When Black Mirror: Bandersnatch began streaming on Netflix following the Christmas holidays, it became an instant internet sensation. Why? Because fans of Charlie Brooker’s techno-horror series were eager to figure out every single one of the choose-your-own-adventure style episode’s endings were. Here’s what we know about the Black Mirror: Bandersnatch endings and how to find them.
How many Black Mirror: Bandersnatch endings are there?
The plot of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is deceptively simple. It’s 1984 and a young programmer named Stefan (Fionn Whitehead) is trying to adapt a choose-your-own-adventure novel into a video game. As the troubled young man dives deeper into the task, however, he begins to question the nature of reality and whether or not anything he’s ever done has actually been his choice.
Depending on which paths the viewer chooses, at least 5 different endings will present themselves. They include the hugely meta Pearl Ritman (Laura Evelyn) ending, in which Pearl, the daughter of Colin (Will Poulter), decides to reboot her father’s killer’s abandoned video game as a Netflix feature. The two endings at Dr. Haynes’s (Alice Lowe) office, which includes a bizarre action movie-esque fight and the revelation that the office is actually a film set, are also highly self-referential.
How to find the Black Mirror: Bandersnatch endings
A fourth ending sees Stefan going to jail for the gruesome murder of his father Peter (Craig Parkinson), while a fifth finds a younger Stefan dying on a train with his mother (Fleur Keith). That’s already a lot of story to digest for the initiated and the uninitiated alike, but leave it to Brooker and Netflix to recently reverse course and reveal additional options for viewers. “Think you’ve seen everything there is to see in Bandersnatch? Try picking up the family photo, ~twice~”
think you’ve seen everything there is to see in bandersnatch? try picking up the family photo, ~twice~
— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) January 8, 2019
Picking up the family photo twice doesn’t result in a sixth ending, but it does give audiences one of many “hidden” scenes that are strewn throughout the special. Some are so hidden, in fact, that the filmmakers aren’t even sure if they will ever pop up. As for how to find the 5 known endings, it all depends on the choices viewers make.
The two endings at Dr. Haynes’s office will only happen if they choose to go to the appointment when Peter forces Stefan to do so. The Pearl and jail endings occur when audiences choose to have Stefan murder his father and, in the case of the former, murder Colin. As for the fifth one, which somehow includes time travel, viewers must enter the code “TOY” into Peter’s secret safe when presented with the opportunity to do so.
