Early in the latest episode of The Expanse, undersecretary Chrisjen Avasarala says “when the shit hits the fan out here, I expect you to get me out of it.” She’s talking to mostly to Bobbie Draper, the Martian soldier who has become her unexpected new bodyguard. But she’s kind of talking to the audience, too. As the second season of The Expanse heads toward a possible war between Mars and Earth, the shit does hit the fan in nearly every way possible.
Spoilers ahead for The Expanse Season 2, Episode 12: “The Monster and the Rocket”
The biggest news this week on The Expanse is that Avasarala’s political frenemy, Errinwright acts the fool in more ways than one. Though he suggests to Avasarala that he’s going to come clean and publicly confess to conspiring with Jules-Pierre Mao over helping to create new protomolecule genetic super soldiers, he instead screws everyone over by poisoning another political rival and threatening both Mao and Avasarala. It’s a big confusing and space-politic-y, but the important news here is this: Everyone is done playing nice, and no one is pretending like there isn’t some serious black ops conspiracy stuff going down. At this point, Avasarala and her gang are pretty much prisoners on a fancy space cruiser owned by Mao. If this plays out anything like it does in the book version — Caliban’s War — Bobbie Draper is going to don her Martian armor and kick some ass.
Elsewhere, as Namoi helps to evacuate a bunch of refugees from Ganymede, shit hits the fan in a different way: she and the captain of the ship Weeping Somnambulist have to figure out who is going to be left behind and who is going to survive. There’s only enough room for a certain number of passengers, and everyone has to agree to let children, women, and young men board first.
Unlike the politicians elsewhere in the episode, everyone eventually behaves after briefly rioting. In a glimmer of hope that is rare for The Expanse, the refugees all agree to the process and nobody freaks out or loses their shit in an attempt to get on the fleeing ship. Holden even stops his murderous revenge spree and swoops in with Alex and the Rocinante to save the day.
Holden grimly mentions that the reason they survived is because the Martian and Earth ships are “saving their bullets for each other.” Which means if shit went down this week, it’s definitely on next week.
The Expanse airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern on Syfy. The Season 2 finale is next week.
