A large part of fiction concerns the timely intersection of events that would not happen in such a neat way in the real world. There is typically a single story arc with some number of sub-plots, and the author or screenwriter forces events to happen fast enough to keep an audience for the tale. If the story teller succeeds, everyone will be quite willing to suspend their disbelief, or ignore the fact that the real universe doesn’t work that way. An example of the real world is this review, written six months after this episode went on the air.
This time, I saw a large number of coincidences. Several reviewers believe the happy plot intersections should have happened sooner. Others, typically those who read the series of books forming the basis of the show, are happy with most of what they’ve seen. This episode was more action and less concerned with analogies with classic fiction, such as Don Quixote. The conclusion of the show was such as to get the audience to come back in a week.
//Spoilers, we’ve got spoilers. We’ve got stacks and stacks of spoilers. …With apologies to the George Goble show.//
Holden and company arrive at a set of coordinates, which turns out to be a rock. Since the celestial coordinate system only makes sense if you are on the surface of the Earth, that would be quite an achievement. In any case, they find a stealth ship anchored in a hole. It turns out to be the ship Julie Mao was aboard at the beginning of Episode 1. This ship, the Anubis, was dead. Nobody, alive or dead, was aboard. They found that Eros was its home port. Since all hatches were open, and the shuttlecraft was gone, someone survived. There was one thing on the Anubis. It was an organism which came to life when they started to power the reactor.
It was certain this was the ship that destroyed the Cant. Holden and his crew take grim pleasure in returning the favor, hoping to be rid of the strange organism.
They proceed to Eros, the only place the Anubis shuttle could go. Up to this point, they do not know the survivor they are after is Julie Mao since she used another name. At the same time, Miller arrives as well, and tracks Mao to a motel, arriving in the middle of a firefight between Holden and the Earth agents sent to kill him. Miller saves the day, Miller and Holden agree they don’t like each other and head to room 22.
They find Julie Mao dead, covered with the same stuff that was on the Anubis reactor.
Since Miller decided he believed in Julie, and that was his only remaining reason to exist, his world just ceased to exist. Holden, meanwhile, recognizes the substance on the dead woman cannot be good, and makes everybody back off from it.
That was a good show, and the big season finale will be coming next. While I consider whether to get the books, I’m writing horseback.
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