The Expanse is a sci fi show about space,
politics, action, drama, lasagne, and ancient alien mysteries. It’s set in a future where humans have colonised
the solar system. Earth is the big old political power, run
by the United Nations. Mars is a rival superpower, with advanced
technology and military. In the outer planets and the asteroid belt
are the Belters, living on the dangerous frontiers of space. Belters have their own culture and language,
and their bodies have adapted to low gravity. But the resources and wealth of the Belt is
still owned by the inner planets, Earth and Mars. A group called the OPA fight for Belter rights
and independence. So tensions are high between Earth, Mars and
the Belt – and a single spark could cause war. In Episode 1, Holden works on a ship called
the Canterbury. He used to be in the Earth space navy, now
he’s kinda slacking and avoiding responsibility, and taking his shirt off a lot. Naomi is an engineer from the Belt – she’s
smart and secretive about her past. Naomi is close with Amos. Amos is weird – he’s emotionally detached,
and can be brutally violent. But he can also be friendly and loyal, and
he tries to be a good man. Amos has a mysterious past involving organised
crime in Baltimore. Alex is pilot from Mars – he loves flying,
and cooks a mean space lasagne, and he left a wife and child back on Mars. Holden Naomi Amos and Alex are the only survivors
when the Canterbury, and then a Martian ship, are both mysteriously destroyed. Holden steps up as a leader to protect his
crew. They steal a Martian warship and name it Rocinante,
which is a reference to a story about a foolish heroic knight. Cause Holden’s heroism is often impulsive
and naĂŻve, and sometimes does more harm than good. Naomi becomes his voice of reason, helping
him make better choices – and they eventually start a relationship. The destruction of these ships sparks conflict
between Earth Mars and the Belt. The Martians blow up the moon Phoebe, Earth
blows up the moon Deimos – and the system hurtles towards all out war. With the help of OPA leader Fred Johnson,
the Roci crew investigate who started this conflict. Which leads them to Eros and Miller. Miller is a washed-up beat-down cynical crooked
cop, who doesn’t really believe in anything anymore. But he investigates the disappearance of a
girl called Julie Mao. He learns that she rejected a life of wealth
and privilege to fight for the Belt with the OPA. She’s tough and determined and selfless,
and Miller comes to love her – without ever having met her, almost like a religious faith. Miller meets Holden and the crew on Eros,
and together they find Julie dead, infected with a mysterious alien virus called the protomolecule. It turns out that Julie’s father, a powerful
businessman called Jules-Pierre, is secretly experimenting with this protomolecule. He had the Canterbury and the Martian ship
destroyed to deliberately spark war, as a distraction so that he and his scientists
can infect everyone on Eros with the protomolecule. Julie tried to stop him, and just got infected
herself. So Eros turns into a nightmare with this alien
contagion, and Holden and Miller work together to escape. Their personalities clash – cause Holden’s
an idealist who believes in peace truth and justice – while Miller uses deception and
brutality to survive. They find Dresden, the scientist who infected
Eros. And Miller kills him on the spot. Holden is furious that Miller would execute
someone in cold blood, and kicks him out of their crew. But on Eros, the protomolecule is consuming
the bodies and minds of infected people, and seems to be “Building something”. Probably.. something bad. So the crew make a plan to destroy Eros. Fred has this giant Mormon spaceship called
the Nauvoo – and they plan to slam it into Eros to knock into the sun. But Eros inexplicably dodges the ship, seemingly
breaking the laws of physics, and speeds towards Earth. So Miller goes into the heart of the infected
Eros, and finds Julie Mao. This infection spread from her, and her consciousness
is part of the protomolecule. So he asks her to move Eros away from Earth
and to crash into Venus instead. Eros and Julie and Miller disappear into the
clouds, and Earth is saved. But while all these heroics are happening,
Avasarala deals with the politics. Avasarala is one of the most powerful politicians
in the government of Earth. In Season 1, she’s ruthless in stopping
OPA terrorism, and Martian aggression. She tortures, and blackmails, and lies, and
betrays one of her close friends. Cause she believes that “Earth must come
first”, and will do anything to protect her home and her family. But she discovers that the conflict around
Eros weren’t caused by the Belt or Mars. There’s a conspiracy within her own government
on Earth, working with Jules-Pierre Mao to deliberately cause war and use the protomolecule
as a weapon. Avasarala gets help from Bobbie. Bobbie is a Martian marine – a powerful
soldier loyal to Mars. At first, she wants war with Earth. But on Ganymede, her squad gets wiped out
by a monstrous protomolecule creature. And she discovers that her own government
