"Ceres will be the capital city of our belter nation!
A place all belters can be proud of and forever call home.
All through Filip's life from his very first memories the Belt had meant the Outer Planet's
Alliance and the OPA had meant the people that mattered most. his people. it was only as he'd
grown up and started being allowed to listen when his father spoke with other adults that his
understanding of the OPA became deeper, more nuanced, and the word that redefined his people
was alliance. not republic, not unity government, not nation, alliance. the Free Navy was not the
OPA and it was not meant to be. the free navy was the strongest of the old order forged together
into a force that didn't need an enemy to define it. it was a promise of a future in which the yoke
of the past was not only shrugged off but broken. hey guys, Pete here. the Expanse is back for its
final run and this is my breakdown of season six episode one. a half of a year has passed
since the battle of Sol gate and things are pretty dark it turns out that the constant threat of the
next asteroid hitting and the degradation of the biosphere are keeping things dire on earth. six
months in a ship either chasing or hiding with a bounty on your head isn't great for morale, but
hey, the Free Navy is feeling pretty good about where they're at. and we got a whole new planet,
a new tree of life and everything, although things could have went better for mother bird there. i'm
gonna recap everything that happened in episode 1 which was titled "Strange Dogs" and then we'll
get into what it all means and where things may be headed for this final season. for a quick spoiler
warning if you haven't watched the premiere of season 6 yet then this video won't be for you,
and with that out of the way let's get into it. season six opens on the planet Laconia which is
in the system of the same name this is where the Martian breakaway fleet decided to call home and
where they took that active protomolecule sample that they traded those fancy MCRN ships to the
Free Navy for. we meet Caera a young girl who's grown up on the planet she's hanging out in the
forest she's taking in all the alien wildlife that exists there and she gives some of her snack to
a mother sunbird that had brought her babies out of the nest she hears rustling in the bushes and
she discovers a little creature that she thinks looks like a dog and as she's checking that out
she hears the mother bird shriek and it's clear that there's something seriously wrong with it
she picks it up and runs away and the camera pulls away from the surface in this great shot
where we zoom out and then zoom in on the orbital platforms that we saw at the end of season five
which is of course an artifact left behind by the gate builder civilization the episode proper
opens with a sort of newsreel montage that shows that there are still rocks being hurled at earth
you see multiple new impacts and we'll learn that those are fragments of rocks that they shot down
and these have caused casualties in the millions the experts are predicting severe biosphere damage
and so if it wasn't clear at the end of season 5 the people on earth are suffering and things are
getting worse rather than better there's footage of people rallying behind marco and the free
navy in the belt several stations have declared their loyalty and survivors of the palestinian
attack bow revenge so way to go pastor you probably should have listened to abasarala
there's also a chiron that reads the un strikes back the rossi joins the fight and then we get the
first callback character who had a few memorable appearances in season 1 including the speech on
series where he laid out the unsavory conditions of life as a belter and called our man miller
out for working for the inners here he says now earthers know what it feels like to be belter
and you can see the point that he's making out in space you see some rocks get shot down by a
railgun barrage coordinated between mars and earth then on the surface of the planet we catch up
with bobby draper christian avasarala and a new member of her staff apparently they've knocked
down every rock marco has thrown at them for the last six months but secondary fragments still make
it through which is causing a lot of problems and with so many individual strikes continuing to come
that's kept their entire fleet pinned to the planet to aid in the defense
earth and mars are working on new ships but none of this makes abasarala feel better
they're looking on at a high-yield grain farm and it's clearly not producing any food
and she remarks it's like a goddamn nuclear winter the biospheric data is grim and the bottom line is
that each rock is killing them a little more even when they miss and don't forget the psychological
effect that this would have on everyone on the planet all of that's to say that the free navy
is winning and on series we see that philip's enjoying his new celebrity at least the part
where it makes him popular with the women marco has a meeting with two new characters sandrani
and rosenfeld they're both connected to opa factions that threw in with the free
navy and they're talking about how earth is too busy knocking down their rocks to have any
real presence in the belt sandrani talks about upping the food production on ceres and it's
pretty clear that marco's not that interested in the administrative side of things and here
