This article is a collection of links between Bandersnatch with the other episodes of Black Mirror and beyond, followed by a detailed discussion of how these links can be used to make greater sense of what happens in Bandersnatch.

WARNING: SPOILERS! This is a discussion which almost exclusively consists of spoilers! If you have yet to watch all of Black Mirror I suggest you do not read ahead, unless you are fine with knowing all that lies within.

First, a rundown of the links in short form. The two main symbols of Bandersnatch are the so-called “branching glyph”, symbolising the binary choice and fork in the road, and the other is “Tucker”, AKA Tuckersoft AKA TCKR Systems AKA TCKR Research. There are some other minor coincidences too which are interesting.

Copyright notice: obviously I do not own the rights for any of the images but I invoke fair use on them for the purpose of film criticism and analysis.

Glyph

White Bear

It’s the central symbol for the show, gone into in much more detail below.

Playtest

Visible on the placemats from briefcase, which become augmented reality markers for a whack-a-mole game. It appears with three other blocky, retro computer games graphics style symbols.

White Christmas

On the prison door of Joe Potter, the inmate who Mr Trent (John Hamm) interrogates in the cookie simulation. It is on the ID plate, beside his name and some other patterns which look similar to QR codes.

Other in real world

In hobo signs, the branching glyph is used to mean “this is the place”. There’s also a similar one, with a box with dot in it inside the branch which means “dangerous neighbourhood”.

Tucker / Tuckersoft / TCKR Systems and Research

Bandersnatch

Khakur can be anglicised to “Tucker”, the name of the head of Tuckersoft (for more on what Khakur means see my previous article)

On Pearl’s desktop background you can just about make out the TCKR Systems logo behind a window.

Black Museum

TCKR Research is the locus of the show, where the diabolical Rolo Haynes plies his smarmy trade. It’s a medical research company which is implied to be a wing of TCKR Systems, maker of the cookie technology. There are many places where this is seen in the episode, and we hear Haynes talking about it directly.

San Junipero

The bar that the women meet at is called Tuckers

The servers running the simulation are branded TCKR Systems

Playtest

The cover of Edge magazine features a line at the top, only visible for a couple of seconds, which reads “INSIDE TCKR: TURNING NOSTALGIA INTO A GAME”

Other symbols

Mind interface “button” object

Seen in Black Museum, later in the process of moving the consciousness of the woman into the Monkey, and when Nish scans Haynes consciousness before he dies. In USS Callister it’s how you enter the game In San Junipero it’s the method for entering the simulation

San Junipero

In Bandersnatch, the psychiatric clinic or hospital Stefan attends is called Saint Juniper In Black Museum, the research hospital is also called Saint Junipers

Nosedive

The game Colin Ritman is working on and shows Stefan and Khakur is called Nohzdyve, a clear reference to this episode in name, while it’s a reference to Colin’s jumping of his high-story flat balcony in this film.

Metalhead

Appears as a game poster (explicitly drawn attention to by Khakur in Stefan’s first office visit) Game appears again on TV review show, being reviewed very positively by reviewer (4/5 stars). Clear copy of Black Mirror episode, we see a person running away from the “dogs”, the killer robots.

Terror on Rannoch B

The Tuckersoft game cover for Terror on Rannoch B references both USS Callister, in the title (a planet is called Rannoch B), which references Iain Rannoch from White Bear, but the image on the poster is clearly from Men Against Fire.

Other interesting cross-links

USS Callister

To White Bear: There are planets called Rannoch and Skillane, the surnames of the man and woman criminals in White Bear.

Hated In The Nation

To White Bear: FreeTheWhiteBearOne appears on Twitter, and other references to White Bear

Metalhead

To White Bear: In Metalhead, there are a lot of white teddy bears in the box they are looking in instead of medicine. Brooker has said these are in fact yellow, but they kept them in an acknowledge the coincidental link.

Playtest

To 15 Million Merits: the same actor plays Selma Telse, the aspirational (possibly fictional) Hot Shot winner in 15 Million Credits, as plays the woman Sonja, who puts Cooper forward for the actual play testing job.

