Spoilers The Expanse - Season 4 Spoiler Discussion

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by tomalak301, Dec 12, 2019.

  1. Mr. Adventure

    Mr. Adventure Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2001
    Location:
    Mr. Adventure
    Ain't that the truth, he shows up in a lot of stuff I watch.

    It was nice seeing Lyndie Greenwood again who I know from Sleepy Hollow. I thought she was solid as was Rosa Gilmore who doesn't have a big resume but did a nice job here.

    I burned (no pun intended) through these, feeling a little ashamed like I ate the entire package of Oreos. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it, the presentation is pretty great, the FX work is top notch and the actors are all solid. You could see that Amazon had spent their money.

    I wasn't sure about the young lady in Bobbie's crew, she looked a little out of place but then she looked a bit like Alison Mack and we all know how that turned out!

    Maybe a couple too many last minute "Wait, I got it!" eureka moments but that's really really nitpicking and may be compounded by how fast I consumed it.

    My biggest complaint, such as it is, was:
    Murtry and Wei finding the Holden hole and jumping into it. I wouldn't question Amos or the Doc jumping, Wei would be forced by Murtry but I would have like an additional scene selling me on Murtry making the leap.

    Amos is one of my all-time favorite badass characters and thought he was done justice here. Speaking of badass, I did like Bobbie's final assessment of her situation.
    "At least I have something to do now."

    Unfortunately, not the best of times for my favorite Iranian export, Shoreh Aghdashloo. The actress was fine but the character wasn't doing so great. Hopefully, next season we see her pick up the pieces, I imagine we'll get some good stuff with her and Bobbie. Nice not having her muffled like on Syfy: "Don't put your dick in it, it's already fucked."
     
  2. Marc

    Marc Fleet Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 14, 2003
    Location:
    Shinning Waters
    hmm a line that could also used in other places :)
     
  3. Ganja Tea

    Ganja Tea Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 6, 2002
    Location:
    Agrestic
    Watching it now. My only complaint so far is the new Arjun. I miss Brian George. :weep:
     
    eschaton and element7ero like this.
  4. FreezeC77

    FreezeC77 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 26, 2002
    I didn't even realize it was her husband at first because of the change. Pretty huge age difference besides the physical appearance difference as well.
     
    John Clark and element7ero like this.
  5. Ganja Tea

    Ganja Tea Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 6, 2002
    Location:
    Agrestic
    Not just that, his whole demeanor is off. Brian brought a comforting, supporting stoicism to the role of her husband that countered her hard assed exterior pretty nicely and this dude just comes off as needy and pushy.
     
  6. thribs

    thribs Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2017
    Bloody Belters. All they do is cause problems. they should just get rid of them.
    I enjoyed it but the ending was rather lackluster. I was expected something more substantial. Them just throwing an asteroid at Earth seems so season 2. ;)
     
  7. element7ero

    element7ero Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Apr 14, 2019
    I've enjoyed being able to binge watch all 10 Eps in one day.

    My least favorite season so far story wise (Ilus and to a lesser extent also Earth) to be honest.
    I've enjoyed the Mars and Belt story threads.

    the overall picture quality and set presentation was cinematic-movie like and epic. I tipp my Miller hat off to the art, set and filming department.

    Shame Ashford was airlocked. I'm gonna miss that character a lot.

    Amos was awesome, badass, lethal, cool, funny, but also vulnerable.

    Can't wait for Season 5> Bobbi to team up with Avarasala and where that Earth/Mars/Belt story leads.
     
  8. YellowSubmarine

    YellowSubmarine Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2010
    Show's totally jumped the shark on realism now – Bobbi's too short to be a power forward. When we consider that everyone born on Mars would be slightly taller, she'd be a swingman at best. Sorry, Esai. She got no points for passing it to Chrisjen after the shot clock expired either. If she made contact as soon as she found Mars officials wouldn't make the call, she may might have prevented Marco's rock from making it through the hoop.

