 What's up guys and welcome to one take I'm gill and today we're talking about the expanse season 5 episodes 1 through 3 This will be a full recap and review So it'll be full of spoilers through season 5 episode 3 But I haven't read any of the books so no spoilers for any future episodes You can check out my spoiler free review for my overall thoughts on these episodes But briefly i'll just say that I thought this was a very solid start to the season To me it felt like they slowed down the pace a little bit to really focus on the personal character arcs Amos is a great example of that It's this very small story taking place in the grand world of the expanse And I thought that worked really well by raising the stakes Reminding us that each of these characters have their own journeys their own struggles that they're going through So whatever happens later is going to have real impact because we're dealing with real three dimensional characters I also thought it kind of lulled us into focusing on these personal journeys So we get blindsided at the end of episode 3 when the asteroid hits and turns everything on its head So i'm fully on board with this season and with that Let's jump into the recap first Just a quick reminder if you like these videos make sure to go ahead and hit that like button Hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon so you get notified the next time we go live Or the next time we do a video and you can keep up with our coverage for the rest of the season Let's get into that recap episode 1 opens with a science outpost picking up on those asteroids that marco Flung towards earth at the end of last season marco's son and Naomi's son philip Visits the outpost kills all the scientists on board and leaves one of his crew behind So this sets up just how ruthless Naomi's son has become And sets up for what will be a painful reunion a couple of episodes later from there a lot happened in these first three episodes So we'll take it character by character starting with amos We find him aboard the lazy songbird heading towards earth and route He meets some people who take advantage of others on the ship forcing them to buy insurance and other things They don't need so amos intimidates them and then it beats the crap out of them Now I love the way this was done We see the start of the fight then we immediately cut to the aftermath of amos sort of collecting himself Rinsing the blood off and during that it's intercut with little flashes of the violence from the fight which happened earlier And I think this sets up amos having to kind of reconcile with himself this season He's trying to understand his propensity for violence and see what it's done to him So in this moment what they're telling us is that the fight isn't the important part The important part is the aftermath amos thinking back on what he's done And I thought this was a great reintroduction of the character and great setup for his journey this season As amos approaches earth christian avicerella or christie as he calls her wants to have a meeting with him She assumes he's up to some important business on earth But he reveals that he's heading there because a childhood friend died and he's there to settle her affairs I find the interaction between amos and avicerella to be pretty interesting Because there's such a contrast between their characters on the one hand you have avicerella somebody who's chosen to be involved In all major intergalactic affairs. She wants to shape world history versus amos Who's kind of apathetic all he cares about is protecting himself and protecting the ones he cares about One of my favorite interactions in this scene is amos saying what are you doing here? I thought you were like the queen of earth and she says you don't keep up with current events much Do you and he says only the ones I can do something about two great one liners from amos And I have to say really just worrying about the current events that you can control Not bad advice for all of us from there amos heads to baltimore and we learn his real name is timothy We find out that the person who died is lydia his mother He meets her husband charles someone who's spent the last 10 years of his life With lydia before she passed away He gives amos a little bit of a guilt trip telling him that lydia spent every waking moment Hoping to see timothy or amos as we know him And amos or timothy learns that charles is going to get kicked out of the apartment Very soon so amos of course will not stand for that and he goes to take care of that issue It's pretty interesting to see a very grounded kind of rundown city baltimore Compared to what we normally see on this show. We spend a lot of time in space when we're on earth We see the nicer parts of earth the ones that look pretty futuristic Again versus the rundown city of baltimore that we see here I also really enjoy the character of amos the way he always just Powers forward like a bulldozer whatever the next logical step is He'll take it without worrying about risk or what the challenges are going to look like Here he does the simple math charles is getting kicked out of his apartment. He was important to my mother lydia I cannot allow that so i'm going to go find this guy eric the guy in charge And take care of this he reminds me of a character named bradley from the movie brawl and cellblock 99 Just this towering figure of vince von again same thing this guy just powers forward does whatever needs to get done Regardless of how horrible it's going to be for him. So if you've seen that movie Let me know if you agree with that comparison in the comments