Black Museum

To White Bear: We see the mugshot of Victoria on the screen when Nish enters the museum. There is also the costume with the balaclava sporting the branching glyph. To 15 Million Merits: Comic book of the story is seen.

White Christmas

To 15 Million Merits: the talent show Hot Shot is playing on the screen when Potter switches channels to see the news about the train wreck. To White Bear: Victoria Skillane appeal mentioned twice on news, once in cookie hospital procedure section, and once in Potters news of train wreck.

Sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

Branching symbol and White Bear

The branching symbol from White Bear is the core symbol of Bandersnatch, symbolising the binary (i.e. two option) choice. In Bandersnatch it is seen variously (note, this is a non-exhaustive list):

Features on the cover of the Bandersnatch book, incorporated variously into the art.

Seen in the biography of Jerome F. Davies, other of the Bandersnatch book, in his notes, and written in his wife’s blood on the walls, who he murdered

Seen implicitly in Stefan’s (and Pearl’s) game flow sketches

Given to us as a choice (depending on your path) opposing “Netflix” when we have the opportunity to try to tell Stefan about our presence (that of the viewer / player)

Stefan scratches it into his prison cell wall

The link with Black Mirror episode S02 E03 “White Bear” is very strong as it is the central symbol of that episode too. I’ll use the Wikipedia summary of White Bear as it’s nicely brief.

The episode follows Victoria [Skillane] (Lenora Crichlow), a woman who does not remember who she is and wakes up in a place where almost everybody is controlled by a television signal. Along with some of the few other unaffected people (Michael Smiley and Tuppence Middleton), she must stop the “White Bear” transmitter while surviving merciless pursuers.

The “signal” referred to here is in fact the branching glyph. The branching symbol appears in many places in White Bear. It pops up on the TVs in the house Victoria wakes up in, as a glitchy overlay to her flashbacks, and even as a tattoo on the back of the neck of her boyfriend in one of these flashbacks (and on the news programme at the end).

Here’s an explanation from the episode by an unnamed woman who becomes the protagonist’s guide.

> Guide: You really don’t know?

> Victoria: No.

> G: There was a signal, like pictures, flashing pictures. They just appeared on every TV, every computer, anything with a screen.

> V: Ah! I saw it. I saw it.

> G: They did something to people. Like almost everybody just became onlookers (people on their phones): started watching, filming stuff, like spectators who don’t give a shit about what happens. That’s like nine out of ten people now.

> V: But not us.

> G: Some of us weren’t affected, I don’t know why.

> V: Like that man with the gun and that woman.

> G: I call them “hunters”. You might have noticed that’s what they do. They seemed normal to begin with, but then they realise they could do what they wanted — they started taking stuff, nicking cars ’cause they could, doing what they like — and just with things, with people. It got worse and worse. Now they’ve got an audience.

> V: So this, this, this, thing on the TV —

> G: The signal —

> V: That’s, that’s what’s doing it. That’s what’s making them act like this?

> G: I guess they were always like that, underneath. Just needed the rules to change, for no one to intervene.

> V: What we gonna do? What we gonna do?

> G: “Do”? do nothing; we get out.

> V: Where’s “out”?

Origin of the glyph

There has been much speculation about the link between these episodes but one cannot deny that there must be some link. Perhaps the origin of the symbol could help us piece it together. Wikipedia reports the following, using the book Inside Black Mirror as their source:

The second version (of the script) opened with a patient speaking to their psychiatrist about their nightmares and a recent urge to commit violence. The patient draws a glyph from their dreams, and the psychiatrist files it along with identical symbols drawn by her other patients. This glyph resembles an upside-down “Y” and was created by Brooker after much experimentation; it is the one used in the final episode. This draft had the character Baxter in it and resembled the 1973 horror film The Wicker Man. […]

Inside Black Mirror was published on 1st November 2018, which is very very close to the release of Bandersnatch, less than two months before it’s debut on 28th December 2018. Since Bandersnatch had of course been in production for so long before that, and the fact that Brooker must have known what intense interest the glyph connection would be to fans, he seems to have opted to say as little as possible.

