Dan and Morgan compare Season 1 Episode 5 of The Expanse, titled “Back to the Butcher.” Between firework explosions, they manage to discuss the differences between the episode and the books in regards to the further exploration of Miller’s character arc and Fred Johnson’s backstory.
Listen to “Ep. 8: Season 1, Episode 5” where you get podcasts.
Footnotes:
Transcript
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[Music fades out at voices fade in]
Dan:…You know, it’s something they don’t really address, is pets. You don’t see a lot of pets. In the show.
Morgan: Oh yeah.
D: Now that I think about it.
M: You see porcelain cats.
D: Sure. And then there’s that—
M: Maybe that’s all that’s left.
D: There’s the fake—
M: Hamster.
D: There’s the hamster robot, which I’m—
M: Yeah.
D: —pretty sure is an invention of the show, which is kind of fun. And then you see sparrows. Do we have any low-G cats? Long skinny cats?
M: Well, if you were going to have a cat, or a pet, it would require a lot of food.
D: That’s true. There’s a scene in the book where Miller sees someone holding an actual book, book.
M: Yeah.
D: He just thinks about the decadence of paying—
M: Yeah.
D: —to get that much weight off the ground.
M: Yeah, exactly.
D: Because you’ve gotta ship it there. So yeah, that is a good point.
M: That was probably a very good book.
D: But I would, I do wonder it’d be kind of cool to see them get physically altered the way that we get the descriptions of the Belters.
M: Oh shit.
D: Like if you had just like—
M: Yeah!
D:—weird space pets that were specifically—
M:Like big heads and…
D: —just, I don’t know, we should get some science types to figure out what, what the pets would do if we did take them to space.
M: Well you already…
D: What would happen to them?
M: You can see as Theresa pets my big, fluffy cat. There’s hair just flying off of her body as she strokes her.
D: That’s not a metaphor that’s actually happening. [Morgan laughs] That would be an issue for the air filters, that’s true.
M: Yeah, I would not take that cat on a spaceship.
D: Sphinx cats, though?
M: Hmm. Yeah. Well, they get dirty.
D: Do they?
M: Yeah, you actually have to bathe them because they can’t exfoliate.
D: Howdy “Space Cadets!” [Morgan laughs] Welcome to The Expansing, the most important SciFi fandom podcast about The Expanse specifically.
M: Yeah.
D: We’re not going to do that every single time.
M: That’s specifically by us.
D: It’s the only one we do.
M: Yeah.
D: It’s super special. But uh, so today. This time around, we are going to be talking about episode five of season one. “Back to the Butcher.” Based on The Butcher of Anderson Station, which was actually the first Expanse short story. There’s a bunch of—
M: Oh.
D: —short novellas and things that accompany the the main books, and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t actually read most of them. And that’s one of them. I didn’t know it was the first one.
M: Wait. So the whole Expanse started as short stories?
D: Uh, I don’t think that the short story that we’re talking about was the first like, published story, but I do know that it was… They sort of started this like a DND sort of thing where they were kind of coming up with stories that were like you and Echo were doing.
M: Yeah.
D: And like you were mentioning. So it kind of branched out from that. Um. Got a little bit of news and/or trivia to actually, we’re going to start with, I think, a correction because we had been talking about the James Webb back when it was originally scheduled.
M: Yeah.
D: I think to launch or it was near that time and and we kind of both remembered hearing about it and thought, Oh. Yeah, that just launched. But no, it got delayed and it actually just launched this past week if you were not paying attention. We got ourselves a nice little space Christmas gift with the most advanced satellite telescope that’s ever been created. It deployed perfectly well so far.
M: Ok.
D: I think everything’s golden.
M: Woah.
D: Yeah, the only, the kind of sensitive equipment that probably won’t be something we can fix.
This time around—
M: Yeah.
D: —if we have an issue with it like we did with Hubble. But like…
M: Yeah, that happened with the Hubble right away.
D: Yeah. We’ll have a link down in the, in the footnotes, but there is some serious technology and amazing developments that went into the creation of that telescope, and it’s going to be able to see things we—
M: Yes.
D: —scarcely could imagine before. And I was —
M: I would like to see God, please.
D: I was just going to check and it’s really cool. If you go to the NASA James Webb Space Telescope website, which is jwst.nasa.gov, they have a live tracker that shows you the position, that shows you the temperature readings on the different sides of the telescope—
M: Yeah.
D: —because it’s it’s reading a lot of heat data. So the the side that’s actually pointed out into space has to be extremely cold and protected from the sun. So you’re looking at like 180 degrees Fahrenheit on one side and like negative 300 or so… or actually, I’m looking at it.
M: Wow.
D: What’s wrong with me? So on the cold side right now, right now, we’ve got well, I guess a few minutes ago, whatever negative 71° Fahrenheit and on the hot side, 20° Fahrenheit.
M: Wow. Yeah.
D: It’s a 90 degree Fahrenheit difference, just, and that’s probably on the milder side because some of the difference between one side of the satellite and the other isn’t intense.
M: Yeah, it’s like sticking an arm outside and like the underside freezing—
D: Right.
M: —and the top getting a suntan.
D: Mmhmm.
M: That’s crazy.
D: And it it gets more extreme than that. Like—
M: Yeah?
D: —one side you’re going to cook,—
M: Yeah.
D: —and the other side is frozen solid.
M: Tasty. [both laugh]
D: So there was that that I wanted to mention, but I also wanted to plug real quick while I was looking at that. There’s a really cool little NASA’s site as well that’s called Space Place, for kids.
M: Ok.
D: It’s space… That’s actually what I stumbled on. first, I was trying to look at the date and it’s the James Webb, and it was like, “What is the James Webb telescope?” And it’s this actually kind of kid’s website for a lot of the different stuff that’s going on at NASA it’s got Earth, Sun, Solar System Universe. It’s really cool, and it really breaks down exactly what the telescope is, how it works, how it sees. And this is for kids, it’s really great. I’m sure a lot of people know about it. This is not news to everybody, obviously. But I didn’t know about it.
M: I think it’s news to a lot of people, Dan, based on general observations of everything. Yeah, I think this is news to a lot of people.
D: Sure.
[firecrackers pop in the background]
D: No big deal. Don’t worry. That’s probably not gunfire. And listeners, if you’re tuning in, pretty sure those are…
M: It sounds like a 21 gun salute outside my house right now. [laughs]
D: Yeah, OK. Definitely fireworks. [laughs] Excellent. Uh, also there…
M: Like all of your nightmares coming true.
D: So this one’s this one’s actually kind of weird. I don’t know if you were paying attention like a month or two ago. I meant to mention it already in an episode, but there was an announcement about this DARPA funded research had managed to create a warp bubble. Right?
M: What?
