The Rig – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

What Lies Beneath

Episode 2 of The Rig starts with Baz waking up in the med bay. His eyes are bloodshot and he’s cracking jokes… but it’s clear there’s something more sinister going on here. Rose is there and she questions him about being up on the helipad. He reveals that there was something out in the fog and he’s been hearing voices. “It’s coming!” He says. When asked what it is, the reply is: “A wave.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew are not happy about the upcoming decommissioning. You can understand why Magnus kept this from the others but at the same time, it’s morally wrong and there’s bound to be consequences for this. Dunlin questions Magnus, given they’ve been at this for 20 years together, but now with renewable energy becoming cheaper and their prices going up, it was perhaps inevitable.

Outside the common room, the group end up seeing a light blinking from below. One of the men, Leck, shows up and realizes this is Morse code. He hurriedly writes down these dashes and dots. It seems they need assistance. Magnus decides to put the Stand-By Vessel in a holding position and tasks him with finding out what they know.

As for Leck, it turns out he was in an accident 2 years ago and was lucky to escape with his life. This explains why he had trouble with his suit last episode, given his hands were shaking. As for Hutton, he’s kept in confinement away from the others to prevent mass hysteria.

While Rose decides to get a sample of the ash, Fulmer shows up and reveals they’re on a tight window of time. After all, when the sun comes up then they’re going to be blind and unable to communicate through Morse code anymore. Just then, Cat comes rushing into the room, revealing that Baz has gone missing and is nowhere to be seen. Well, it turns out he’s actually up in the Ops Deck alone, drawing circles on the window.

Alwyn is the one to find him and Baz reveals that there’s something in the light. Spooked, he rushes out and away into the fog again. As he does, Leck heads down into the Med Bay where he helps himself to the alcohol stored away, putting it in a water bottle.

When he heads over to have a shower, Leck strips off and begins bleeding from his heart tattoo on his chest. He cries out in pain, which some of the crew hear and don’t bother to check, until Heather informs Magnus over the radio that Leck is dead. It would seem that inorganic material in his body ie. fillings and tattoos are being rejected by the body, hence the bleeding. The ash could well have triggered it, and even worse, could well have a biological component to it.

A strange light outside that doesn’t seem to be from the ship sees Alwyn and Fulmer join together and investigate. As they do, Hutton escapes from his room and begins wandering through the hallways, determined to find a way out. That comes from heading into the deck and activating the lights. The ash suddenly stops as Hutton calls for the SBV to come in.

Hutton calls the emergency alarm button and argues with Magnus and Dunlin, who eventually show up and try to stop the ship from coming to them. A message is sent out to the whole crew as they’re told to return to the Accommodation Deck. Alwyn doesn’t listen, as he remembers Baz’s warning about something in the light. He notices Baz down below on the lower parts of the deck and heads down to investigate.

Baz grabs Alwyn and he begins spewing water out his mouth. Baz disappears while Dunlin and Magnus show up and attempt to resuscitate him but it’s no good. He’s gone. It seems he’s drowned to death… somehow.

Back in the lab, Rose does some tests on the ash and tries to figure out what material it reacts to. Blood seems to be the reactive agent and based on what we’ve seen, this ash is acting as some sort of parasite. A cut or an injury could be fatal and as we know, Fulmer cut his hand open earlier in the episode when he was out in the ash.

As the episode closes, we cut back to Baz who sits watching the water.

The Episode Review

Episode 2 throws some serious issues into the fold – both for our characters and also the plot. It’s only toward the end of the episode where our management crew realize they have a whole bunch of cameras onboard and use it to check on Alwyn. Not once do they do the same thing to check Hutton who’s supposed to be in his cabin and now just wandering about after escaping.

It would seem that this ash is going to be a key component to what’s happening here, and it’ll be interesting to see how this affects characters like Fulmer whom we know has been cut.

While the show isn’t exactly a new premise, given we’ve seen shows like Origin and Nightflyers tackle this same concept, The Rig’s all-star cast is enough to stick with this one to see what happens next.