In The Expanse Season 5, Earth is ravaged with asteroids sent by Marco Inaros, who leads
a militant Belter rebellion against Earth and Mars.
Naomi is imprisoned by Marco and their son Filip.
She jumps through space to escape, and Alex dies saving her.
Amos and Clarissa fight to survive on an apocalyptic Earth.
Holden struggles to contain the protomolecule, Fred Johnson is killed, and in the finale,
a rogue Martian faction leaves the solar system for a new world called Laconia, and one of
their ships is destroyed by mysterious alien entities.
So – what’s going on here?
This video has no spoilers from the books, just stuff from the TV show up to Season 5.
So for generations, the people of Mars have worked to terraform the planet into a habitable
world, with breathable air and life.
But in Season 3, the alien Ring gates opened up hundreds of already habitable worlds – planets
like Ilus that have life and resources.
So Mars is now obsolete, and people start leaving.
But Mars still has a heap of advanced military gear lying around, and with its government
in disarray, stuff goes missing.
Bobbie and Alex discover a conspiracy in the military to give Martian warships to Marco
Inaros and his Free Navy.
In return, Marco gives them the protomolecule sample he steals from Fred.
In the finale, we learn that this Martian conspiracy is led by someone called “Admiral
Duarte”.
And Duarte’s Martians take a whole fleet of ships and yeet outta the solar system through
the Ring gate.
Because they made a deal that Marco can have the Sol system, while Duarte’s faction rule
a system called Laconia.
This has actually been hinted at all season, if you zoom in on the opening credits it shows
a Martian ship flying to Laconia.
So on Laconia, Duarte has the scientist Cortázar studying mysterious alien structures, and
experimenting with the protomolecule.
Remember, that billions of years ago, there was an alien civilisation called the Builders.
The Builders created the protomolecule as a tool to build these Ring gates, [as a transport
system].
But the protomolecule also has the potential to be a weapon, or to transform the human
species.
In Season 2, Cortázar said the protomolecule “learns”, and “changes”, it “devours
old constructs and recreates them”.
Duarte and his Martians seem to want to recreate the dream of Mars.
A conspirator said “The dream of Mars isn’t dead, it’s about to be writ large”.
And Sauveterre says Mars is “a vision of humanity that can encompass a thousand stars”.
He says Laconia will be “pure” and unified, strict and militant.
The name Laconia refers to Sparta in ancient Greece, renowned as a military society.
So Duarte has started a whole new faction of Martian military on the distant world of
Laconia, empowered by alien technology.
But they’re playing with fire.
One of Duarte’s ships enters the Laconia Ring, and is suddenly destroyed by mysterious
alien entities.
These are the creatures that killed the Builders billions of years ago, using weapons like
that artifact on Ilus – and now, these entities are a threat to humans too.
So Season 5 shatters the balance of power in The Expanse, with Laconia splitting off
from Mars, Earth devastated, Marco’s Free Navy rising in the Belt, and strange aliens
haunting the Ring gates.
But at the same time as all this sci fi and politics, this season is also deeply personal,
with Amos, Naomi and Alex each going on journeys to face their pasts.
Amos grew up in Baltimore.
As a child, his name was Timothy, and he was sexually exploited as a child prostitute,
then worked as muscle in organised crime.
A woman named Lydia was like a mother to Timothy.
She taught him that even if you’re not a good person, you can still live like a good
person, you can “pretend” to be “righteous”.
Cause Amos doesn’t feel empathy for others.
Hurting people makes him feel good.
He can’t tell right from wrong.
He’s a damaged person.
But by following a guiding light like Lydia or Naomi, Amos can learn to do the right thing,
and live a good life.
Lydia has died, so Amos pays his respects to her husband, Charles, and then visits his
old friend Erich.
Back in the day, Timothy’s boss was Amos Burton, and Burton ordered Timothy to kill
Erich.
Timothy killed Burton instead, and took Burton’s identity to escape Earth and start a new life
as Amos.
Now, Erich is a crime boss himself, and Amos gets him to provide housing for Charles.
And before leaving Earth forever, Amos visits Clarissa.
In Season 3, Clarissa murdered a bunch of people, trying to get revenge on Holden for
imprisoning her father.
But afterwards, Amos made friends with Clarissa.
So he visits her in an underground prison called the Pit.
