Rabbit Hole – Season 1 Episode 7 “Gilgamesh” Recap & Review

Gilgamesh

Episode 7 of Rabbit Hole begins with the news confirming that the Shared Data Bill has been elevated to an early vote on the Senate floor. However, it has now been renamed as the Nora Evers American Protection Act. This will controversially allow select private companies access to US citizen records and consumer data. It’s actually expected to pass with a majority, and grant access to three private companies to begin with. The companies selected? Termina Systems, CKB Digital and Arda Analytics.

All the pieces are moving into place but the flashbacks hark back to the title of this episode, Gilgamesh. Miles and John are at school, with the former teaching John to focus and not get caught up in petty squabbles with classmates.

In the present, John Weir realizes that the briefcase holds a bunch of numbers but nothing that really seems concrete against Evers. John is starting to spiral, and with two days until the President passes the bill, he tasks Edward Homm with deciphering the numbers. John also accuses his father of wanting the Bill to pass and orchestrating all of this, something the others are quick to point out he didn’t actually say. John is spiraling and it seems he’s been experiencing big hallucinations.

Over with Jo Madi, she prints out some pretty graphic pictures at home and tries to work out how everything is connected to John Weir and his dead team. In fact, John disappears and heads off out the window. As for Haley, she sees the open laptop screen and notices the conversation between John and, presumably, Miles. She decides not to tell the others, shutting the screen down. Now, is she covering up herself or protecting John?

Either way, we get a reminder that John Weir is still wanted by the authorities, which seems a little convenient to bring up given the guy galivanted in the middle of the FBI building earlier in the season. Anyway, I digress. Hailey heads out to try and find him, while John enters a very public arena, using a laptop in a shop to communicate with our guy. However, he’s spotted by those at Arda, who decide to bring in the cops to his location.

John manages to slip away, where Hailey tracks him down by recording an earlier chat on the phone. Anyway, in the alleyway next to the shop, John points out that sometimes his mind goes walkabouts and he tends to envision every single scenario in his head until he finds the one that makes the most sense. He can’t control it and Miles was the only one who managed to stabilize him. Without him around, John is struggling with deciphering what’s real and what’s not.

John bundles Hailey on a bus and he heads back to the safehouse, where an excited Edward Homm declares that yes, he is the man; he’s figured out the briefcase code. It’s actually a roadmap to Crowley’s operation. A “Rosetta Stone of corruption,” as he calls it. There’s whole bunch of people he’s been paying off to control them, explaining why Crowley is so interested in it.

John shows up at church and, in particular, a confession booth. This catches us up to the moments at the start of episode 1 where this whole mess began. He’s erratic and as he confesses, John’s ex rings and points out that a package has arrived for him… addressed from Miles Valence.

We get scattered shots of Miles Valence in the middle of all this, who shows up at a secure location and looks set to do a transaction of some kind. However, we follow Hailey for now, as she switches a USB stick at the safehouse after distracting Edward Homm, who happens to be watching the conspiracy theorist online. The guy compares Eddie to Jesus and there’s actually over 2 million viewers now too. As for Hailey, she drops a note off at Jo’s office asking to meet.

Outside in the open, Hailey points out that she cares for John Weir and tells her that he didn’t kill anyone.. and she has proof of that too. This explains what’s on the USB. Anyway, she brings this to her superior, and encourages him to look through what he’s found. He believes Jo Madi can write her whole career with this…so he wants her to completely forget about it. In exchange, she’ll be given her old job back and she can also be promoted onto the taskforce to find John Weir.

John heads back home and it seems like the package Miles sent has some sort of significant meaning for him, but it remains to be seen exactly what. Kyle shows up to see John in the middle of the street, who tells him to walk, pointing a gun and acting as the lackey. He’s taken a pretty open location, complete with a CCTV camera on the lamppost. Crowley is sitting before him, who points out that Ben has been playing the long game and manipulating them all this time.

John has heard enough and starts beating the guy down… until he realizes the man is a fake. He’s wearing an earpiece and the guy we thought was Crowley is actually just another pawn in this seemingly never-ending game.

Crowley has been watching him on the CCTV camera attached to the lamppost and he wants his help. Specifically, he wants John’s help to stop Ben, who is apparently the architect behind everything that’s going on right now. Crowley claims it was Ben who blew up the Aerodelta flight and Crowley can actually prove that he’s been lying to him all this time. He’s been his neighbour this whole time and hasn’t actually been touring the globe at all.

John heads back home with the piece of Gilgamesh and realizes that Ben is gone. He starts to look around the bed, and notices a handgun under the mattress. John holds his father up at gunpoint when he returns and demands answers, pointing out his alias of Dr Wolff.

While they argue, Homm manages to find what’s inside the tablet, which happens to be a datafile. This holds a video of Miles Valence, who admits he was actually ordered to kill John. Crowley has outplayed him, given Valence won’t do this to his best friend. Miles admits that there are eyes and ears all over Arda Analytics, but his stunt is going to buy them some time so he and Ben can escape.

Miles apologizes for what he needs to go through and tells John that he must be okay if he’s watching. He uses the code “Gilgamesh” and all of this catches us up to the timeline, where we learn that actually, Miles is definitely dead and the moments we saw of him were edited cleverly to make it seem like he’s alive.

The messages John has ben receiving on his computer were actually from Crowley this whole time, having infiltrated the system and posing as a crook all along. He pretended to be Miles to turn John, but of course John realizes the error of his ways and apologizes to his father. After, they get down to brass tacks. Specifically, the focus turns to the new plan to stop Crowley once and for all. They need to be smart and make sure they work as a team to get Crowley before its too late. Everyone is on the same page now, and now as a unified front, they’re prepared to do whatever it takes.

The Episode Review

Rabbit Hole is back and its penultimate episode sets everything up for what should be a very dramatic and shocking finale next week. All roads now lead to Crowley, and in order to get there, this unified front need to be firing on all cylinders.

It would appear that Hailey is definitely working on John’s side… but is this another red herring? There’s big question marks over her behaviour. Sure, she handed over information to help John, but we know that she’s got ulterior motives. And why would she hide the laptop screen from Ben and Edward?

Could it be that she’s working with Crowley, feeding him information? It would make perfect sense too, given John opening up to her about his childhood and ties with Miles, and then Crowley just so happening to use that against him an episode later seems a bit too convenient for my liking.

This episode catches us up to the moments from episode 1 with the confessional booth, and this ties in really well with the overall tone and mood of the show, which keeps you guessing every which way. The editing here is great too and the smart way the series includes moments with Miles Valence, keeping us guessing over whether he’s really alive or not, was handled surprisingly well.

Everything is resting precariously on a knife-edge right now and it’s anyone’s guess over exactly who will come out of this on top.