 What's up guys and welcome to one take I'm gil and today we're talking about the expanse season 5 episode 7 This will be a full recap and review So it'll be full of spoilers through episode 7, but no book spoilers So nothing from any future episodes right at the top I'll say this was one of my favorite episodes of the season on par with episode 4 where we saw the asteroids hit earth I say that because this episode gave us not one But several very powerful and emotionally effective character moments for Naomi All of that culminated in a betrayal, which I did not see coming and an intense Hail Mary pass from Naomi Which I also did not see coming but both felt organic and believable All that made this a great episode Which is also a testament to Dominique Tipper's performance as Naomi with that let's get into the recap But first just a quick reminder if you're enjoying these videos Please go ahead and hit the like button hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon So you get notified the next time we do a video Including our next expanse review and other expanse related content Let's start with Holden Alex and Bobby Monica asks Holden what they'll do once they find the protomolecule And he assures her that they'll destroy it She also lets Holden and bull know that she's speaking with inside sources And if they don't get to the Zamiah before the protomolecule is handed off she should hear about it And in that moment I was sure they were not going to reach the Zamiah before the handoff Then Bull and Holden discuss Fred Bull discusses his respect for Fred and the integrity he had Holden confesses he never trusted him and always thought Fred was working some angle Bull points out how alike Fred and Holden are including Holden's tendency to always think he's right The season began with Fred trying to convince Holden to stay out of the fight And essentially retire since Fred's death I think it became clear that part of Holden's reason for staying in the fight now will be to carry on Fred's legacy I don't know that Holden will become an opa leader like Fred But I do think he'll become even more of an advocate for them I think hearing that he's like Fred and recognizing that Fred's motivations are pure He wasn't playing an angle are both further signals that Holden will continue to fight for Fred's dreams to be realized Alex and Bobby get a message from Holden letting them know he's no longer on taiko And for some reason it cracked me up when Bobby says they can't be on taiko anymore Right before Holden says the Ross. He's not on taiko anymore And she gives a shrug as if to say yep They reply letting Holden know and Naros is buying martian warships and includes profiles for those ships Holden immediately recognizes one of them as Naomi's and surmises that Marco has kidnapped her He messages back asking Alex and Bobby to follow and keep an eye on them at this point Alex and Bobby have spent about half the season on the razorback basically observing and evading So honestly, I'm ready for them to get off that ship. I don't know if there's a way for them to intercept with Naomi But one way or another I'm hoping this finally gets them into the battle And to do something a little bit more interesting Holden and Monica talk She points out that for inaros to acquire warships Someone high up in the martian food chain must be involved Further marco wouldn't have the funds to buy those ships So he must be offering something else the protomolecule and cortisol the protomolecule scientist who we know was kidnapped earlier Holden also mentions the in case something goes wrong message from Naomi But before he can say any more about that they're interrupted because they've located the zamia I'm really curious to find out where we're heading with the protomolecule I can't imagine the season ends with the protomolecule being destroyed Especially since cortisol has been brought back into the fold I have to think he'll have a chance to perform more experimentation with it And I wonder if we'll see it do something new similar to the reveal of the rings a few seasons back They go after the zamia evade a bunch of missiles in a pretty thrilling sequence They corner the zamia and intend to board it for info on Naomi But the zamia suddenly explodes In what I imagine is the spaceship equivalent of a spy budding down on a cyanide capsule once they're caught I assume those were marco's orders in case someone tried to capture the zamia I also assumed that means the protomolecule was handed off at some earlier point speaking of marco Let's talk about him, Naomi and philip this episode marco pays Naomi a visit and they discussed their past He claims that he kept philip because he thought it would make Naomi stay He also claims that had he known taking down the augustine gemara would have driven her away He wouldn't have done it. She tells him he's doing the same thing to philip now And philip doesn't deserve to die for marco's dreams This scene was like an emotional appetizer for what comes later in the episode Since it didn't strike me too much on an emotional level like the scenes for philip did later Part of that is because marco is such an enigma to me that when he's on screen I don't know what emotions are real and what is just manipulation His eyes definitely teared up when he discussed the augustine gemara So he