The EXPANSE Season 5 — Review (Part 1)

Hi everybody, welcome to this new review.

Today we’re talking about the fifth season of The Expanse TV-Show, which just dropped on Amazon Prime Video. This article will include spoilers from everything that happened in the show, so that’s your warning.

(By the way, you can also watch this review on my YouTube-Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cKAQmvMEdc&t=21s)

Episode 1 opens following rock number 9 and this is 173 days after it was launched towards earth, which instantly reminds us where the last season has ended and where this season is heading to. We are also introduced to Filip Inaros here, Naomi’s son, and we learn that he is ruthless and dedicated to his fathers mission.

When the episode officially starts, we are instantly confronted with a major chance, because now the crew is broken up, everyone is handling their own business in different places.

We follow Holden and Naomi on Tycho Station, where Naomi finds out where her lost son is through Fred Johnson. She decides to find him alone and leaves Holden, while Alex and Amos have already left.

From Holden’s point of view, we learn that colonization is in full swing. Colony ships are going through the ring gates, people are trying to stake their claim in the new systems. But there are also downsides to it, like we see with Alex who makes his way to mars. When he walks around at his homeplanet he realizes that mars is slowly dying. A lot of places are closed down and things are empthying out since the ring gates are open, because everyone wants to go and find their luck in the new systems.

Alex has some family issues and then he gets to meet with Bobbie Draper. We saw that she’s been working on behalf of Avasarala, looking into the black market, where people are selling of martian firepower to the belt. Together they find some clues and are slowly coming to a realization that there is actually a conspiricy going on, that’s beyond everything they would have ever expected.

Meanwhile, Amos is travelling back to earth for personal reasons and of course he gets quickly into a fight on the transport ship …

If you haven’t read the books you are actually missing a layer here, because this was the first time we got point of view Amos chapters, where we hear what he’s thinking. In the show version he just comes off as a badass who doesn’t want to pay these idots, who are shaking everybody down for insurance. Don’t get me wrong. It still makes for a great scene, but in the book it goes much deeper here, because his internal life is really compelling. I actually recommend everyone reading these books the show is based on, they are fantastic.

Do you want to get started right away? Then you can find the first book here: https://amzn.to/2MwhPJf​

Anyways, it’s obvious that the show wanted to include a lot of Amos’ backstory and internal feelings, like it is in the books, and following him to his home Baltimore, we get a lot of this stuff across the season. We get to know his old friend Erich, we learn that Amos’ real name is Timothy and we see flashbacks and him having visions of his younger self.

Of course we also meet Avasarala who has still problems transitioning from being in charge of everything all the time to having essentially lost all of her power. Dealing with that, I think, has added some great internal conflict and new dimensions to her character. She can’t put her job behind her, especially not when she finds out some clues, that maby something terrible is going to happen. She is trying to warn Nancy Gao and the other members of the U.N. but nobody wants to listen to her. Finally she receives a message from Fred Johnson that has significant information from Ashford, giving Avasarala her last clue. Suddenly everything come together … but it’s already too late.

And this moment really hit me. They were so close from prevent this thing from happening and saving millions of lives — if only one of these blinded people had answered her calls …

But no. Instead, Marco and his navy were able to pull of their attack. They stole the stealth technology, they put it on the asteroids and made it past earths defenses. It’s an attack that crosses a line. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to tell anyone, but this is gonna be a big issue for earth and it ensures that things will never be the same …

This is actually where episode 4 starts, perhaps my favourite episode of the entire season. Episode 3 ended with the first rock hitting earth and episode 4 opens as each of the different members of the Rocinante find out about what happened. Alex and Bobbie are in the Razorback, scouting some potential armsdealers and find out what happened from the newsfeed. After that we visit our one crewmember who is on earth, experiencing all of it first hand, and this is Amos. He made his way to the high security underground prison where they keep high risk prisoners. He meets Clarissa Mao there, and this is when the second rock hits earth.

