THE EXPANSE
Bryan Cairns is on set for the inCendiary seCond season of The expanse
War is coming in the second season of the futuristic show.
Prepare yourselves for war. Yes, intergalactic conflict appears imminent in season two of The
Expanse, Syfy’s future-set saga based on the novels by James SA Corey. By the end of the first season, rogue ship’s captain James Holden, his crew and disgruntled detective Joe Miller found themselves swept up in a massive conspiracy that could pit Earth against Mars.
The finale found Holden and Miller discovering a horrific secret that was clearly worth killing for. Protogen, a security firm from Earth, had unleashed an infectious, sentient alien agent, known as the protomolecule, onto the Eros Station, one of the first staging posts of mankind’s colonisation of the solar system. That little experiment resulted in the death of over a million people on board. The protomolecule continued to grow, with the deceased reanimated as infected, zombie-like monsters. Hit by a dose of radiation, Holden and Miller barely escaped the station alive…
“They are still being treated for the radiation poisoning they got on Eros,” executive producer Naren Shankar tells SFX. “The gang is opening the safe they got from Anubis [the stealth torpedo ship owned by Protogen]. Then they realise they have a sample of the protomolecule in their hands. What are they going to do with it? That’s where we start with our guys.”
Fittingly, the series is also expanding its world this year. “At the very beginning of the premiere, we’re bringing in a new perspective, which is the Martians,” Shankar continues. “Through Sergeant Bobbie Draper and her Martian marine team, we see the Martian perspective truly for the first time on the show. We had a little taste of them on board the Donnager in episode three and four last season, but this is a much more intimate look at Martian culture and how they view the Earth. It’s an interesting way to get into [the book] Caliban’s War.”
corridors of power
SFX is visiting The Expanse’s Toronto set in early September. Today cast and crew are busy filming portions of episodes 11 and 12, “Here There Be Dragons” and “The Monster And The Rocket”. As we watch, Holden (Steven Strait) and Amos (Wes Chatham) kick open a door and creep down a dark corridor. Guns are cocked and cradled in their arms. Sweeping flashlights survey the area as they advance.
“You didn’t even try to stop me from bashing his head in,” says Amos.
“You’ve taught me a lot about futility,” Holden responds.
“Nah, I think I just beat you to it.”
“The protomolecule turned an asteroid into a missile,” notes Holden. “If we can stop it from doing something worse, it’s worth cracking one shithead’s skull.”
Clearly the stakes – and pressure – are higher than ever.
“The problem with mystery conspiracy stories is the longer they go on, the more encrusted everything gets by the weight of the plot,” Shankar says. “‘No, it’s not the man behind the curtain. It’s the man behind behind the curtain.’ The only way you can continue that is by widening the scope of the conspiracy. Every time you do that, the plot threads multiply. There was a lot of shadow play in season one. ‘No, it’s not that guy. No, it’s not the stealth ship or the Martians.’ It was, ‘Not, not, not’ because you don’t want to give people the answers. What we did at the end of the season was resolve as many of those questions as possible, so that when season two started, we could move the show forward.
“Instead of playing with conspiracies and mysteries, we’re playing in a more accessible action/reaction structure in terms of character and actual plot,” Shankar continues. “It’s an easier way to understand the story because you don’t have to maintain the same contradictory versions of the same event in your head. The drama doesn’t hinge on that. Action reveals character, and character drives action. It’s this beautiful circle. That’s what we’re trying to do this season. At the core of it, we have a great set of characters and situations that reveal more and more about our people and let them learn more about this protomolecule and what’s happening with it and seeing what it does.”
Although Miller and Holden share the same goal, the pair bicker over tactics and priorities. The two came together under some pretty dire circumstances and, it seems, still haven’t particularly warmed to each other…
“Obviously, Holden and Miller helped each other get out of a very bad situation,” Shankar
it’s tense. there’s a lot going on and stuff comes to a head
says. “At the end of episode 10 last year, Amos shot Miller’s oldest friend, Sematimba. It’s a complicated dynamic. Without Sematimba, our guys wouldn’t have gotten off Eros. If Amos hadn’t shot him, Holden and Miller would have been stuck there because the gang would have left. It’s very tense. There’s a lot going on and stuff comes to a head. These guys are all getting to know each other, so it’s a new dynamic.”
taking sides
“Another big arc for season two is people declaring whose side they are on,” Shankar continues “Holden is from Earth, but trying to stay neutral. He’s trying not to really choose a side. Alex is a Martian and has a Martian ship. Earth and Mars are cruising towards armed combat. Everybody wants this incredibly powerful protomolecule. It’s about picking a side and declaring who you have allegiance to.”
Season two will continue to feature political intrigue, conflicted characters and tough choices. However, Shankar promises plenty of crowd-pleasing explosions and action too, from the moment the premiere kicks off.
“The episode begins with the Martian marines in the midst of a battle. This season has a lot more militaristic flair to it because a big portion of it is this slow movement of battle between Earth and Mars. We have two superpowers that have never fought before and they are slowly building to the point where they open up and blast each other. On the way there, there’s a lot of shit that happens, which is quite big. There’s going to be a lot of amazing space sequences, which is the show’s signature. There’s a ton of stuff that people are going to be blown away by.”
Followers of the novels already have some inkling of where the show is heading, eagerly anticipating that certain key sequences and developments will make it to the small screen. Shankar is only too happy to tease.
“What happens on the Eros Station is amazing and is going to look incredible,” he tells SFX. “When you go back to Eros and see what the protomolecule has done, these are beautiful sequences in the book. Executive producers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, who wrote the pilot, have talked about a specific scene that’s at the end of [novel] Leviathan
Wakes that we did this season. They’ve been fixated on it for three years. Mark will say, ‘That scene is why we wanted to do these books.’ It’s nice to bring that to life.”
The Expanse season two will air on Netflix in the UK, and Syfy in the US from early February.