The Expanse, Season Two

The poster image for this season is awkward, unattractive, and confused.

I look at it and all I see is that ominous, grasping hand attached to a blank mask surrounded by fire. Call me a coward, but that pretty clearly reads as "RUN! Monster coming!", no? But when I saw it in wide format versions, I realized this isn't some faceless thing crawling toward me and reaching out to grab me. It is someone clinging to a ship in space, trying to save themselves. All images are ambiguous, but this one is divided against itself in the worst possible way.

That said, the image actually works pretty well as a representation of the second season of_The Expanse_ because the episodes themselves are pretty confused about what they're up to.

If I'm generous, the first season's slow-crawl through less than half of the book it was adapting (and its many pointless changes to the plot) surely threw the second season off-balance. To keep going, the second season needed to pick up the pace and move through a book and a half of material. It also had to push the narrative back in line with its multi-volume source. That's a big task, and it was rough going.

Actually, I struggled to get through it, quitting for several months after watching only the first half of the season. Eventually I started back and then quit again after a few boring wandering episodes mid-season. Only recently did I watch the last four.

Here's the odd thing though: the fact that the story does get on track and that it seems to be settling into a steady pace in those last episodes has left me unexpectedly (but mildly) optimistic about what's to come. (And I do like watching Steven Strait, Dominique Tipper and Shohreh Aghdashloo.)

Still I'm not jumping in right away on the third season. Despite my enthusiasm for Leviathan's Wake, I found Caliban's War dull and repetitive. I haven't read the third book yet and I probably won't watch the third season until I do, which might take me awhile. For now, it's deep in the reading pile with a lot of better books sitting on top of it.