We find more about this on Luna with Avasarala. Everything she put together, all her fears, are being realized in real time. They still try everything to reach out to Nancy Gao and it’s really frustrating that still nobody wants to take her calls. Luckly Avasarala is finally getting through and Nancy listens to her when she gets the call. She is able to tell her that it’s the stealth tech that’s getting the asteroids through and that the attack is coming from Marco Inaros and not mars, like most people thought. But just as it looks like Avasaralas perseverance would save the day the third rock hits and we see the U.N-One blown out of the sky.

Rest In Peace, Nancy Gao.

And this, in my opinion, was one of the most impactful scenes of the entire season. Seeing this from the aerial view gives us a better persepective of what actually happens when one of these rocks hits earth. What a massive destruction this really is.

But it’s still not over yet and we see another attack unfold at Tycho Station. Fred Johnson gets shot and the protomolecule gets stolen by members of Marco Inaros.

So this day really was a victory for Marco all along the line. Thanks to Avasaralas effort, the watchtowers can be restarted and detect another rock and are able to take that out, so the third rock remains the last that hits surface, but of course the damage is already tremendous.

Lastly, we catch up with Naomi. Naomi has finally reunited with her son, but it was not the reunion she had hoped for. He basically told her to f*ck off, that she doesn’t know what he needs and that she knows nothing about him. Later he returns and she thinks he changed his mind, but nope, he’s there to take her prisoner basically.

In the fourth episode she then has her reunion with Marco and it is even more intense. Marco shows Naomi what they have accomplished and she responds by saying that he put blood on their sons hands just like he did to her. Filip responds that he is proud of beeing a part of that and Marco tells Naomi that Filip was actually the one who got the stealth tech from mars. Naomi is taken away and we see her breaking down in her new quarters as she knows her son is complicit in the mass murder of countless people.

Finally, Marco makes his address, taking responsibility for what happened and laying out the terms of what the free navy wants. He says that the attacks are retribution for generations of atrocities from the inner planets against belters. He says that from now on their controles end where their atmospheres do, everything beyond earth and mars will be policed by the free navy — the belt, the ring and the ring worlds. He calls out for the belters to rejoice and enjoy the victory and as his address comes to an end so does the episode.

And man, it really was a strong episode and also a real shift in the power structure across the system. Even knowing mostly of what was going to happen by reading the books, I still found it put together really well. It was just exciting to watch. Freds death was a complete surprise because it does not happen like this in the books, so it was shocking in the moment. Marco got his place in the spotlight and the episode basically layed all the groundwork for all the stuff that is happening from now on.

In episode five we see the news making their way out into the system and also Drummers crew gets those. There’s recognition that this is a horrible event but the resentment from an opressed class of people is there. Drummer receives a message from Marco and has to agree to go meet him, so her crew is not put in danger. It’s a very hard compromise for Drummer, especially because Marco is guilty for Ashfords and Freds death, which both meant very much to her. And she definitely regrets now, that she let Marco once alive when she had the chance to kill him …

Meanwhile, Holden goes on a mission to get the protomolecule sample back, while Amos is now right in the middle of the catastrophy on earth. With the help of the guards and another prisoner they are able to make their way up an emergency ladder to the surface and where the prison building, well … used to be.

Naomi is perhaps in the worst state she has ever been and even comes to a point where she tries to murder Marco but didn’t achieve that. Elsewhere, Bobbie and Alex are still following the potential armsdealers, but they get spotted and this leads to a crazy high g chase, and this is where the episode ends.

It think it was a great follow-up episode to the big shocker that was epsiode 4. Not much time has passed since the asteroids hit earth and the consequences are still not really clear. People were not able to let sink in what happened and they’re all faced with these crazy situations as a result of what happened.

And this is where I want to leave you for now. I first intended to cover the whole season in one article, but then I realized that there is so much I want to talk about, so I decided that I’m going to split this up. This was my review of the episodes one to five and the next article about the second half of the season and my final thoughts will follow soon.

See you.