For All Mankind (spoilers)

[Corvinus85]

Got caught up, except for today's episode.

The quality of the show is about the previous season's level, which is to say not as good as the first 2 seasons. I don't care for much of the character drama, and I need to see more space shit. The asteroid capture and failure in the 1st episode was interesting and I'm keen on seeing their push into the solar system. The other stuff, meh.

It's fine for Miles to be as dumb as Danny (it wasn't fine for Danny to be that dumb). He's not an astronaut, he's the guy on the Nostromo minus the xenomorph, trying to make a buck. I didn't quite like how they made it look like he was falling as if on Earth, considering that Mars gravity is less a 1/3 of Earth's which is what really saved him.

I don't like the design of Happy Valley. Not sure how well the habitats are insulated against radiation. In reality, a permanent settlement on Mars would have to be underground, or come up with some technologies that provide good cover against radiation.

I have a feeling that the writing regarding the USSR coup and plot was strongly inspired by current events.

[Maia]

I liked this episode. Nice catharsis 3.5 seasons and 30 timeline years in the making.

 

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Guessing that file on a cosmonaut will end up coming into play with the Goldilocks capture mission.

 

I have checked on reddit and it was definitely Svetlana's own file. Not sure what it's significance was.

I think that this theory about Danny's ultimate fate may be plausible. Not sure why Ed was blaming Poole, though - wasn't _he_ the one who came up with the exile to the capsule? And Danny certainly would have been a danger to the rest of the crew, if allowed to return. OTOH, he may have been burning some extra calories, out there in the cold.

I really enjoyed Baldwin finally getting called out on his BS, but I fear that they'll let him off the hook and have him save the day and go out in the blaze of glory, proving him "right". He is also pretty likely to engage in even more open sabotage now. Shouldn't they have regular medical checks of the pilots, though? Was he bribing the doc for the last couple of years?

Kelly taking a sick kid into the dangers of space seems fairly dumb, but I guess that they are destined to become the first permanent Mars colonists or something.

I continue to be confused by the astro/kosmonaut vs grunt divide, with the base maintenance supervisor suddenly manning the controls of an asteroid-capture space craft and Sam being back on the mission as an EVA specialist. Is it actually government employées vs Helios? If so, why are there Soviets among the latter?

 

2 hours ago, Ran said:

I  haven't gotten a total sense of what people understand of her -- do they believe Margo died in the explosion?

 

Other watchers say that her name was on the memorial to the victims of the bombing, though I didn't notice it myself. Aleida and Bill seem to know that she has been a traitor, as does CIA, presumably. But Aleida also appears to believe that she is dead. I wonder if they really physically meet eventually or if Aleida recognizes Margot's style in engineering documentation, or maybe sees her handwriting. I suspect that Margot is going to  betray the Soviets in order to save the asteroid mission and will get killed for it.

[Corvinus85]

I liked this episode better.

Al Gore's Trump moment was hilarious.

I disliked Dev since he was introduced, so it was nice to see more to him in this episode. Kelly made an interesting choice, I hope she can have her cake and eat it.

Will Ed Baldwin ride off into the sunset? Does he deserves that kind of ending? I'm glad that we got the answer to Danny's fate.

Does anyone wonder if the asteroid they lost in episode 1 will become a problem for Earth in a few years? I can see that as a major plot point the next season (or even this season's ending)

[3CityApache]

On 12/8/2023 at 7:32 PM, Ran said:

So we get some insight into what happened to Danny

So I assume he just sat there near the capsule until the oxygen in his suit ran out. I wonder if it would be possible to look so peaceful after suffocating.

Also, how come there was oxygen in his capsule in a first place for such a long time? It was weeks at least, if not months, after all.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

So I assume he just sat there near the capsule until the oxygen in his suit ran out. I wonder if it would be possible to look so peaceful after suffocating.

Also, how come there was oxygen in his capsule in a first place for such a long time? It was weeks at least, if not months, after all.

Rebreather.

[Corvinus85]

4 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

So I assume he just sat there near the capsule until the oxygen in his suit ran out. I wonder if it would be possible to look so peaceful after suffocating.

Also, how come there was oxygen in his capsule in a first place for such a long time? It was weeks at least, if not months, after all.

For me the whole North Korean stuff from last season was totally unrealistic. So Danny spending months there is not that big of a leap.

[Ran]

Thought this was a pretty good episode.

Spoiler

Kind of wonder if Baldwin cozying up to Ilya is going to have some effect on "Milosh"'s hostile takeover, given that Baldwin gave him shit when he heard him whining about the work situation at the time. Then again, Baldwin seems to have bigger fish to fry, encouraging a strike.

Aleida's initial reaction to Margo was not what I expected, and clearly not what Margo expected either, but it makes sense. Really good work from Wrenn Schmidt and Coral Peña.

I am pleased to say I came up with the idea of sending Goldilocks straight to earth before it was mentioned by anyone on the show.

Some speculation:

Spoiler

Miles and the North Korean Mafia will resume the black market... but the attempt to smuggle Lee's wife in that Miles commits to is going to end in tragedy.

