The final season of The Expanse leaves us with the takeaway that
the future may be radically different and unforeseeable to us,
but it’s crucial to do what we think is right in the present.
“A very wise woman I know once said,
‘You shouldn’t believe what people say,
just watch what they do.’”
This is the Takeaway, brought to you by the Take,
where we break down the endings of your favorite films and TV shows,
to get at the deeper meanings and messages they leave us with.
In this episode,
we’re explaining the series finale of The Expanse.
This season showed us just how difficult it is to maintain unity
when you’re facing prolonged periods of death and catastrophe.
Planning for the future requires navigating a lot of complex details,
and compromising in the center isn’t always best.
Meanwhile, as we see in a mysterious plot involving
the protomolecule on Laconia, what unfolds privately,
away from the center stages of politics or armed conflict,
might wind up having just as big an impact on the fate of the universe.
“You never know the effect you might have on someone,
not really.”
In the series finale, the Rocinante crew finally takes down
Marco Inaros and his Free Navy — by gambling on “waking up”
the entities who destroyed the protomolecule builders,
turning their power against Inaros.
“If we push every bit of mass and energy we can through
the ring all at once, and we time it all just right,
we should be able to wake the entities up.”
The end echoes what happened at the end of Season 5,
when those “unknown aggressors” (then unexpectedly) “erased”
a Martian ship:
Marco and his commanding crew are wiped away.
But while this is an ingenious solution to their current problem,
it could perhaps be at the expense of fueling a far more
catastrophic future crisis.
“If we wake them up, they might stay awake.”
After all, the unknown aggressors are the ones who wiped out
the ancient civilization that was so advanced it created
the protomolecule.
“These entities created the artifact and destroyed
the protomolecule builders, wiped out their whole civilization
in an instant. And now we’re using their rings.”
This sense that there are greater, inhuman threats developing outside
of most characters’ understanding again mirrors our world’s
coming to terms with the catastrophic dangers of climate change —
a war without any Marco Inaros-like human enemy.
All that feels like a future problem to these characters, though.
For now, defeating Inaros makes the leaders of Mars and Earth,
including Chrisjen Avasarala, very happy.
There just remains the tricky business of negotiating a Transport Union to
regulate passage through the rings –
which we now know to be more treacherous than previously thought,
as well as a key source of future power in the solar system.
“War doesn’t end on the battlefield; it ends at the negotiating table.
We all agree that we must control traffic through the Rings.”
Belters leader Camina Drummer voices that, yet again,
the Belters are being sidelined and expected to be happy
with non-binding promises.
“An authority with two Inner votes and only one from the Belt
isn’t sharing power – it’s a puppet show.
We have a vote so long as we can always be voted down.”
Holden pretends to be on the side of the compromising status quo
“Easy, we’re just talking here.” “Don’t tell me to calm down.”
and (thanks to being known and trusted by all as an neutral agent)
he gets appointed president of a new independent Transport Union.
But the moment Holden is given the post,
he appoints Camina Drummer as his VP and immediately resigns.
It’s a dramatic gesture of shifting power to the much harder-line Belter,
instead of continuing that old-school mantra of centrism and
gradual progress that would likely have led Belters to be
once again disempowered.
“Over and over we have been told that we could trust the Inners,
that this time would be different and it never was.”
It’s notable here that Holden takes a stand during contentious but
peaceful negotiations.
The show makes the case that unity can be necessary in battle to defeat
genuinely bad guys and save lives, but Holden’s choice implies that in
times of relative peace it may not be right to compromise;
it’s more important to find a leader with vision and passion
for the “right” ideals.
“It was the only way to secure the peace.
The only way we all move forward together.”
Holden even leaves Avasarala out of his plans.
“You duplicitous little shit.”
Despite her shrewdness and (for the most part) fairness,
Avasarala’s traditionalist approach to Belters at this stage
just isn’t enough,
“You need to be reasonable.”
“I will not be reasoned back into my place!”
in the face of impossible, complex challenges,
it can be easy to rationalize that ethical compromises are unavoidable.
Yet Holden’s and Drummer’s final move
reminds us that these moments of crisis are rare windows
when power dynamics can be restructured.
So it’s then that prioritizing
social justice and human rights is more important than ever.
By the end of the episode, Holden, Naomi and their crew
are back to their norm — being relatively free agents with
an unknown future ahead of them, but finding meaning in
their Rocinante found family.
