UNCUT - The Expanse Season 3 Episode 1

I saw a few episodes of season 1 and them devoured the books that were out then. So It's really hard for me to seperate books from seasons and there are seasons I felt were better as books and books I felt were brilliant as TV. So which is my favourite season is a mess. What I definitely felt though was that the book 2 story was weaker in both formats and to have the truncated book three version in the back half of tv season 3 was not the greatest. Darn it SyFY, Why's you have to force that result?!

It's great to see these coming out again. I love the Expanse, and I won't lie: Season 3 is top tier 'Expanse' for me. Definitely looking forward to rewatching it with folks here. As far as this episode goes. Hmm. It's solid and helps build story, but it's not one of the best episodes either.

Glad the Bridge Crew came through! S3 is one of the best seasons of tv I've ever watched. For the series I feel S3 & S5 are tied for the best so hold onto your chairs. The show is about to go to the next level compared to the first two.

The first part of Holden's comment "I knew a guy like that...." was indeed about Miller. After being asked what happened to him Holden doesn't bother answering and decides to shift focus to Prax by talking about the Hybrid not being his daughter.

Naomi is a different sort. Holden and Amos come from Earth. Alex comes from Mars. Earth and Mars really are the oppressors and exploiters of the belt and all the people living there. Naomi has grown up in that climate. She doesn't have the easy basis of confidence that comes from being born of a society literally 100 times wealthier and more powerful. She knows that Earth and Mars are always going to come first, and Belters are going to be left holding the bag. Earth and Mars can throw big punches. All the belt can do is get fucked harder into the dirt. Naomi has a very clear motivation here. If you're a little fish in a school of fish, living in a big tank full of sharks...you are going to be concerned with the little fish. Not the sharks. What Naomi did was a betrayal of the individuals on her crew, yes. But in the bigger picture, Alex and Amos and Holden come from sharks. And she's just a little fish. They are not the same.

"As long as we're done with the Batman voice" Holden "WHERE WERE THE OTHER PROTOMOLECULES GOING!?!?" I think in regards to why Amos and Alex agreed to go to Io, I think part of it was sticking it to Naomi, but I don't think that's the main reason. Recall the conversation they were having about everything falling apart. To Alex the crew of the Roci(which I'm gonna keep calling it, sorry Plant Guy) has become a family, and he can't believe it's come to this. To Amos, it's more a matter of "well that was fun while it lasted". They both probably figure that with a war on, Fred will absolutely make a play for taking the ship for the belt, and with no other safe port, and Naomi's betrayal making it feel like the Roci isn't worth fighting for anymore, they both probably figured that giving the ship up without a fight was the best way to stay alive. That way they can disappear into the system and find a place to wait out the war(or Alex could try going back to his family). I think Holden stepping up to try and find Prax's daughter gave them something to stay for. For Amos, who has trouble knowing what the right thing to do is, we've seen him shifting away from seeing Naomi as a sort of moral centre and more toward following Holden. When Holden stepped up to do the right thing, it reminded Amos why he's loyal to him, so he had no issues committing to the mission, regardless of the danger. For Alex, he left his family because he felt like he had to be out there making a difference, and that would be all for nothing if he runs and hides. He needs to do something that makes it worthwhile. As for Holden, I think we saw more and more over the past couple seasons that he was becoming a very "ends justify the means" kind of guy. He thought he could "save the world" from the protomolecule and he sacrificed a lot of his principles to do it. Now, he's realized he's just 1 of a million moving pieces, and basically what's going to happen is going to happen. So if he can't prevent the spread of the protomolecule, if he can't stop a war from happening, he might as well try to do some good in the chaos and still be able to sleep at night. That's my read on it.

Isn't this the season where they now end with the proper finale? I seem to remember season 4, 5 and 6 having a logical start and end.

A note on the Nauvoo and why the Mormons haven't picked it up yet; it's the largest ship ever built by humanity, and it was launched on auto-pilot with only enough fuel to get it to where it to Eros, as fast as possible. That means it's HUGE, moving slowly, and has no way on its own to slow down or change course. Trying to salvage it would require massive, specialized resources. Outside Tycho those kinds of resources are extremely limited.

"You should try tea" Still cracks me up, lol. I loved Holden's honest speech to Prax. He deserved to hear the truth.

Good stuff! Glad y'all are back to The Expanse. Minor note: You normally CANNOT change your transponder name willy-nilly - Fred Johnson gave them the tools to do it in Season 1, when they renamed it The Rocinante in the first place. I give Naomi a little more slack than y'all do, though I get the reaction. Her arc is interesting - in S1, she starts out hating Fred Johnson and having no interest in the political cause of The Belt whatsoever. She talks about how she was involved with some radicals when she was younger and it went bad and she's done with all that. Then, Eros happens, where Inners from both planets use hundreds of thousands of Belters (who they already generally oppress) as lab rats to experiment on and no one gives a *fuck.* She works through her guilt at not saving more people, but it's clear that event radicalizes her to some extent. And then the second half of S2, Holden is all about getting rid of the last of the protomolecule to end the threat it poses, but Naomi NEVER buys that that is possible. Instead, she thinks that if Earth and Mars both have it they will continue to kill huge numbers of Belters with it, so giving it to Fred is the only way to keep Belters safe (through mutually assured destruction). This is basically just a nuclear proliferation debate, except imagine that both the US and the USSR were testing their nukes on large populations of civilians in, like, the Philippines. Holden is saying "We need to get rid of the nukes!" and Naomi is saying "That's nice, but you can't, so we should give this nuke we have to the Phillipines so they stop getting bombed." It is at least an understandable argument, IMO. If you can't save everyone from the new WMD, at least save the innocent oppressed ones. And we have the advantage of seeing that only a fringe of the Earth government is responsible for protomolecule shenanigans - she doesn't have that insight.

"Do you know how many more people will die?" "Less Belters" - basically sums up why I can't stand the Belters, they are selfish and don't think about the consequences of anything beyond what it gets them right now.

We are so back

Nice. Thanks for the upload, will lock in once I get home. :)

Thanks bridge crew!

Huzzah

And I was just wondering what to do after studying all day!

I love this sh*t. Is it too early for Season four chants?

I think it was this episode that I fell in love with Camina Drummer.

Remember the Cant

This show is really good, but its weird how every season takes a season and a half.

I’m looking forward to watching this, but can’t until Wednesday after I renewed my prime video account More to follow…

Thanks guys!! Get to watch before bedtime!!

This is my favorite season of the series