The episode is a satire on entertainment shows and insatiable thirst for distraction set in a sarcastic version of a future reality. In this world, everyone must cycle on exercise bikes in order to power their surroundings and generate currency called Merits. Everyday activities are constantly interrupted by advertisements that cannot be skipped or ignored without financial penalty. Obese people are considered to be second-class citizens, and either work as cleaners around the machines (where they receive verbal abuse) or are humiliated on game shows.

Bingham "Bing" Madsen (Daniel Kaluuya) has inherited 12 million merits from his dead brother and has the luxury of skipping advertisements. In the toilet he overhears Abi (Jessica Brown Findlay) singing; he encourages her to enter into the X-Factor style game show Hot Shots, which offers a chance for people to get out of the slave-like world around them. Bing persuades her and, feeling there is nothing "real" worth buying, purchases the ticket for her. The judges (Rupert Everett, Julia Davis, Ashley Thomas) and the crowd enjoy her cover of "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is", but they state there is no room for an 'Above Average Singer' and instead give her the chance to become an adult actress on a pornographic TV station. After goading from the judges and the crowd, and drugged on a substance called "Cuppliance" (compliance in a cup), Abi reluctantly agrees.

Bing returns to his cell without Abi and any merits. When an advert showing Abi performing a sexual act appears on the screen, he can't skip it (as he doesn't have enough Merits) and desperately tries to escape his cell, ramming the door until the glass breaks. He hides a shard of glass under his bed. Over the next months he leads a frugal lifestyle, saving up 15 million merits to buy another competition ticket. He patiently waits in the Hot Shots until he is called to compete.

On stage he interrupts his performance, draws the shard of glass and threatens to kill himself live on the show. He tearfully rants about how unfair the system is and how heartless people have become, and expresses his anger for how the judges took away, corrupted, and sold the only thing he found that was real. The judges, instead of taking his words into consideration, are impressed by his 'performance' and offer him his own show, where he can rant about the system all he likes.

Bing accepts and is later shown finishing one of his streams in his penthouse. He pours himself a fresh orange juice and stands staring through a wall-length window at a vast green forest stretching to the horizon, in a cell much larger than his original. It appears to be real as a parallax effect is visible as the camera recedes.

Lacie Pound (Bryce Dallas Howard) lives in a world where both friends and strangers can rate your popularity out of five stars due to technology inside phones and standard smart lenses that display everyone's name and current rating. Not only does this technology affect day-to-day lifestyle, but also affects social standing, with people below 2.5 considered lower-class. Obsessed with being received well, she currently has an approval rating around 4.2. She lives with her brother Ryan (James Norton), who has a lower approval rating than her because he doesn't worry as much about it. Their lease is expiring, and Lacie is eager to move out. She learns that in order to be able to afford to live in an exclusive estate, she must have a rating of 4.5 or above, and is advised that the best way to improve her own rating is to socialise with highly-ranked people because their ratings carry more weight. Her childhood friend Naomi (Alice Eve) contacts Lacie and asks her to be Naomi's maid of honour at her forthcoming wedding, which Lacie delightedly accepts. Naomi, who has a rating of 4.8, has many upper class friends and lives on an exclusive and idyllic island. Lacie believes if she delivers a perfect maid of honour speech, she will be flooded with enough 5-star ratings to pull her approval up to the 4.5 she needs.

Lacie leaves her house to travel to the wedding. At the airport, she is told her original flight has been cancelled, and she needs at least a 4.2 to get a seat on another. Due to a row with Ryan and several unfortunate encounters with strangers, her rating has dropped to 4.183, so she is refused the seat. She causes a scene at the airport due to frustration, and security gives her a 24-hour punishment: firstly, her rating is temporarily lowered by one entire point, to 3.1; secondly, all downvotes she receives during the punishment period will incur a double multiplier. Lacie's lower ranking means she can only rent an old model of a car to make the nine-hour drive to Naomi's wedding. When the electric car loses power, she cannot find a way to charge it because the car is so old that its adaptor is no longer carried at the charging station. Lacie attempts to hitchhike, but passing motorists are alarmed by her low ranking and refuse to stop, and some even downvote her further. Eventually she manages to get a ride from an older woman in a truck, Susan (Cherry Jones), who reveals she too was obsessed with ratings until her husband was passed over for vital cancer treatment because he was a 4.3 rather than a 4.4. After his death, Susan stopped caring about appealing to other people to get high ratings, and today has a rating of only 1.4. Susan also remarks that she felt better and carefree when speaking freely in front of other people. Naomi calls Lacie and tells her she is no longer welcome at the wedding due to her rating, which has dropped to 2.6. Lacie is shocked because she thought being one of Naomi's oldest friends would guarantee her invitation, but Naomi informs her that she was only invited because calculations suggested Lacie's appearance as a childhood friend with a rating in the low 4s would seem authentic and help Naomi get higher ratings.

Lacie is persistent and decides to go anyway. She breaks into the island, because her rating is too low to go in officially, and gatecrashes the wedding reception. She hastily performs her speech, ripping into Naomi for sleeping with her boyfriend when they were younger. All the guests subsequently rank her down, though Lacie is unfazed by this. She threatens Naomi's new husband, Paul (Alan Ritchson), with a knife when he tries to restrain her. She is arrested, has the technology to be ranked removed, and is jailed. While in her prison cell, she notices a prisoner (Sope Dirisu) across the hall staring at her. She tries to rank him down but then she realizes that she doesn't have her phone anymore. Like Lacie, the other prisoner appears to be a person who used to have a high ranking, as he is wearing a well-fitting business suit. Lacie and the man begin to exchange insults, and their mutual anger transforms into mutual delight as they each realize they are now free to speak without fear.