AKA: The beginning of a cult classic
OVERVIEW
Media type: TV show
Streaming service: Amazon Prime (paid)
Genre: Sci-fi, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Content warnings: Gore, body horror, cosmic horror, violence, sex scenes, coarse language
SUMMARY
We start out strong, with my favourite title sequence of any TV show, ever. In just under a minute, we’re treated to a series of beautifully rendered clips showing us how the Sol system has developed between today and the setting of The Expanse, in the year 22??. The wiki refers to this year in particular as “0 XTE”, for reasons that we will discover later.
IN THE 23RD CENURY, HUMANS HAVE COLONISED THE SOLAR SYSTEM THE UN CONTROLS EARTH MARS IS AN INDEPENDENT MILITARY POWER
Uh-huh, sure, Mars is important. I’ll believe that.
THE INNER PLANETS DEPEND ON THE RESOURCES OF THE ASTEROID BELT BELTERS LIVE AND WORK IN SPACE IN THE BELT AIR & WATER ARE MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD
Wait, hang on, does that mean that air and water are super duper rare, or gold is common as hell? I’d believe the second one, but air and water being rare? Oxygen and hydrogen are two of the most common elements in existence! Is this some kinda capitalism thing? Is capitalism happening here?
FOR DECADES, TENSIONS HAVE BEEN RISING EARTH, MARS & THE BELT ARE NOW ON THE BRINK OF WAR ALL IT WILL TAKE IS A SINGLE SPARK
But what is war good for?
We find ourselves, in a rare departure for the sci-fi genre (and quite deliberate, apparently!), zoomed in on a random person’s face, as indistinct messages play over the intercom. Not a very good intercom, if we can’t hear it where she is… oh, wait, it’s a prison cell. Fair enough, then! Ominous noises, thumping (is that, perhaps, ship weaponry?). Begging to be released from a box with hardly any water, no further provisions–wait, holy crap, is this a show with no artificial gravity!? Oh, that’s delightful! That’s so very delightful! Nobody does that! And rendered beautifully, too!
Our stranger escapes from her prison cell quite gracefully, magboots thunk on, and she walks the corridors of this mysterious ship. Minimal lighting, a blood splatter on the wall – what happened here? The stranger arms herself OH MY GOD A DEAD GUY! Somebody’s calling for help in Engineering, so naturally, there she heads, and… that blue glow tells me some nuclear shit is happening. A Mysterious Orb (the power core, probably) is covered in blue glowing stuff. The upper half of a person reaches out, screaming… and our stranger screams.
Cut to Ceres! We are treated to a short sequence of ships approaching the very popular port in the Belt, before a slightly longer sequence exploring the interior – from the dockyards, through maintenance coriors and vents to a beautiful, pristine living space! Bet the rich live here. Even the poorer living quarters look nice, though, if a bit soul-sucking. Eventually, we end up in the depths, a much uglier place – bare rock abounds – next to our current narrator, who claims oppression on the part of Belters, and–wait, Earth and Mars took all the water on Ceres!? ALL OF IT!? All 2.25 quintillion tons!? In a little under two centuries!? Holy shit, that’s a good effort. What in hell are they using it on!? Oh, wait, they’re probably terraforming Mars – that’ll do it, and then some. Still, in two centuries.
Given that our random Belter refers to the man in the hat as “Badge”, we can safely assume that he will be our protagonist. My god, does this man scream “grizzled and jaded”. His attitude, his voice, the fact that he seems to be drinking on the job? He’s definitely the protagonist. Not this seemingly Asian guy who appears to be his partner – somebody new to Ceres, given that he doesn’t even know basic Belter slurs like “welwala”.
We immediately proceed to a brothel, where somebody is very dead! The primary purpose of this scene appears to be showing off a bit of Lang Belta – the Belter Creole word for Belter Creole. It’s a wonderful little language, full of so many interesting sounds, developed from a mish-mash of 20 different languages including Russian, English, and Mandarin.
Our Asian-esque partner will never pass for an Earther, claims the detective. But he dresses all fancy, like an Earther – he even has a hat, for “keeping the rain off [his] head”. Given the poor maintenance on display, it’s probably a leak from the pipes. I thought water was more valuable than gold, surely they’d keep that under wraps.
As we’re following a pair of cops on Ceres (god I hope we don’t do this all series), we obviously get a description of how racial profiling works in the system of The Expanse. Oh, this guy has the shakes, he’s a Belter. Oh, our detective has spurs on the back of his spine, he’s a Belter – and a poor one at that, since he must have been a ward of the station. Disturbing, but a way to demonstrate the crapsack nature of the Sol system here.
