Recap / The Expanse S 01 E 02 The Big Empty

Season 1, Episode 2:

The Big Empty

The episode opens in the galley on the Canterbury. Ade is teaching Holden how to make coffee from shipboard ingredients, including the phosphorous from a match head trick we saw last time. Judging by Holden's expression, it tastes terrible. Ade laughs and says it's an acquired taste. The two exchange names, and then Ade repeats her last words as a blinding light fills the screen:

Ade: Jim, there's something you should know.

On the Knight, Holden emerges from his reverie as Alex tries to get his attention: the debris field from the Canterbury's death is inbound. Alex says he'll try to steer the Knight out of the debris, but they're in for a rough ride. The crew steels themselves as Alex sends the ship into hard maneuvers and lights the engines.

The Scopuli is hit first, and almost immediately ripped in half by the storm of shrapnel. The debris then hits the Knight, sending it spinning. More hits: a comm array is bent out of shape and one of the three main engine bells is crushed inward. Finally, debris smashes open the airlock door, causing the cabin to begin venting to space. Holden makes his way down to the opening in the floor, using the manual override to forcibly close the interior airlock, as Amos and Naomi work to fight the fires that have broken out on the ship. Holden gets the airlock closed just as the Knight clears the debris.

With the immediate crisis handled, Holden's relief gives way to righteous anger, ordering Alex not to lose the stealth ship that killed the Canterbury. Everyone else is incredulous; Naomi thinks it's suicide. Amos points out they might not like being followed. Holden doesn't care: if the ship disappears off scopes, it's gone, and they'll get away with what they did. Holden tries to order Alex to do it, and when he refuses (Amos pointing out that rank doesn’t mean much anymore), Holden pulls Alex out of the chair and sits down to do it himself. With a few keystrokes, Naomi locks Holden out and shuts off the drive. Holden is furious, but Naomi holds firm. Holden stomps off to brood.

On Ceres, the absence of the Canterbury's water shipment is already being noticed: in the case of Detective Miller, he notices it by exceeding his water ration in the middle of a shower, shampoo still in his hair. As Miller leaves to go to work, he catches the gossip from a local card shark. The shipment isn't late, he says, the Inners are holding it back. One late shipment means people are thirsty, two late shipments mean people start dying.

Elsewhere, Miller uses his Star Helix credentials to access Julie Mao's apartment, where he starts poking through her messages. He listens to a message from her father, Jules-Pierre Mao, who is alternating between cajoling her, berating her, and threatening to sell her prized racing ship, the Razorback, to try to get Julie to return home. Julie's reply calls his bluff, telling her father that what she thinks makes him angriest about her is that she reminds him of himself. Miller listens, watching her intently, playing with a rosary he picked up in the apartment. Miller then rifles through Julie's closet, and then, seeing her water ration untouched, decides to make good use of it finishing his shower from the morning. As he finishes, he hears a squeaking from the main living space, and sees a robotic hamster running endlessly on a hamster wheel. "Keep it up, partner," he says, wistfully, "you'll get there."

In New York, UN undersecretary-general Sadavir Errinwright confronts Avasarala over having had a Belter on hooks for 20 hours. Avasarala tries to explain, but Errinwright cuts her off: the Secretary-General has disavowed gravity torture, and if she wants to talk to their Belter captive, she needs to put him in a water tank. Cut to just that. Unfortunately, despite all her efforts, Avasarala isn't able to get any answers about why he was smuggling stealth technology, and to whom.

Back on the Knight, the situation is dire. The radio's dead, the ship has four hours of oxygen, and only enough fuel to get them a third of the way to Ganymede, or maybe to the edge of the shipping lanes. Problem is, with no radio they just look like debris, so fixing that is a priority. Naomi says the circuit board is fried, and guesses the external antenna got damaged in the debris. Holden volunteers to go out and take a look, but Alex points out that with the outer airlock door gone, there's no way to get into the airlock without venting the ship. Holden says that's what they have to do: everything depends on fixing the radio. Naomi sends Amos with him, but not before Holden has to help Shed through a shock-induced panic attack, using one of Shed's sedative strips to calm him down. Outside, Holden and Amos reach the antenna, and Holden observes that the antenna, bent sideways, isn't going to be sending messages any time soon. Amos responds that it could always be worse.

