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As season five gets ready to drop, let’s remind ourselves of the ups, downs, ins, outs, fights, smites and subterfuge of season four. The Expanse was bigger, slicker, bolder, and grittier, but just as gloriously deep, rich and complex as ever. December 13 can’t come quickly enough.Warning: contains spoilers for The Expanse season 4Īt the beginning of The Expanse season four, the show’s characters stood at the crossroads of a brave and expansive new world, as did the cast and crew in their new home at Amazon. We don’t know what’s coming next but we know it’s big and scary and the Roci crew will be taking it on yet again with aplomb. It’s a perfectly maddening note to end on.
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The episode draws to a close as Holden grasps a piece of murder cloud in his fingertips-and it moves, sharpens, responding the Holden’s touch. So here we have what looks to be our Big Bad for the season: a mysterious murder cloud that takes out 23 scientists. The force penetrates the ship’s surface like gunfire, but it becomes clear by the end of the episode that this is an organic substance-one that attacks the settlement in a cloud-like formation after Holden and his crew land and get unfriendly with the locals. Mid-flight, their ship is all but destroyed by a force we can’t identify. Aboard that ship, along with scientists eager to explore the surface, is security chief Adolphus Murtry (Burn Gorman, whose familiar face immediately clues us into the fact that he’s going to be around for a bit). Meanwhile, Royal Charter Energy sends a ship to Ilus before the Roci’s arrival. I wasn’t quite sold on the relationship between the two of them when it first began, but over a couple seasons, I’ve come to appreciate it, mainly because of Steven Strait and Dominique Tipper’s chemistry. Holden has his worries, but Naomi assures him that whatever they encounter, they’ll do it together. When it’s time to prep for the mission, Naomi informs the rest of the crew that she’ll be joining them on the surface of Ilus. (Plus, Drummer has an extremely cool spinal implant now!) After all, it is The Expanse.) We don’t learn a ton through any of these scenes, but it’s good to know everyone is present and accounted for, if nothing else. (That last one comes later in the episode.
#The expanse season 4 recap series
This is cleverly done primarily through a series of video chats-Alex’s with Bobbie, Amos’ with an imprisoned Clarissa Mao (though this was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it so all apologies if I’m wrong), and Naomi’s with Holden, then Drummer.
#The expanse season 4 recap plus
Now, and this happens more seamlessly than I’ll make it sound, we catch up with the crew (pilot Alex Kamal, security chief Amos Burton, and engineer Naomi Nagata), plus now disgraced but actually heroic Martian marine Bobbie Draper and OPA higher-up Camina Drummer.
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When they do meet, she convinces him that he should take the Rocinante and his crew to the Belter settlement on the planet they’re calling Ilus. council meeting, furiously, colorfully texts an aide about Holden’s lateness. This is around the time we discover that the Amazon changeup means we’re going to hear (and, in this case, read) the F word a lot this season. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of these with the show’s new budget, which is considerably larger, judging from the scope of the CGI and sets on display here. It’s worth noting that the Belters are met with resistance from government forces upon their initial entry into the Ring, and that resistance leads to the episode’s first big, beautiful space battle. We’ll later learn they’re making their way to a new planet beyond the Ring, where, over eight months, they colonize, forming the kind of shantytown that calls to mind District 9 and, appropriately, USA’s Colony (RIP). We begin, as ever, in media res with a Belter ship. And, having seen the season four premiere at New York Comic Con two months ahead of the season’s release on December 13, I’m genuinely thrilled to report the excitement is more than warranted.
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Naturally, there’s a ton of excitement surrounding the show’s return to TV. It’s impossible to talk about The Expanse without talking about its tumultuous and ultimately triumphant journey from cancelation after three great seasons on SyFy to soon-to-be Amazon Prime favorite.