The Expanse review: “Babylon’s Ashes” delivers a powerful ending

The lead-up

From here, “Babylon’s Ashes” checks in with all the different parties involved in the battle. We see Filip (Jasai Chase-Owens) looking conflicted as he hears people on the Pella talk about how Drummer is licking the Inners’ boots. Marco (Keon Alexander) and Rosenfeld (Kathleen Robertson) discuss how there might be one more surprise coming to help them from Laconia. On the Roci, Holden and Bobbie reflect on the ship’s Martian origins and Naomi advises Amos that Clarissa is looking up to him in the same way that he once looked up to her back on the Canterbury. It’s equal parts setup and reminder of how far everyone has come (and how much they have to lose.)

That point is driven home when it’s revealed that Clarissa is suffering an endocrine system collapse due to repeated use of her super strength mods. It’s untreatable and she now has a life expectancy of five years. So that’s some bad news right before the battle.

Extra points need to be given for foreshadowing here. Aside from the fact that Clarissa has been stumbling and acting dizzy regularly throughout this season, another symptom of the medical issue she’s having is a salt craving. Remember how she’s been dumping it on her food this season?

It all leads to Clarissa deciding to cook the crew one last proper meal before they go into battle. The dinners were always really enjoyable bonding moments, with various characters gathering around the table in the Roci’s mess hall and finding common ground over full bellies. It’s been missing since the ship’s chef/pilot Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar) died at the end of season 5. So Clarissa turning around and putting her grief into something to bring the crew together feels like the perfect sendoff for these characters we’ve all come to know and love before their final battle.

First contact

It’s a fast track from there into the battle’s opening salvo. The U.N. has identified Marco’s ship, the Pella, thanks to a drive signature that Holden provided them. Drummer brings her Belter fleet to bear on another frigate and the shooting starts. The music on The Expanse is always excellent, but during this sequence it really steps it up. You can tell that composer Clinton Shorter pulled out all the stops for the series finale, and it gives the whole sequence an extra gravity.

On my first watch, there were moments that I felt were somewhat anticlimactic, like the torpedoing of the “Pella” by the U.N. Fleet. But then you realize that that anticlimax is actually just part of the extremely clever writing that the show is always pulling off, giving you that same feeling of being tricked as the allied fleet once it becomes clear that Marco Inaros’ Pella is actually disguised as a freighter in a different part of the battlefield. Casualties mount, with Liang Walker attempting a last heroic suicide run on Marcos’ ship. Though it fails, Rosenfeld is killed while Filip watches on helplessly. The whole sequence is brutal as hell, and the spaceship effects are breathtaking.

The end result is that Drummer’s ship is knocked out of the fight, and Marco Inaros manages to slip away from the combined fleet to continue his mad dash towards the Ring.

I’ll admit, I was a little surprised not to see more spaceship-to-spaceship combat in this sequence…but considering that we’re only 25 minutes into the episode and there’s still a lot of action to come, it feels more like a choice of where to put that special effects budget. And considering what’s next, it’s clear the right choices were made.