The Rig Season 2 recap: Pictor Energy goes to war with the Ancestor
Prime VideoThe Rig is an environmental thriller about an evil energy company doing battle with an ancient force endeavoring to protect the planet. Season 2 just dropped on Prime Video, so here’s what happens…
Season 1 of The Rig launched on Amazon Prime Video in January 2023 to big viewing numbers, so much so that a second season was quickly green-lit.
Martin Compston, Emily Hampshire, Iain Glen, and Mark Addy star in the tale of a nefarious energy company called Pictor, and a powerful underwater threat in the North Sea that’s connected to various Major Extinction Events.
Head here for The Rig Season 1 overview and ending explained, while below is how Season 2 plays out. Meaning SPOILERS ahead…
Episode 1
Prime VideoAt the end of Season 1, Pictor employees were removed from Kinloch Bravo by helicopter. At the start of Season 2, the workers are taken to another rig called The Stac, where Fulmer (Martin Compston) and Cat (Rochenda Sandall) are placed in isolation for observation.
The rest of the survivors are offered £200,000 and a route home if they sign a non-disclosure agreement. Meanwhile, a state of emergency is declared all over Europe as a tsunami – caused by ‘The Ancestor’ – hits the mainland, causing casualties of more than 100,000.
Pictor CEO Morgan Lennox (Alice Krige) arrives at The Stac, and claims the company is mining rare earth metals for renewable energy, to make “the green transition really work.”
But a Survey Team is lost on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, with two hours of oxygen left. Pictor needs help finding them, and the company puts Rose (Emily Hampshire) in charge of a rescue mission. Once they are down there however, the rescuers see massive damage to the Rover, and no sign of the crew, who apparently “didn’t stand a chance.”
They’re told to leave the dead at the bottom of the sea, but the team ignores those orders, and commence recovery efforts. But turns out the mission is less about securing the bodies, and more about investigating what happened, and recovering information on a data log that Cameron (Ross Anderson) grabs.
Whatever they return with triggers the Ancestors in captivity, sending samples in the lab crazy. While more of the Ancestors surround the recovery vessel and remove their umbilical cord. The glass on the vessel then starts cracking, and the episode ends.
Episode 2
Prime VideoThe rescue crew sends out a ‘Sonic Shockwave’ which freaks both the Ancestor and Fulmer out. But the cracks remain, meaning they can’t move. The Stac itself descends to recover the rescue crew, via explosives, and a successful Subsea Module Lift.
Fulmer admits that he’s still somehow connected to the Ancestor. While Cat is forced into a press conference alongside Lennox, where she lies about what happened on Kinloch Bravo, as part of Pictor’s cover-up. While looking for her partner Kacey, Cat then sees the full extent of the tsunami tragedy and breaks down.
It also becomes clear that the Survey Team wasn’t looking for nodules, as claimed, but rather searching for the Ancestor’s heart, as a way of destroying its power.
A scientist called Askel explains: “It’s an ancient living network threaded through the sea bed… we know that what you encountered there [in the North Sea] is part of the same organic web we’ve found here in the Arctic, and it may even be much larger than that.”
They believe the organism contains nodes that hold the whole system together. Askel continues: “Pictor’s plan is to find one of these nodes, and introduce the poison to its heart so it spreads through the whole system.”
Episode 2 ends with the revelation that Pictor appears to have already located that heart.
Episode 3
Prime VideoEarly in Episode 3, Fulmer collapses, seemingly because of his ongoing connection to The Ancestor. He claims he could hear a message from the organism, though it was “just lots of noises, all on top of each other.”
Coake (Mark Addy) tells Fulmer that the infection will eventually kill him, but not after he’s been to hell and back. Coake then claims he can remove it, via a shot that drives foreign organisms out of the host. He then offers said shot in exchange for the data log.
Elsewhere on The Stac, information in the Pictor computers suggests the company is trying to grab as many underwater rights as possible, for “mining, oil, shipping, processing, the lot.” The idea is to strip the Arctic Ocean, in advance of a planned auction, undermining claims that Pictor is moving into green energy.
Shady businessman Darian York (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) appears in the Pictor office, to say the company’s board is watching what Lennox is doing, and that their Arctic plans must succeed.
Cat decides to stop looking for Kacey and starts helping survivors who need medical attention. While Fulmer retrieves the data log and hands it over to Coake, though turns out it’s the wrong drive as Cameron had previously switched them.
Coake confronts Cam about the switcheroo, and they fight, before Cameron stabs Coake in the neck, killing him.
Episode 4
Prime VideoEpisode 4 kicks off with the aftermath of Coake’s murder, and Cameron stating defiantly “I know exactly what I’ve done.” He later claims he did it to save lives, and to stop Coake from going after the Ancestor again, potentially triggering another disaster.
York tells Lennox to bury any investigation into the death, which she does by claiming it was an accident. But it’s too late for her, as later in the episode, York tells Lennox that when the crisis is over, she’ll be stepping down as CEO of Pictor, and in the meantime, he’ll be making operational decisions, including finalizing the deal for the Arctic at the Northern Latitude Forum.
