The Expanse Season 6: 7 Quick Things We Know About The Amazon Series

Wes Chatham on The Expanse

We are not too far removed from the the earth-shattering events of The Expanse Season 5 and the monumental shift experienced by nearly every living creature in the Solar System, but fans of Amazon’s hit sci-fi saga are already clamoring for what comes next when the show makes its eventual return. And, even though a great deal of unknowns remain leading into The Expanse Season 6, there is a lot that we already know about the plot, cast, and the future of the popular sci-fi action series.

There is a lot to unpack here, so let’s go ahead and get into just seven quick things we know about The Expanse Season 6.

Steven Strait on The Expanse

The Expanse Season 6 Will Be The Last Season

Before we get into the meat and potatoes and everything else we can expect to see go on in The Expanse Season 6, it should be noted that upon announcing the season back in November 2020, the studio revealed that it would be the final chapter in the years-long spacetime drama which it brought back to life and gave a second shot after it was cancelled by Syfy, following three seasons, in May 2018. But, as we’ll reveal later on, this might not be the final adaptation of James S.A. Corey’s (the pen name of collaborators Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) expansive and exhilarating series of gripping sci-fi novels.

Cas Anvar on The Expanse

Most Of The Expanse Cast Is Returning For Season 6

When the sixth and final season of The Expanse returns at some point in the very near future, it will bring back most of its main cast with the exception of Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar), who met a rather sudden and shocking demise in the Season 5 finale. A main character throughout the first five seasons of the show’s run, Anvar was fired following a slew of sexual misconduct allegations during the summer of 2020, per Deadline. The rest of the cast of The Expanse, however, will be back for the final season of the Amazon series, and the madness and destruction that will ensue throughout the show’s final chapter.

The cast of The Expanse

The Expanse Season 6 Sounds Like It Will Be All-Out War

In its lead-up, The Expanse Season 5 was considered to be the show’s Infinity War in the sense that the characters were split up doing their own things while a menacing threat loomed in the background. Well, that threat — Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander) is no longer in the shadows and is in full control of the Ring, and according to comments made by showrunner Naren Shankar to EW following the shocking Season 5 finale, it looks like we’re heading to full-on Endgame style war:

Season 5 is a disaster movie, or the beginnings of the war, and [Season] 6 is the war. And that's the war that we've always promised the audience from the text crawl at the beginning of Episode 1 of Season 1. This is like that this is a powder keg and that the solar system was at this point in history. Well, now we're in it. And that's going to be the story in season 6.

Fans of the novels on which The Expanse is based already know how this whole scenario plays out, but the prospect of all-out war being brought to life in the series will be as exciting for them as it is for those who’ve never picked up one of the books.

Keon Alexander on The Expanse

But It Doesn’t Sound Like We’ll Be Getting That Big Time Jump

In The Expanse novels, there is a major, 28-year time jump between the sixth and seven books, but fans hoping to see how that major shift would play out in the Amazon series might be in for some bad news, because it looks like the show will either end with or just before life nearly 30 years later. When speaking with ComicBook in December 2020, Shankar said that she, Daniel Abraham, and Ty Franck had always talked about having a six-season framework because there was always a natural endpoint at the end of the sixth book (the 28-year time jump).

This isn’t to say The Expanse Season 6 won’t show how things play out for everyone following the nearly 30-year jump forward in the final moments of the finale, but in that case it would be more of a prologue for the series than anything else.

Cara Gee on The Expanse

The Expanse Season 6 Will Leave The Door Open For Future Possibilities

Even if The Expanse will come to a close at the end of Season 6, Ty Franck, who's also one of the show’s co-creators, thinks there are a lot of possibilities that could be explored for the franchise as well as the crew of the Rocinante. During a conversation with CinemaBlend in December 2020, Franck revealed:

Season 6 has a nice, natural ending point to give a satisfying end to the six seasons we’ve developed so far. But, it leaves the door open for a lot of other possibilities. I know Alcon in exploring those possibilities and we’ll see what else.

And although this doesn’t do much to help ease the nerves of longtime fans of The Expanse, this could very well mean we see more from the franchise in the future.

David Strathairn on The Expanse

Production On The Expanse Season 6 Is Already Underway

The cast and crew of The Expanse aren’t wasting any time getting things going for the show’s sixth and final season as production is already underway. When speaking with Collider in February 2021, Shankar revealed that things were “rolling along” and that they had finished the first week of filming just prior to the interview. Later on in the interview, Shankar also stated that all of the episodes (though she didn’t disclose how many or how long each would be) have been booked and each has a director at this time.

The cast of The Expanse

The Expanse Season 6 Could Come As Early As December 2021 If The Show Sticks To Amazon’s Release Model

It has yet to be revealed exactly when The Expanse Season 6 will air on Amazon, but if we go off the show’s premiere schedule ever since getting picked up by the streaming service, then we can expect to see the final chapter in the long-running fan-favorite sci-fi series start back up at some point in December 2021.

There are still a lot of things about The Expanse Season 6 that we don’t yet know. We don’t know the total episode count, what new characters will be introduced, or when we’ll see a trailer for the final chapter in the sci-fi series’ monumental run, but these will likely be revealed before long.

Philip Sledge
Content Writer

Philip grew up in Louisiana (not New Orleans) before moving to St. Louis after graduating from Louisiana State University-Shreveport. When he's not writing about movies or television, Philip can be found being chased by his three kids, telling his dogs to stop barking at the mailman, or chatting about professional wrestling to his wife. Writing gigs with school newspapers, multiple daily newspapers, and other varied job experiences led him to this point where he actually gets to write about movies, shows, wrestling, and documentaries (which is a huge win in his eyes). If the stars properly align, he will talk about For Love Of The Game being the best baseball movie of all time.