The Expanse 3×07 Review: Delta-V

“Delta-V” has a bit of a different feel than previous episodes of The Expanse. For starters, there’s been a time jump of about six months since the end of the last episode. For another, we skip back and forth a lot, catching up with all of the major players as well as some one-off characters who are nonetheless important to showing us what’s going on in the universe right now.

If “Delta-V” felt a bit like a season premiere rather than an episode in the middle of the season, well, that’s because The Expanse is adapted from a book series, and it’s not a strict book-to-season adaptation. “Immolation” was the end of book 2, “Delta-V” is the beginning of book 3. As it is, we need the time to see where everyone has ended up after the events of the last episode. Chrisjen is running the show on Earth; Naomi has returned to her roots and is working alongside Drummer in salvaging the Nauvoo; Prax and Mei are helping rebuild Ganymede; Bobbie is a Marine again; and the Roci crew are still flying the Roci.

There is a lot of set up in this episode, so there’s a lot to unpack. For starters, whatever that was that popped out of Venus like daisies at the end of last week’s episode turned itself into some sort of ring and is just chilling around Uranus. (Looks like a Stargate. Probably a Stargate.) No one knows anything about this mysterious Ring, but everyone is trying to figure it out, in the name of interplanetary cooperation. Oh, and don’t try to fly through it, because you’ll probably have your skeleton ripped out of your body like our sad, doomed racer, Maneo. (Delta-v literally means “change in velocity”. Clever.)

Holden, Alex, and Amos are dealing with a very nosy, very thirsty documentary crew, because for some reason, saving the leader of Earth and stopping a war aren’t enough to give them a decent living or get them out of legal trouble. Mars is still angry about their pirating the Roci and the documentary crew’s payment is paying their court bills. Our three remaining Roci crew members are losing their patience with the newcomers, though, particularly Amos, who destroys one of their cameras. Aside from their probing, intrusive questions and their attempts to sleep with Amos for a story, I suspect that the crew is up to no good in other ways as well. After all, the cameraman wasn’t innocently getting b-roll footage when he was recording the ship’s display screens. He’s after something. I’m just not sure if the woman is in on it, too.

By the way, Amos is still getting all the best lines.

Meanwhile, while Earth and Mars seem to be cooperating peacefully, the Belters still have a bee in their bonnet. They’ve been mistreated since the beginning, so I don’t blame them, but it looks as though the Belt has divided into factions, and whatever they hope to accomplish will be extremely difficult if they can’t even agree amongst themselves. Drummer appears to not agree with either Fred Johnson or Dawes, and Ashford is obviously there to cause problems. He undermines her command twice in a few minutes, in front of a good portion of the crew, and while he comes across as an honorable man, I don’t think he is. This was a power move; he’s showing who is in charge. And judging by the end of the episode, he will probably try to put a wedge between Drummer and Naomi.

As a side note, I love that Naomi speaks with a Belter accent now. That’s a nice detail.

I also loved that we had Belter versions of “Highway Star” by Deep Purple and “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen. If someone wanted to release those versions, I would like that very much.

We also have a maintenance crew for the UNN fleet out and about making repairs, including Melba, who seems to be new to the team. She also placed a bomb on the ship and possesses superhuman strength, enough to lift a grown man and slam him into the wall and smash his skull. She kept saying that she had to do it. Could she be a hybrid? Is this the “work” that Katoa was telling Mao about?

“Delta-V” ends with something us show-only people probably thought we’d never see again: Miller. Holden obviously thinks he’s going crazy, but it’s worth remembering Miller’s last words: “I don’t know. We die maybe. And if we don’t die, that will be interesting.” What did the protomolecule do to him? Does this have anything to do with the remnants of protomolecule we saw clinging to the Roci at the end of “Immolation”?

This weekend it was announced that Amazon has officially picked up The Expanse for season 4! That’s fantastic news that we at The Geekiary are very excited about. I’m glad that the show will continue, because it’s really starting to get interesting. (Well, it was always interesting.)

What did you guys think of “Delta-V”?

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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