SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
This animated short revolves around the events causing an electrical systems failure on the west coast of the US. According to Blade Runner 2049’s official timeline, this failure leads to cities shutting down, financial and trade markets being thrown into chaos, and food supplies dwindling. There’s no proof as to what caused the blackouts, but Replicants — the bio-engineered robots featured in the original Blade Runner, are blamed.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 Plot Summary and Synopsis
In 2022, three years after the events of Blade Runner, the Tyrell Corporation has developed the new Nexus-8 line of replicants, who now possess natural, open-ended lifespans equivalent to that of a regular human.
This causes a massive backlash among the human populace, who begin hunting down and killing replicants, seeing them as a now very credible threat to humanity.
One of these replicants, Trixie, is attacked by a group of thugs but is rescued by Iggy, who effortlessly disarms and kills them.
Iggy reveals to her that he used to be a soldier on a planet called Calantha but deserted when he realized the enemy soldiers he had been fighting and killing were also replicants.
Iggy recruits Trixie for an operation carried out by an underground replicant freedom movement to destroy the Tyrell Corporation’s database of registered replicants, so that replicants can no longer be hunted.
Trixie befriends Ren, who is a technician in charge of launching nuclear missiles and a replicant sympathizer. Ren agrees to redirect a test missile to detonate over Los Angeles, blacking out the city and wiping out all electronic data. At the same time, Trixie and Iggy hijack a fuel truck to physically destroy the Tyrell Corporation’s servers.
However, Trixie is killed while battling security forces with Iggy. The operation is a success, with the servers destroyed and power to Los Angeles disabled. Iggy manages to escape and removes his right eye, the only thing that can identify him as a replicant.
Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 Ending
The ending narration states that in the aftermath of the Black Out, all replicant production was banned and the Tyrell Corporation went bankrupt, only for the Wallace Corporation to acquire the company and restart production of a new model a decade later.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).