Fulmer reveals to Rose that he didn’t want the potentially life-saving blocker, but pretended he did to get information out of Coake. But that revelation isn’t enough to save their relationship, with the pair breaking up.
Askel tries to decode a signal that the Ancestor appears to be sending out. He then heads onto the ice to investigate a mysterious ridge that has emerged from under the water. Askew discovers that pollutants in the ice match chemicals that Pictor was using. This means the company is contaminating the Arctic Ocean.
The Ancestor then appears to attack Askel, Magnus, and co when they return, with the ice cracking beneath their vehicle, then rising up all around them, effectively trapping the crew. Askel plays the Ancestor’s signal back to the organism, and patterns appear in the ice before dissipating.
Cat and Hutton (Owen Teale) speak to a journalist, with plans to expose Pictor Energy. Then Cat is taken to Kacey, whose condition is serious, but who is nevertheless alive. Cue lots of tears.
The episode concludes with Cameron telling Rose that the data log contains information on how to take the Ancestor down before Bremner (Phil McKee) pulls a gun on the pair.
Episode 5
Prime VideoBremner starts by shooting out a security camera, demanding the drive, and revealing he’s doing it all for the money. Rose tries to talk him down, but Bremner puts the gun to her head, which prompts Cameron to tell him that the log is in the lab. He then demands that the remaining crew evacuate by heading to the surface.
Rose and Cameron knock Bremner down a flight of stairs, make their escape, and seal the flood doors, locking everyone in, and cutting the various floors off from each other. Cameron tells Rose the drive is actually in Ore Processing, which they can’t now reach.
Bremner knocks out the power, and The Stac is bathed in a red glow as the crew hunts each other and the log. Which ends up being a pretty dull game of cat-and-mouse until Rose, Fulmer, and Cameron locate the data, just as the power returns.
Askel, meanwhile, posits that the Ancestor’s signal is a cry for help. While Lennox gives Cat a USB drive with information that she’ll apparently need and ensures that Kacey gets the medication she requires.
Bremner then takes a hostage and demands the drive, and as they make the exchange, Fulmer attacks Bremner, the gun goes off, and a bullet hits Rose, who falls unconscious.
Episode 6
Prime VideoFulmer watches Rose seemingly die, then reveals that he advised her to infect herself with the Ancestor, which she clearly did, resulting in her bullet wound healing, and Rose having a vision. That vision suggests the Ancestor didn’t cause Mass Extinction Events, but rather is the force that allowed life to regenerate afterward.
Bremner sends the information regarding how to kill the Ancestor to York, who forwards it to his clients, thereby securing Pictor’s rights deal. Those plans could trigger another extinction event, meaning stopping Pictor now becomes a matter of saving the world.
The aforementioned USB features Lennox’s confession, just without mention of the Ancestor, which is broadcast everywhere. At much the same time that Lennox returns to The Stac with Hutton, apologizes for her actions, and reveals that there’s a “vast engine of power” behind Pictor, driving their efforts to destroy the Ancestor.
She also confirms that the drive contains the location of the heart of the Ancestor, as well as the designs for a new delivery method for Coake’s poison. This is a long-range Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV).
York fights back by using a press conference to claim that Lennox oversaw unsanctioned testing of experimental technologies which may have contributed to the conditions that led to the recent disaster, as well as the death of multiple employees.
Prime VideoTo defeat Pictor, Rose suggests showing the world something undeniable, by leading them to the heart of the Ancestor. The team sets about fixing up the broken Rover, which Rose and Fulmer use to head out into the Deep Ocean.
But Bremner is still in play, endeavoring to program the ROV from The Stac. Magnus is onto him however, grabbing a rifle to hunt the villain down, before the ROV catches up with the Rover, and destroys the Ancestor, making it a two-horse race.
Magnus creeps up on Bremner and shoots him in the shoulder, but he’s too late, as the poison is launched, thereby securing Pictor Energy their rights.
In spite of all hope being lost, and their battery power running down, Rose and Fulmer decide to plough on toward the heart. They reach a cliff edge, but spot roots that form a ledge. Rose dons an underwater suit and heads out to investigate.
While on the sea floor, she touches those roots, which light up, bringing the Ancestor back to life. Rose duly comes face-to-face with the scale and majesty of the Ancestor’s heart. “It’s beautiful,” says Rose, while Fulmer adds: “It’s so bright.”
She tells the tree-like protrusion that it needs to show itself to the world, and the Ancestor responds by lighting the ocean up, illuminating Ancestor trees everywhere beneath the water, which in turn light up the ice. Askel says: “It’s not hiding anymore,” as water all over the globe is lit up by the ancient force, announcing the Ancestor’s existence to the planet.
Rose and Fulmer are then out of power and stranded on the ocean bed. They hold each other and kiss, resigned to their fate. But then The Stac arrives on the scene to rescue them, because as Rose puts it, “Magnus doesn’t leave people behind.”
This means the heroes are saved, and Pictor’s plans are scuppered. For the moment, as Lennox states in the final scene: “the people we’re fighting don’t give up.”
The Rig Season 2 is currently streaming on Prime Video. For more TV, these are 15 shows we’re excited about in 2025, and plus a huge Netflix hit that’s returning to the streamer in January.