Full spoilers follow for For All Mankind Season 5, Episode 3, which is streaming on Apple TV now.
Ed Baldwin may have survived the flight from the space jail breakout, but he’s not long for this world. Episode 3 is his long goodbye, and it’s the most ceremony that any character death has gotten on For All Mankind, which have tended to be from shocking mishaps, brave sacrifice, and occasionally assassination. Why wouldn’t he get the hero’s sendoff? Joel Kinnaman’s Ed has been the backbone of the whole show until now. That he’s survived into old age at all is a minor miracle, as we’re reminded in delirious flashbacks to one harrowing moment from Ed’s time in the Korean War.
And man, is it nice to see a bare-faced Kinnaman out of the prosthetics in that handful of scenes; unfortunately, it makes the cuts back to him as an 80-something look even more ridiculous. In spite of that, there are still a few touching moments in the “present day” – including a Baldwin family drink (Alex’s first!) with some Elvis playing from the jukebox at Ilya’s – that shepherd Ed to a smooch from his ex-wife Karen (Shantel VanSaten) and his final blastoff alongside good ol’ Gordo Stevens (Michael Dorman). But aside from a tiny handful of cherry-picked scenes, “Home” plays like a second-screen experience that force-feeds plot developments to the audience through lousy dialogue and clunky acting.
Take the ongoing murder mystery subplot and gurgling tension between Mars citizens, which lead to a constant stream of arrests in trying to find out more about who planned the breakout for Lee Jung-Gil, who has been officially granted asylum at the ISN base. Celia Boyd (Mireille Enos) and her awkward investigative vigilante streak into Kuragin’s sketchy shipments still might turn out to be explosively fascinating, but here her affect feels extremely off-putting to the point that I don’t know how much I actually care about the half-touched incident on Earth that got her sent to Mars in the first place. Miles Dale’s (Toby Kebbell) quid pro quo negotiations with Palmer James (Myk Watford) to get Miles’ daughter Lily (Ruby Cruz) out of jail (since she finally got caught spraypainting “Free Mars” on stuff) was also an example of a painfully executed script.
One other bright spot was Alex’s scene fixing up his cool Mars bike, where Sean Kaufman finally gave his first standout (if low-key) performance in talking through his feelings over his grandpa with Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi). Having their two energies mingle helped a lot, I think, in further shaping Alex and his place in the show. On the other hand, Kelly (Cynthy Wu) felt more disconnected than ever. She’s grown up in a family where reason and courage trump outward projection of feelings, but the scenes where she’s finally learning about Ed’s cancer and getting into spats with him as his end-of-life caregiver ring hollow. She looks at the busted Sojourner ship more lovingly than her own dying dad. Yes, the emotional alienation is the point, but I wish there was more nuance there than a constantly furrowed brow.
With one Mars resident gone, another rises to take their place: Aleida (Coral Peña) is headed to Mars to help repair Sojourner so that it can get to Titan for an investigation of the promising proteins. (The phone call that brings her into this episode – the news that Kuragin knows about Titan – felt like the writers stuffing in introducing that idea wherever they could.) Her prison visits to Margo (Wrenn Schmidt) remind me why this show desperately needs Schmidt around. She gives more personality in one eye roll than practically any other scene this season has had thus far; I’m begging, let’s follow her into some women’s prison shenanigans.
Transmissions From Happy Valley:
- Ed’s emergency room scenes: The Pitt on Mars.
- Wow, were the Apple Newton phones front and center this episode. Big, distracting bricks! If only they looked as good as the REAL Newtons (not sarcasm).
- The Rosales rigatoni… does anyone on this show know how to make a good-looking pasta????
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