Clarissa is in a deep dark place, emotionally and literally.
So Amos helps and supports Clarissa, in the same way that Naomi and Lydia helped him – which
goes to show how much Amos has grown.
While they’re in the Pit, one of Marco’s asteroids hits America, and they have to work
together to climb out of the darkness into the light, like a metaphor for escaping their
emotional pain.
They also kick a cybernetically enhanced superthug in the balls, which is a metaphor for kicking
their emotional pain in the balls.
Amos still isn’t good at this talking-about-your-feelings stuff, so he’s almost glad when the world
starts ending and they’ve gotta fight to survive – violence he understands.
Amos says that in times of conflict, human groups fracture into small hostile tribes.
But Clarissa has a more optimistic inclusive perspective, and convinces Amos to help some
refugees escape Earth.
With the help of Erich, they find a ship and fight some goons, and fly to safety on the
moon.
There, Erich asks Amos to come with him to start a crime gang like the old days.
But Amos rejects his dark past, and chooses a more optimistic future – he brings Clarissa
to join the Roci crew, arguing that even murderous enemies can become trusted friends.
So Amos suffered terrible trauma and violence, and he can never fully escape that past.
But he can learn to be better, and help others to be better too.
Amos survives the churn by growing his tribe.
Naomi also faces her past.
Years ago, she was involved with Belter radicals Marco, Cyn, and Karal.
Naomi and Marco had a baby called Filip.
Marco was passionate, and charismatic, but was also an emotionally manipulative, narcissistic
terrorist.
He used some computer code that Naomi wrote to blow up a ship called the Gamarra, killing
five hundred people.
Naomi was horrified and tried to leave, so Marco took baby Filip away from her.
Naomi became desperate and depressed, and almost committed suicide out an airlock.
She managed to start a new life, but always felt guilty about the child she left behind.
In Season 5, she and Filip finally reunite.
Naomi hopes to save her son from being used by Marco like she was – but Filip is loyal
to his controlling father, and Naomi is imprisoned on Marco’s ship.
Series creator Ty Franck says Marco is like the “bad guy version of Holden” – they’re
both brave passionate leaders who fight for what they believe in, but where Holden is
selfless and compassionate and honest, Marco is a selfish cruel liar and murderer, who
commits the worst mass killing in history.
Cyn is more friendly with Naomi.
He was always a brotherly protective figure to her, kind of like Amos.
Naomi’s actress Dominique Tipper says that that similarity might be what drew Naomi to
Amos in the first place.
Naomi tries desperately to convince Filip to leave Marco, but he rejects her, and Naomi
is again unable to save her son.
So Naomi escapes by jumping through the vacuum of space unprotected to another ship – which
apparently is scientifically possible if you’re quick, especially since Naomi injects herself
with oxygenated blood.
She suffers swelling and radiation burns, and almost dies, but that’s just the beginning
of her torment.
Cause Naomi is stuck inside a trap designed to lure and kill her friends.
It’s a disabled ship with a fake distress call, rigged to explode using Naomi’s own
code from the Gamarra.
It’s like Naomi’s past has been weaponised to destroy her.
But Naomi uses her skills and her grit to survive this hellish trap.
She leaps into space again to warn her friends and is rescued by Alex and Bobbie.
Alex goes back to Mars to reconnect with his ex-wife and son, who he had left behind to
go be a pilot.
But his ex rejects him, and Alex has to accept that some mistakes can’t be fixed.
So he helps Bobbie investigate black market Martian military gear.
He talks to Sauveterre, and Babbage, who are both secretly working for Duarte, and chase
after the conspirators, and Bobbie does heroic Bobbie things.
Alex and Bobbie are both loyal Martians, and they’re furious that the government they
fought for has betrayed them – they grieve that the dream of Mars is dying.
When Naomi is in danger, they race in to save her.
Flying at a high-g burn is always dangerous – they use the juice, to reduce the risk
of stroke, but it’s always a roll of the dice, and this time it goes against them,
and Alex dies.
Alex’s last words are “That was one hell of a ride”.
All he ever wanted was to fly and to fight to do good with his crew.
So dying to save Naomi after a crazy ride in the Razorback is a fitting death for this
Martian space cowboy.
So while Amos Naomi and Alex go off on their own journeys, Holden is alone.