Then it starts arcing electricity. Okay, Amos says, it's worse.

On Ceres, Miller and Havelock are called to the swanky lower levels to investigate a mysterious dead patch in one of the green spaces, which they suspect to be one of the local gangs stealing water again. Havelock trades some pointed remarks with the local official, pointing out that if all the Belters on Ceres had the same view, they might respect it more. The official responds by handing Havelock a small cactus, telling him that now, he can make his own view.

Outside the Knight, Holden and Amos are working on the antenna, Holden managing to lose a wrench when he forgets they're under thrust and not microgravity, causing it to fall away from the ship. Holden tries to start a conversation, asking Amos where on Earth he's from. Amos is incredulous, pointing out they're probably all going to be dead in a few hours. When Holden asks why Amos is even bothering with this if that's what he thinks, Amos just says "because Naomi told me to." As far as Amos is concerned, she's captain, not Holden.

Inside the ship, Alex is starting to get delirious, while Naomi is in the guts of the ship, working on the cooked board. Holden asks Amos whether he and Naomi are an item. Amos is a little puzzled, but as Holden says it's none of his business, Amos cuts him off.

Amos: You must think I'm pretty stupid, don't you? I mean, you're right. I can take a core apart and put it back together with my eyes closed, but ask me whether or not I should rip your helmet off and kick you off this bucket and I can't give you a reason why I should. Or shouldn't. 'Cept Naomi wouldn't like it.

Amos then asks Holden to pass him a drill. Inside, Alex is completely delirious. Shed pulls Alex away from the helm and sees that his rebreather is failing—Alex is hypoxic. Shed hooks up his breather to Alex's, but the connection is leaky and they don't have much air left. Holden and Amos rush to finish the repairs on the antenna, but Naomi says it's still reading no carrier. Holden, fed up, resorts to kicking it a few times, until something connects and the power comes back on. Holden and Amos scramble back inside, seal the airlock, and pressurize the ship. Alex is barely conscious, Shed is not. Holden begins administering CPR to Shed, to no apparent effect, but after a few moments, Shed regains consciousness, and immediately starts groaning in pain from the chest compressions. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

In New York, Avasarala is trying to convince Errinwright to send the Belter prisoner to Luna for "deeper interrogation." Errinwright doesn't see the urgency in getting him to Luna; their budget's already blown to hell. Avasarala is entirely unconcerned: being in an appointed position and two heartbeats away from the Secretary-General's office makes her effectively accountable to nobody. She believes that the OPA is trying to produce stealth weapons, but Errinwright is skeptical—if Earth can't afford a stealth program, the Belters certainly can't. Unless, Avasarala points out, they have outside assistance, like from Mars. Errinwright responds that a cold war is a bloodless war, with both sides maintaining codependency and neither side really wanting to change. Avasarala says the cold war is over: this is something new.

On the Knight, the survivors have a new problem. The signal from the antenna is still too weak to be picked up, even with the repairs. Holden suggests rigging up an amplifier—Amos points out it would take a shit-ton of power, but Naomi thinks she can do it. She tells everyone to start stripping out anything with a power supply. The team gets to work, but a stray comment by Shed blaming Ade's compassion for the mess they're in nearly causes Holden to get into a fight with Shed. Naomi reminds them they're wasting air, and privately tells Holden that if he wants to unburden his conscience, to do it on his own time.

On Ceres, Miller and Havelock are tracing the water line to the lower levels, looking for the illegal tap. Havelock is keeping the cactus, saying he has plans for it. They both note that the maintenance worker helping them has a prominent OPA tattoo, and when Miller comments on that, the worker says his boss has one just like it. After a bit of feeling around, they find the tap.

