“Black Mirror” (Season 7), Episode 2 “Bête Noire,” is a story that combines science fiction with revenge. Written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Toby Haynes, the episode stars Siena Kelly as Maria, Rosy McEwen as Verity, Hannah Griffiths as Luisa, Ben Bailey Smith as Gabe, and more. The episode follows the story of Maria, whose life takes a downward spiral when her old classmate joins her company.
Black Mirror (Season 7) Episode 2 “Bête Noire” Recap
Prologue
Maria works at a chocolate company as a top development executive. Her job is to taste and create new chocolates and decide if they’ll be a hit or a flop. She’s also dating her boyfriend, who works in the same company. One day, during a conference meeting, a woman named Verity walks in, claiming she’s on the guest list. The moment Maria sees her, she recognizes her as an old school classmate she hasn’t seen in over a decade.
During the tasting session, everyone seemed to dislike Maria’s new chocolate idea. But Verity saves it by saying it actually grows on you with a second bite, and it’s not bad at all. After the meeting, Verity walks up to Maria and introduces herself. She shares that she’s planning to join the same company in the R&D department. Maria is caught off guard as she doesn’t even remember hearing about any job opening. Even though the conversation feels friendly, something about it leaves Maria uneasy. This is strange as Verity just saved her chocolate idea, yet Maria isn’t keen about her joining the company.
While chatting with her boyfriend, Maria opens up about Verity. She says that back in school, Verity was kind of a loner, a bit of a social outcast, if there’s no better word for it. She had no friends, always sat by herself, and was often picked on by others who saw her as an easy target. There was also this awful rumor going around at the time that she was involved in something sexual with one of the teachers. That rumor completely ruined her school life.
Kids would call her cruel names and mock her clothes, her appearance, and how messy her hair always was. However, Verity was brilliant when it came to computers. She knew everything about networks, servers, and everything in between. That’s why it feels so strange to Maria because the last time she heard, Verity was working at a travel agency. And now, out of the blue, she’s joining the R&D department of a chocolate company? In Maria’s words, it feels like a huge leap and in a totally different direction.
Maria Losing Her Grip on Reality
After Verity manages to land the job, Maria’s mood starts to take a downward spiral. She just can’t shake the feeling that Verity isn’t really qualified to work at the company. However, when she looks into her credentials, everything checks out. On paper, Verity fits right in. On her first day, Maria brings in some homemade chocolates. Everyone loves them. They’re so impressed that some even joke that she should be working for a gourmet food company instead.
Suddenly, strange things start to happen. Like Barnie’s Chicken Shop, where Maria’s boyfriend worked for almost a year. Every day, she used to see “Barnie’s Chicken” written on his cap. But one day, out of nowhere, it says “Bernie’s Chicken.”Maria is stunned. She is absolutely sure it used to be Barnie’s, not Bernie’s. Things get even weirder when she realizes she is the only one who remembers it that way. No one else seems to notice the change. Without any solid reason or proof, Maria blames Verity. But her boyfriend says Maria is just feeling threatened because people are starting to like Verity more, and she is becoming popular. Maria’s boyfriend also goes on say that she loves people who suck upto her, and sing her praises.
Another strange thing happens. This time, with the ingredients for a new chocolate biscuit. The recipe, which is supposed to include plant-based gelatine made from seaweed, somehow ends up using beef-based gelatine instead. Ditta, the company boss, is a Hindu, someone for whom cows are sacred, and he unknowingly consumes the product. Maria is completely thrown off. She can’t understand why the chef would use beef when the ingredient list she gave had nothing even close to it.
When she confronts the chef, the chef says she followed the ingredients list that Verity sent. Verity, in turn, claims that Maria personally emailed her that list. Maria insists Verity is lying, but then Verity shows Gabe, the boss, an email that clearly looks like it came from Maria’s account. In it, the ingredient list includes beef gelatine instead of plant-based gelatine. Gabe isn’t happy. He warns Maria to stop blaming Verity for her own slip-ups and tells her to back off. But Maria is convinced that Verity is behind all of this.
