The seventh season of Black Mirror is streaming on Netflix and in true form, it’s left fans feeling like they might be living through an episode themselves after discovering two versions of the same tale.
We’re getting into major spoiler territory here, so don’t say you weren’t warned.
In “Bête Noire” — the second episode of the latest season — viewers are introduced to a good ol’ tale of gaslighting and warped reality where Verity (Rosy McEwan) has a bone to pick with her old classmate and new colleague Maria (Siena Kelly). Chaos ensues when she subtly alters Maria’s reality using a high-tech pendant, making her second-guess everyday encounters for days on end.
Verity had me all kinds of suspicious. (Source: IMDb)
One of these instances arises when Maria gets into an argument with her colleagues at work about the name of a fried chicken franchise, insisting she “knows” it was called Bernies rather than Barnies — because her boyfriend used to work there and still owns a cap with its logo on it.
Unfortunately, when she oh-so-confidently looks it up, she’s forced to accept it’s been Barnies all along. (Of course, she doesn’t know at the time she can thank Verity for that one.)
In a fun (or creepy, depending on how you see it) twist for Black Mirror fans, viewers quickly realised that they’re also getting two versions of the restaurant’s name, depending on which version of the episode Netflix gave you.
One user on X (formerly Twitter) quickly shared the experience on social media after realising their episode on Netflix looked a little different compared to their friend’s.
And based on the massive response to the tweet, it looks like thousands of viewers were getting the restaurant name “Barnies” while it read “Bernies” for others.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I love a good plot twist.
“They cooked with this,” one user wrote while another added Black Mirror producers were “working overtime this season”.
“I actually had to rewind to the first part of the episode to see if I was tripping,” another responded.
Another user even shared they were getting two different versions on their devices, depending on whether they were watching on their phone or TV.
Anyone would think they were glitching hard.
I’d think I was going crazy TBH. (Source: X)
Adding fuel to the fire, it certainly didn’t help when Black Mirror and Netflix joined the discussion, simply tweeting two different spellings for the restaurant without any explanation.
Well played, well played.
So is it Barnies or Bernies? Are we all collectively going insane? Don’t forget, this is coming from the same people who brought us Bandersnatch way back in 2018 AKA that interactive movie which had different endings depending on your choices for the characters.
So, while we’re yet to get any confirmation from the Black Mirror crew that they’re actively fucking with our heads, I really wouldn’t put it past them.
Lead image: Netflix
