Upamanyu Biswas
At the end of ‘The Gorge,’ Levi and Drasa have to take drastic measures to ensure the Gorge’s secret remains buried. After spending much of their time guarding the beings within the Gorge, the two begin to realize a much bigger conspiracy is at the center of its origin. However, problems arise when the truth emerges behind their employer and the reasons behind them guarding the Gorge in the first place. First, they have to survive the dangers lurking within the abyss while also figuring out the best course of action. Meanwhile, their personal relationship grows stronger with each passing day outside the Gorge. In the final moments, the fate of the two characters and their burgeoning romance hang in the balance as a climactic fight leaves survival up to chance. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Gorge Plot Synopsis
‘The Gorge’ begins with Levi Kane, an ex-military sniper, being contacted by an official within the military known as Bartholomew for a special assignment. Although retired, Levi works as an independent gun-for-hire for anyone willing to pay his fees. The assignment is handed to him, and he is subsequently flown to a mysterious location in another part of the world. Meanwhile, in Pervalka, Lithuania, a young woman named Drasa is also handed a special mission. She meets up with her father at the local graveyard, where they pay respects to Drasa’s mother. Her father eventually tells her that he is looking to die soon, specifically during the upcoming Valentine’s Day. She is upset by the news, but he informs her that he wants to have control over his life, especially because he is dying already.
Levi is dropped in a forest in the middle of nowhere. He travels deeper and comes across a massive gorge shrouded in fog. A man named Jasper greets him and gets him up to speed with the requirements of his job. Levi has to set up base on an observation tower on the western part of the Gorge. Jasper tells him that his mission revolves around ensuring nothing escapes the abyss and wanders into daylight. On the other side of the Gorge, another tower overlooks the area. Levi is told that another person like him is monitoring the eastern section, but they do not need to communicate with one another. While Levi gets busy with his assignment, Jasper is airlifted by a helicopter. However, instead of being taken back to civilization, the latter is killed by an assailant within the aircraft.
Months pass away as Levi gets busy with his observation role. Occasionally, he spies on the other tower’s inhabitants through a binocular. It turns out to be Drasa. Although they maintain a professional demeanor throughout their job, the loneliness of their role starts taking a toll on the psyche. On Drasa’s birthday, the young woman begins contacting Levi through handwritten notes on a pad. Levi does the same. The pair soon realize that the creatures from the abyss, who are known as “Hollow Men,” are staging an escape attempt. They combine efforts to mow them down from their tower balcony. Subsequently, Levi and Drasa spend months conversing from a distance until one day, the former decides to create a zipline technique to travel between the two towers. He successfully does so, and the two meet in person for the first time in months.
The Gorge Ending: What is the Gorge’s Secret?
After meeting Drasa in person and spending a day together, Levi decides to head back to his tower. However, on the way back, the bombs underneath his tower are triggered by some of the escaping Hollow Men, which, in turn, damages the zipline rope. Subsequently, Levi is plunged straight into the Gorge. Drasa watches it unfold before her eyes. Without hesitating, she collects her weapons and supplies before diving into the abyss herself. The two survive attacks from some mutated creatures before teaming up with one another. They start looking for an exit route immediately after recovering from the initial shock. As they roam the Gorge’s open lands, they realize the entire region is home to mutated flora and fauna that is out to kill them in one way or another.
Eventually, after many altercations with the creatures in the abyss, Levi and Drasa find a small shelter in one of the Gorge’s walls. They enter the chamber and realize it is a laboratory from the World War II era. They dig through the various paraphernalia until Levi finds archive footage from an old experiment that was conducted within the facility. They play it using an old projector, finally learning the why the gorge’ secret. Around World War II, a group of scientists set up a base in a laboratory within the Gorge to develop biochemical weapons analogous to the nuclear weapons developed during the Manhattan Project. However, the experiment went wrong when an earthquake hit the region, releasing the chemical agents within the missiles on the town outside. Subsequently, the chemical transformed and mutated every living material within the Gorge.