D: Right? What? Then you click on it. And the descriptions that were the the main story that kept going around was, “Yeah, this is like an actual very, very, very, very tiny, but real warp bubble.” And turns out, no, yes and no. The… if you saw that news and if you read it at all and thought, “Oh my God, we’re going to be able to do it, we’ve got Star Trek.” Not quite. What it actually was is a [mathematical] model that was created based on a concept that had been put out called an Alcubierre Drive, and he himself had said that he was inspired by Star Trek because the concept of such a thing did not exist when they called it the Star Trek drive a warp drive.
M: So how does it?
D: I’m not well versed enough, but the story was about this model that someone created that essentially says it’s possible at a very small scale. That in terms of math, it might actually be possible to do that physically. In reality, however, the news story made it out to be that they had said that we had already done this.
M: So what is it doing? Is it like it’s distorting space?
D: Right. It’s literally it’s, it’s the the literal concept of of what is described, kind of, in Futurama.
M: Ok.
D: If you remember that one episode where they sort of described how it works, it’s really that you’re moving… You’re not actually moving anything within the bubble that would theoretically be a ship, doesn’t really move. In the sense that space time around that doesn’t change, doesn’t distort, you don’t experience acceleration, but you would be able to compress the space in front of the bubble and expand the space behind the bubble.
M: Ok.
D: And literally just move the bubble itself at greater than light or, or like subluminal speeds that you could theoretically accomplish. That doesn’t mean you’d be able to necessarily live through it. But this essentially this big story that if you were a science geek—
M: Yeah.
D: —paying attention to the science news, everyone’s like, “Oh My God, we can do a warp bubble” and no. But, but maybe because of this new model, maybe we could do it.
M: This is really freaking me out because there’s a guy named Bob Lazar who’s really well-known in like the UFO circles who did, he did some interviews back in the Seventies [80s], I think, but he’s been talking about this ever since. He claims that he worked at Roswell on this alien spacecraft.
D: Oh yeah, you told me about this guy.
M: And yes, his story has never changed. And he’s basically hiding behind the fact that he is talking so openly.
D:Mmhmm.
M: Just like because if anyone was to make him disappear, it would be really obvious why he was being disappeared.
D: Sure.
M: So he’s talked really openly about this, but a lot of the stuff that he has been describing since the Seventies [80s], and he describes those, these saucers using what you call the gravity drive. Basically, it distorts the space in front of and behind the ship.
D: Mmhmm.
M: So the ship doesn’t experience acceleration, it just moves the space in front of it.
D: Right.
M: And that’s how they’re able to traverse galaxies and come here—
D:Right.
M: —and that we’ve been trying to reverse engineer how that works. So….
D: Allegedly.
M: I’m a little it’s a little freaky because if you listen to Bob Lazar, talk about this stuff, it’s really compelling.
D: Sure.
M: He sounds very sincere.
D: You’ve mentioned it before, and now I’m going to have to go and look.
M: You have to.
D: Because at this point, we’re into that dangerous territory of we’re like, “Well, she just said a thing.” And now we’ve got about, mmmm, 60% of the listeners going, “OK, is this a kook show? Is that what we’re doing now?” We’re doing kook show stuff.
M: Bob Lazar is…
D: But I want to look into it.
M: Yeah, he’s super legit and—
D: If, if only just to find out more about this guy. Um…
M: There’s documentaries. But you got to watch them.
D: But, the the interesting thing to me, though, is that the idea that this, this might be doable, but that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t ruin you physically if you tried to do it on a large scale, if you tried to actually like move a ship. [fireworks] OK. And there have been some in discussing it and the hypothetical terms some people have said like: “Yeah, you might be able to do this, but we’re pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to turn it off.”
M: Yeah.
D: Like, inside, from inside the bubble, you would be basically screwed. Which would be an interesting fate.
M: Yeah, this is that this is a very weird moment because I just went from watching Bob Lazar documentaries as like, “Oh, that’s so weird,” like, “I wish that were true.” And then you just tell me this, and it’s like, that’s basically what he was describing.
D: Well, it was in that it was kind of in the news. And then it turns out, well, that was a little overblown because they weren’t talking about an experiment that they actually did this and demonstrated it physically. But it is a, I guess, compelling development in having an actual mathematical model where you theoretically could do it.
M: Well the hard work is done.
D: The problem is that it also sort of depends on us maybe figuring out what dark energy is. So that’s a little bit of a hurdle, [laughs] but we’ll see. But moving on. We want to talk about “Back to the Butcher.” This episode is really reintroducing Fred Johnson and being a little bit more of a development of his character and you, we get to see the story of him. Well, he and his unit basically massacring a bunch of belters on Anderson Station.
M: Yeah, but did did he? He didn’t know because they were blocking the signals. Were they surrendered?
D: Well, we’re, we’re talking mostly today about what’s different between the books and the show. Right? Some of the biggest differences for for Fred is that they make a lot more of this incident in this episode than they do in the novel. The novella, I’m sure, goes into quite a bit more detail. But in the novel, if you’re reading along in the books, at this point, you only get like a couple of paragraphs about what happened with him, and it was a little bit more explicit about it being caught on camera. And he and the others were going like room to room and just massacring these people.
M: Oh my god.
D: And they had done things that were violent. They had killed a couple of people, but you get a lot more intimate view of them in this episode, which again might come from the novella itself, I got to go check that, but…
M: Yeah, but I liked that.
D: It is good.
M: It shows that like they were basically treating these people as terrorists and you don’t negotiate with terrorists.
D: Right.
M: And it kind of sets up that like Fred Johnson sees people as people. So he goes on and he like, does stuff with the OPA—
D: Yeah.
M: —and they’re labeled a terrorist group, but…
D: Oh, he regrets it.
M: Exactly.
D: In both circumstances.
M: Right. Because he can see that all this tragedy that happened, that he was basically scapegoated as—
D: Right.
M: —orchestrating was because they were labeled terrorists.
D: Right, and it was in the book, even though they’re more hands on. And that scene of him kind of looking out at the station and their bodies are floating.
M: Yeah.
D: It’s weird because they didn’t destroy the station. They went in and killed the terrorists.
M: Right.
D: You know, quote unquote. And it describes the last shot of the station camera that was broadcasting of him, like standing in the middle of a room full of bodies—
M: Ah, fuck. [laughs]
D: —and kind of just with his dead look on his face. Like “What happened?” That makes a bit more sense. Because then the fact that they went in and did that—
M: Yeah.
D: —was because they hadn’t been told anything about what was going on. But in the show, they don’t hear anything else from them, and he is the one talking to them. And then they just blow it out of the sky, which doesn’t make a lot of sense and is like, “That’s a—“
M: Waste of resources.
D: “That’s a war crime right there.” [Morgan laughs] Like, you just blew up a bunch of kids when they just said, like they sounded very weak on that call.
M: Yeah. Yes!
D: That wasn’t that wasn’t the sound of somebody trying to be a terrorist.
M: But they say we don’t negotiate with terrorists and then they shut it off and they kill everybody.