was behind this – Jules-Pierre secretly works with Mars as well as Earth to weaponise
the protomolecule. His scientists experiment on children, transforming
them into these hybrid protomolecule “killing machines”. So Bobbie leaves the Martians, and goes all
Iron Man to defend Avasarala, and works with the Roci crew to fight the conspiracy. These people from Earth Mars and the Belt
settle their differences and come together as a team. Amos makes friends with a botanist called
Prax and helps him save his daughter. Naomi and Alex save Mars from protomolecule
missiles. Bobbie kills a hybrid to avenge her squad. And Holden arrests Jules-Pierre Mao. The evil conspiracy is ended. But on Venus, the protomolecule from Eros
has been busy. When a science ship investigates, the protomolecule
disassembles the ship, and poor Adam Savage asphyxiates. The protomolecule is intelligent and powerful
and purposeful. In Season 3, it emerges from Venus and forms
a mysterious Ring, which seems to be like a wormhole. So Earth and Mars and the Belt send ships
to investigate, including the Rocinante. Holden and the crew are sued by Mars for stealing
their ship. So a journalist called Monica pays their legal
fees, and in return she films them for a documentary. But Naomi isn’t with them. She loves Holden Amos and Alex, but she also
loves her people, the Belters. So she joins her friend Drummer on the OPA
ship Behemoth. The Behemoth was originally the Nauvoo, that
giant Mormon spaceship. But after it was launched it at Eros, Fred
and Drummer converted it into a giant OPA warship called the Behemoth. It represents the hope for a Belter nation,
and of the OPA as a real political power. Drummer captains the Behemoth at the Ring. But she has to contend with Ashford, an OPA
pirate who would rather control the ship himself. And there’s a greater threat from Clarissa
Mao. Clarissa is the eldest daughter of Jules-Pierre
Mao, the businessman behind the protomolecule conspiracy. When her father is jailed and shamed for his
crimes, Clarissa wants revenge on Holden. So she flies to the Ring as a maintenance
worker, and she blows up a ship, and uses like a.. deepfake video to frame Holden for
her crime. The Behemoth attacks the Roci, so they escape
into the Ring. And inside the Ring is a mysterious space
where an alien force prevents anything from going above a certain speed, which prevents
ships from attacking each other. And Holden has weird visions of Miller. Miller died when Eros crashed into Venus. But the protomolecule incorporated Miller’s
consciousness into itself, and uses him to communicate with Holden. This Miller leads Holden to a mysterious station
at the centre of the Ring. And Holden has visions of the ancient past. He learns that Ring was built by a powerful
alien civilisation called the Builders. The Builders created the protomolecule – not
as a weapon, but as a tool to build these Ring gates. But aeons ago, the Builders were destroyed
by some mysterious other aliens. This ghost of Miller is the Builders’ technology
trying to learn what happened to its creators. Some Martians attack Holden, and the Ring
sees them as a threat, so it suddenly lowers the speed limit – which instantly decelerates
all the ships in the space, killing or injuring thousands. Drummer and Ashford get trapped under a tractor
– they spend some quality time, and squash their beef – and their legs. But Naomi builds Drummer some robot legs so
it’s all good. But these injured people are a disaster. Because ships in The Expanse create gravity
by constantly accelerating with their thrusters – like how you’re pushed back in your
seat when you accelerate a car, but constantly. With the Ring’s speed limit, they can’t
accelerate to make gravity. Which means the injured people can’t heal,
cause blood doesn’t drain right in zero G. But the Behemoth has another way to make gravity
– it can spin, creating gravity by centrifugal force. So Ashford invites all the injured Earthers
and Martians to the Behemoth to heal – it’s a show of strength and compassion and reconciliation
from the new Belter nation. Naomi returns to the Rocinante. Cause she’s loyal to the Belters. But the Roci crew are her family. Clarissa tries to kill Holden, and attacks
Naomi, but she’s saved by Anna. Anna is a pastor, and on the Ring, she offers
compassion and comfort to the scared and injured. She offers some guidance to Amos, and helps
convince Clarissa to cool it with all the murdering and to seek redemption instead. Everyone’s still stuck in the Ring space,
so Ashford tries destroying the Ring. The Ring gets fed up with humanity, and starts
charging its weapons to wipe out the entire solar system like a bloody Halo ring. Holden has a better plan, and fights Ashford’s
men for control of the Behemoth. With the heroism of the Roci crew, Drummer,
Bobbie, Anna, and even Clarissa, they defeat Ashford, and shut down all their ships, to
show the Ring they’re not a threat. The Ring chills out, and reveals its true
purpose – it opens a thousand new gates, wormholes to distant star systems with habitable
worlds. These are thousands of new opportunities for
