As Earth and Mars both go through identity crises – thanks to rampant unemployment and political unrest – Marcos sees an opportunity for the OPA to thrive, to claim one of the 1800 habitable systems on the other side of The Rings as their own.
THE EXPANSE SEASON 4 RECAP PLUS
Arrested after being found responsible for the attack on the Sojourner, Marcos is handed to the coalition formed by the most prominent belter factions – plus Klaes and Camina, speaking for their respective home stations and the heads of the OPA organization.Īs Marcos sits in flotation, at the mercy of the leaders adamant in their participation of the peace negotiated between belters and inners, he argues that the OPA has turned soft, capitulating to the people who’ve done nothing but repress them for centuries. Thankfully, there are pockets of depth to be found in “Retrograde,” be it with Bobbie’s existential descent, or the fascinating dissemination of belter politics, fed through the twisted prism of a radical OPA terrorist (and again, the father of Naomi Nagata’s child). Sure, The Expanse has had cliffhangers and off-kilter endings before, but the cut to black is so dissonant with how the show usually approaches storytelling – and while it is evocative, it is a bit more hollow than I would’ve expected. It is a direct tease to the audience to ‘keep watching,’ a rare example of The Expanse titillating without any sense of direction, any hints where the story is heading. It is a maddening end to the hour, a colon deployed where much more definitive punctuation would have an impact.
THE EXPANSE SEASON 4 RECAP SERIES
It culminates in the stream-iest moment of the series to date Holden walking up to Murtry, casually punching him in the face, and walking off as the episode cuts to credits. Lucia realizes her streak of independence has put her family in danger, and the scientists on the RCE ship are starting to contend with the idea Murtry may have gone mad with power, locking down the camp, imprisoning Amos, and personally attempting to hunt down Lucia and Naomi as they rushed back to the Rocinante. The brewing conflict on Ilus also has some pacing issues, but the thoroughline of identity is much more compelling and layered, as Murtry’s rampage of vengeance causes a ripple effect through the belter camp. Tynan, where enigmatic terrorist (and ex-lover of Naomi) Marco Inaros meets his judgment (and undeniably the meatiest part of the hour… we’ll come back to that), “Retrograde” feels like it is adopting an approach more akin to its streaming brethren – while it is certainly not a step down in quality, the pacing of it all feels just off enough to be a bit concerning for the season to follow. But with but a few scenes to spare between them while the rest of the hour wanders around Ilus and The O.P.A.S. Scenes like Avasarala’s interview and Bobbie’s shift towards the dark side feel like placeholders for later episodes to follow, bits whose prominence in later episodes will give shape to the overall arc of the season.īut in “Retrograde,” they feel like half a thought, a way to connect two stories about women diving head first into the mud, in the hopes they’ll come out whole on the other side. But the unsatisfying feeling of “Retrograde” runs a bit deeper, a shift in The Expanse‘s known identity from a show airing weekly over a few months, to a series that will most likely be consumed in a few sittings. Part of that comes from being a middle chapter of a season of The Expanse while always able to start and finish strong, The Expanse is always privy to having an episode or two buckle a bit under the strain of its narrative and thematic ambitions. Like “Subduction,” “Retrograde” is an inherently unsatisfying hour it is the amuse-bouche between courses, serving its role as connective tissue and palette cleanser between larger, more dramatic moments with stylistic panache. In that vein, “Retrograde” is a rather moving hour, one that succeeds in spite of its construction, the first episode where The Expanse‘s rhythms begin to embody those of a streaming series, rather than adhering to the spirit of its broadcast roots. But the reference of regression isn’t geological – it’s biological, as the tenuous truce in every corner of the galaxy begin to dangerously fracture.
Given the title, one might think “Retrograde” is a rather static episode of The Expanse‘s fourth season.
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