This involves the same kind of virtual reality overlay as with the Whack-a-Mole game, but places him in a house to enact a horror-type scenario. Putting the ultimate twist aside for the moment, the episode proceeds with Cooper doing precisely this, before agreeing to beta test a further stage of the project. It indicates that Cooper died before he even played his game of Whack-a-Mole. Of course, “ White Christmas” introduced us to this notion of time-dilation, and, we have perhaps all experienced some form of it in dreams, but what seems questionable is the way in which the twist moment at the end of “Playtest” cuts back to a moment before the idea of a game that plays on one’s own fears has been introduced. I have short-circuited the episode, here, because, again, it is questionable as to whether this is consistent, or plausible. We are led to believe that all of the rest of the events of the episode occur in that second, within his mind. And then Cooper’s phone rings-it’s his mom again-and he dies. Katie installs what she calls a “mushroom” into the back of his neck, to enable the kind of virtual reality the game company is playing with. Of course, they take his phone away immediately, but he is able to take advantage of the fact that a part of his NDA form is missing to grab it back and snap a photo of the tech in question as his handler, Katie, briefly leaves the room.īut, he does not manage to turn the phone back off, and we ultimately learn that this was a fatal mistake. She assures him that the company is very well known-for horror games, mostly-and tells him that if he can get a picture of the tech they are working on that will be worth way more than they will be paying him. He considers calling his mother, but does not, and instead meets back up with Sonja, who writes about the tech industry.Ĭooper plans to earn some cash through an app that allows him to find odd jobs, and happens upon a listing to playtest for a video game company whist he sits with Sonja. This also means he cannot get home to Syracuse. We are left to fill the backstory in for ourselves.Īfter spending the night with Sonja, Cooper discovers that his bank account has been hacked when he cannot get money from an ATM. He doesn’t know how to talk to his mother, and it seems as though he took off for this world tour without even telling her, and that he has not spoken to her the whole time. He was Cooper’s best friend, but is dead now. He tells Sonja that his dad had Alzheimer’s. We are presented with the story of young man named Cooper, who travels the world in a montage before arriving in the UK, where he meets a woman called Sonja through an app that resembles Tinder. It is thus a frightening hour of television. These two aspects link together thematically in a generalized fear of the future, the unknown, and the inevitability of death. There are two levels to this: one pertains to a fear of losing one’s personal identity the other to the possibility that a small decision may have disastrous consequences that could not have been foreseen. It is scary both in the scenes that it presents, and in its concept. “Playtest” is basically a short horror film, and on that level, it works. Here, Caemeron Crain digs into Black Mirror S3E2, “Playtest.” 25YL is proud to feature analyses of each and every episode. If you have, you know it is arguably one of the most important and thought provoking shows of our era. If you haven’t seen Black Mirror, well, I’m not sure why you’re here.
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