land and resources and freedom, so in Season 4, humanity ventures into new worlds. Earth Mars and the Belt are at peace, and
Avasarala becomes the Secretary General of the United Nations, governing Earth. Some Belters go through the Ring and settle
a planet called Ilus, where they discover some mysterious alien protomolecule-lookin
structures. So Holden and the crew investigate. They land on the alien planet, and Naomi walks
under a sky for the first time. As a Belter, she grew up in low gravity, so
this planet is hell on her body – so she and Alex stay in the Roci in orbit. On Ilus, Holden tries to make peace between
the Belter settlers and an Earth corporation who want the planet for themselves. Their leader Murtry kills some Belters and
calls them terrorists. He’s a brute, but he’s not all wrong – some
of the Belters do blow up a ship full of people in their desperation to keep their new home. Holden investigates the alien structures. The ghost of Miller leads him to reactivate
some billion year old alien machinery, which malfunctions and explodes, sending a massive
tsunami at their settlement, and disabling their ships. They take cover in one of the structures,
but it’s full of deadly alien slugs, and everyone except Holden goes blind from an
infection, and they’re running out of food. It’s a really shitty time. So Miller guides Holden to a mysterious ancient
weapon. Billions of years ago, the Builders, who created
these structures and Rings and the protomolecule, were destroyed by some other aliens using
these weapons. Miller puts himself into a body, and steps
into the weapon, to disable all the alien tech on the planet, and to destroy himself. So the tortured ghost of Miller is finally
put to rest, and the planet is safe. Holden has a Western showdown with Murtry,
and captures him – rejecting his lawless brutal wild west ethos in favour of peace,
justice, and due process. Amos has a relationship with one of Murtry’s
soldiers, and she forces him to choose between her and Murtry or the Roci crew – he chooses
the Roci. Alex and Naomi pull some smart moves to keep
their ships in the air, including using a rail gun as a thruster. They protect a Belter who was a terrorist
but was nice about it. And a scientist called Elvi gets to study
the remaining alien artefacts. So the crew save Ilus, but the alien technology
a mystery. On Earth, Avasarala fights a political battle. She’s challenged in an election by a rival,
Nancy Gao. And Avasarala pulls some dirty tricks to try
to win – she leaks and lies and orders a military strike that ends up killing civilians. In the end, Avasarala loses the election,
and her husband Arjun leaves cause she put politics and pride ahead of her morals and
family. Without Arjun, and without her power, who
is Avasarala now? On Mars, Bobbie gets kicked out of the military
for disobeying orders to go save the world so many times. And life on Mars is kinda depressing now. Martians worked together for generations to
terraform the red planet into a habitable world. But now that there are thousands of already
habitable planets beyond the Ring, Mars is.. kinda pointless, people leave. Bobbie believed in the Martian dream, but
now the dream is dying. And her new boyf who buys her waffles leaves
as well. So Bobbie gets involved with criminals who
steal Martian technology and sell it on the black market. It seems harmless at first, but she discovers
that it’s linked to a dangerous conspiracy. In the Ring, the OPA ship Behemoth is renamed
to Medina Station – it’s the hub of the new Belter nation, and the gateway to the
worlds beyond the Ring. It’s run by Ashford and Drummer, and they
learn that peace is hard. They try to cooperate with Earth and Mars,
but many Belters still hate the inner planets. There are attacks by a Belter extremist called
Marco Inaros. Back in the day, Naomi had a son with Marco,
called Filip. Naomi left Marco because she didn’t want
to be involved in Marco’s terrorism, and Naomi hasn’t seen her son since. Marco believes that peace between Belters
and the inner planets is impossible, and they need to fight for their future. So Marco plans a terrible attack, using Bobbie’s
stolen Martian technology. He gets an asteroid, and paints it with Martian
stealth tech, and launches it towards Earth. This could kill billions of people, and with
the stealth tech, they won’t see it coming. So will Earth be saved? Will Bobbie uncover a Martian conspiracy? Will Holden discover the mysteries of the
alien Builders? Will Naomi reunite with Marco and Filip? Will Alex and Amos make peace with their pasts? Comment below what you hope to see in The
Expanse Season 5. And subscribe to this channel – we’ve
got a video about The Expanse Season 5 coming out soon. Thanks to Amazon for sponsoring this video,
and thank you for watching.
Glad to see it up on their channel! đź‘Ť
The recap was previously posted on the Amazon Prime Video UK
YouTube channel on Dec 14th. It was discussed here and here.
Today there's a new ASX video about S5 E1,
now posted on the Prime Video UK YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzJKL0NGqTo