[Naomi] "Losing a friend" [Amos] "Making a choice to hold your ground to save your family.
As far as last stands go, that's the one I'd pick. He picked it too."
Hey guys, Pete here. With less than two weeks to go until the premiere of the Expanse's sixth and
final season on Amazon Prime Video I thought I'd put together a new video that recaps everything
you need to know going in. A sort of series recap in terms of how did we get here? Why is
this happening? And then I'll be going over where things were left at the end of season five and
what that means we should expect from season six. If you aren't caught up with all five seasons of
the Expanse then this video will contain spoilers that you might not want to see and that's your
warning. Now let's get into it. The first five seasons of the Expanse involved a lot of major
changes taking place in our solar system in the 24th century. As a result of extreme damage to the
planet's ecosystem the U.N. now governs the entire planet Earth, which as the birthplace of humanity
tries to hold on to its dominant role in political affairs. Mars has emerged as a military power
after earning its independence on the heels of its invention of the Epstein drive which is what
made colonization possible in the first place. And the belt, or the space beyond the inner planets,
is now populated with an exploited class of workers whose bodies have been altered after
generations of growing up in low gravity. The discovery of the protomolecule on Phoebe led
to conflict as the different powers tried to harness its potential to improve their position
for the now extinct ancient alien civilization that created it it was a tool they used to build
interstellar roads. they sent it out to distant solar systems to hijack the life there and build
Ring Gates. these gates are then connected to the Ring Network through the hub that the characters
refer to as the Slow Zone based on what happened there when they first passed through Sol Gate. the
Ring Builder civilization used the gates to expand their empire in the Milky Way right up until the
time they came under attack from a different civilization we call the Unknown Aggressors.
In an effort to survive which obviously didn't work since you know they're extinct they shut
down the Ring Gate network and it remained there idle waiting for someone to discover it
our solar system turned out to be an anomaly in their plan because the protomolecule that was
sent here got captured by Saturn's gravity and it never made it to earth to hijack the
primitive life that existed there at that time. humanity evolved and then billions of years later
we discovered this substance that was waiting on phoebe and then it connected our civilization to
the ring network. we passed through the gate and now through that hub of ring gates humanity has
access to 1,373 systems which based on the whole hijacking of the life that would have been there
and the extinction of the civilization behind that are essentially full of ready-made worlds that are
ripe for population. free land and free resources for the taking. a gold rush waiting to happen
for every step of this progression the crew of the Rocinante have found themselves in
the middle of things. the discovery and Julie Mao's infection, the experimentation on Eros,
the construction of the Ring on Venus, and the opening of the Ring Gate network led this crew
through life-changing adventures for the first three seasons. because of their familiarity
with all things protomolecule and also secretly Avasarala's hope that they might mess things up
and then broadcast the dangers of transiting through the rings to the entire solar system
they set off for Illus in season 4 to mediate a dispute between a group of belters and an earth
corporation who were both claiming rights to the new planet and even though they inadvertently took
some active protomolecule along with them which caused a lot of problems when the planet started
to turn back on much to Avasarala's dismay they were successful and that pretty much meant there
was no stopping a mass exodus of humanity through the ring gates to these new systems
season 5 picked up after their return and this new situation created problems for two of the factions
that exist in our solar system mars had been focused on a generations long project to terraform
its planet with so many habitable planets beyond the ring gates this project no longer made sense
also it put the belters in a situation where a lot of them aren't able to make the transition
back to living on a planet with gravity and most of the work they do is in extracting resources
which are now going to be plentiful on all these new worlds so a lot of their population won't be
able to benefit from this shift and their way of life will be coming to an end and the conflict
becomes this new economic and political situation that's a direct result of the ringgate's opening
there's a climate where a man like Marco Inaros could emerge in the belt to try to take
power for himself and a man on mars who sees this as an opportunity to break away and recreate this
vision of mars in his own image on one of those new planets he's able to bring important people
in to back his cause and they're able to take control of a lot of high-tech martian military
hardware while all of this is cooking in the background the crew of the Rocinante just needs
a break and at the beginning of season 5 while the Rocinante is being repaired at Tycho station
the characters all split up for different reasons holden stays on Tycho with the ship
and after learning from monica that someone is doing research with the protomolecule at
