BTW, there is this thread:
I watched the finale last night and found it a satisfying conclusion. I expected it to feel a bit rushed like the rest of the season (and it was), but with that in mind, I think they made good use of the time they had.
The other level-set I suggest: this isn’t a blockbuster with a $100M CGI budget. If you set your expectations at good video game quality, then it’s pretty enjoyable. There are some good battle scenes.
I’ll add a more spoiler-filled discussion later.
Yeah, quite a bit condensed, but basically hit the beats of the story from the books.
Will be interesting to see if there a continuation somewhere else (either as a show or movies).
I could see the return of Laconia as a decent movie. Kind of a depressing ending, though.
Hit pause when they show the control board with the marine assault team: it’s a who’s who of classic SF characters.
Cheat code here if you can’t figure them all out.
I’d call that one “solid” and a decent enough conclusion to the season. And not a bad ending for the series, if it has to be.
Hehehe, I noticed Ripley, Vasquez, Hicks and Hudson while watching. Thanks for the still shot 
I liked it, and thought it was a good finale. The parts with Drummer and Avasarala were the highlights of the season , and I could have done with a lot less Laconia and Filip. Marco Inaros was a great antagonist, but I never thought much about Filip. Since they only had 6 episodes, I wish they had used some of the time used on Laconia to expand the political side of the conflict between Inners and Belters.
It seems clear that they want to setup a 7th season, and I’d love to see more. The Laconia stuff could have just as well been introduced at the start of a potential 7th season if it ever gets made, and focus fully on the conflict on our Solar System for 6th season. I wonder what the feasibility of getting the cast back together is once everyone spreads out to other jobs even if someone was willing to foot the bill in the future?
I’m wondering if there isn’t actually a pretty good strategy behind announcing the end to a series that clearly seems to be both a critical and commercial success. Too many good shows have been let down by dragging on too long, leading to a disappointing finale once ratings no longer justify yet another iteration of the show’s basic narrative loop. By putting a cap on the series’ total length, the showrunners are forced to keep the plotting tight, and not open up too many threads in the hopes that they might pay out eventually.
With this strategy, the show got a decent wrap-up and will remain in good memory, while allowing a potential continuation in some form. And while I do hope that we’ll see something more of the Expanse, if we don’t, I prefer thus kind of ending to a lot of others I could mention.
Anyway, I also thought the finale was perfectly decent. Both sides were shown to have some clever plans up their sleeve, and we got a fittingly nail-biting victory for the heroes. The plan with the ring entities was a little techno-babbly, but still far below that of pretty much all the other sci-fi on offer these days.
I missed something about the entities, though. When and how was it established that there are actual ‘things’ existing (‘sleeping’) in the transit space? I thought at first it might be just some weird quirk of ring physics, but then everyone started talking about ‘entities’ as if that was a well-established notion…
I have a couple questions for book readers. Note: I’m watching the TV show finale tonight, so I am one episode behind. I don’t think my questions spoil that, though.
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Did they go all the way to the end of the book series, adapt the first 4-6 books, or split off and do their own thing? I’m aware there are more books than there are seasons of show.
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Did the books kind of transition to making it about “everyone” vs Marco Inaros and his followers? The Expanse show I began watching years ago was about the protomolecule, the ring, how the protomolecule could form into “bodies” of sorts, and also about Miller and his search for Julie Mao. Now, the majority is about Inaros as a threat. I prefer seasons 1-3 over 4-6.
All spoilers:
1.) The TV show covers only 6 of the 9 books.
2.) Marco Inaros and his followers (and his war) were a petty little squabble. It is like squishing your first Goomba and thinking that you have delt with King Koopa. Like thinking a Sopwith Camel is an impressive war machine when an F-22 shows up. And then Q (Trek, not Bond) notices, gets pissed, and you realize that an F-22 and a Sopwith Camel are equally unintimidating to him and pee yourself a little.
Two things that would have made this better.
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Leave all of the Laconia scenes on the cutting room floor. They didn’t even need Duarte to stab Inaros in the back to explain his defeat.
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Bring back the Miller ghost in the finale to help explain the “entities” and a little bit more about how they work.
The only reason they would do #2 is if they were absolutely sure that they were never, ever going to do any more TV shows or movies. You don’t get to the end of Harry Potter 5 and say “BTW, Harry was a horcrux all along folks!”
Yep. Alcon, the production company, still wants to adapt the last 3 books of the series. They are, I believe, still shopping it around. So you don’t want to reveal the stuff that is in the last 3 books.
And the Laconia stuff was included in this season for the same reason.
Including the Laconia stuff is a sweet little trick to induce a sugar daddy to foot the bill for more–I mean, you don’t just throw out a scary zombie kid and creepy “dogs” for nothing, right? People are gonna want to know what the fuck is up with that and what’s gonna happen next.
Man, I hope they keep going with this show, it’s SO good. I’ve read a couple of the books and I think the show is better.
I forgot to mention how much I liked Amos’s perspective moment. Very good job by Wes Chatham in that scene.
True. but the Laconia subplot still felt like a waste of screentime.
I agree with those saying Laconia was wasted time. It didn’t even do a good job teasing a future season, in my opinion. But I’ve read the books and know what happens, so maybe I’m not the right audience. For those with no familiarity with books 7-9, did Laconia and zombie Xan make you want to see more?
As for the rest of the episode, there were so many good scenes. One visual that stood out for me was when Drummer’s ship is holed and a wave of sparks drifts as everything shorts out. The assault on the Ring station and Medina was nerve-wracking too, and cheesy CGI or not, the view of the team on the catwalk with the station firing rail gun rounds behind them was beautiful.
I got faked out three times, thinking they were changing the book story. I thought Clarissa was done for and would go out in a blaze of glory while fixing the reactor like Spock in ST:WoK. And I couldn’t believe they’d kill Filip after his character “arc” (s-curve? figure 8? Moibus strip?), so I was relieved by his escape.
And I was getting pissed at the end when Holden agreed to be Transit Union president. In the book, he refuses and nominates Michio Pa (who is mostly Drummer in the show). It seemed like a complete reversal of his character to now agree. I actually liked the show approach better; that was definitely in character.
Watching Avasarala get played like that was also quite satisfying.
I came in here to ask about all of this storyline. I thought it would tie in more to the show and it never did.
It’s…from future books? I had no idea and I am disappointed.