For All Mankind 4.09
Jan. 5th, 2024 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which, as is traditional in the one before the finale, all kind of things go to hell.
This is the first episode where we hear an actual good argument for Goldilocks not reaching Earth for the viewers, as opposed to just for the characters, i.e. that once Earth governments get their hands on all that Iridium, they'll forgoe any interest in further space exploration and just focus on the nearby cash cow. I mean, Margo hopes this won't be the case but clearly we're meant to think Sergej is right in that discussion. I do wonder why non one, in universe, made this point before. (On a Doylist level, it's clearly because until Dev came up with with his let's hijack the asteroid scheme the viewers were supposed to root for Aleida's idea.) More about the Margo plotline later.
Meanwhile on Mars and on the Ranger, Sam eventually does manage the exchange of device, but Lee's (and his collegue's) dealings with Miles and their results are finally uncovered by their superior, who is also about to bust the entire Dev group when Lee kills him (thus burning that bridge for good - he'll have to stay on Mars now, because even in an AU, you can guess how North Korea deals with guys who kill their superiors while dealing with Westerners). Danielle also gets alerted to something going on through the US device found in the North Korean surveillance and correctly deduces this all leads to Miles, whose streak of luck has finally run out as both the American and the Soviet government have now activated their respective agents, whose methods of interrogation are, as in our timeline, not of the human rights respecting kind. (BTW, I think it is a good idea that the show made both spies not characters who stood out before - as they say, they wouldn't have been good spies if they hadn't blended in.) Now I don't think Danielle consciously realised - or let herself realise - that this would happen, but I do want her to confront it before what I very much fear will happen next episode. (As in, face the fact that she has authorized what in any universe is torture - yes, beating people up counts as that. Danielle is a good person, but she, too, has blinders, and her determination to see this mission through has led her there.) Because good lord, in her message to her son she all but said "one last job" - I mean, I could be wrong and they could subvert it, but to me the parallel Ed and Danielle scenes talking to their respective offsprings clearly signal tragic irony coming. Ed, who is so afraid of old age and "uselessness" and who always wanted the heroic going out in a blaze of glory death, who all but ran from his surviving family, won't get it, he will have to live through all the indignities of old age with no glory possible anymore. Danielle, who took this last mission only out of a sense of duty and so looks forward to spending her old age with her family, will get just that: a heroic death, one last saving the day thing, but not the old age with her family she actually wants.
Re: the Ed and Kelly scene, on the one hand, Ed finally comes clean about the fears causing him to avoid returning to Earth for so long to begin with, otoh, he's still so massively avoiding telling Kelly the truth about what's going on right now and more recently that I can't help but feel her comforting him is unearned. (I mean, it's in character! She loves him, and based on what she knows right then, of course she would comfort him!) Since we end with her demand that he tell her the truth about what the hell is going on with him and death, I'm thus still waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I do want Kelly to be angry at him then, not support him.
On to Margo and Sergej. The episodes pulled out all tlhe stops there, to show us (and Aleida) once more why these two had a genuine connection, and I love that this happens via Sergej having volunteered to secretly brainbuzz with Margo and Aleida over the big asteroid capture project. It was Sergej the fellow engineer who finds work as irresistable as she does and sees it as something superceeding national interest that Margo fell for, and vice versa, and here we see him at his best. (Well, not as a husband. I do hope you gave some kind of explanation/goodbye to your wife, Sergei, at the very least.) But I think we all knew that his suggestion to Margo that they both should run off to Brazil together (as a solution that would avoid her spending the rest of her life without the ability to work which would happen in a US prison, or even if by some miracle she were granted a pardon/some sort of witness protection deal) to work as space engineers there would not happen, though not exactly how it would get foiled. In retrospect, it makes sense it gets foiled via Sergei getting executed by the KGB. Irina must have been aware that his reconnecting with Margo would have been a possibility, and no matter how careful he was, undoubtedly she had instructed Margo's "bodyguards" to look out for him. It's a sad ending for Sergei, and yet also one that works for me as completing his story. It came about because of his choice to help Margo, to honor their connection, not because he was used as an instrument or because of external pressure, as so much of his previous life did. He was happy, not afraid anymore (since it happened suddenly and without him noticing), and he'd spent his last weeks doing what he loved with someone he loved. And if Margo ever wondered whether or not what had between them was real or manipulation, she didn't have to wonder anymore. RIP Sergei.
