The Expanse S01E03 Featured Television 

Ten Thoughts on The Expanse‘s “Remember the Cant”

By | June 9th, 2018
Posted in Television | % Comments

Hello Multiversity TV bingers! For this year’s Summer TV Binge, I’m tackling the first season of the SyFy/Amazon show The Expanse – – and for this, I’m enlisting a little help in the form of my boyfriend, Frank, who is a big fan of the show and its source books by James S. A. Corey. What’s going to make this fun? As I said, he’s a big fan of the show and has been watching it from the beginning, whereas I’ve never watched it before. Two people with different perspectives watching the same show, who also happen to be dating. Hilarity is bound to ensue.

Word has gotten down to Ceres of the Cant’s destruction and that the survivors believe Mars is to blame. Meanwhile, our core five are still on their Martian Definitely-Not-A-Pleasure-Cruise. Let’s dive into “Remember the Cant” – – and as always, spoilers within.

Kate’s Five Thoughts

1. The Omnipresent News Cycle

The opening scenes of the Ceres city center make a striking point on media and community: the news of the Cant’s destruction via Holden’s recorded message before they were picked up by the Martian vessel.  It’s playing on nearly every wall that people walk past, on their phones in their hands.  There’s a sense of community as all of Ceres is focused on the same thing (think of people in older films gathered around outside the TV retailer watching the World Series or Elvis Presley on Ed Sullivan), but it also says much about the modern news cycle: that we can’t escape it. In 2018, disconnecting from our world is a damn near impossible task. It’s a problem that clearly has not been solved 300 years later.

2. Divide to Conquer?

This episode shows us two very different ways of dealing with group dynamics.  The first is the obvious one: the Martian interrogation of each surviving Cant crew member is one that plays on each other’s fears and prejudices, centering around the allegation of Naomi as a member of the OPA. Divide the crew, who have bonded on some level (even if only by their shared need to survive and get home) and you can conquer them. The interrogation isn’t the only tactic to tear apart these five; Alex, as a former member of the Martian Navy, is taken aside and given a protected status as former armed services.

On the other side of the spectrum, Detective Miller prefers to unite the OPA rebels on Ceres rather than divide them.  The destruction of the Cant ignites the starter underneath them who were looking for something – – anything – – to stir up trouble. Miller and his security crew are sent to an angry corner to keep the peace, and while some security folk want to fight fire with fire, Miller cautions cooler heads from his team: “If we act like animals we only justify the belief that we are. Treat them the way you would want them to treat us.” It’s not worth meeting their violence with violence, that will only escalate the violence.

It’s also important to note that Anderson Dawes, the OPA leader on Ceres, remarks to Miller that while his paycheck may come from Earth, his heart and soul are that of a Belter, and he would be wise to use that to his advantage. We’ll see if he takes this advice.

3. I’m Only Watching the Game, Controlling It

If you weren’t convinced Chrisjen Avasarala is a woman with manipulation as her middle name, this had to have sealed the deal for you. Even in moments that seem altruistic on their surface, there’s a deeper control she has over this game of interstellar relationships. Nowhere is this more clear than the subplot with the Martian ambassador Franklin DeGraaf. After an invitation for dinner and drinks that was so slimy I felt a need to take a shower afterwards, Chrisjen convinces her friend that there was no way Mars would have blown up the Cant, but the UN is going to announce otherwise tomorrow.  Franklin is shooketh (as the kids say these days), particularly because he has a family and a home on Mars, so he starts using his status to make some inquiries. Bet his communication lines were secure and encrypted and no one was going to hear a thing? Think again.  Someone with the initials C.A. is listening.  Those inquiries lead to clearing Mars of involvement in the Cant’s destruction (good), but reveals classified information as the source of what clears Mars (not good), resulting in a banishment from the planet, his home (definitely not good). Further fallout is the loss of his friendship with Chrisjen: “You will do anything to win, just like your father. That’s what got him killed. I won’t play with you ever again.”

Continued below

The question that is left now is: what end game is Chrisjen trying to win? Avenging her father’s death? Starting a war – – civil or otherwise for her own personal political gain? Is this all just for kicks for her? (If that is the case, woman, you need some better hobbies. Take up knitting or woodworking or something.)

4.  Truth in a Capsule 

Not only do I have the benefit when rewatching a series of rewinding when I want to revisit or clarify a plot point, I also have someone who is very familiar with things to point out where I should be paying attention. So when Frank told me to put down my pizza because “you’re going to want to see this” – – well, I’m glad I did. This moment wasn’t anything crucial to the long term narrative, but something cool: the Martian interrogator turning himself (itself?) into a human lie detector with a small capsule no larger than a pill or vitamin. It’s a small, subtle moment of taking this pill and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it effect of his (its?) pupils widening, but very much an “wow that’s way cool” scene.  (These scenes also provide excellent backstory on all our characters, such as the revelation that Holden had eight mothers.)

5. This is Not a Moment, It’s the Movement

Remember the Cant. This wasn’t a soundbyte from Holden. It was a remark from an OPA rebel on Ceres that takes hold. If the destruction of the Cant was the pilot light, “Remember the Cant” is the gasoline thrown on the spark from that pilot light. It moves from one person to signs, to chants – – to a proclamation made in the name of murder, as Havelock meets his death during an OPA riot with the final words in his ears of “Remember the Cant!”

As Hamilton taught us, this is not a moment – – it’s the movement.

