Episode Recap: Abaddon's Gate

Now that Ashford has made the determination that they should all die to save humanity, the Earth/Mars/Belt alliance needs to put a plan in place. Captain Lucas tells Draper that she's going to need to head up command-deck security and crowd control. Ever the good soldier, Draper pledges her loyalty and service, even though Lucas won't let her in on what's happening.

Meanwhile, with Drummer and Naomi looking on via monitor (and Melba eavesdropping from the next cell), Holden tries to summon Miller to give him further instructions from the Station. Drummer still doesn't know what Naomi sees in him, and after watching Holden have a one-sided conversation with thin air, it's hard not to see her point. Eventually, though, Miller comes through (though WE don't see him), and Holden announces that he knows how to fix this.

Drummer hails Ashford on comms and says Holden has a plan. It's a paranoid, cagey conversation, with Ashford not entirely happy to hear that Drummer is out of medical, moving on her own, and teamed up with Naomi and Holden. He tells Drummer they should meet up to hash out a plan in person, and when they disconnect, Drummer immediately knows it's a trap. She asks the cell guard, Egan, to hand over his weapon, which he does freely. When they tell him they can make it look like he was taken by force, he tells Drummer his loyalty is with her.

Meanwhile, Ashford sends Diogo out to retrieve Drummer, Naomi, and Holden, "and don't let anyone stop you." Holden communicates the plan to Alex and Amos, who are elsewhere on the Behemoth. He says the Station will destroy them all if it sees them as a threat, and ever since that genius decision to explode a nuke right next to it, it thinks all ship reactors are bombs. The key to getting the Station to not see them as threats anymore is to have all the ships power down. Which is going to be a tall order. Holden tells Amos and Alex to enlist Monica in getting the word out to the other ships.

The command deck of the Behemoth is buzzing with people working hard trying to get the power grid up and running. It's also buzzing with the sound of the guy who just got electrocuted working with an unstable grid. Ashford continues giving orders, until Grigori tells him his crew is spent and demands an answer as to why they're funneling all this power into the comms laser. Ashford quietly tells him they're going to strike back at the Station, and that's good enough for Grigori.

Monica Stewart is reporting on the unrest under Ashford's command when Amos and Alex approach her. She obviously wants nothing to do with them, and Amos isn't helping at all with his aggressive and unapologetic attitude, even when she tells him Cohen was killed in the dead-stop. Anna has much more success when she says that Ashford's plan is going to get them all killed, Holden knows how to stop it, and they have the answers to everyone's questions, if Monica will help them get the word out.

On their way to the reactor core, Holden apologizes for losing so much time together and for driving her away. She says he didn't drive her away, and they agree to stay together til the end. Which might be soon. 

The team of Holden, Naomi, and Drummer storm the reactor core (well, okay, they kind of float on in, but they have guns) and Naomi gets to shutting it down. Meanwhile, Alex and Monica try and patch her news report into the fleet's central video feed. While Amos keeps watch, Anna takes a moment to counsel him. Or try to anyway. She can't really understand his mindset, where his only regret if they died right here is that he didn't get the chance to kill Ashford. Anna says if they all get through this, they're going to have to find a way to understand each other, everyone. "Hate is a burden," Anna tells Amos. "You don't have to carry it with you." Amos then pledges to Anna that he won't let anyone hurt her.

Back in the reactor core, Naomi readies to pull the plug on the Behemoth. Holden sees Drummer being a real trooper and genuinely thanks her for believing in him. Drummer, being Drummer, fixes her heavily-eyelined glare at Holden and says she's not doing this for him. She's doing it for Naomi, to make sure she doesn't die for Holden.

Meanwhile, Naomi sees on the reactor monitor that power is being massively redirected towards the comms laser. Holden suddenly realizes that Ashford is trying to destroy the Ring, which Holden knows will lead to the Station immediately destroying all human life on either side of the Ring. They need to stop them. Dummer patches in a communication to the command deck, where she, Holden, and Naomi tell Ashford he can't attack the Ring and kill them all. Holden says his plan could save them all. Ashford then says that even if they all survive, they can't allow the Ring to stand; it would remain a threat to all mankind. Everybody else on the command deck overhears this argument, and after Drummer disconnects, Monica's news blast goes up. On it, a very persuasive Anna lays out the power-down plan for survival.

On the command deck, Grigori confronts Ashford, asking of Anna's words are true. He says if there's a chance to save everybody, they should try. Ashford doesn't answer, and when Grigori raises his voice and tries to rally the other workers, Ashford shoots him dead, right in front of MCRN Captain Lucas and Melba and all gathered workers. It seems for a second like Lucas might step up to challenge Ashford's authority, but instead she pledges her Marines for crowd control.