seems to genuinely regret losing Naomi at the same time the words are meaningless He clearly has no trouble killing innocent people So if it wasn't the augustine gemara, he would have attacked something else And maybe it would have been done in a way where Naomi didn't feel culpable But she would never have stayed with marco after seeing the horrors he's capable of So it was an interesting scene and felt like one more puzzle piece in understanding marco Finally marco lets Naomi once again roam the ship But if she does anything wrong again, she's dead and marco says philip will know you for who you really are This scene told me that marco does want to kill Naomi But not at the cost of his relationship with their son So part of his motivation in letting her go here is he wants to give her a chance to betray them So philip will understand when marco ultimately executes her Of course, Naomi heads right to philip's room She tries to bond with him a bit before they get into the crux of their conversation Philip asks her what she meant when she said that she knew what he was going through She explains that marco manipulates you and makes you blindly go along with him He does that by making you feel like the center of the universe and crave his attention That blindness made her write the gamara code and marco is doing the same thing to philip now She asks philip if he feels any remorse for what he did He does not in one of the first emotional bombs of the scene Naomi tells him that she used to dream of all the things philip would do and become Now she only dreams that he'll one day regret all the things he's done Finally, he asks her why she left him. Naomi explains that she didn't intend to she had to leave marco But she searched months for philip and eventually accepted she wouldn't find him Then she reveals that after giving up the search she walked into an airlock and contemplated taking her own life This is the conversation i've been waiting for all season I wanted Naomi to have a chance to explain the whole story of how she was separated from philip I thought we mostly knew the story already. We've heard versions of it before But it was important for us to hear it again and experience it through philip's eyes And we did but on top of that we learned about the airlock which was new I thought dominique tipper's delivery of it was incredibly effective And the phrasing of why she decided not to take her own life was also interesting because it was all about philip I was going to open the door and then I realized that person that button Wouldn't change anything for you Either way a life or death you Will go into court without a mother. She's essentially saying that the choice of whether to live or die Hinged on her calculation of what it meant for philip So I don't think she could have made a stronger case that she truly loves him And he is the center of her universe and I think philip believed it all which ultimately actually worked against Naomi Because Naomi was so effective I think philip did start to forgive her and did start to feel a little bit of regret Which means internally he probably started to feel doubt about marco But we can't forget that he spent his entire life with marco. So that's where his core loyalty lies So it won't be hard to convince philip that his mother is emotionally poisoning him against his father Because that's exactly what she's doing Her story was effective and that rattles philip. So when he reasserts his loyalty to marco He turns against her hard Physically assaulting her if Naomi hadn't been as effective and hadn't been able to sway philip at all Then I think he would have been able to just brush the conversation off and wouldn't have felt so betrayed by her Like I said, I've been waiting for this scene all season and it did not disappoint I love Naomi's emotional revelation and philip's complicated reaction to it The revelations continue as we next see Naomi with sin He tells her the story of the last time they spoke on palace Naomi said she was going for a walk, but he noticed a look on her face Falling her He saw Naomi get me airlock and knew what she was thinking of If I had known it would come to that he says I would have helped you Then he confesses that she never found philip because he helped marco hide him from her her response and his defensive it crushed me He was my son. I'm so sorry. I thought you loved me. I loved all of us We were family I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought one day you will come back to marco This was another great emotionally effective scene. I loved sin's line I thought I was doing the right thing that encapsulates part of what makes this show so great We typically don't have mustache twirling villains. Everyone thinks they're doing the right thing There's no one that's just pure evil It also made me feel bad for sin and others like him because you really do see the hold marco has on people He's a charismatic leader and so effective. He's able to sway people to do monstrous things Which if they eventually wake up like sin, they come to regret So this was a great character moment between niomi and sin But also a nice way to show more collateral damage from marco's leadership As promised sin attempts to help niomi and asks marco to let her go marco chastises him for being weak And promises niomi will never be