Episode Recap: Fallen World

Holden is unconscious after completing the circuit at the Station. When Draper isn't able to revive him, she makes the command decision that she and her team will take him with them. But before they fire up the ol' rocket boots and shoot up the hatch to the surface, Draper notices the bullets from earlier that are still frozen in place. She has the team check and sure enough, the Ring has massively lowered the "speed limit" point at which it will start to grab anything in motion. If they'd tried to go back up at their old speed, they'd have been screwed. So everybody's gotta move a lot slower now.

Dominique is on her skiff, where she was trying to reach the Roci when the Ring decelerated everything. Naomi's a bit bloodied up but otherwise isn't harmed too badly. She tries to rev up the ship to go faster, which is a bad idea. She ends up overloading the system, and it catches fire, which would have been a lot worse if the Ring wasn't currently souping everything up. Naomi's able to suit up and open the hatch to extinguish the fire before it can explode. Still, she's forced to leave the ship and space it on her own.

Aboard the MCRN drop ship, Draper revives a flatlining Holden, though he's still unconscious. She gets a situation report: a third of the people on the Xuesen are dead, and that's likely the case on all the ships inside the Ring. Essentially, any ship that was moving at the time was halted in its tracks, which had the effect of a car crashing into a wall. Draper surmises that the massive deceleration was a defensive maneuver after the Martian captain threw a grenade. Her pilot sees it as less a defensive move than a massacre.

Things look bad on the Behemoth. The Ring slammed on the brakes while Drummer and Ashford were having their argument in the freight lift area by the farming equipment (gotta love those Mormons, whose plans to venture out into space involved old-school farming equipment). Now they're each pinned in between vehicles; Drummer's leg has also been impaled. They're too far from each other and can't even see each other to help. Their attempts to move the vehicles fail, and they won't be getting help any time soon, since Drummer didn't tell anyone she was going down here. The two bicker back and forth, but they're clearly going to have to work together to get free.

Things are bad aboard the Thomas Prince, but lucky for Melba, she didn't get injured too badly when the deceleration interrupted her attempt to murder Tilly. She does appear to have a broken arm, though that pales in comparison to Tilly, who is impaled on some pipes in the ceiling. Whether that was accomplished by the deceleration of Melba with her bite-down superpowers … who's to say?

Meanwhile, Anna emerges from her quarters mostly unscathed (she was sleeping and thus belted down). She begins to survey the devastation, and it is intense. Dead bodies floating in zero gravity, amid debris and suspended blood droplets. She heads to a triage area where the wounded are being tended to and offers her services as a trained nurse. The officer in charge (who's decently bloodied up himself) explains to her that in zero G, wounds can't drain or heal, and any internal bleeding is a death sentence. He tells her to pray to her God. "This is only going to get worse.

Back on the Behemoth, Drummer spots a hand-held terminal that they can use to call for help, only it's floating in the air. They can use the mech arm to grab it, but only Ashford can control it and only Drummer can see it. So it turns into a productive little teamwork exercise, actually, with Ashford trusting Drummer's commands and Drummer accepting help from Ashford. It also looks a lot like trying to grab a prize with the claw game in the arcade. Ashford manages to grab the terminal with the mech arm, but just before he can hand it to Drummer, a circuit shorts, and the mech arm grips tighter, crushing the glass terminal. Back to square one for the Belters.

Anna, on wound-patrol, finds Melba and her broken arm (out of sight of Tilly and her broken everything, however). She takes Melba to the medical bay and explains to her what's happened: massive deceleration, all ships being pulled to the center, et cetera. "All ships?" asks Melba, visions of hopscotching over to the Rocinante and offing James Holden dancing in her head. Anna is interrupted by a communication from Tilly. There's too much interference to make out what she's saying, but Anna goes off in search of her. Melba, feeling the awkward moment but also knowing a live Tilly means bad news for her, follows Anna out.

Aboard the MCRN transport, Holden is still out cold, though his brain waves are racing. Draper tells him to pull through and wake up, which annoys her fellow marine, Trep, who seems to think Holden was in control of what the Station did to their commanding officer. Draper thinks that's obviously ridiculous. Trep then calls into question her loyalty to the mission or to Holden. Draper reminds him she fired her weapon at Holden first, without hesitation. When he tells her to try it again, now, for the good of everyone, she places the gun away. That's not how they're going to do this.

