July 23: The Expanse 4x03

[kinetic_elaboration]

Finished another episode of The Expanse. It was pretty good; overall, I am enjoying this season and I feel like it’s working off interesting ideas and is basically entertaining. Also, I’m following it without too much issue. Most of the plots are basically familiar: conflicts between groups fighting over the same land; political intrigue; mob boss blackmail. Only the Alien Stuff is totally out there and unexplained but it’s also something I’m not trying to follow along with. When it makes sense, it’ll make sense, and if it never makes sense, I didn’t waste brain power trying to make fetch happen for it, is sort of how I feel at this point.

In general… I think the plots are fine but really my main enjoyment comes from the Mood and (certain) characters. I like the way Illus is designed. I like the way Mars is designed. I think the costumes are pretty great this year. I liked all of the High Tension Moments, and the talking like this contest moments. The one between Amos and Murtry was especially good. From one killer to another etc. etc.

 

I think my favorite plot lines are the ones outside of Illus though: Chrisjen on Earth with her political storyline and her election storyline starting; and Bobbie on Mars. I find Chrisjen delightful and I want her to have a big role after totally disappearing for Season 3B. I like Bobbie a lot, as I always say, and I really, really like that we’re starting to get more world building on Mars outside of the military stuff. I don’t know how I feel about this devolving into a blackmailed-by-the-mob story but I’m keeping an open mind about it. Maybe there’s something in the last conversation between her and Mob Police Officer, about what the future of Mars even is when it has less need to be martial all the time.

On Illus… I am sort of mid on the RCE versus Belter conflict. I’m not intrigued by any of the new Belter characters, I think is the thing, or by any of the RCE characters, and this is inclusive of Murtry (I’ve seen his type before) and Lucia. And man they are getting a lot of screen time. I don’t know that either of these factions has really earned me caring about them and their conflict, at least as far as these particular avatars go. I don’t hate it and I’m keeping an open mind about it, but I’m not fully on board. I mean I didn’t even know who those guys were who got shot in the end. So, sort of anticlimactic.

But I do like Naomi and I really, really like Amos. I love his straightforwardness about everything, how it mixes with his honesty, how it is his honesty. The simpleness of his desires to fuck and to… not necessarily fight, but solve problems by the shortest possible route: violence. At all times. He’s a certain stereotype of a character just pushed a little to the side, and there’s a sort of humor about him that this show really lacks. It’s honestly him and Chrisjen and sometimes Alex taking on the entire burden of laughs here.

The alien mystery stuff just makes me zone out, honestly. As I said, I’m not following it and I’m not convinced there’s anything to follow, and yet unlike the RCE versus Belter storyline, where you don’t need all the details to still follow along the well-worn outlines of this type of plot, this one has no meaning without comprehensible details and I’m just… not comprehending. I also find Holden increasingly unsympathetic. I realized this when he saw a weird thing and was like ‘let’s just nuke it.’ Lol okay. This is after causing problems by listening to his alien hallucination friend who tells him to mess around with Alien Stuff he doesn’t understand. Fucking around and exploring and doing whatever was a fine risk then but when the scientist wants to study the new thing, we have to be responsible and think about stopping damage before it occurs. Half the time he’s flying by the seat of his pants and so when he comes into his captain voice the other half of the time and tries to represent rationality and leadership, it’s not believable to me. Also he’s just boring. He doesn’t have main character energy and I do think the show really struggles to keep him believable as the protagonist that he allegedly is.

I also think these episodes are too long. I know they’re only barely longer than previous seasons, but sometimes, in fact, the restrictions placed on TV by traditional formats and traditional platforms are actually good.