we get some really bad news when we find out that anderson dawes is dead marcos says this is because
he got tired of listening to him and i gotta say it's a little bit disappointing that this happened
off screen after i first saw this i was holding out hope that we might get something in that x-ray
mini episode that they were going to put out but alas it doesn't look like we'll be getting
any more anderson dawes so rest in peace as they continue to talk it becomes clear that rosenfeld
is very close to everything that's going on and she tells marco they got rid of some dissenters
but they haven't been able to find drummer he decides to up the bounty by twenty percent on her
and the ross ante philip has a new friend and marco makes the speech when a crowd
forms around him it's been years since he's been on series but he considers it a home
now that they have control of it it will become the capital city of our belter nation
a place all belters can be proud of and forever call home the crowd cheers and as philip looks on
he looks sort of messed up later we'll see him and yawn bring two girls over and when they ask about
the attacks on earth philip starts to freak out and has to leave the room and in a conversation
between rosenfeld and marco she says that ceres is not medina that they owe these people nothing
and it's here where you start to see that the free navy isn't really about helping everyone
as much as it is about taking power she says the people on series can tighten up on their rations
which sounds a lot like what earth did to them when they were in charge and when philip objects
to this marco basically ignores him and takes the meeting somewhere else so they can talk in private
later we'll see that philip is continuing to spiral we see him drinking at that same bar
again and continuing to hit on the bartender who turned him down earlier she's diplomatic but not
interested and he freaks out and acts like a jerk he throws a drink at the wall and starts shouting
about being a hero how he killed the earther until his friend comes in and tries to get him
to leave they get into a fight and when philip starts losing he pulls out his gun he shoots and
he kills jones which brings his story to an end so rest in peace there we hardly got to know you and
your alligator best elsewhere in the belt a free navy bounty hunter has located the dewalt from
drummer's fleet and is getting ready to board it he says he knows the tynan is there too and tells
them to show themselves or be destroyed it turns out they're using that as a decoy with drummer
joseph and michio planning an attack from the hidden tainan when the time comes michio hits
the wrong button which makes for a tense situation and drummer has to act fast to destroy the dewalt
to take the ship out in the aftermath we find out they were only able to salvage one missile
from it and that brings their grand total to three so things are pretty rough for them at this point
later they discussed their limited options on where they could go to refuel and to re-arm
and joseph brings up michio saying that she's a liability in so many words she costs them a ship
and she's not cut out for what they're dealing with alternatively he says that he's a fighter
now as drummer always was and that this is not a place for michio anymore drummer's not convinced
and she brings up the fact that they've lost so much already which is absolutely the case with
serge getting spaced by marco oxona and bartol leaving and even though this would bring them
to being a family of two at that point she still decides that they'll leave michio behind when they
find a safe place to dock and refuel the rossi is on a recon mission in the belt they're engaged
with two free navy affiliated belter ships that they destroy and they've been at this for 187 days
and you can see that on their faces they're tired alex's death is hanging over the mall holden is
currently in the pilot's chair it appears that they're investigating the ongoing rock attacks
and when they look at the one that's there they come to the conclusion that there's no way that
the ships they just destroyed would have been able to throw them in earth's direction holden wants to
get closer but naomi insists on sending a drone rather than approaching it directly this sequence
serves to catch us up on the crew dynamics you get the idea that clarissa keeps to herself below
and that she's become a reliable mechanic working under amos he provides some really great space
porn when he goes outside to look for damage and provides us with a nice dramatic moment when he
stops to look at the plaque on his way out and the drone discovers that there's a drive mounted
on the surface of the rock which holden decides to go down to investigate they're trying to
figure out how these things are triggered since just about anyone could make one if they were
willing to give up a drive and with the free navy capturing so many colony ships there are plenty of
those to go around there's a touching moment when naomi realizes this is the first time that she's
flown the rasanante it's the first time she had to because alex was always there and you can see that
she's struggling with it when holden opens the box connected to the drive he triggers a fail-safe and
it starts up he gets tipped off when a piece of metal is attracted to the magnetic bottle naomi
