Carol & The End of The World – Season 1 Episode 7 Recap & Review

The Beetle Broach

Carol & The End of The World Episode 7 begins with an employee named Gil, who is reprimanded for his poor work and forced to go on a paid two-week vacation as a punishment. Gil very much does go to a seaside spot but does not enjoy the beachside relaxing or the late-night dancing. He then uses a fake moustache and a new piercing to get hired at The Distraction again but this time as Petey Leonard. He is taken to his desk and can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, Luis tells Donna and Carol that he’s lost his beetle broach – gold with wings. Donna and Carol can’t recall ever seeing the broach but they head to the lost and found section to look for it anyway. It’s a room full of lost objects, including a blue scarf that Carol finds beautiful. Donna tells her that not all things need to have some long, elaborate backstory.

We then see a man wearing the same blue scarf and go to a coffee shop. While driving to deliver the coffees, he ends up getting into a car accident. Injured and weak, he insists on getting more coffee from another shop and taking a random car to deliver them. He falls asleep but pushes onwards and finally makes it to his destination — The Distraction, which he must reach before 7 am. He makes it in time but walks in to realise that it’s a Saturday. Dejected, he puts the coffee on a desk and takes his scarf off.

Carol then finds an umbrella, saying she bets these objects are missed by their owners. She pictures an old man sitting in the rain, annoyed about not having an umbrella. She holds up a pair of blue glasses and we see a skydiver break in through one of the office’s windows. Carol finds lost pairs of earrings and we see Donna losing hers while in the middle of a passionate kiss with a co-worker.

The focus shifts to a red Swiss army knife. A man from The Distraction goes home, where he is greeted by another man who’s made a delicious dinner. They have wine on the roof (opened using the Swiss knife) and the latter says he wants to quit NASA to write a play. He asks the first man to join him but he says he can’t. They leave things on a sour note.

Carol then finds a walkie-talkie. A man speaks into a walkie-talkie, speaking with another man about all the adventurous things they have been doing. The man on the other end is about to ask him something but loses his nerve in the end.

Donna and Carol bond over the joy of getting things from Goodwill. The focus then shifts to a pink beanie hat. It was worn by none other than Luis, while he ice skated to the tune of “I Will Survive”. He’s graceful and makes a delightful sight, dancing on the ice. And there’s a beetle broach on his jacket!

The search in the lost and found room continues, many objects pass through their hands but not the beetle broach. There is, however, a small silver lighter. A Russian woman cleans up an office building, vacuuming and putting dishes away. She then goes to Hotel Crepuscule, where she does the same.

Unable to find her lighter, she uses the stove to light her cigarette. She cleans various houses. At one, the family returns home but has no idea who she is or why she’s cleaning the place. She simply tells them their dishwasher is broken and leaves, continuing her work till daybreak.

Luis is exhausted after looking for his broach. The story turns towards the very planet of the hour — Keppler 9C. We see people panicking when the planet first appeared and how chaos broke out. We see The Distraction’s boss looking out his window at the planet, in shock.

Donna, Carol and Luis start packing up the things in the lost and found room, giving up their search. Luis comes across a small doll of himself and we see that an employee named Doug has made miniatures of everybody at work. The Luis doll is wearing a beetle broach.

A golden letter F sits in one of the lost and found boxes. It once belonged to the plaque at Golden Harvest Foods, overseen by the man who is now the boss at The Distraction. He goes into his office and makes a call for all the receipts from the past quarter.

At present, Carol makes a comparison between all the lost and found objects and all of the people at The Distraction. They were all lost after Keppler first came. Carol suggests they all needed time to be lost before they were found again.

Flashbacks show the Distraction’s boss working at his office even when everyone else grows frantic and leaves. A distraught woman, with worn clothes and makeup running down her face, sees the light on in the building where the man is working and enters. She puts herself together and joins as his first employee.

More people come by and sign up as employees, glad to be able to work somewhere. Meanwhile, the boss just can’t seem to get his calculations right. Everything he does comes down to 0.38 on the calculator. Lots of other people join the office, including Luis and Donna, the two men from management, and eventually Carol.

 Before leaving the room, Carol takes the blue scarf and puts it around her own neck. They leave the office and soon the other employees sign out for the day as well. The boss looks at the 0.38 on his calculator, dismayed.

Back in Doug’s doll world, he makes Luis go home where he finds his doll-sized beetle broach. Doug makes them kiss at the end of Carol & The End of The World Episode 7.


The Episode Review

Carol & The End of The World is making a point of giving importance to the little things, the small details and insignificant objects that usually fly under the radar. Episode 7 very beautifully uses ordinary things like lighters and umbrellas to draw up stories of other ordinary people.

But among all the ‘ordinariness’ is the feeling that these stories matter, that ultimately we are all intertwined into the same web. The series has a way of making the simple and the mundane become meaningful and valuable.

Each story strikes a different chord, whether it’s humour, irony, the heartbreak of certain relationships, or the mystery of why a woman would go around cleaning buildings and houses if she didn’t have to. But the entire premise of the show is centred on people who are doing things they don’t have to do but want to do. Doug’s doll world stands out as something a little too weird from the other mini-tales, but the rest absolutely nail the slice-of-life vibe.

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Read our season 1 review of Carol & The End of The World here!

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