The Expanse Book vs. TV Recap: Salvage

This week on The Expanse, things kick into high gear as our two main characters, Holden and Miller, finally come together. The show has picked up steam as we zoom toward the end of the season, and we’re back on track when it comes to following along with the books.

When we left off, Holden and company were off trying to find Lionel Polanski, while Miller had left Ceres station. Back on Earth, Avasalara learned that a black ops team was en route to take care of Holden and his crew, as Earth fears he’s working for the OPA.

We begin with Miller onboard a transport to Eros, where a shuttle from a ship Julie Mao was associated previously docked. He talks with a missionary, which reminded me of a conversation that I had with Daniel Abraham about the books last year:

“I hit my high water mark a few weeks ago, when a minor character that I created for a specific technical problem walked by my seat on their way to set.”

That character was the missionary. In the book, he and Miller chat a bit about faith and where they’re headed. Here, we get a little information about the Navoo, the generation ship being built on Tycho. It’s a good bit of ground to cover, because it’s stuff we’ll need to know later on. It’s a good example of how the writing team worked to crunch down Leviathan Wakes, streamlining the narrative for television.

Another good example: we jump to the Roci, which is making a stop by Asteroid BA834024112, where they discover a stealth ship, the Anubis, docked and abandoned. We’ve been here before, in the opening moments of the show: this is where Julie was imprisoned and escaped. The crew investigates, discovering that the ship has been vented to space, and that there is something strange on board. In the book, this scene that took place 100 pages later, after Eros. However, it makes a lot of sense to bump it up: it shows off a little better how they find Julie, and what the stakes are.

From there, they head to Eros in search of the one crew member who seems to have gotten off the ship. Miller, in the meantime, bribes a dock worker to get information about the shuttle, only to be arrested. He’s saved by his friend Sematimba, who points him in the direction of Julie, in a flop house called the Blue Falcon. In the docks, Holden and crew discover the same information and arrive first.

When they arrive, we learn Kenzo’s end game: he calls in the tactical team from Earth, and they open fire in the flop house lobby. The crew dives for cover and returns fire, only to be saved by a tall Belter—Miller. They’re headed to the same place, and they kick down the door to room 22 together. Julie is there, but she’s dead, covered in the same strange stuff that they saw onboard the Anubis.

This episode was tense, you can really feel the anticipation building for the eventual encounter between Holden and Miller. The whole thing was handled really well, with scenes like the shootout and the investigation of the Anubis taken right off the page (although in slightly different order), which was awesome. Going by the page count, we’re up to 247 (with a quick hope to around page 341 and back). Next week, the season will wrap up with a double-length episode, and we’ll see just how far into Leviathan Wakes the show’s first season will take us. Fortunately, we already know that there’ll be a season 2.