A strong argument can be made that the fifth season premiere of
The Expanse isn’t just ‘Exodus’, but really a three-parter with Amazon Prime having dropped the first three episodes together. ‘Churn’ continues the themes and stories from the premiere in an effective manner and catches us up with some of the series’ other main and supporting players. The balance of the character driven story and the tense intrigue is well handled and takes the characters into more interesting places.
Much of ‘Churn’ centred around Amos and his mysterious past which is fleshed out just enough for audiences to understand why he never talks about it. From being used in a sex ring to taking the name of a murdered criminal, it explains a lot of why Amos is the why is, but none more so than his relationship with his mother. It is clear that while this was a loving relationship, it was far from a typical one for a mother and son to share as she didn’t sugarcoat the reality of their lives
The Expanse’s New Season
By Kaila Hale-SternDec 18th, 2020, 3:58 pm
On December 16th, Amazon dropped the first three episodes of
The Expanse season five. As I mentioned in my review, these episodes are actually some of the “quietest” of the season, if anything can exactly be termed quiet on a show where someone is likely to get shot in the head when you least expect it. Next week, you’re in for
a lot happening all at once, but there’s still much to sink our teeth into this time around.
The standouts for me from these episodes ”Exodus,” “Churn,” and “Mother” are Amos journeying back to his roots in Baltimore and Drummer trying to manage her grief and coming into her own as a leader.
Warning: spoilers ahead for episodes 1-3 of season five of “The Expanse”
“The Expanse” is a peculiar show, insofar as some level of initial trickery is usually required to convince people to give it a try. One demographic of friends typically get hit with, “It’s the only show to depict gravity and space physics correctly!”
Another generally more successful hook usually goes along the lines of, “It’s like ‘Game of Thrones’ in space!” Of course, given the general downward trajectory of “Thrones” after its fourth season, compounded by its divisive conclusion, it’s an angle now apt to do more harm than good.
Screenshot: Amazon Studios
The crew of the
Rocinante have been through a lot, from the moderately mundane (exploding ships, interplanetary secrets, attempted murder) to the previously unimagined (a deadly hybrid, an alien intelligence, the opening of hundreds of ring gates, a hostile alien planet). But this season, the threats are of a more human nature.
Expanse showrunner Naren Shankar has described the season five theme as “you reap what you sow,” but there’s another old saw we can use here: a lot of space chickens are about to come home to roost.
Though
The Expanse will mostly release weekly this season, Amazon let loose the first three episodes at once. It’s a lot to talk about at once, so let’s get to it! And yes:
Season 5 of
The Expanse on Amazon breaks with past viewing schedules new episodes will drop every week from the premiere on December 16th until the finale on February 3rd. As such, we’re going to have a much more, well, expansive time period in which to talk about the show and its developments, which is good! The somewhat less good is that I’m only allowed to discuss the first three episodes for now, when I really want to scream into the vacuum of space about the nine that I’ve seen. All I can say is that folks, we are in for a