Levi and Drasa are informed that if they spend too much time in the abyss and are exposed to the fog, they are at risk of contamination and may develop mutations like the creatures within. The former keeps looking through the wreckage until he finds a computer from a more recent era left within the facility. After searching through the hard drives, Levi learns that the place is being used as a research outpost by a private military contractor named Darklake. Darklake is responsible for keeping the Gorge hidden from the outside world and the ones who are studying it with the hopes of creating their own version of super soldiers. The company also hired Levi and Drasa to keep watch over the proceedings. However, once they are done, they are likely to be killed like Jasper.
What Happens to Darklake and the Gorge?
Drasa gets abducted by one of the Hollow Men, who turns out to be Captain Bradford Shaw. Levi rescues her, and the two escape the Gorge using a car winch. At the top of the tower, Levi and Drasa discuss their next moves and how they can escape the Gorge’s long-buried secret without being hunted by Darklake. Levi tells Drasa that they cannot leave until they destroy the Gorge and ensure no one else uses the place for more clandestine operations. He returns to his tower using another zipline. When his monthly radio call arrives, Bartholomew directly speaks to him through the call, asking him why he entered the Gorge. He states that he didn’t, which leads her to surmise that Drasa was the one who broke into the Gorge. She orders Levi to neutralize her, which he accepts. However, unbeknownst to him, she already knows that Levi and Drasa broke into the Gorge together.
Levi and Drasa make up a plan together to confront Darklake and ensure the cycle of guards being sent to the Gorge is stopped permanently. They set up charges across the numerous cloaking devices installed next to the Gorge. Subsequently, they wait in the forest while Bartholomew and her Darklake thugs show up in a chopper at the observation post. As soon as they enter the tower, Levi and Drasa run deep into the woods on separate sides of the Gorge. They are followed inside by a group of drones, which they take down one at a time. Once they are free from any distraction, they find a hill to set up a sniping position. While Bartholomew is busy trying to figure out Levi’s whereabouts, Levi and Drasa take out one of the clocking devices, which sets off a chain explosion across the Gorge, eliminating all the devices together.
As soon as the cloaking devices are destroyed, the Straydog protocol within the Gorge’s silo is set in motion. Bartholomew tries to escape the blast radius in time via the helicopter. However, it proves to be futile as the explosion knocks the aircraft violently off-course and sends it hurtling down to death. Meanwhile, Levi and Drasa run as quickly as possible to escape the bomb themselves. Drasa clears the radius quite easily, but the same is not the case for Levi, whose fate is left up in the air after he leaps into a water body to save himself from the explosion.
Does Levi Survive? Do He and Drasa End Up Together?
Following the Gorge’s destruction, Drasa travels to Èze, France, where she and Levi promise to meet one another. However, he does not show up to their intended meeting location. She instead receives a poem left behind by him, the same one that she asked him to write about her. Subsequently, Drasa begins working at a restaurant in the beautiful French countryside, living a quiet life in peace. One day, Levi shows up at the shop out of nowhere, confirming that he survived the explosion from earlier. Drasa embraces him, and the two share a tender moment together, reconnecting without the dangers of their previous life following them. After going through a harrowing ordeal by themselves, it is evident that they are ready to take their relationship to the next step and start a new life together.
Taking care of the Gorge was a lonely enterprise that forced Levi and Drasa to spend months alone without human contact. As such, they only had one another for comfort, especially when shielding against the horrors of the Hollow Men slowly creeping up the stone walls of the cliff. They are so devoid of any personal relations that they might have lost their sanity had it not been for the presence of each other. Over time, this led to them developing a strong bond that is not just built on attraction but a desperation for any type of human contact. They both have very few people they care about in their lives and go into the mission thinking they have nothing to lose. However, after their ordeal, they realize they have their relationship at stake moving forward, which, fortunately, turns out in their favor.
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