Here’s Brookers direct quote on the origin of the glyph:

I think I drew that logo in the script [of White Bear]. I chose it as just an ominous but simple symbol, after experimenting with lots of different things. It’s a bit like an upside-down Y, or a road sign for two lanes that are going to merge into one. I’ve started seeing those symbols everywhere — not as a hallucination, but because people often tweet me pictures of paving stones where they’re laid out like that.

In the episode discussion in Inside Black Mirror, Brooker again comments on the branching glyph AKA the White Bear symbol:

There’s even a visual nod to White Bear: a lot of the police things have little White Bear symbols on them. There’s one on Potter’s cell door, when they look through and see the real him. So there’s this vague back story of a future dystopian Britain. [emphasis mine]

Making meaning from disparate Easter eggs

Before I go on to speculate on why these links exist, firstly let me say that what I wish for Black Mirror going forward is none of this. I hope that it is like Acme branded products in Looney Toons and Warner Bros cartoons. There is no Warner Bros universe, the idea is absurd. Why then have Acme branded dynamite blow up in Wily Coyote’s face, and have Elmer Fudd using Acme bullets? It’s just a running gag, originally a joke referencing the abundance of companies with that name at the time in the 1920’s, and an ironic play on the word itself which means “pinnacle” in Greek. It became a convention that subtly signals “this is a Warner Bros cartoon”. (reference)

The glyph can be this, and we might see it showing up under another scary context, perhaps the locus of the madness of another poor soul Brooker will cinematically torture. Similarly, Tucker can be Brookers Acme, an ironic gag highlighting the meaninglessness of continuity between the fictional worlds and symbolising contempt for any search for connection. Drawing the contempt of Brooker is hardly a going to win anyone any prizes! He’s built a career on it. That in itself would be worth investigation, but that’s for a different series.

It’s most likely that these are all little more than Easter eggs and that Brooker will continue to reference them as he wishes, with no particular rhyme or reason, just because he can!

Still, it’s fun to speculate on links, and it’s certainly what we are encouraged to do, so let’s. Here are the top three theories I think there are out there, the gold, silver and bronze theories I’ll call them, ranked in obvious order of best-ness. Let’s start with gold, which I think is most plausible and reasonable:

Gold theory

Stefan’s story is real, but we see it in fictionalised form in Pearl’s game. Rannoch was inspired by Stefan’s real world crime of killing and dismembering his father, and gets glyph tattoo as a homage. The glyph finally becomes a semi-official symbol of choosing to do evil, and the harsh punishment by the state of those who commit violent crimes.

If Bandersnatch and White Bear happened in the real world, then most of Bandersnatch is depicted to happen in the 80s (or thereal events which inspired it), with flashbacks in the early 70s (may or may not be real) and the Pearl part happening in current day of about 2018.

White Bear could take place within a few years of current day. As we know, the glyph doesn’t turn everyone mad and usher in the apocalypse, that was a fictional context in which to punishment a woman for child abuse and murder. We see evidence of modern day in people’s dress, the interior and exterior locations, the news broadcast replayed for the crowd in the theatre, and most especially the (almost complete) lack of futuristic technology. People are clearly using everyday modern smartphones. The only futuristic technology is the memory wiping headband, which could exist today in some primitive form. In fact it does seem to be early days for that particular tech as it appears to be doing serious damage to Victoria.

In White Bear the earliest appearance of the glyph in their timeline (on in the episode itself) is the tattoo on the back of Iain Rannoch’s neck (the boyfriend of Victoria, the punished woman) neck. We are told of it in the news programme clip, reasonably assumed to be before or possibly during when he committed the crimes, which is before any event we see happens. This puts the time when he got the tattoo to between these episodes.

The story of Stefan may have been dug up from obscurity by Pearl and invigorated a dark fan obsession through the release of Bandersnatch by her on Netflix. This is not so far fetched as the real Bandersnatch caused quite a media stir. Perhaps Rannoch is one of those fans who took it too far, someone with a preexisting mental disorder. He is presented as a classic psychopath, able to bring a woman “under his sway”, as for example Charles Manson, and to commit horrible acts of violence against others.

The glyph may have no further meaning than that, it’s simply a touchstone for copycat or at least inspirational violence.

