The Expanse - Television Season 4 Review

The fun never stops with The Expanse, but I'm definitely starting to see the show become a victim of its own success. It's not as bad as the downward spiral that is Stranger Things, but I had more concerns than excitement about this particular season than I did with the others. I learned just yesterday that the show was renewed for its sixth season (confirmed to be last) and I think it was a wise call. This show has been incredible, but I'm hoping we close the door on this one before it burns itself out.

1

Where You Can Find It: You can still find this all on Amazon Video, where it is free with those that subscribe to Amazon Prime.

 

General Information 
Season 4 of The Expanse debuted on 12 December 2019 after being saved from cancellation by Amazon. This season primarily covers Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey. Thankfully, I'm pleased to announce that this season's plot is not split in half like seasons 2 and seasons 3 were. Syfy's bisection of those seasons really hurt the overall story lines of each of them and I hope Amazon doesn't return to that style in future seasons. Season 4 received three award nominations for its run and currently holds a 91 Metascore on Metacritic as of 28 November 2020. Season 5 is expected to release 16 December 2020.

The Story

A good chunk of time has passed since the end of season 3 (see my review for that one here), and things seem to be looking fairly good. The Rocinante crew is back together, while Avasarala has formally taken charge of the United Nations on Earth. The three major nations of the solar system have blocked people from traveling through the ring gates with a blockade, but the temptation of new lands and fortune has much of the system salivating. It doesn't take long before Holden (with Ghost Miller) and his crew get sent through the rings to investigate how the "Builders" were annihilated.

A major problem with this season is it is clearly stretched too thin. The length of the show is fine, but there are so many interesting characters for the plot to follow that the showrunners don't know what kind of story they want to tell. Avasarala's focused on politics; Bobbie Draper is grappling with a new life on Mars; Drummer and Ashford are policing the Belt; and then each member of the Rocinante crew have their own little subplots. It's a lot of moving pieces to manage and they don't all work together. To be fair, with the exception of Draper's and Alex's side-stories, I enjoyed all of the plot lines, but it felt like it wasn't unified enough. I hate to say it, but the show should've either cut some material or did a spin-off as many story lines never crossed and were literally galaxies away from each other.

An interesting quandary that the show throws at Holden in this season is that it places him in a challenging position where he has to decide between allying with the Belt or Earth. We'd seen similar situations in the past when the Rocinante crew were grappling with trying to figure out whether they wanted to work with Fred Johnson or not. This choice is somewhat covered with a wet blanket though when the leader of the Earth faction is led by the psychopathic chief of security, Adolphus Murtry (played by Burn Gorman). I was disappointed that this major choice was never properly executed, as I think it could've led to some very interesting conflict and character development.

2

Holden can trust Murtry...right?

Special Effects/Atmosphere
Within about fifteen minutes of the first episode, it was abundantly clear that the show had changed ownership from cable to Amazon as set design was far more varied and visually appealing, while mature themes were more prevalent. For the most part, this was fine, however I had a major issue with Avasarala's sudden fondness for swearing. She's my favorite character in this series, and we've seen her be cheeky in previous seasons, but she starts swearing like she's in a Martin Scorsese film, which is really jarring to behold.

We get to see a lot more of Mars in this season, but we also get to see an entirely new planet named Ilus IV (or New Terra). Most of the scenes with Mars are interior shots, but it's interesting seeing how the Martian backdrop differs from similar Earth settings. Seeing Ilus IV was really exciting though as this was an entirely alien planet with very few structures, so it was fascinating getting to observe how Belters and Earthers interacted with this new environment, as well as how strange the land appeared in contrast with Earth or Mars. I was glad that the showrunners picked an exotic locale to film at for the Ilus IV settings.

3

Ilus IV definitely looks unique

The Acting

The main cast does a solid job of maintaining the momentum, so I don't have any major complaints there. The newer additions to this season's cast do a great job breathing life into the story. Despite my lack of fondness for his character, I really liked Burn Gorman, as I think he's a great character actor. Another interestingly dynamic character actor that joins the cast is Paul Schulze, who portrays a Martian criminal (I'm not going to name the character he plays due to spoiler reasons). It was a joy to see him again as I loved him in Sopranos and Netflix's The Punisher, but it's unfortunate that he's saddled with arguably the worst story line of the season. I think he is serviceable in his role, but it's clear the showrunners weren't sure if they wanted him to be evil or be sympathetic.

He was incredible in season 3, but I'd say that Klaes Ashford's David Strathairn steals every scene he's in throughout this season. Many of his scenes with Cara Gee (as Drummer) are great, and the second half of the season presents him the chance to stretch his legs a bit.

The Best of the Best: Holden struggling with the conflict between the Earthers and the Belters while also investigating what happened to the creators of the Protomolecule.

The Worst of the Worst: Draper's entire subplot brought the show down and felt unnecessary.

Would I Recommend?

4

Okay, on to season 5!

Season 4 is a step down from the rest of the series despite having more money for special effects and creative freedom. The show has a great cast of characters, but there are too many moving pieces, which causes the overall story to get muddled. I can see that the showrunners are tying stuff together for season 5, but that doesn't excuse the scattershot storytelling of this current season. I really hope that this gets slimmed down for the next season. It's still good, and worth a watch, but I'm starting to see a few red flags.

Spoiler Comments

• I was not fond of Dominique Tipper's hairstyle in this season. I miss the purple coloring.
  
• As soon as I saw that Alex had the hots for Rosa Gilmore, I was worried her husband would be killed off so Alex could get a girlfriend. I'm really glad that this didn't happen.
• The Belters just happened to set up their frontier town right next to the tower that Miller needed Holden to fix. What a coincidence!
• The entire subplot of Amos and Chandra Wei felt wasted by the end. He shot her without any hesitation and barely any discussion was given over her death. At this point, Amos is about as human as the Terminator.
• I loved the idea of Martian society coming to terms with the fact that their nationalism no longer matters because there's no point in terraforming Mars as there are other habitable planets available now. It's unfortunate that this aspect of the show was not fully explored.
• I loved Ashford's death, but I think it was really contrived and stupid that he simply surrendered himself to death simply because he had a gun pointed at him. He should've shot Marco Inaros and just hoped that Marco's son would miss. 
• When Avasarala gave her farewell message from Luna, I honestly thought we'd see Earth get hit by Marco's asteroid in the background.

References

(1) Ahr, M. (2019, November 19). The Expanse season four cover image. Den of Geek. Retrieved from: https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-expanse-season-4-release-date-and-other-news/.

(2) A-carnie-and-a-cop. (n.d.). Murtry gif. Tumgir. Retrieved from: https://www.tumgir.com/tag/Adolphus%20Murtry. 

(3) Sugah, J. (2019, December 14). Ilus IV image. The Geekiary. Retrieved from: https://thegeekiary.com/the-expanse-season-4-review/74924.

(4) Expanseonprime. (2020, October 31). Ashford gif. Tenor. Retrieved from: https://tenor.com/view/ive-heard-enough-klaes-ashford-the-expanse-had-enough-fed-up-gif-19016234.