a secret facility in the belt he tries to get to the bottom of it he's worried because the
gate builders were wiped out by the unknown aggressors and now humans are using the ring
network as if nothing happened they're moving to these worlds overlooking the inherent danger
Amos gets word that his surrogate mother on earth has passed away Lydia helped protect him in his
violent childhood after his real mother died so he decides to return to pay his respects and
make sure she died of natural causes he travels alone and on the journey we see him process his
grief through violence when he fights a group of thugs that are shaking down the other passengers
he encounters avasarala on luna on the way and returns to his old neighborhood in baltimore
he meets lydia's partner and is satisfied that she died naturally but is upset to learn that he's
losing his house now that she's gone he goes to meet with his childhood friend Erich and we learn
that his real name is actually timmy he killed the real amos burton to save eric's life and
in exchange he got a new identity and a way off the planet with the condition that he would never
return they're able to work it out though eric agrees to take care of charles and amos decides
to make one last stop before he leaves earth for good he heads to the high security prison known as
the pit where they're holding clarissa mal who at one point he was all about executing because she
tried to kill them but who he also later formed a friendship with on the way back from the slow zone
alex decides to take this time to return to mars for an ill-advised reunion with his ex-wife and
son when that goes poorly he connects with bobby who he learns is investigating a conspiracy
of black market martian weapon smuggling she's working for Avasarala and has discovered that
someone high up in the martian chain of command is in on it when alex recognizes admiral Sauvetere
he decides to go and try to talk to him using his past military service and his celebrity of
being the first pilot to successfully transit a ring he brushes him off saying that he pilots a
stolen martian ship under an earther captain but his lieutenant emily babbage is more receptive
or at least she pretends to be in order to try to gather information about his time on
illus in the proto molecule he learns that she's shipping out with Sauvetere on the bar
keith and Bobbie wants to follow them because she thinks they'll be delivering contraband
with the help of fred johnson naomi locates her son and tells holden that she needs to go find
him alone she explains that she was able to get away from marco but couldn't save her son Filip
now she's afraid that he'll end up dead so she needs to at least try to help him she goes to
palace station where she meets up with her old belter crewmates and tells them that she wants
to see Filip they have a reunion that doesn't go well and she goes back to her ship to return to
Tycho where they knock her out and then take her back to marco's ship the pella which is noticeably
a martian light frigate where she essentially becomes his prisoner and we know that marco has
created the free navy we saw her son phillip for the first time at the end of season four in a raid
on mars where the free navy acquired stealth technology at the end of that season into the
beginning of the fifth we saw that their plan has been put in motion and while the rossi crew
is all spread out across the solar system their asteroid attack hits earth three asteroids coated
with stealth composites were able to get past the earth's defenses and hit the surface at the same
time on tycho station fred johnson is assassinated and the active protomolecule sample he had in his
possession is stolen the secretary general of the UN is killed and after the third rock hits Marco
and the free navy take responsibility holden tries to chase down the proto-molecule sample but the
ship that's carrying it is able to eject it in a torpedo during their exchange that goes unnoticed
bobby and alex realized that there are ships being delivered from mars to the free navy
but then they get spotted and have to dump the razorback's core to avoid getting hit by a
missile from there they lose the Barkeith Amos is able to survive the asteroid impact because he's
underground visiting clarissa in the pit after the attack they're able to escape and start a
long journey to find a ship and get off the planet naomi tries to connect with her son and makes an
attempt on marco's life that goes unnoticed when philip intervenes faced with no other options but
to remain a prisoner and to be separated from her real family on the rossignonte
she chooses to make a hard vacuum transit without a suit back to the ship she arrived on killing her
longtime friend sin in the process when he tried to stop her this looks like a suicide attempt
because they saw her go outside without a suit but when she gets on board the chet's mocha she
realizes that she's on a bomb that marco plans to use as bait to destroy the Roci and that the ship
has been stripped of anything that might be useful so she has to go to heroic lengths just to get a
message out to try to stop her crew from coming to get her she's eventually able to receive a
message from alex that says he's on his way in the razorback and after putting the ship in a
spin to make docking nearly impossible she has no choice but to leave the ship without an air bottle
as she's making warning signals telling them to stay away and running out of air bobby swoops in
in her suit to save her when they get back to the razorback they learn that alex had a stroke from
