April 23: The Expanse 3x08

[kinetic_elaboration]

Finally we’re sort of getting somewhere, I think. I can’t get fully behind this show and it’s probably too late for that to ever happen because I’m just too overall frustrated, but I will say that was one of the better episodes in a long while and I feel like we’re finally playing with some interesting sci fi concepts here. Part of my fondness might be because it’s reminding me of other science fiction that it may or may not be actively or purposefully referencing/probably is not referencing, and which may or may not be clues to where this is actually going, and there is still a LOT of mystery, which makes me wary more than excited but—still, it was a good episode.

Holden asking Miller (“Miller”?) why he is being targeted by…whatever Miller is, is such a mood because I had just been thinking about how this show is trying so hard to keep the Roci and its crew relevant—all that ‘it’s fate we’re here by the Ring’ stuff—and it’s pretty unrealistic. I don’t think Holden has main character energy and also soooo much ground was ceded to UN versus Mars, history as the province of Big Men territory that the Roci crew are really only believable to me as Just Some Guys. Like why ARE we spending even the amount of time with them that we are? They feel, in retrospect, so useless to that entire war storyline that took up probably about a season all told… I’m glad we’re getting back to centering them but it’s underlining for me how poorly suited that whole story was to… at least what I thought this show was.

But I was trying to be positive. Anyway, I’m willing to allow Holden and friends to be important and I like that they finally got the A plot on their own show again. I like the mysterious appearances of Miller. It’s really a reminder of how much better the show was when he was one of the mains, that noir/mystery element he brought to it, but I’m not complaining that he, or something like him, is back. I don’t know where this is actually going but my read based on what he said is he’s part of the Ring/Alien project, something it’s made out of… whatever of him it absorbed. It sort of reminds me of the Southern Reach/Area X, which also features clones that were made from an alien terraforming project. And that’s sort of interesting, the question of to what extent he IS Miller, and why he’s so weird and glitchy.

The way that the UN and the Belt and everyone is clustered around the Ring and, like, poking it from afar reminds me of Roadside Picnic and the way humanity responds to the Zones—and the Belt reminds me more of stalkers, how people cannot be deterred from just head first exploring, especially if something like money or power is at stake. So maybe Miller is like something that comes out of the Zone.

There are definitely a lot of mysteries being set up now: who is the other Holden (my current guess is terraformed Holden, though how the Ring could do that, I don’t fully get); what’s happening to the Roci; what’s going on with the blind drone-camera operator; what that saboteur on the UNN ship is doing. I retain my wariness, which is to say, we’ll see what comes out of any of them. But I’m interested. Especially about those first two questions.

The people on the UNN ship are dumb as rocks for not getting that this saboteur is behaving strangely. I mean first off I totally missed that she was on the Thomas Prince until this episode and I realized that I have literally no idea what she does or what her little ship (?) does or anything. But I know that she’s very suspicious and her coworker is extremely idiotic for not getting that. This mystery is too mysterious and until I see more detail I will ignore it. There just isn’t enough to speculate on so what’s the point?

A few more quick observations:

Everyone was SO quick to want to fire on the Roci. I can’t even remember why all these ships are in this same vicinity. But they sure are trigger happy. Like this man’s speech came out of absolutely nowhere? He isn’t even a Belter? And only his girlfriend is like ‘let’s investigate this OOC situation?’ Lol.

I love how Naomi’s Belter accent is starting to subtly slip in now that she’s on a Belter ship again. That’s such a great detail.

I need to make this show more interesting for myself so I’ve just unilaterally decided that Alex, Amos, and (still) Prax are in a relationship and with this reading it does amuse me that Alex won’t listen to his captain but he will listen to Amos. Also when he’s like ‘Amos, you can’t be so unethical as to read someone else’s medical files…. okay now that we’ve established that, what did the medical files say??’ Also Amos yet again shooting down the drone-operator like ‘nice try man lol.’