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Ten Thoughts on The Expanse‘s “The Big Empty”

By | June 2nd, 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.

Although we’re all celebrating the high of The Expanse getting a fourth season thanks to space buff Jeff Bezos and the good folks at Amazon, the surviving crew of the Cant doesn’t really have much to celebrate right now. Their ship and crew are gone, leaving them floating in space. And things on Earth and Ceres aren’t too peachy keen either. Let’s dive into “The Big Empty” – – and as always, spoilers within.

Kate’s Five Thoughts

1. The Only Adult in the Room (Or On The Ship)

Props and praise to Naomi for taking quick and decisive control of this crisis situation.  While the various men of the Cant work through their feelings, Naomi steps up to be the adult in the room, ordering the boys around like she owns the playground. It’s natural that emotions are raw after the shock of watching your home and livelihood destroyed. Naomi knows better and channels all that rage into solving the more immediate problem at hand: survival. Whether she’s ordering Shed to “act like a medic” when Alex goes hypoxic, or sending Amos and Holden up to fix the antenna on the Lincoln (their escape pod), girl knows her priorities and how to execute them.

2. Better to Be Feared than Loved

The above is a quote from 16th century political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, and in the world of The Expanse, our Machiavellian queen is Chrisjen Avasarala, a woman who must see the long game in the day-to-day machinations of her UN post. She doesn’t flinch an eyelash when called out by the Undersecretary General for her use of gravity torture on operative Heikki Sobong (remember that crucifixion scene from last week? Yeah, that guy.) because it’s been declared torture by the UN. The means justify the ends, because as she states to one of her colleagues later: “Heaven help us all if Mars and the Belt decide to share a toothbrush.” She knows that she has to play all sides because politics makes strange bedfellows.

But, Chrisjen’s plans might just go astray as Heikki commits suicide on his ship by rejecting high gravity injections. (Remember he is a Belter and thus not used to anything but a low-gravity environment.) He’s just martyred himself for his cause via the method of his torture, and when that gets out, Chrisjen could be in big trouble.

3. Somebody Doesn’t Listen

Holden, Holden, Holden.  Holden. I know you are trying to be a good man and do what is right, first by logging the distress call, now by recording the events of the Cant’s explosion and the state of the escape pod crew. We know that first action led to the situation you and your friends are currently facing. You’re hopeful that recording how the Cant was destroyed can be used as a bargaining chip later, but I can’t help but feel you doing this will cause you more harm than good in the end.

4. Rebel Rebel

This episode introduces us to the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA), a group that started as a labor advocacy group for Belters, but has grown to be a bit more like the IRA in Ireland or Basque separatists in Spain – – viewed by some as a sociopolitical movement, viewed by others as a terrorist group. Right now, this is a movement operating mainly underground: a few speeches in the public square here, an underground water black market there. They’ve got a fire in their belly that I don’t think is going to be content to be working in the shadows too much longer.

Continued below

5. Out of the Frying Pan

Good news: the surviving Cant crew has been rescued!  Bad news: it’s by a Martian ship.  Worse news: it’s the biggest ship in the Martian fleet. Still worse news: it’s more like a capture than a rescue, as they’re led aboard by gunpoint. Even worse news for the viewers: This is where we’re left until the next episode. #cliffhanger

Just when everyone thought their ship had come in (literally and figuratively), Holden and Company are merely transferred from one survival situation to another. And someone, please, sit on Holden so he doesn’t open his mouth and say something stupid under the guise of nobility and morality, please?  So far he seems to have a talent for that.

Afterthoughts:

– I haven’t commented too much on the Detective Miller plot thread since it’s not clear to me how it ties in with everything else taking place. I’m sure it’s connected, but how is to be seen.
– If turning it off and turning it back on again doesn’t work, just give it a good kick.
– Space Tinder! And Space Hookers!

Frank’s Five Thoughts

1. Balance

Continuing the worldbuilding from the first episode we see more signs of how delicately balanced the system of The Expanse is. Earth and Mars are in a delicate detente, each eyeing each other like wild dogs over a scrap of meat. The slightest provocation is needed to trip their cold war into a nuclear hot one. The Belt and the Outer Planets are both arrayed in between and against the system’s superpowers. They are reliant on Earth and Mars for economical and material support, and resent them greatly for this. So they have to balance their aggression for independence and freedom from oppression against the needs for survival.

We also see a smaller version of this balancing act on the damaged Knight, the shuttle from the dearly departed Cant, as our crew try to figure out how get rescued before they run out of air. They need to balance the consumption of their resources against the need to make repairs. This becomes very real when the pilot’s, Alex Kamal, air runs low and the medic Shed needs to share his own in a tense moment that puts both at risk.

2. Imbalance

While parts of the system are struggling to maintain the delicate balance, we also begin to see places where it is already beginning to tip. This is highlighted most on Ceres as they begin to deal with the Canterbury’s tardiness in delivering its load of ice (Remember the Cant!). This results in increased water rationing and a funny gag where Miller’s ration runs out in the middle of his shower. The show does an excellent job of providing context and consequences of the water rationing through news feeds and overheard conversations. The water issue exposes more of the deep fissures in Ceres society between the working-class Belter inhabitants and the wealthy Inners lording over the station. While most people are struggling to hydrate (or shower!), Miller and his partner are called in by their corporate superiors to investigate why a patch of grass is turning brown, which ultimately introduces a new mystery about voids in the Ceres underworld.

3. Peace

While the delicate peace of the system is holding – for now – we see another type of peace forming in the small cockpit of the Knight. Remember that the sole survivors of the Cant (Remember the Cant!) were hastily thrown together to investigate the derelict Scopuli – so there really were no long term bonds between any of them, besides Amos’ slavish loyalty to Naomi. And now they are confined in a tiny space surrounded by the Big Empty and reliant on each other to survive. Toss in a secret that only Holden and Naomi knows (Holden was the one that logged the distress call leading to their current situation) and the fact they are a mix from all of the major factions, finding some sort of accommodation is crucial for our little band.

4. War

The very obvious war between Earth and Mars is looming large in this episode, emphasized by the conversation between UN deputy secretaries Errinwright and Avasarala. Errinwright is spoiling for the war that they all know is coming, while Avasarala is doing everything, including torture, to delay that moment as long as she can. We see other elements of war back on Ceres when Miller and his partner Havelock find the source of a water theft (remember the brown grass?) and we learn of a radical new development in Ceres’ underworld as new more stupid gang members move into the void mysteriously left by disappearing gangs.

Continued below

5. Tipping Point Provocation

It is impossible to talk about this episode without talking about the message that Holden sends at the very end. He sends out a system-wide broadcast announcing the destruction of the Canterbury (Remember the Cant!) and essentially naming Mars as the perpetrators due to some very circumstantial evidence. Yeah, Holden, that’s not going to have any consequences. Then they are picked up by the Martian Navy’s flagship. We’re going to have to tune in next week to see how our plucky band of space survivors fare.

Afterthoughts:

– When Miller gets access to Julie Mao’s apartment, he does a really neat trick with his hand terminal to spoof her voice to gain access to her files and systems. As we see more voice-activated technology in our own society, will we need to worry about tech like this?
– One of the things this show does incredibly well, especially for a TV show budget, is little things to illustrate the unusual nature of living in space. This week we got the really ol visual of the Coriolis effect present on Ceres when Miller pours himself a drink.

We’ll see you next week for “Remember the Cant!”


//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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