In the final scene, Holden’s brain starts racing
ahead to the future, while Naomi tells him to take a break
and just relish that they’ve solved today’s problem,
and they’re together.
“Let’s just be here for a minute.”
This final line delivers a key message that speaks both to the future
of The Expanse and the state of our psyches today.
With today’s constant “bad news” cycle,
we’re all too aware that
(even when we resolve any challenge, mitigate it, or at least survive it)
there are countless more that look worse on the horizon.
In this environment, it’s impossible to ever feel
a sense of closure, or unbridled hope —
so what you need to do instead is pause when you can,
appreciate when you have made progress, and take a breath
before the next challenge.
While the Season 6 Finale is an end to this chapter,
the finale intentionally lacks a degree of “finality.”
The show creators have talked about continuing this greater story
in a future form, and one of the novel series’ authors,
Ty Franck, called the finale a “pause”
rather than a true end.
The parallel story in Season 6 — taking place during the
episode’s cold open — is based on the novella Strange Dogs,
which appears to take place between book 6 and book 7
of The Expanse novel series.
And the plot is a bridge to the story’s future,
which focuses a lot on the Laconian Empire around three decades
after the events we’ve been watching.
Laconia is the planet beyond the ring gate where the last, errant
bit of protomolecule has landed — apparently giving the place’s
inhabitants life-giving (or resuscitating) properties.
These properties are accidentally discovered by a girl named
Cara on Laconia, who’s amazed by the revival
of a dead bird-like creature she cares for.
Then, when a tragic accident befalls her younger brother, Cara takes it
upon herself to bring him back –
“I feel weird. What happened?”
“You got hurt. Really hurt. Like, killed hurt.”
but his waxy black and blue eyes and our one glimpse into his
point of view shows that he’s not the same and seems to have elements
of the protomolecule within him.
“Everything looks different.”
His parents find this sight so horrific that his dad
even slashes him with a knife, only to watch the wound close up.
Still, Cara sees positive potential in the protomolecule’s abilities,
and perhaps as a young child she’s not just naive but
also more open-minded.
“It’s okay, if I die, the dogs will fix me.”
Separately, we even hear Clarissa (while referring to power armor
created by the protomolecule) wonder if her dad’s faith
in the protomolecule wasn’t totally off-base
“The things my father did. He tried to justify them by saying
the protomolecule was the key
to ensuring the survival of the species.
Stuff like this makes him seem right.”
So we’re invited to wonder, while it seems scary and dark,
if there isn’t something profoundly important, if not miraculous,
in the protomolecule.
(And keep in mind: the violent unknown aggressors were the ones
who killed the protomolecule builders,
not the ones who created this technology.)
Thus, Cara’s plot in The Expanse’s final season is foreshadowing that
(while our main characters are still focused on fighting the conflicts
in front of them like Marco Inaros) these matters will eventually
become the distant past.
Immediate conflicts can take up so much time and energy that
bigger threats and bigger opportunities
right under our noses can be overlooked.
In the novels’ future, Laconian ruler Winston Duarte
will strive to use the protomolecule to achieve god-like immortality —
we actually meet Duarte in the final season,
but he might not draw a lot of attention
if you haven’t read all the books.
“Someone has to keep us safe. I don’t know if I still can,
if I can’t, nothing matters then anyway.”
And the Belt will become the dominant power in our solar system,
showing just how consequential Holden’s choice to give power
to Drummer turns out to be.
“I never thought I’d see Inners take orders from a Belter.”
But it’s significant that the most important developments in the
protomolecule impacting the future of humankind are happening
in the life of this random young girl, who doesn’t seem to have much
social status or importance
in the greater political scheme of this world.
Though we’re often focused on the jockeying and infighting
of who’s in power, this narrative underlines that those
people don’t always wield as much actual power as they think.
It’s ultimately a younger generation who will have huge effects
on where the world — or the universe — goes next.
The intergalactic conflict ravaging
The Expanse’s universe in the final season is likely to make us
think about large-scale problems in our world.
“Contaminants are still rising. Even faster than before. ”
As the battle against Inaros’ Free Navy
continues to cause mass casualties, the wearied spirit plaguing the
characters directly echoes the phases of the COVID-19 pandemic:
“It was easier in the beginning. When disaster first happens,
we all pull together to help each other.”
as initial displays of solidarity have given way to increasing
polarization and politicizing of how to combat the disease.