In a warehouse on a higher level, some Belter teenagers are distilling greywater to sell for drinking when Miller and Havelock bust in. The rest scatter, but the ringleader, Diogo, doesn't get away. After a brief scuffle, Miller gets him restrained, telling him that not only is he stupid for stealing water in Loca Griega territory ("they would feed you your fingers") but he screwed the golden goose by siphoning so much water that people noticed. The kid tells Miller the Griegas are gone and is incredulous that a cop is giving him pointers on being a gangster. Miller says the first lesson is this: picking pockets and rolling drunks is one thing, but messing with the water is when you're going down. Miller idly suggests a couple years on a prison barge, but Diogo just says, "do what you gotta do." Miller pulls out a knife . . . and cuts the kid loose. As Diogo runs off, Miller yells after him "Stay away from te akwa!"

On Earth, Avasarala gets a message: the Belter prisoner, Heikki Sobong, killed himself during the transfer to Luna by leaning his head forward and getting his neck out from between the acceleration drug dispensers, allowing the force of the acceleration to crush his fragile bones. The UN used Earth's gravity to hurt him, and he threw it back in their face.

On the Knight, Naomi has pulled apart the beacon from the Scopuli and says that it's not pirate hardware: it's military, with Martian serial numbers. Alex says that makes no sense, but Holden disagrees: the ship that killed the Canterbury was stealth-capable, and Holden thinks Mars would nuke a civilian ship just because they could. Alex says Holden doesn't know what he's talking about, Shed is daunted by what they might be tangled up in. Amos doesn't care; survival comes first, and they can worry about the rest later. After a few more minutes of tinkering, Naomi finally gets the radio working. Now all that's left is for the crew to wait to be rescued.

In the Ceres dockyards, Miller is chasing down a few leads. The dockmaster tells him there's no record of a Razorback in his files—no place for rich people to keep pleasure craft on Ceres. Miller shows the dockmaster Julie's picture, and the man starts to laugh, saying he's not likely to forget that face any time soon. A few rotations back, some guy started bothering her as she was prepping her ship to leave, and when he put his hands on her, Julie planted him in the deck. Her ship, the Scopuli, left a while back with no cargo, just her and a small crew.

On the Knight, the survivors' agonized waiting comes to an end, as the console starts beeping that their message is received. After a few tense moments, they get a message that there's a ship on the way. It'll be tight—with their rescuers almost 80,000 kilometers out, they'll be scraping the bottom of their air reserves, but they'll make it. Alex taps a few controls, and then his face falls: the ship is the MCRN Donnager, flagship of the Martian navy. Looks like Mars is coming to finish the job, and the survivors just told Mars where to find them.

In the Ceres Medina district, the Canterbury's disappearance has already been noted as Havelock makes his way toward the brothel from last episode, still carrying his cactus. He walks past the front desk towards one of the rooms, from which emerges the prostitute from last episode's murder case, Gia. Havelock gives Gia the cactus and follows her inside. Meanwhile, at the precinct, Miller is going through Julie's dating profile, commenting idly on the one profile she matched with. Muss walks in, asking if Miller's found his missing heiress yet, and Miller confirms that she's not on Ceres anymore. Looking at her image on the profile, Muss wonders why a rich girl like Julie wouldn't have gotten rid of the birthmark on her jawline. Miller notes that a birthmark would have been corrected by her parents when she was young; it's a scar, and she didn't want it fixed, as a badge of defiance against the life she was supposed'' to have. Muss asks sardonically if Julie told him that herself, and Miller just says yes, she did.

On the Knight, the survivors are wondering what to do. Holden says that they're the only ones who know what happened to the Canti, and if they get on the Donnager, they probably won't be heard from again, unless . . . Holden sits down and starts up a broadcast transmission to buy some insurance. Then he starts talking.

