Summary
Another season ofBlack Mirroris on our screens again. Once again making fresh social commentaries, and slipping in its emotional gut punches when it can. And generally being a marked improvement from the season that came before. There’s the usual doom and gloom about technology and the incoming threat of monopolized subscription services, as well as some heart warming tales and a follow-up to a previous seasons hit episode.
Critics seemed to have approved of this season as it landed an 89 percent fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and is generally doing well with audiences. Plus, to top it off the show of course throws in a boatload of easter eggs and the occasional nod or reference back to other things in previous seasons. There’s so many that we would be here all day if we listed them all, so here’s just the best Easter Eggs and hidden details that pop up in season seven of Black Mirror.
10Cooper Elementary
Poor Cooper
First up we’ve got a callback to a pretty brutal but great gaming themed episode, Playtest. This is a very brief blink-and-you’ll-miss-it easter egg, but the school where Amanda works is called Cooper Elementary. Cooper was of course the name of Wyatt Russels character in the episode Playtest, and he had a rough time as a game tester.
Experiencing arealistic haunted house gameduring what he and we the audience thought was a period of a few days. But in reality Cooper never made it to the house. He died within a few seconds of putting on the headset he was testing, his last words being; ”Mom”.
9The Robotic Bees
Everyones Favorite Buzzing Bots
Springboarding off Cooper into something a bit more lighthearted, Robo Bees. Episode One of Season Seven opens with Amanda, played by Rashida Jones, giving a lesson to her class on robotic bees. Known in the universe as ADI’s.
This the second reference we get in the season, and it’s by far the most noticeable and funnest. It’s a callback to Hated In The Nation. An episode that popped up in Season Three and featured robotic bees murdering various people after votes collected on social media.
8Irma Thomas
It’s That Song Again
This is a nice Easter Egg that crops up continually throughout Black Mirror. The song, Anyone Who Knows What Love Is by Irma Thomas, first sang by Jessica Brown Findlay way back in Season One during the episode Fifteen Million Merits. It’s a lovely little tune that tugs on the heart strings and is sometimes used to help carry a heavy moment.
We see it appear either in the background as it floats out of Jukeboxes, radios, or someone singing it. Or it could be involved as a minor part of the story, such as when a character in a season remarks that it’s their favorite song. But every season we hear it at least once.
7Bandersnatch
Despite It All, Bandersnatch Lives On
A reference that’s nice to see pop up. In Episode Four, we get a wander around the offices of the brain behind Bandersnatch. Will Poulter reprises his role as Colin Ritman, theunbalanced indie game developerthat appeared in the Bandersnatch interactive story spin-off the team behind Black Mirror made in 2018. It’s a nice reference that pops up in every episode in some way, minus the finale of Season Seven.
Along with the book, we also get some posters in the game studio scene. In the episode Bete Noire, we learn that the Ditta offices are on the same industrial site as the Bandersnatch offices as there’s a sign visible in the back during a meeting scene. Finally, alongside T-shirts worn by characters in Hotel Reverie, we also see a Bandersnatch book popping up again in Verity Green’s bedroom. So it’s in there a lot.
6San Junipero
It Won An Emmy You Know
Of course we can’t run down a list of Easter Eggs in Black Mirror Season Seven without commenting about all the times we see or hear something about San Junipero. The Season Three episodewon an Emmy, and for all the right reasons.
Our first nod comes in the first episode of Episode One, Common People, as we have the Juniper lodge. Then in the episode Hotel Reverie, we see the address of a package sent by Kimmy as Junipero Drive. Finally, the hospital Nanette is taken to in Episode Six after she’s hit by a car is called Saint Junipers.
5White Bear
A Mysterious Organisation With An Odd Glyph
This one is a big callback to season two with White Bear, the shadowy organisation that used vigilante style punishments on criminals. In Season Seven it first pops up on a Big Gulp that Shane drinks in Common People, in the background of the office lobby in Bete Noire as a glyph on an actual egg, and in Hotel Reverie we see a poster for the film The White Bear in the background of Judith’s office.
In Plaything we see White Bear Beer in the window advert of the small shop, and then in the final episode there’s a White Bear glyph worn on the jacket of one of the players that’s robbed by the Callister group. So it gets around.
We also see computers turning up in Hotel Reverie with the brand name TCKR. These were also in Season Six’s San Junipero episode. And TCKR is the company behind the events of White Bear.
4Barnies Chicken
Is It Barnie? Or Bernie?
In Season Seven’s Episode Two called Bete Noire, there’s a big argument over a certain chicken chain hat, and it’s not just for plot contrivances. Barnies Chicken Chain is a big old Easter Egg that’s popped up a few times over the years. First it was Season Three in Episode Three, also known as Shut Up And Dance.
Then again in Season Six with Joan Is Awful. In both of those episodes it was known as Barnies, but in Bete Noir it’s changed to Bernies by Verity’s reality altering quantum computer.
3Raiman Milk
A Milk Brand Made It Across The Multiverse
This is a really neat reference that should keep popping up as the show goes. In Bete Noire we have a character getting upset about their Almond Milk being drank, the brand is called Raiman. Now Raiman is something that’s popped up before as a character in Season Three in the episode Men Against Fire. But it appears again in the same season.
During Episode Six of Season Seven we see that a clone of Robert Daly is drinking a carton of Raiman brand milk. Though this one is apparently plant-based, seems like they’re brancing their product out. Perhaps Season Eight might show us where it’s packaged.
2Waldo
The Waldo Dystopia Is Never Gone
Another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Easter Egg, but during the episode Common People of Season Seven, Chris O’Dowds character Mike streams online on the platform Dum Dummies. But the tags of those in chat is where your eyes should be drawn.
As the streams continue, Mike starts to get trolled by various users, one of which should catch your attention. They have the tag I_Am_Waldo. Which is a nod to the episode Waldo Moment from Season Two, where a blue animated bear voiced by a comedian shook up and then unintentionally took control of the UK and then the world.
1The Final Episodes Newsreel
There’s Happy Endings To Be Found
To close things out we’ve got a fun Easter Egg that pops up right at the end of Season Seven and kind of lightens things up a bit more. Right as Nanette is watching the news there’s a Chyron at the bottom and other news ads that reference stories throughout that season and it closes them all off. And a few are quite positive.
For example, we see that Hotel Reverie was released onto a streaming platform, Thronglets 2 has launched as a successful sequel to the first game, and the Rivermind CTO has stepped down. So to coin a phrase from Charlie Brooker himself, it looks like this season is not all doom and gloom after all.
