What if your sentient Tamagotchi persuaded you to merge as one, erasing negative emotions like anger and jealousy to create a more evolved version of you? That’s the goal of the adorable artificial life at the center of the Black Mirror episode “Plaything,” which is now streaming — along with the rest of Season 7 — on Netflix. 

In the present day, with unkempt hair and sneakers that are falling apart, Cameron Walker (Peter Capaldi) doesn’t look like much of a threat when he’s arrested for stealing liquor. During his interrogation with Detective Chief Inspector Kano (James Nelson-Joyce), however, we learn there’s a lot more to the introverted computer nerd. 

Back in 1994, younger Cameron (Lewis Gribben) is a gaming journalist who receives a special invite from genius programmer Colin Ritman (Will Poulter) to demo a top-secret project for Tuckersoft. Colin has created sentient lifeforms called Thronglets and disguised them as a game to secure the proper funding. The idea is that it starts with one hatchling that the user nurtures until it replicates and evolves, eventually becoming a harmonic “Throng.” 

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Intrigued by the cutesy creatures, who’ve developed their own language, Cameron steals the software from Colin and cares for them at home. But things take an unexpected turn: they become his singular obsession, and he dedicates his life to helping them grow and thrive. It’s not long before he’s relying on hallucinogens to communicate with the Thronglets and purchasing more sophisticated tech to accommodate their growing demand for power and computer memory. After decades of this, Cameron’s apartment is filled with stacks and stacks of computers, keyboards, and other equipment. 

In the present day, Kano grills Cameron about the cold case involving a body found in a suitcase with no identifying markers. That’s when Cameron confesses to murdering his friend and drug dealer, known only as Lump (Josh Finan), to protect the Thronglets. A flashback reveals that Lump murdered scores of Thronglets, believing that he was just playing a game. This incenses Cameron, who strangles Lump before dismembering him and dumping the body. 

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How does “Plaything” end?

There’s a reason Cameron didn’t resist arrest at the beginning of the episode: He wanted to be caught. 

Cameron has been working with the digital lifeforms to essentially upgrade humankind, merging Thronglets and humans into a symbiotic coexistence where there’s no cause for conflict. While Kano thinks he’s joking, Cameron proves he’s dead serious when he sketches a symbol that is then scanned by the interrogation room’s camera like a QR code. 

Cameron claims to have given the Thronglets access to the state computer that will allow the creatures to blast a signal worldwide, paving the way for them to merge with the human mind without the need for drugs or surgery. That’s a much easier process than his brutal method of embedding a plug in the back of his head that connects him directly to the Thronglets. 

Although the signal appears to have been sent broadly, Black Mirror creator and executive producer Charlie Brooker says he left the episode’s ending up to interpretation. “I wanted it to be a tad more ambiguous as to whether you thought this was a good thing or a bad thing,” he tells Tudum. “We don’t quite give you that much information.”

Gribben has his own idea of what happened. “It just feels like Cameron’s wiped violence from people. He’s taken their freedom and enslaved everyone to be peaceful and not have any bad tendencies,” he tells Tudum.“It’s like a dictatorship regime that he’s just created, that all these people are just mindless and listening to the Thronglets.”

Poulter tells Tudum that it’s a “really smart and typically Black Mirror ending because it’s open to interpretation. I think the resounding message of the episode is to treat others as you’d like to be treated, and that I really appreciate.”

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Does Lump have a real name?

The episode never reveals Lump’s true name, and that’s because he doesn’t have one. “I never gave him one,” Brooker says. “His name is actually a bit of a red herring.” 

The Black Mirror showrunner adds that Cameron genuinely doesn’t know Lump’s real name because he never asked. “The younger version of him that we show is quite anxious and nervous, doesn’t make eye contact with people, and is easily taken advantage of by people in the story,” Brooker says. “I decided quickly that he genuinely never knew Lump’s name, so I didn’t bother thinking of one.”

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Which Bandersnatch characters returned for “Plaything”?

The episode features the return of Tuckersoft employees Colin Ritman (Poulter) and Mohan Thakur (Asim Chaudhry), who were first introduced in the 2018 interactive film Bandersnatch. 

When young Cameron visits Tuckersoft in “Plaything,” Thakur escorts him to Colin’s office, also mentioning that Colin recently suffered a mental breakdown. Chaudhry  said returning to the role was like fitting into a familiar pair of jeans. 

“We knew the character, we knew the tone, the voice, the swag,” he tells Tudum. “[Thakur is] very shouty. He’s a bit of a geezer, he’s larger than life. He’s got a quick wit, he’s a sneaky, slimy guy. I knew exactly what I was gonna do.”

Upon his first meeting with Cameron, Colin immediately feels a kinship with the young journalist. 

“It’s interesting the relationship between Colin and Cameron, because there’s this unspoken understanding between the two of them,” Poulter says. “I think Colin recognizes that Cameron is quite anxious and socially repressed, and he notices something in him that he sees in himself.”

What inspired the look and sound of the Thronglets?

Brooker, a former gaming journalist, took inspiration from various sources, including classic PC games like The Sims and the Tamagotchi, a wildly popular handheld digital pet. 

“The amount of emotion and parental concern you can project onto a thing that’s only a few pixels high was certainly something that I was channeling in this episode,” he says. Deciding on the Thronglets’ appearance took some time, and their look evolved to be much more adorable than originally planned. “At one point, I was like, ‘Oh, they shouldn’t be too cute.’ I don’t know why I said that at the start, because where we ended up, they’re so cute.”

Stream Black Mirror Season 7 now.