amos quickly Muscles his way up through the food chain and gets to eric It turns out that they know each other from back in the day And eric very quickly agrees to let charles stay in the apartment essentially as a favor to an old friend They reminisce over old times and they conclude with eric saying to amos that if he returns Eric will put him down Essentially timothy stole amos's identity amos was an old crime boss So it's dangerous for timothy to be around there under this false identity In case someone discovers the truth So eric looks the other way this one time, but he will not allow it again From there we get a flashback of amos as a child with his mother lydia And she says to him what you did today was hard when you're hurt hurting is easy It takes strength choosing not to hurt others and she says i'm not righteous But maybe i can pretend to be and you can pretend to love me and listen to me Then we cut to amos sitting at the same spot where he was as a child on the dock clearly thinking about that memory So it seems like amos is thinking over what his mother said to him so many years ago Maybe he's thinking about becoming the person who doesn't necessarily choose violence even when that seems to be the easy answer All of that is very counter to the amos we know and again sets up for an interesting journey this season Or maybe he is going to try and be different all of that by the way makes me very worried for amos Now again, I haven't read the book so I don't know where they're going with the character But i'm getting major Logan vibes here and I should say in the next 10 seconds spoilers for the movie Logan but if you've seen it then you know that it essentially has Wolverine as an old man Looking back on an unhappy violent life coming to terms with all of that only to die in the end in tragedy And i'm worried that's the way we're heading with amos But if that's the way it ends up going either way, i'm really enjoying this story I like having this very small character focused arc taking place in the very grand Expansive world of the expanse From there amos calls christie or avicerella And says he's going to leave earth and never come back, but he needs to meet someone first And needs her help to arrange it So i'm not sure who he's planning to meet with but i am intrigued to find out and i expect that it will again Involve some emotional payoff for amos and just one more building block in whatever choices he's going to make this season That's all we see from amos in these first three episodes Really solid stuff here great setup for what could be A transformative season for the character now. Let's check in with alex similar to amos He's on a trip back home and his case home is mars The first thing he does is check in on his wife and she Unsurprisingly slams a door in his face in my spoiler free review I mentioned that your mileage will vary with each of these character arcs Depending on how personally invested you are in them This is the one where i'm not fully on board Just because i have a hard time sympathizing with alex when it comes to his relationship With his estranged wife and son I just have a hard time understanding his side of the story When we learned he had a family it very much came off as oh, you know I forgot to call my wife when I got to space and uh, oh well I guess i'll just abandon my family forever the reasoning feels very flimsy and i think the response to that is Yes, alex is meant to be a terrible father here But he seems like such a good person in every other respect So often putting his life on the line to save others that the character just doesn't fully compute for me Maybe i'm just being naive overall. I like the character. It's just this one aspect. I don't fully understand But let me know in the comments if you disagree I am curious if the books expand on this character in a way that might Resonate better for me, but either way I will see where they go with the character Maybe it'll have a good payoff after that alex calls his son with slightly better results Still a little bit awkward when he tells his son that he loves him He doesn't exactly get the response he wants and then in a series of terrible reunions We have his wife his son Then he meets bobby for a drink and she has nothing but bad news She tells him how she has no job no family no friends alex tries to reassure her and she basically calls him an effing moron of alex's three terrible reunions This was my favorite just because this is the one where I felt like I Fully understood where both characters are coming from the other two were sort of one sided We know alex. We don't really know his wife. We don't really know his son But here alex and bobby are both fully fledged characters We have this conflict between them and it felt very raw and very real Then we get a great moment where alex leaves the bar And sees all the going out of business and room for rent signs around mars This episode to me did a great job showing that mars is basically shutting down As people go through the ring to get new jobs exploring other planets in my spoiler free review I complimented the show for taking major events that should be world altering And truly exploring the ways they would alter the world in this case a couple seasons back We had the introduction of the ring and this show is exploring what that does to world affairs We see it at the avicerella political level and here we see it all the way down in the streets of mars How it affects the lives of everyday people Mars entire society was based on the shared goal Of terraforming the planet and turning it into another earth Well