602 Azure Dragon – The Expanse Podcast – Tales From The Rocinante

Drummer and Walter from Azure Dragon

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Azure Dragon

Here is the full discussion episode about The Expanse season 6 episode 2 titled Azure Dragon.

Episode Recap

The episode opens on Laconia, with the little girl, Cara, running to her home with the sick mother bird, asking her mother and father to save it, but it’s too late. The mother bird is dead. Cara is guilt stricken when she is reminded that Laconia has a different chemistry than Earth, and realizes the crumb from her protein bar likely killed the bird. As her parents leave for a required meeting called by “the soldiers,” Cara decides to bury the bird and return the three baby birds to their nest. She returns to the forest, and uses her parents’ drone to successfully return one baby bird to the nest, but then it crashes. Devastated, she begins to dig a grave for the dead bird. The strange purring dog comes up behind her, picks up the dead bird in its mouth and disappears into the forest, as Cara cries out in dismay.
In the Belt, the Rocinante is replenishing its supplies courtesy of a UNN ship. As Jim Holden prepares to disconnect, he is informed that a mission specialist ordered by the Secretary-General will be boarding, and he’s surprised to see Bobbie Draper. Later, Bobbie informs Holden, Naomi, and Amos that their plans to destroy the Azure Dragon have changed, and Avasarala wants them to capture it because she wants its data – and the UN needs a “win” for morale. The Roci crew is not pleased that they will be placed at risk in this mission, and Bobbie is not pleased to learn that Clarissa Mao, a convicted felon, is on the Roci. Holden shows Bobbie the strange footage of the Barkeith entering The Ring, and asks her to obtain information about any Martian ships that might have slipped through.
The Roci crew catches up with the Azure Dragon, but it spots them and rabbits. Bobbie orders Holden not to fire, and as the ships draw aside, she jumps on the Azure and plants a device which shuts down its drive. Naomi prepares to jump but has flashbacks of her space leap to the Chezemoka and freezes, unable to jump and join Bobbie as precious seconds tick by. Clarissa takes the equipment from Naomi’s hand and joins Bobbie, but doesn’t know which wire to disconnect to bypass power and kill the reactor on the Azure. From the Roci, Naomi tells Clarissa which feed line to pull. Amos and Holden are waiting for the shutdown before they breach, and the delay enables two of the Azure’s crew to attack Bobbie and Clarissa, which Bobbie dispatches with her armor. A third man appears and Clarissa activates her mods to kill him, saving Bobbie, but suffering the mod’s effects in the process. Bobbie takes her back to the Roci as Holden and Amos disable the remaining Belter, and Naomi cracks the ship’s encryption from the Roci, but she’s not ready to talk about what happened when she froze. Amos and Holden view the data. It’s the mother load. With the mission over, Holden tells Clarissa that as long as she’s part of the crew, she must do what he says. She smiles – it’s the first time Holden’s called her part of the crew.
Meanwhile, Filip is being held in custody in a Ceres Station cell, when his father, Marco, tells the acting station head, Nico, to release him – this is a Free Navy matter and he will deal with it. Marco tells Filip that Yoan assaulted a superior officer and that Filip killed him to defend himself. Filip is stunned that there are no further consequences, and Marco precedes to berate him, telling him he has become an embarrassment, that Marco and Cyn had partied hard in their youth, but always reported for duty the next day because they didn’t have anyone to bail them out – they only had each other.
Later, Rosenfeld approaches Marco about Filip, and offers a punishment based on her own experience. Marco continues to blame Filip for his problems, beginning when he brought Naomi aboard their ship. Marco claims he loves Filip, and says he needs him – he needs him to be the man he should be, while Rosenfeld reminds him that the war is more important to worry about – rather than Filip. Marco tells her that everyone else is afraid of him, but she’s unfazed. Filip seeks out Rosenfeld to ask for compensation for Yoan’s family, and she tells him that had Yoan lived, he would have been punished and discharged, then she concedes that Filip is being gracious and offers to send them a small tribute. Filip struggles to record a message for Yoan’s family, then his countenance changes and he records a formal message ending with “He died honorably serving Marco Inaros and the Belt.”
In the Belt, Drummer prepares to dock the Tynan with the ship, Inazami, captained by former smuggler and thief, Liang Walker, a member of Golden Bough and now part of Marco’s Free Navy. Some Golden Bough members broke away from the Free Navy, ...