Black Mirror: Bandersnatch - All 5 Endings Explained (& How To Get Them)

Warning: SPOILERS below for Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is an interactive game that contains five main endings and more than a trillion possible story combinations. Here are all of the endings, how to get them, and what they all mean. Set in the U.K. in 1984, this unique episode of Charlie Brooker's Netflix technology-based anthology requires the player to make choices to guide Stefan Butler (Fionn Whitehead), a programmer looking to create a choose-your-own-adventure video game based on the book Bandersnatch.

While Bandersnatch's five primary conclusions provide different ways to end the story (and also change the very nature of the story), the game also contains many other endings, some abrupt and some looping the player to make a different choice to continue the story. The player's choices can be as innocuous as choosing what cereal Stefan eats in the morning, but even seemingly simple decisions can lead to different branches of each storyline playing out and can lead to slightly different conclusions. The game actually tracks your decisions and adjusts according to what choice you make to lead you into different story branches; it also sometimes sends you back to make the opposite of a prior decision to see a different branch.

Bandersnatch's surprising first ending comes with one of its earliest choices. At a meeting with Mohan Thakur (Asim Chaudhry), the head of the video game company TuckerSoft, Stefan must choose whether to develop his game in-house and agreeing to do so actually leads to a quick conclusion where his finished game fails to impress the critic at the video game review TV show Microplay. There are numerous other choices to make that lead to different outcomes, but the main game is resolved by the five main endings.

This Page: How Colin Affects The Endings
Page 2: The Netflix TV Show Endings
Page 3: Bury Dad/Stefan In Prison Ending
Page 4: Chop Up Dad/Modern Day Bandersnatch Reboot Ending
Page 5: Program And Control (P.A.C.) Ending
Page 6: The Train Death Ending And The Meaning of Bandersnatch

Colin Is A Key Variable In Bandersnatch's Endings

Colin Ritman (Will Poulter), TuckerSoft's star programmer and Stefan's idol, plays a significant role in how differently the story can turn out. Firstly, Colin vocalizes the many rules and themes of the game; he understands that he's actually a character in a game being controlled by an unseen outside force (he's a non-player character, to boot) and he articulates this knowledge to Stefan. The key moment early in the game is when Stefan's father Peter (Craig Parkinson) takes Stefan to see his psychiatrist Dr. Haynes (their second appointment). The option is given to FOLLOW COLIN and whether or not the player does so affects the outcomes of some of the endings because it matters if Colin is either dead or alive.

If Stefan follows Colin, he is taken to Colin's high-rise flat where he meets Kitty (Tallulah Haddon), Colin's girlfriend, and their baby Pearl (who reappears later in a different fashion). Colin takes Stefan on a drug trip that culminates in Stefan choosing to either leap off the balcony or ask Colin to do it. If Stefan leaps, the game ends with Bandersnatch being released to bad reviews after Stefan's death. But if Colin jumps, he dies and his absence affects the rest of the game.

Before the choice to leap, Colin outright explains the rules of the game in a drug-fueled rant: Bandersnatch is about divergent realities snaking off like roots, and what happens in one path affects the other path. It's also about the illusion of choice; the characters believe they are choosing for themselves but someone else is really controlling their actions under a specific and controlled set of parameters. This is a meta-commentary on the fact that the viewer is actually playing the game and making vital choices. Stefan later realizes his actions are being controlled and he even tries to resist your decisions.

Finally, as Colin explains, time in the game is a construct. Flashbacks allow you to go back and make different choices to change outcomes, so you can go back and try different things to see the different endings. Here, then, are the five main endings of Bandersnatch, how to achieve them, and their variations:

Page 2: The Netflix TV Show Endings

Netflix TV Show Filming Endings

The Netflix endings are the most fun because they're so meta. After Thakur lets Stefan have an extra weekend to finish the game, Stefan realizes he's being controlled and asks for a sign. The choice appears between NETFLIX or a GLYPH. Choosing NETFLIX activates a conversation with "someone" typing on Stefan's screen with the options to explain what Netflix is to the teen in 1984. Finally, Peter enters the room and brings Stefan to Dr. Haynes (Alice Lowe).

