 Quick warning, this video contains spoilers for The Expanse through season 5 episode 4. Amos Burton is one of my favorite characters on The Expanse. His penchant for casual violence is gripping and fascinating. In season 5's first three episodes, we finally get some glimpses into Amos's past, which paint a picture of how he became the man he is. We learn a little about Lydia and we meet Amos's old friend Eric, but there is clearly a rich backstory that is only hinted at. In this video, I'll recap Amos Burton's full origin story from The Churn, a novella by James S.A. Corey, author of The Expanse book series. We'll also talk about how some of these experiences explain Amos's behavior on the show. I should say, by the way, I highly recommend the novella. Even if you know the general story beats, it's worth it for the fantastic prose alone. There are lines in the story that will sneak up and punch you in the gut when you least expect it. Anyway, let's jump into the recap. The first thing you need to know is that Amos Burton is a stolen identity. The man we know from The Expanse was originally named Timothy, or Timmy to his friends. The original Amos Burton was a crime boss in Baltimore, and not a good man. He was the kind of person who enjoyed sitting at a restaurant in full view of starving men and women as if to say, what you want, I can take or I can leave. All I want is to keep your options for myself. While he still went by Timmy, one of his few friends was Eric, who suffered a similarly difficult childhood. In fact, one of his arms was badly disfigured due to a beating he suffered at a young age. Eric worked for Burton, faking identity records, DNA profiles, and other paperwork. He talks Burton into giving Timmy a job, and it goes about how you would expect. Burton's orders are to see a man named Austin, who owes him some money. So Timmy shoots Austin with his homemade shotgun. When questioned by Burton, Timmy explains, I couldn't get money out of that guy. He didn't have any. If he had, he'd have given it to you. Only thing you were getting from him was a way to make sure everyone else pays you on time, so I took that instead. In the past, Timmy has severely beaten people, and perhaps some of them died. But Austin is the first man Timmy ever knowingly killed. Timmy returns home to Lydia, a woman who is part surrogate mother and part lover to Timmy. His biological mother was a prostitute who birthed him in a black market clinic. Lydia worked with his mother and took care of him after she died. Lydia guided him as he was forced into the same line of work. Years later, Lydia and Timothy are both able to escape this work and help Burton with other criminal enterprises. Lydia tracks inventory and Timmy, as we mentioned, tries his hand at collections. I should mention that, as dark as this book is, Amos, aka Timmy, still has the great one-liners we've come to expect from him. When he explains to Lydia how he screwed up the job by killing Austin, he says simply, Burton told me to get what I could out of a guy. Looking back, I think he just meant money. However, even though Timmy tries acting nonchalant about the whole thing, he has the shakes and other flu-like symptoms. He's traumatized by the murder, Lydia explains. Then she comforts him by sleeping with him. To them, sex has become meaningless, and therefore, it can mean anything. Lydia doesn't think of them as lovers, she just thinks of sex as a tool which can be used as a weapon, a nightmare, or in this case, a solace. After the Austin murder mishap, Burton decides he'll actually keep Timmy, but he'll be reassigned to a more fitting job, Eric's bodyguard. When Lydia wonders why Burton would keep him on, she realizes it's because the churn is coming. That's a term Burton's lieutenant, Lee Ev, uses to describe the cycle of catastrophic conflicts that seem to repeat endlessly. Lydia lived through two or three churns before and she can sense another one is coming. There will soon be a crackdown on criminal enterprises, which means blood, violence, and prison sentences. Four days later, Star Helix Security, a private enterprise owned by Jules Pierre Mao, Julie's father, shows up to crackdown on criminal networks in Baltimore. When the security forces arrive, Timmy is on bodyguard duty for Eric as the two pontificate on their hopeless futures. Eric wants to leave Earth. He says he wants to get up the well and out of here. Go where no one cares about who you are so long as you're good at what you do. Seriously, it's the wild effing West up there. You want 19th century Tombstone, Arizona? It's alive and well on Ceres station, from what I heard anyway. However, this is unlikely for unregistered children like Timmy and Eric. Eric's daydreams are interrupted by the arrival of Star Helix Security and their swarms of armored figures. They escape through undocumented access tunnels, but they are forced to leave Eric's deck, essentially his computer, behind. The deck has his DNA and fingerprints on it, meaning it's a loose end, which makes Eric a loose end for Amos Burton. During the chaos, Timmy drops Eric off at a coffee bar, then takes Lydia from her home. She leaves behind everything, including, as she describes, the cheap earthenware cup that Timmy had painted with glaze when he was eight years old and given her for what he'd mistakenly thought was her birthday. Later, as we've seen in season five, this becomes a cherished object for Timmy. Be careful with that. He brings Lydia