He’s lonely without his crew, but soon Monica and Fred keep him busy.
Cause Monica gets kidnapped, and they save her, but then Marco’s men kill Fred.
Fred was the voice for peace and cooperation between the Belt and inner planets.
And he was almost like a father figure to Holden.
He had just told Holden to live life while he can – and now he’s dead.
When Marco’s men steal Fred’s protomolecule sample, Holden Bull and Monica chase after
it.
When they find out Naomi is in danger, Holden wants to charge in and save her, but realises
that this time he can’t help her, and the protomolecule is more important.
This is the opposite of what happened in Season 2 – when Holden was obsessed with hunting
down the protomolecule, but then learned to let it go, cause in that case, saving Naomi
was more important.
Once upon a time, Holden was a heroic white knight who always knew what was right, and
wanted to save everyone all the time.
But now he’s more mature and wise, able to compromise, and make difficult choices
about what’s right.
Last season, Drummer left the OPA, cause she was done with having to sacrifice lives for
the sake of politics.
So now she sets her own path – as a polyamorous space pirate captain.
She has a family of five other Belters, on a couple of ships, and extorts people for
resources in her part of space.
But like every other character this season, the past comes back to haunt her.
She finds the ship of Ashford, who was killed by Marco last season.
Previously, Drummer and Ashford had captured Marco, and would’ve killed him, but Drummer
spared Marco – leading to Ashford’s death.
So Drummer suffers grief and guilt over the death of her friend.
Drummer has always been so tough and professional, but now we see her vulnerable intimate side,
and her relationships with her partners.
When Marco rises to power with the Free Navy, Drummer has no choice but to join the man
who killed two of her friends – her longtime ally Fred as well as Ashford.
Drummer’s partner Oksana says for the safety of their family, they must stay loyal to Marco.
But then Drummer learns that Naomi is in danger from Marco.
Naomi and Drummer survived the Behemoth together, they danced and handballed together, Naomi
built Drummer’s robot legs.
So Drummer won’t let Marco kill another of her friends.
She rebels against Marco, attacks his ships, helps save Naomi, and reclaims her independence,
but there’s a terrible cost – Marco kills one of Drummer’s partners, and Oksana blames
Drummer, so her family breaks apart.
Last season, Avasarala was the most powerful person on Earth.
But after losing her election, she’s relegated to the moon, and the government doesn’t
listen to her any more.
Her daughter says she should go home and patch things up with her estranged husband Arjun.
But Avasarala’s whole identity and purpose is to use politics to protect Earth, and she
finds evidence of Marco’s plan to throw stealth rocks at Earth.
By the time anyone listens, it’s too late.
Earth is devastated, and Arjun is one of the dead.
The new acting Secretary General retaliates against Marco with an attack that kills thousands
of Belter civilians.
In the past, Avasarala probably would’ve supported this – she agreed to the destruction
of Deimos in Season 2, and attacked a civilian ship last season.
But now, she doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Killing civilians will only create more terrorists, and Avasarala feels responsible to protect
not just Earthers, but all people, so she resigns in protest of the attack.
And it works – others resign with her, the power shifts, and Avasarala becomes Secretary-General
again, the once and future queen.
In the end, she calls for unity among Earth Mars and the Belt as they face the new threats
of the Free Navy and Laconia.
So in Season 5, the sins of the past come back to punish the protagonists.
Marco’s Free Navy arose from a century of oppression of the Belters by Earth and Mars.
Naomi is almost destroyed by Marco, using her own computer code.
Duarte and Laconia’s protomolecule sample is the one Naomi refused to destroy in Season
2.
Naomi fails to save Filip.
Holden fails to contain the protomolecule.
Alex fails to repair his past.
Drummer fails to protect her family.
Avasarala fails to protect Earth.
This season is the Empire Strikes Back of The Expanse, in that the good guys lose.
If there’s any hope in this story, maybe it’s in Amos and Clarissa, who emerge from
trauma and apocalypse with new optimism and unity.
Thanks for watching.
We made four videos for The Expanse Season 5, with the support of our sponsor Amazon
Prime Video UK – so please check out their channel at the link below.
Thanks to Patrons Brendan Davis, Willy Hardy, Mike Batko, Ross Maverick, Ben Deeter, Stanislav,
Ian Fiebig, hoang nguyen, and Demps 2002.
Cheers.