Season 7 of Netflix’s Black Mirror arrived last week, bringing with it the usual dose of dark sci-fi cautionary tales… with some hopeful fantasy mixed in as well. But it’s one episode in particular, “Bête Noire,” which has had some Black Mirror fans questioning, well, reality.
Some spoilers follow for Black Mirror’s “Bête Noire”!
In the episode, a character named Maria (Siena Kelly) works in R&D for a food company, designing new recipes in what seems like a pretty great gig. But when a troubled classmate (Rosy McEwen) from her past shows up out of the blue and takes a job at the company, Maria finds herself in an increasingly desperate situation. It seems that the classmate, Verity, has the ability to simply alter reality by the force of her will. And nobody seems to realize this strange fact expect for Maria.
That takes us to the fun/scary moment in the episode where a workplace conversation turns to what the name of an old fast food restaurant chain was. Some say it was Barnies while others say it was Bernies. Maria is certain she knows the answer because her husband used to work there and still has the hat! But when she googles it to prove that she’s correct… the search results say otherwise. Is it The Mandela Effect or… The Verity Effect?
With this scene, Black Mirror seems to be switching reality on its viewers a bit as well because there are reportedly two different versions of the episode available on Netflix, and which one you get when streaming the show appears to be random.
As reported by Games Radar, fans have realized that in one version of the scene, Bernies was the original name of the restaurant, while in the other version the OG name is Barnies.
So my friend and I were watching the new Black Mirror episode “Bête Noire” and we noticed that there was a stark difference between our episodes… even the viewers are getting gaslit at 16:40! #BlackMirrorS7 pic.twitter.com/G2Ne1SuvJV
— Vastolorde | AKIO 🫡💖🇺🇸 (@actualakio) April 10, 2025
We’ve reached out to Netflix to ask about this matter, but haven’t heard back. That said, the Netflix and Black Mirror X accounts seem to be having some fun with the whole thing:
barnies https://t.co/TaS4MzrXam
— Black Mirror (@blackmirror) April 11, 2025
And by the way, the main character in the Season 3 episode “Shut Up and Dance” worked at… Barnies. But we’re not sure which reality he lived in, so that doesn’t really solve anything here anyway.
Which version of the episode did you catch? And is it Barnies or Bernies? Vote in our poll and discuss in the comments!
