Every X-Ray bonus episode of The Expanse, explained

X-Ray 4 — “Night Watch”

When to watch: After episode 4, “Redoubt”

"The doctrine of One Ship arose from paradoxes. The cold of space and the heat of a drive; bright stars and pure darkness; companionship in the void."

While “Night Watch” might seem like it could take place immediately after Holden and Clarissa Mao’s conversation during “Force Projection” where he assigns her to the night watch rotation for the first time, upon closer inspection there are some indicators that this X-Ray episode occurs on a different night. It begins innocently enough, giving us a glimpse of how Clarissa (Nadine Nicole) has gotten more comfortable in her role as a member of the Roci crew as she goes about checking maintenance logs and keeping an eye on the ship.

However, things get intense when she sits down to eat in the mess hall and casually checks her hand terminal…only to see a news story that her father, Jules-Pierre Mao, has died due to an underlying medical condition. Jules-Pierre (François Chau) was one of the architects behind the protomolecule scandal that tipped the galaxy toward its first interstellar war in the show’s early seasons. We haven’t seen him since he was sentenced to life in prison back in season 3, an event that sparked Clarissa’s vendetta against James Holden before she eventually joined his crew.

Despite trying to put her feelings about her father behind her, the news hits Clarissa hard. As she listens to the broadcast, which also reminds us that the galaxy at large believes her to be dead, she bites down on the mod implanted in one of her teeth. She crushes the hand terminal, and the screen cuts to black.

When it returns, Clarissa is regaining consciousness on the mess hall floor, surrounded by debris she made during a rampage we didn’t see. She groans and pushes herself up to sit amongst the wreckage, before opening a private journal entry through the Roci’s logs.

Nadine Nicole does a beautiful job with Clarissa’s monologue about the nature of parent-child relationships, reflecting on how even after her father basically betrayed the entire galaxy, the news of his death still devastated her. She has been quietly owning the screen every time she’s on it this season, and “Night Watch” is no exception. The episode hit hard.

“Night Watch” ends with Clarissa finishing her entry and preparing to clean up the mess she made. That the rest of the crew never even becomes aware of this personal struggle just makes it all the more powerful. Although she’s now part of the team, Clarissa keeps many of her issues to herself. But the fact that she used her mods again here lends more weight to the moment when she stumbles in “Why We Fight.” In that episode she brushes it off, but now we know that it happens because she’s used her mods more times than she’s letting Holden know about.

As a final note, we also have to point out that the pipe Clarissa added to the maintenance list is the same one that breaks in the season finale. So I guess they never got around to fixing that. The Roci has a pretty long list of repairs, after all.