One of the more interesting thematic links between White Christmas and Bandersnatch is the death of a mother in a train derailment. This is a probably little more than a nod, but it does undermine the credibility of that story as the death of the mother in Stefan’s story. It seems more likely that it happened in White Christmas for real and that Pearl worked it into Stefan’s fictionalised story as a nod to the sad case of Potter who was interrogated virtually.

Silver theory

Stefan is being tortured as a “cookie”, as a digital copy of his real person.

It could be that he really was put in a game that people play, and even really via the alternate reality Netflix. Perhaps you download a copy of him onto your computer when you play it and torture him afresh, as in Black Museum.

Some have suggested that this torture is for the real life murder of his father, which he must relive and be forced to commit, again and again, as players make his decisions which are skewed towards this act. Tying this with White Bear, it’s possible that it’s either a more technologically advanced (and would also be cheaper) way of White Bear style punishment, let’s call it version 2, or even that White Bear is also in a cookie.

If true this means that the punishment for murder has increased in severity. It was a crime of passion and Stefan has mental difficulties which would be on record from his psychiatric treatment (if we give that that part is true). It seems overly harsh given that the crime in White Bear is orders of magnitude worse. However it could be part of a future where violent crime has increased significantly in punishment, though it’s quite tentative as we have no other clue about this except following the implications. Stefan’s crime is very grisly though, and on par with the murderer (though there seems to be doubt he actually is the murderer) Nish’s father in Black Museum.

In the USS Callister, the programmer Robert Callister flexes his coding (not to mention genetic analysing DIY!) to digitally torture his colleagues from work, even stooping to kill the oldest inhabitant’s son to force compliance. This is really sadistic behaviour, and pretty similar to what is going on in White Bear.

Considering that two of the planets in Callister’s universe are called after the surnames of the criminals in White Bear (see list of congruences above) it is possible he knew of the punishment event, or was even a party to it as system architect. If there are real people involved it is just as bystanders, or perhaps even as a player of Victoria. Perhaps Callister created this White Bear to hone his newly found torture fantasy world creation after his fun on Callister is ruined at the conclusion of that episode.

More interestingly, what if he came to work for TCKR Systems in general? He’s obviously a gifted programmer and has plenty of experience with cutting edge realistic simulations, perhaps he became software architect for nice simulations like San Junipero but also nasty ones, like the one Stefan, and even Pearl is in. In San Junipero they seem to use the exact same little dongle to get you into the simulation, a little button that sticks to your temple.

Callister Inc. is clearly not TCKR Systems, but it could be bought by them and continue to operate under their original name, this happens all the time. What we do have to assume, if we permit that Black Museum is correct, is that Robert does get caught for some kind of crime, because his genetic sampling hardware is in the museum with the child’s lollipop in it. This implies that he was prosecuted, though not necessarily successfully, for the sampling of a minor’s DNA, or perhaps just without permission, or both.

Mr Trent, the interrogator from White Christmas, says that cookies which are tortured too severely in their “training” for whatever task they’re supposed to do, they are used in the games industry:

Too much time in solitary and they’d just wig out. No use to anyone, then you’d just sell them cheap to the games industry, they become cannon fodder for some war thing.

This ties in with how the USS Callister episode and how they might end up populating their worlds. Remember that we only see a tiny fragment of the actual game, meeting one player (hilariously voiced by Aaron Paul, best known for his role as Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad) but knowing nothing of what players actually find in main game worlds. Perhaps they’re filled with cookies that have been driven insane, either accidentally or on purpose.

We can take some solace that by the time Black Museum comes along this kind of practice has likely been outlawed, and though it may go on in secret none of the large scale endeavours of Pearl, Robert Callister, Mr. Trent or the police and prison system are allowed to do these kinds of things because there are “human rights for cookies”.

Bonus Theory

A variation on the gold theory is that Iain Rannoch actually is Stefan, later in life. We could speculate that he was released after serving his time, possibly early due to his extenuating mental illness status, by which time he had fully embraced his delusions. He got the tattoo on his neck and compelled by his sick nihilism he committed the awful crime in White Bear.

This is less compelling because of the shaky link between 80’s Stefan and current day Stefan, they look different, the apparent ages don’t match, and it requires a lot of things to line up. But it’s still a somewhat strong possibility, especially because is seals the link between Bandersnatch and the tattoo.