D: Right. But that, just before that, they’re like, We need to get your answer or whatever, and they don’t really give him a chance to respond after that. They just sort of…
M: Yeah.
D: And then it’s like: “Oh, they’re blocking the signal.” And whatever.
M: Well, that’s kind of the danger of like how we use the term ‘terrorist.’
D: Yeah, of course.
M: Because like, we’re really eager to use that for anybody that’s doing something we don’t like. But then if there’s like, I don’t know, an American committing acts of terrorism, then that’s not terrorism…
D: [humored] Right. Very different.
M: So yeah, I like that they set up, they set that up for Fred Johnson to like, make it clear that he sees people as people whose actions might be like inspired by desperation, you know, or idealism. But…
D: Yeah, and he comes to that in the book. It gives you a little bit more of his his background of, he kind of wandered around…
M: Found himself. [laughs]
D: Yeah, got in fights. And then, and then Anderson Dawes found him and cleaned him off and said, “Hey, you can be useful.”
M: Yeah, which I don’t know what this says about me, but I like I kind of get what Anderson Dawes is—
D: Yeah.
M: —saying. [laughs]
D: He’s… He’s a lot more, uh. Well, we’re going to talk about it because, this time, I want to try it a little bit differently because before we’d sort of talked theme, thematically and I miss some stuff, but I want to give you a few more actual direct quotes from the books so you can hear some of the stuff that that is different.
M: Ok.
D: So they do a lot to really describe the desperation of the people on Anderson Station. And it says, quote, “Less than 5% of the Belters buying their air from Anderson were living bottle to mouth. Suggest that under 50,000 Belters might have to spend one day of each month, not breathing. Only a small percentage of those 50,000 lacked the leeway in their recycling systems to cover this minor shortfall. Of those, only a small portion felt that armed revolt was the correct course, which was why of the million affected only 170 armed Belters came to the station, took over and threw Marconi out an airlock. They demanded a government guarantee that no further handling surcharges would be added to the price of air and water coming through the Station. The coalition sent Colonel Johnson.”
M: Wow.
D: Yeah. Gives you a little bit more of a feel for where those people were coming from—
M: Yeah.
D: —and what was going on. And why they were so desperate. Because it’s not. They’re already huddled around in a mass in the show, and that does give you their their fear. It shows you the the, that moment of terror. You don’t get that whole sense of like, these are just regular people who are choking.
M: Yeah.
D: And like, we need air guys. This sucks. Please don’t do this to us. We’re people.
M: Well it’s, it’s kind of like that in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress—
D: Yeah.
M: —where it’s very hard to get people on the side of rebellion. Like, because it is an impossible task and they’re already like struggling to just breathe and have water.
D: Right.
M: That’s being controlled by the Authority.
D: And uh, then the rest of this description here. So there’s the massacres happening, right? Quote: “During the massacre of Andersen Station, the Belters kept the station cameras rolling, broadcasting to the Solar System the entire time. Everyone watched as Coalition Marines fought a long, gruesome corridor to corridor battle against men with nothing to lose and no reason to surrender. The Coalition won. It was a foregone conclusion. But it took three days of broadcast slaughter. The iconic image of the video was not one of the fighting, but the last image the station cameras caught before they were cut off. Colonel Johnson, in station ops, surrounded by the corpses of the Belters, who had made their last stand there, surveying the carnage with a flat stare and hands limp at his sides.”
M: Oh my. Very similar to how we see him in the show. You know?
D: Yeah, the shot at the end is spot on for him and his sort of like moment of realization, but it’s interesting that they decided to go with a: :We’re going to blow them up” instead of it being like a pitched battle, because it definitely was more expensive to do that, they had a whole shot with them in space and all that.
M: Yeah, but it was more emotional.
D: Yeah.
M: With him, like holding his child.
D: I mean, it could have been that way too, but they’d gotten shot to death when they burst in. You know?
M: Yeah, but that one got me.
D: Sure.
M: Of his body, and he’s holding his baby girl. And I mean, I’m a mom, so you can’t show me that shit. With, you know, like, yeah, it hit me really hard.
D: Definitely.
M: Yeah.
D: And I and I did like that they also showed, the, they just sort of didn’t dwell on it enough, but that the little girl was having trouble—
M: Yeah.
D: —matching the colors. And it’s really simple. And she was old enough that this shouldn’t have been a problem, because of hypoxia.
M: Yeah.
D: Because they had brain damage.
M: I thought it was really cool that she was, he said, something like, you know, she was matching the red, and then she pointed to the red blinking light.
D: Mmhmm.
M: That was really artful.
D: Yeah, and then you get that moment of hearing the, in a very naturalistic way, you hear a little bit of the kind of Creole.
M: Yeah.
D: The Belters…
M: I actually thought it was really weird, especially in this episode, because it’s still kind of early in the series, but they have shifting accents. And it’s kind of funny.
D: Yeah.
M: Because like, they’re talking to each other and they’re just like, Yeah, they’re just talking and they’re like, “Yeah, we probably should have thrown a few more ‘Bossmangs’ out the airlock.” [Dan laughs] Just figure it out! Say ‘Bossman’ or do the whole thing.
D: Yeah.
M: Like, it was kind of funny.
D: Like when he’s talking to his daughter, he just, is just speaking in Belter.
M: Right? And then he’s talking to another guy and it’s like the Creole. And then he turns to the camera and it’s just like, “Oh, it’s just like a casual California accent.” [Dan chuckles] Like…
D: This is a real. Maybe we can edit this one out, but this is just a little, tiny little thing. But, there’s a, I see this word a lot in books—
M: Ok.
D: —and no one says this word, in my experience. And they were referring to a bottle of ‘Ersatz’ Tequila.
M: I never hear people use that in conversation.
D: No. It’s interesting that you do see it in print a lot, and I think it’s one of those words that people use to kind of fancy it up a little bit, you know.
M: Right.
D: Because it basically means like a bad copy of something.
M: That’s when you’re like, you’re kind of braindead and you’re just looking for synonyms. [laughs]
D: Right, It just means like sort of Tequila, like it’s not it’s like fake tequila. And I love I love language. I love vocabulary. I love cool, interesting words like that. But it’s just, for some reason that one stuck out. It’s like: “[sucks teeth] Nobody says that.”
M: Yeah.
D: [laughs] I don’t know why. Anyway, oh, so here’s a fun… I’ve mentioned that it wasn’t Havelock that got stapled—
M: Speared, yeah.
D: —to the wall, right? Um, so there’s a little bit more of this where Havelock is kind of getting a little bit excited to do more action because he’s put in for his transfer and he, like, wants to get out and do a little bit more, right? And then Miller says something really fun that I think sticks out that you’ll feel like a little bit here. Quote: “Miller sat for a moment considering his own reluctance as if it belonged to someone else. It was like Shadid had given a dog just one bite of fresh meat, then pointed it back toward kibble. The temptation to blow off the hardware shop bloomed, and for a moment he almost gave in. Then, he sighed, swung his feet down to the decking and stood. All right. Then he said, ‘Let’s go make the station safe for commerce.’ [Morgan scoffs] ’Words to live by,’ Havelock said, checking his gun. He’d been doing that a lot more recently.”
