The Expanse 4x03 Reaction

Truth is, i always felt like the show didn't do a good enough job of explaining all this that jveezy, so methodically explained. I also felt like they took the easy route of making Murtry a clearly psychotic and evil dude right from the get go and the belters as the clear cut victims in all this (by leaving out some very important steps of the escalation of violence, that up to a point gives better justification to Murtry's decisions). This oversimplification i believe hurt the season a bit (as i believe is among the weakest of the show... still good, but compared to the other seasons, probably the weakest)

AlexBoss

Also agree, however when Naomi collapses and Murtry just turns his back and walks out, his true character and nature is revealed. He cares nothing for other human beings no matter where they are from. When someone collapses, you help. He didn't. Not one to follow no matter what.

DrEEsky

I 100% agree. I read the books before seeing the series and I don't believe this diminishes the enjoyment of the show at all. Because the writers of the books are also show writers, they do put some twists and turns in that book readers are not anticipating so there is always surprises waiting for us all! We are all hoping that books 7-9 are adapted as they are AMAZING!! But we have to wait out whatever contract Alcon (who owns the rights) worked out with Amazon. There is a time jump of about 25 - 30 years and Milena is right, people in this century do live longer (especially inners... as we heard in the first season from the coroner). So anyhow, if you want to see what happens, read or listen to the last 3 books. They are so good and so packed that I have already reread them 2-3 x and enjoy them each time (hard to say that for almost any other book series!!) Burn Gorman (the actor) plays Murtry in this season and Amos intentionally bungles his name until things get serious (in that bar scene). "you and I may end up bloody". Murtry is not prepared to carry out his threats to Amos but very happy to carry out murder when he has a lot of back up. And Bobbie: what a great arc for her!! As you love her so much you will be totally invested in her story this season. The items that the Belters were picking up were Tightbeam Encryption Modules, to allow private conversations between ships, so, technically NOT weapons but still useful.

DrEEsky

Not that this justifies anything, but since you asked, RCE has an actual charter from the UN that gives them the legal "right" to the planet for research purposes. This charter was granted when the planet was empty, but the Ganymede refugees were already at the ring gate and ran there and landed first, months before RCE. I doubt they intended to cause any conflicts, but they were desperate and just needed somewhere to go. Nobody's even supposed to be on a planet right now except scientists, because leaders like Chrisjen want to be very cautious and spend years doing research to avoid triggering any protomolecule incidents. This is the dispute that Holden's been sent there to settle (on top of the protomolecule investigation). On one side he has the people who got there first and established a small civilization, and on the other side there's the people representing the corporation that has a legal government contract to be there. Murtry thinks that he can do anything he wants and be justified legally because of that charter. He thinks he's defending the company's interests, and the company is the one with the legal right to the planet. The Ganymede refugees are just trespassers to him, and some of those trespassers are terrorists. The way he behaves is like a person who gets involved in a dispute (like a car accident or divorce or something) and won't apologize for anything because they don't want to lose legal ground if the apology gets seen as an admission of guilt. He acts like if he helps the refugees in any way, some court somewhere back in Sol System will say that that's admitting that the Belters have some right to be there. It's also worth noting that he wasn't supposed to be the leader. I think the guy he was talking to in episode 1 was the captain, but he got killed during the landing. Murtry's just head of security, so he thinks and acts like he's the next person with the authority to lead the RCE team in the captain's absense. Everyone else is too scared of the refugees (and maybe of him) to challenge him. He's going way overboard, but maybe the RCE employees are willing to settle for that when he's acting like he's doing this to protect them from the people who already tried to kill them.

jveezy

The books and the show are a little different. Show-Drummer isn't in the books for example. There are some other differences that are spoilery to get into. The characters you'll have in season 6 / book 6 will appear in the remaining books.

Kevin Lyda

shit ya I deleted it

Gilbert Serrano

The Barbapiccola never landed on Ilus. Being a big ship it couldn't. Its shuttles, which were light ones, did. The Edward Israel also has light shuttles, but their heavy shuttle, which was destroyed in the first episode, couldn't land on the surface either, so it needed the pad to land on.

Nonman

It's very nice of you to tell the reactors that the Roci crew are still alive by book 7, that is essentially for the entire TV show. You saved them a lot of worry for the remaining 23 episodes. I'm not sure they would've wanted that, though. I sincerely hope that they don't read the comments since half of them are full of spoilers.

Nonman

Gilbert Serrano

The books are excellent, in some ways better than the series which while a very good adaptation leaves lots out.

Gilbert Serrano

It's always been perplexing to me why two small groups of people have to fight over a few hundred sq. meters of land on a planet roughly the size of Earth. You'd think there'd be enough room and resources for everyone. If RCE had just landed on the other side of the planet they would have saved everyone a lot of needless trouble. It's not like they needed the Belter's landing pad. If the Belters were able to land without a landing pad in a single, damaged ship, a company like RCE, with the recources and backing of the UN, could have easily done the same.

Anthony Ubelhor

If they don't continue the TV series past books 6.5, I recommend continuing on to books 7-9.5 after you finish season 6. This way you don't have to wait to know what happens. Afterwards you can go back and start with book 1 to begin the journey again from the literary perspective. No sense in denying yourselves an impactful outcome.

Troy Soldier

Books 7-9 do follow the same characters, with a couple of new ones getting point of view chapters as well. There have been hints that Alcon / the showrunners want to adapt the last 3 books in some manner and that the end of season 6 was just a pause for the time being. Keeping my fingers crossed, as those books are as good as anything that came before.

NJ