Churn
The remnants of an Earth-bound ship begins episode 2 of The Expanse Season 5 as a weak distress signal confirms Belter pirates as the ones responsible. Camina Drummer tries to reason with them but of course that’s not going to take. Instead, she sends a warning blast to remind them who’s in charge. This seems to do the trick. Back on Earth, Amos makes it to Baltimore and meets a guy called Charles who happens to be boxing up his Mother’s things. She died in her sleep but it’s clear Charles is pretty torn up about this too. Amos senses this and does his best to exhibit concern, awkwardly telling him he’ll share a cup of tea. Outside, Amos intends to speak to Erich and has a messenger boy act as a liaison, arranging a meeting between them both. Amos is escorted to this super secure house and arrives to see Erich – who affectionately calls him Timmy. Amos tells him to keep Charles safe and make sure he isn’t thrown out on the street. Their hostilities are immediately quelled when Erich realizes he’s not there to start trouble and take anything away from him. These two go way back – it seems they’re family too and after a brief reunion, Amos leaves…but not before taking the alcohol with him. Meanwhile, Fred Johnson and Bull butt heads over the best way of tackling the Belt. While they talk, Holden continues checking up the Rocinante and learns that he’s got a minimum of 18 hours until the ship is up and running again. Checking the ship’s messages, he finds one from Monica confirming that someone is going after the protomolecule and she wants to meet him to discuss it. Despite initially remaining hesitant, his curiosity gets the better of him and Holden heads up to her apartment. When he arrives though, he finds the door ajar and the place completely trashed. A bloodied hand print on the wall seems to hint toward their being a fight too and if that wasn’t enough, Holden finds her phone on the floor. He immediately phones Fred and tells him they have a problem. With the camera footage from the hallway wiped, it seems like someone inside the station is behind this. As Holden and Johnson work together to try and find Monica, it turns out she’s being kept upside down in a shipping container. Holden manages to intercept a signal from her phone, something which broadcasts visual footage showing exactly where she is but isn’t able to receive any audio. After some searching, Holden manages to find her just in time before oxygen runs out. Alex shows up at Bobbie’s place and questions her mood and quite what’s got her so worked up. Eventually he takes her down to the basement where he finds out that she’s working undercover for Avasarala and Earth to infiltrate Mars and find out how deep this corruption goes. It turns out stealth missiles are being bought too, and these things can destroy planets. Bobbie wants to know exactly who’s doing all this and fingers seem to point toward Admiral Sauveterre, whom Alex listen to lecture about the ring gate. Afterwards, Alex catches up with Sauveterre but he certainly doesn’t want to play nice and walks away. As we soon find out from Lt Babbage, Sauveterre feels like Alex is upstaging him because of his past exploits. She invites him out for coffee and hands over her number. As she walks off, Emily catches up with Sauveterre who tasks her with finding out what he’s doing on Mars. Meanwhile, Ashanti heads up to meet Avasarala and pleads with her Mother to patch up her differences with Earth and head home. Avasarala is in no mood to do this however, and despite feeding back what she’s learned about the Belters and weapons on a video call, she’s snubbed by those on the other end of the line. After a flashback to the past featuring Amos and his Mother, Amos is rudely jerked back to the present by a group of thugs telling him to get off the dock. Just before he goes, he rings Chrissie and tells her he’s leaving Earth soon but before he does, needs to meet someone.
The Episode Review
With all of our characters off on their own adventures, The Expanse tightens the main storyline slightly by interweaving pockets of exposition across all these separate story strands. It’s clear that we’re gearing up for another crazy fight like that seen in season 3 but quite where and when remains to be seen. Seeing more of Amos and his past is definitely one of the stand out moments of this episode though and his back-story is pretty fascinating. One of the best things with The Expanse is how naturally it exudes exposition and this is absolutely the case here in this fifth season too. Sure the pacing may be a little slower but after the fourth season’s alien exploits, the story felt like it needed time to lay extra foundations before blasting into full gear again. For now, episode 2 bows out with a decent conclusion and plenty of promise for the future.