M: Huh.
D: Which is, there’s some little fun moments right there in that little exchange—
M: Yeah.
D: —you know. Obviously, making it ‘safe for commerce.’
M: ‘For commerce,’ yeah.
D: Which is, yeah, that’s what cops are. [laughs]
M: Yeah. They’re, they’re police now. Their job is not to protect us. Virtually not obligated to protect people.
D: And I love that the Earther Havelock—
M: Yeah.
D: —who’s part of the, you know, corporation, corporate structure that’s, that’s controlling the whole system and everything is says ‘Words to live by.’
M: Yeah.
D: He’s a little less of the uh, he’s a little less of a Dances with Wolves character in the books. He’s more of a kind of conventional by the book’s security guy.
M: Yeah.
D: You know. And thank God that the world is safe for commerce because without commerce, how could we have ads?
M: [laughs] Good segue.
D: Sweet, sweet ads.
[Ads]
D: And we’re back. Speaking of commerce, when Miller goes to that shop, you get a very Futurama nose-dealing monster vibe from him.
M: Right.
D: He’s a really sleazeball like guy.
M: Yeah. Also with a shifting accent. [laughs]
D: Sure. The thing is, we get this whole data broker thing that they do, with this whole other strange side quest that he goes on to get this information, when the thing that sets all that off and the thing that sets him going down, some of the paths he goes down to, like, talk to the guy who in the show, it’s sort of implied that might have been a sort of a boyfriend character.
M: Yeah.
D: He only learns about any of that stuff because he happens to go to this shop that just had a call. They just needed help.A nd they’re also the ones who talk about the fact that things are changing on the station.
M: Yeah.
D: Like, Diogo might be represented by there’s a there’s a kid who’s at the counter. Let me give you a quote here. Quote: “The shop was an entertainment franchise, clean white fixtures offering up custom rigs for interactive environments, battle simulations, exploration games, sex. A woman’s voice ululated on the sound system somewhere between an Islamic call to prayer and orgasm with a drum beat. Half the titles were in Hindi with Chinese and Spanish translations. The other half were English with Hindi as the second language.”
M: Also very Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
D: Mmhmm. [laughs]
M: Because he like kind of harps on that a lot, that a lot of the shops on the Moon are Chinese or—
D: Mmhmm.
M: —or like the… what does he call it, ‘Hindus?’
D: I don’t remember.
M: He calls them ‘Hindus?’ [laughs]
D: Yeah, yeah.
M: What the fuck? [both laugh]
D: And then we have our, I guess, is our kind of Diogo, Proto-Diogo. Quote: “‘Can I help you?’ The boy said, eyeing Havelock with disdain just short of contempt. Havelock pulled his ID, making sure the kid got a good long look at his gun when he did it.”
M: Well, I think what we saw on the show was a lot more like artistic and visually exciting.
D: Sure.
M: You know, and like I also thought there was this really beautiful moment at the end of the episode where everyone on the Rocinante is like going through people’s cabins, and like kind of going through their stuff at the same time that Miller is going through this dead guy’s chips and Julie’s stuff in her apartment. And it was like they were both kind of excavating dead people’s belongings.
D: Mmhmm.
M: You know what I mean?
D: Yeah.
M: So I can’t help but think like like that is just it’s just artistic.
D: Sure.
M: You know, just because it is very visually like, elegant. A lot of the stuff we see in the show. D: Yeah. Now I did like, I really like seeing that little green space because that does hammer home the disconnect between the the ruling class on Ceres—
M: Yeah.
D: —and what everybody else is going through. And it cuts right to that too, where you’re seeing what the workers are experiencing every day in these dark tunnels after you saw this nice little…
M: Yeah, also I like Miller, like, being a lone wolf.
D: Of course.
M: I don’t see him palling around with this buddy cop.
D: No, he doesn’t do much of it anyway—
M: Yeah.
D: —after that. But um, this is interesting, though, when he’s talking to that manager, it shows a little bit more of his his sort of detective-ing. Right? Um. “The manager folded his thick arms. His eyes narrowed. ‘Before,’ he said ‘maybe a month or two.’ ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ ‘Just trying to get the timescale right,’ Miller said. ‘The new guy, Mateo. He tell you who is backing his new insurance plan.’ ‘That’s your job, figuring it, right?’ The manager’s expression had closed down so hard Miller imagined he could hear the click. Yes, Asher, Comamatasu who knew who was shaking him down. He had balls enough to speak out, but not enough to point the finger. Interesting.”
M: Hmm. Yeah, it is that, it is pretty interesting to see, like Miller’s doing some amazing detective work in this episode.
D: Mmhmm.
M: But then at the same time, like his little gal pal, Octavia—
D: Right.
M: —is following him. Not like a little, like lost puppy in love, but like she’s genuinely concerned about his safety.
D: Right.
M: Like, does not have a lot of confidence in Miller.
D: Yeah, that that at least does come through.
M: Yeah. And then Anderson says, “I did my homework. You’re a joke.”
D: Mmhmm.
M: So it’s like he’s, has this reputation and history of like, maybe not being a great detective, but because he really cares about this case, which he totally cracks before anybody else does.
D: Mmhmm.
M: Like he has evidence.
D: He’s right.
M: Yes. He like uncovers the like video of the Protomolecule research way, way before anybody else does.
D: Yeah, it’s it is nice to see this. The story is sort of about Miller realizing that he’s, it’s like he’s…
M: It’s not that he’s a bad cop. He just hasn’t had a good job!
D: Right, and he hasn’t, he hasn’t been passionate about it for a long time.
M: Right, and as soon as he is, he’s like, incredible.
D: Right.
M: And then Alex does the same thing, because Alex says when he was with the Martian Navy, they didn’t, they thought he wasn’t good enough to handle a gun ship.
D: Right.
M: And then they put one in his hands, and it’s like a real life or death situation. And he’s like, the best pilot.
D: And he really works hard at it.
M: Yeah, and like practices and like gets to, it’s amazing. Like, so you get to see these people that, unlike their daily life, has spent their whole lives being kind of subpar/average. [Dan laughs] And then they have something that they actually care about that matters…
D: Oh, It’s like, I don’t know if you watch Archer much, but—
M: Yeah.
D: —there’s the episode where his daughter is in the hands of someone who’s threatening him and has a gun, and he says, “OK, I’ve pretty much been playing my entire life half-assed,” and he starts cracking his neck and he’s like [both laugh]. And if you’ve been following the character, it’s really kind of, that lands very thoroughly. The second his child is in danger, he’s like: now I think I’m going to go ahead and crank it up.