the high g maneuver during the approach and he died as a result elsewhere germa had become part
of a polyamorous family that crewed together after she left medina station they recovered ashford's
ship the tynan and were eventually called to join the free navy they did a crew exchange of one of
their husbands for one of marco's crew who he wanted there because he didn't really trust them
marco ordered her ships to destroy the rasanante and she backs out at the last minute turning on
the free navy ships they're able to destroy the koto and the syrio mal which were both mcrn ships
but their husband who was on the pella was killed in retaliation drummers saved the rasanante in
holden but half of her remaining family abandoned her as a result and at the end of the battle she
really has nowhere to go on luna avasarala eventually makes peace with the fact that her
husband was killed in the asteroid attacks she had been trying to avoid retaliation that might push
normal belters towards marco's free navy but was unable to stop an attack on Pallas Station
when follow-up attacks were being discussed she resigned in protest and was followed by
several other high-ranking members then she was approached about a vote of no confidence that was
put forward for the acting secretary general with an offer for her to become the leader
again holden and naomi are reunited and make their way back to luna amos and clarissa make
it to winnipesaukee and commandeer a ship and dramatically shoot their way off the planet
everyone comes together on the moon where they mourn the death of alex and offer their support
as an independent ship in the fight against the free navy while they're gathering there marco is
making a move for Sol gate they unleash a micro meteor attack against the ships guarding the ring
gate and are able to take control with help from the martian breakaway fleet in medina station
it's a victory that means marco now controls the choke point to all of the worlds beyond the gates
and can cut off access to the inner planets by blocking their ring we learned that sovietaire and
the martians were delivering the ships in exchange for the protomolecule sample and safe passage
through the laconia gate they used the chaos that marco created for earth as a distraction so they
could move their breakaway fleet out of Sol and into laconia and then they created a barricade
by installing a minefield behind their ring as he's getting ready to transit the laconia gate he
gets a message from cortazar telling him that the sample arrived safely and that things are starting
to happen on the planet he explains how important this mission will be how they have to be perfect
to babbage as their ship starts their transit then it appears as though time stops and the
two of them come under attack from an otherworldly presence and i say that for lack of a better way
to describe what's happening it looks familiar to what we saw when Elvi passed through the bullet
on illus and they are essentially blinked out of existence the bar keith disappears in a red cloud
and the season ends with a post-credits scene of an orbital platform that looks like it came from
the gate builders above laconia centuries of oppression and the promise of easy atmosphere
land and resources created a situation where marco and the free navy backed up by the breakaway
martian fleet could bring war to earth and what's left of mars the average belter might not agree
with marco's methods but they have no love for the inner planets either and we saw an example of
that through drummer's family who eventually made the tough decision of joining him in the loss of
fred johnson and his faction of the opa takes away that option the only path forward is war
because the free navy have established a strong position that they'll never let go of if marco can
retain his power avasarala finds herself in charge of a planet that experienced an attack that will
likely take generations to recover from if it can recover at all she lost her husband in the attack
and will be under tremendous pressure to turn things around at the beginning of season six
the ross ante lost a member of their crew and took clarissa on board for amos which is a pretty
uncomfortable situation considering she killed a lot of people in her quest to murder holden
from the trailer that's out there we know that bobby will be coming on board too and
they might be without a pilot because there's no indication they have someone to take alex's place
so that's where we're at ahead of the final season the final season at least for now
season five was important beyond the rise of the free navy because we finally got to learn more
about the characters as individuals it paid off a lot of things related to naomi and amos that
they had been hinting at since the beginning now that they're back together in season six they can
refocus their efforts on marco but you have to wonder how what they experienced will affect them
and i think that's a good place to leave things i have several other videos about season 6
including trailer breakdowns and a detailed video about the ending of season 5 if you're still
fuzzy on what happened let me know in the comments what you're hoping to see in the sixth season
and how you think it will all come together if you want to talk book spoilers please
make sure to mark them so we don't spoil things for people who haven't read them
please like this video if you enjoyed it please subscribe to my channel if you haven't already
i'll be doing tons of videos throughout the season and thanks for watching i'll talk to you soon