Review: For All Mankind, "Polaris"
When you’re a show that jumps a huge stretch of time between seasons, there is a lot of “work” that needs to be done to recenter a narrative. Characters have changed, circumstances have shifted, and there’s a sense that the viewer needs to get their footing in this new reality.
In the case of For All Mankind, there are two interrelated tasks within this work. The first is to blast through the alternate history details in the intervening period, both in culture at large and within the space race specifically. Between the first and second seasons, this meant fast-forwarding from space exploration as a bellwether for the power struggle of the Cold War to the moon itself becoming contested territory, moving into the Reagan era and its culture of escalation. When the second season starts, the reality of a colonized Moon is still setting in, but by the end of the season it explodes into a truly thrilling convergence of events—the Soviet attack on the colony, the near-meltdown, the handshake that averted World War III—that made for one of the best episodes of television released all year.
But the second task is much more grounded, literally. For as much as For All Mankind is a big-budget space drama, it’s also a human story, and its ability to track these characters over those same long periods means a significant amount of catchup is necessary. In season two, that meant exploring Gordo’s PTSD and the dissolution of his marriage, Tracy’s growing celebrity (hinted at with a Carson appearance), and of course Karen and Ed’s adoption of Kelly and her takeover of The Outpost. This work is equally critical to setting up the arcs of a season, but it’s inherently less exciting, and there’s always something a bit deflating about it. Whereas the continuation of the alternate history story feels like a thrilling continuation of a larger arc, there’s a “reboot” feeling to picking the characters up at a seemingly arbitrary point, without being able to live in the aftermath of the events we saw in the previous finale.
This dynamic is why I wondered how the third season of For All Mankind would push forward. I binged the first two seasons of the show, and so I experienced first hand the soft “reboot” energy of a premiere within the show’s storytelling structure. And after such a thrilling finale—again, literally averted World War III—I wondered how it would be possible for the show to just go back to square one. The truth is that both of the first two seasons of this show started slowly, compared to where they ended up, and while the end-of-season pushes into the future always promise thrilling visions of the alternate history, it’s realistically gesturing at the climax of the season to follow, as opposed to its beginnings.
“Polaris” feels, at first, like it’s dropping in at precisely the wrong time to combat this. While the show’s key art and the tease from last season promised us Mars, that’s still a far-off promise as we rejoin the story in 1992: the U.S. has pledged to head to Mars four years later, in 1996, and the Soviets are now promising to do the same. And while the Chinese and the North Koreans are both working to establish their own space programs—the Chinese successfully landed on the Moon, while the Koreans’ shift from missiles to rockets has yet to bear fruit—this remains a fairly peaceful moment in the “space race” all told. Even Margo being unwittingly used as a Soviet asset has mostly just led to a mutually beneficial exchange of information, with Sergei only now facing intense pressure to get more information on the nuclear engine that both countries will depend on to be the first on the Martian surface. It might not quite be detente, but after eight years of the Hart administration, Margo and NASA are in something of a holding pattern.
This means that the primary “plot” of the premiere comes from its title, with Karen emerging as a space entrepreneur and teaming with Sam Cleveland to turn space tourism into a reality with the Polaris hotel. Compared to the first season, the show’s characters are a much bigger part of the montage of events that transitions us from 1983 to 1992—Gordo and Tracy’s sacrifice made them heroes, while the continued interest in space travel enabled both Karen and Sam’s franchising of The Outpost and the development of the utopian vision of public access to space that echoes in our own contemporary moment. When Ed and Danielle arrive onboard Polaris, it sort of reads as a story about this new dimension of space exploration, but the situation mostly makes it about the interpersonal dynamics among these characters as Danny—Gordo and Tracy’s son, and Karen’s ex-fling—weds his blushing bride.
Structurally, there’s more than enough story in the wedding for it to be a natural start to the season without any type of extra drama. You have Ed and Karen reconnecting after their divorce with Ed’s new wife in tow, Ed and Danielle jostling over the command of the Mars mission as a legally blind Molly hedges on her decision (Margo wants Danielle, Molly wants Ed), Karen working through the awkwardness of her affair with Danny, and you even have Danny’s brother bonding with Danielle’s stepson over the way living in the orbit of an astronaut defines your existence. Simply playing out the wedding as normal—Karen bristling at the memory of that Elvis cover, Ed and his new wife getting into it, etc.—would have been a productive way of reconnecting with these characters.
However, it would have been a “reboot” for the momentum gained at the end of the second season, and would have led to a very low-impact premiere of a show after so many of us who watched the second season have evangelized it for its thrilling intensity. Accordingly, when in the midst of the wedding we cut to open space and see the debris from the failed North Korean launch that Margo learned about in her morning briefing, it’s like all of a sudden that part of the show comes roaring back to life. We may still be four years out from a mission to Mars, but “Polaris” is not a utopia of space tourism—it is a premature reach for the stars, nearly destroyed completely by the tiniest piece of metal as the chaos of the space race unfolds around them.
