Plot: Holden and the crew of the Rocinante fight alongside the Combined Fleet of Earth and Mars to protect the Inner Planets from Marco Inaros and his Free Navy’s campaign of death and destruction. Meanwhile, on a distant planet beyond the Rings, a new power rises.
Review: In December of 2020, I profusely apologized for being late to laud The Expanse. I did not pick up on this amazing series until just before the fifth season. Binging the first four, I discovered a rich and complex science fiction story that was far more mature than most genre offerings. Like Game of Thrones in space, The Expanse started out as a noir-inspired mystery before turning into so much more. In the fifth season, lines were drawn between the Free Navy led by Marco Inaros opposite the unified forces of Earth and Mars led by Chrisjen Avasarale (Shohreh Aghdashloo). In the middle of it all is the crew of the Rocinante led by James Holden (Steven Strait). Now, we come to the final six chapters of this epic tale that delivers a satisfying conclusion to the fifty-six preceding episodes.
While there is a serial narrative across all seasons of this show, the sixth and final series of The Expanse feels less like a standalone batch of episodes and more like the second half of season five. Picking up with Marco Inaros’ growing power expanding to include Ceres, this season requires that you know all of the stakes at play from the end of the previous episodes. There is a slight time jump that follows opening scenes in each episode that start out feeling disconnected from the main plot but gradually reveal their purpose. This season also serves as a welcome showcase for the established cast including Steven Strait, Dominique Tipper, Wes Chatham, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Cara Gee, Frankie Adams, Keon Alexander, and Nadine Nicole. I won’t divulge the fates of anyone here, but like any good drama, you cannot guarantee your favorites will make it to the end or not. That being said, no one gets short shrift here, especially Cara Gee, Wes Chatham, and Shohreh Aghdashloo who shine in their roles.
Keon Alexander and Jasai Chase-Owens do some of the heaviest lifting as Marco and Filip Inaros, the main antagonists of the final season, but The Expanse never makes them traditional villains. Every character on this show has a dual nature that tests their allegiances while we question whose side we fall on as viewers. They are joined by Kathleen Robertson as Rosenfeld, who adds some much welcome intensity to the Free Navy. On the flip side, Cara Gee continues to impress as Captain Camina Drummer who ended up becoming one of my favorite characters. Wes Chatham, Steven Strait, and Dominique Tipper remain the core of this story but I still say that the single best actor on this series remains Shohreh Aghdashloo who somehow makes every f-bomb she drops sound classy as hell.
Breck Eisner, who has been a consistent director for The Expanse since season two, does stellar work here to start and end the season. Directors Anya Adams, Jeff Woolnough, and Eisner each helmed two episodes of the final season and consistently keep the action as grounded as possible for a series set in outer space. The large-scale sequences here are as impressive as anything on the small screen and the attention to military tactics rivals the gritty tactics of Battlestar Galactica. The Expanse is not Star Trek or Star Wars, which means the reliance is on dialogue rather than action sequences, but both are handled in equal measure. This is a truly intense season but still makes sure to balance what has made it so good for so many years.
What is most interesting is that this never feels like a final season. Game of Thrones set a firm end date and careened towards it with an escalated timeline that ended up feeling rushed in every way. The Expanse tells a story through this season that comes to a head with progressively escalating stakes over each of the six episodes, concluding with an hour-long episode that is an emotional rollercoaster. Still, while the sixth episode, titled “Babylon’s Ashes”, serves as a series finale, it leaves enough open for this universe of characters and locations to be revisited in the future. That The Expanse has an ending but doesn’t come to an end is refreshing after so many shows that have been unable to pull it off.
The Expanse manages to end its run with a satisfying conclusion that wraps up just enough without telegraphing any cliche happy endings. There have been many series in recent years that have failed to stick the landing, but The Expanse does so wonderfully and that is because they don’t close the door on future chapters. There are few television productions that have been as adept at managing mature themes, serious drama, and action with astounding emotional investment wrapped in a genre offering. The Expanse has now told a full story from beginning to end with great success both for the characters and in deference to the source material. Like HBO’s The Wire, The Expanse is a series that deserves a much wider audience than it has ever had and now I hope people will go back and binge the entire epic journey.
The Expanse debuts its sixth and final season on December 10th on Prime Video.