Sometimes it’s good to be late to the game. For instance, by the time I got around to binging The Expanse this past month, the series had already ended and I could see the complete story.
(It’s incredible, for any of you latecomers like me. Go watch!)
There’s one scene in particular that’s stuck with me, though, from the sixth and final season. It’s a perfect example of high-quality writing for TV, and as an occasional TV writer myself, I feel the need to call it out.
In the season 5 finale, The Expanse killed off one of its beloved core characters, Alex Kamal. Off-screen, the actor who portrayed Alex had been accused of sexual misconduct, and it seems the showrunners reacted by killing off the character. Well and good. But the character of Alex was a much-loved part of the crew of the war ship Rocinante, the easygoing glue that held them all together. Alex was the first, to my memory, who labeled the Roci’s crew a “family.” Losing him was huge.
The writers were smart enough to keep the death consistent with the show’s universe–Alex died of a stroke brought on by the physical stress of maintaining a high-g turn. It had been mentioned before as a possibility, and the sudden nature of his fatal stroke is all too familiar even here in the pre-space-travel world. The episode allows a few scenes of Alex’s crewmates mourning him, and at this point most shows would move on.
The Expanse moved on, too. But even as the events of season 6 transpired, the show didn’t forget Alex–the occasional shot of his name on the Roci’s plaque, the sadness on characters’ faces when they mentioned him, the mere fact that the crew was reduced to eating crappy food rations since Alex was almost always the one to cook family dinners. And then this scene, this perfect scene:
Bobbie and Amos are working on the Roci, doing their mundane repairs. And in the background is a song we’ve heard before–“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” by Hank Williams. We notice it, feel the familiarity, and then Amos says exactly what we’re thinking: “This is Alex’s music.”
That’s right–we’ve seen him on the Roci listening to this song. Alex, with his twang, was a sort of cowboy and the music amplified that. He almost always had his headphones on. But Bobbie now reveals another fact about his love of music–he only ever played the same few songs.
“He said there wasn’t any other music on board.”
It’s funny, because it was an obvious lie and Bobbie knew it. But the humor is tinged with sadness now, a real and relatable sadness. It’s a silly, very specific fact about who Alex was. Not what his job on the Rocinante was, not what his broken relationships with his wife and son made him, not the heroism of his actions throughout the series. Just a weird little quirk, the kind everyone has and most people don’t bother even mentioning. But Amos didn’t know it, and now he does. It allows him–and us–to learn something new and endearing about a beloved friend.
The sadness hangs in the air, though they both continue their repairs. And yet, they find themselves singing along as they work, quietly enough that they might be doing it on their own, but they’re not. They’re singing together, along with Alex’s music, because they know every word. He made them listen to it so much that they had no choice but to remember the lyrics–and now it’s how they remember him. Alex is there with them in that moment as much as a lost loved one ever can be. His spirit is reflected in the music–and the people–he loved.
Alex’s happiest times, the life he finally realized he was meant to live, were spent on the Rocinante with his makeshift family of friends. His friends are still here, living their day-to-day lives on the Roci…and keeping Alex with them.
This is how grief works in real life. The acute pain, the crushing misery…it ends. You move on. But the grief is still there, every bit as deep as it was at first. It’s only the way you deal with it that changes–you incorporate it into your life. It becomes a part of you, a fact of your everyday existence. And when that happens, the good memories of your loved one have room to come out along with the pain. You can smile sometimes instead of crying. You can sing along to their favorite song.
There are no words of mourning in this scene. What Bobbie and Amos do say is actually a bit mocking of Alex, reflecting the relationship they had with him–one of good-natured ribbing. The Rocinante crew is moving on, and they’re taking Alex’s spirit–his music, his memory–with them. What a perfect, understated way to pay tribute to his character and their humanity at the same time. The writers don’t give us a heavy handed eulogy; instead we get just one lovely moment.