Admittedly, the crisis aboard “Polaris” doesn’t necessarily have the same stakes as the threat of World War III, for multiple reasons: not only does it not specifically involve the larger context of the space race, but a huge part of the show’s cast are onboard, and the odds of all of them dying are pretty slim. The episode never really pretends they’re all vulnerable, though, and commits to killing Sam as an immediate sacrifice and ultimately does a pump fake on Danny joining his parents in space martyrdom (which seemed plausible, if not likely). Otherwise, it mostly revels in the slow grasp on the increasing gravity with Danielle and Ed grokking to it faster than everyone else, and then the thrill that even the possibility of a massive catastrophe offers as characters reflect on their mortality.
What it does, overall, is replicate that heart-pumping, edge-of-your-seat energy that the show builds to each season, this time using it as a wakeup call to the moment we’re dropping into. 1992 is not 1983: Mars is still years away, Margo has yet to commit full treason, and while it’s likely that Ellen’s presidential campaign will give us new insights into the political landscape this is not a return to the powder keg of season two. However, this is still a fundamentally unstable world, created as it is on alternate historical events that fundamentally shake our understanding of what is normal or likely under these circumstances. Details like the Beatles all still being alive might just seem like cute throwaways, but collectively they remind us that nothing in this world is “known” to us. For every technology—like tablets—that have advanced further in this new world, there are others like commercial space travel that remained ahead of their time.
“Polaris” doesn’t drop us into the story we were promised, but it jolts us back into the world where that story will unfold, making it a thrilling start to my most anticipated season of TV this year.
“...we sent a gift, right?”—Margo is mostly vibes in this episode, and while she is still literally living in a bedroom off of her office, she is having dinners at Aleida’s house with her protege’s newly-immigrated father and husband/son, which is a nice full circle moment from when she refused to take Aleida in after her father’s deportation. So far, it seems like she remains blinded by the principles of scientific inquiry and camaraderie and unaware she’s being groomed as a Soviet asset, but we’ll see if she wakes up as the pressure builds.
I’ll be curious if there’s a “Previously on” montage when the episodes go live, and what’s included in it—there wasn’t one on the screeners, and thus it took me a second to piece together the “Don’t Be Cruel” reference that unnerved Karen so much. It was the one very specific callback that seemed like they would intend on signaling to the audience so they register to it, since they chose to eschew a flashback.
On a related note: I didn’t love that affair story when it was part of season two, and I don’t love that it returned here, and I’m not sure if I’m up for it continuing to play out with Danny surviving his spacewalk and all. But, I trust the show ultimately, and so I’m interested in what Karen’s story looks like post-Polaris.
Much as Tracy’s celebrity status was only hinted at with the Carson interview in last season’s premiere, Ellen’s presidential candidacy is similarly played out through news footage alone, so I presume next week’s episode will pick up her story in more detail.
The other NASA detail is the montage introduction of Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi) and Richard Hilliard and their Helium mining on the moon, which we see people protesting as Margot leaves work to visit Aleida. Still no clarity on what we’re meant to take away from that, but an example of the way the show uses its time jump to drop seeds.
One has to think Ed’s injury aboard Polaris will affect Molly’s decision on Mars commander, and the introduction of Danielle’s stepson seems like she would be the more compelling personal journey to explore in terms of how the command will impact her relationship with him and her new husband.
Speaking of Molly, no specific scene exploring how she’s navigating her loss of sight, but she’s reading braille and has a guard dog who very much dislikes Margo, so looking forward to seeing more of how she’s handling the transition.
I have no doubt we’ll be seeing more of Danny, but I’m less certain about Jimmy—I can see his value to the story, and I think spending as much time with him as we do during the wedding suggests he may be present as we head deeper into the decade.
My biggest question moving forward is how much we’ll be jumping forward in time with each episode. We have to get to 1996, but this episode sets up some immediate events—Aleida’s trip to the moon, Sergei and Margot’s meetup at a conference—that seem likely to play out onscreen, and I presume we won’t zip past the Wilson vs. Clinton showdown, so my guess is we chill in 1992 for a few episodes and then fastforward again.
Among other details in the opening montage: Margaret Thatcher was murdered by the IRA, Michael Jordan was drafted by Portland, global warming is slowing, they named a space telescope after Thomas Paine, and Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid starred as Tracy and Gordo in Love in the Skies.
Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of For All Mankind! Of the shows that I was intending to “add” to my roster along with those I had already been writing about for The A.V. Club, this was absolutely on top of the list, and so it’s a real thrill to get to dive into a show that I caught up on last summer and have not shut up about since. If you’re new to the site, this first review is free, but all subsequent reviews will be exclusively for paid subscribers—we’d love to have you along for the ride, and to join in the discussion in the comments.
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