M: Yeah, we’re going to go Full Monty.
D: And it’s like: ‘Oh, man, Archer’s going to…’
M: Does he slip on a banana peel?
D: I don’t remember. [Morgan laughs] He does, he does fail to be a badass as much in that moment. He, like, manages to be a badass for like five seconds.
M: Yeah.
D: And it’s like, Oh, he’s going to. No, not really.
M: I just love that because like, I don’t like people that are just great at everything all the time, which is why I don’t like James Holden as a character in the series.
D: Sure.
M: ‘Cuz, he’s…
D: That, you would like him more in the book because his failings are much more on display.
M: Yeah, because he’s a piece of shit that resolves.
D: This was a nice one, though, too, because some of the stuff in the books, it’s kind of hit or miss. There’s a few phrases in here that I’ve highlighted just because I thought, ‘Oh like, that’s pretty weak. Like, really? Why do you even why? Well, that’s not a good sentence.’ But this one, I like though. Quote: “The neighborhood was at the friction point between sleazy and respectable.” [Morgan laughs] I just like that sentence. A lot.
M: The friction point…
D: “The friction point between sleazy and respectable.”
M: Kinda like where I live.
D: Yeah!
M: Where like, It’s just nice enough that we are pretty sure those were fireworks and not gunshots, but…
D: Yeah.
M: There’s still fire trucks. [both laugh]
D: Also, it might have been gunshots, at first. You know, it’s like…
M: Yeah maybe.
D: Maybe. Could be.
M: You did lock your car, right?
D: Yeah. [Morgan laughs]
M: Oh, hang on. Before we leave the the shop clerk guy.
D: Uh-Huh?
M: I just I I don’t know why it took me like three or four viewings to notice this, but the kid behind the counter is wearing a RealTree™ camo shirt? What year is this? RealTree™ camo? [Dan laughs] Bitch, there’s no where on earth you would even wear that. [both laugh] There’s no more real trees.
D: Oh, that’s good.
M: I just, I belly laughed. I like cracked up. [Dan laughs] I was like, is that really RealTree™ camo?
D: Maybe it’s like a…
M: A fashion statement?
D: Maybe you can 3D print whatever old shirts you like. [Morgan laughs] If you’re just scrolling through the, the, the feeds and you happen upon an old TV show, you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s cool. Aw, I want that.’
M: Yeah, I want to get me some RealTree™—
D: ‘Hey, can you make this for me?’
M: —hunting camo and cut the sleeves off. [Dan laughs]
D: That is good.
M: Yeah. Where are the people ironically wearing like, Guy Harvey shirts in the future? [laughs]
D: I had mentioned that you get a lot more of his ex-wife being part of, sort of his, his mentality, his way of thinking because he sees her a lot in his imagination.
M: Yeah.
D: And he thinks about what she would have been thinking about, what he’s doing right now.
And that in the books kind of transitions very elegantly. It dovetails nicely because he’s already having those thoughts about his ex-wife, who is named, it’s Candace. And then when we start, he starts seeing Julie, it’s less jarring. It’s less weird, and it’s not just like: ‘OK, guy, why are you just? Is that supposed to be a real vision he had or like?’ It’s a little bit awkward in the show, the way it’s presented. It’s, it kind of comes out of nowhere—
M: Yeah.
D: —when he first start seeing Julie, but in the in the book, he mentions his ex-wife so much that it starts to become part of his persona. You get that sensation already.
M: Yeah, there were some weird things in the in the show, like when she’s dying in her hotel room.
D: Mmhmm.
M: And it shows her actually seeing this little digital bird that Miller sees—
D: Right.
M: —outside of his [her] window.
D: Right?
M: And then when the Protomolecule takes over, Eros, it makes the shape of that fucking bird—
D: Right.
M: So it’s like, who’s in whose head?
D: Yeah. And I think that’s the intentional implication of that for sure that it’s like, well, how good is it at understanding us before it’s touching us?
M: Yeah.
D: Or where? Where is it getting some of its data?
M: Yeah.
D: You know. But with him seeing her, it’s described as him, like, her actually appearing in his mind. So quote: “In his hole, Miller turned on some music. The lyrical chance that Candace had liked back when they were young and if not hopeful, at least more joyful in their fatalism. He’d half-expected Candace to appear in his mind, sighing and looking crossly at him the way she had in life. Instead, he found himself talking with Julie Mao, in the half sleep of alcohol and exhaustion, he imagined her sitting at Havelock’s desk. She was the wrong age younger than the real woman would be. She was the age of the smiling kid in her picture. The kid who had raced in the Razorback and won.”
M: Hmm.
D: So you get a little bit more of the, it’s not as weird in the book, at least certainly not at first. It’s just sort of him, he doesn’t really have any friends.
M: Yeah.
D: And this is for some reason the only case that’s like, tickled his brain in so long. And then he starts to get too close—
M: Yeah.
D: —and just allows himself to care and, probably doesn’t hurt that he’s got an ex-wife and maybe if they had had kids, maybe they would have been closer to Julie’s age. And maybe that influences his thinking. Who knows?
M: He’s that old? In the book?
D: He’s supposed to be like in his fifties.
M: Huh.
D: Yeah. Not quite old enough that It’d be comfortable, but sure, totally possible.
M: Huh.
D: Yeah.
M: I don’t, I felt younger. [laughs]
D: This is also going a little bit further back because some of these things overlap a little bit more in the book. Uh, but when they’re talking about the Donager,—
M: Mmhmm.
D: —talking about how bristling with armaments and everything it is. Think you’ll like this one. Quote: “’They say one of those can kill a planet.’ Naomi said over the comm. She was at the Ops Station, a deck below. ‘Anyone can kill a planet from orbit.’ Holden replied. ‘You don’t even need bombs. Just push anvils out the airlock. That thing out there could kill shit, anything.’”
M: Hmm.
D: But it’s a nice little reference and probably foreshadowing of what’s to come when he’s—
M: Yeah.
D: —talking about. Yeah, you can…
M: But that wouldn’t work. You can’t just like, drop something out of an airlock and…
D: No, not literally anvils. He’s he’s just saying, like, yeah, you drop rocks and like—
M: Right.
D: —and you could kill a planet. You don’t need to, you don’t need to have fancy bombs or anything. You just throw asteroids at it.
M: Yeah.
D: And he’s like: ‘Anybody can kill a planet.’
M: Yeah, I don’t. I don’t think, would that even work? Could you even like drop bombs from a spaceship to a planet that wouldn’t even work. Wouldn’t they burn up on entry?
D: Oh, no. They most likely would have some sort of atmospheric detonation.
M: Yeah, but it’s not going to like blow up a planet.
D: You would just—
M: Cover it.
D: —do a bunch of it until like nothing’s going to live like that. You just killed everything.
M: Ugh, that’s so bleak. {Dan laughs]
D: I mean, if you think about it, if you had…
M: Wouldn’t it be kinder to just crack it like an egg? Like, that’s it?
