TV Review: The Expanse Season 5
By splitting up its crew, The Expanse is better than ever in its explosive fifth season
Having been rescued from its SyFy cancellation in 2018, The Expanse returns for its penultimate season on Amazon Prime Video. Based on the novels by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (under the pen name James S.A. Corey), the series is quickly solidifying its legacy as one of the best genre shows out there with its meticulous world-building, gripping political intrigue, and hard science fiction. The Expanse’s fifth season finds its winning streak unbroken, with its tight pacing and deep character work on full display as it careens towards its endgame. Nine episodes watched for review, not including the season finale. Minor spoilers ahead…
When I inevitably recommend The Expanse to people, I always sell it as “Game of Thrones, but in space.” It’s a crude - but succinct - comparison, and not wholly inaccurate: Both series are sprawling, genre epics spun from the pages of a popular series of novels, and both series traffic in multi-faction political intrigue, a deep roster of characters, and sporadic bouts of sanguine violence. And like Game of Thrones, The Expanse isn’t exactly kind to non-book readers and those with short attention spans - its slow burn first season spends much of its time laying its foundation and building a deep mythos, throwing its audience into the deep end with countless characters and multiple plots that at first barely intersect. But where Game of Thrones had already begun to falter at the same point of its 8-season lifespan, The Expanse is only beginning to pay its most handsome dividends with its stellar fifth season.
Picking up right where the fourth season left off, the new season of The Expanse finds its plot drifting away from the frontier planet of Ilus - the first habitable planet discovered through the mysterious alien Ring Gate - and back to the messy interplanetary politics among The Belt, Mars, and Earth. Last season, the Rocinante crew was tasked by UN Secretary-General Avasarala (the gloriously salty Shohreh Aghdashloo) to keep the peace between Belter settlers and a group of trigger-happy miners from Earth, both looking to claim Ilus’ valuable lithium deposits. It was a volatile situation made even worse by the unpredictable structures left behind by the planet’s ancient aliens, who built the Ring Gate using protomolecule technology, the highly dangerous element that has been the focal point of the series so far. By the end of the season, the Rocinante crew successfully deactivated the chaotic alien structures on the planet, allowing the Belters and Earthers to build a new civilization together in an uneasy truce; but elsewhere, a new threat reared its ugly head in the form of Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander), a dangerous OPA extremist and freedom fighter hell-bent on decimating Earth in the name of The Belt.
“The Expanse’s fifth season finds its winning streak unbroken, with its tight pacing and deep character work on full display as it careens towards its endgame.”
If the fourth season’s more measured pacing of its exploratory détente on Ilus wasn’t really your speed, then I’m pleased to report that the new season dives right back into the twists and turns of The Expanse’s political, 4-D chess. In a bold move, the show opts to split up the Rocinante’s scrappy crew, giving each member a piece of the season’s larger puzzle. It’s a formula that seems like a recipe for uneven and choppy storytelling, but in the hands of the show’s seasoned writers, it works like gangbusters thanks to the strong character groundwork laid throughout the first four seasons. Obviously, we love to see the Roci crew together, but the fifth season proves that they’re just as effective on their own - each character is given equally compelling material, only to slowly converge upon the same vast conspiracy by season’s end. Expertly weaving intimate stakes with macro science fiction and galaxy-spanning political maneuvering, The Expanse’s fifth season balances its numerous narratives with a deft hand.
Jim Holden (Steven Strait) - the Rocinante’s resident straight-shooter - finds himself holed up on Tycho Station with Fred Johnson (Chad L. Coleman) as the OPA leader continues his quest in legitimizing The Belt. Having forged a path from reluctant alliance to uneasy friendship over the course of the last four seasons, the two spend the start of the new season dealing with a crisis involving the last surviving sample of the protomolecule, which is now in Johnson’s possession after Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper) sent it to him behind the Rocinante’s back. And as for Naomi, she herself departs early on to reunite with her estranged son Filip (Jasai Chase Owens), whom she abandoned after fleeing from his dangerous father - her ex-lover who turns out to be none other than Marco Inaros.
“Expertly balancing intimate stakes with macro science fiction and galaxy-spanning political maneuvering, The Expanse’s fifth season juggles its numerous narratives with a deft hand.”
Trailing closely behind Inaros is also OPA captain Camina Drummer (Cara Gee), on the search for her missing friend Klaes Ashford (David Strathairn), who - unbeknownst to her - was murdered by Inaros last season after an unsuccessful attempt to take down the rogue revolutionary. Separately, Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar, in his final season) teams up with Bobbie Draper (Frankie Adams) in a continuation of her season four storyline, as they continue to follow the threads of conspiracy involving Martians selling surplus weapons and technology to Belters.
Earthside, ex-UN Secretary-General Chrisjen Avasarala is reeling from her loss to Nancy Gao (Lily Gao) in the election. Removed from her seat of power, Avasarala grapples with her reduced effectiveness just as her investigation into Marcos Inaros begins to bear fruit, setting up a gripping battle against bureaucracy when the stakes couldn’t be higher. Elsewhere, Amos Burton (Wes Chatham) - the Roci’s unstable heavy - travels to Baltimore to tie up the loose ends from his criminal past, only to get embroiled in a daring escape when the interplanetary conflict hits home. Chatham’s Burton has long been The Expanse’s secret weapon, and his latest thread taps into the character’s latent tenderness with great effectiveness - he may still be a brute and a killer, but a revealing look at his humanity only serves to deepen one of the series’ most compelling arcs.
With no two characters in the same location at the same time at first, our main players have never been more separated and the narrative has never been more scattered - but the The Expanse’s fifth season juggling act not only works, it elevates the series to a whole new level. By splitting up the Roci crew, the show is able to combine its overarching story with a newfound interiority for its most important characters, delivering a thrilling season of sci-fi television that fires on all cylinders. Even amidst political intrigue, alien protomolecules, and thrilling space combat, The Expanse still understands that characters are at the heart of a story, and the new season is bigger and better than ever.
