 What's up guys and welcome to one take. I'm Gil and today we're talking about the expanse season 5 episode 5 titled down and out. This will be a full recap and review so it's going to be full of spoilers through season 5 episode 5 but I haven't read any of the books so no spoilers from any future episodes. Last week we saw easily my favorite episode of the season so far so this episode had a lot to live up to. There were things I enjoyed in this episode but overall I was somewhat disappointed. In episode 4 we saw a major status quo shift with the death of the secretary general and the largest terror attack of all time. I was excited to see the fallout from this and the expanse is no stranger to exploring the impact of world altering events. Just look at how everything changed after the ring appeared but we didn't get to see much of that. Instead the episode was mostly focused on setup which isn't necessarily a bad thing you need setup but that risk straying into filler territory which I thought happened for some of this episode. Having said that a lot of the setup does have me excited for what comes next and there were still some highlights I enjoyed so with that let's get into the recap. First just a quick reminder if you're enjoying these videos please go ahead and hit that like button, hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon so you get notified the next time we do a video. We'll start with Drummer, one of the highlights of the episode. She and her crew watch news of the asteroids hitting. Then she gets a call from Oksana. Drummer beats herself up for letting Marco free when she had the chance to execute him. Oksana comforts her by saying if it hadn't been Marco it would have been somebody else and in any case we can't focus on hindsight we cannot live backward. They decide to gather as a group but before they disconnect Oksana sees a message from Marco to Drummer he wants to meet. When the crew gathers we get to hear some of their reactions to Marco's attack. Most fear that all the belters will have to pay for his deeds but some don't necessarily think that what Marco did was wrong. They felt like it was an inevitable reaction to the mistreatment of belters over the years. Finally Oksana tells Drummer she saw Marco's message and Drummer has to tell everyone about it which she does and further says that she's going to accept the meeting. I called this a highlight of the episode because while it is set up for what comes next, the meeting with Marco, it's paired with a lot of emotion and some exploration of that fallout I was talking about. The variety of reactions from the belters felt very real to me. A lot of them felt a sense of retribution. The inners never shed a tear for us so it's hard to feel bad for them. Drummer's guilt also felt very real to me. She thought she had to let Marco live because executing him against the wishes of other belter leaders would have led to civil war. Even if it had though that probably would have meant fewer fatalities than what we got with these asteroids. So I fully bought her regret and am very excited to see what happens in her meeting with Marco. If I were Drummer, I'd probably go along with whatever Marco wants, get his guard down and then eventually stab him in the back. Play the long game. Next let's talk about Holden in Naomi. He leaves a pretty heartbreaking message with Naomi telling her how bad things are and begging her to call back. Then he takes a stab at interrogating Sakai. He pretty much gets nowhere but then he learns that Monica's eye camera picked up the Zamiya flight plan. And I gotta say, Sakai looked a little rattled when he told her that and seeing her falter for a moment after being so cocky the last couple of episodes, that moment was very satisfying. Meanwhile, Marco brings Naomi to the cafe area where he and his crew are eating, really just a toy with her. After everyone clears out, Marco tells Philip he's disappointed in him. Philip sacrificed a friend in the season premiere called Open. Marco essentially says that Philip should have sacrificed Naomi as well and he should not have allowed his feelings to rule him into trying to save his mother. I enjoyed this interaction because I'm very interested in the Philip character. He is clearly extremely conflicted and I like seeing him backed into a corner having to confront his inner turmoil. This is the classic Palpatine and Vader or Palpatine and Kylo Ren story. Eventually Philip will have to pick a side before the inner turmoil destroys him. Will he go to the light side or the dark side? I genuinely don't know where Philip is going to end up. Even if he does eventually help stop Marco and side with Naomi, he still played a role in slaughtering millions. So there's no clean way out of this and I find that really compelling. After that we get another confrontation this time between Naomi and her old friend Sin. He defends Marco saying that they are building something for all children of the belt. Naomi reminds him that it's being built on a river of blood. I found this to be another satisfying moment because I think everyone on Marco's ship is suffering from the illusion that Stalin and Marilyn Manson talked about. The death of one is a tragedy but the death of millions is just a statistic. So far the show generally hasn't made the atrocity seem real. We've only heard repeatedly that millions died. But we haven't seen grieving parents or friends. We haven't seen bodies. We've seen a little bit of shock but I haven't felt the real tragedy of the situation yet. Here I think Naomi is trying to make it real for Sin. It's being built on a river of blood. She's trying to give him a visual instead of the cold statistic and I found that satisfying. Next Naomi heads to the coffee room where Carl shows up and asks. Thinking of your Urta. James Olden. Famous for drinking coffee and saving the system with his crew of Urta's Martians and Belta's. In the mighty Rossinonte. You think he's coming to save you now? Just got to point out I found it pretty funny that she was able to surmise Naomi was sticking up Holden just by noticing Naomi staring at a coffee machine. Also I love the idea that Holden is apparently famous for drinking coffee which I assume is fallout from the Illus documentary. Then we get to the important part of the conversation where Carl reminds Naomi of the Gamara code. If you need a refresher Augustine