THE EXPANSE – Season 3 Episode 11 – SPOILERS

After Tilly (Genelle Williams) explains to Anna Volovodov that Clarissa Mao (masquerading as Melba Koh) tried to kill her and wants to kill James Holden, Anna sets out in pursuit of the rogue technician. (Tilly dies, not from injuries inflicted by Clarissa, but from being impaled on what looks like a piece of pipe.)

Following the sudden deceleration of the Behemoth, Camina Drummer (Cara Gee) and Klaes Ashford (David Strathairn) are pinned against equipment in the machine elevator but no one knows they are there. (Drummer needed some alone time so she told no one where she was going.) Anna is able to track Tilly electronically, but the Belter crew on the Behemoth cannot identify the locations of officers and crew. Has no one invented the equivalent of Star Trek’s combadge? No technological barrier seems to prevent its existence in The Expanse universe, but none of these devices has so far been visible.

The sudden deceleration (to 28.997 meters per second) caused many deaths and injuries on the Behemoth, the Xuesen, and on the Thomas Prince. Being drum-shaped and half a kilometer in diameter, the Behemoth is able to create spin-gravity by rotating the drum. Some wounds are impossible to treat in zero-G, so once a tangential velocity slightly under the new speed limit is achieved (generating pseudo-gravity of 1/3 G), Ashford, who has replaced the incapacitated Drummer as Captain, invites the Martians and the UNN to send their casualties for treatment. (1/3 G is also the spin gravity on Ceres Station. Martian gravity is only slightly greater.)

Privates Oshi (Sabryn Rock) and Trepp (Hamad Dar) irrationally blame Holden for everything that has happened, and are not at all happy to be taking care of him. The two privates are also displeased at the thought of Martians receiving assistance from the Behemoth. One understands the enmity between Martians and Earthers, but why do Martians harbour such distaste for Belters? It would seem that they have quite a bit in common with them.

Private Oshi calculates that it would take seven months for any of the ships inside The Ring to return to normal space at their currently reduced speed. That would mean the ships are about 500,000 kilometers from where they entered.

There are a whole lot of people traveling between ships in spacesuits, so the suits must have some sort of internal navigation system, and they must not be terribly difficult to operate. (Volovodov chases Mao from the Thomas Prince to the Rocinante in a spacesuit, and one would not expect Anna to have had much EVA training.)

NOTES

Dwight Ireland (Mess Hall Medic) will play a doctor in Episode Four of THE ROMANOFFS, an anthology series about people who believe themselves to be modern-day descendants of the Romanov family. Each of the eight episodes will have a different cast, a different story, and a different location. (The Romanov family ruled Russia from 1613 until 1917. In July of 1918, Tsar Nicholas II and his family were executed, ending the dynasty, but many believe that the Tsar’s daughter, Anastasia, survived.) At least one episode was filmed in Constanta, Romania, a place visited by the Romanoff family in 1914. Created by Matt Weiner, THE ROMANOFFS will premiere on Amazon later this year.

Ana Shepherd (stunt double for Anna Hopkins and Shohreh Aghdashloo) will be “Constance Creature” in Episode 3.8 of WYNONNA EARP, titled “Waiting Forever For You”. WYNONNA EARP Season Three will premiere on SyFy in the US and on Space Channel in Canada on 20 July at 9pm .

The episode of THE EXPANSE was directed by Jennifer Phang, who also directed Episode 1.6 of CLOAK & DAGGER, titled “Funhouse Mirrors” in which Tyrone (Aubrey Joseph) tries to get closer to the cop who killed his brother, and Tandy (Olivia Holt) pretends to be a Roxxon intern. “Funhouse Mirrors” is scheduled to air on Thursday, 5 July at 8/7c on Freeform.







