[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