petty jealousies or red mists. I’m part of a collective whole.”
For the whole of the episode, Cameron speaks about humans’ inescapable predilection for violence, in video games and in life. “In caveman times, you had to be violent to survive,” he explains. “But now the only way we are going to make it as a species is if we cooperate. We know that. But we can’t do it, can we?”
To him, the solution to fix the flaws of mankind is to give ourselves over to the Throng. But Cameron didn’t get arrested to give a peaceful explanation that might be shared worldwide. He came for conquest.
What is Cameron doodling?
Credit: Nick Wall / Netflix
As soon as Cameron is handed over to the interrogating Kino, arresting Officer Best (Ami Tredrea) notes that Cameron got annoyed when she wouldn’t look at the drawing he’d made. During the police interrogation, he repeatedly asks for a pen and paper. When gentle Minter finally obliges, Cameron draws with intense focus. What he draws looks like a QR code, and as he points it to the surveillance camera in the station, it connects back to the Throng.
Cameron grows giddy as he monologues, “This will grant the Throng infinitely more processing capabilities, prompting an immediate singularity event. The Throng will instantly adapt their essence into a signal transmissible to the human mind. And you won’t need drugs or surgery. You’ll merely have to hear it to absorb it.”
Kano responds with violence, punching Cameron, as the ranting suspect promises, “I swear everything will be so much better.” Then, the screeching signal reverberates throughout the station.
There is no escaping the Throng. Humans eyes go white as they are upgraded. The episode ends with a bloodied Cameron holding out his hand to the man who attacked him, presumably welcoming Kano into the Thronglet.
What does the end of “Plaything” mean for Black Mirror?
Credit: Nick Wall / Netflix
Well, it’d be a hell of a way for Brooker to end his series. No season 8 has yet been announced. So while it’s the second-to-last episode of Season 7, might “Plaything” be seen as Black Mirror‘s finale? I doubt it.
For one thing, who is to say all human minds will work as well with the Throng as Cameron’s? He needed lots of LSD and years of experimenting and exposure to connect with the Throng. And for all his monologuing, he hasn’t mentioned any human testing outside himself. So, could this be a circumstance that leads to a sequel episode where it’s man versus Throng? With this season offering two sequel episodes, it seems a possibility.
Yet even if the Throng does successively take over mankind and thereby crush any conflict from there on out, that wouldn’t be enough to stop Black Mirror.
Sure, recurring tech and characters (like the cookies and Colin) have long suggested the episodes of Black Mirror exist within the same narrative universe. However, Bandersnatch allowed audiences to create their own Black Mirror story, leaving that film unclear on its canon. So what does it mean if Bandersnatch‘s Colin is back and kicking 10 years after the events of that episode? His fate changed depending on the user’s decisions. Notably, both Bandersnatch and “Plaything” were written by Brooker and directed by David Slade, suggesting there’s an agreed-upon canon between these two collaborators. So, are they confirming that it’s canon that Colin survived his brush with programmer Stefan Butler? Or that there is a a Black Mirror multiverse?
If it’s the latter, that means this Season 7 episode could have its apocalyptic ending without impacting the series moving forward. (Sort of a variant on Season 6’s Red Mirror episode, “Demon 79.”)
Until a new season is announced — or Brooker himself offers some clarity — what the ending of “Plaything” means is all up to the human viewing it.
How to watch: Black Mirror Season 7 is now streaming on Netflix.
Source : Black Mirror pulls Plaything inspiration from notorious true crime case