to a small island covered in ruins where he's constructed a hideout from the remnants of an old house, though it resembles a campsite more than a house. He plans to wait out the chaos with Lydia, but she convinces him he needs to go back and look after Eric. She explains, you aren't the boy Eric drinks with anymore. You aren't even your mother's son now. Those versions of you are gone, and they will never come back. You are the man who took a job from Burton. So Timmy returns to the coffee bar and grabs Eric, bringing him to the same hideout. Then it takes about a week, but Timmy finds Amos and tells him everything, except for where he's keeping Eric. Looking at Timmy, Burton wonders about the talent he sees in him. He notes that there is something about this one that kept bringing him back to the sense of the boy's potential. Perhaps it was the casual logic he'd used when he killed Austin. Maybe it was the deadness in his eyes. Then Burton gives Timmy his new job. Eric is a loose end that could trace back to Amos. So he must be killed. When Timmy shows no hesitation in accepting the job, Burton asks if he is really okay with killing his childhood friend. Timmy casually explains, you're the man with the plan. Timmy returns to the island and Lydia surmises that he's there to kill Eric. She insists he sit down and talk with her first. They have a conversation very similar to the one shown at the end of season five episode two, churn. She tells him that Burton does not have the power to make him kill Eric. Only he can make that choice. She goes on, people like us, we aren't righteous. But we can pretend to be if we want. And that's almost the same as if it were true. After their talk, Timmy is convinced. He comes clean to Eric and they try to think of a way out. Eric has an escape plan ready for Burton. A new identity and the paperwork to go with it so Burton can leave town and perhaps Earth. Can Eric use that plan for himself? Unfortunately not. The moment his DNA enters the system, the cops will connect it to the deck he left behind and then he's done for. So Timmy has no choice but to remove the threat directly. He leaves the island and somehow Lydia knows she'll never see him again. In a brilliantly violent sequence, which involves Timmy ripping off someone's ear and popping that same someone's eyeball before shooting them in the face with a shotgun, he makes his way to Burton. The scene ends in hand-to-hand combat with Timothy brutally killing Burton. After killing Amos Burton, Timmy is stopped by security back in town when they notice his bruised knuckles. They scan his DNA and then, Timmy is surprised to find he is not arrested. Instead, they address him as Amos Burton and inform him he's going to be late if he doesn't hurry. There's a noon launch to Luna from Bogota Station and Amos is scheduled for travel to begin his apprenticeship. Timmy realizes that his friend Eric gave him a parting gift. Amos Burton's escape plan and a new identity have been handed to him. So Timothy, now under the guise of Amos Burton, leaves Baltimore and Earth to begin a new life. As I set up front, I highly recommend reading the novella. It's not only a great read but will give you a new appreciation for the Amos character. It's not hard to see the roots of the Amos we know in this story. Born in the worst possible circumstances, he is totally desensitized to pain and discomfort. As a result, difficult choices that would confound most people are casually followed to their logical conclusion by Amos. Austin owes you money but doesn't have it? Okay then, I'll shoot him in the chest with my shotgun to send a message. You need me to kill Eric, one of my only friends in the world? Sure, I'll be right back. That's not to say Amos has no concept of right and wrong. It's just that he's not always sure which is which. So he outsources that moral compass to a mother figure, Lydia. She reminds him that even if he works for Burton, he still has a choice. He doesn't need to kill Eric. He listens to her. Later in life, he finds Naomi. Someone who, similar to Lydia, isn't afraid to do terrible things when necessary but still ultimately wants to do the right thing. In the first few seasons at least, Amos similarly outsources his moral compass to Naomi. In season five, Amos is in an interesting position. He no longer has someone to be his guidepost. Instead, he himself is taking on that role for someone that reminds him of Timmy. He is going to try and help Clarissa. Is Amos Burton ready for that? Has he grown enough that he can not only help himself but help someone else who has been similarly damaged? I don't know the answer, but it's one of the questions that has me hooked on the expanse. As I've said before, Amos Burton is my favorite character on the show and he is set up for a fascinating journey as we approach the second half of the season. With that, I hope you enjoyed this video and found it helpful in understanding Amos and where he came from. If so, please go ahead and hit that like button, hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon for more videos like this one. I'll be releasing another video soon recapping the events of a newly published expanse comic bridging the gap between seasons four and five. Also, there are six episodes to go this season. I'll be reviewing each of them weekly and doing other expanse-related videos so make sure you're subscribed to keep up with all of it. Thanks for watching and see you on the next one take.