Holden: My name is James Holden, speaking for the five survivors of the Canterbury. Our ship was destroyed answering a bogus SOS from a ship called the Scopuli. We recovered a false beacon and identified it as Martian naval technology. It was a trap. We're about to be taken aboard the MCRN Donnager.

The others are apoplectic at the sheer insanity of what Holden is doing. Naomi and Shed try to pull Holden away.

Holden: We intend to cooperate in hopes this means we won't be harmed.

Amos draws his pistol and points it at the back of Holden's head, asking Naomi if he should fire. Holden just says they're dead anyway, and Naomi shakes her head. Holden resumes talking

Holden: Any such action will only confirm that the Canterbury was destroyed by Mars.

Holden ends the transmission. All the message needs to do is reach one ship or station, Holden says, and then it'll spread. Alex says not to count on it: the Donnager's jammers were in range.The Donnager, reaches the Knight, grabs the shuttle with a docking arm, and pulls it into their hangar bay. The Knight powers down, and sparks begin flying from one of the bulkheads as the Martians begin cutting into the hull. The bulkhead falls forward in a spray of smoke, as a fireteam of armored troops step through and point their weapons at the survivors. As their lasers cut through the smoke, a voice announces that they are now prisoners of the Martian Congressional Republic.

Tropes:

• Almost Out of Oxygen: The crew of the lifeboat have to vent the oxygen because the airlock is damaged. Then Alex begins to suffer from oxygen deprivation, gets a temporary relief when Shed connects his spacesuit tube with his, only for them both to start running out of air.
• Driven to Suicide: Avasarala's OPA prisoner commits suicide during his transfer from Earth to Luna.
• Gravity Screw: Because the spin gravity of Ceres causes a Coriolis effect, Miller's drink bends between the bottle and glass as it pours.
• Hope Spot: Someone picked up the Canterbury shuttle's signal! Oh wait, it's the Martian flagship, presumably coming back to finish the job their stealth ship started.
• A House Divided: Holden tends not to see eye-to-eye with the other Canterbury survivors, leading to some tense moments between him and Naomi as well as Amos holding a gun to his head during his dramatic broadcast.
• Information Wants to Be Free: Holden tries to broadcast an account of what happened as insurance against the Martians making them disappear, over everyone else's strenuous objections.
• Internal Reveal: Subverted. Holden is about to tell the rest of the survivors that he, not Ade, logged the distress call that lead to the Canterbury getting destroyed. Naomi stops him, because they really can't afford to have that adding to their difficulties.
• Intoxication Ensues: Played with. This seems to be happening to Alex, but it's actually hypoxia due to a faulty suit.
• Morality Chain: Amos tells Holden the only reason he doesn't kill him is that Naomi wouldn't like it. We see this trope is in play when he puts a gun to Holden's head later and looks to her for permission to fire.
• Mundane Luxury: Even filthy water is worth stealing, and Holden's partner uses a potted cactus to pay for the services of a prostitute.
• Open Sesame: Julie's computer is locked to her voiceprint. Miller spoofs it in order to gain access to her files.
• Our Showers Are Different: Averted, except for Miller's water ration being limited. He later pinches the water in Julie Mao's sink to finish rinsing his hair.
• Percussive Maintenance: Holden gets the radio working by banging on it in frustration.
• Pet the Dog: Miller surprises his partner when he lets go the juvenile delinquent who was stealing water. He warns the kid that doing something like this again will attract attention from either the government or the serious criminals who control this territory, who won't be anywhere near as merciful.
• Second Episode Introduction: Sadavir Errinwright, Avasarala's superior with a lot of Hidden Depths.
• Tempting Fate: Done in classic fashion when the men repairing the radio conclude that the damage could be worse, then see it sparking ominously and realize that it is indeed worse.
• Too Much Alike: Julie Mao claims, in a message to her father, that this is why the two of them have never gotten along.
• Working the Same Case: Julie Mao's presence on the Scopuli — the ship whose distress signal the Canterbury went after — is the first direct indication that the Miller plot and the Holden plot are connected.