One completely unreasonable arrest later, and we meet a local rich person, based on the bribe he just handed to our detective. Something about air filters. I’d hope you’re keeping air filters clean, those things are vital in space. And our man is quite obviously corrupt, given that it seems like he’s taken bribes several times.
We enter into Star Helix, the local equivalent of law enforcement boiled down to its bare essentials – make sure the rich people keep their stuff. Hey, at least the show is honest like that. A woman identified as “Octavia” by the subtitles appears to be doing intake papers on a smiling guy, when Miller comes in and does a little bit of police brutality on this guy, who just seems like he’s high. But, then again, there are no laws on Ceres, just cops. Very honest about the nature of Ceres, which is in no way a reflection on real life. In no way.
Our man proceeds to meet with the local Captain (no laws, but there are captains!), who gives him an off-the-books assignment to find a rich guy’s kid. Hang on, she looks a lot like the woman we saw in the opening sequence… our man is being sent into plot! Yay!
Welcome to the Canterbury. We’re treated to some beautiful visuals of an old rustbucket, with a Lang Belta cover of Tighten Up which is such a lovely touch. Of course they’d have translated versions of Earth classics. I would! Our valiant ice miners seem to be talking shit to each other, one of them using some Lang Belta – very clearly painting him as… oh, I bet you can’t guess – and the other being named Riker. Guess he’s going to be our local, well, Riker, always sleeping with alien wome–wait, no aliens? Not even a genetically modified human with technicolour skin? Aw.
A terrible accident involving a broken iceteroid sends Paj, our Belter ice miner, to the infirmary, missing an arm. Space OSH would have a fit. But that doesn’t matter, because we’re treated to zero-G sex! Delightful. Unfortunately, they’re interrupted by the engines firing up for a thrust correction, sending the coital couple crashing into the floor. No inertial negation, no magic gravity, and acceleration as a gravity replacement? Man, I’m liking this already. Shame there’s no 30-second warning, though, so people can avoid potential back and/or head injuries from being thrown to the floor at a very awkward angle. Mister Scragglebeard is called away to deal with the man with the severed limb, with a comment that the XO can’t be found. What kind of XO doesn’t answer a call like that? A dude lost an arm, there’s at least an incident report there!
Our man Paj seems to be taking it like a champ, though – the Cant‘s medic, Shed, is patching him right up, and fitting him out for a new prosthetic. A fancy one, too! Not just straight-up limb regrowth, that’s expensive, but Paj prefers it that way – he’d much rather have a Belter-built fake. Fair enough.
After visiting the infirmary, we meet two more crew members of the Cant – a grumpy engineer, identified as “Naomi”; and Another White Man. Scragglebeard talks about how the company would rather let people die than fix an ancient bucket, setting off my inner OSH inspector yet again, as we enter the Bridge. Oh, who’s this guy? Southern accent, casual attitude, I’m already in love. A brief round of questioning as to the current location of the XO, and we’re off to his quarters.
Once Scragglebeard illicitly gains access, we’re treated to something of a sad sight. An aged man, all sorts of drawings of trees on the walls, and… dirt???? This man’s had a bad day. He also has a gun. That’s generally bad on a spaceship, especially with a WINDOW NEARBY. XO waxes faux philosophical, before trying to put a bullet THROUGH THE WINDO–oh it’s just a screen thank fuck. Thoroughly restrained and now watched through a monitor (beautiful transition between scenes, there, holy crap), Scragglebeard – now identified as “Holden” – discusses XO’s slow descent into madness, starting with… talking to his plants. That’s not madness, guys, come on.
The Cant‘s captain, McDowell, immediately foists the position of XO onto Holden, who thinks he’s right for the job. A few polite – and slightly less than polite – refusals later, and the Southern Man – identified as “Alex” by the subtitles – uses that trope I hate, “you gotta see this”. Surely you can say “we’ve got a distress call” over the com! Oh, by the way, the ship picked up a distress call, from a ship called the Scopuli – which should ring a bell, because it’s the name on the jumpsuit of our stranger in the first scene. Oh boy, the Cant has stumbled onto the plot! I’m going to put money on whatever the hell Miller’s doing being related to this, somehow.
