The Expanse - 5.07: Oyedeng

[ctg]

Naomi makes a desperate attempt to save her son from Marco. On the Roci, Holden battles for the last sample of protomolecule.

 

[ctg]

First of all superb episode, with a lot of drama centred around Naomi. I first watched in the middle of the night, as I couldn't get sleep. Insomnia can be a bitch. But it is equally good on the second time. The Expanse is one of those series that you can watch time and again, and still find new things, details that you missed on the first run, just because everything is so detailed.

I know that a lot of FX production companies don't get celebrated, just because they do props, but without them putting in the effort and making sure everything looks as intended we would have less of a series. The eyecandies have their place and they play a crucial role on making sure that the audience is planted in the right setting. So here's me raising a hat for the amazing production team, you're the best!

The Boy. Oh I wish I could smack some sense into him, but honestly I kind of also want to applaud him making a decision even if it's a wrong one. From the point of when he was a little one he has been influenced by his father.

The mother never came into the picture, or even to a question, because she was absent thanks to Marco's action. The father literally kept her away for most of his life and didn't tell him a thing that would have put mummy in a positive spotlight.

And the Boy listened. Dad, after all, was his hero and there was nothing he wanted to do to disappoint him. Nothing. Not even when he should have realised what he had done was ultimately wrong.

Daddy even went to to claim that he's a hero because of what he'd done to start the war. Not even once saying that what the boy had done is more than what many other mad men had tried to achieve in the past.

I really don't how bad the conditions were back in Pallas when Naomi and Marco were lovers, but it cannot have been a very rosy. From the very beginning of the episode there is not a single drop of love running through his veins as he poisons the boy and then the mother with his words. Not action, but simple words almost as if he's Grima Wormtongue from the Lord of the Rings.

To be honest I get a strong snake wipe from his act. Snake and poison dripping from his tongue. All while he is showing his superior intellect. There is no doubt that in the other settings Marco could have become a strong leader, but all the settings in the past drove him down on a singular road, with most centred on making the Belt as strong as the Inner Planets.

All while he is crowned as a King of the Belt. That is ultimately the one thing what he wants. The glory and shine in the headlights. The power of the dictatorship. The power of deciding fates of millions, if not billions of people.

Too bad that he is the antagonist even though he is also a protagonist for the Belter movement. But for us, the audience, he is the ultimate bad man. Someone even worse than Mao, because Marco's actions are worse than chairman Mao's. But that is also the thing, because in the other hand I could easily compare him to the freedom fighter Che Guavera.

Naomi. What can I say?

When Marco arrived to her cell to present his ultimatum, she should have stayed in the cell and not wonder around this ship, getting set in the trap. She totally took the hook, line and sinker, while thinking: 'Don't do anything bad or Marco space me.'

I kind of liked that she made the boy to cry all while she poured into him motherly love. But as all the boys become rebels, she should have understood that the words coming out from her mouth meant nothing. Not to a boy. Not a man that she had missed most of her life.

I loved that her and daddy's relationship was the first love and it felt like that biggest, the bestest thing in the whole universe as it always is, before the inevitable rift drove them apart. The boy claimed to be his own man, even though he's still a boy until he reaches his thirties and the first drop of wisdom.

We men really know nothing when we are in our twenties. We do things that we think makes us the brightest star, even if the role is being a rebel. Naomi never understood that. She simply could not be the mother and learn all the lessons that come with the motherhood. Could she?

The only play she had was with Cyn and even that failed, because the old man couldn't find his balls to stand up on Marco's orders. All he had left was the guilt and memories of better times. It is almost as if he realised that he'd taken the wrong path and there was no way he could go back. Not even when Naomi made her final move and spaced herself.

I laughed so hard when Bobby plugged bullets from her flight suit and chucked them around as if was a normal thing. It's almost as if she'd expected that and were annoyed that some of them had passed through the power armour plates. Oh man the life of a space marine

I loved more that she denied Alex's help even though I'm pretty sure Alex has pretty extensive experience from patching Holden and Amos in Roci's sickbay. Bobby was just "It's not a thing, forget about it..." over his worries, which makes me love her even more.

I could even claim that she could become Avasarala later in her life, although I doubt she would be swearing, but it's that 'taking no sh1t' attitude that them two share. What a fine addition she is to Roci's crew. It is also interesting how totally relaxed she is on riding Alex's shotgun, even though we can be pretty certain that our jockey pushes Razorback hard, especially after Holden gave them orders to shadow the Free Navy.

 

[REBerg]

Excellent episode, especially in character development, giving us a detailed look into the Inaros Family dynamic and what's tripping Naomi's trigger.
The space settings are amazing, but I've got to question Naomi's unprotected, ship-to-ship leap. Regardless of whatever magic juice she injected, she should have been flash-frozen the second she hit the vacuum.
Deep space temperatures are uncomfortably close to absolute zero, yet Naomi was able to use her hands for the injection and to open the destination airlock? The realistic result would have been her dead body smashing into a myriad of red-tinged particles when it hit the hull.
Don't they keep emergency spacesuits in those airlocks?
I'm sure that she will survive the experience, given the amount of story time she was given in this episode. After all, she is a central character, Jim's love interest and the most likely person to flip Filip.

 

[ctg]

Regardless of whatever magic juice she injected, she should have been flash-frozen the second she hit the vacuum.

Nope. You got it wrong. Space is space and it certainly isn't absolute zero everywhere. For example on Moon, during the daytime, the temperatures can reach whopping hundred degrees of Celcius and in the nighttime I can plunge down to minus hundred seventy something.

The thing that they brilliant capture is the water vapour, both leaving from eyes and a mouth. It is smoke in the vacuum of space, and if you cannot stop it, the smokiness can obstruct everything until there is nothing left and you die.

US back in the day did tests on animals on vacuum exposure and you'd lose conciouness in around 15 to 20 seconds. You would probably have around 3 minutes before you would suffocate, but the biggest problem would be with your blood and other liquids becoming gaseous.

We don't know what the magic juice does, but we can assume that it counters some of the effects and allow the patient probably live to another day.

Don't they keep emergency spacesuits in those airlocks?

You wouldn't have time to get in one and power it up. So what's the point?

 

[REBerg]

Nope. You got it wrong. Space is space and it certainly isn't absolute zero everywhere.

Hmm. I guess that depends on how close the nearest heat-storing chunk of matter might have been.

The average temperature of empty space between celestial bodies is calculated at 3 kelvins (minus 270.15 degrees Celsius or minus 457.87 degrees Fahrenheit). Absolute zero, the temperature at which absolutely all activity stops, is zero kelvins (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius or minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit).
- The Temperatures of Outer Space Around the Earth

You wouldn't have time to get in one and power it up. So what's the point?

I would have found it more believable than a suitless deep space jump.

 

[svalbard]

I love the space battles in this series. They are really dramatic and seem realistic even though it is Sc-Fi. Can't wait for Inaros to come against Holden and the Roccinante.

This was a superb episode. The development of all the characters is a real strength of the series. I am with REBerg on Naomi surviving that space dive. For a second I thought we were having an Eddard Stark moment. And in a way that would have being absolutely powerful. Yet I am happy how it turned out although still doubtful as to how believable it was.