D: That takes away more energy.
M: Yeah. [Dan laughs] Well, maybe destroying a planet should take some energy. [laughs]
D: Well, it does to destroy the planet, but not to kill it.
M: OK. [Dan laughs]
D: So this one’s another one that’s I’m not sure they could weasel out of this one slightly. It’s like, uh, maybe don’t. Maybe don’t say it like that. So see what you think. Quote: “‘Attacked,’ the man had said. There was nothing about it in her record. Might have been a mugging. Might have been something worse. Miller had known a lot of victims, and he put them into three categories. First, there were the ones who pretended nothing had happened or that whatever it was didn’t really matter. That was well over half the people he talked to. Then there were the professionals, people who took their victimization is permission to act out any way they saw fit. That ate most of the rest. Maybe 5%, maybe less, were the ones who sucked it up, learned the lesson and moved on. The Julies. The good ones.”
M: Oh God. Ew!
D: Oh yeah. That one, I don’t think feels like, Oh, that’s just showing Miller…
M: So she’s a victim, who sucked it up, learned a lesson and moved on, and she’s a good one?
D: I don’t know if that’s a commentary on Miller as a character, or on the writers.
M: That’s got to be… ugh.
D: That’s a bit rough of a statement to make, even if you’re just characterizing. Because he’s like thinking to himself. He’s not. It’s not the narrator saying that.
M: Right.
D: But but it kind of is, at the same time. I don’t know. That’s, that was it was a little rough, but that’s that’s not really that far out of context. That’s pretty much, it’s just him.
M: But what is…
D: Just him thinking to himself.
M: What victimization is he referring to?
D: Oh, this is when it’s a little bit different than in the show where he kind of goes to the docks and catches some…
M: Uh huh?
D: It’s her jujitsu instructor, I think is telling her, telling him about some fight she got in something like that. So it’s him just realizing that, oh, she got into some scuffle—
M: Oh Ok.
D: —that didn’t get reported…
M: And she got her ass kicked.
D: Yeah.
M: And yeah, and she just sucked it up and, ugh.
D: Yeah, it’s not great.
M: I mean, it’s not wrong. But I would…
But you could also say, is that coming from the perspective of someone who grew up in the Belt?
M: Yeah.
D: Who is living in a little bit more of a not exactly lawless, but slightly more lawless situation where it’s easier to, where you have to take care of yourself?
M: I don’t know if you should call her a good victim.
D: Yeah, it’s…
M: Yeah.
D: The good ones.
M: Yeah, because to be a victim in the fight, that would mean that somebody like targeted, attacked, assaulted her, and then she was like, ‘Yeah, that happens. I’m one of the good ones.’ [laughs] Like?
D: Speaking of the good ones. Definitely. Anything in these ads is from the best companies out there that…
M: Yeah, my favorite.
D: They’re they’re definitely the good ones. [Morgan laughs] Ads.
[Ads]
M: Fred Johnson is played by a man named Chad?
D: Mm-Hmm.
Theresa: Chad Coleman. He’s also ‘Z’ in Always Sunny.
M: Oh, OK.
D: Yeah, that’s—
M: I didn’t put that together, really.
D: —that’s really where he shines.
T: You never noticed that?
M: Yeah.
D: So this is, I think you might like to hear a bit more of Octavia.
M: Uh huh.
D: About like really what she’s more like, and it’s pretty different personification. Quote: “Octavia Muss was originally from crimes against persons back before Star Helix split violence up into smaller specialties. From there, she’d been on rape squad, then a couple of months of crimes against children. If the woman still had a soul, it had been pressed thin enough to see through. Her eyes never registered anything more than mild surprise. ‘We know which kids?’ ‘Some thugs from upstairs,’ she said. ‘Booked, fined, released into the wild.’ ‘We should round them back up,’ Miller said. ‘It’d be interesting to know whether someone paid them to take out these particular cameras.’ ‘I bet against it.’ ‘Then whoever did this had to know that these cameras were busted.’ ‘Someone in maintenance?’ ‘Or a cop.’ Muss smacked her lips and shrugged. She’d come from three generations in the Belt. She had family on ships like the ones the Scipio had killed. The skin and bone and gristle hanging in front of them were no surprise to her. You dropped a hand or under thrust and it fell to the deck. Your government slaughtered six families of ethnic Chinese prospectors? Someone pinned you to the living rock of series with a three foot titanium alloy spike. Same same.”
M: Huh.
D: So she’s much more hardened and—
M: Yeah.
D: —grizzled and doesn’t care…
M: Not like trembling ‘cuz she shot somebody, like…
D: Yeah and not like: ‘Oh, poor Miller. I’m so worried about him now.’
M: ‘Oh, kiss me!’ Yeah.
D: Now, I was a little wrong. She does kind of hug him goodbye. She gets emotional, but that’s like the only moment when he’s like leaving. She’s like—
M: Yeah.
D: —‘Good luck, man.’ Kind of like, like more like that. Like, ‘OK, you weren’t that bad.’ Give him a big hug. [Morgan laughs] Oh and when we see Anderson Dawes in the books—
M: Yeah?
D: —it’s a much more mysterious sort of refined thing. Now, the performance in the show is fantastic. I really like the character, and I think it’s spot on,—
M: Yeah.
D: —the characterization, but they also made him more violent. They, some of the things.
M: In the show?
D: Yeah, some of the things he does in the show are way beyond what the character does in the books. He’s much more of a political maneuverer and sort of dark agent behind the scenes as opposed to like throwing punches, you know?
M: Right.
D: Quote “The OPA man, Anderson Dawes, was sitting on a cloth folding chair outside Miller’s hall, reading a book. It was a real book. Onion skin pages bound in what might have been actual leather. Miller had seen pictures of them before. The idea of that much weight for a single megabyte of data struck him as decadent. ‘Detective?’ ‘Mr. Dawes.’ ‘I was hoping we could talk.’”
M: Mmm.
D: It’s much more effete sort of characterization of him, like sitting there—
M: Yeah.
D: —reading his book, his actual book.
M: Which is like such a like, that’s a power move.
D: Yeah.
M: Right? That’s Big Dick Energy. [Dan laughs] Like to like pull out your book?
D: Right, yeah.
M: That would be like if I traveled around with like a Fabergé egg in my purse and just like, you know, polished it, like, “Oh hi.” Oh my God.
D: Like uh, is it Tom Hanks with his typewriters?
M: Oh my God.
D: [mimics a typewriter clacking]
M: Yeah. I actually used to have a typewriter in a suitcase and it was a power move, and I would take it with me. [Dan laughs] And just like hammer out some poetry, you know, just to be an asshole. I like the depiction of Anderson Dawes in the series because first of all, his accent never cracks.
D: Mmhmm.
M: He’s like, He’s fully committed.
D: He’s a very serious actor.
