S07.E06: USS Callister: Into Infinity

[Quilt Fairy]

Quote

Nanette Cole and the crew of the USS Callister are stranded in an infinite virtual universe, fighting for survival against 30 million players.

 

I just finished this, didn't realize it had only dropped yesterday.  What a fantastic sequel!

[Amarsir]

I liked this episode better the first time...

when it was called Free Guy.

Actually that does pretty much encapsulate my review. Because I liked Free Guy and I liked this, but Taika Waititi was the worst part of that movie and I spent this episode wondering WTF they did to Jimmi Simpson's character.

Steve Jobs was not Wozniak. But he also wasn't a guy who literally never turned the product on. And if you need Walton to be the secret villain - which is fine - why would you simultaneously exaggerate him as a buffoon as well? (And then they made the "innie" version a cartoon caveman simultaneously, after one month on the planet?) Just a very shallow choice.

Similarly, Jesse Plemons has to bridge the gap between "too meek to speak up for himself" and "thinks he deserves to enslave others". I believed it last time because the switch of "entering a video game" would plausibly change your perspective. Here, he basically did the same in the span of a few seconds. In order to sell it, they had to lean on the "nice guy" trope so hard that he literally repeats it over and over.

Sequels are supposed to flesh out your characters, not flatten them. So that's the bulk of what I disliked.

That aside, Cristin Milioti did a fabulous job as both versions of herself. Some would argue it was heavy-handed to introduce her office life as an echo of what Daly's had been, but when Outie Nanette tried to do the right thing and Innie Nanette was having self-doubt, they were clearly split from the same person.

I also found the twists to be a wild ride, even if they relied a bit too much on the heel-turn. Even the phone call from inside someone's head - which we know doesn't make sense - had me hanging on to figure out where they were headed next.

Edited April 12 by Amarsir

[arc]

Enjoyable romp, but I thought the heart of infinity was going to be like a kajillion Robert Dalys. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they had just one of him in there. It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense that he had godlike powers inside the heart, but couldn't escape. It also also doesn't make sense that he couldn't have copied players* and/or made NPCs to keep himself company. Gotta say, overall Rick and Morty is generally better about taking its own premises seriously and fully extrapolating how they should unfold.

* that brain interface seems to be able to do just about anything, so why not.

It also doesn't make that much sense that the kill switch killed not only the live game but all backups. A competent company would have had offline backups as a last line of defense. On the other hand, Walton is clearly incompetent and outie Daly might have deliberately designed the kill switch to be maximally effective.

As with the original, I have a really hard time buying that swiping someone's DNA lets you copy their consciousness. Esp since the copy is up to date with the time the DNA sample was collected. They were stuck with it this time, but I wish the original had just just the brain connector thing as a personality duplicator.

Did Karl and Shania actually permadie? If innie Walton could respawn, did Karl and Shania? Did they respawn on the nearest planet?

1 hour ago, Amarsir said:

Even the phone call from inside someone's head - which we know doesn't make sense

It doesn't make sense!!!!

1 hour ago, Amarsir said:

Steve Jobs was not Wozniak. But he also wasn't a guy who literally never turned the product on. And if you need Walton to be the secret villain - which is fine - why would you simultaneously exaggerate him as a buffoon as well?

As a take on Steve Jobs, Walton was considerably dumber. But as a take on game company CEOs, or even general tech CEOs, it was pretty fair. A depressing number of leading CEOs in this industry are dumb as rocks.

[Amarsir]

2 hours ago, arc said:

Enjoyable romp, but I thought the heart of infinity was going to be like a kajillion Robert Dalys. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they had just one of him in there.

Same. Although now that I think about it, that might be worthy of a full episode itself. How would a society develop if each person is literally a copy with the same memories, cut off from the outside world?

[Quilt Fairy]

9 hours ago, arc said:

As a take on Steve Jobs, Walton was considerably dumber. But as a take on game company CEOs, or even general tech CEOs, it was pretty fair. A depressing number of leading CEOs in this industry are dumb as rocks.

Walton was presented here as the money guy and the face of the company, so it makes sense he wouldn't know the details of the game.  But the idea that he had never been in it, had never used the "nubbin" himself was a little ridiculous.  Also, I did not re-watch the original, but what happened to his son Tommy?  Didn't Daly keep clone-Tommy somewhere safe to keep clone-Walton in line?  They specifically show this in the recap, then real-Nanette tells real-Walton that a clone of his son is one of Daly's prisoners, and then it's dropped and not mentioned again. 

 

9 hours ago, arc said:

but I thought the heart of infinity was going to be like a kajillion Robert Dalys. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they had just one of him in there.

Same.  Although maybe each Daly got his own Earth, and Nanette just visited one of them.

 

I know this is a dark sci-fi anthology, so the bizarreness of the ending could be expected, but does anyone else feel they left enough of an opening for a 3rd movie?  Like maybe real-Kabir knows how to access the off-line copy of the game and recreates his own version?  Sort of like (as mentioned up-thread) the ending of Free Guy? 

