sholio | Expanse season 5 finale

WELL THAT EPISODE WAS EXACTLY NOTHING I WANTED.

So I guess we get another season of Marco. Fan-freaking-tastic.

I did really enjoy everything with Drummer, although I ended up finding it really hard to follow who was on which ship and exactly how much everyone understood of what was going on. Did Holden actually get her message? Everyone acted later like they didn't understand why the Belters were attacking each other.

Basically I just found this episode really anticlimactic! Drummer betrayed Marco LIKE A BOSS, but it wasn't exactly a surprise and then she didn't actually get to do much. Naomi was rescued, but there wasn't much aftermath for it (although the rescue with Naomi and Bobbie was great - but then they never interacted in the episode again!). That was a very underwhelming way to kill off a major character, especially since the major deaths in last season's finale were so dramatic and meaningful. No Naomi-Drummer reunion, or resolution at all, really - does Drummer even know Naomi survived? No Drummer-Roci teamup, at least not explicitly, or two-way contact between their ships. No resolution to Bobbie's friendship with Alex, even - the least we could have done was see her being sad!

The Amos-Naomi-Holden reunion was pretty nice, though, and Amos's farewell with his friend was kind of neat even though I still don't care about his friend much. I'm jazzed about Clarissa as a member of the crew.

It just felt like this episode packed in too much to really dwell on the emotional aspects of anything. It felt rushed and disjointed.

Basically I want a giant fixit for this season, damn it.

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>WELL THAT EPISODE WAS EXACTLY NOTHING I WANTED.

Aww! Sorry to hear it. (I'm avoiding the rest of the plot spoilers, although apparently there's someone called Marco and he be evil.)

ETA: nvm I have no self-control, so I read it. Who died? Alex?

Edited 2021-02-03 02:31 (UTC)

That episode was just ... not good! I guess pacing is always going to be a problem when you're adapting books to TV, but it felt like they had about 2 episodes' worth of material that they tried to jam into one episode, and ended up not being able to dwell on anything, and on top of that, there's a bunch of stuff from this season that I thought was going somewhere but I guess wasn't! It was very disappointing.

ETA: nvm I have no self-control, so I read it. Who died? Alex?

LOL.

Yes, Alex died, in a stupidly underwhelming way that the episode just didn't really have space to deal with. On a meta level, I gather that there were outside-their-control reasons for not having the actor next season so they had to deal with that somehow, but they could have gone MANY ways with this and I really hated the option they went with.

:(

To me the worst is when they kill of a character just because they need to get rid of their storyline somehow (i.e RL stuff) and they just don't think through the implications very well for in-universe stuff.

Yeah, it was EXACTLY that. And I mean, they had to write him off, but there are so many ways they could have done it! It could even have been via death if they had the time to deal with it and could have given him a heartfelt one with proper aftermath, but it really ended up feeling like "welp, gotta get rid of this character" *checks off ticky box* *moves on with plot*

With the way they handled his death, I wondered if they'd actually changed things after the actor finished filming or the season had ended. Just a few tweaks: take a moment of closeup on him in the Razorback and add some blood; a couple of reshot scenes with Naomi's grief and guilt over his death. It felt really rushed. Then again, as you say, much of the episode did.

Basically I want a giant fixit for this season, damn it.

Sympathy from the land of doesn't even go here.

Thank you!! <3 It's always disappointing when a show doesn't stick the landing, especially when they've shown in other seasons that they're capable of it.

although I ended up finding it really hard to follow who was on which ship and exactly how much everyone understood of what was going on.
yeah i would have appreciated more title cards of each ship xP

That was a very underwhelming way to kill off a major character, especially since the major deaths in last season's finale were so dramatic and meaningful.
yeah i was wondering if they were gonna kill off Alex bc of the IRL actor stuff. they did devote a bit of screentime to naomi & holden & amos remembering him, but it was kind of rushed.

No Naomi-Drummer reunion, or resolution at all, really - does Drummer even know Naomi survived? No Drummer-Roci teamup, at least not explicitly, or two-way contact between their ships. No resolution to Bobbie's friendship with Alex, even - the least we could have done was see her being sad.
ugh, yeah, like -- two-way contact between their ships would have been great! drummer exchanging video messages with naomi! something! this season did a great job of showing how much drummer loves naomi and how far she'll go for her, and then it didn't even let them talk at the end ;-;

i was pretty jazzed by Clarissa coming aboard and by the final scene of the Barkeith's transit, but... idk. i see what you mean elsewhere in the comments about it packing 2 episodes' worth of material into 1 episode.

yeah i would have appreciated more title cards of each ship xP

SAAAAAME. I went back and rewatched some of those scenes, and I still struggled to figure out where a lot of the action was happening - I think part of the problem is that the bridge sets are so similar between ships that it's very difficult to tell when we switch between different ships. They really should have made it clearer with lighting or something! I think I got more of the nuance this time, though - and I do think there was 2-way communication between Holden and Drummer, but it cut away before we saw his reaction. Which is really too bad given the fraught history they have. We deserved a reaction shot! And we really deserved Drummer getting confirmation that Naomi was alive, after she risked everything and broke up her new family AND got herself on Marco's hit list to save Naomi's ship/crew/lover. ;__;

But yeah, it felt like so much got skipped over. I think Clarissa on the Roci is going to be really fun, though! Kind of sad to see Evil Tim DeKay get disintegrated (I still love him from White Collar; I was hoping for more of him next season) but that was a great scene.

>And we really deserved Drummer getting confirmation that Naomi was alive

that sounds like a pretty huge omission to me!

> Evil Tim DeKay get disintegrate

LOL

I do think there was 2-way communication between Holden and Drummer, but it cut away before we saw his reaction. Which is really too bad given the fraught history they have. We deserved a reaction shot! And we really deserved Drummer getting confirmation that Naomi was alive, after she risked everything and broke up her new family AND got herself on Marco's hit list to save Naomi's ship/crew/lover. ;__;

for real! the betraying marco itself was great, but we needed the follow-up! we needed the emotional catharsis for drummer!

Ha! I almost wrote "Evil Tim DeKay" in my reply to your previous post, then I wrote "Special Agent Peter Burke" with a strikethrough, and then I cut the whole sentence in the end.

I don't like either Babbage or Admiral Sauveterre (really? Admiral Safe Earth??), but I was really ticked that Babbage sold her soul to his cause, and then he demands her bracelet? I think I missed some of the meaning of that. All I got from that interaction was that Sauveterre is a jackass and will not be missed.

I was so relieved to get Naomi out of her suffering and danger that I was ok with my disappointment on other scores!

I love having the band back together (minus Alex). I just wish we'd had that halfway through the season!

And Drummer had no contact with Naomi? I too wasn't sure Holden even knew who was doing what there. I felt like we needed at least one more episode.

I'm looking forward to seeing the team back together, now with added Clarissa; and Bobbie and Avasarala working together. (Honestly, though, I liked Bobbie so much on the Roci that I wish she were going there. I LOVE BOBBIE.)

Expanse season 5 finale

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