Review of 'For All Mankind' Season 5

For All Mankind came back on Apple TV with the debut first episode of its 5th Season at the end of March

As has been usual with the more recent seasons, my favorite part of this season was the alternate history set up which we see at the beginning of this first episode. As a reminder, the alternate history split in this series hinges on the Soviet Union beating us to the Moon back in the late 1960s. Among the profoundly important consequences for the human species is that we have a much more active ensuing space program, as we vie with the Soviets for a predominant position off our planet.

My favorite alternate history flourishes in the 2004-2012 years that are the foundation of this 5th season are:

• John Lennon and Jay Z have a joint concert in this period, because, as was already established in an earlier season, Lennon was not assassinated at the end of 1980 in this alternate history. Readers of my blogs will know why this is so important to me: I wrote a short story, made into a radio play, then expanded into a novel in which John Lennon was not assassinated and The Beatles are still together in the mid-1990s. I think that most assassinations are errors in the cosmos, and I feel especially good when an alternate history corrects them.

• I also loved that in this alternate history JFK Jr is expected to run for President in 2012, meaning he didn't die in the plane that fell into the sea with his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister, as they did in our all too often so cruel reality we all inhabit off-screen. In the alternate history portrayed in For All Mankind, former President Ted Kennedy -- yes, he's elected President in this series in 1972 -- Chappaquiddick didn't happen -- but Teddy dies a few years before 2012 of a brain tumor. A good alternate history always mixes in some elements of real history to make the fiction convincing. In our real history, Teddy died of a brain tumor in 2009.

Now, on this last point of JFK Jr being expected to run for President in 2012, check out my review of Love Story, the nine-episode narrative of JFK Jr's relationship with Carolyn Bessette, and how it ended so terribly tragically. Talk about about the intersection of alternate and real history, you couldn't ask for a better example of the first episode of this season of For All Mankind debuting the day after Love Story concluded.

***

It was great to see Joel Kinnaman as Admiral Baldwin in For All Mankind Season 5 still flying morally high, still shaking things up, defying authority to do the right thing, still causing good trouble (as John Lewis put it so well down here on Earth in our off-screen reality), in his advanced age. Kinnaman is especially impressive in the role, given that he's also playing a character this much closer to his real age in Imperfect Women.

[And there will be spoilers ahead ... ]

Baldwin in Season 5 of For All Mankind has stage-three cancer, and is not supposed to fly. All the more the impressive that he risks his life in this condition to save Lee Jung-Gil (played by C. S. Lee -- Vince Masuka from Dexter old and new!). And episode 5.2 concludes with Baldwin's plan on the way to working to save Lee, though as that happens, Mireille Enos's character Celia Boyd -- Enos starred with Joel Kinnaman in The Killing around the same time the original Dexter was concluding -- finds Baldwin unconscious at the controls.

Now if For All Mankind were made by Taylor Sheridan, this might be the end of Baldwin. But given that Ronald D. Moore is its creator, I'd have been stunned if Baldwin didn't survive at least another episode. In fact, Joel Kinnaman has been reported to return as Baldwin in the final season 6 of the series, though, again, apropos of Sheridan, this will likely be in flashbacks, (And while we're at it, we may see him, at a younger age, in the alternate history spin-off Star City that debuted a few week ago.)

Anyway, Celia Boyd is a great new character, so is Leonid played Costa Ronan (from Homeland and The Americans), and all the continuing characters are good to see in this 5th season of For All Mankind.

***

Episode 5.3 of For All Mankind was powerful, percolating with all kinds of gleaming details, as befits a series ultimately about the cosmos:

• There was a nice alternate history touch with talk of the "Newton," which Apple released in our reality with great fanfare in 1993, promoted as the first "Personal Digital Assistant," but discontinued in 1998.

• Defense of the First Amendment, as my readers and students well know, is one of my primary issues in our reality. It was therefore gratifying to hear one of the protestors say, as she was being arrested by the police thugs on Mars, "We have the right to protest -- it's the First Amendment!" But much as this was welcome, the cop's response was all too true: "This isn't America -- there is no First Amendment". And, indeed, no country other than the United States has the ironclad protections of free expression from government interferences prescribed in our First Amendment (even though they're often ignored, as tragically seen in the past year, as our own Federal thugs outrightly murdered Renée Good, Alex Pretti, and who knows how many others who dared to exercise their First Amendment right "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"). But the cop on Mars who said only America has this kind First Amendment was, unfortunately, right. Even our neighbor to the north doesn't have it. I once was explaining the First Amendment in an interview on the CBC, and the interviewer replied, "Well, we don't worship the First Amendment here in Canada" -- a sad but true acknowledgment, even though support of the First Amendment is a matter of logic, and democracy, not faith.

• As I've said earlier, alternate history, in order for it to be convincing, needs to have salient elements of reality in evidence. I thus was glad to see Starbuck's and Domino's Pizza insignias in the Martian marketplace.

• Elvis singing "Love Me Tender" was good to hear.