free Then philip stops by and asks for command of a ship He wants to show people what he can do and for people to know who he is marco replies by pointing out the many plans foiled thanks to philip's screw ups Essentially saying you're not ready yet Then he points out that people are chanting his name not philips and adds you are nothing without me Though he wraps up by telling philip you are my heir and one day you will lead the belters after i'm gone This was another interesting puzzle piece in understanding marco and aros Niomi continuously points out that marco only cares about himself I believed her to an extent, but at the same time I had to imagine that marco does believe in the fight for the belters at least to some extent But watching him tell philip they're chanting my name Makes me think the ego maniacal self-centered part of him really is his primary motivation In this conversation, he seemed much more interested in who is recognized for their accomplishments Than what is best for the opa also the fact that philip seems to be concerned with people knowing his name He must have gotten that desire from somewhere and I think that's him learning from his father So i'm starting to suspect that marco doesn't care too much about the belters He just saw this whole conflict between the belt earth and mars as an opportunity for him to gain power and notoriety And if that's true, I look forward to the veil being lifted for philip Perhaps philip will see who marco is and realize who he is becoming just in time to help stop marco But we'll see finally niomi is brought to see marco He informs her that she'll be free to go just as soon as they use her ship to lure the rossinante and destroy it He also tells her philip inspired the idea philip wants the belt to know that he is the one who destroyed the rossinante I think that's a slight bending of the truth in the opening of the episode Marco asks philip if they can use niomi's ship for an unspecified purpose And we saw him tracking the flight plan at the end of last week's episode So it is marco's plan, but I think he's decided they'll credit philip with it That's what philip wants so people start to know his name But more than that it's one more way for marco to stab at niomi Now she gets to watch her own son betray her and kill some of her loved ones Niomi pleads with philip, but he slaps her and accuses her of trying to make him weak And poison him against his family This was a particularly effective moment because of the earlier scene When it looked like there was hope for philip and the funny thing is he's not wrong She is trying to poison him against his family But the party leaves out is that she's doing so with the truth This was also a particularly painful moment because it felt like there's no coming back from it It's really hard for me to imagine philip and niomi ever fully accepting each other again After everything they just went through niomi is dragged away as she screams for philip and tells marco How much she hates him they prepare to launch her ship But sin notices she's at the airlock as he goes after her philip sees a security feed sin left up and follows I loved the somber music that kicked in as niomi heads for the airlock After hearing the story twice this episode They wanted us to think she was contemplating taking her own life here I didn't think that was going to happen But that somber score and sin crying after her both were so effective the scene definitely moved me Sin begs her not to do it, but niomi responds. You shouldn't have followed me Then he notices the needle in her hand She hits the button killing sin while philip watches and launching her into space without a suit She holds out as long as she can then injects herself With hyper oxygenated blood Which the show cleverly seated earlier in the season when holding injected monica with some when she was losing air in the shipping container Finally barely alive niomi reaches the ship. This was an amazing sequence It was the perfect blend of thrilling and emotionally effective Niomi has been backed into a corner all season and we've been wondering how she'll get out of it Finally she finds a way It's clever and physically challenging But not just that it came at a great emotional cost as well Sacrificing her old friend sin. There was also a lot of emotional buildup that had to happen to make this possible for her She's leaving her son possibly for the last time And I don't think she would have had the strength to do that had philip not betrayed her And maybe convinced her that he's too far gone and too much like marco now Also without sin's confession that he hid philip from her Maybe niomi wouldn't have been able to so callously let him die So it was an emotionally effective and complex moment Wrapped in a suspenseful thrilling escape sequence a great way to end a great episode Anyway, I think we can wrap it up there. Like I said, I loved the episode Let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments 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 go ahead and hit the like button Hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon so you get notified when our next video drops We'll continue to review the show every week and have some other expanse related content on the way So stay tuned. Thanks for watching and see you on the next one take