The Expanse Season 6: How Grief Will Make The Show Better
As The Expanse winds down in its sixth season, grief over Alex and others takes a central role in bringing the focus back to the central characters.
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Caution: Spoilers ahead for The Expanse season 6.
Grief was palpable in every scene of The Expanse season 6 episode “Strange Dogs,” as the Amazon Prime series returns for its final season. Marco Inaros and his Free Navy have traumatized the entire system, adding a weight of darkness that feels far heavier than in previous seasons. Earth has been devastated by the stealth asteroids that Inaros has been hurling at the planet for months, and millions of unknown lives have been lost. The planet is irradiated, and life as Earth knows it may be unsustainable.
But despite the apocalyptic events, the most significant changes have been far more personal to the central cast. Cas Anvar’s unexpected exit from the show led to Alex Kamal’s sudden death by gravity-induced stroke. This event has changed everything for the crew of the Rocinante. This is especially true for Naomi, who appears to be suffering from severe survivor’s guilt. With the death of her husband, Arjun, Chrisjen Avasarala has lost her emotional ground and feels the weight of Earth’s survival on her shoulders. Bobbie Draper, a loyal Martian Marine, has been forced to defect from Mars, seeking asylum after discovering the Martian renegades working with Inaros. Even Camina Drummer and her crew are reeling from losing beloved family members while struggling to find a way free of Inaros’s grasp on the Belters.
These sudden changes–all tragic in their way–have left the main cast emotionally adrift as the show winds down, and this helplessness and grief, combined with the catastrophic events on earth, are precisely what the galaxy-spanning series needed to bring the story full circle. When The Expanse first began, it was about disconnected people trying to connect seemingly unrelated issues. Holden and the crew of the Knight were little more than strangers trying to survive and identify the stealth ship that destroyed the Canterbury. Jose Miller had just been assigned the case of a missing activist and heiress named Julie Mao. The Rocinante, the protomolecule, the ring, the dark gods, and Marco’s plan to destroy Earth weren’t yet revealed, but human relationships were the central focus in those first episodes. And loss was always the catalyst, from the Canterbury to Julie Mao.
As the show progressed, many of those early characters died or moved on. And as each one passed on—leaving their mark on the story The Expanse is telling—it has altered the characters that were left behind. By delving deeper into the grief and loss that all the characters have experienced, by dragging viewers through it with heavy sighs and dark-circled eyes, and by never giving anyone a moment to forget, it makes viewers a part of the crew, too. And while Alex’s death may not have been planned in the grand scheme of the show—and never occurred in the books—it and the other, more personal losses have served as the final catalyst of change that the show needed to bring the characters back to the small scale that the show began on.
This explicitly portrayed grief will tighten the show, strengthening its impact over the last six episodes of The Expanse season 6. It’s entirely likely that the ending would have been satisfying without Alex’s death because the show has always done what it needed to keep viewers invested. But satisfying isn’t the same as raw and impactful, and the grief that viewers are being encouraged to process will make the The Expanse season 6 bolder, and overall, more meaningful because of that communal loss.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/expanse-season-6-grief-loss-characters-grow-show-better/