Gamara was the name of the ship Marco destroyed using the code Naomi developed the Gamara code. It causes the ship's magnetic containment to fail so that the fusion core pours into the rest of the ship destroying it. Then Naomi slips a knife into her shirt sleeve and we get that failed assassination attempt. I'll say that whole scene didn't do a whole lot for me. I didn't think there was a chance that she was actually going to get to Marco this episode. I kept waiting for her to be interrupted and then she was. Philip takes her away and tells Naomi you should be grateful to me for taking you. I saved your life. That makes Naomi realize that if she'd stayed on the Rasenante she'd be in danger i.e. they loaded the Gamara code into the Rasenante. So she runs to say that smashes him over the head with a wrench and uses his phone to call Holden. She warns Holden that the reactor on the Rasi was sabotaged and tells him she's being held captive by Marco. Holden shuts down the reactor just in time. Then they lock up Naomi while she shouts for them to tell her what happened because she doesn't know whether or not she got to Holden in time and whether or not he survived. I thought Dominique Tipper continued to do a great job here but I will say I think they wanted us to feel tense and worried as we watched the reactor and the Rasi ramp up. But personally I didn't remember what the Gamara code was right away so I didn't piece together that Holden was in danger until Naomi made the call. Then seconds later the situation was resolved. So the scene didn't really land for me but definitely let me know in the comments how you received it. It was a little too subtle and a little too quickly resolved for me but maybe that was just a me problem. Now let's talk about Amos and Peaches. They wake up after being knocked out by the second asteroid, one of the guards helps them get out of Clarissa's room and they find a couple of other guards. The stairway is caved in so they need to find another way out that ends up being the maintenance ladder in the elevator shaft. With nothing functioning they need someone to rip open the elevator and with Clarissa doped up in her mods inert they reluctantly recruit Tiny's help. It ends up costing two of the guards their lives but they eventually reach the surface and find the entire building is gone. This was my least favorite part of the episode and mainly what I was thinking of when I used the word filler. I say that because we didn't necessarily have to spend an episode on their escape from the prison. I'm much more interested in what happens once they get to the surface and see the full devastation of the asteroid. Now we can spend an episode on their prison escape but only if there's an interesting story to tell there and I don't think that's what we got. I was not emotionally invested in three of the characters in the storyline, the prison guards. They felt like they existed solely as fodder for Tiny and as a means to help Amos and Clarissa escape. There was an attempt to make us care about one of the guards by telling us she has a child but that wasn't enough for me. It also felt like a very linear story with a lot of convenience built into it. The biggest convenience being it seemed like no one survived except for the small handful you'd need to facilitate their escape. And ultimately the odds of Amos and Clarissa surviving and getting to the surface always felt very much in their favor so I was never worried or tense. Like I said it felt very linear. We need them to escape so they try option a no good okay let's go with option b next step etc versus a better version of the story where we're thinking I have no idea how they're going to get out of this one but I can't wait to find out. I will call out two highlight moments though. One when we're on the ground and we hear Sully fall from the ladder I thought that was very effective. The way we hear him scream and it takes a second to realize what's going on there was definitely an oh crap moment. Also I'll always take more of Amos being a badass and the moment of him tossing Tiny into the elevator shaft was pretty satisfying plus Amos repeatedly calling him Tiny and seeing it piss him off that did make me chuckle. Let's wrap up with Alex and Bobby. They follow the Barquif to the Hungarian asteroid group where it's easy to hide and makes for a great rendezvous spot. Two MCRN destroyers show up then the Barquif starts to move out. When did the weapons transfer happen? Well Bobby realizes the frigates the ships themselves are the weapons. Marco's free navy is getting Martian ships. Suddenly Alex and Bobby are spotted so they make a run for it then a missile comes at them they try to outrun it all hope is lost until Alex has a crazy idea. He emergency ejects their core so the missile hits that instead of their ship which saves them and launches the razor back flying into the vacuum of space. I thought this was some solid stuff there was a little bit of the pacing issue I talked about in the first three episodes where it felt like we were waiting for some of the characters to play catch up I don't know if we were supposed to be surprised that Marco is procuring Martian ships but halfway through the season I definitely wasn't surprised by it putting that aside it was pretty intense once the two of them got spotted when the missiles got close it definitely was a damn I don't know how they're getting out of this one moment and now it seems like they're in a pretty precarious situation floating through space so I'm pretty intrigued to see how that gets resolved anyway I think we can wrap it up there let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments was I too hard on it I do love this show so I always have high expectations of it but let me know if you agreed with my take where you disagreed and we'll keep the conversation going and if you enjoyed this video please like subscribe and hit the bell icon so you get notified when our next video drops also there's a new expanse comic out which bridges the gap between seasons four and five click the card in the upper right corner to see my summary of it even if you're not a comic book reader the video uses voiceover images from the comic music sound effects and footage from the show to give the feel of watching an episode so definitely check it out and with that thanks for watching and see you on the next one take