The End of The Expanse II: The Expansening

The finale of the TV show

Space opera and biking to nowhere.

Just before Christmas, I wrote about the conclusion of the book series The Expanse, which mostly coincidentally came just a few weeks before the conclusion of the TV series based on the books. Both of these have been superlative examples of SF in their respective media, and I’m happy to say that both of them stick the landing, more or less.

The sixth season of the TV show, drawing on the sixth book of the print series (Babylon’s Ashes), was cut short by Amazon, in the sense of giving them only six episodes to work with. This is mostly a shame, in that they could’ve used a bit more time; on the other hand, though, the shortened season forces a bit of streamlining of the plot that actually works to its advantage. There’s a lot of faffing about in the book, but they get right down to business on screen, and that’s mostly a good thing. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze, but they get all the really important beats in. They do, however, make one really odd choice, structurally speaking.

Saying more than that very general comment requires spoilers for both (though I’ll try to limit the book spoilers on the off chance that people who have watched but not read are reading this), so here’s a little space for the spoiler-averse:

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The big obvious changes are that they greatly thinned the ranks of Belters, by killing Fred Johnson off earlier, and disposing of Anderson “Hari Seldon” Dawes off-screen. A bunch of other Belter characters are collapsed into the person of Camina Drummer, which gives Cara Gee a really tough role to play; she does it well, on the whole, but the composite nature makes her character a little incoherent (this was a big problem last season as well).

Also doing good work but not super well served by the plot is Jasai Chase Owens as Filip Inaros. His maturation and evolution are a big part of the books in which he appears, but here he seems to mostly just oscillate wildly between two poles. His final break from Marco seems less a result of personal growth than lucky timing.

As for Marco himself, Keon Alexander again excels playing a loathsome but charismatic killer, though for plot purposes they’ve made Marco a little crazier. It plays reasonably well, though, and Kathleen Robertson is awesome as Marco’s adjutant Rosenfeld Guoliang (spectacular name…).

Other than that, the regular members of the cast are here doing the things that made them fan favorites, just in a slightly compressed form. I would’ve liked to see Wes Chatham given more for Amos Burton to do, but pretty much everyone gets enough story beats to make this a reasonably satisfying conclusion. Holden’s introduction-and-immediate-resignation is kind of schlocky, but that’s a rare false note from the main cast.

The curious structural choice I alluded to has to do with the cold opens, which are devoted to the actions of two children on Laconia, where the renegade Martian fleet went at the end of the previous season. This is a direct nod to the not-to-be-filmed concluding trilogy of books, where those kids end up playing a key role in the final resolution of the plot.

The problem is, there’s just not enough space in six cold opens for that story to go anywhere satisfying. Especially since one of them is almost completely given over to a creepy lecture from Winston Duarte. I guess maybe it’s meant to be tantalizing, a way to encourage fans to pressure Amazon or some other streamer to pony up for more seasons, but it’s mostly just confusing. Even having read the books and knowing where it’s headed, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me, and there’s absolutely no resolution to it, or connecting it back to all the other showy space action. So I found it a strange decision, in story terms.

Anyway, it’s a very well done if compact season of television, and brings the main plot to a conclusion that makes for a satisfying end assuming they don’t get some bazillionaire to pay for more episodes. It’s the right place to stop, too, in that there’s a thirty-year jump between books six and seven, and that wasn’t my favorite thing on the page. I’m sorry to see it end, in that there’s a shortage of quality space opera on screen in this world, but if it has to end, I’m happy to see it end well.

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That’s an unusually timely pop-culture take from me (though arriving a little late, as I was at my parents’ with the kids for the weekend, then opted to cross-country ski this morning rather than writing it up immediately). Here are some buttons:

And if you want to discuss any of this, the comments will be open and should be considered a free-fire zone for spoilers.