Draper then heads above deck, where there's more bad news. At the rate they're currently able to travel, it will be seven months until any of the ships can escape the Ring. And they don't have enough supplies to support people that long. "We'll figure it out," Draper assures her, though the pilot isn't so sure.

Anna finds Tilly, still impaled on the ceiling, and calls for help. Tilly can barely speak, but she manages to get out that it was Clarissa Mao who did this to her. And just when you think she's going to leave Anna in the dark about Clarissa's real identity, she says she's going by Melba. Anna is struck by this, but for the moment, all she can do is be with Tilly in her final moments. Helpless, Anna can only look on as zero-gravity tears pool up and shimmer in Tilly's eyes as she dies.

On the Behemoth, Ashford and Drummer trade war stories, without much hope of getting freed any time soon. Drummer's situation is getting dire. The subject turns to the Belter uniforms that Drummer seems to resent. She sees them as a signal that the Belters are giving up their own identity  to fall in line with the Inners. Ashford says that it's the quickest way for Belters to gain equality.

On the Thomas Prince, Melba plots out a course to get to the now-much-closer Roci, while Anna is in pursuit of her (with a stun weapon she lifted off an officer). Anna finds Melba just as she's about to open the airlock. Anna tells her there's no running from what she's done. "The only thing you can do is BEG for mercy." By the time Melba in her space suit has boostered off of the ship, Anna is furiously screaming at her.

Ashford and Drummer are now both in serious need of medical help. Ashford is even coughing up blood. Rather than give in and have them both die, Drummer makes the decision to jump start the rig, lurching it forward (crushing her further) and freeing Ashford. He immediately calls for help for his fallen captain.

Naomi finally makes it to the Roci, finding both Alex and Amos (separately) unconscious. In a daze, Alex manages to explain that Holden left the ship with Miller, which only confuses Naomi more. She gets them all set up in medical, and when Amos comes to, he asks if she's back to help or back to stay. She says to stay. "I guess it took being away to understand that you're my family," she says.

On the Behemoth, Ashford has gotten Drummer to the medics, who are tending to her. There are about 100 dead and 100 more wounded on the ship, and without the ability to move/create gravity, it doesn't look good for them. Ashford's idea? Spin the drum of the great Mormon ship and create their own gravity. It's risky; it could tear the whole ship apart. But how much worse off would that leave them, really?

Thinking Holden is still on the Rocinante, Melba space-walks her way across the soup and locks herself onto the ship. She's a resourceful one, so she gets inside pretty easily. Naomi goes to investigate a strange noise (rookie mistake!), and Melba gets the jump on her. Melba's in a mech suit AND has that super chewing-gum power, so Naomi's at a real disadvantage. She puts up a good fight, but Melba ultimately gets her mech claw around Naomi's neck and demands Holden. Naomi says even if she knew, she wouldn't say. It looks like Naomi's going to die for Holden, when all of a sudden Anna comes from behind Melba and electrocutes her with that prod she lifted. Looks like the minister learned a thing or two about solo space travel.

On the Behemoth, Ashford, as acting captain, gives the order to spin the drum. It starts slowly, but the outer rim of the ship starts rotating, gaining momentum until it produces 1G of gravity. The Belters let out a cheer, and Ashford orders all the sick into the chambers inside the drum. Then he sends a communication out to the other ships: any ship with wounded passengers are welcome to send them to the Behemoth to get healed. He also makes a point of calling the Behemoth "my ship," which … probably stick a pin in that for later, it'll probably be important. "The Belters embrace all of you," he says.

The MCRN soldiers on the drop ship don't seem quite as sold on the Belters' largesse, but Draper says it's the right idea. "We're all in this shit together," she says, "and this is the only way we're gonna get out of it."

Meanwhile, when Draper goes to check on Holden, he's finally awake, though he's mumbling something under his breath. When she asks him what happened on the Station, he tells her he had a vision. Of what? "Of everything," he says. "The end of everything."