The Cant is the Only Ship In The Quadra–er, sorry, in three million kilometres – an actually pretty reasonable number, all things considered – so they are obligated by law, and company policy, to respond. Nobody wants to do it, though – probably because it’s pretty obviously a pirate trap, and they’ll lose their berth on Ceres, and an on-time bonus, in order of legitimacy of the reason to ignore it, from “heartless but sensible” to “fuck you” – so the signal is erased and we continue on our merry way back to Ceres with a load of ice in hand. That sentence still feels weird. At least the navigator, Holden’s lover, seems to have some kind of conscience on her.
Ade is not happy about Holden following along with McDowell’s order to purge the distress call, as she mentions in their quarters just before sexy times occur. After, though, Holden returns to the Bridge, with the flimsy excuse of not being able to sleep, taking over for the current Officer of the Watch. Scraping a match head into a cup of coffee (a legitimate strategy to make shit coffee less shit, as this Reddit thread posits), he stares at the deleted log of the unknown distress call, listening for what it’s saying – a tiny voice begging for help. He can’t let this go, so he logs the call. Exactly nobody’s going to be happy with this.
An orbital shot of Earth and Luna (some beautiful city lights on Luna, I hope we get to visit a Lunar city before show’s end), before a cut to a very beautiful little house, occupied by a woman with a downright killer sense of fashion. Brian George walks onto stage, chastising this incredible woman for engaging in tickles, before a plane lands in their front yard. This woman is clearly important – anybody that dresses that well must be.
She is taken to Liberty Island, which is apparently some manner of UN blacksite, where a member of the “OPA” – clearly a Belter faction, based on his skinny, almost emaciated body (oh christ now I’m profiling). Killer Looks questions him about stealth technology – I hope this isn’t some Trekkian cloaking bullshit – but exposure to Earth’s gravity has weakened him severely. She sentences him to another ten hours of what I’m sure is considered torture (she even says “if he survives, call me”, emphasis mine), before walking off. Don’t get on her bad side, got it.
We return to Ceres, and to Miller, who is walking through the “Medina”. People are suffering. Octavia briefs him on the situation – in short, the air filters crapped out again. Havelock makes a snarky comment about the owner, the rich Belter we saw bribing Miller earlier, to which Miller responds by shutting him down – “don’t try to save the whole station on your first day”. Agree to disagree, eh?
McDowell is not happy about Holden logging the Scopuli‘s distress call, and Holden should count himself lucky that McDowell doesn’t know who did it. Ade continues to be a conscience for the crew, clearly setting up dynamics for the series as it goes on. The order is given, and Holden starts putting together a crew for the shuttle going over to investigate. We now come to my favourite scene in the episode – the flip and burn. Everybody runs for crash couches as Holden advises the that they’re about to undertake a high-G manoeuvre. As they sit down in their chairs, what can only be described as milk is injected into them. The engines fire up, things on the ship rumble and shake and break, the music gets all dramatic… this is what space travel should be! Not just “oh go to that over there” and then we’re over there, it’s full of gravitas, risk, danger! Getting places fast is dangerous – both for the crew’s health, and the ship!
Cut to the Cant reaching the destination, and we enter the ship’s tin can of a shuttle, the Knight. Naomi accuses Ade of logging the distress call, sounding less angry and more… vaguely sympathetic? Holden admits that he did it, and Naomi delivers a warning to not tell anybody else. Alex enters, Shed enters, Another White Guy enters. Alex tacks a picture on his console – wife and kid?
At about 50,000 kilometres, it’s a two-hour flight from the Cant to the Scopuli, flying “tea kettle” – I suppose their RCS works by boiling water? Seems wasteful, considering that the UN and Mars ate ALL THE WATER ON CERES.
Miller sits in… a bar? Reviewing information on his target, Julie Mao, when he spots his co-worker, Octavia. He says something sexist, before bringing his extracurricular to her. He’s hit a stumbling block already, apparently – some detective. After some profoundly unhelpful information, and concern for his health, Miller leaves.
And we return to the Knight, as it arrives at the derelict freighter Scopuli – and it’s dead. No heat, no electromagnetics, a dead reactor but with no radiation leakage. A big hole in the side seems to be the culprit,
Shed advocates for making a quick departure, but Holden’s having none of it. He volunteers to go over to the Scopuli, and Another White Guy volunteers to go with him. Nobody is happy with this.
The ship is as dead inside as it is outside. A big hole in the wall, blown inwards, suggests that somebody boarded the ship – confirmed by AWG, identified by Holden as “Amos”, mentioning that a breaching charge caused this particular hole. Holden wants to know why the reactor’s offline, so they head to Engineering. Apparently the big hole in the side wasn’t responsible for it being offline, but rather, it was deliberately shut off. But if everyone aboard is dead, who’s flying the plane!? Not pirates, they wouldn’t leave behind a perfectly good reactor. Action was deliberately taken to flush out the crew, too – curiouser and curiouser.