Draper and her Marine pals hit the Behemoth weapons locker and find it's been picked clean. And who was it who stole Draper's mech suit? Well, that would be Diogo, who is next seen running full speed ahead at Egan and the other Belter guarding the reactor control. He storms in (again: floats in) and attacks Drummer. Holden and Naomi are able to get her to the airlock before Diogo can open fire. He starts trying to punch his way in, though, and Holden, Naomi, and an injured Drummer will need to climb up the elevator shaft to get to the command deck.

Back on the command deck, Melba — who's been released from custody in an all-hands-on-deck effort — sparks a cable while working on the power grid. She tells Ashford it's her chemical inhibitor which is making her fuzzy. He clocks who she is but then says he'll remove the restraints if she promises to… not go on any more murderous rampages, one imagines. Melba will take that deal. She then asks Ashford, "Do you think a truly good act at the end of your life can make up for the terrible things you've done?" Ashford would like to think so.

Draper and the Marines are tracking down the source of the Anna broadcast, and when they find it, there's a shootout. Neither Draper nor Alex and Amos realize they're shooting at each other. Once they do realize, there's an even more tense stand-off, since Draper's Marine pals don't give a damn about Alex or Amos. And Amos doesn't particularly have much of a problem with putting Bobbie down either. Alex slowly puts down his weapon and tells Bobbie he just wants to talk.

Bobbie and Alex give it a go trying to talk it out, but her Marine pals lose patience and jump Alex, which is when the guns start firing. Draper immediately knocks her Marine pal to the ground and takes his gun, in defense of Alex and Amos. Draper and Alex are each in close stand-offs, and Amos can't get a good shot in either case. Finally, Draper knocks the one out and Amos gets a clear line to shoot the other one in the head. Draper, having once again betrayed her people, lies down on the floor. She's been shot.

Holden, Naomi, and Drummer continue to ascend up the elevator shaft, chased by Diogo and his goons in their far faster mech suits. Holden and Drummer tell Naomi to keep going while they pause to fire their weapons downshaft. They take out the goons, but Diogo persists. Drummer tells Holden to keep going; she plans to sacrifice herself and take Diogo out. She apologizes to Holden for trying to kill him, and when he starts to tell her she doesn't need to, she says, "Tell Naomi I said that." Drummer is the best.

Anna's message has caused a lot of unrest throughout the flotilla, with many people pushing for the ships to power down. Dr. Kolvoord even messages Commander Kunis saying that since their nuclear detonation helped put them in this mess (yeah, not a super great idea), they should at least try to shut down the Thomas Prince.

Drummer lies in wait, tucked into a recess in the elevator shaft, ready to explode Diogo (and herself) when he gets that high. He's almost there when an elevator comes crashing down from above and takes him out. Drummer is shocked and communicates to Naomi that she's okay. Naomi is relieved she didn't hit Drummer too, and she and Holden continue to ascend to the command deck.

The command deck is teetering on chaos, but Ashford gets the laser powered like he wanted. He fires the laser but it misses the Ring; it does, however, awaken a heap of activity from the Station, which seems to be recognizing a threat. Holden and Naomi meet too much resistance in the corridor outside the command deck and are forced to surrender. They approach the command area with their hands up, though Holden continues to plea for Ashford and for everybody to stop trying to out-antagonize their enemy and instead try something else. Ashford orders them to be shot, but before that can be done, Melba — her superpowers back in effect — charges Ashford, knocks him out, and then disables the power grid. The entire Behemoth goes dark.

At that same moment, Holden flashes to a vision of himself on a planet, looking up at a giant Ring in the sky. And out in their Ring, holes begin to appear all throughout. The ships are freed from their stasis and can begin moving back to the other side. "I guess it worked," Holden says.

While the rest of the fleet goes about recovering from everything they've been through — Drummer and Ashford reconcile, as do Anna and Melba — Holden communicates with an unseen Miller. He's not so sure he buys that the Station just let them all go. Because each hole that appeared in the Ring is a portal to a different habitable star system. "1300 new frontiers," as Holden puts it, and with humanity still divided among its factions, he predicts a "blood- soaked gold rush" to explore them. Holden tells Miller that one thing haunts him: his vision from the home world of the people who built the Ring. Something destroyed them. Holden thinks the Station wants Holden and his crew to find out what it was. And as the Roci passes through a new gate into some uncharted place, something passes through Holden.