Full spoilers follow for For All Mankind Season 5, Episode 7, which is streaming on Apple TV now.
Just to confirm: No, you didn’t accidentally skip an episode. For All Mankind’s seventh episode jumps ahead six months after the coup on Happy Valley to check in on the Sojourner crew, still en route to Titan. Over the radio, they hear bad news from Kosmos-1, who were a nose ahead of them in the race to Titan: They’ve missed the moon and are barreling toward a crash-landing on Saturn. It’s a sobering, if somewhat jarring, opening, considering we left off Episode 6 with President Bragg completely cutting off Earth’s supply lines to Mars. But with only a handful of episodes left in its 10-episode Season 5, For All Mankind has a dwindling amount of opportunities to take bigger storytelling swings. I, for one, am glad the show is bringing back the danger in space exploration. Mars was feeling a little too homey.
Things are not looking too good on Happy Valley. Six months with no aid from Earth means the Martian colony is rationing supplies and having its local teenagers pitch in to water the crops. But the general population is growing weary; signed petitions are being posted with hundreds of people asking to be sent back to Earth. The Sons and Daughters of Mars council — made up of Miles Dale (Toby Kebbell), Celia Boyd (Mireille Enos), Lee Jung-Gil (C.S. Lee), other SDM members, and Aleida Rosales (Coral Peńa) as a neutral third party — is struggling to govern, and Dev Ayasa (Edi Gathegi) and the MPK’s faction, holed up in the Helios offices, are getting antsy. To break the stalemate and tip the scales in Earth’s favor, Dev hatches a plan to destroy the growing crops. But it’s c. 2012 and, unfortunately, flash mobs are huge right now, even on Mars.
Here’s where I have to talk about Alex (Sean Kaufman) and Lily (Ruby Cruz) again. Can someone tell me if I’m being overly surly about For All Mankind choosing to pair them up? I get that it’s somewhat inevitable — the teen dating pool is not very big on Mars! — but I can’t stand this. It’s not flirty or acted well enough to be heartwarming; it’s mostly cringey.
It’s Alex’s birthday. Lily has invited him to a break-in birthday surprise inside the crop dome, where she has arranged… yes… a flash mob set to Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” to dance for him. (I suppose it was almost funny that he thought he was about to get laid before people started walking out of the corn stalks.) I was too stunned (derogatory) by the line dancing to feel thwacked by the tonal shift of the breached dome. Narratively, at least, it works. Accidentally ruining the secret party his favorite teen was at haunts Dev more than blowing up six crop domes and five ration caches, the loss of which put the entirety of Happy Valley on a two-week timeline before running out of food entirely.
In a fracturing community, what’s the one thing that can bring everyone together? Landing on a new planet (or, well, moon). Sojourner’s Titan journey, and the handoff in MOCC with Aleida, makes the episode. While Happy Valley is spinning its wheels mired in faction politics, Annoying Walt (Christopher Denham) calls off the mission after the Kosmos-1 tragedy, opting to not take the risk with the open uncertainties around the trajectory’s calculations. But Kelly Baldwin (Cynthy Wu) Baldwins out; she gets inspired by her old man’s Lunar plaque and hijacks the system at the last minute, diverting Sojourner’s slingshot around Saturn and heading the ship straight for Titan. It’s a great, hold-your-breath sequence that feels straight out of the good ol’ days of For All Mankind, when space exploration was risky and new. Not a matter of freeing up schedules and docks, as Miles tries to negotiate with Aleida, who sasses back: “Because space flight’s that simple, isn’t it?”
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