Shed notes the lack of bodies, and Holden notes that it’s weird the ship was sending a distress beacon with no power whatsoever. Isn’t it just? The reason is soon found – a little glowy box underneath one of the panels, that looks suspiciously bomb-shaped. Amos pulls it – it is not a bomb – and Naomi identifies it as the beacon.
A ship appears on sensors–er, scopes, sorry. McDowell orders the Knight‘s crew to return, and they waste no time in doing so, returning to the shuttle. Naomi posits that the bogey must have been under stealth, and Alex identifies Mars as the only group with that kind of tech. The camera zooms out from the Scopuli and Knight, to an ominous black shape…
Miller returns to his apartment, passing by a 2.5-year-old girl holding a bird on his way. He sits on his couch, drinking, holding his bribe money in his hand… and the bird flies outside his apartment. Hearing the girl coughing from out on the street spurs him into action, and we immediately cut to the rich Belter being thrown into an airlock. Miller sets it to depressurise, as the rich fucker says anything and everything to escape his fate. A few seconds later, his point made, Miller stops the depressurisation cycle. “Air is good, don’t you think? Air is nice. Keep those filters clean, asshole.”
Back to the Knight, and the situation gets worse. The Ominous Shape launches blue things, identified as torpedoes, which the Knight crew believes is meant for them. But as the torpedoes swing around the shuttle – and the rock – it becomes obvious that the Cant is the target. They burn like hell, but it’s too late. Holden advises ejecting the ice, but it’s too late. Holden seems to think this is a piracy situation, but it’s not. Torpedoes slam into the Cant, and it bursts in a big, blue… burst. Nothing remains but a rapidly expanding debris field and a flash of radiation, and the Knight‘s crew is horrified. The final shot is a stream of debris hurtling towards the Knight.
End episode.
TRIVIA
- The episode’s title, “Dulcinea”, refers to a fictitious character in the novel Don Quixote. This is the first of several references to Don Quixote that can be found in The Expanse, including a comparison that Holden draws between himself and the titular character.
- The Scopuli is named for the rocks upon which the Sirens sat in Greek legend, singing sailors to their deaths. This, incidentally, mirrors the role that the Scopuli plays in this episode, luring the Canterbury to its death.
- The unnamed XO does not actually appear in the books, instead having Holden already in the role.
- Chrisjen Avasarala, whom I have referred to as “Killer Looks” throughout this post, was never actually in the first book, Leviathan Wakes. Her role was added to the TV series, taking from a few developments in the second book, to give more context to the Earth/Mars/Belt conflict brewing.
- Despite the lack of gravity aboard the Scopuli, the sparks as Julie Mao cuts through the door to Engineering drop downwards, instead of spraying out as they would in microgravity. Can’t win ’em all!
- Despite the exposition sequence claiming that the show takes place in the 23rd century, this is incorrect! It actually takes place some time in the 24th century.
DEE’S THOUGHTS
Wow, there’s a lot to go through. That was a hell of a first episode. Heavy on the worldbuilding, but in a way that feels surprisingly natural – a cop’s day, some dumbass ice miners doing their thing, before it all goes horribly wrong. There’s a lot to love here, so I’ll be polite, especially after such a long article, and list a few:
- Space travel is portrayed incredibly. It’s not just some cruisy affair, anything beyond a standard burn (presumably 0.3g, for the Belter crew that likely couldn’t withstand 1g) is a big deal. Unspecified drugs that are probably very bad for you get pumped into you, things break… the flip and burn is the scene that first made me fall in love with the show.
- The writers went ahead and got a guy to think up an entire language, and a very nice-sounding one, at that! Beautiful words such as “inyalowda” (lit. “Inner person”, somebody that dwells on Earth or Mars), “welwala”, (lit. “well-lover”, “traitor to my people”). My little worldbuilder’s heart, it soars!
- While serious, this show doesn’t forget to drop in some humour here and there – from Holden’s admission of fraternisation to a rather surprised McDowell, to Amos nonchalantly pulling what could be an explosive device from its place to everybody’s horror, it doesn’t forget to have a little fun like so many shows do.
This was an awesome first episode, and I’m very much looking forward to more! Overall, I think I’ll give this one… blatant police bribery out of ten.