    And what's with the missile crossing several AU in 15 seconds? What's that, Star Trek: Generations? Sauron will be more than pleased with that ending. At least Marco's effort seems to be a long-term one – I guess that's what the producers meant when they suggested this season we will get to see a fixed version of Alex's gravity assist scandal. Pretty lines on a screen, and handsome there looking at it with a vile smile. The wrong version was surely more fun.

    I know it is partially on purpose, but the protomolecule, its builders and their adversary are confusing the hell out of me. It's as if the sequences are supposed to explain more of it, and they do exactly the opposite. For starters, I no longer remember if we got confirmation that the protomolecule builders themselves created the wormholes, or just found them; or whether the ones who killed them created them, or just used them after the builders built them. Repeats of Holden's flashbacks didn't seem to clear that up, in fact I think at this point Holden doesn't know.

    I suppose the obvious resolution of the mystery (haven't read the books, so no spoilers, please) would be that the protomolecule builders created this evident Doomsday machine, and the adversary who destroyed them had good cause to stop them, and it's unclear if the builders themselves were collateral damage of the destruction of the protomolecule, or its direct victims. Additionally, it would seem they themselves destroyed all those worlds reachable through the wormhole, by sending them their absurd mix of killer robots and biological weapons.

    It's also curious that the bullet has resemblance* to a wormhole built by protomolecule tech. So I suppose it might also be its successor.

    With no investigator, can we get rid of Holden now?

    * Well, a ring with a hole is a common enough thing, so I might be overthinking it.
     
  9. tomalak301

    tomalak301 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 2, 2003
    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    I watched up to episode 7 last night. Man the effects are so much better than before. That Tsunami scene at the end of episode 6 was great.
     
  10. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2004
    Location:
    Rishi's Sad Madhouse
    I've read the main novels but not the novellas. I assume Bobbie's storyline is adapted from one of the latter? She doesn't feature in Cibola Burn IIRC. Bits of Nemesis Games have been mixed in as well. I think this worked well as the Ilus-based novel is probably the weakest.
     
  11. Hyperspace05

    Hyperspace05 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2005
    Several AUs? Did they specify a scale of this solar system? This planet could be further out than us (1AU) from a hotter star, or closer than Mercury is to our sun, if the star is cooler.

    But that complaint is irrelevant anyway... it always amazes me that people don’t understand the magic of editing. Yes, time actually can pass between scene cuts. So now you know. ;)
     
  12. PlainSimpleJoel

    PlainSimpleJoel Fleet Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Jan 18, 2002
    Location:
    Melbourne, Australia
    I think most of Bobbie story is from Gods of Risk novella.
     
    Asbo Zaprudder likes this.
  13. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2004
    Location:
    Rishi's Sad Madhouse
    Done for dramatic effect as with the many examples of us hearing sound in vacuo - except when we don't - as in Ashford's spacing.

    Why do the belters bother using magnetic boots? Does that imply they secretly harbour a desire to be inners? The actual reason is to keep the effects budget under control, of course.
     
  14. tomalak301

    tomalak301 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 2, 2003
    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    I finished the season tonight and I enjoyed it. However I really wish they would explain things better. I’m really confused about what Miller is it who he represents. The last time we saw him alive he was Merging with Julie and they crashed on Venus. I get the Protomolecule expanded and created the Rings but why are we seeing Miller and not Julie? Also we have a protomolecule version of Miller and the real Miller? I was confused by a lot of his story this season.

    I was really hoping they would use this season to explore the Rings but they really didn’t. In that sense it felt smaller than the others. A lot of the stuff happening on Illus didn’t really amount to anything other than they will stay there. Ok then. That’s where we were before the season started.

    I really wish they had made Bobbie a member of the Roci crew. The stuff on Mars was ok but I missed her relationships with Holden and Avasarela. Speaking of Avasarala, that storyline felt small too. I really miss the political situations of the first 2 and a half seasons and I still miss Errinwight.

