The Expanse implodes with a short, unsatisfying finale season

While the final season of The Expanse is no where near the dumpster fire that the final season of Game of Thrones had, the fingerprints are all there. Juggling too many storylines, a production that looks like it’s just ready to pack it in and go home, and a general carelessness with introducing new plot threads as the series winds down — plot threads that we will likely never see resolved.

Which is a shame, because I admit that I was far more interested in zombie kid brought back by alien dogs than I was with Marcos Inaros entire stay on this program.

Perhaps that was the breaking leg for me with the last two seasons of The Expanse… none of it grabbed me like the early episodes did. They were mysterious, strange, wonderous, and frightening. Now, protomatter has become a name-drop and the seasons are clogged with Keon Alexander chewing scenery and Jasai Chase-Owens giving… ah… interesting performances. To his credit, though, he isn’t given much to work with beyond endless temper tantrums, whining, and angst.

Last season, I complained that The Expanse narrowed its own stage and, to be honest, I believe that is the reason this season has been particularly laborious. It’s hard to get behind a show that beckons you with the wonders of an open universe, only to slam the door in your face and set the rest of the series in the confines of the solar system with the same gusto.

And before everyone jumps on me with, “But in the books…,” I’m not reading the books, I’m watching the television series and, as it is, the television series has bitten the big one with half of the drive and a quarter of the intrigue it started with.

So, it’s hard to be broken up about the show ending. Granted, if it comes back for an unexpected seventh season, I will be happy to come back with it for what I hope are more grand adventures in a – I hope – bigger stage, but right now, here at the end of this pitiful six-episode finale, I can say without reservation that The Expanse deserved better than this.