through the ring they've discovered plenty of other planets Probably plenty of other earth like planets So that goal starts to become kind of pointless and it's pretty interesting to see how that impacts the mars culture Later alex visits bobby and she immediately apologizes But it's still very angry. He pushes to understand why and she finally lets him in on what's going on bobby takes alex to a warehouse full of mars weaponry Bobby reveals that avicerella has been funding her to go and buy marshal weaponry So she can figure out who is selling it who is buying it and for what purpose when alex asks bobby Why she can't go to the police? She says the police are in on it She doesn't know if it's one big conspiracy or a bunch of little ones And as alex points out based on the weaponry being purchased Whoever's buying this stuff wants to attack a planet in bobby's research One of the names that pops up is sovatar alex is skeptical that somebody like sovatar a patriot Could be involved in this illegal weapons trade But as a favor to bobby he agrees to go speak to sovatar and see what's up Sovatar is a lecturer now So alex should be able to show up at his lecture and get a face to face We see the tail end of sovatar's lecture And then alex's attempt to speak with him afterwards Sovatar essentially refuses because he says alex is a traitor who stole a martianship for an earth or captain But somebody who works for the guy named emily babbage kind of flirts with alex agrees to meet him for coffee But she has ulterior motives when they meet it becomes clear that she's just there To spy for sovatar and find out what alex is up to in fact after their conversation When alex is heading back to his room a couple of goons show up Inject alex with what seemed to be a sort of truth serum And get him to admit that he was just sniffing around to figure out Whether or not sovatar was illegally selling weapons to belters once that information is revealed They go to kill alex until bobby shows up to the rescue Afterwards alex reveals that in his conversation with emily he found out what ship she's going to be on tomorrow They decide they're going to grab their ship the razor back follow emily and try to flush out the whole process Figure out what is the route for the weapons trade and get to the bottom of it So I thought this was all good setup the character motivations made sense to me We see that alex is estranged from his wife. He's feeling lonely. So when emily shows up I think he's very believable that he would sort of be swayed by her And lulled into a false sense of security to have that conversation then afterwards betrayed by emily His relationship with his wife and son and tatters it makes sense that he would be looking for some kind of direction So through bobby he finds There's this thing he can help with he can do some good And I think he would grasp onto that as his next mission. Now, let's check in with holden He goes to meet with monica last season's documentarian She reveals to him that she's heard from sources That someone is doing proto molecule research at a secret facility in the belt Holden quickly storms over to see fred and fred quickly cops to the fact that yes, we do have proto molecule Don't ask me where it is holden tries to give fred a sense of the danger Tell him why it's so important to get rid of the proto molecule So he tells him about the thing he found last season the portal that came from the entities Which wiped out the proto molecule builders entire civilization in an instant He shows fred a simulation of what elvia coye saw when she came into contact with the artifact And they see these kind of fiery red streaks fly everywhere Those are the entities which wiped out the proto molecule builders holden also reveals that every time he goes through the ring He gets a glimpse of those entities and he gets the feeling that they are making them angry They're waking them up and if they can destroy the proto molecule builders imagine what they can do to the human race fred writes this all off as pure speculation And tries to convince holden to get out of the fight Stop thinking about the end of the world and instead enjoy whatever time you have left in it I mentioned earlier that as this series goes on It could become less and less believable that holden and his crew repeatedly get pulled into these major Intergalactic conflicts So the show kind of takes on that challenge head on here They point out that at this point if holden is going to get pulled in it's not going to be by chance It's going to be by choice holden is making the decision to get involved here And fred is pointing out that maybe that isn't the right decision I think that's a really interesting turn for the show to take each of these characters for different reasons Are making the decision to get involved And we're going to have to ask ourselves and these characters are going to have to ask themselves If that's the right choice because we're very clearly seeing the sacrifices that come with that Alex loses his family later. We'll see that avicerella is becoming estranged from her husband Naomi is about to leave holden to go look for her son So all these characters are making choices and oftentimes it comes at the expense of being with their family or their loved ones And I think that's going to be a major theme of this season Family and the choices we make at the expense of our family And I'm very interested to see how that develops and if anybody can manage to find that balance Or is everybody doomed to just make major sacrifices for the greater good as I alluded to a moment ago Naomi finds