Meeting his shrink, Stefan tries to explain that he's being controlled by someone from the future and Dr. Haynes tries to understand what Netflix is. Finally, she asks Stefan why, if he's really in a fictional entertainment scenario, why isn't it more exciting? This then triggers the option to fight Dr. Haynes! The options are YES or F**K YES ,but this leads to a choice to continue the fight or LEAP OUT THE WINDOW. If you fight Dr. Haynes, Stefan engages in eye-popping hand-to-hand combat with his doctor, who takes him on with two batons. Peter then enters and fights Stefan, choking him against the wall. The options are CHOP DAD or KICK HIM IN THE BALLS - but the outcome is the same: Peter drags Stefan out of the office.

However, if instead of fighting Dr. Haynes, you choose JUMP OUT THE WINDOW, the ending becomes even more surreal: Someone yells "Cut!" and Stefan discovers he's just an actor on a film set. A crew member comes up to him, calls him "Mike," and reminds him that it's the fight scene now and he's not scripted to jump out the window. Stefan insists he's really Stefan and not an actor, while the other actors sit around the set looking at him funny. The crew member then calls for the medic.

The TV show filming ending plays into what Colin says during his drug trip, that they're all being controlled by an unseen force and that reality isn't what they think it is. However, the ending where Stefan learns he's just a character in a TV show (but doesn't realize it) is just one interpretation of Colin's rant about actors being hired to play Stefan's family while he's being filmed. Other endings offer different variations on that theme.

Page 3: Bury Dad/Stefan In Prison Ending

Bury Dad/Stefan In Prison Ending

Whether or not Colin jumps off his balcony/is alive offers a slight variation on Stefan receiving a VHS tape containing a documentary about the writer of the Bandersnatch novel, Jerome F. Davies (Jeff Minter). If Colin is alive he personally gives Stefan the tape on September 12th and if he's missing, Stefan gets it from Satpal (Alan Asaad), the office boy. Stefan watches the documentary, which describes Davies' psychotic break and murder of his wife after he becomes convinced there are multiple realities and unseen forces controlling his actions. This leads to the narrator positing the dark theme "Why not commit murder?" You're not in control. You're just a puppet."

This plays into the next two sordid endings which come up if you choose the GLYPH symbol instead of NETFLIX. It creates a scenario where Peter tries to calm Stefan down and Stefan rants about how he's not in control. As the scenario escalates, the option becomes KILL DAD or BACK OFF. The latter ends the game and sends you back to make the choice to KILL DAD. Once Stefan does murder his father, the option becomes BURY BODY or CHOP UP BODY.

After selecting BURY BODY, Stefan receives a phone call from Thukar demanding to know where his finished game is. There are some variations here depending on prior choices the player has made:

If Colin is alive, Thukar sends him to Stefan's house and Colin sees that Stefan kills his father. Stefan then has the option of murdering Colin, but whether he does or not, the outcome is essentially the same: Stefan ends up in prison for murder (or double murder if he kills Colin/if not, Colin simply goes missing), TuckerSoft goes bankrupt and closes its doors.
If Colin jumped, Kitty comes to TuckerSoft looking for him and then visits Stefan's house. Whether or not Stefan lies to Kitty about Colin's fate ends up with the same result: the dog next door ultimately digs up Peter's body, Stefan goes to prison and Tuckersoft goes bankrupt.
There's also a third scenario where Thukar is so angry at Stefan for blowing his deadline that he visits Stefan's house himself. Stefan ends up murdering Thukar as well and he still goes to prison.

