The Expanse came racing out of the gate after Amazon swooped in to save the cult favorite from cancellation. While the crew of the
Rocinante dealt with alien artifacts on frontier planet Ilus, the seeds for
The Expanse Season 5 were laid back on Earth, Mars, and the Belt with Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), Bobbie (Frankie Adams), and Drummer (Cara Gee) investigating contraband weapon sales and Belter extremist factions. Now, as the
Roci crew returns to their home solar system, those storylines begin to bear fruit.
In an intense Season 4 cliffhanger, viewers saw Belt revolutionary Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander), alongside Naomi’s estranged son, Filip Inaros (Jasai Chase Owens), launch stealth-coated asteroids towards Earth. The impending doom that those asteroids could spell for the entire planet hangs over early episodes of
When recommending
The Expanse, I often highlight its rare ability to improve with every season. The show is now five for five, with the new season delivering more nail-biting action and a shift in the balance between Earth (the old political superpower), Mars (the upstart military colony), and the asteroid belt, which is home to a hardscrabble diaspora of miners, criminals, and spacefaring separatists. While the stakes were always high, they were high in the way of a blockbuster apocalypse: we don’t necessarily care about the body count or the size of the explosion. In season 5, those stakes finally feel earned. Without going into spoilers, the introductory episodes pack a serious punch, tying a massive interplanetary event into some deeply personal storylines.
Jasai Chase Owens as Filip Inaros in The Expanse
Credit: Amazon
Star Trek-meets-Mad Men sounds like a pretty wacky premise, even in an era when television caters to every niche imaginable. But that’s more or less the formula that has lifted
The Expanse (Amazon Prime) into the higher stratosphere of cult TV.
Zero gravity shoot-outs and space travel have been served up with tremendous verve across four previous seasons. However, the series – saved by Amazon after Syfy cancelled it – is also meticulously plotted, brims with morally ambivalent characters and specialises in nattily-attired people having intense walking-and-talking conversations at the speed of light.
Chadwick Boseman (foreground) stars in Ma Rainey s Black Bottom.
Ma Rainey s Black Bottom (2020): (L to R) Glynn Turman as Toldeo, Chadwick Boseman as Levee, Michael Potts as Slow Drag, and Colman Domingo as Cutler. Cr. David Lee / Netflix
David Lee, Netflix
In Season 5, most of the Roci crew is broken up across the solar system, setting off on personal missions that will explore the lives they ve largely left behind over the past few years. For Holden, that means he s left to oversee repairs on the Roci this season, while also grappling with a renewed threat from the protomolecule. But thankfully, now five seasons in, Strait explains why Holden is finally ready to handle a problem like this without his crew by his side. He is on his own this time, but you know, there s a difference within him as a man. By Season 5 he really has his feet on the ground, he says. He s matured into a very good leader. He knows what he s doing. He s been through just about everything at this point. He s able now to deal with it. But the irony is, the people who supported him to get him here, who have become his family, are gone. That is very difficult for him. And without giving too much away, just where the season goes, his whole journey this year is wr