Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 3 Hotel Reverie Ending Explained: Do Dorothy and Brandy End Up Together?

The seventh season of Netflix’s ‘Black Mirror’ presents bittersweet tales of people whose lives are changed forever due to different forms of technology. In its third episode, ‘Hotel Reverie,’ the show focuses on the process of filmmaking and how radical technology can not only change the way movies are made but also impact the lives of the people involved in the process. The tech in question is something called ReDream. It has the ability to create realistic simulations from old films, allowing an actor to immerse in the world like never before. A director named Kimmy comes up with the idea of remaking an old classic named Hotel Reverie with the help of technology.

After trying and failing to get a big name attached to the film as its lead, they receive an offer from Brandy Friday, a highly successful Hollywood star who is hungry for a role that is different from anything she has done before and one that challenges her. Hotel Reverie is one of her favorite films, and when she discovers that it is being remade, she expresses her desire to act in it, but only if she gets to play the lead role of Dr. Alex Palmer. Originally, the character was a man, but to get Brandy on board, it receives a gender swap, and soon enough, Brandy finds herself in the studio.

Before she gets to the filming part, she receives a package from ReDream, and they send her all the resources she needs to understand what the process will be like. But she never gets to go through that and shows up at the studio without any idea of what it will be like. Kimmy tries to fill her in as quickly as possible, but eventually, it becomes clear that Brandy will have to learn on the job. Things take a turn when Clara, played by the now-dead actress Dorothy Chambers, starts to go off-script because she develops her own consciousness. The more she and Brandy act out of the script, the more the film deviates from its original ending, making it more difficult for Brandy to leave the simulation. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Brandy Has an Unexpected Romance In Hotel Reverie

When Brandy comes on board Hotel Reverie, she does it with the intention of working on a new and unique project. However, inside the simulation, the world is incredibly different. All the characters in the movie believe themselves to be real, and while they will stick to the script, any minor change can lead them to deviate and create problems for Brandy’s safe return. The biggest hurdle in her way becomes Clara, aka Dorothy. In one scene, Brandy calls her by her real name, and Clara starts to feel Dorothy’s emotions. She doesn’t understand what she is feeling and why, but with time, these feelings become more prominent. This is exacerbated by the movie coming to a standstill when one of the ReDream employees spills coffee on the system, leading to a shutdown. Inside, time keeps passing for Brandy and Dorothy, the only ones conscious, and Brandy tells the latter about the reality of her situation.

Initially, Dorothy is shocked, but when she explores the space on her own, she ends up crossing the fringe where she has access to all the information about her life, right from her identity as a closeted homosexual to the events surrounding her suicide. Overwhelmed by it, Dorothy steps back into the movie and reunites with Brandy. It takes a while for Kimmy and her team to fix the system, but in the meantime, months pass for the actresses, and they end up falling in love with each other. When the system finally comes back online, they decide to pick up from the last scene where they left off, but that means rebooting the system, which erases Dorothy’s memories of finding out her true identity and spending months falling in love with Brandy.

Brandy Leans Towards Staying in the Virtual World

The heartbreak of Dorothy forgetting her has an emotional impact on Brandy, but she has no option but to keep enacting her part as the movie is still in motion. If she doesn’t do what she is supposed to, Dorothy will die as Clara. The deviations created in the storyline are resolved, but in the end, both Dorothy and Brandy go so off-script that it seems impossible to get the movie back on track. If the movie doesn’t end, Brandy will have no way to escape from the simulation, and she will be trapped there forever. While Kimmy and her team are horrified by this prospect, it doesn’t seem so bad for Brandy, who seriously starts to consider staying back and being with Dorothy.

The original Hotel Reverie became a classic with its ending line, “I’ll be yours forevermore.” It became an iconic line, representative of a never-ending love. In ReDream, however, this line marks the end of the film, which also means the end of the simulation. This means that if she wants to leave the simulation, Brandy will have to utter these words so that credits can start to roll and she can come back to reality. However, the more time she spends in the black-and-white world with Dorothy/Clara, she starts to feel at home with the woman she has fallen in love with. When the reboot removes Dorothy’s memories of falling in love with her, Brandy becomes even more desperate to remind her of their love.

