User:Jack Sebastian/Babylon's Ashes - The Expanse (TV series)

"Babylon's Ashes" is the sixth episode of the sixth and final season of the American science fiction television series The Expanse. It originally premiered on Amazon Studios in the United States on January 14, 2022, written by creators Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, and directed by Breck Eisner. The episode title draws its name from the sixth Expanse novel of the same name by James S. A. Corey.

Showrunner Daniel Abraham had announced in 2020 that Season 6 was the ending of the series while noting in later interviews that further seasons could happen, pointing out that there were three more existing books to adapt material from.

"Babylon's Ashes" continues the events of the previous episode, wherein the Inners (residents of the inner planets of the solar system) and Belters (residents of the asteroid belt's various mining groups) join the crew of the Rocinante in a desperate, high-stakes battle against Marco and his Free Navy.

The series finale was met with largely positive reviews.

On Lanconia
Cara's (Emma Ho) parents are horrified when they discover she used the strange creatures in the wilderness outside of the colony to resurrect her dead younger brother Xan (Ian Ho), who returns home visibly infected by the protomolecule. Cara's father confirms his fears by watching Xan heal from a knife wound, and decides to notify the soldiers. Cara and Xan flee into the woods, with Xan pondering why his parents were afraid of him.

The Free Navy
Aboard the Pelle, Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander), fools Camina Drummer's (Cara Gee) Belter attack fleet into attacking the wrong ship and uses the resulting misdirection to cripples Drummer's fleet. As the Pelle starts to move away, Drummer prepares to crash her ship into it in a suicide mission that would destroy them both. Liang Walker (Stuart Hughes) does so in her stead, his destroyed ship badly damaging The Free Navy flagship.

Limping back to the Ring, Admiral Duarte (Dylan Taylor) denies Inaros refuge, rearmament or repair from Lanconia, effectively abandoning him. Filip (Jasai Chase Owens), disillusioned with his father's goals after the death of Rosenfeld Guoliang (Kathleen Robertson), quietly leaves the Pelle in a small ship and takes the name 'Filip Nagata'.

The Rocinante
In an attempt to wrest control of the rail gun emplacements on the Ring, the ship uses a remote-controlled ice freighter the Giambattista to deliver different strike teams to do so, but the teams are overwhelmed by the withering firepower of enemy troops stationed to protect the rail guns. Bobbie Draper (Frankie Adams) manages to single-handedly destroy the power source for the rail guns, rendering them inert, and the Rocinante wipes out the Free Navy forces.

Knowing that Inaros' Free Navy fleet is on its way, Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper) suggests that instead of trying to mount a counter-attack, they instead concentrate on awakening the entities dormant within the Ring. Believing she is also killing her son aboard the Pelle, she momentarily hesitates before overloading the Giambattista's energy core, detonating it and awakening the entities, which annihilate Marco Inaros and his ship. Nagata is overcome with guilt, knowing that while she has ended the war, she has ended the life of her only son as well.

In the aftermath of the trade union formation, Bobbie becomes the new pilot for the ship.

The Trade Union
The representatives of Earth, Mars and the Belter Union gather to discuss the formation of a trade union, but the Belters, led by Drummer balk at potentially being constantly outvoted in any substantive decision-making by the Inners. Holden, in attendance, points out that Inaros was as successful as he was by taking advantage of the Belter fear that the fruits of the future would always be held back from them. Earth's Secretary General Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) then proposes that the trade union be independent, based at Medina Station and led by someone without allegiances to any faction; she nominates Holden, as he would be an acceptable choice amongst all three groups. He reluctantly agrees, but upon official acceptance of the post, he immediately resigns and appoints Drummer in his place, to ensure true parity among the Inners and the Belters.

In the darkness of space, the Ring occasionally shimmers with protomolecule blue and entity red...

Production
The episode, entitled "Babylon's Ashes", was written by show creators Daniel Abraham, Ty Franck, and Naren Shankar, using the same title as the sixth book of the novel series, and directed by Breck Eisner. It is the sixth episode and 62nd overall episode of the series, serving as both the season and series finale.

