Ricky Church reviews the series finale of The Expanse…
The end has come for The Expanse with ‘Babylon’s Ashes’ in a tense, action-packed and pulse-pounding series finale that still manages not to lose sight of its characters journeys. It all came together for a satisfying conclusion while leaving the door open for potentially more down the road.
With the final season being cut down from its usual 10 episodes to 6, immediate comparisons can be made to Game of Thrones and its infamous final season, much less series finale. Unlike that series, however, The Expanse provided a satisfying conclusion for its characters and nearly all story threads. The focus remained purely on the characters as they prepared for the final confrontation with Marco Inaros and the Free Navy. The build-up was handled nicely as their battle plan was conveyed quickly and easily for viewers to understand both what the attack would be and how evenly matched the alliance between Earth, Mars and Drummer was with the Free Navy. The characters remained in the spotlight as they made their roles in the attack known. The connection and love Holden, Naomi, Amos, Bobbie and Clarissa shared was on full display as they reminisced about their pasts and how far they’d come, even mentioning the deceased Alex in the process. Steven Strait, Dominique Tipper, Wes Chatham, Frankie Adams and Nadine Nicole were all excellent in these scenes, particularly their final dinner as a family.
When it came to the action, The Expanse did not hold back at all as ‘Babylon’s Ashes’ pulled out all the stops for the grand finale with exciting and tense ship-to-ship battles and a manned assault on the Ring station. For a season with plenty of ship battles, the final battle between all the combined forces was the best, perhaps topped only by the Rocinante’s battle with the Pella earlier this season. It showed once again how dangerous an adversary Marco Inaros is in space as he forced the alliance to split their groups up and fooled them with his true location (and despite all his bluster and intelligence, it’s just like him to choose Drummer’s weaker force of Belters to attack). It was painful to watch Drummer’s group be decimated by Marco’s surprise, but thankfully she survived and her ally Walker used his final moments to deal significant damage to the Pella and cause some casualties, including Marco’s lieutenant Rosenfield. The visual effects throughout the sequence were great, including the practical effects as the ship’s sets blew up and shook around or even the way Walker’s eyes slowly glossed over.
Of course, these visuals were topped by the fantastic and tense sequence of Bobbie, Amos and their assault team dropping onto the Ring station to destroy the rail guns. The long shot of Amos dropping down amid a ton of flack while his allies and crates were getting blown to bits was nightmare fuel and Chatham did a great job conveying Amos’ pure terror against what would have been a green screen. The shootout as Bobbie, Amos and their team were pinned down and left with very little hope was very well choreographed, edited and again full of stunning visuals (and it was a very fun easter egg to include the names of many sci-fi heroes like K. Thrace, R. Deckard and E. Ripley on the assault team). It stuck to both Amos and Bobbie’s characters they would rather die “getting shot in the chest than in the back” as Amos put it by leading a desperate last charge against the rail gun. Up until the Roci’s last minute save, it really did seem like Bobbie or Amos would bite it. In the end, the decision to sacrifice their original plan of using the rail guns against Marco only provided more tension by raising the stakes.
After all the worrying Holden had been doing about the entities within the Ring Gates, it was nice their solution to Marco’s incoming Free Navy tied into them, but the preceding scene as they all prepared for their inevitable deaths was again well acted and showed off the cast’s chemistry. It is very fitting Marco’s demise not only stands as a monument to his hubris in believing he could control the rings, but that it was Naomi who both came up with the plan and struck the killing blow to activate the entities. Tipper’s silent scream as she potentially killed Filip was tragic and well executed (no pun intended).
The remainder of the finale dealt with the clean up as Earth, Mars and the Belt tried to forge new ground in the war’s aftermath. Cara Gee was fierce as Drummer as she fought word-for-word against Avasarala and repeating the mistakes of the past, something Holden also hoped to achieve. For a guy who has found himself accidentally at the centre of so many galactic events, it was deeply hilarious Holden would be nominated to guide the new Transport Union between the Ring Gates, but it was even more hilarious when after delivering an impassioned speech he immediately resigned and gave the position to Drummer in order to create a more equal footing for Belters and hopefully create a longer lasting peace. Strait and Shohreh Aghdashloo were fantastic in their final scene as Strait expressed Holden’s moralist viewpoint and Avasarala could only reluctantly agree while silently confirming he was right to make the surprise move. Naomi’s closing monologue about how they can only hope to reach one person and change their mind was a nice end point to the season’s theme of humanity that paid off with Filip’s slight redemption by abandoning his father before Marco’s death and taking his mother’s name.
The only thing left without much closure is the threat of the Protomolecule on Laconia as Admiral Duarte witnessed the alien shipyard’s being rebuilt and Cara’s younger brother brought back to life in a very heightened zombie-like state. While The Expanse ends with a satisfying conclusion for the Rocinante, it is a bit strange nothing more was done with this story but it is also clear The Expanse team left it very open for some kind of continuation in order to complete their adaptation of the nine book saga.
Hopefully The Expanse will return in some form in the future, but if it doesn’t ‘Babylon’s Ashes’ leaves a very satisfying conclusion for the characters and the system, one built on the hope of a better future for Earth, Mars and the Belt and trust in others. The cast of Strait, Tipper, Aghdashloo, Chatham, Adams, Nicole, Gee, Keon Alexander and Jasai Chase Owens were fantastic with their chemistry and how they defined their characters. The Expanse will be remembered for many things, including its underdog status with its move from SyFy to Amazon, but one of the aspects it will be remembered for the most will be its focus on the character driven narrative.
Rating: 9/10
Ricky Church – Follow me on Twitter for more movie news and nerd talk.