 

Edited April 12 by Quilt Fairy

[arc]

2 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Also, I did not re-watch the original, but what happened to his son Tommy?  Didn't Daly keep clone-Tommy somewhere safe to keep clone-Walton in line?  They specifically show this in the recap, then real-Nanette tells real-Walton that a clone of his son is one of Daly's prisoners, and then it's dropped and not mentioned again. 

Real Daly killed clone Tommy to punish clone Walton. He kept an inert copy around and also the lollipop so he could re-scan the DNA if necessary to make another one to re-kill. That’s why real Nanette was blackmailed by the digital clones to enter Daly’s home and steal enough stuff back (the backups and the DNA) that once the clones escaped, Daly wouldn’t be able to re-create them. The clones hadn’t planned on killing Daly.

As for dropping the point in the sequel, well, real Walton doesn’t care too much about digital clones in general and real Daly is dead now. I could headcanon that maybe real Walton learned digital Tommy was already dead, in which case it’s a moot point, esp since real Walton presumably has real Tommy alive at home.

[Quilt Fairy]

1 hour ago, arc said:

As for dropping the point in the sequel, well, real Walton doesn’t care too much about digital clones in general and real Daly is dead now. I could headcanon that maybe real Walton learned digital Tommy was already dead, in which case it’s a moot point, esp since real Walton presumably has real Tommy alive at home.

Thanks for the recap, I didn't remember that C-Tommy was killed.  But the thing is, when R-Nanette is explaining to R-Walton that Daly made clones and she found the DNA samples in his refrigerator, she says "and there's this lollipop labeled Tommy, but I don't know who Tommy is".  And R-Walton seems visibly disturbed and says "Tommy is my son."  Regardless of how he felt about the other clones, it seemed like he would care about his cloned son.  When they get to the ship, I would have at least expected him to ask where his son was.  

Edited April 12 by Quilt Fairy

[arc]

It also strikes me that Infinity, as explicitly said by the flashback in this episode, isn't just an MMO that's as immersive as the Matrix, but Daly also developed the brain jack. (I guess there's a small possibility that he didn't, but Walton is such a dope that he'd never been interested enough to try one before.)

If so, even without the servers offline, there's more than enough there to rebuild. The applications for fully realistic brainjack VR are incredible. Hell, we've had a real world tech CEO burn over $45B on mere goggles VR to get something with PS2 level graphics on the hope that he could manifest Ready Player One into being with sheer money.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 4/12/2025 at 5:50 PM, Quilt Fairy said:

Thanks for the recap, I didn't remember that C-Tommy was killed.  But the thing is, when R-Nanette is explaining to R-Walton that Daly made clones and she found the DNA samples in his refrigerator, she says "and there's this lollipop labeled Tommy, but I don't know who Tommy is".  And R-Walton seems visibly disturbed and says "Tommy is my son."  Regardless of how he felt about the other clones, it seemed like he would care about his cloned son.  When they get to the ship, I would have at least expected him to ask where his son was.  

Walton is a bit of a self-centered asshole, and from his perspective, all the digital clones had to die or else he was facing prison. So even not knowing C-Tommy's current status, he had to go.

I guess maybe it would give him a bit of pathos/dimension for him to want to reunite or at least learn the fate of C-Tommy but as someone pointed out, R-Tommy exists. It may just be that he just pictured for a sec what sort of fucked-up stuff C-Daly did with/to C-Tommy and got momentarily sad/horrified by it. 

[Which Tyler]

To me this is part of the Americanisation of Black Mirror - an unnecessary sequel that didn't really have a point or story to tell, but made because the first one was popular.

 

Which doesn't make it a bad episode just... unnecessary

[DrSpaceman73]

I liked it ok. Wasn't as good as the original but still enjoyed it.  Also pretty long.  

Not my favorite of the season but also not the worst. And better than anything last season. 

[shrewd.buddha]

I enjoyed it while watching - the Trek atmosphere, the comedy, the nerdy gamers, seeing the characters again - but immediately afterwards realized how absurd most of it was.  Like a reality hangover after a sci-fi fantasy intoxication. 

And while not completely killing the moment, there was a lot of non-sense:
  * Daly in the core having godlike wizard abilities without touching a keyboard.
  * The super convenient destruction of the game, its code and all backups.
  * The crew's five separate consciousness's transferred into one organic brain.
  * Making phone call from inside her brain ( a neural chip implant? )

These leaps of logic compounded the ones taken in the first installment. 
  * Are these DNA avatars immortal? Do they need to sleep, eat and poop?
  * How do the DNA avatars have full memories and exact personalities of their copies? 

But, in the end, I don't regret watching and maybe would watch it again. It was fun. 
This type of cyber sci-fi is like the sci-fi of the '50's, before scientific discoveries put a damper on the possibility of John Carter of Mars or Journey to the Center of the Earth.