Afterthoughts

– I had to check to see if there was in fact a wine shop in Manhattan on 25th and 8th as Chrisjen claims – – Google Maps tells me there isn’t a wine shop in that neighborhood (womp womp).  Since you can purchase wine in grocery stores in New York State, it could be a reference to Chelsea Fine Foods, which is located at that intersection.  If that is the case – – 300 years at the same location is one hell of a New York City real estate success story.
-As I’m watching this during Pride month, my sentimental side said a “Good on ya” under my breath that Franklin DeGraaf’s partner was portrayed by an African-American man. I don’t want to make any assumption about gender on Mars, but to see two men in a loving relationship on my TV without it being explicitly mentioned that hey, it’s a same sex couple! demonstrates some progress made in depiction of LGBT relationships as part of everyday fabric.

Frank’s Five Thoughts

1. Knowledge

The major theme in this episode is one of knowledge, or rather the lack of it. It becomes clear that all the major players are stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what the heck is going on out in the expanse. The Martians want to know why they are suddenly in the cross-hairs of everyone, so they begin interrogating the Canterbury survivors individually. This leads to the survivors realizing that they really do not know a lot about each other. The Martian interrogator drives this home by pushing the idea that Naomi is an OPA sleeper agent and everyone starts yelling at each other.

Back on Earth, Avasarala is desperate for more information, especially regarding the stealth ship that destroyed the Canterbury (Remember the Cant!). It’s important to realize that everything going on with Ceres and our Canterbury survivors appear as less than dots to an observer on Earth or Mars and information travels slow (relative to what we are used to today). So she presses what advantages and networks she has, especially since she lost her interrogation subject last week.

Finally, we see the results of Ceres working with less than optimal knowledge and how it can easily fan the flames towards unrest. Holden’s broadcast about the Canterbury’s destruction may not have caused all the tensions in the Belt, but it certainly was an igniting spark.

Continued below

2. Manipulation

We get a couple of masterclass examples of manipulation in this week’s episode. The first is from our master diplomat, Chrisjen Avasarala. She massages her personal relationship with the UN’s ambassador to Mars to leak information regarding missing stealth warships. This prompts the Martians to run an inventory on their fleet. This ends up revealing two things to Avasarala and the UN: first, that Mars has ships equipped with stealth technology in their fleet; and second, their panicked response indicates Mars was not the responsible party in the Cant’s destruction.

The second master manipulation comes from the Martian interrogator who seeds dissent into the ranks of the Canterbury survivors pushing them around based on the extensive intelligence the Martian navy has on them and the lack of knowledge they know about each other. The tactic is clearly divide and conquer, only needing one person to break from the story.

3. Unrest

Back on Ceres, the lack of available information is stirring a pot that was already close to boiling over. As Kate as noted in a previous recap, Ceres gives us a very classic class struggle. You have the Belters that live and work in the Belt and the space, planets, and moons beyond, yet they receive very little recompense for their labor. Instead everything they do is to enrich corporations on Earth and the Moon. This breeds massive resentment, and it appears that certain actors are poised to take advantage of the unrest and of the chaos that would form in the wake of an Earth-Mars war. Our erstwhile Detective Miller finds himself caught in the middle of this, despite his attempts to remain unattached to the politics and loyalties.

4. Modern Families

There was a scintillating piece of information that blew past during Holden’s Martian interrogation – he has 8 parents! We get a lot better explanation of this in the novels. In the 24th century it is reasonable to expect that land on Earth is a premium luxury – this is why everyone jumped off the planet and spread out through the solar system when they could. Think about the land rushes in the Western United States and Australia during the 19th century. Holden’s 8 parents, 5 fathers and 3 mothers, received a large tax break from only having 1 child allowed them to purchase 22 acres of farmland. Holden is a genetic mix of all 8 parents (hey, this is the 24th century!), though this does not necessarily mean that he was genetically modified, like in Gattaca.

5. Remember the Cant!

And now you know why I have been shouting “Remember the Cant!” in every post. But I wanted to take a little bit of time to look at the historic significance of this call to arms. By 1898 the Spanish Empire which had once spanned the entire globe was greatly reduced to a few colonies in the Pacific and in the Caribbean Sea. Of note here is the island of Cuba which had begun revolting against their Spanish masters in 1895. At the same time, the United States was aggressively expansionist and had been eyeing the large island for some time. So they sailed the USS Maine down to Havana to press US interests to the island. On February 15, 1898, the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor and became a tense political situation between the US and Spain. Yellow journalists picked up the incident and spread it with the rallying cry of “Remember the Maine!”. This ultimately was one of the points that ignited the Spanish-American War. Sound familiar?

Additional Thoughts
– Anderson Dawes has one of the greatest accents in the show. He just goes balls-to-the-wall with it. Personally, I think only one other character has a better accent than him, but we haven’t met her yet.
– Amos has a wee little problem with authority.

We’ll see you next week for the next episode, “CQB!”


//TAGS | 2018 Summer TV Binge | The Expanse

Kate Kosturski

Kate Kosturski is your Multiversity social media manager, a librarian by day and a comics geek...well, by day too (and by night). Kate's writing has also been featured at PanelxPanel, Women Write About Comics, and Geeks OUT. She spends her free time spending too much money on Funko POP figures and LEGO, playing with yarn, and rooting for the hapless New York Mets. Follow her on Twitter at @librarian_kate.

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