Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 2 Bête Noire Ending Explained: How Does Verity Change Reality?

The second episode of ‘Black Mirror‘ season 7, titled ‘Bête Noire,’ follows a young, successful food developer named Maria, whose life is upended when a familiar figure from her past, Verity Greene, decides to apply for a job at her company. Subsequently, Maria begins to notice a series of strange and cryptic occurrences around her, which leads her to believe that Verity is somehow behind it. By the episode’s end, the protagonist’s increasing paranoia leads to some stunning revelations that change the way she perceives reality. However, it also raises a whole host of queries regarding the central mystery and Verity’s involvement in the affair. Things get even more trippy as Maria does something truly drastic near the final moments to escape her situation. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 2 Plot Recap

Our story begins with Maria listening to a news story about a woman who passed away after jumping from a building in Camberwell. She shares her new miso jam recipe with her boyfriend, who seems to enjoy it. At work, Maria is excited about the launch of her new variation of Hucklebuck, a chocolate biscuit popularly attributed to her company, Ditta. She double-checks with her chef that the biscuits have been prepared without any nuts, indicating that she may be allergic to them. When the taste testers arrive, Maria and her team members sit behind a mirror glass as they watch everyone’s reaction. Before the process begins, a new tester stumbles through the doors, introducing herself as Verity Greene. Maria recognizes her as an old schoolmate. After an exchange that seems odd, Verity is allowed to stay as a tester.

Maria feels that something is off about Verity visiting the company, especially because she remembers her as a “computer geek.” She is doubly concerned when Verity applies for a research assistant role at Ditta, an opening Maria is sure does not exist. However, when she checks the company’s job listings, she is stunned to find that there is a spot open. The protagonist shares her concerns with her boss, Gabe, who does not have the same level of reaction as her. Her boyfriend also acts the same way, unconcerned about Maria’s fears about Verity. Not long after, Verity becomes part of the group and is assigned to work as a “conduit” between the lead food developer and the chef. Things only get increasingly off-putting and tense from here on out as a sense of paranoia descends over Maria.

During a harmless exchange in the office building, the protagonist is stunned to discover that the name of a fast food company her boyfriend worked for has seemingly changed without anyone noticing. According to her, it should be Bernie’s Chicken, but the entire internet and everyone around her tells her it is Barnie’s Chicken. She also learns that an email she sent to Verity about the ingredients for a Hucklebuck biscuit has been tampered with. Although she remembers mentioning a word in it, the word is gone when she rechecks it in front of everyone. Her alarm bells start going haywire as the discrepancy widens between her reality and the reality experienced by others. It all comes to a head when Maria is fired after accusing Verity of drinking one of her colleagues’ almond milk, which happened in reality, but the CCTV footage shows something else.

Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 2 Ending: How Does Verity Control Reality?

It is evident to Maria from the start of the episode that somehow Verity is behind all the craziness unfolding around her. However, the problem is she has no idea how the woman might be pulling off a deceit of such a humungous scale without anyone noticing. We get our answer in the final parts of the episode as Maria follows Verity home after being fired from her job. She discovers that Verity lives in a luxurious villa akin to a royal palace, whose lower floors are stocked with high-tech machinery. She slips past those rooms and makes her way to Verity’s bedroom, where she finds her pendant. Maria believes that Verity is somehow controlling things with the use of her pendant, which sounds incredibly far-fetched. The truth is that she is half-right.

Maria tries to hide beneath Verity’s bed when she comes out of the bathroom, which proves to be futile because Verity senses that someone is in the house. She calls out the protagonist, who crawls out of her hiding place and confronts her old schoolmate about the pendant. Verity reveals that the pendant is a remote connected to the machines downstairs, a “quantum compiler.” Using the device, Verity is able to find parallel realities where a variation of what she desires has already happened and merge the current reality with those events. Thus, she has been using this device to tamper with the world and do whatever she wants. Her current plan is to exact revenge on Maria, which is why she manipulates events so that only the protagonist knows something is off while everyone else is unaware, leading to her spiraling out of control.