These endings take what happened to Jerome Davies and apply the same murderous outcomes to Stefan. He's so disturbed by the realization that he's not in control of his own life that the game forces him to murder his father and do away with the corpse. The variations come thanks to which prior choices the viewer made, but they all end with him in prison. These endings also play into the sordid nature of video games where since it's only a game, it's okay to play into your worst impulses and kill; as Colin explained, it doesn't matter how many times you die since like Pac Man, you can just start over. Indeed, Bandersnatch lets the player go back and make different choices to change the outcome.

Page 4: Chop Up Dad/Modern Day Bandersnatch Reboot Ending

Chop Up Dad/Modern Day Bandersnatch Reboot Ending

Once Stefan kills his dad with an ashtray blow to the skull, if the player chooses CHOP UP BODY - with Stefan complaining "Oh come on!" at this horrific command - a different grisly scenario opens up that leads to a shocking ending. Once more, it matters greatly if Colin is alive and Stefan never followed him to his flat and told him to jump off the balcony.

If Colin is alive, Stefan indeed chops up his father's corpse and then goes to see Dr. Haynes. In this scenario, a relaxed Stefan calmly explains he was able to finish the game by realizing it was too complicated and removing various options, leaving only the illusion of free will. Stefan was able to finish the game, with the decapitated head of Peter watching, and it's released to a glowing five-star review on Microplay. If Colin is dead, the scenario where Kitty visits Stefan's house activates but has no bearing on the ending; Bandersnatch still gets a five-star review.

This then triggers the Modern Day Ending: in 2018, an adult Pearl Ritman (Laura Evelyn) tells a reporter that she intends to create a reboot of Bandersnatch as an interactive game for Netflix. Since the infant Pearl was introduced to Stefan as "Daddy's Little Legacy", she lives up to the nickname her father gave her. This leads to a very meta credits sequence for Bandersnatch intercut with scenes of Pearl coding her Bandersnatch that echoes the work Stefan did in 1984, and like Stefan, something goes terribly wrong: the code for Pearl's game also deletes itself from the monitor. A new choice comes up for Pearl to SPILL TEA on her keyboard or DESTROY her computer. Either way, the game ends.

However, this ending indicates that Pearl is no more in control of her fate than Stefan was of his; there's still an unseen outside force controlling their actions. In this way, history repeats itself, which is another way to prove Colin's theory that "time is a construct" - what happened to Stefan 34 years ago is also happening to Pearl (except that the player doesn't get to play through Pearl's scenarios).

Page 5: Program And Control (P.A.C.) Ending

Program And Control (P.A.C.) Ending

For this ending to trigger, Colin has to jump to his death. If Stefan jumps, the game cuts to Christmas time where Stefan is dead and Bandersnatch is ultimately completed by TuckerSoft and is released to bad reviews. However, when Colin is dead the game activates the option for the Program And Control Ending.

To get the P.A.C. Ending, Stefan is back in his bedroom after an appointment with Dr. Haynes and the player is given the option to pick up a BOOK about programming or a FAMILY PHOTO. Picking up the BOOK creates a scenario where Stefan finds Peter's safe. Depending on the player's prior choices, the safe could demand different codes:

JFD creates a scenario where Jerome F. Davies suddenly appears behind Stefan, frightens him, and the game restarts.
PAX introduces the monster from the Bandersnatch books, who attacks Stefan, and the game restarts.
TOY creates the Train Death Ending (see next page)
PAC creates the P.A.C. Ending.

In the P.A.C. Ending, Stefan opens Peter's safe and discovers that he has been an experiment his entire life of a Program And Control Study. Peter is not really his father and has been working with Dr. Haynes to monitor and control Peter's behavior, including drugging his food and filming him. Surveillance video shows Stefan's mum never died. Peter then enters the room and Stefan kills him.

The game then resets to the choice where Stefan demands to know who is controlling him. The options now become P.A.C.S or the Glyph. If the player chooses P.A.C.S., Stefan automatically kills Peter and then the player must enter the code 20541 in the safe. After discovering the truth about P.A.C.S., Stefan calls Dr. Haynes' office and leaves a message with her receptionist, telling her that he killed Peter, he knows all about P.A.C.S., and he's coming for Haynes next. Stefan buries Peter but is arrested and imprisoned. Meanwhile, Bandersnatch is released with broken code and receives a 2 1/2 star review from Microplay.

