Looking for Alaska episode 7 review: Where’s Alaska?

In a show like Looking for Alaska, where music is an ever-present character of its own, its absence sets the tone for Miles’ Worst Day.

This review contains spoilers for Looking for Alaska. Come back after you’ve caught up on the series if you don’t want to know what happens yet.

Looking for Alaska episode 7, “Here Comes the Mystery,” opens without any background music.

This is both unusual and purposeful. So far, each episode of the series has opened with some form of accompaniment from the show’s brilliant soundtrack. It sets the mood. It pulls you in.

This time, it’s the lack of music that sets the tone for what’s to come.

All we get instead of music are the sounds of thunder and rain. All we see is the show’s title fade in and out on the screen, as it has each episode that has preceded this one.

Something terrible has happened.

Something that will change everything.

You can tell just by the sound of the rain.

But this goes on. We don’t actually hear the first note of any score until the 03:45 mark, just before The Eagle tells the students of Culver Creek that Alaska won’t be coming back.

Even then it’s just a single piano chord. And a few very long seconds later, another.

Then, for a moment, the music drowns out everything.

But before that, Miles starts to break our hearts before we even know for sure why our hearts are breaking.

I’ll never forget that this was the part in the book that made me cry the first time I read it as an adult. “Alaska isn’t here. We can’t start without Alaska. Can we please just wait for Alaska?”

And the Eagle has to explain that they can’t, because Alaska is gone.

Here is when all that character development over the past six episodes truly starts to pay off. We see every single person who knew Alaska grieve, and we understand why they’re reacting and behaving the way they are. We know the Colonel has a tendency to get physical. We know The Eagle talks too much about his personal life. We know Dr. Hyde’s heart gives him the ideal shoulder to cry on.

We also know Miles stops thinking clearly when trying to process what’s going on around him. Which is what makes his reactions in this episode so striking — and so, so heartbreaking.

Begging The Eagle not to start the assembly until Alaska shows up.

Breaking down in front of everyone when saying goodbye to Alaska for the last time.

He presses Jake for answers when there aren’t answers to give.

And perhaps Takumi most of all stays true to his nature, always telling it like it is even when no one else wants to hear it. He’s the one to say that they all messed up, that they’re possibly all to blame for Alaska’s death. After all, aren’t they the ones who let her drive off knowing she was in no condition to drive?

This is where the show’s final mystery comes to life. Where was Alaska going? Why did she have to leave? Was the accident that killed her truly an accident at all?

Whether or not this is the most emotionally devastating episode of the series is really up to each individual viewer, to be decided after watching the finale. But it’s understandable why many people prefer to avoid stories like this, both in book and show form. It’s sad. It hits you where it hurts and it stays with you for a long time. Especially if you’ve grieved or are still grieving, and know what it feels like to experience that kind of pain.

As sad as this episode is, however, it does end with a little bit of closure.

In the episode’s final minutes, we start to see small flickers of hope. Like The Eagle finally shaving off that awful mustache, and Miles reaching out to his parents because he knows hearing their voices will, for a moment, make everything feel okay.

This is how we know that, somehow, Culver Creek is going to make it through this.

If they can do it, so can we.

It goes by too fast. That’s how you know it’s good. A story that breaks you, but one you don’t want to say goodbye to, is a story you will hold close to your heart forever.

One more to go. It’s almost time to say farewell.

You can stream all eight episodes of Looking for Alaska on Hulu now.