The Expanse delivered the seventh episode of its third season, “Delta-V.” After the excellent episode last week, it was a big disappointment.
Recap
We open with Chrisjen announcing peace between Earth, Belt, and Mars as they face the new danger of the protomolecule. A random racer dude is watching the news, irritated that it got more priority than the message of him breaking a record. Then, he gets a break up message from his girlfriend. These two things lead to him attacking the Ring, which, if I understood it correctly, is a joined UN and Martian work station focused on studying the protomolecule.
Meanwhile on the Rocinante—at least I assume she is back to her old name—the crew now consists only of Holden, Amos, and Alex, plus two documentarists who are filming their daily life after paying a hefty fee for it. Mostly, they’re trying to piss everyone off with their presence. They also secretly film Alex as he has a personal conversation with Bobbie, who is back in service on Mars.
On another ship, the Navoo, Naomi is with Camina, Fred’s ex-assistant and now the captain of this ship. They received Anderson Dawes’ choice for the first officer. Diego arrives with him, too, and Naomi is pissed to see him. Dawes’ officer does some posturing and some pseudo-wise speeches.
Then a pilot gets high, loses control of his skiff and dies. Naomi tells Camina about a dealer she saw him with, and Camina threatens to space him and his supplier. Dawes’ officer stops her and they decide to go through with more usual legal methods instead. They offer amnesty for a day for everyone to hand over any drugs they might have. Camina is not too thrilled about this and states that ‘this is not them,’ meaning Belters. Naomi is more inclined to take this chance at transforming the Belt.
For some reason, the documentarist and her camera man are both very keen to try and get information out of Amos by sleeping with him. They also outright tell him so. Oh, and accuse him of being a mob boss, or the son of one maybe.
There is also a woman planting bombs on a ship. I didn’t quite catch what ship it was, but when she is discovered, she swallows something that makes her into a super soldier and kills the man who discovered her. Elsewhere, the racer bro from the beginning of the episode gets smashed to pieces on the protective shield of the Ring.
Finally, the man who came aboard the Rocinante turns out to be spying. This is hugely astonishing, because he did not seem sleazy at all, what with the way he was sexually harassing Amos before.
Review
This episode was exhausting.
The break in the narrative signaling the show has moved on to adapting the next book is even more obvious than it was in season two—and it was very obvious in season two. But in this case, last episode had all the markings of a season finale and this one, a season beginning, including a time skip. Given how drastic a shift it is, I don’t understand why they didn’t film the season in two halves with a mid-season finale. It just…doesn’t work, this way.
Additionally, nothing that happens makes any sense, and not in the good ‘it’s a mystery’ way.
For example, please tell me why did Holden allowed documentary filmmakers aboard his ship? Was it just to feed his huge ego? If so, why did the other two agree to it? And, did they just accept any random documentarists without doing a background check on them? Because, even disregarding the guy being a spy, they are both extremely unprofessional and creepy. They also completely lack any ethics or decency. They’re also just plain stupid. ‘What do I have to do to gain your trust?’, the lady asks confusedly at one point. Well, maybe not acting like a complete asshole would be a good start? Be they spies or legit journalists, building rapport is actually considered good for both. They’re about as efficient at this as SHIELD in MCU is.
The situation aboard the Navoo made somewhat more sense, I suppose. At least there we understand that there is pressure being exerted from Dawes, so we see why his officer was taken on board. But there is never any setting of boundaries that would clear up the situation. No rules are set down. I couldn’t help but think of Star Trek: Voyager, where the Captain is similarly forced to take on a first officer that does not truly respect her and is hostile to her. I understand the Belters don’t have her Starfleet training, but still. Camina is no amateur. There should have been something more.
I’m also a little bothered by the show seeming to agree with Dawes’ officer and Naomi that things should be done “the inner way.” Not that the absence of due process is fun. But the Belt should be allowed to develop its own form of justice system, without necessarily having to copy that of the people they see as their oppressors. I’m not at all certain doing so is a good strategy. They want to keep their soldiers’ loyalty. Appearing to copy the inner planets will not get them that.
The bomb-planting woman had me simply confused. I expect we will gate more context later, but for now I have no idea what any of that means.
As for the racer bro, I expect he, too, will become important later, but for now it was extremely hard to muster any interest in his story at all. What I thought when he was on my screen was ‘why are they making me watch this?’ That’s never a good sign.
Oh, and also, as happy as I was to see Ana would not be simply dropped from this story, her scenes in this episode were completely pointless.
But to take a break from all the negativity, what gave me joy were Bobbie and Alex keeping their friendship even though they are no longer on the same ship. I also squeed at Naomi and Camina side by side again. I’m irritated, now, that Naomi renewed her relationship with Holden last episode. I ship these two girls hard, and I’d love to see them together.
Even more than that, though, I’d love to see the episodes get better again. Let us hope that, like the beginning of the season, this beginning of another book was just a fluke when it comes to quality, too. Let us hope next week will live up to the standards of episodes like last week, which truly was one of the best.