knows that this is gonna kill him and she begs him to get away but he starts beating on it instead
and is able to break it in the nick of time when we go back inside we can see that clarissa is
avoiding being around naomi and when amos brings it up they get into an argument naomi says the
only reason she's here is because you made her part of the crew as if that could replace alex it
ends with him saying maybe you could cut peaches a break like we all did for you and she just tells
them that he should find somewhere else to be at that point later holden discovers footage of
the bar keith disappearing as it goes through the ring the red flashes remind him of the artifact on
illus and amos is quick to say that it's not their problem anymore he doesn't even want to hear about
it really he says he's only out there to kill marco before he kills us and that the only reason
he's there is that he didn't want to abandon holden so he pleads for holden not to abandon them
naomi comes in to let them know that she's found out that the rock with the drive was waiting for
a launch signal from a spottership they discovered that previous bursts like the one it was waiting
for were coming from an orbit from a specialized ship that's running dark if they could take that
out they would drastically reduce marco's ability to keep the inner planet's fleets pinned down
so they plan to find it and when they're alone holden apologizes to naomi for not being more
careful on the rock and she explains why she's so off she says that she tried to stay away from the
violence for so long and then marco pulled her back in now they're hunting down belters and she
doesn't know how much longer she can bear it and finally we see that avasarala is on a ship called
the xenobia monica stewart's there and she's poking her a bit asking her if it's true that
she reached out to marco for a peace treaty and she forces abu sarah to say that all marco has to
offer her is his unconditional surrender in their heated back and forth we get reminded that the
colonies have been cut off from communication since the battle of seoul gate and then
bobby steps in to cut her off later when they're alone she tells bobby she knows she hates this job
and tells her that they got a message from holden about the azure dragon spottership she breaks into
a monologue about how their wounded broken trying desperately to keep going by pretending we're not
little wins here and there won't hold us together we need something more than that
something big something to give a reason to hope and when bobby asked her if she has something in
mind she says she does and we see the rossi crew getting strapped in at that same time they destroy
the rock on their way out and the episode ends there it was a strong episode in that it had a
lot to do to catch us up with where everyone was at now that six months has passed a lot of that is
conveyed in how beat down the crew is and it was a little unsettling when i watched the episode for
the first time not that it didn't make sense because it does they've lost alex and they're
doing a thankless job with only small gains that haven't been turning the tide clarissa is still
a point of contention and amos seems divided in his loyalties which is a weird place for him to be
they are a family and you do see that they have the ability to push each other's buttons when they
want to for me it just took some time to adjust to that as a book reader it was great to see laconia
and get introduced to kara and the strange dog there was also another mention of laconia when
rosenfeld and marco were walking away from philip she said that medina needed more titanium because
the laconian pieces had been harder to install than they anticipated so that's something to
remember drummer's situation is absolutely bleak which again makes perfect sense but you kinda hate
to see it her line that we lost so much already is what got me started on making the drummer video i
put out yesterday and it's definitely difficult to see her breaking up her family even more
philip has never been a favorite character of mine beyond how his existence affects naomi's story
but i like them deciding to show him struggling with his place in things he played a major role
in killing a lot of people and he watched what he thought was his mother committing suicide as
a last resort to get away from them only to find out later that she was still alive he's definitely
feeling those things and now he's done something else that's going to contribute even more
marco seems very pleased with himself and it does feel that rosenfeld's influence isn't
something that makes him better they mentioned the issues with food on series a number of times and
it seems surprising that she was so indifferent about it the good news is that abba sarala has
a plan it involves bobby leaving where she's at now and doing something that's more upper alley
which is always a plus and it's not hard to put together where that's going so the table is set
things are only gonna pick up from here and i think that's a good place to leave things let
me know what you thought about the episode what you think about the season so far and how you're
hoping things are gonna play out in the comments please like this video if you enjoyed it please
subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and thanks for watching i'll talk to you soon