It's been long enough since I was actually following a weekly show as it was released that it's really interesting to notice the difference between marathoning a show all at once vs. watching it week to week in how it keeps it at the top of my brain. The one-sitting shows either stick or sink - mostly sink, if they don't happen to grab me in a particular way. With ongoing shows, though, there's that constant refreshment of emotional tension and speculation from week to week. Expanse didn't really hook me in a fandom way - I mean, I enjoy the show, and as sci-fi I think it's one of the best shows I've seen, but it wasn't a new obsessive thing for me. However, having new episodes coming out is a constant source of low-level refreshment of interest. It makes me wonder about the long-term impact on fandom of having so many shows drop all at once these days, rather than being strung out over a season like they used to be.

Anyway ...


This was an EXCELLENT Naomi & Drummer episode! It's so nice to have Naomi back to actively doing things - being brave and resourceful, moving the plot along. Also, ow. Poor Naomi. Her poor hands and throat and things.

(I said to Orion that putting on gloves before you throw yourself out an airlock is probably a good idea. He pointed out that putting on gloves probably gives away the whole "fake suicide" thing. Which, okay, point.

Orion: The spacesuit is a dead giveaway.
Me: Yes yes, point taken.)

Drummer cracking was really painful to watch. She just feels so much. My baby. ;___; I have a lot of feelings about the symbolism of Drummer getting trashed on a bottle of whiskey that represents one dead friend while mourning another. And just a lot of feelings about Drummer in general, as usual.

I am actually enjoying her new crew/family more now that they're starting to fracture over working for Marco. I think my big issue with them is that there's just nothing going on there. They are blandly fond of each other, but we've never seen them disagree, never seen them pushed. This episode - fighting, and making up, and playing together - was the most interesting I've found them so far! So I'm really interested how that's going to shake out, especially since this is presumably going to result in Drummer pulling away somewhat.

Still really enjoying the Bobbie and Alex team-up, though we got very little of it this week.

Amos's childhood friend interests me not at all, and I also kind of had an issue with the whole idea of just abandoning the people that he's responsible for. It's a similar kind of issue to the problem I had with the unargued assumption in the Mars scenes last season that everyone's going to abandon the Mars terraforming project now that there are new worlds through the Belt. Like, why? Sure, some people will leave, of course. But for others, it's their home. Bobbie still feels strongly about it. She can't be the only one. And similarly, in this case - I mean, it makes sense from an Amos standpoint that he wouldn't see any point in sticking around to help people, because Amos is a sociopath, and his friend is a gangster, so yeah, it's not like just GTFO'ing doesn't make sense for these people.

But I guess the show's not quite selling me on the magnitude of the disaster enough to get me on board with the idea that leaving is the best and only option for someone in a position to actually help out. The references to "millions" of people dead (on an Earth that must contain tens of billions) also feel like they're underselling the disaster a bit, though I guess it hits differently since we're living in a world right now with millions of people dead in a disaster that hasn't resulted in the world becoming an unlivable hell pit. (Granted, all of this is at least partly due to the show's budget and timeframe just not really giving them scope to really show the magnitude of the devastation that I think we're supposed to be sold on. Still, the "millions dead" is - I mean, it's got to be tens of millions of casualties just on the Eastern seaboard alone, right?)

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes! I was expecting a resolution to the Marco plot this season, but I'm starting to wonder if we have enough episodes for it. Oh well, one can only hope.