The next day, Maria misses an 8 AM team meeting. When Verity casually asks her about it, Maria says there was no meeting scheduled at that time. But according to Verity, Gabe had emailed the details to everyone the day before. Later, Maria sees Verity drinking Luisa’s almond milk right in front of her. This is the same almond milk that Luisa’s been complaining about someone stealing from the office fridge. When Luisa notices again that her milk is missing, she creates a scene. Verity says that Maria was the one who drank it, but when they check the security camera footage, the video shows Maria snatching the almond milk from Verity’s hands and drinking it until the bottle is empty.
Maria swears she didn’t do it. In fact, she’s had a nut allergy her whole life, and drinking almond milk would’ve made her sick, but no one remembers her ever mentioning a nut allergy. They even say, “There’s no such thing as a nut allergy.” When Maria tries to Google it, she finds that the word doesn’t even exist anymore. After everything – missing the meeting, the almond milk incident, and even calling Gabe a horrible name when he gently suggested she get some help – Maria is finally laid off.
Black Mirror (Season 7), Episode 2, “Bête Noire” Ending Explained:
How Verity Changes the Reality?
Blaming Verity for everything that’s gone wrong, Maria decides to follow her to find out what she’s hiding. She trails Verity to a massive mansion, way too grand for someone earning a regular paycheck. Maria breaks in and, inside, finds photos of Verity living completely different lives. One shows her as a supermodel on the cover of Vogue, another as an astronaut.
Maria also spots Verity’s pendant, the one she always wears. Convinced it’s the key to everything, Maria grabs it. But Verity says it won’t work for her as it is fingerprint-activated. Verity reveals the pendant is a remote control for a quantum computer. Verity says that she built the quantum computer herself, and it lets her reshape the world however she wants. That’s how she’s been an actress, an Olympic medalist, an astronaut, anything she desires. She can turn someone from a woman into a man, change a sports car into a beat-up Prius, or swap out your shirt for a tank top, all as easily as switching a channel on TV.
With the quantum computer in her hands, Verity could do anything, and she did, as shown by all the photos in her bedroom. One thing that didn’t add up is why someone with the power to live any life would choose to work in the R&D department of a chocolate company. The answer is Revenge. Even after achieving everything she ever dreamed of, Verity couldn’t move past the trauma and bullying she went through in school. Maria had told everyone it was a girl named Natalie who had started the rumor about her and a teacher. However, in reality, it was she who spread that lie.
That rumor destroyed Verity’s life. The teacher, who was the only person who actually cared about her, was transferred to another school, and Verity was left alone and heartbroken. So Verity joined Maria’s company not by chance, but by choice, and to ruin her life just like hers had been ruined. As for Natalie, she recently took her own life, driven mad by the same kind of reality-changing manipulation Maria was now going through. A fight breaks out between Maria and Verity. Verity uses her pendant to call the police, but Maria grabs a police officer’s gun and shoots Verity in the head, killing her. Then, using Verity’s fingerprint, she reprograms the pendant to obey her instead and brands herself Empress of the Universe.
Black Mirror (Season 7) Episode 2 “Bête Noire” Themes Analyzed:
It is no new knowledge that all of “Black Mirror” episodes are heavy on themes, and this one is no exception. This “Black Mirror” episode explores themes of reality manipulation, revenge, identity, guilt, and bullying set against the backdrop of a chocolate company. At its core, the episode questions the fragility of perception. Maria, a confident and high-performing executive, finds her reality wearing down when Verity, an old classmate she once bullied, enters her life.
The episode plays on the “Mandela Effect, with Maria remembering things differently (e.g., “Barnie’s” vs “Bernie’s”) and no one else validating her version of events. Verity, who used to be timid, grows up to be everything she ever wished by bending reality via a quantum computer she built using her genius brain. Thanks to it, Verity is able to achieve fame, beauty, and success. However, Verity still chooses revenge over peace, showing how an unhealed emotional wound can drive even the most capable people to destructive ends. With just a push of a button, Verity could’ve made herself forget everything, but she chose not to.
As for Maria, she reminds us about unchecked ego and denial. She refuses to take accountability, and refuses to let out a genuine apology to Verity, which shows that she too likes being in power and control. She is the star performer of the chocolate company, and most of the time, she thinks she is untouchable and that everyone should worship her. This is why, rather than fixing everything and reanimating Verity, she chooses to brand herself the empress of the universe.
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