The Black Mirror universe has once again beamed us up into the digital cosmos with “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” the much-anticipated sequel to the Emmy-winning “USS Callister” episode, which reimagined Star Trek as a digital nightmare. Aboard the USS Callister, the pixels are crisp, the corridors are retro-chic, and the trauma of being a consciousness-copy trapped in a game never really goes away. It’s Severance for the video game scene.

The original source material featured Jesse Plemons as a brilliant but socially awkward co-founder and CTO of Callister Inc., a successful gaming company known for its massive multiplayer virtual reality game called "Infinity." One of Black Mirror’s most celebrated episodes, it explores the psyche of online gaming communities—legitimately terrifying terrain. The satire here plays with the complexities of digital identities and the ethics of virtual escapism. Behind every avatar is a player holding their own Pandora’s box of moral dilemmas.​

Powered by a Reddit-esque feeling of being wronged by the world, Plemons’ Robert Daly secretly maintains a private version of “Infinity” to resemble his favorite classic sci-fi TV show, Space Fleet. His version of the game is populated by digital clones of his coworkers created by their collected DNA from items like coffee cups and lollipops. These digital copies retain all the memories and consciousness of their real-world counterparts but are trapped in Daly's game world where he serves as the all-powerful captain.

What Happened in “USS Callister: Into Infinity”?

When we last left our pixelated prisoners, they were set loose in the Infinity universe. They'd liberated themselves from the grip of Daly, left in the game and unconscious until his physical form died of starvation. Captain Nanette Cole (Cristin Milioti, still giving us full "final girl in space" energy) is now firmly in command of her crew and working to end this nightmare. Their biggest concern? They can die now. Plus, they've got IRL “Infinity” players hunting them down with a vengeance after the cloned crew sapped their credits for survival.

Earth-side at the Infinity office, Nanette discovers the clone-science at play and realizes that copies of herself and her coworkers are loose in the game’s universe. Walton the CEO (Jimmi Simpson) is down to kill the clones; they’re just pixels, after all. Nanette threatens to whistleblow this PR disaster, but her attempts to aid in their liberation are halted when she is hit by a car and falls into a coma. We gasped. Sorry, girl.

Back inside “Infinity,” Innie Walton tells the crew the story of the game’s conception. He reveals that Daly placed a clone of himself in the game engine to build the interface quickly, and it’s living in the “Heart of Infinity,” a digital cathedral-slash-server room-slash metaphorical soul vortex.

Outie Walton, in full corporate clean-up mode, drops into the game to save his ass. He shares the crew's location to every player they've ever stolen from and exits the game, allowing vengeful players to tie up Callister Inc.'s loose ends (read: victims of tech terrorism).

So how do they get out of this whole mess?

In the "Heart of Infinity," Innie Nanette finds Daly's workhorse of a digital clone and explains her dilemma. Frozen at an earlier and less jaded point in his life, this Daly casually suggests a solution to her IRL coma—he can upload Captain Nanette into real-world Nanette’s brain-dead mind. Full consciousness reintegration.

Just as our plucky space heroine is ready to say “yes” to reincarnation, she clocks Bob’s screen: he’s not transferring her—he’s making a copy of her. That I love you so much I need one version to set free and one to keep in my emotional panic room forever type of freak behavior.

Our girl, being no one’s eternal keepsake, kills Bob and activates a kill switch that wipes the entire game. Nanette wakes up earth-side as the fused version of herself that we all wanted to see on Severance, and Callister Inc. tumbles like the stock market. As for the clone crew, Nanette wakes up to find the entire USS Callister planted inside her own mind. They spend their days living inside the closed-door universe of her own consciousness, watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta through the eyes of their Earth-side captain (who shows no interest in getting them out).

It's a strangely heartwarming ending, but that could be the 10 hours of Black Mirror talking.

Stream “USS Callister: Into Infinity” Now