“But when things don’t get better,
remembering that feeling of caring for each other is hard.”
Season 6 of The Expanse points out how these global issues can
tear people apart personally.
“We have all lost a great deal.” “Some more than others.”
After long separations in Season 5,
in Season 6 the tightly-knit crew of the Rocinante are back together
again (though they’ve lost Alex, and are joined by Clarissa and,
“You know you just got chewed out right?”
“That's the first time he's said I was part of the crew.”
later, Bobbie Draper).
Still, a sense of foreboding for big challenges ahead is reflected
in how the crew have private pain and secrets.
Clarissa Mao is trying to make up for her violent past but running
missions with the Roci confronts her with more violence at every turn,
and she learns that she’s mortally ill.
Naomi accepts that her son Filip
has chosen his father Marco’s side over hers,
but she isn’t sure she can bear being responsible for destroying
her son in order to bring peace to the galaxy.
Holden is taking responsibility for her feelings,
which is why he disables a torpedo
that might have been able to finish off Marco’s ship once and for all.
“I can’t be the one who kills your son.
I can’t be that to you.”
Ultimately, Holden and Naomi, and the crew as a whole,
find ways to address their torments together,
and bond more closely,
rather than being totally alone with their pain.
When Naomi observes that Clarissa views Amos as a north star much
like Naomi was to Amos,
“Do you remember the first time you called me boss?
Clarissa calls you boss now.”
this completes Amos’ transformation into full-fledged hero and mentor.
He’s an illustration of how what you do on an
individual level can have a huge effect.
He profoundly changed Clarissa's life in Season 5,
and is pushing the whole Roci crew to put their faith in her in Season 6,
which is helping her become a powerful ally for their greater mission
of prioritizing peace and humanity in universal conflicts.
Outside of the Roci, Drummer loses her family after Josep
is wounded and Michio decides to stay behind with him,
and Drummer laments that she had wanted them not to fight but to build.
“You were builders.
I wanted us to build something together.”
Filip is numbing himself through reckless partying and
displays of arrogance, but after he feels remorse over
impulsively killing his own friend, he confronts that all this stems
from doubts over Marco’s extreme win-at-all-costs methods.
“How do you do it?” “Do what?”
“So easily cope with all the people we’ve killed?”
The finale’s battle has classic hallmarks of both The Expanse
and sci-fi in general: different factions that unite
to face difficult odds,
wielding the bad guys’ hubris as the ultimate weapon against them.
But the fallout from these actions
surprises us by refusing to fit formulas or clichés.
The remaining Roci crew and their prominent allies make it out alive;
suggestions of potential long-simmering romance
between Amos and Clarissa or Bobbie
“You won’t come with?” “With you or with you?”
“Whatever.”
aren’t consummated, and instead the characters become
even closer friends and more trusted colleagues.
Many of this season’s plot points
revolve around characters not finding things out.
“And we still don’t know
what happened to that protomolecule sample.”
Most centrally, we’ve yet to unlock the answer
to the key mystery of what the protomolecule truly is or wants,
who its ancient creators were, and whether the unknown aggressors
stayed awake or angry as Holden feared.
The final episode’s cold open leaves Cara and her brother on the run,
while the Roci crew remains unaware they exist.
Naomi doesn’t find out that Filip is alive,
having abandoned Inaros and taken on her name.
“You didn’t do it for a reward or a pat on the head.
“More important than that, someone else’s life gets better,
and for you to feel good about yourself.”
Finally, we, as viewers,
don’t really find out concretely what the Roci is doing next.
“We could fly security for freighters;
maybe get a consulting gig on one of the colonies.”
Even the future books leave some of this to the imagination;
they may refer to the adventures of the next three decades,
but their action picks up after that.
All of these non-reveals together make a point about how much
we always don’t know about the universe around us.
“The universe never tells us if we did right or wrong.”
The show encourages us to zoom out and look not just at our greater
solar system and beyond, but examine, in a large-scale way,
the course of history.
On that scale, you realize how many unexpected
twists and discoveries change our collective future,
and how unpredictable those changes can be.
All you can really do is set your sights on the bigger picture,
look clearly at the information in front of you,
be willing to do what’s right even if it’s not the easiest
or most popular decision, and be open to discovering
the most mind-blowing unexpected truths about how the universe works.
So what did you think of The Expanse series finale?
Let us know in the comments
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