The Weirdest 'Simpsons' Reference Popped Up On 'The Expanse'

Remember the early Star Trek episodes where Captain “Space Holocaust Survivor” Kirk and Mr. “Descendant of Sherlock Holmes” Spock would constantly run into the planet of the One Thing where entire worlds followed one general theme and aesthetic? That’s basically The Expanse, a sci-fi series set in the Solar System if our One Thing were different flavors of dystopian literature. So you have your soft Brave New World dystopia on Earth, your hard 1984 dystopia on Mars, and your explosive Animal Farm dystopia of the Asteroid Belt. And, no, it’s not a coincidence that the aforementioned adjectives are also words one could use to describe a bowel movement.

Despite taking place in the future when humanity has cured cancer and can travel between planets (by shooting-up space meth), The Expanse is a pretty crappy place to be. It’s a vast toilet world of misery, inequality, and cruelty that I’m just going to assume will not get magically unclogged by the end of the show’s recently-premiered, final sixth season. 

To be fair, though, it wasn’t always doom and gloom while spaceships went zoom and boom. The Expanse did have its lighter moments, though they were hidden away because, despite some surface similarities, this ain’t Star Trek. If you want nice things, you’re going to have to put in some work. But it’s worth it because your reward will be a reference to one of the best golden age-era Simpsons gags ever.

In Season 5, one of the show’s main characters travels to Baltimore, which, even hundreds of years in the future, would still work as the setting for The Wire. As he sits down and observes his old neighborhood, there is an ear-blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of a street vendor shouting something at people, which is kind of hard to make out at first. But rewind it a few times, and you’ll eventually hear him yell, “Khlav Kalash! Khlav Kalash! No bowl, stick, stick!” Yuuuup, it’s the famous joke from a Season 9 episode of The Simpsons where a hungry Homer buys the mysterious “Khlav Kalash” dish while in New York.

Once you hear that, all the crab drawings on the Expanse vendor’s cart suddenly make more sense since the traditional drink for getting the taste of Khlav Kalash out of your mouth is either Mountain Dew or Crab Juice. And no one on The Expanse is paying for the former since nearly everyone in that world has a Recycler that transforms their waste into a technically drinkable liquid, which gives you basically the same experience as the Dew. 

Canned Khlav Kalash also makes a brief appearance later in the episode, but you really should get your Khlav Kalash from a vendor if you want the authentic taste of deep-fried NY rat testicle on a stick; which we all agree is the only ingredient in Double-K, right? I mean, it is about the right size so …

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Top Image: 20th Television