1x08 Salvage

This episode is one of the best of the season, the writing and tension superb. There is not a single extraneous or wasted scene or moment, and the focus on the story unfolding remaining very sharp.

The salvage mission on the the Anubis by now feels familiar, but I'm glad it's the crew of the Rocinante doing the blowing up rather than running. What they uncover of course are more questions, and almost few answers.

The moment the crew of the Rocinante and Miller meet up in the Blue Falcon, in search of Lionel Polanski, is one of the high points of this season, and one that still thrills me although I think I've seen this episode three times at this writing.

Somehow, and there's a little voice that is telling me this, they will be together for a minute.

One has to feel some type of way for Miller. His heartbreak at finding his answers is heart wrenching. This is some major turning point for Miller. I'm not certain what is coming for him, but Julie Mao will be for him, what the Cant is for the crew of the Rocinante, and maybe for the whole solar system. Either way, this looks like kismet. Never mind the whole, "touch me again and there'll be another body on the floor," bit. It looks like kismet.

One of the things to appreciate with the season winding down, is how it has used detail and visual textures to build a convincing world and story. The little clues we've been getting are beginning to add up.

Listen, I am really digging Amos. He's the last of the Rocinante crew that I've gotten attached to, but I am really digging him.

And finally the pieces have started to come together.

Holden and his crew are following Polanski, and find much more than they ever anticipated. First, they find a stealth ship (like the one that killed their carrier ship and attacked the Martian battleship) on the side of a space rock; a dead empty ship that was covered in so blue stuff (probably whatever they were working on the research station). Holden seeing that it is probably a weapon, blows it up (good call). But Polanski name leads them to a space station, but as we know the UN is sending out a strike team to kill him, since to them he is working with a known terrorist.

Meanwhile, Dectective Miller is on the same space station tracking the trajectory of the ship Anubis, which Julie Mao was on. But the Anubis is the stealth ship that Holden and his crew found. The pieces are coming together.

In what is a great shotout scene, the UN assassins and Rocinante crew blast at each other reminicent of western as the two sides shot as much as possible and hope not to die. At the last minute, Miller saves Holden's team from mecenaries and follow the trail to Polanski, who we now know is actually Mao. Inside the darkness, they find Mao's body covered in the same blue stuff as was on the Anubis ship.

Whatever the research station was working on, it seems to have gotten out of their control and it's VERY deadly.... but the question is still there: who started it all? who is behind the research? who is covering it up? who was Mao really working with? why did they destroy the Canterbury and the Martian ship? And for what purpose?

Love the conversation between Miller and the Mormon guy, on one side we have Miller who is jaded, full of skepticism from a life knowing how corrupt everything is against the eternal faith of a man who believes in something greater than himself.... beautiful juxtaposition.

The Rocinante's exploration of the Anubis reminds me of great scoff/space exploration, in the like of Alien or 2001 Space Odessey... just bodies in suits exploring vastness of darkness/space.... waiting for whatever is sitting in the darkness to attack.

I loved Miller's line about trouble following Holden wherever he goes... cause he's not wrong.