Black Mirror season 7 episode 5 review: Eulogy ending explained - what happened to Phillip and Carol?

• Paul Giamatti stars in Eulogy.
• Black Mirror season 7 released on Netflix on April 10.
• See what we made of the episode in our review.

Synopsis: An isolated man is introduced to a ground-breaking system that allows users to step inside old photos - stirring powerful emotions in the process.

Black Mirror takes a trip down memory lane to powerful effect in the penultimate episode of season 7. See my rankings of all the episodes of the show here.

Paul Giamatti is brilliantly cast as Phillip, a lonely man travelling into photos from his past in search of a memory of a long-ago love that can be used as part of her funeral. It is a role that you cannot imagine any other current actor being able to pull off quite so well.

He grounds Phillip with a lived in sense of history - he feels well-worn, ground down by living. As a viewer you can feel the tragedy of him being unable to picture Carol’s face, especially after he cut her face out of all their old photos.

The technology itself is the kind that Black Mirror does best - just slightly out of the realms of the possible now, but yet still believable. In a lesser version, the stepping into the photos would have been a more extravagant affair, yet instead in Eulogy it is fittingly melancholic.

Everyone except for Phillip and The Guide (Patsy Ferran) are frozen in the same moment that the picture was taken. The scenes are limited by memory and what Phillip can actually recall all these years later.

The way background sounds sometimes blend back in - like Stone Roses Fool’s Gold - is clever and in one scene at a bar the flash from the camera itself is incorporated into it. Which is a brilliant touch.

Eulogy explores the fragility of memory and the way we self-censor memories, to protect our internal versions of ourselves. It is deeply poignant and well executed.

What takes the episode to another level is when the Guide calls out Phillip for the way he is remembering Carol - always using negatives and blaming her - and his self-pity, ignoring Carol’s own feelings. It is a moment that a lesser episode would omit.

Eulogy - ending explained

The Guide is revealed to be a ‘disposable avatar’ based on Carol’s daughter Kelly Royce. It is a twist, but like much of the full season it is one that is grounded in the episode’s story.

Kelly tells Phillip that he isn’t the father and it was instead a one-night stand from the orchestra. He finds a disposable camera and remembers that he took one photo with it, he rushes off to get it developed and together with the Guide he steps into it.

It shows a note addressed to ‘Philly’ - which he doesn’t remember and after trying to pick it up in the image, he angrily leaves. After some prompting from avatar Kelly, Phillip realises he had taken the note with him and reads it.

Phillip returns to one of the images and finds Carol playing the cello in it. In the final scene he is shown attending the funeral in London.