The Expanse recently ended its six season run on Amazon Prime. (The first three seasons were on SyFy Channel.) The final season was truncated into only six episodes, episodes that were action-packed, with not a lot of time for exposition or side stories. The television series is based on a series of nine books by James S.A. Corey, a combined pen name between the two authors, Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham. The series finished with Book 6, Babylon’s Ashes which was the end of the road for Belter Extremist Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander).
Even though we got to watch as The Rocinante floated through space with all its crew intact after surviving the battle, there were some questions that were floating out there as well. The easy answer is that they’re probably all answered in the books. But until we get around to reading them, here are some of those questions.
What’s Next for Filip?
Filip (Jasai Chase-Owens) didn’t have the best luck in his childhood. His mother Naomi (Dominique Tipper) abandoned him (more to get away from his dad than him) and he was raised by his extremist father, Marco. When Naomi finally found him and reunited with him, Filip was torn. Although he stayed loyal to his father throughout the final season, it was easy to see that there was some Naomi in him after all. He started to show empathy and question Marco’s decisions. The final straw was when Marco’s second-in-command, Rosenfeld (Kathleen Robertson) is killed, Marco brushes it off as a casualty of war. In the final moments of the finale, we are shown that Filip managed to get to an escape pod and get out of the Pella Ship before it dissolved into the Sol Ring. Filip also changed his last name from Inaros to Nagata. Naomi has no idea that Filip survived, but Filip is now on his own.
But what are his options? There isn’t anyone in the universe who doesn’t know who he is or who his father was. And Filip wasn’t an innocent party; he was directly involved in a lot of murder and genocide in the name of his father. If a Free Navy ship picks him up, will they be angry that he didn’t die with his father for the cause or will they honor him as their new leader? And if so, is that what Filip wants? If a Non-Free Navy Belter ship picks him up (or any Mars or Earth ship), he would probably be spaced immediately. Even though he was able to survive Marco’s fate, things don’t look great for Filip, even with his rebranding.
Where Do the Belters Go From Here?
Marco Inaros is dead. Camina Drummer (Cara Gee) is at Medina Station now, controlling traffic through the Sol Ring. So what is the Belt’s next move? Without Marco, is the Free Navy still able to exist? Is there a way for the Belters and the Extremists to find common ground to reestablish the Belt? Sanjrani (Joanne Vannicola) is the leader of the Ceres Station and the meeting with Earth and Mars, she seems to represent the frustration of the Belt. She was still loyal to Marco after he sacrificed Ceres because she believed in his mission; however she does know that in order to move forward, the Belt will need to work with Earth and Mars to have a real seat at the table for the first time. They’re going to need a leader to emerge to bring the two schools of thought together and unify the Belt.
What’s Up With the Protomolecule and the Ring Entities?
The first few seasons were all about the protomolecule that had made its way into the Sol System. Jules-Pierre Mao (François Chau), father of Clarissa (Nadine Nicole) and Julie Mao (Florence Faivre), was funding the research on the protomolecule. The last we saw of the sample, it had been stolen from Tycho Station where Fred Johnson (Chad Coleman) had been hiding it. Bobbie surmised that Inaros stole the protomolecule for Duarte in exchange for the railguns installed on Medina Station as well as support when he crossed through the Ring Gate.
When Holden was on Ilus, he had visions of a civilization that potentially created and used the protomolecule which was subsequently destroyed by the Ring Entities. This brings us to the Entities. These are the Entities that Naomi suggested they try to trigger to dissolve Marco’s ship, the Pella, as he crossed through the Gate. It worked. These entities also appeared to Holden in a vision on Ilus. It seems they were responsible for ending the civilization created by the protomolecule there. The protomolecule and the Entities are clearly antagonistic of some sort. Are these the alien energies that human existence has to be wary of going forward?
Is the Sol System Still Habitable?
Earth was devastated by the attack from Inaros. When Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and Bobbie (Frankie Adams) went down to the surface, they realized the planetary extent of the destruction. While they may be able to use technology to scrub the atmosphere, that process may take generations during which crop growth may be severely limited. Yes, there’s enough water, but the colonial system that provided it led to the rise of Marco Inaros.
Mars has an infrastructure, but it was pretty damaged in the attacks as well and the atmosphere is still uninhabitable outside the structures. Do they have anything to offer as resources? Would Mars move away from its militaristic society?
Also, in the final season, Prax (Terry Chen), a botanist from Ganymede sent a message to Avasarala that using only carbon dioxide and waste, he had developed a strain of yeast that could be used for food production. This may hold the key to feeding the Sol System, yet it is never mentioned again in the series. In essence, The Ring planets may be the key to the future of civilization as the Sol’s resources are far and few between.
What the Heck Is Up on Laconia?
On the other side of The Laconian Ring, we meet a young girl named Cara (Emma Ho) on the Planet Laconia. Cara discovers a creature in the woods she calls a “dog.” When her pet bird dies, the dog eats the bird only to bring it back to life. Cara is fascinated. When Cara’s younger brother, Xan (Ian Ho) dies in an accident, she decides to drag his lifeless body into the woods and feed it to the dog. Young Xan is reanimated with blue eyes (indicating the presence of the protomolecule) much to the terror of his grieving parents. And that’s it, we never see them again.
We do get to meet Admiral Duarte (Dylan Taylor), a former Martian admiral who is now the leader of Laconia. He is a source for Marco on the inside of The Ring. Towards the end of the battle, Duarte reaches out to Marco and says he will not help him, and he was only using him as a distraction. “Besides, I’ve got Gods to kill,” Duarte states.
This was a satisfying way of introducing a character to dismiss Marco, much like he dismissed the people of Ceres. However, this was also a frustrating part of the final season. There’s obviously a lot more story here on Laconia, but when given only six episodes, why waste 10 minutes of each episode teasing a plot that was never going to pay off? Turns out, this is the “six seasons and a movie” we really needed.