Spoilers The Expanse Season 6
- Thread starter The Wormhole
- Start date
The space battles were fine but between the rail guns, cargo boxes and shimmer of the ring space it was too much and looked terrible
I stand corrected - it was Douglas Quaid.
Absolutely, at least in my book.
Setup for spinoffs FOR SURE.
It's not a fake out, it's a denouement. Everything we saw was real, Naomi really thought she'd just knowingly helped to kill her son. Fake outs tend not to have any real consequences, short or long term.
And in the books, as of at least 30-odd years hence, she still thinks he died with his father and the rest of that fleet. So to all intents and purposes, Filip Inaros did perish that day. We'll probably never know what kind of a life Filip Nagata made for himself, or if he ever found peace.
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Just binge watched S6 over the last few days.
I want more.
As for the finale - I liked that little bit of meta at the end when Naomi shut down Holden as he started setting up a theoretical next season. "Let's just enjoy this moment." I didn't notice the drop ship easter eggs either - great stuff. Needed an Adama.
I look forward to doing a full re-watch at some stage. I'm pretty comfortable slotting this in beside BSG to share the #1 spot for best sci-fi series of the last 20 years. In terms of smart, adult-orientated sci-fi with a compelling, layered story and strong characterisations, I don't see anything on the market to fill the gap, or at least anything approaching the calibre of this show. Will be sorely missed.
I want more.
As for the finale - I liked that little bit of meta at the end when Naomi shut down Holden as he started setting up a theoretical next season. "Let's just enjoy this moment." I didn't notice the drop ship easter eggs either - great stuff. Needed an Adama.
I look forward to doing a full re-watch at some stage. I'm pretty comfortable slotting this in beside BSG to share the #1 spot for best sci-fi series of the last 20 years. In terms of smart, adult-orientated sci-fi with a compelling, layered story and strong characterisations, I don't see anything on the market to fill the gap, or at least anything approaching the calibre of this show. Will be sorely missed.
Its the last we ever see of Filip. Its not something that needs to be resolved he is just gone
Yup. But we are shown Naomi’s reaction to his death etc, and they order in which the scenes are presented is in order to foster a kind of unearned empathy. If we had been shown him evacuating first (as it appears to have been shot/planned) it would still be a hanging plot thread (with the question of ‘why did the roci not notice?’ Etc) but not one being used quasi-artificially.
That’s what makes it a fake out.
It’s also just one of easily half a dozen things that didn’t need to be shown this episode/season if we aren’t going to see how they resolve (kids on the colony, Inaros relationship with the colony, Peaches ticking clock death sentence… )
It made some things unclear, and kind of took some of the umph out of the season/finale. (And the ‘No one knows the station better than me’ part of the plan… does he really mean medina station? In which case Naomi knows it backwards but he doesn’t, or the ring control station, in which case he never even gets there… I was expected him to be there for one last Miller cameo tbh.)
It works, but is not really an ending or even a temporary wrapping up with a couple of mysteries left to ponder.
In short… season finale yes, series finale? Nope.
Not that I didn’t like it. It just… fell a little short.
Not sure why I keep seeing people say this show is "up there" with BSG, when it clearly blows BSG right out of the water, and probably B5 too if I'm honest (and I love B5.)
That's not me being hyperbolic or opinionated; it seems rather self evidently objective. More fully realised characters, an actual coherent plot, world building that someone spent more then 40 mins thinking about, WAAAAY better grasp of the science and physics surrounding space travel and indeed, space combat. Yes, better effects too; but such things are the always subject to budget and the time in which they were made, so I won't begrudge an older show on that account.
As I already stated; it's only a fake out if there are no consequences.
Chewie "dying" in tRoS? That's a fake out! "Oh no he's totally dead guys!" "ah, just kidding, he's fine and everyone it back together and it's like it never happened!"
That's not me being hyperbolic or opinionated; it seems rather self evidently objective. More fully realised characters, an actual coherent plot, world building that someone spent more then 40 mins thinking about, WAAAAY better grasp of the science and physics surrounding space travel and indeed, space combat. Yes, better effects too; but such things are the always subject to budget and the time in which they were made, so I won't begrudge an older show on that account.
