Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is a 90-minute interactive film that boasts many twists, alternate endings, and reinterpreted versions of already-viewed scenes. And it turns out, there are even pieces we may never get to see.
According to a piece from the Hollywood Reporter, Bandersnatch director David Slade shared how, in addition to the several endings and other interesting snippets of footage, there are “golden eggs” that are so hard to find they may never actually be uncovered. During an earlier preview for journalists at Netflix’s headquarters, Slade even joked how there was a scene that was so well hidden, he couldn’t even access it for them.
“There are scenes that some people just will never see and we had to make sure that we were OK with that,” Slade said.
While this might be frustrating, it doesn’t seem surprising. The episode reportedly has about five hours of prepared footage. I played through the entire thing, including all of these endings, to the best of my ability and capped out around four hours. There are several places where other Easter eggs could come into the picture, like with Stefan’s dad’s locked box, or the phone number used to call the therapist. Plus, some fan sleuths have pointed out behind the scenes footage that could point to other scenes we haven’t even seen yet.
And for anyone looking to have all the answers handed to them at some point, I’ve got some bad news: Showrunner Charlie Brooker confirmed to THR that they will not be releasing a linear version of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. What we see now is all we’re going to get.
Black Mirror is set to return with season 5 sometime in 2019. Showrunner Annabel Jones confirmed that Bandersnatch did delay the upcoming season’s release, but not how much. But if you’re looking to get your Black Mirror fix before season 5, it might be a good time to start digging for some of those golden eggs. Never know what you might find.