The parallel reality power is hard to wrap one’s head around as it almost works like a wishing well scenario. However, Verity may likely be using a more sophisticated mechanism to make it all work. For one, she has to issue an order through the remote, allowing the machine to locate a reality where the specific conditions of her order are met. Then, the “quantum compiler” works to transpose that world into the current one. The changes can be small or huge, depending on her request, like changing a fast food chain’s name from Bernie’s to Barnie’s just to torture Maria’s psyche. In a sense, this is limitless power in the hands of a mortal. We even learn that Verity has used the device to live various extravagant lives, including one where she is the empress of the universe.

Why is Verity After Maria? What Did She Do?

Verity’s reasons for exacting revenge on Maria are rooted in what happened between them as children. While they were in school, Verity was often seen as an outcast because of her interest in computers, while Maria was part of the popular clique of school kids. As a result, Verity was often bullied, heckled, and made fun of by the others, including Maria. However, the protagonist insists that the person responsible for tormenting Verity is not her but the leader of the popular gang, Natalie Caine. According to Maria, a rumor was spread by Natalie amongst the school kids that Verity had done some sexual favors for one of the school teachers, who was kind to the girl. As a result, the young girl’s life was turned into a nightmare while she was still in her teens.

When Verity entered adulthood, she became invested in computers and started developing the mechanics for her parallel reality device. Once the machine came into being, Verity used it to live grand, untouchable lives full of glamor and prestige. Maria sees a glimpse of these alternate lives led by Verity when she spies the photographs on her bedroom shelf, which depict her in astronaut gear, as the President, and much more. These incredibly varied lives enriched Verity for a while. Eventually, however, she started to feel like everything was too simple or that these different existences were hollow and lacked meaning. Thus, she turned to the most meaningful and damaging part of her life – her childhood. Even after attaining god-like power, she remained subservient and haunted by her childhood trauma.

Desperate to find some meaning and reason behind her ostracization, Verity begins a crusade of vengeance against those who wronged her, which starts with Natalie. She went after Natalie the same way she goes after Maria in the episode. As a result of the reality-altering torment, Natalie eventually died by suicide. While some may have missed the reference, the news report in the opening scene is likely talking about her. After Natalie’s death, Verity learned that the person who started the rumor that destroyed her life was actually Maria. Although the protagonist denies having anything to do with Verity, she accepts that the whole thing began with her at the end of the episode. Thus, Verity is now after her because she is the reason her childhood was ruined.

How Does Maria Escape? What Happens to Verity?

Once the truth is out, Verity tells Maria that, like Natalie, her death will be staged in a way that nothing can be traced back to her. Devastated by this turn of events, Maria starts fighting her tormentor for control of the pendant. However, the scuffle ends with Verity getting her hands on the device and altering the world such that two police officers run through the door and point their guns at Maria for holding a knife in her hand. Afraid that the game is over, the protagonist surrenders to the cops to be taken into custody. In the last second, she catches the winning smirk on Verity’s face and decides to take matters into her own hands. She uses the police officer’s gun to shoot Verity through the head, killing her once and for all. Subsequently, a massive gunfight breaks out within the room, forcing Maria to figure out how to escape her bleak situation.

As it turns out, the pendant is the solution to Maria’s problems. She uses Verity’s fingerprint to access the device, overriding its control and making it work for her instead. She then alters reality to make the cops forget their reason for being in the house. Although they seem confused momentarily, they still try to take Maria in. She uses some more quick-thinking to wriggle out of their grasp using the device. Before she knows it, she turns the cops into mindless individuals working for her instead. While it’s hard to discern Maria’s exact thought process, she must be jubilant that the power in her hands is nothing short of god-like ability. Thus, she uses it to her advantage to transport herself to a reality where she is the empress of the universe, mirroring one of Verity’s alternate realities.

As the empress, Maria smiles as she looks out at an alien planet where millions of subjects bow at her feet, showcasing that she now has the power to do anything she wishes. Although it can be tricky to predict where she goes from here, Maria may embark on the same cycle of exploration as Verity – using the device to live extraordinary lives until she becomes bored. It is highly likely that she may repeat the same actions Verity did, which is to grow accustomed to her newfound powers and their limitless potential. However, with time, she may grow tired of it and the ease with which she can manipulate things into existence. It takes away the ability to appreciate a hard-earned victory. Therefore, before long, she may begin her journey to repair something broken inside her, just like Verity did.