THE EXPANSE – Season 6 Episode 2 – SPOILERS

It turns out that the featherless bird found by Cara on Laconia last episode was poisoned by the piece of ration bar she fed it. Her father explains that that native Laconian life is poisonous to humans, and that the reverse is also true. (It seems strange that colonists would not teach all family members this very important piece of information on arrival.) Cara, it seems, can’t do anything right. She tries to use a drone to put the baby birds back in their nest but the drone crashes. (How that would help the young birds is not obvious. They still would have no one to feed them.) Then she tries to bury the dead bird and that purring dog from the first episode shows up and decides to have it for lunch instead. The apparently carnivorous dog is much larger than the bird, so it likely won’t die from eating it, but might become quite ill.

Cara’s parents can’t help her with the birds because the “soldiers” have called a meeting, and all adult colonists are required to attend. Cara’s mother says: “We have nothing to do with whatever they’re building in orbit, and if they wanted to be good to us, they’d open up the com relays or at least tell us what’s going on back home.” Cara responds: “This is home.” So soldiers are working on something in orbit around Laconia; Cara has almost no memories of the Sol System; and Cara’s mom is homesick and doesn’t trust the soldiers.

Back in The Belt, Holden is surprised by the arrival of Bobbie Draper (Frankie Adams) on the Rocinante. She brings with her Avasarala’s plan to capture that spotter ship along with all the data it carries. Holden is not happy with the idea but is forced to agree to it. Then Holden asks Draper if she’s heard of any ships going missing at the Ring during transits.

DRAPER: “Well there was some Martian intel about a number of ships that went dark while passing through the Rings. Suspicion was that they slipped off to join Inaros, but that couldn’t be confirmed. The ships were never really accounted for. Why?”
HOLDEN: “I found this buried in the last Free Navy force assessment. That’s the rogue MCRN fleet exiting the Ring Space, and that’s the Barkeith. Watch This. [They watch video of the Barkeith vanishing.] That is not a normal transit. Might have something to do with the protomolecule that was stolen from Fred Johnson. Can you get me a look at that intel?”
DRAPER: “Yes. I’ll make it happen.”

In other news, characters’ beards are darker this year, probably to emphasize the gravity of the situation

It is uncertain just what has happened to Amos Burton (Wes Chatham) this season. Since the addition of Clarissa Mao (aka Peaches) to the crew, he has shown an inordinate interest in money, and generally seems a lot mellower. Might he be planning his retirement? Given the state of the solar system, he’d need to go through the ring to manage that.

James Holden (Steven Strait) castigates Peaches (Nadine Nicole) for not following the chain of command when she assisted in the capture of the Azure Dragon and saved Draper’s life in the process. His reaction to Peaches’ heroics is not entirely reasonable, but Holden is feeling out of control of his own ship, and there was no one else he could come down on. Peaches takes it well, telling Amos that it is the first time Holden has treated her like a member of the crew. (Holden might have been trying to make Peaches feel like part of the crew, but that seems abnormally subtle for him.)

Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) tells Monica Stuart (Anna Hopkins): “I want to commission a project from you. I want the Belt to see what it’s doing to us. The feeds are full of numbers and political rhetoric. I want them to see the people they’ve hurt.” Stuart quite properly says “I don’t do propaganda.” But Avasarala guilts her into submission.

Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper) has an attack of vertigo (?) and is unable to board the enemy ship. She has been increasingly uncomfortable with fighting against her own people. Her condition might be the result of prolonged oxygen deprivation on the Chetzemoka at the end of last season, or it could be (subconsciously) a way to get off the Rocinante and back to the Belt and maybe back to Drummer as well.

Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander) frees his son Filip (Jasai Chase Owens) from the brig on Ceres. Filip feels guilty about many things, and that is making it difficult for him to fit into things on Inaros’ ship.

Camina Drummer (Cara Gee) makes an alliance with another Belter captain, Liang Walker (Stuart Hughes), who has become disenchanted with Inaros, and convinces him to join her in plundering the Free Navy‘s supply depots. She intended to leave Michio (Vanessa Smythe) on his ship and out of the fighting, but that may have changed now.

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THE MERCY OF GODS (The Captive’s War I), the first book of a new trilogy by James S A Corey was released in August, 2024.

All 62 episodes of THE EXPANSE can be streamed on Amazon Prime Video.
The complete series is available on Blu-ray.