Betrayal has rocked the crew of Rocinante in season 3 of SYFY’s The Expanse, but actor Cas Anvar doesn’t think his character, Alex, will ever go against the family he’s found on that ship. Late in season 2, Naomi (Dominique Tipper) admitted she handed Fred Johnson and the Belters the dangerous protomolecule, turning them into the third superpower in the solar system and escalating the already high tension between Earth and Mars. Naomi’s decision has soured a key relationship in the series, and it might have audiences wondering if another character might choose their home over their friends’ wishes.
One likely contender might be Alex, the pilot of the Rocinante. Being from Mars, Alex certainly has reason enough to want to see his family and the people of the planet safe and perhaps victorious in the ongoing war with Earth. But is the pull of his home planet enough to make him turn on James, Amos, Naomi, and now Prax? According to the actor himself, it would probably take a lot more than patriotism to do that.
More: The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2 Review: A Bleak, Tension-Filled Expansion Of The Story
Anvar spoke with Screen Rant recently about The Expanse and where Alex is headed in season 3. When the topic of Naomi’s actions came up, Anvar applied her thinking to Alex, and says that the pilot’s bond with the rest of the crew aboard the Rocinante is too strong. Plus, he’s become a little disillusioned with the actions of his home planet as of late. Anvar said:
“The Rocinante is like an independent nation filled with Belters, Martians, and Earthers. We all have our personal beliefs. We all have our alliances and our love/hate relationships with our home planets. But on the Roci we are a democratic team that's loyal to each other. That's why at the beginning of the season it’s such a huge betrayal because Naomi breaks that law, breaks that rule. She supersedes the group’s wishes with her own. That's a huge, huge trauma to all three of us.
Alex definitely feels tied to Mars, he has family back there, he grew up there and loves it. He understands it. But there's also a part of him that has been disillusioned with Mars. The planet, to him, was always this altruistic force that would never do any harm. That’s kind of been disproven in the last couple of seasons with the discovery that Mars is behind a lot of this protomolecule nonsense. So he's now in flux. He's now trying to figure out exactly who he is and where he's from and what is his Martian heritage all about, what is it worth?”
In the end, Anvar thinks that the pull of the Rocinante is too strong at this point, and that Alex’s loyalty to the people aboard would prevent him from following in Naomi’s footsteps.
“I mean we're all products of our upbringing and [Alex] is deeply tied to Mars, but it's a hard question because he has never felt more at home than he is on the Rocinante. The ship has given his life purpose and has helped him who he is. Alex has so much loyalty to that ship and that crew. That is his family. It would take a lot for him to betray that. It would take a lot for him to chose somebody else over that. I would never want to see Alex put in the position where he has to choose between his Martian family and the crew of the Rocinante.”
Next: Supernatural: Mary Winchester Has Become ‘Apocalypse Mom’ To Jack
The Expanse continues next Wednesday with ‘Reload’ @10pm on SYFY.