Dev is going to end the strike somehow. How, I don't know, but it obviously has to happen because the attempt on diverting Golidlocks is definitely going to take place. I don't think the show is the sort that will just go, "Damn, missed our shot." Although I guess I can see them making it a cup-half-empty thing, where they basically can't manage to muster the ability to direct it into an Earth orbit, but they can send it for a loop around the sun and say they'll get back to it in a few decades when it comes back around, better prepared and all.

Or they do the, "Shit, it's not going into orbit around Earth, it's going to hit Earth" thing, and leave that as the cliffhanger for next season. But probably not.

 

 

 

[Corvinus85]

So regarding the asteroid

Spoiler

If it goes completely according to plan (likely won't) wouldn't that essentially kill Happy Valley in the long run? Reduced to just a scientific outpost at best.

Dev

Spoiler

I'm sure he'll find a way to end the strike even though he was likely the guy who created the conditions for it.

The North Korean stuff continues to be hilariously stupid. Did they not send scientists there, just thugs? I liked the rest of the episode.

[Ran]

@Corvinus85

Spoiler

Damn, it'd be just like him to deliberately lowball pay for everyone, then show up and wave his magic CEO wand and "fix" it all, blaming the board he left back on Earth. 

He's going to build a cult of personality up on Mars, which tells me that while you're right, Goldilocks may leave Mars as just a scientific outpost, he'll put everything into making it a viable colony.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

37 minutes ago, Ran said:

@Corvinus85

  Hide contents

Damn, it'd be just like him to deliberately lowball pay for everyone, then show up and wave his magic CEO wand and "fix" it all, blaming the board he left back on Earth. 

He's going to build a cult of personality up on Mars, which tells me that while you're right, Goldilocks may leave Mars as just a scientific outpost, he'll put everything into making it a viable colony.

 

I loved Aleida’s reaction.  Her joy then her anger were so well played.  The twist of pushing Goldilocks to Earth starts to make me wonder if FAM really is the prequel series to “The Expanse”.  It would be awesome if they tied the two together.

 

[Corvinus85]

54 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I loved Aleida’s reaction.  Her joy then her anger were so well played.  The twist of pushing Goldilocks to Earth starts to make me wonder if FAM really is the prequel series to “The Expanse”.  It would be awesome if they tied the two together.

 

NO! I want to believe that The Expanse timeline is our future not an alternate universe's future.  

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

56 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I loved Aleida’s reaction.  Her joy then her anger were so well played.  The twist of pushing Goldilocks to Earth starts to make me wonder if FAM really is the prequel series to “The Expanse”.  It would be awesome if they tied the two together.

 

Since Amazon owns the rights to the expanse I doubt this could ever  seriously happen 

[Ran]

Some interesting speculation on Dev:

Spoiler

Resolving the strike, basically taking over control, and determining to bring Goldilocks to Mars, using Kelly's life-hunting bots to start mining work immediately. 

 

[Corvinus85]

17 minutes ago, Ran said:

Some interesting speculation on Dev:

  Hide contents

Resolving the strike, basically taking over control, and determining to bring Goldilocks to Mars, using Kelly's life-hunting bots to start mining work immediately. 

 

Spoiler

Some engineering babble to explain how robots designed for and equipped with drills to extract rock samples on a planet with gravity will be retrofitted to extract industrial quantities of minerals in a micro-gravity environment is required, but yes I can see that happening. 

 

[Corvinus85]

@Ser Scot A Ellison to expand (hehe) on your Expanse idea, that can't happen because in The Expanse Earth had gone through some severe climate change events; cities like NYC are walled off from the Atlantic Ocean.

But a major positive aspect of the FAM universe is that climate change in the 21st century may have been averted. Didn't they say at the beginning of this season that oil drilling has largely stopped because other sources of energy are being developed faster? Nuclear fusion is a thing and we see people driving electric cars already by 2003.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Corvinus85

[Ran]

@Corvinus85

Spoiler

And dumb-dumb me just realized that Ed, instigator of the strike, will be happy to pilot the attempt to catch Goldilocks and bring it to Mars orbit....

Fuck, is the real ending going to be Goldilocks crashing into Mars, destroying Happy Valley? Ugh.

 

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

@Corvinus85

  Hide contents

And dumb-dumb me just realized that Ed, instigator of the strike, will be happy to pilot the attempt to catch Goldilocks and bring it to Mars orbit....

Fuck, is the real ending going to be Goldilocks crashing into Mars, destroying Happy Valley? Ugh.

 

That would be bonkers

Spoiler

An asteroid to hit the one inhabited place on a lifeless planet.

But I can see them intentionally crashing the asteroid on Mars to claim complete ownership of it. The iridium would largely still be there I think, spread out and ready to be mined. Birth of the MCR

 

[Ran]

Damn, that is pretty good.

[DireWolfSpirit]

This weeks episode was some fantastic drama. Every story line was a home run!

[Ran]

They really faked me out this episode with Dev, but that last couple of minutes -- and then DMX on the credits -- LOL!

Very good.

Spoiler

So, the KGB and CIA have assets up on the base. What odds that Ilya is the KGB asset? His black market position would mean he'd hear lots of gossip and dirt, get leverage on people, etc... And I suspect this is very bad news for Miles, the KGB isn't going to let some interloper take over a position they cultivated to maximize their intelligence on Mars.

But who's the CIA asset? Hmm!

I expect these assets will get activated before the season is done, don't think they were just a throwaway.