out from fred that he has a line on her son philip He was spotted at pal station. Naomi wants to go after him But she tells holden she wants to go alone So like I said before we very clearly see the conflict here Where characters make choices that have a negative impact on their family Naomi's doing something here, which could create conflict with her new family Her partner holden, but it's in pursuit of reconciling with her biological family with her son And things are of course further complicated by the fact that philip is now an opa terrorist So Naomi takes off for philip. Meanwhile, holden gets a message from monica She claims to have actual proof that someone is pursuing the proto molecule She asks him to come meet her in her room. He sends her a reply saying he's not going to get involved But we all know he's going to get involved. So he very quickly changes his mind Goes to see monica. But by the time he arrives Her room's been ransacked and she's gone after a couple of close calls and missteps Holden working with fred is able to rescue monica from a shipping container where she was being held She shows them the evidence she found. It's basically a video of cortisol being kidnapped That's the scientist from a couple seasons back who was working on the proto molecule So this is proof that someone is trying to do experiments Trying to do something with the proto molecule in order to find whoever is behind this They're essentially going to use a trojan horse technique Whoever stuck monica in that shipping container doesn't know she's been rescued So they can stick a couple of their men in that shipping container Then whoever kidnapped monica is going to come grab the container container flies open and boom They've infiltrated enemy territory. So it seems like a pretty risky plan And a lot of what we're seeing here. I think is set up for where this storyline is heading But this is one of the threads. I'm pretty excited to follow Just because I really enjoy all of the proto molecule stuff on this show and so far We know very little about the people who built the proto molecule and the entities who destroyed those people So if we can get any hints about the nature of those beings, I'm pretty excited to see that I'm also intrigued to see how the character of holden develops as he struggles with this question of Can I live my life and be happy or do I need to keep getting involved in one major intergalactic conflict after another Speaking of which let's talk about Naomi as she approaches palestation She heads to a bar and runs into some old friends people who know philip They basically tell her you're out of philip's life. He doesn't want to see you And she makes the case that marco is going to get philip killed. I'm his mother I have the right to see him later philip comes to see her And she offers him a ship. She offers him money so he can run away from marco Because she is certain that the large bounty on marco's head and all the crazy terrorist stuff he's doing Will get philip killed. He is very offended by her offer and says f you Everything my father told me about you is true. Naomi begs him to stay begs him to talk and I thought this whole scene really landed It was a very emotional reunion. It went horribly Of course and I thought the actress dominique tipper Did a great job of selling Naomi's pain here And she had to do a lot to sell that because we've seen Very little of Naomi and philip's relationship in the past We've really only heard about it. So there wasn't a lot of groundwork here for us to work with This all depended on her doing a good job of showing us the pain she felt In reuniting with his son and basically being told screw you So I thought she did a great job and I was a big fan of the scene later philip and company return again This reunion doesn't go any better than the previous one philip tases his mother Then they basically kidnap her and steal her ship So i'm excited by the prospect of seeing more of Naomi and philip together Seeing them explore their relationship and kind of see the philosophical debate between them I have a feeling that stopping marco this season will involve Naomi's attempt to flip philip try and get him On their side Meanwhile, philip will be trying to probably sway Naomi to his and marco's way of thinking So I think we're going to get into some pretty exciting murky territory here with Naomi As she has to struggle between her allegiance to the belt her allegiance to her biological family Versus the violent acts they're committing and her attempt to do the right thing And in the expanse when you're trying to fight an enemy, it's never as easy as just beating them with brawn And I think this is where some of the brains will come into it This is where like I said before Naomi's gonna have to Negotiate with philip philosophically She's going to have to try and convince him to see things her way And i'm excited for all of the juicy Conflict we're going to see here now. Let's talk about drummer when we join her this season She's doing some Piratey things with her crew when she's informed that they found ashford's ship They pay to visit and after some searching Drummer finds a backup data core which contains the recording of ashford's death So drummer immediately wants to go after marco who has a very large bounty on his head There were a few really strong quiet character moments in these first three episodes I mentioned the one with amos earlier after he beat up those guys on the ship You get that quiet moment of him cleaning the blood off himself And you know what he's thinking and you really feel it We get another one of