August 12: The Expanse 4x06

[kinetic_elaboration]

I’m not against an impending-disaster narrative and honestly that probably is when this show is at its best. (Arguably?) This particular one was my speed: I like the countdown to natural disaster more than high-speed projectile is approaching; I like the slow tension of it. But I did find the nature of today’s disaster a little humorous: there’s gonna be an earthquake…AND a tsunami!! Oh, and all your ships are disabled and—and—and—

I mean having waves of things happen did up the suspense but it was still funny. Dialogue that you can clock as dialogue.

Also I literally can’t with Holden and his high horse. There are a bunch of people already on this planet with their own problems (a lot of problems) and he shows up, presses some buttons and connects some wires or whatever, and now disaster is raining down on them and he’s like ‘guys stop fighting, we have to deal with the disaster!’ Yeah, and why is the disaster happening? He cannot be taken seriously. I feel like I’m supposed to treat him seriously as a hero, I’m supposed to see him as a moral arbiter of the situation, but I can’t. He didn’t even, like, purposefully cause chaos or even purposefully do anything. He just wandered around doing whatever as if there weren’t hundreds of people around who could be hurt. That’s literally worse than Murtry, if we’re being honest.

Otherwise, you know, my opinions haven’t really changed. I’m still enjoying what I’m enjoying and skeptical of what I’m skeptical of. I like Bobbie and the Mars aesthetic/worldbuilding. I’d like her to be more connected to the rest of the show but I’m anticipating a string to connect them: is her crew selling to Marcos? Are they the type of Martians who would interact with this guy? If not, what a missed opportunity lol. Also I am beginning to be of the opinion that Bobbie really is working with the criminals, though I leave open the possibility of a very dramatic double (triple?) cross reveal later on. I don’t know if this show would do that; it’s not my primary theory. But I think it’s possible.

Similarly, I’m enjoying Ashford and Drummer, their partnership, and their cat-and-mouse type of narrative with Marco. Even though sometimes the storylines feel disconnected (again, mostly with Bobbie), I do like that there are various different types of stories going on, the diversity that gives; they’re all in their own sub-genres in a way; disaster narrative; political narrative; chase narrative; criminal narrative, etc.

I continue to not care about any of the new characters, except the leader of the Belters on Illus and the scientist who appears to be infected by the protomolecule. (Because we need another plot stuffed in here.) (That was a cool reveal of her eye with green spots though. And I like the trope where the scientist has the skills to perceive the horror infecting themselves before anyone else does.) I don’t really care for Amos’s girlfriend, but if she’s going to be around, they should make out more. I do like his beard.

I don’t feel like I’m being particularly coherent today, but there we are. This is technically a little past the halfway point but it feels like the end of 4A in a certain sense. The settlement is gone but there are a lot of survivors, and we have Murtry setting up more nefarious activities and, of course, the first hints of an Infectious Disease storyline with the protomolecule. And the other storylines need to… come to something, right? Chrisjen’s election, Bobbie presumably getting out of her life of crime, and then something that sets up Marco as the Real Big Bad next season. So, I think there’s reasonably time for all of that. I still rather feel like this season… I don’t want to say doesn’t have plot, but doesn’t have as much plot as it pretends to have. It just moves its stories really slowly.