Cillian Darcy: Wonders of the World is an episode of anthology series Black Mirror. Written by showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Bryn Higgins.
The episode follows Alex Williams (Bradley Steven Perry), a high-school student who is suffering from PTSD as he accidentally bring his gaming icon Cillian Darcy (Dacre Montgomery) and teams up with him to stop his arch-nemesis Kage the Lizard King (Jon Hamm) and his abusive father James Williams (Dean Winters).
The episode received very positive reviews, with praise for the performances of Perry, Montgomery, Hamm and Winters.
Plot[]
Alex Williams is a highschool student with PTSD and the abuse he suffered as a child. When he was young, his mother died in a car accident and was abused by his father, an abusive alcoholic. He was placed in a foster home after his father was arrested. When he arrived home from school, Eugene, Alex's foster brother and a computer scientist who is doing research for his grand invention, a supercomputer called the XRI that possesses artificial intelligence with the ability to project virtual reality. After dinner, the foster family leaves to see a movie, leaving Alex with the XRI. Alex encounters the XRI and, after unable to get it to help, hooks up his gaming console to play Cillian Darcy.
When the game was paused, Cillian, the game's main character, reveals to be an egotistical and abusive tyrannical boss who is abuse his teammates. When the fifty-fourth level is about to be complete, Cillian grabs the nerd and purposely throw him out the window. Afterwards, Cillian pulls the blinds down and turns around, to see all the other students in school having had witnessed what he just did. Cillian lies that the nerd slipped and he attempted to help him, with the students immediately rushing to the window, peeking through the blinds, to see what had happened to the nerd. Alex thinks the game has a glitch and decided to fix it.
Cillian attempts to go to class and relax while ignoring the matter, but Marylin abruptly accuses Cillian of having had purposely thrown him out the window, where Cillian, in a mean-spirited tone, says "Hey, it's a boy-eat-boy world". After the Coach scolds Cillian for what he did, he silences him by locking them in the closet. All the student go the classroom in rebellion, and refuse to leave after Cillian commands them to. In response, Cillian calls for Snake to remove them, but he refuses while agreeing with the other students. Upon Snake's refusal to carry out his command, Cillian screams at Snake and threatens to throw him out the window too if he doesn't do what he says. This only makes the goths angrier, and the jocks suddenly restrain Cillian so the Students can get ahold of him. Snake then reccommends that rather than throwing him out of the classroom, that they throw him out the window, like he did to the nerd before Alex manage to hack into the computer to bring Cillian out of the video game, becoming a 3D character capable of interacting with reality.
Cillian discovers that Alex is a huge fan of him and begin to feel regret abusing his team in the game. The police appear and tells Alex that his father James has escaped from prison. Cillian's departure from the game causes him to lose his power as time goes on and he ends up causing trouble throughout Florida, like jumps onto some rooftops, their chimneys collapse. When he runs through traffic, he wrecks all the cars, and when he tries to impress a little girl, he just ends up scaring her. A sixth Demon Lord, Kage the Lizard King and his minions inadertently escape the game and look to take over the real world. Cillian attempt to stop him, but failed due to his powers being absorbed by Kage and Alex passed out after a shock attack.
A week later, Alex wakes up and discovers that the XRI was stolen. He finds Cillian, who is exhausted and weak due to the real world, in the living room. After sneaking downstairs without anyone noticing, Alex and Cillian devise a plot to find out about and stop Kage's scheme by searching for a Crystal in Seattle. While arriving to Seattle and finding a Crystal in his old home, Cillian uses its power to temporarily regain his strength, and Cillian gives Alex a teaste of the power which shows him the truth of his mother's death, his father was responsible for the car accident which makes him mad and swore revenge. At the same time, Kage sets up a shell corporation called Shady Corporation and uses it to purchase the abandoned Ramshackle Amusement Park, renaming it Williamsland Amusement Park. He recruits a group of school bulllies and turns them into Lizard-Bullies.
Kage then runs into James, who reluctantly accepts his offer to be the park's manager to attempt to get his son back. Using Eugene's XRI technology, Kage develops a virtual reality ride to draw kids to the newly revived theme park. The park opens to huge crowds, with kids all across town attending opening day. However, when Alex and Cillian manage to inspect the ride, they discover Eggman is using the ride to turn the kids into his Lizard minions, calling them Lizard-Kids and forcing them to look around the park to find the Crystals. After further inspection, the duo discover that Kage and James, using the Crystals, will program the XRI to turn the world's natural landmarks, such as Mount Everest and the Amazon rainforest, into digital replicas so that he can make virtual reality experiences and profit off of people wanting to see them, so that they wouldn't have to visit the landmarks themselves. The Lizard-Bullies catch the duo and a chase ensues, ending with a weak Cillian being captured and Alex barely escaping.
The Lizard-Kids return to their houses and do everything their parents say, such as eating their veggies and doing their homework. Alex sees a hallucination of his mother and start going into a rage, attacking all of James' allies from prison to rescue Cillian. He hatches a plan to return everything back to normal and return Kage back into the game world, using Cillian as bait. James attacking Alex as they fight until Alex knocked him out. They succeed in luring Kage back into the game, but Alex gets sucked in too as they discovers they appeared in Level 55. The final showdown occurs, with a newly rejuvenated Cillian and Alex battling against Kage. With Kage's plans foiled, he is automanically deleted and vow for revenge. Cillian decides to stay in his world knowing that the final Demon Lord is waiting for him in the final level, and bids Alex farewell as he smiles before the latter returns home. Alex returns to his world and finally moved on from the past. He returns to his old home and pack the remaining of his belongings before hopping on the train to go home.
Some time later, Williamsland Amusement Park as been brought by Bloodtwins Studio, the company that creates the Cillian Darcy games, and renamed Darcyland while Cillian, in the game world, stole the motorbike and accepts his memories of Alex as his friend while riding to battle the final Demon Lord. Alex finds out there's a DLC of the game called The Darcy Triplets and starts playing, smiling.
Cast[]
- Bradley Steven Perry as Alex Williams, a high school junior who is suffering from PTSD and is placed in a foster home.
- Dacre Montgomery as Cillian Darcy, a video game character who was an abusive tyrant in the game and, with Alex's help, is seeking redemption.
- Jon Hamm as Kage the Lizard King, Cillian's arch-nemesis and a demon lord in the game who's plotting world domination.
- Dean Winters as James Williams, Alex's abusive father who was in jail for abusing his own son and escaped from prison.
- Samara Weaving as Emily Williams, Alex's late mother who died in a car accident when he was five.
- Hugh Jackman as Oliver, Alex's foster father who is an artist and a very gentle man.
- Michelle Rodriguez as Rosa, Alex's foster mother who is a lawyer and a kind woman.
- Troy Gentile as Thomas, Alex's foster brother who's a jock and an ally to him.
- Ian Chen as Eugene, Alex's foster brother who is a computer scientist and an ally to him.
- Becky G as Emily, Alex's foster sister who is a singer and an ally to him.