Signs
Episode 4 of The Rig starts with us understanding more about Magnus’s past. He’s a man haunted by the ghost of his son, who was only 8 when he was hit by a car. Magnus had to stay past rotation and missed all of this. He couldn’t be there for his son and it has affected him ever since. Meanwhile, Baz and Garrow work together to try and turn the pipes off completely. It turns out they need to go right to the source to shut them down. Rose sits in with Fulmer, who awakens on his stomach, sporting burns all over his back. He’s lucky to still be alive but there’s a bigger problem on their hands. Rose admits she’s there with Fulmer because she wants to be. Now that he’s lucid and awake, she tells him to rest up while she goes back to her job. Heather speaks to Rose and believes that Baz is not aggressive. He didn’t mean to kill Alwyn and it was all an accident. The whole flight or fight response came into play here. Anyway, Rose believes that the ash is manifested into some sort of ancestor that’s the oldest organism on Earth. While she talks, Fulmer just nonchalantly gets dressed and looks set to leave. Before he steps out the door, he overhears Cat, who reveals to Rose and Heather that she’s pregnant with Magnus’ child. With the pressure on the rig out of control, they’ve got no choice but to launch the Bullseye and go right to the source. As they take it down deep into the ocean, they uncover a strange symbol on the seabed that looks just like the circles we’ve seen before, marked across the ship by those infected. It seems to be some sort of thermal vent. As they bring the vessel closer to sabotage Baz’s plan, taking the wellhead, the latter realizes he’s running out of time. Baz deduces that he needs to bring Fulmer in as he’s the only one who can stop this. Just then, the signal suddenly comes back again as Fulmer is tasked with heading to the Radio Room to communicate with the Beach. When he heads inside the room, he instead researches “circle communication” to figure out what these things on the ocean floor are. Rose also uncovers something called Project Cirein which requires authorization above hers. Given she’s the highest level of security, that’s certainly surprising. However, this is only momentary as the signal suddenly goes and fog descends once more. Rose notices Fulmer’s drawings and keeps it a secret from everyone. She confronts Fulmer in private, who shows her his wounds and also that he seems to be healing at a rapid rate. He’s also hallucinating too, hearing Baz in his mind. Rose promises that they’ll find a solution to this and tells him to rest. She doesn’t bother to tell anyone about his condition though, jeopardizing the entire rig. Everyone onboard is worried that the fog has reached the mainland, especially after a call Cat made earlier to Kasey whose signal cut out just as the fog arrived. As everyone starts to argue amongst themselves, Magnus loses control of the situation and Rose takes over. She doesn’t tell anyone about Fulmer though, and instead tells them all it’s going to be okay. When she returns to the cabin, Fulmer is gone. A note reads: “It’s not safe for me to be around you.” Cat notices Fulmer leave and head across to the other side of the rig, clearly deciding to be with Baz and Garrow. Cat follows and finds the inside completely lush with plant life, strange spores swirling in the air. Instead of turning back, Rose heads in and stands alongside her. I may add that neither of them are wearing any sort of protection and given we know how this reacts to blood, wouldn’t they be taking safety precautions? Anyway, she grabs Cat and they rush back to the other side. Lights in the distance seem to show a ship approaching, and as alarms wail overhead, everyone gets their gear ready to evacuate.
The Episode Review
What is with shows lately forgetting their own internal logic and rules? We know Magnus has informed the chef last episode to cut down on food and ration everything… but yet we see piles of food all over the place and no mention of them actually cutting anything down? And that’s before mentioning all that chatter about being safe and secure…only to then see our characters throw all of that out the window. All the characters here fall into the age old trope of acting dumb because the script calls for it. Seeing Rose just randomly walk into the spores, despite being trained and knowing about geology, not to mention not telling anyone about Fulmer’s condition. It’s these little niggling issues that hark back to the lackadaisical writing I mentioned earlier. Hopefully The Rig will throw a couple of surprises our way in the episodes ahead because so far, this one has been pretty poor.
