Season 3, Episode 4:
Reload
The Rocinante tends to the wounded Martian soldiers in exchange for supplies; Avasarala struggles with how to disseminate a key piece of evidence despite being in hiding.
Tropes:
- Action Survivor: Sinopoli, Loftis and Ranhofer are the only survivors in an entire fleet.
- Bloody Horror: Katoa, possessed by the protomolecule, kills and takes apart his nurse, laying out his organs and body parts to examine them.
- The Cavalry Arrives Late: Amos is busy on the Kittur Chennamma salvaging parts and fails to notice the master alarm on his comm device until Bobbie has talked Loftis down.Amos: Shit! Did I miss it?
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: This is lampshaded about Holden. Holden is staying out of the war for now, but Avasarala recognizes he's doing it against his nature, so she does her best to push him into helping. She gets him to budge a little bit by sending a covert message to Anna, much to Naomi's displeasure, but Sinopoli and his crew provide an alternative later that sidesteps any need for Holden to risk the Roci.
- Failed a Spot Check: Though understandable given their near-death experience, it takes the Martian survivors a fair bit longer than it should have to realize their saviors are (save Alex) out of uniform, at which point they start to notice everything else.
- Hypocritical Humor: Avasarala tells Sinopoli that the only way the war can be stopped is on the front, away from the politicians. Sinopoli is about to point out the obvious, but thinks better of it, so Avasarala addresses it.Avasarala: I am aware of the irony.
- If I Wanted You Dead...: Holden points out he could have shot Loftis in the head after she turned to face Bobbie, using it as proof that they don't want to hurt the Martians if it can be avoided.
- It Works Better with Bullets: Ranhofer is sent to raid the armory for better guns to take over the ship, only for Holden to stumble upon him just as he's taken a gun off the rack. Fortunately, the crew don't keep the weapons loaded and it clicks empty, allowing Holden to subdue him.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Once the Martian survivors are confronted by Bobbie, Sinopoli immediately surrenders knowing full well he will get straight up murdered against a Martian Marine in a fight, and he actively encourages Loftis to surrender as well.
- Rousing Speech: Made by Secretary General Sorrento-Gillis to the UN and Earth after the Mars attack last episode.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Sinopoli is tasked with delivering Avasarala's message to Souther, as his willingness to surrender to Bobbie marks him as the most reasonable of the three.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Anna gives a withering one to Sorrento-Gillis after he takes the speech she wrote and twists it to one invoking war against Mars:Anna: What the hell was that? You made me part of everything that I hate about all of this! I can't believe I fell for this again! I am such an idiot. You snapped your fingers, and I am right back to following you around, mopping up the blood... And you didn't need to be [Errinwright's] hand puppet. You could've been better than this. You should have been more than this. I used to believe that there was a decent man somewhere inside you, buried under all that ambition. I'm sorry I was so wrong.
- Robbing the Dead: Looting the Kittur Chennamma is framed this way, as they're stealing supplies from a Martian vessel full of dead people that just recently died in battle. Ironically, had they not, they wouldn't have stumbled upon the few survivors of that ship, a fact Alex uses against Bobbie when she expresses her displeasure upon realizing what they're doing.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: Avasarala threatens to have Holden to this to Sinopoli and his crew if Sinopoli doesn't play along, for being "intolerable idiots".
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: By the end of the episode, it's revealed that the exposure to the protomolecule has driven Katoa insane (or it is gaining control of his mind, changing him to serve its purpose), and that he has dismembered and dissected his nurse in a grotesquely horrific manner, splaying out the corpse organ-from-organ and limb-from-limb, in a pattern reminiscent of the disaggregation performed upon the Arboghast over Venus.
- Ungrateful Bastard: The Rocinante rescues Sinopoli, Loftis and Ranhofer from the wreckage of the Kittur Chennamma, a rescue that in all likelihood never would have come otherwise. After discovering the identity of their saviors, the three survivors immediately attempt to take over the ship and begin by violently assaulting Alex.Alex: This is starting to feel a little bit ungrateful. [gets pistol-whipped]
