Six months later, Marco is solidifying his control over the Belt while the inner planets struggle to gain a foothold.
Tropes:
- Astronomic Zoom: The episode opens on a little girl admiring the wildlife on Laconia, before the camera zooms put past the atmosphere and to a protomolecule structure in space.
- Bad Liar: When Monica asks Bobbie if Avasarala realizes she has constituents, not subjects, Bobbie assures her she knows the difference. Monica calls out the bad lie.
- Colony Drop: Marco has been using engines looted from colony ships to launch small asteroids at Earth at a consistent rate, forcing Earth on the defensive as they have to dedicate their resources to spotting and destroying them.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: Earth, already in bad shape from Marco's initial asteroid attack, is slowly getting worse thanks to the asteroid barrage. Even if they don't hit intact, so many rocks burning up in the atmosphere over an extended period (one a day, essentially) are nevertheless poisoning the biosphere beyond Earth's ability to compensate.
- Destruction Equals Off-Switch: Holden bashes the navigation computer on the asteroid engine until it loses power, thereby deactivating the engine itself when it stops receiving commands.
- Did Not Think This Through:
- Turns out that bombing Earth with a protracted asteroid barrage was not the masterstroke of genius that Marco thought; Earth is still the main exporter of food shipments to the Belt, so now that those are cut off, supplies are starting to get strained. He makes grand speeches about making Ceres the new capital of the Belter nation, but in reality, they don't have enough food and supplies for it, and Marco is prioritizing building up Medina Station to control access to the interstellar colonies through the Ring gate. Being an Ungrateful Bastard, Marco intends to simply strip Ceres for supplies and discusses abandoning it entirely, even though his son points out the massive political backlash this will cause from all the Belters who rallied to their banner because Ceres has been their unofficial capital for a century.
- Marco's dialogue in this episode also makes it clear that he's a Blood Knight who assumes Easy Logistics but doesn't really know how to administer a nation, much less a war. He's vocally displeased that Earth's fleets are tied down fending off his long ranged asteroid attacks, saying that he misses fighting them in direct ship combat...even though the asteroid attacks are doing maximum damage with no threat to the Free Navy itself, not to mention how outgunned he'd be in direct conflict. He's also increasingly bored when his aides keep pointing out that without Earth's food shipments, they actually can't supply Ceres even after they take it, dismissing this as annoying "spreadsheets" instead of vital war logistics.
- The episode also mentions that Earth and Mars are ramping up warship production, as they have large military-grade shipyards that the Outer Planets simply don't have. The Free Navy can retrofit civilian ships into makeshift combat vessels, and they have the MCRN ships that the rogue Mars faction traded them, but they physically don't have the infrastructure that the Inner Planets have to maintain a protracted war. The asteroid barrage is merely a stalling tactic, and eventually Earth and Mars will be able to fight on both fronts.
- Downer Beginning: Pretty much all of the protagonists are not in a good place to start off the season:
- Season 5 ended with the remaining Rocinante crew members reunited and happy to be back together and gaining a new member with Clarissa. Here, things are tense between the Roci crew; having to kill Free Navy Belters is taking an emotional toll on Naomi, there's some tension between her and Holden, Amos doesn't really want to be part of the mission and is only there so as to not abandon Holden, Naomi is (understandably) very unhappy about Clarissa's presence and this is straining Naomi's and Amos's friendship, and all three original crewmembers are dearly missing Alex.
- Bobbie agreed in the finale of the previous season to be Avasarala's liaison and right-hand woman. Turns out, she hates the job, since she's a trained Marine who's essentially been delegated to PR and secretary duties and has been sticking with it mainly out of loyalty to Avasarala. Chrisjen, meanwhile, has her hands full dealing with the constant bombardment of Earth by asteroids, the resulting damage and casualties, and the flak she's been getting for it.
- After Drummer lost half her crew—via Serge being murdered and Oksana and Bertold leaving—there seemed to be some comfort in the fact that she at least still had Michio and Josep by her side, and it's shown they've recruited additional crewmates since then. However, they're isolated and hounded by bounty hunters sent by a spiteful Marco. Worse still, Michio—who has never been a fighter like Drummer and was trained as a technician—is out of her depth and keeps making costly mistakes, and Drummer and Josep decide to leave her at the next station for her sake as well as their own.
- Filip is suffering from guilt over the terrible things he's done and is very unhappy about his father's waning affection and regard for him, turning to alcohol and one-night stands to cope.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Filip has been reduced to drinking and meaningless sex to cope with Marco locking him out of important matters.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Filip is in a downward spiral, thanks to both Marco increasingly cutting him out of decision-making while showing him less and less love and respect, and his own implied guilt over his actions. After a barmaid rejects his drunken, entitlement-fueled advances, he snaps and starts screaming at her and everyone else in the vicinity about how he's a "fucking hero", then starts badmouthing his friend Yoan when the latter tries to calm him down, claiming he (Filip) is the only reason any girls on the ship are into him. It finally escalates to Filip shooting Yoan.
- Internal Reveal: Holden learns of the destruction of the Barkeith and deduces the hyperspace aliens were responsible based on the light disturbance in the gate.
- Kick the Dog: When the bartender turns down Filip's drunken advances, he tells her "You're fucking lucky I'm even talking to someone like you." She's obviously upset and disgusted, and coldly pours him another drink "on the house". He then throws the glass at her, where it shatters near her head, and starts screaming at her.
- Killed Offscreen: Apparently during the time skip between seasons, Marco killed Anderson Dawes for, as he puts it, "talking too much" and annoying him.
- The Load: Josep argues this about Michio, who isn't built for combat life and has been making more mistakes than just this one. Drummer agrees and decides to drop her off at the next station for her and their safety.
- My God, What Have I Done?: A nonverbal one; this is written all over Filip's face after he kills Yoan.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Drummer intends to lure a Free Navy bounty hunter into the path of a direct-fire weapon on their other ship, which Michio has been tasked with triggering. However, when the time comes, she screws up and presses the wrong button, setting the weapon into a test cycle instead of launching it, allowing the bounty hunter to track their ship. They're forced to scuttle their second ship as a backup plan before the bounty hunter can open fire.
- Oh, Crap!: While Holden is attempting to study the asteroid's navigation computer, he notices that the piece of metal he just broke off the lock is bouncing back and forth against the engine; he realizes that the magnetic bottle is powering up and that the engine is about to fire. Fortunately, he manages to smash the computer before it incinerates him, although it means he can't get any information from it.
- Smug Snake: Marco acts like he's the next Alexander the Great (he named his ship Pella, after his hometown), and spends the episode preening about how he's a military genius who's basically defeated Earth & Mars already. In reality he's just a terrorist who managed to kill billions in a surprise attack but didn't really have a plan for what to do next if the Inner planets weren't immediately shocked into surrender. He continues to insist that he pulled off a Xanatos Gambit, even as his aides directly point out to him the severe problems caused by his own short-sightedness.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
- Naomi hasn't gotten over Clarissa's attack on the Rocinante and is still giving her the cold shoulder, which isn't helped by everyone being on edge after six months of no progress.
- The director of operations at Ceres clearly isn't too pleased that Marco has taken charge, especially since he killed Anderson Dawes (to whom they seemed loyal) and has no interest in keeping Ceres properly supplied.
- Time Skip: It's been roughly six months since the last episode.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Marco makes a grand speech about making Ceres the new Belter capital, but the logistical realities of its administration make him more inclined to simply strip it of resources and move on.
