The Expanse Season 6 Episode 4 review: Badass Drummer is the star of this drab episode

2.5/5

Story: The Rocinante is en route to Ceres, where the Belters who survived the explosions do not want to be cowed down by the Inners. Inaros is still plotting his next move, while Drummer gets her moment under the spotlight.

Review: Today’s episode, ‘Redoubt’, was a little bit of a downer, don’t you think? After last week’s Holden-Inaros face-off, and the final scene of the Free Navy chief setting some sinister plan in action, one would have thought that episode 4 would pick up on the action and take it a notch higher, in the run-up to the finale. But alas, that was not to be.

It’s still not clear where the Laconia arc is headed, Bobbie and Avasarala get 2 minor scenes that didn’t add much to the narrative. Monica did not die in the explosions on Ceres and has a report ready that Avasarala does not approve. “It makes us look weak,” she says, but Monica retorts that it makes both sides look weak. Peaches figures out what Holden did and tells Amos, who promptly asks the captain about it, because he’s not sure that was the right course of action. Holden, of course, does not offer Amos an explanation, but tells Naomi that he will not be the one who ‘kills her boy’ (Filip).

Thankfully, Camina Drummer is around to salvage the episode. Drummer gets to show everyone the badass that she is. After launching a successful raid on Inaros’ supply depots that he’s got floating in space, albeit at some personal cost, Camina has had enough of hiding from him. Her message to all of the Belt, exposing Inaros as a coward who has been stealing from his own people and that she has taken it back at the risk of her own life, is one of the best moments of the episode.

Verdict: Have Avasarala’s lines been sanitized in this season? Her exquisite wardrobe and accessories apart, what made her a fun watch was how she’d use swear-words to such great effect to prove a point. With only two more episodes to go, I have this nagging feeling that fans of the show (who do not follow the books) will be disappointed with too many unexplained arcs. Guess we’ll have to turn to the nine books after all, to fully understand this world.