'The Expanse' Season 4 ending explained: With Marco's impending attack, what chances do the Earthers have?
This article contains spoilers for Season 4
For a season that takes six episodes to establish just what exactly is going on, 'The Expanse' sure picks up the pace like crazy in its final episodes.
Finding a new home on Amazon Prime must have been ecstatic for the former SyFy show based on James SA Corey's literary franchise, and that would probably explain why they spend so long laying the groundwork of the show's plot in Season 4 — a manner of starter afresh, of sorts.
But as we near the ending, specifically the Season 4 finale, it is once again 'The Expanse' we have loved and adored since 2015 for its fast-paced sci-fi action and the ever so intriguing political twists.
And now, as we stand at the end of the pivotal season finale, let's take a look at the scenarios that Earthers bid us adieu at and see if we can explain some of the twists at the culmination, and what it means for the newly-announced Season 5.
The premise of this season is simple but stretched out quite elaborately. Basically, it's a war between the Belters and the New Terra or the RCE, over the ownership of the new barren but home planet Ilus.
Towards the end, even as the two come close and join forces to fight off the potential dreads that Ilus and its mysterious rings of intergalactic transportation pose, at its core, their loyalties remain where they were.
Nancy Gao becomes the secretary-general replacing Chrisjen Avasarala, the power dynamics on Ilus shifts too.
With most of them venturing off to Curus in the pursuit for better living conditions, those that get left behind are either people who have died in the war between the two groups of humans, or those who were directly responsible for the war, and the imminent massacre that killed more just a few people.
But even though Captain James Holden and his crew aim at keeping the sense of safety intact, worry arrives in the form of a certain Marco who single-handedly takes Klaes Ashford's life.
Klaes goes out like a badass, as he is shot into space from Marco's spaceship for being a traitor after he snuck onto the spaceship to stop Marco and his crew from targeting Cerus and Tycho and other planets subsequently.
Marco's crew is moving merchandize to shoot asteroids and other celestial bodies these planets' way as they want to teach Earthers a lesson for encroaching upon their land, and the Belters who saw the greater good and joined hands with the New Terra to save themselves from Ilus' impending doom, are seen as traitors in Marco's eyes.
In all of this, however, Marco's threats are the most worrisome because Naomi, the first officer in Holden's crew, drops certain facts that might be a detriment to life on Ilus.
Turns out Naomi has a son called Felipe, who is revealed to be with Marco right at the end of the episode when he tells Klaes in his final moments that Felipe is his son. Felipe seems heavily invested in Marco's plan, so if used as a threat, there's a high chance Naomi might do whatever it takes to keep Felipe alive.
But while we don't know what other insidious plans Maro has, we do know what plans Nancy has as the new in-charge of all things terrestrial. Nancy's plans are simple; she wants to reach out to further and beyond the extraterrestrial realms known to them with goals of exploration and colonization.
In the end, we see Nancy summon her predecessor — Chrisjen to Una, just to establish she is calling the shots now, and as Chrisjen requests Arjun to travel with her, his refusal indicates a strain in the couple's relationship.
And even though we know that humans can actually pass through the eerie rings without dying, what really becomes the question is whether or not Holden and his crew will be able to help the planets with human life withstand Marco's attack.
For now life might seem moving steadily upwards, but where Season 4 ends, it's a risky estimate for how long this peace will last.
'The Expanse' Season 4 premiered on Friday, December 13 and is up for streaming only on Amazon Prime.