One of the curious things that the showrunners of The Expanse did was break things up somewhat by books, but not exactly. Season 3, however, contains the back half of the second book and the events of the third (a quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that quite a bit was changed from the novels).
Our crew has escaped Ganymede, and the Protomolecule hybrid. But Chrisjen is still in space aboard Mao's ship. Errinwright thinks he's free of Chrisjen, and is able to maneuver the UN Secretary General into war, but the Secretary General brings in an old colleague, Methodist Minister Anna Volovodov to help him write his speech for declaration of war.
The third season includes events on Io, the Mars/ Earth near all-out-war, as well as the evolution of the crashed Eros station on Venus as scientists try to sort it out - and the eventual escape of the structure built by the protomolecule, forming the ring on the edge of the solar system. They've also brought along a scientist from Ganymede, Prax, seeking his daughter who seems to have been kidnapped by her doctor.
The evidence of Errinwright's machinations makes it's way to the UN, ending the war.
With the Mars/ Earth war completed, and with peace a fragile thing, six months in, a convoy of Martian, Earth and Belter ships all head to The Ring - Earth sending civilians.
Of the many, many things The Expanse does well, it's very aware that not everyone in the future will be a rocket scientist, and we're going to still have our candidates for FailArmy out there (sorry, Star Trek) - a rocket-racing Belter deciding to be the first to race through The Ring on the promise of sex. And absolutely pancaking against an invisible wall of force.
With this knowledge in-hand, everyone else moves cautiously toward The Ring, but find themselves in a sort of pocket dimension inside where the rules of physics are bent if not broken, and controlled by an unknowable alien force. The Rocinante is there with a documentary crew
At the end of the day, The Expanse doesn't adopt the problem a lot of sci-fi can begin to fall into. It doesn't become about the made-up science-fiction aspects while failing at the basics of *how people are*. The show uses the setting, the prognostication about the future, and the uncanny events which occasionally occur to explore human nature and explore/ develop characters. And, I can tell you, a second watch of the show was been even more rewarding than anticipated.
- Amos's response to both Prax and Anna is absolutely lovely, and you really can track his growth, not just season over season, but episode over episode. He was never wrong to believe in Naomi, but to see different versions of genuine selflessness, caring and hope for something better embodied in people he would never meet working an ice-hauler, is pretty terrific (and that his response to want to protect them the only way he knows how is spot on stuff).
- Knowing more about Naomi and that she has an ethos and a desire to do right by her people doesn't need sci-fi, but she's also seen the fanatical side of that belief system.
- Alex's carefree cowboy maybe has some issues that are domestic.
- But Bobbie is the person escaping a rigid belief system - the kid who went to college and found out that maybe all those 'types" are actually people and that maybe things have some nuance and the
worldsolar-system is more complex than she's ever been told - Chrisjen Avarasala has had to see what's actually happening as a result of her machinations and policies - while also flexing her gift for politics at new levels. She's been caught off guard and the man she gave lessons to on Earth First has wedded that with hatred and ambition - it just doesn't work.
- Drummer finds herself thrust into the position of leader, and learns it's compromise and working together - all those things she sneered at Fred Johnson for doing
- And Holden fights with the disappointment he's had after doing what he thought was right, burying himself in cynicism and going into himself even as the Ring offers new possibility
To me, this is remarkable stuff in sci-fi. We're seeing mostly not exposited character work and development. This is not a show with a ship's counselor so we can get feelings out. People pay for trying to be good (see the death of the mutineers on the UNN Agatha King), and in everyone's heads, they're on the right side. Even Admiral Nguyen launching a volley of stealth missiles at Mars. And certainly Ashford wanting to puncture The Ring with the laser from the Nauvoo to save humanity.
And that's the complexity of the show. My beloved Star Trek only rarely seems to mount this kind of challenge to the audience - we're always pretty sure they won't kill the Captains. But we also generally are put in the position of believing the character we're following is *right*. I want to feel that buzz of Ad Astra Per Aspera. The Expanse is never going to quite let you off that easy.
The first half of the season with the Earth/ Mars war is a battle too easily sparked by a feckless leader depending too much on polls and his advisors (it's not hard to see how this was written in the wake of the 90's and 00's).
Then, the old regionalism mutates as the Belt, Earth and Mars head together but separate to The Ring - and it's only in cooperation and in refusing to ratchet up the violence that they figure it all out.
Anyway, I like all kinds of flavors of sci-fi, from goofy comedy to space fantasy to whatever - but it's also not a secret that of the stuff I've taken in, of late, The Expanse speaks to me much more than almost anything else. And Season 3 is exemplary of why.
The biggest problem with the season, by a country mile, is no Chrisjen in the second half. How can you just leave your MVP out of the action? Alas. We know she wasn't in those books, and we know she was back keeping Earth's government from falling apart. But, still.
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