Easter egg
Reviewers were quick to notice a major easter egg within the episode. During the Rocinanate's attack on the Ring's rail gun emplacements, the names of several prominent characters from science fiction books, television and film were listed on a video screen depicting the various members of the strike team. Among the names listed were as follows :

Alpha Team: Gial Ackbar from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi; Douglas Quaid from Total Recall; David Bowman from 2001: A Space Odyssey; Commander Shepard from Mass Effect; Duncan Idaho from Dune; Alex Rogan from The Last Starfighter; Jason Nesmith from Galaxy Quest and Edward Buck Halo

Bravo Team: Shaenon K. Garrity, a sci-fi author and webcomic creator; Ellen Ripley, Dwayne Hicks, Hudson and Vasquez from the Alien films; Joseph Cooper, from Interstellar; John Anderton from Minority Report; Rick Deckard from Blade Runner and Jack O'Neill from Stargate.

Charlie Team: Lucky Starr, a character from the Isaac Asimov book series of the same name; Louise Banks from Arrival; Kevin Flynn from Tron; Ron (sic) Neary from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind; Johnny Rico from Starship Troopers; Kara Thrace from Battlestar Galactica; Sarah Connor, from the The Terminator; Ryan Stone from Gravity and William Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Post-production
The ‘’Expanse Aftershow S6E6’’ produced by Amazon Studios and hosted by Wes Chatham and Ty Franck discussed the finale at length with Dominique Tipper and Steven Strait, focusing on the development of the characters Holden and Nagita as well as the end of the season (and the series). Chatham recalled a conversation between himself and Strait during season 3 where they had been discussing the shows they had watched when young which had made an impact on them, asking Strait if he felt that The Expanse would serve as that to others. Strait felt that it would, noting that "as an actor, as an artist of any kind, you want to feel that you are part of something important - and we did that." Strait further noted that his overarching goal during the series to portray the natural and realistic growth as a leader, especially with his character's "messy 'strength through humility,' and a very different kind of masculinity, based on empathy and sensitivity." Strait notes that this culminates in season 6, where his character steps away from a prominent leadership role and "exhibits a very different kind of courage" in knowing his own limitations and not needing to be in control. Strait recalls Daniel (Abraham) summing Holden by saying that "Holden starts the series by rejecting a job out of immaturity, and ends it rejecting it our of maturity."

The actor also noted how he made a point of losing weight so as to reflect that all of the decisions leading up to the final season have worn down Holden terribly. Franck had noted that he, Naren (Shankar), and Daniel agree that Holden is the most difficult character to write for, citing the length of his arc and how gradual his evolution is. He agreed with Strait's interpretation of Holden as a very non-traditional type of hero; whereas the American Western type of hero is "the lone gunman who rides into town, shoots all the bad guys and rides off; Holden's not that guy. He wins by building consensus, by building communities." Franck described how that type of hero is difficult to convey to an American audience, and so had to be guided gradually along to arrive to understand how and why Holden is a heroic figure.

Tipper remarked at how surprised she was that the series had become so specially unique, from its cancellation at Syfy to "the fans saving it " bringing about the renewal at Amazon Prime.

Tipper pointed out that humans - by the end of the show - had finally started to learn from their mistakes of the past and make corrections that have, historically, never been made in the real world. Likening the decision to that of colonizers agreeing that the indigenous peoples should have control over their lands, Tipper reflects that, as a woman of color, found Holden stepping down to provide the Belters with greater control over their future to be "so satisfying".

Beginning December 16, 2020, Wes Chatham and Ty Franck started hosting weekly programs that feature behind-the-scenes information about the series, first as The Expanse Season 5 Aftershow after each season's episode.[113] Upon the conclusion of Season 5 (after the airing of the season 5 finale), they continued on Wednesdays as audio/video Ty & That Guy Podcast, covering each series' episode, from The Expanse S1E1, additionally discussing their inspirations from genre culture, and occasionally having guests both related and not to the series.[114][115] Ty & That Guy ranked 2nd on the 2021 Feedspot Best 10 The Expanse Podcasts (TV Series) list.[116] The Expanse Season 6 Aftershow with Chatham and Franck, produced by Amazon Studios, was distributed by Amazon Prime Video and Ty & That Guy Podcast in video and audio formats.

Critical response
Babylon's Ashes has met with significant positive response. Michael Ahr from Den of Geek noted that the finale delivered a "satisfying but open-ended conclusion to the series" and argues that the series ended in the only way that it could, with the looming threat represented by Duarte's alien shipyards on the other side of the Ring. Adam Park of CBR considers the final episode to be a bittersweet ending for the fans; he recalls a panel discussion at New York Comic Con 2021, wherein actors Wes Chatham and Steven Strait stated that the final season was "a love letter to to the fans...who allowed us to finish this story.