This is the first episode where we hear an actual good argument for Goldilocks not reaching Earth for the viewers, as opposed to just for the characters, i.e. that once Earth governments get their hands on all that Iridium, they'll forgoe any interest in further space exploration and just focus on the nearby cash cow. I mean, Margo hopes this won't be the case but clearly we're meant to think Sergej is right in that discussion. I do wonder why non one, in universe, made this point before. (On a Doylist level, it's clearly because until Dev came up with with his let's hijack the asteroid scheme the viewers were supposed to root for Aleida's idea.) More about the Margo plotline later.
Meanwhile on Mars and on the Ranger, Sam eventually does manage the exchange of device, but Lee's (and his collegue's) dealings with Miles and their results are finally uncovered by their superior, who is also about to bust the entire Dev group when Lee kills him (thus burning that bridge for good - he'll have to stay on Mars now, because even in an AU, you can guess how North Korea deals with guys who kill their superiors while dealing with Westerners). Danielle also gets alerted to something going on through the US device found in the North Korean surveillance and correctly deduces this all leads to Miles, whose streak of luck has finally run out as both the American and the Soviet government have now activated their respective agents, whose methods of interrogation are, as in our timeline, not of the human rights respecting kind. (BTW, I think it is a good idea that the show made both spies not characters who stood out before - as they say, they wouldn't have been good spies if they hadn't blended in.) Now I don't think Danielle consciously realised - or let herself realise - that this would happen, but I do want her to confront it before what I very much fear will happen next episode. (As in, face the fact that she has authorized what in any universe is torture - yes, beating people up counts as that. Danielle is a good person, but she, too, has blinders, and her determination to see this mission through has led her there.) Because good lord, in her message to her son she all but said "one last job" - I mean, I could be wrong and they could subvert it, but to me the parallel Ed and Danielle scenes talking to their respective offsprings clearly signal tragic irony coming. Ed, who is so afraid of old age and "uselessness" and who always wanted the heroic going out in a blaze of glory death, who all but ran from his surviving family, won't get it, he will have to live through all the indignities of old age with no glory possible anymore. Danielle, who took this last mission only out of a sense of duty and so looks forward to spending her old age with her family, will get just that: a heroic death, one last saving the day thing, but not the old age with her family she actually wants.
Re: the Ed and Kelly scene, on the one hand, Ed finally comes clean about the fears causing him to avoid returning to Earth for so long to begin with, otoh, he's still so massively avoiding telling Kelly the truth about what's going on right now and more recently that I can't help but feel her comforting him is unearned. (I mean, it's in character! She loves him, and based on what she knows right then, of course she would comfort him!) Since we end with her demand that he tell her the truth about what the hell is going on with him and death, I'm thus still waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I do want Kelly to be angry at him then, not support him.
On to Margo and Sergej. The episodes pulled out all tlhe stops there, to show us (and Aleida) once more why these two had a genuine connection, and I love that this happens via Sergej having volunteered to secretly brainbuzz with Margo and Aleida over the big asteroid capture project. It was Sergej the fellow engineer who finds work as irresistable as she does and sees it as something superceeding national interest that Margo fell for, and vice versa, and here we see him at his best. (Well, not as a husband. I do hope you gave some kind of explanation/goodbye to your wife, Sergei, at the very least.) But I think we all knew that his suggestion to Margo that they both should run off to Brazil together (as a solution that would avoid her spending the rest of her life without the ability to work which would happen in a US prison, or even if by some miracle she were granted a pardon/some sort of witness protection deal) to work as space engineers there would not happen, though not exactly how it would get foiled. In retrospect, it makes sense it gets foiled via Sergei getting executed by the KGB. Irina must have been aware that his reconnecting with Margo would have been a possibility, and no matter how careful he was, undoubtedly she had instructed Margo's "bodyguards" to look out for him. It's a sad ending for Sergei, and yet also one that works for me as completing his story. It came about because of his choice to help Margo, to honor their connection, not because he was used as an instrument or because of external pressure, as so much of his previous life did. He was happy, not afraid anymore (since it happened suddenly and without him noticing), and he'd spent his last weeks doing what he loved with someone he loved. And if Margo ever wondered whether or not what had between them was real or manipulation, she didn't have to wonder anymore. RIP Sergei.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-11 01:11 am (UTC)I think you are right about Danielle, though I wish could have her long retirement.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-13 05:25 pm (UTC)Agreed about Ed and Dani, though thankfully I waited until this week to watch so I know what Dani's ending is.