How is it "unearned"? She spent all of last season "earning" that scream (which incidentally, was an improvised acting choice.) Filip is to all intents and purposes, in every way that matters to her: dead. Because of her plan, which she made and participated in knowing it would kill him.
As I already stated; it's only a fake out if there are no consequences.
Chewie "dying" in tRoS? That's a fake out! "Oh no he's totally dead guys!" "ah, just kidding, he's fine and everyone it back together and it's like it never happened!"
The order in which the scenes are shown make it a fake out. If events are shown (as they are pretty much routinely in this show) in order, then we still feel for Naomi as ‘oh my god, she thinks she killed her son’ (as also built by her own memory flashback of him as a baby) whilst knowing she hasn’t.
By not showing us Filip leave the ship until afterwards, it is a fake out, manipulating us into ‘oh my god she killed her son!’ Followed by ‘phew, it’s ok, nobody died today.’
A halfway house would be to show him leave the bridge, then cut to the Roci, then a little later show him inside the skiff changing his name. It makes it part of the coda sequence, without disrupting narrative flow.
There were a lot of built up ‘this character is dead!’ ‘Wait! They arent!’ In this episode, which whilst — as a person who prefers optimistic things — I kind of like, does start to undermine the drama a little. The editing choice around Filip is the clumsiest, and just adds it into the pile of ‘unresolved threads’ rather than acting as a coda and closure to his story.
(I actually think it would have been a stronger ending if Inaros hadn’t been fed to space demons in a slightly underwhelming freeze frame effect, and if Filip had just shot him on the bridge as he made that speech.)
No, there's no shot of Filip just before the "dutchmaning". That would make it a fake out, but the show plays fair; there's no attempt to trick the audience here.
The last time we see him prior to the denouement is well before that. Indeed that we don't see Filip at all while Marco gets a very long, slow, drawn out annihilation scene is a clear signal to the audience that he's not there, it's just not the right time in the narrative to reveal the how of it explicitly.
Naomi's reaction is genuine and earned. That he's still alive is irrelevant in that moment because she doesn't know, and has every reason the freak the fuck out. And not to spoil later books . . . this does have long term consequences and it's not like everything goes back to how it was.
I think the reaction is absolutely genuine and earned, but by placing that flashback in, it kind of undoes it a little. I think we should have seen him leave the bridge (as was shot) destination unknown, then had the scene with him changing his name on the skiff come later in the coda. Possibly even at the very end, as it’s a neat echo to the Roci changing its name, and thematically works as a ‘some things get a new beginning’ beat.
I have only just about started book one, had it for years, but it took the show to get me interested. Ironically I almost wasn’t into the show either, because starting with event horizon stuff just didn’t appeal. I think it was miller and the belters speech that got me interested. (And Naomi being played by a local girl done good. Us Londoners are like that.)
I won't reiterate everyone else's points, but I was satisfied with this finale and Naomi's talk to Holden at the end will stay with me for a long time. Great stuff, and I truly hope we get to see what all the Laconia stuff is about eventually. (I'm pretty sure it was in this season purely as set up.)
I think the only reason some will say that this is on par with other sci fi shows (and not better) is the lack of charisma from the actor playing Holden. Avasarala became the charismatic leader, but she wasn't really the main character. She was on part with the President from BSG but there was no equivalent for Olmos' presence and intangible charisma.
It’s better than BSG overall tbh. And I liked the ending on that.
Expanse is a better show (helped by source material) on a technical level, but when emotions get involved I only see them as tied. And BSG feels like it had more mainstream hype.
Strait was a phenomenal miscast. Book Holden is this grizzled veteran type. They decided to go with an actor who looked like the romantic interest in a teen drama - probably to try and get Gen Z to watch. I think they realized the mistake, which is why as the seasons go on he got more and more unshaven and his voice got deeper. But he just wasn't the right actor for the role.
I dunno. I buy him as the farm boy who ran away to sea. Amos feels a bit young for the backstory on him, but not unbelievably so. I am untainted by preconceptions from the books.
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