    I actually liked this season despite those qualms. Drummer and Ashfords relationship was great, and I really liked Amos’ arc this season. I wish they hadn’t killed off Wei because I liked her. I also liked Lucia and Falcia and hope they return this season.

    overall it was the weakest season but I still liked it. The production was really great, and I’m thankful Amazon saved the show. I just hope season 5 will widen the universe and considering Mars was selling weapons to the OPA, they just might.
     
  15. eschaton

    eschaton Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 2, 2017
    The book Cibola Burn explained a lot more than the series did, which makes sense, because books can do a lot of infodump which really doesn't work in a visual medium. Basically the "foe" of the Ring Builders is some sort of entity/race which lives in the "between space" that the rings go through. The Protomolecule is an incredibly sophisticated tool - but not self-aware in and of itself. However, it has the ability to store the consciousness of everyone who is absorbed into it (and basically inadvertently tortures everyone it absorbs without knowing what it is doing). It reconstructed Miller to be The Investigator because it recognized the pattern of being a detective and thought it would help figure out what happened to the Ring Builders. I don't remember the Miller/Investigator dichotomy from the book - I just think Miller's personality gained more and more independence as time went on.

    The book Cibola Burn was actually even more limited in scope than this season. Basically just the Ilus stuff is from the book. They had to invent the stuff with Bobbie, Chrisjen, Drummer, and Ashford (or move it up from other books/stories) in order to keep the whole cast involved. But the scope was limited on purpose. The authors of the series intend for every book to be a mixture of sci-fi with something else, and Cibola Burn was meant to be their "western." Some things were not included. Basia (Kotoa's father) was supposed to be Lucia's husband. Presumably they didn't include this because Basia was just played by a random extra in Season 2, and there was no real reason to keep him involved. Also, Havelock (Miller's partner in Season 1) was supposed to be Murtry's second in command. However, the actor wasn't available IIRC. Probably for the best anyway, because he was different in the books (liked Miller, but hated Belters in general) so he wouldn't have worked as well here.

    Overall I liked the season. Ilus was pretty much done right, though I wish they had shown some of the native life on camera, and we got a bit more of Miller. The added Belter stuff worked well I think. On the other hand, I agree Bobbie's arc was a bit out of character (even if it hints to the ultimate big bad of the series), and the stuff with Chrisjen was just the showrunners spinning their wheels.
     
    tomalak301 likes this.
  16. thribs

    thribs Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2017
    Been meaning to read the books but I don’t want to spoil the series. Did read the first one and that just felt like a recap, except things happened in a different order.
     
  17. Hyperspace05

    Hyperspace05 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2005
    Because Miller has a relationship to Holden, not Julie or any of the people on Eros. The protomolecule is just using what resources it has to push synapses in Holden to try get him to do what it wants through visions of Miller.

    So it uses the fragments of Millers personality that remain to do that most effectively. Every time Miller was not doing what he was supposed to do he was reset, but eventually Miller managed to work around it more and more, so what we saw at the end was the more pure Miller personality rather than a filtered one.
     
    tomalak301 likes this.
  18. eschaton

    eschaton Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 2, 2017
    Though it was kinda weird that The Investigator wore the hat, while Miller - when he finally emerged again - did not.

    I mean, remember that Holden had never actually seen Miller in the hat at all. That was initially included in part because it let us as the viewers know that it wasn't a hallucination on the part of Holden when he first appeared. Which is fine, but if the protomolecule was just trying to be as effective as possible it wouldn't have used the hat.
     
  19. tomalak301

    tomalak301 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 2, 2003
    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    So when Miller merged with the protomolecule (Julie), he didn't actually die. Ok that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. There was a lot going on in those Miller scenes (especially his Voice overs, and I had subtitles on) that it was hard to keep track of it all.
     
  20. thribs

    thribs Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2017
    Yeah, the consciousness of all the people of Eros were absorbed. Think the Borg and you’ve got the idea.