Contains spoilers for this episode.
Cooper travels abroad after watching his father decline with Alzheimer's disease, avoiding the calls his mother keeps making. A problem with his bank account leaves him needing money in England. He accepts a game-testing job after spending time with journalist Sonja, who urges him to photograph the company's secret technology. At the laboratory he turns his confiscated phone back on, then forgets to switch it off again.
An implant produces a convincing game demonstration, followed by an offer to test personalised horror. Cooper enters a mansion where the programme draws on his fears. Spiders become stranger, his childhood bully appears and an apparent visit from Sonja ends in violence. When communication with the technician resumes, reassurance turns into questions he can no longer answer. His memories of his mother and his own identity begin disappearing as he tries to escape the device.
Cooper seems to awaken safely after a test lasting only a second. He even returns home, where his mother fails to recognise him and repeatedly calls his number. That reunion is another part of the experience. Back in the original laboratory, her incoming call interferes with the implant and kills him almost immediately. The technicians record a test lasting 0.04 seconds. Everything Cooper appeared to survive beyond the first activation unfolded inside that fatal interval, ending with the mother he had avoided trying to reach him.