• And Baldwin and Gordo in their much younger days was good to see, but--

Baldwin apparently did take his last breath in the end. Now I have a firm principle in watching TV series and movies: unless the character's head is blown off, I think there's a chance the character survives. I suppose if Baldwin doesn't survive in his human form, his mind might already be embedded in some AI -- after all, For All Mankind is science fiction.

***

Well, I didn't like For All Mankind 5.4 much at all.

The big reveal in that episode is Dev is on a path of replacing us humans with robots in our presence on Mars and movement further out in space. In our off-screen reality, critics of our space programs have been saying since the Apollo successes in the late 1960s that a more economic and safer way of extending our species and civilization out in space is via robot surrogates. I've been thinking and saying for years that robots don't have the emotional subtlety to appreciate what humans see and feel off this planet. The recent Artemis II return to the Moon brought home that essential point. As Janet Sayyed back here on Earth noted, "Missions like Artemis II, which require long-duration habitation and hands-on scientific work, depend on that kind of flexibility, the kind no machine can fully replicate." That's certainly the case for our current AI and technology.

Of course, as I keep saying, For All Mankind is alternate history, so what's wrong with it hypothesizing that in this alternate timeline, we have indeed developed the kind of robots that have our human subtlety, in 2012 and ensuing years? Well, nothing's wrong with that, from a dramatic point of view, if a foundation has been established that in this alternate history, AI and robots have become so advanced in 2012+. But Dev's plan is a complete surprise.

Even worse, however, is why the creators of For All Mankind have chosen this path? If it's all just a set-up to see Dev and his plan defeated, then I guess it's ok. There's no doubt that, in our reality, our journey off this planet has been slowed and interrupted by all kinds of ideational obstacles. So I'll reserve ultimate judgement until we see how Dev's plan plays out. In the meantime, I'll confine myself to complaining that I didn't particular enjoy this episode after the revelation of what Dev's up to, especially after I was already disappointed that Ed Baldwin didn't live a little longer.

***

Episode 5.5 of For All Mankind was entitled "Svoboda," which means "freedom" in Russia. A good title for this episode, but a better one might have been "ICE on Mars".

It's crucial to speak out against the murders and general brutality that ICE has meted out in its treatment of protestors in our reality right now in the USA. I give The Pitt on HBO Max high marks for integrating into its narrative the manhandling and arrest of a health-care worker who dared to stand up to the ICE agents who were interfering with the treatment of someone they had brought into the ER.

In For All Mankind 5.5, we're treated to a full-scale attack on the "Mars is Ours" protestors on the Red Planet. It's ordered by the current Governor of Mars -- Leonid Polivanov (Lenya, a former Soviet cosmonaut, played by Costa Ronin, who portrayed a KGB operative in The Americans), and is reminiscent of both the British attack on America in the Revolutionary War, and the current depredations of Federal agents in the past months in our own country. (This happens in For All Mankind after we and the protestors are reminded in episode 5.3 that the First Amendment doesn't apply on Mars, which I mentioned above.) From a political point of view, I was glad to see this reminder of the attack on our freedoms that is going on right now. It's necessary to keep these attacks on our democracy front and center, by all means possible.

But that doesn't mean I enjoyed the episode, and this part of its alternate history. It was fun to see Ted Kennedy elected President (no Chappaquiddick), and John Lennon not assassinated. And I know that for an alternate history to be believable, it can't be all a bed of roses. So episode 5.5 deserves credit for that, in addition to reminding us of the real ongoing fascist attacks on our democracy. But after watching protestors beaten senseless on Mars, I nonetheless also hope there are more brighter interludes in outer space in this series.

***

Episode 5.6 of For All Mankind was a middling good episode depicting the rising tensions verging on war between Earth and the human settlement on Mars..

First, Earth vs. Mars is a well-trodden topic. On TV, it was well explored in The Expanse. In books, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy did an excellent job of it. The best part of this episode, for me, was seeing the role of the Soviet Union, still in existence and thriving in this alternate history. The kiss between Lily and Alex was also nice to see.

The ending of the episode promises an interesting stream with Dev now determined and on-track to doing something big to stop and/or surmount the escalating conflict between Mars and Earth. Bringing Dev into For All Mankind in the first place was a good dramatical move -- he's a wildcard, like Musk and Bezos in our own reality. All have billions of dollars, rankle under the yoke of governments, and have the power to march to some extent to their own drums. In Dev's case, he may not only have this power, but the wherewithal to impose it on the US, the Soviet Union, and the countries on Planet Earth. We'll see.

Actingwise, Edi Gathegi as Dev is a good choice to deliver the goods. And speaking of acting, Mireille Enos's Celia is by far the best of the military on Mars. There's also a lot of potential in the Titan mission, which we'll see a lot more of in the concluding episodes of this season.

***

And episode 5.7 of For All Mankind really delivered, capturing the essential quality of what we humans need to do to push the limits our existence, and through science and spirit get ever further out into this infinite universe.

The set-up was perfect. The Mars settlement is continuing to destroy itself. Earth is no help at all, and indeed is making life on Mars worse. One of the two missions to Titan -- the largest moon around Saturn, replete with an atmosphere, and therefore a possibility of life -- has failed and taken with it its crew. The captain of the other mission, with Kelly Baldwin (Ed's daughter) on board, wants to turn back. But Kelly has other ideas. And ...