This ending completely ties into Colin's drug-fueled rant about Stefan being Pac Man - which he literally becomes. Ultimately, Stefan is living in the Hell Colin described Pac Man's life to be. As Colin described the government monitoring people, paying them to pretend to be your relatives, drugging your food, and filming you, it all becomes literal in Stefan's case as he discovers his entire life is a lie, but this is just an added layer of unreality where the character living in a video game discovers his fake life is even faker than he realized. The P.A.C.S. ending also plays into when Colin says that Stefan/the player can hear the code all around them; the 20541 code to Peter's safe is spoken throughout the dialogue if you are paying close attention (although the game uses flashbacks to lend a helping hand at the crucial moment).

Page 6: The Train Death Ending And The Meaning of Bandersnatch

The Train Death Ending

This ending is dependent on several prior choices and also seeing some of the other endings. The playthrough will have needed to have paid special focus on Stefan's mother and also his rabbit stuffed animal that Peter confiscated when he was a boy. To see the Train Death Ending, Stefan needs to have spoken to Dr. Haynes about his mother, followed Colin to back to his flat and gotten high with him, let Colin leap to his death, flushed his medication, picked up his family photo, and punched PAC into Peter's safe to see the P.A.C. Ending. Instead of going to the end credits, the player can choose to return to Peter's safe.

At the safe, choose TOY as the code. This creates a new ending where Stefan becomes his five-year-old self on the day his mum died. In the scenario where mum died, young Stefan couldn't find his toy rabbit (because Peter confiscated it) and delayed her, which caused her to board the later 8:45 am train that crashed and killed her. Instead, Stefan does find his rabbit. Stefan's mum asks if he's ready to go with her; choose YES. Stefan then dies in 1984 at the same therapy session he has with Dr. Haynes at the start of the film. He seemingly closes his eyes and dies right there, which triggers the closing credits.

One of Colin's biggest rants involved how mirrors are time machines to the past, which is why when Stefan dreamed of his past, he entered through a mirror and could transform into his five-year-old self. The Train Death Ending, while tragic, seems to be Stefan's true heart's desire. He wanted to complete Bandersnatch, but more than anything he blamed himself for the death of his mum, and alternately hated his dad for it as well. Dying with his mum is the final thing he's looking for and why the game allows the player to keep playing through different endings to each it. It seems to be the final denoument for Stefan, giving him the ending he actually wants most.

Black Mirror's legacy is taking our emerging real-world technology and pushing it to find scary, bizarre, disturbing, but also occasionally uplifting scenarios that feel like they could ultimately happen. Bandersnatch takes the gimmick of interactive, choose your own adventure games and brilliantly applies it to Black Mirror where the player suddenly takes control of the dark and sordid turns of the story. Using Colin to initially lay out the rules of the game, Bandersnatch pulls a clever switcheroo where the viewer now becomes the very person causing the chaos in Stefan's life that they would otherwise rue the filmmakers for when watching a regular episode. Bandersnatch makes the viewer/player complicit in the tragedy that unfolds in a way Black Mirror has never done before.

Along with its meta commentary about playing video games, with its different endings, Bandersnatch also has its cake and eats it too by providing multiple ways for Stefan's story to turn out. But because the game is clear about the rules and its structure, there is no debate necessary about which is the 'real' ending. Whether it's the surreal Netflix ending that pulls the rug out from under you by revealing it's all a TV show (that Stefan has lost his identity in) or by turning Stefan into an unrepentant killer priding himself on his five-star video game, each conclusion is satisfying in its own way. Meanwhile, the game is immersive and invites further playthrough to unlock its secrets, which makes Black Mirror: Bandersnatch a success as both a video game and as a worthy episode of Charlie Brooker's phenomenal sci-fi series.

Next: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Choices Guide

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is streaming now on Netflix.