The Expanse TV Show Ends With a Short But Mostly Sweet Season

 Amazon brought back The Expanse a few years ago but is ending it after three seasons.  This third season predominantly covers the sixth book, which really is a good place to end.  I really thought the series could have ended there instead of doing another three books that take place like 30 years later.  I suppose between viewership and cost, Amazon decided that too.

Like Hawkeye, while the series started dropping in December, I didn't start watching until about a month later because of the holidays and other stuff to catch up on.

The show starts with a scene on Laconia with young Kara and her brother Xan, who at least in the books became protomolecule experiments of the evil Dr. Cortesar.  It ends by cutting up to the space above the planet, where you see they're making a huge battleship or something.

That kind of struck me as odd as really with only one season left it would seem easiest to just leave out the Laconia stuff, but they go back to it at the start of episodes.

When it gets back to the Rocinante out in the asteroids, another odd thing is that they apparently didn't get anyone to replace Alex as the pilot.  In the books Alex survives all the way through to the end but since the actor in the show got cancelled last year, they had to kill him off.  So it mostly seems like Holden is piloting the ship now and later Bobbi.  The crew's chemistry is also a little messed up as a result as there's lingering guilt over Alex's death (especially for Naomi, whom he was rescuing when he stroked out) and in large part in the books he's kind of the peacemaker, the one everyone can like.  It's too bad they couldn't just recast it.

Anyway, it's unfortunate too that they only did 6 episodes this season because it really only allows them to hit the main points.  I read the book two years ago so I don't really remember all the smaller things, just the broad strokes, and this season gets to all those.  Of all the seasons, this one was probably the most straight forward because it is pretty much just a war between Marco Inaros and his "Free Navy" of stolen Martian ships against what's left of Earth and Mars after a bunch of Martians defected to go to Laconia and Earth was devastated by asteroid attacks.

Holden and the Rocinante find a spotter ship Marco is using to guide rocks to throw at Earth and when they capture it, it provides the first real victory for the allied Earth-Mars forces.  It also lets their ships finally stop lying back to protect Earth from debris to go on the offensive.  They head to Ceres Station, but Marco is a step ahead; he strips the station and leaves its people with few supplies so the incoming Allies have to find a way to take care of all these people, limiting their supplies to use to go after the Free Navy.

There's a subplot about a ship that is destroyed when it tries to go through one of the alien rings.  Holden shows it to Naomi, and she soon discovers that this happens a lot under certain conditions.  That becomes crucial in the end.

Meanwhile, Carina Drummer, who defected from Marco, is being hunted but manages to survive and find some of Marco's supplies floating in space.  She takes them to Ceres to help the people there and reluctantly joins forces with Earth and Mars.

A few Martian ships go rogue and try to take the station in the middle of the "ring space"--the nexus for all 1300 or so alien ring gates that allow transport to other systems.  But the Laconians have armed the station with advanced rail guns that wipe out the Martians in seconds.

For the final battle, Earth, Mars, and Drummer's ships take on the Free Navy while the Rocinante goes to the ring to try to disable the station.  To do that they use a regular ship and sort of piggyback on that.  Their assault on the station doesn't go well and so they aren't able to take control of the station, though they do take out some of the guns.

Meanwhile, the Free Navy has been bloodied but not defeated.  They head towards the ring to set up in the ring space and essentially choke off all traffic from the Sol System to any colony worlds.  Plus Marco has a boner to kill the Rocinante because Naomi is his ex and if he can't have her, no one can!  Also she betrayed him and escaped from his ship in the prior season.

This is where all that subplot about the disappearing ships comes in.  Naomi figures out how much mass is needed in the ring area to trigger the effect.  So by positioning the ship they piggybacked on and some other shit, they're able to make it so when Marco tries to enter the ring, his ships all vaporize.  At the last minute, Marco and Naomi's son Filip bails out in a repair skiff, changes his name, and heads back to the Belt, never to be seen again.  

It's kind of funny to think in the end the good guys use math to defeat the bad guys.  Stay in school, kids!

There's no big celebration or awards ceremony like a Star Wars movie.  Instead, there's a meeting of all the leaders to decide what to do next.  Since there wasn't a lot of time left, the negotiation is truncated, but in the end they create a new Transport Union to oversee the traffic in the ring space.  Holden is picked to run it, but right after being sworn in, he resigns to make Drummer the new president.  So finally a Belter has some real, legitimate power.

Meanwhile the Laconia thing doesn't really go anywhere.  The head of Laconia, Duarte, refuses to help Marco more than he already has.  Xan is hit by a car, but some alien "dogs" revive him as a hybrid with creepy black eyes who basically can't die.  That's pretty much it for that.  Like I said, it doesn't really go anywhere.  I'm not sure if the producers are still hoping to get another season somewhere or a movie or what.  There are still 3 books in the series, all taking place about 30 years later when Laconia emerges to take over everything--see the previous blog entry.

But basically this was a good season that covered most everything important.  If there had been more time maybe the final battles could have been a little more epic and there could have been a little longer goodbye.  It did get in a couple of characters from previous seasons like Prax the botanist from the second book who helps find a way for Earth (and other places) to grow food easier and there was a brief segment with a minister who was in the third book and is helping people on Earth.

Unlike some other shows--Game of Thrones for instance--this didn't really feel too rushed or incomplete or unfulfilling.  If there never is another season or movie or anything, then this is a mostly satisfying conclusion.  It's not perfect, but it got the job done.

Fun Fact:  There aren't any cookie scenes at the end but when it shows the ring gate during the credits there are all these red lights crackling like Marco's ships disappearing in the ring.