The mission lands on Titan! The final scene of the crew standing on Titan, looking at the darkly clouded sky, was wonderful. We may call it a moon, because Titan revolves around a planet, Saturn, not the sun. But we're walking on another world, the furthest away from our homeworld of Earth that we've traveled so far. That's an epitome of progress.

I will say, though, that I wish For All Mankind would stop presenting communication from Titan to Mars as instantaneous. The same for communication between Earth and Mars. Since the show isn't postulating that in this alternate history in the 2010s we humans figured out a way to send messages across these enormous distances at a faster-than-light speed, there would be an inevitable lag in the communication. I understand that For All Mankind is ignoring the lag for dramatic effect, but I think these scenes would be more effective if they respected the laws of physics.

Back to the narrative: Dev may not have intended to hurt let alone kill anybody, but launching that attack against the Martian greenhouses was still unconscionable. I've been more or less a fan of Dev up until episode 5.7, but I have to now classify him as a demented maniac with a god-complex. Given what happened, Lily did have a great idea for a birthday present for Alex, but the two would have been better off celebrating Alex's birthday is his room.

Back to Titan: Is there life on that distant moon? And if it's intelligent life, let's hope it doesn't have it in for us.

***

For All Mankind 5.8 fired on all cylinders -- literally and figuratively.

The main action was the approaching attack on Mars by the Earthly multi-national alliance, and the defense that our Martian heroes mounted. Celia and Leonid were a good duo to mount the defense, and we get a better understanding of Leonid, his ethics and prowess, in this dangerous undertaking.

On board in the attack from Earth is A. J. Jarrett, granddaughter of the world-famous Tracy and Gordo Stevens, characters that I really miss in this multi-generational story (there is no else in the current story who have their unique mix of outrageousness, heroism, and sheer style). Jarett (Ines Asserson) is a complex character to begin with, and what happens to her when she gets to the Goldilocks asteroid will make her far more complex and conflicted.

Meanwhile, there's also a classic drama brewing with the crew that has landed on Titan. Kelly Baldwin defied Captain Griebel's command that the Sojourner turn around and go back to Mars, rather than make the perilous landing on Titan. But Griebel doesn't yet know that Kelly did this -- he thinks the failure of the Sojourner to turn around was his fault, some mistake he made in the programming. He's determined to find out what he did wrong. I like these kinds of powder kegs in narratives.

And just to end on a musical note: I really like Ollie's song, "A New Life," played twice in this episode. As soon as I can find a video of it up on YouTube, I'll post it here.

***

As I've already said in prior reviews, battles between humans on Earth and on Mars are old hats in science fiction. Episode 5.9 gives us yet another rendition of that, as the forces of our home planet strive to rip our brave pioneers on Mars to shreds.

But the action on Titan, on other hand, was riveting and refreshing, like that storyline from the beginning. The discovery of extraterrestrial life, in Ringo's words, don't come easy. Kelly and her three-person crew, including the former captain, are fixed on finding it.

The finale of this next-to-last season of For All Mankind came next -- along with the Star City premiere, another alternate history about the human sojourn into space, this time from the Soviet perspective, i.e,, the view from the victor of the race to get to the Moon, which is the basis of For All Mankind. I've already started to review that here, humming "Back in the USSR", one of my Beatles' favorites, more recently done justice by The Analogues in our real history.

***

Well, I've had problems with much of Season 5 of For All Mankind, but its finale episode 5.10 certainly saved the best for last, and that best was certainly outstanding, one of the best in the overall series.

And that would be the discovery of life on Titan. And as the characters in this series agree, that changes everything. And the fact that this microbial life is methane-based, not carbon-based as is life on Earth, opens up all kinds of possibilities. If life can arise in different compounds, that suggests that the universe beyond our solar system and galaxy, in the universe at large, there may be a myriad of life-forms, including intelligent life. In other words, the very essence of science fiction, become reality.

With just one more season of For All Mankind, I'm hoping there'll be time to suggest and maybe explore some of this. And as long as I'm hoping, I'd also like to see more of Kelly Baldwin, alive.

Now I know she ran out of oxygen -- the oxygen she was carrying with her. But she did discover a big shimmering lake. Could this lake have had some sort of oxygen accessible to Kelly? According to one of the showrunners, Ben Nedivi, quoted in Inverse, the answer is no. He says we've seen the last of Kelly, just as we saw the last of her father, Ed Baldwin. And I know showrunners have the last word, but hey, they can always change their mind, and offer a meta-alternate history, in which what they intended in this season for Kelly goes a different way.

But speaking of other alternate histories, we also see, at the end of this episode, another surprise, which points to the parallel alternate history debuting on Apple TV. We see a Soviet spacecraft, damaged and derelict, out there in space not far from Saturn. The fact that it's Soviet points to Star City, which I've already started watching and enjoying.

And I'll be looking forward to the final season of For All Mankind, and regretting it's the final season.