those moments here Everybody on the ship is married drinking having a good time And we just see drummer there distracted and you know, she's thinking about ashford and his death And I thought that moment worked really well later Drummer's partner tries talking her out of going after marco because clearly it's not about the bounty. It's not about the money Drummer is just trying to use violence as a way to grieve And her partner's words clearly worked well because in the middle of the night Drummer gets up out of bed and sends a message. She confirms that ashford is dead Says that ashford was convinced marco is up to something and drummer thinks that ashford was right So with the message she sends everything ashford found and basically says I figured this could do some good for the belt But it's not my fight. I'm not going to get involved Now I believe she sent this message to fred because later we see christian avicerella receive it I thought having drummer make the choice not to get involved Was a really interesting choice for the show because it's sort of in contrast to every other character We have holed in alex and others choosing to get involved in all these conflicts at the expense of their families In a moment We're also going to talk about avicerella Who has started to become estranged from her husband because she chooses to remain involved in world affairs Here drummer goes the other way She could go after marco, but she decides not to instead She's going to stay on the ship with someone who's very clearly important to her so far She seems to be basically the only character making that choice And it'll be interesting to see how that works out for her I have a sneaking suspicion that she won't be able to stay on the sidelines for too long Now we'll wrap up by talking about avicerella Basically her daughter stops by and tries convincing her to come home and patch things up with her father So christian's husband and her daughter Both think that her role in politics and world affairs is done But avicerella is still trying to cling on They don't realize that she still has a role to play because she knows about the martian's weapons trade that's going on She believes that marco is responsible for destroying the science vessel So she's piecing together that something horrible is going to happen But nancy gao now secretary general and basically everybody else will not listen to her So she's really the only one in government that is trying to figure out what marco is up to She meets with her one ally left Felix and the two of them recruit the help of a scientist who discovers that the asteroids which were spotted by the science vessel Were coated with stealth tech So avicerella is starting to piece together That marco has something to do with these asteroids because nobody will listen to avicerella She tells felix that he needs to go and convince others they need to do something about this Specifically they need to resurrect the watch towers which basically look out for stealth tech So they can spot these asteroids and make sure they don't cause any damage But felix reports back that as soon as he mentions the name marco, they shut down the conversation And basically felix gives up. He's gonna walk away christian begs him to stay But to no avail now i mentioned in my spoiler free review that there were a few moments where i felt like We were ahead of the characters and that kind of reduced the tension a little bit This is what i was talking about so here We see the characters slowly piecing together that marco through asteroids at earth We already know that that's what's going on So sometimes watching the characters ever so slowly reach that conclusion I felt myself getting a little bit impatient, but maybe that is just me being impatient I will say one thing i enjoyed is that in these first three episodes at times We cut to this countdown of when the asteroids are going to collide and that just added this underlying tension and dread Knowing that something awful is coming for all of these characters who are currently distracted by other things The episode ends with avicerella receiving the message from fred containing ashford's recording And as she listens to it an asteroid hits earth So that was a pretty crazy ending and i thought it was a great ending We definitely knew there was this ticking time bomb in the background with this asteroid heading towards earth But i did not expect it to hit so suddenly I assumed there was going to be some build-up people would find out about it They would at least try to stop it But i think having it hit like this right at the end of the episode out of nowhere Let's us experience it from the character's perspectives earlier I said that at times I felt like we were ahead of the characters Because we knew it was coming But when it hits so suddenly like this and we're blindsided by it The characters are going to be blindsided by it. It puts us right there with them Now it's unclear how much damage this particular asteroid caused But I assume it's not going to be minor I think there's going to be a major tonal shift in episode four And I can't wait to see how everyone and our characters are affected by this So really strong start to the season can't wait to see where it's heading Make sure to let me know in the comments where you thought of these episodes And if you enjoyed this video, 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 will be doing detailed recaps and reviews of every episode this season So make sure you're subscribed and can keep up with all of that with that Thanks for watching and see you on the next one take