M: Yeah, and…
D: I mean, I think that’s the main reason they didn’t get really get him back in time to do a lot of things.
M: Oh yeah.
D: Like in some of the later seasons when you see him, it’s just like his voice recording and like a picture of him on a screen. And it’s not like a live video.
M: Like he’s in a sound studio in England?
D: Yeah, it’s like, I think he had other projects. [Chernobyl, Foundation]
M: Well good for him.
D: Because there was that, there was a lot of delay—
M: Yeah.
D: —between them moving from SciFi to Amazon.
M: Yeah. And when he, like, finally violently confronts Miller when he’s, like, lost patience with them and he’s like, ‘You keep missing the point.’ And I was like, Yeah, yeah, he does.
D: Mmhmm.
D: Because like, I get what Anderson Dawes is trying to say and do, and Miller is so hung up on Julie.
D: Mmhmm.
M: He’s like, You took an innocent kid and he’s like, She’s not an innocent kid. She knew what she was doing. Like, she sought us out and like, he can’t get his mind around the fact that like this image he has of her.
D: And he, Anderson Dawes doesn’t do the whole like at the end of this episode, I think is when Miller gets black, bagged and swooped away. So we’re going to see the scene between them and that doesn’t happen, that that whole scene just doesn’t happen. It’s not part of it. Now there is confrontation in his in Miller’s hole and Dawes is extremely important to Miller’s sort of downfall, but it’s done differently, it’s more like Anderson really flexes his power and shows him by being involved with Shadid—
M: Yeah.
D: —and in her office, and let me just read a little quote for you here. Quote: “Shadid stepped out of her office, her gaze sweeping the station house. Conversations dimmed, Shadid caught Miller’s eye. She made a sharp gesture. ‘Get in the office!’ ‘Busted,’ Muss said. [Morgan laughs] In the office, Anderson Dawes sat at ease on one of the chairs, Miller felt his body twitch as that information fell into place.” Mars and the Belt in open armed conflict, the OPAs face on Ceres sitting with the captain of the security force.”
M: Hmm.
D: And there is a bit of a gap. And then another quote with when he’s being fired, right? “Miller’s brain spun. But he kept his face impassive. She was taking Julie away.”
M: Ugh!
D: “He wasn’t going to let her. That was a given. But it wasn’t the first issue. I have some inquiries in process, he began.” And then they’re like, No, no, no, no, no, you don’t have anything in process. This is like. We’re taking your toys away.
M: Wow. Yeah, because in the in the show, it was very sudden him getting fired?
D: Right.
M: And he just kind of goes, ‘Oh, of course, Anderson Dawes.’ Like.
D: It’s played more for he, he found them out.
M: Yeah.
D: It’s very much of a it’s a very Serpico kind of moment.
M: Oh yeah.
D: In the show, you know.
M: Where he’s like, ‘This goes all the way to the top!’ And yeah, what’s funny is…
D: In the book, it’s a much more of a sad thing. Like, she’s like, kind of pitiable, like: ‘You’re fired, man.’ Like kind of just everyone… You’re just washed up. You’re getting in the way you’re interfering with this OPA stuff that is bigger than, is literally above your pay grade. Like we’re trying to…
M: And everyone is trying to tell him that!
D: If you, from their point of view. Yeah, and from from their point of view, like, no, we’re trying to like make this work for the BelT. This is about to get seriously political and Anderson Dawes is positioned to be there to make the transition happen.
M: Yeah.
D: And that’s what you would do responsibly if you were the leader of such a group and this stuff was happening.
M: Yeah and minimize loss of life and…l
D: Absolutely. Yeah, he’s in the right.
M: I agree. I’m like. Maybe not the first time I watched the entire series, but the second and third time I was like way more sympathetic to the OPA.
D: Yeah.
M: You know, which like, I hate Marco so much as a character, and like a figure in this whole game. Yeah.
D: Yeah. Well, he’s the—
M: He’s like the radical.
D: he’s like the the wild card.
M: Yeah.
D: He’s the one that’s going to screw it up for everybody else, kind of.
M: Yeah, he’s not even interested in corruption. He’s he’s like so, so solely focused on Julie Mao and this little piece of data that he uncovers.
D: So this is pretty good quote. “‘We have Holden. He and his crew didn’t die, and they are or are about to be in open custody. Do you understand what I’m saying? Detective, do you see my point? I can do this investigation because I have the resources to do it. You can’t even find out what happened to your own riot gear.’”
M: Oooh.
D: “It was a slap. Miller looked at his shoes. He’d broken his word to Dawes about dropping the case, and the man hadn’t brought it up until now. He had to give the OPA operative points for that. Added to that, if Dawes really did have James Holden, there was no chance of Miller’s getting access to the interrogation.”
M: Hmm.
D: Because he’s talking about Fred Johnson.
M: Yeah, but…
D: He knows where Holden is. He knows what’s going on. He doesn’t need Miller to figure out this stuff here.
M: Right.
D: He knows he’s already got all that information and the fact that he he looks at his shoes and like, puts him in his place.
M: Yes.
D: It’s very, oof.
M: But hey, getting fired got him a lot closer to James Holden than he would have otherwise.
D: Now that’s true because he does kind of get the free time, it’s. You’re given a much more obvious insight into his free time afterwards when he’s looking through manifests and trying to figure out exactly what’s going on in which ship they’re on. And he does do some really great detective work in the books where he’s piecing it together and going through reams of data sort of like.
M: Yeah.
D: And he also is the one that figures out Rocinante–
M: Yeah.
D: —as the clue. He’s like, ‘Huh? That you? Tilting at windmills?’ You know?
M: Yeah.
D: I like that moment a lot where he’s he’s, he’s a good detective if he puts his mind to it.
M: Yeah, thank, thank goodness for that, I guess.
D: But here’s another good one from Muss to get a little bit more of a personification of, of her. Quote: “‘Hey, Muss,’ he said. ‘I got a question.’ ‘Fire away.’ ‘You’ve got a case you don’t want solved. What do you do?’ His new partner partner frowned, tilted her head and shrugged. ‘I hand it to a fish,’ she said. ‘There was a guy back in crimes against children. If we knew the perp was one of our informants, we’d always give it to him. None of our guys ever got in trouble.’ [Morgan scoffs] ’Yeah.’ Miller said. ‘For that matter, I need someone to take the shitty partner.’ ‘I do the same thing,’ Muss went on. “You know, someone no one else wants to work with, got bad breath or a shitty personality or whatever. But he needs a partner. So I picked the guy who maybe used to be good. But then he got a divorce, started hitting the bottle. A guy thinks he’s a hotshot, acts like it. Only his numbers aren’t that aren’t better than anybody else’s. Given the shit cases. The shit partner.’ Miller closed his eyes. His stomach felt uneasy. ‘What did you do?’ He asked. ‘To get assigned to you?’ Muss said. [Morgan laughs] ‘One of the seniors made the moves on me and I shot him down.’ ‘So you got stuck.’ ‘Pretty much. Come on, Miller, you aren’t stupid,’ Muss said. ‘You had to know.’’’
