Cristin Milioti on Whether ‘Black Mirror’s ‘U.S.S. Callister’ Will Get Another Sequel & Jesse Plemons’ Surprise Return

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Black Mirror Season 7 Episode 6, “U.S.S. Callister: Into Infinity.”]

For many Black Mirror fans, it was certainly a surprise to learn that Season 7 would feature a sequel episode for “U.S.S. Callister.” Before this new batch of episodes, the anthology series just didn’t do follow-ups, even to its most beloved installments. However, according to lead Cristin Milioti, talks of reprising her role for another Star Trek parodying adventure started fairly rapidly.

Speaking to reporters, including TV Insider, the actress explained, “We started having conversations about a sequel very soon after the first episode aired. [Creator Charlie Brooker] knew really quickly that he wanted to revisit it, and so we had so many different discussions over the years, and it took many different forms.”

Milioti said Brooker had several ideas for a “Callister” follow-up, including a standalone show and a movie. “It was going to be a series at one point. It was a completely different movie at one point,” she said, later adding that Brooker had written different story treatments for all of those various ideas. “They were completely different plots for each one. They shared some similarities… I think the clones were always involved in some way, but there was they were just different iterations of it. But Charlie truly came up with three or four completely different plots, which is just sort of astonishing. And, yeah, I want to say the only thing that made it throughout all of them were the clones and [the characters] meeting themselves.”

The ending to “U.S.S. Callister: Into Infinity” certainly leaves open the potential to return for a third round of “Space Fleet” fun, but according to the actress, those conversations haven’t started just yet. Still, Milioti can think of at least one way it could come back: “What I think he explores in both of these episodes is how power corrupts people,” she said. “What [would it] mean for someone who has had such a strong moral compass, who then gets a taste of getting control of people?”

Indeed, the episode finds her character Nanette now in charge of her digital shipmates in the real world, after they’re transferred into her brain through the same technology introduced in “Black Museum.” Now that she’s their leader in a very different way — she even controls whether they get their daily allowance of Real Housewives of Atlanta episodes — it sounds like Milioti wouldn’t mind watching her devolve into the bad guy next time.

For now, she walks away a hero. After they are surrounded by gamers whom they’ve had to steal credits from to survive in the game world, Nanette travels into the “Heart of Infinity,” a hideaway of the clone of the man who cloned her, Robert Daley (played by Jesse Plemons in a surprise return to his role). There, she works to convince him to give her and the crew a way out of the game.

This episode’s version of Daley is himself a victim at first, having been isolated and imprisoned in a fictive version of his childhood garage to create new game worlds for eternity by his partner, James Walton (Jimmi Simpson). However, he soon reveals that his impulse to trap and torture her was always buried beneath his gentle smile when he lashes out against her in the same way he did in the game world.

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Which Robert Daley is worse? Milioti chose the newest iteration for that honor: “In this one, he has god-like powers. In the first one, he certainly could play god with us, but there was maybe a chance that — obviously, this didn’t happen, but — in the real world, someone could have gotten through to him somehow. … This one is scarier because he’s completely isolated. There is no respite. You could see a world in which, in that first episode, he would meet someone, make a friend, someone could help get him through this crippling loneliness. And I think in the second one, he’s been in solitary confinement for 20 years or whatever. And so I think you’re dealing with a much different person,” she said.

Shooting that final showdown with Daley was a true treat for the actress, who remembered spending several days in a “claustrophobic” garage setting and having a ball playing it out with Plemons. “I loved the garage scene with Jesse. That was really just so fabulous,” she said, choosing it as one of her favorite scenes to film for this episode. “She’s dealing with a loose cannon, with a ticking time bomb, and she has to somehow placate him while swallowing her own rage. And also, she has to get in and get out, and she has to have him do this, and she doesn’t know what his powers are… It’s just fun to play with that type of stakes. And then also, the subtext of that — and certainly there are so many parallels to their dynamic from the first one in this revisiting of them, but there’s also some key differences as well. She’s a different person now, and I just had so much fun exploring that.”

One key moment in the scene comes when Daley gives Nanette an ultimatum: Either she can choose to merge herself with her human form and delete the other members of the Callister crew, or she can save them and remain stuck in the game. After a bit of contemplation, she opts for the latter, and Milioti isn’t sure it’s the right choice.

“You could say [the ending is] kind of happy. Technically, they’re out of that situation. But I think they’re in an equally horrifying situation. It’s just that the circumstances are so completely different, and I hope that it makes you feel uneasy. Their lives aren’t at risk, but I don’t know. Do you want to live like that? Do you want to live trapped in one room, having to see someone go to the bathroom every day? So they still have no agency.”

Going back to the idea that giving Nanette complete control over her friends’ lives is a slippery slope, Milioti added, “She has this thing that could also drive you crazy [but] she doesn’t seem… super motivated to get them out of there anymore. What does that mean?… So I like that it’s kind of creepy and twisted.”

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