A major plot point of the movie is Clara’s husband trying to kill her. The plot deviates from the beginning when a dog dies instead of its owner, and the effects of this change ripple into the end. The loophole created by this deviation is fixed, but it creates another entirely new scene, which becomes more unpredictable as each character responds to it in their own way. In an attempt to kill Clara, her husband brings her to a balcony from which he intends to push her to her death. However, Brandy intervenes in time to save Clara and warns her husband about the cops who will show up if he tries to fire his gun, which he points at her. The man is infuriated at the interruption, and he attacks Brandy, bringing her close to the railing and pushing her towards her fall.

Does Brandy Come Back to Reality?

To save Brandy, Clara picks up the gun and shoots her husband. The cops hear the sound and rush towards the terrace. Previously, Brandy had warned them to keep an ear out for the gunshots and arrest the culprit, but she didn’t think that Dorothy would be the one to fire it. In this situation, the film would end with Dorothy getting arrested and being thrown in prison. Still, Brandy can say her lines and end the movie. But that would mean dooming Dorothy to an eternity of being in prison. In a desperate attempt to change it, Brandy takes the gun from her hands, intending to take the blame upon herself. But when the cops arrive, Dorothy takes the gun back and ends up shooting a cop. In return, the cops open fire and shoot down Dorothy.

With the woman she loves dying in her arms, Brandy is so heartbroken that she forgets all about her final line. Kimmy desperately tries to get her to say it, end the film, and get her back into the real world. For a moment, it seems that her grief has overtaken her, and she refuses to say the lines. But with Dorothy dead, there is no point in her staying behind, so she tearfully says it, and with that, the movie comes to an end. It is drastically different from the original one, with a tragic ending, as compared to the happy ending of the original. However, when the film is released on Streamberry, it is an instant hit. It is great news for Kimmy and ReDream, but this success does nothing to heal Brandy’s broken heart.

How does Brandy Talk to Dorothy?

As the director of the Hotel Reverie remake and a huge fan of Brandy, Kimmy’s sole focus is to get the actress out of the simulation as soon and as safely as possible. If she gets stuck in there or dies, it would be a huge scandal for ReDream and would effectively end Kimmy’s career. This is why, when Brandy starts to show doubts about finishing the film and coming back to reality, Kimmy becomes even more desperate to get her out. Eventually, when the actress does come out, everyone is relieved, but Kimmy notices a sadness in her eyes. She realizes that Brandy formed a deep connection with Dorothy while the system was being fixed. She understands this sadness of hers, so sometime later, she sends a gift her way.

One night, Brandy comes home to find a package on her doorstep. On opening it, she discovers that it is from Kimmy. It has a laptop with the video of Dorothy’s audition tape for Hotel Reverie, in which she has to pretend to talk on a fake phone. With the laptop, Brandy is given a phone, and when she dials it, the phone rings inside the laptop, in front of Dorothy, who is surprised to hear it ring as she believed it to be just a prop. This means the video has been repurposed with ReDream, and what’s in front of Brandy is now a simulation of Dorothy’s video. While she might be dead in the real world, she is alive in the virtual world. And the phone gives Brandy a chance to reconnect with her.

Will Brandy Go Back Into the Simulation?

When Dorothy picks up the phone, she and Brandy start to chat, and it looks like the beginning of a very promising conversation. At the time, it seems that the women will have to find a way to talk to each other, like Dorothy in a simulation and Brandy in real life. However, it is not far-fetched to believe that ReDream may have given a simulation device to Brandy, and she might use it to go into the virtual world to reunite with Dorothy face to face. This gives them the opportunity to rebuild their relationship while also giving Brandy more time and freedom to find out if she really wants to leave the real world and live in a simulation with the woman she has fallen in love with.

More interestingly, the possibility of their connection opens more questions about the capabilities of ReDream. If it can take a person inside the simulation, will it be possible for it, at some point, to bring someone from the simulation out into the real world? If that becomes the case, then Brandy and Dorothy might finally get to live the life they have only dreamed of sharing so far. But until then, they will have to make do with the resources they have got. Instead of focusing on the limitations of their romance, they can rejoice in the fact that they can actually get to talk to each other despite everything.