M: Ow! Ow!
D: “He’d had to know that he was the station house joke. The guy who used to be good, the one who’d lost it. No, actually. He hadn’t known that. He opened his eyes. Muss didn’t look happy or sad. Pleased at his pain or particularly distressed by it. It was just work to her the dead, the wounded, the injured. She didn’t care. Not caring was how she got through the day. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have turned him down,’ Miller said. ‘Ah, You’re not that bad,’ Muss said. ‘And he had back hair. I hate back hair.’” [both laugh]
M: Owie.
D: Owie! Yeah, she’s not that nice to Miller in the books at all.
M: Yeah, she doesn’t freak out because she shot somebody in like, need to make out about it.
D: No. She doesn’t need to make out about anything.
M: I like that one better.
D: [laughing] Mmhmm.
M: She’s a sociopath. I like that.
D: Yeah, It’s, it’s much more, I think of a realistic depiction and their relationship—
M: She’s like you had to know.
D: Yeah.
M: And he’s like: No.
D: Their relationship makes so much more sense. And spoilers for the future. Havelock is supposed to come back in the books.
M: Oh yeah?
D: He makes a reappearance and he just sort of [whistle noise like something yanked away] because of his injury, which doesn’t happen in the books. He just vanishes on us in the show and we just don’t see him again, but he comes up later on.
M: Yeah, that’s…
D: In a really big way, actually.
M: It’s such a difference—
D: And it’s just gone, it’s not there.
M: —between like the show Miller and the book Miller.
D: Mmhmm.
M: They’re not even the same person because, like in the show, he’s kind of a smart aleck and like has like a little bit of swagger and…
D: Yeah, he’s got hard edges, but he’s—
M: Yeah.
D: —heart of gold.
M: Like the scene where he visits Havelock in the hospital and the, the hooker shows up. She, like, causes him out and says something in like the Creole.
D: Right.
M: And he goes ‘Aw, and me without my wallet’ and it’s like, I don’t know what she just said, but it was definitely ‘fuck you.”’ [both laugh]
D: Yeah.
M: I mean, it’s not that in the book at all. It’s kind of…
D: He’s a lovable jackass, but in the book, he’s just kind of sad and washed up and—
M: Yeah.
D: —like just nobody really likes him that much, you know, like they tolerate him,—
M: Yeah.
D: —but they feel bad for him.
M: Because, like in the show, I like seeing him on his own and like doing some really good detective work and being kind of like a lone wolf and like, I like that Miller. I don’t like the idea of him being this like washed up old creep who’s like, obsessed with the girl who could be his daughter.
D: Yeah. Little bit.
M: Yeah.
D: One last thing. This is just a little little tiny detail. But when we first get to see, Holden lovingly examining all the coffee—
M: Right.
D: —and this beautiful, enormous galley that he’s just like, ‘Oh my god, oh my God.’ And then it pans around, and I’m pretty sure what we see there is a drip coffee machine.
M: Yeah.
D: I don’t know about that. If I was in space. If I’d be all—
M: Well…
D: —feeling very confident about like, ‘OK, what G are we at, guys?’ [laughs]
M: Yeah, you could, you definitely couldn’t percolate coffee. However, if it seals, if the carafe seals—
D: Sure, I guess.
M: Then it would, It would be fine because we’d all fill, you know, the the carafe. But yeah, you could not percolate coffee in space.
D: Yeah. There’s got to be a few different methods that would still all work.
M: Yeah, it would be a press.
D: You could do a press. Yeah, absolutely. You could probably do some sort of temperature differential.
M: You could cold brew.
D: Right, right.
M: You can always cold brew, but that takes like 18 hours. But yeah, you’d basically have to have like one of those AeroPress machines—
D: Right.
M: —that like forces the hot water through the grounds. Was it just like a Bunn? Like a Bunn coffeemaker from like the 7-Eleven?
D: I’ll have to double check again. Or maybe, uh listeners can go check.
M: Yeah, I’m not watching it again.
D: But yeah, I think it’s I mean, it’s just a prop. And you could, of course, say, ‘Oh, it’s sealed,’ but it, you know, pretty much just looks like a regular coffeemaker.
M: Yeah. If he busts out like a filter and like pops it in the brew basket, I would have be really mad. [both laugh]
D: Oh, my. Well, I think that’s about all we’ve got for today. What do you want to talk about next time?
M: Why are there no three breasted women in The Expanse?
D: Is that really what you wanna talk about?
M: I’m pretty sure I was promised that in Science Fiction.
D: I mean that’s what we always want to talk about. What about…
M: Oh, there’s another thing that I noticed on like one of my many rewatching of this episode that I totally miss the first couple of times. But when the guy is telling a story about Julie helping those Belters that were suffering like the cadmium poisoning?
D: Yeah.
M: Did they mention that in the book?
D: God, that’s a good question, because I don’t…
M: Because he [Anderson Dawes] says specifically that Julie didn’t even care that she had to take anti-cancer meds for the rest of her life.
D: Yeah, there is… that is in there.
M: And the same thing happens to Miller.
D: Yeah.
M: And that is a weird little bit of foreshadowing about this connection that they have.
D: Yeah, I’m pretty sure that that, that …that does happen. There is there’s certainly, uh, passages that directly imply or state that that she is fearless about just going in and trying to help other people so that that’s an accurate and apt characterization.
M: Yeah, so then for her, for Miller later to also have to take the anti-cancer meds?
D: Mmhmm.
M: You know what I mean from like a similar act basically like saving the lives of all these people or attempting to, he fails miserably. But like I just it was that was just the interesting little connection.
D: Celebrations.
M: Yeah?
D: In SciFi, since we just got off our kind of holiday season here, now that everybody is over that, we can, we can ruin them a little bit.
M: If you don’t orbit the Sun, do you really have—
D: Sure.
M: —holidays?
D: Like when, when do you celebrate something if you are far, far, far from home?
M: Right?
D: That’s an interesting question.
M: Or what would you celebrate?
D: Right. Let’s talk about that next time.
M: Yeah, Let’s do it.
D: Join us next time, we’ll talk about some cultural celebrations in SciFi books and movies, et cetera. Oh no, did we introduce ourselves at the beginning?
M: We did not.
D: And we’ve got to do that then. My name is Dan Winburn. You can follow me on Twitter if you don’t like yourself very much, @DanWinburn. You can also follow us as a show @TheExpansing in on Twitter or at our website: TheExpansing.com. Morgan, where can people find you?
M: At home mostly.
D: Listening to the gunshots?
M: Listening to the fireworks. I’m on Instagram @LuxNovaStudio. That’s just my Art.
D: AeroPress, please give us money.
M: Yeah, Nespresso, Call me. [laughs]
D: Bye.
