“Everyone brace!” James Holden says in the teaser above, and that about sums it up. The first look at the sixth and, sadly, final season of The Expanse is light on details—and heavy on drama and chaos. Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander) is still out there, and people are still listening to him. Which means destruction is basically inevitable.
The teaser is only forty-six seconds long, which is not nearly enough, but importantly, it concludes with a release date: In two months, on December 10th, we’ll be back on board the Rocinante.
The teaser, in a short and choppy way, goes for the gut: Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) gets the voiceover with a speech about how Marco’s power is growing, and how they need to remember everything they’ve lost (cue Amos looking at the placard in the Roci that lists every owner, even the one no longer with them). It’s all hugs and tears and Marco/Filip (Jasai Chase Owens) drama that will come to a head in the show’s final season, which will likely line up to some degree with the sixth book, Babylon’s Ashes.
In season five, Marco Inaros’s forces struck a devastating blow to the inner planets when they threw asteroids at the Earth, wreaking havoc and killing millions. Out in the Belt, Naomi (Dominique Tipper) went looking for her ex and their son, and found herself captured. Meanwhile, Drummer (Cara Gee) and her people were trying to build their own lives—only to have Marco come looking for them, too.
And then there’s the Ring, the gate to hundreds of new systems; the alien protomolecule, less seen but certainly not forgotten; and all the complexity of the show’s space politics. Season five was an explosive but thoughtful look at how people justify their actions: When is something that seems wrong actually right? When can you justify the use of force and when is it about ego? It was a season focused on loss and survival, and it set up what should be a brilliant finale.
The Expanse‘s final season premieres on Amazon on December 10th, and episodes will air weekly. The final Expanse novel, Leviathan Falls, is out November 30th from Orbit.
