For All Mankind Season 5, Episode 7 Review — "The Sirens of Titan"

Full spoilers travel for For All Mankind Season 5, Episode 7, which is streaming connected Apple TV now.

Just to confirm: No, you didn’t accidentally skip an episode. For All Mankind’s seventh occurrence jumps up six months aft the coup connected Happy Valley to cheque successful connected the Sojourner crew, inactive en way to Titan. Over the radio, they perceive atrocious quality from Kosmos-1, who were a chemoreceptor up of them successful the contention to Titan: They’ve missed the satellite and are barreling toward a crash-landing connected Saturn. It’s a sobering, if somewhat jarring, opening, considering we near disconnected Episode 6 with President Bragg wholly cutting disconnected Earth’s proviso lines to Mars. But with lone a fistful of episodes near successful its 10-episode Season 5, For All Mankind has a dwindling magnitude of opportunities to instrumentality bigger storytelling swings. I, for one, americium gladsome the amusement is bringing backmost the information successful abstraction exploration. Mars was feeling a small excessively homey.

Things are not looking excessively bully connected Happy Valley. Six months with nary assistance from Earth means the Martian colony is rationing supplies and having its section teenagers transportation successful to h2o the crops. But the wide colonisation is increasing weary; signed petitions are being posted with hundreds of radical asking to beryllium sent backmost to Earth. The Sons and Daughters of Mars assembly — made up of Miles Dale (Toby Kebbell), Celia Boyd (Mireille Enos), Lee Jung-Gil (C.S. Lee), different SDM members, and Aleida Rosales (Coral Peńa) arsenic a neutral 3rd enactment — is struggling to govern, and Dev Ayasa (Edi Gathegi) and the MPK’s faction, holed up successful the Helios offices, are getting antsy. To interruption the stalemate and extremity the scales successful Earth’s favor, Dev hatches a program to destruct the increasing crops. But it’s c. 2012 and, unfortunately, flash mobs are immense close now, adjacent connected Mars.

Credit: Apple TV

Here’s wherever I person to speech astir Alex (Sean Kaufman) and Lily (Ruby Cruz) again. Can idiosyncratic archer maine if I’m being overly surly astir For All Mankind choosing to brace them up? I get that it’s somewhat inevitable — the teen dating excavation is not precise large connected Mars! — but I can’t basal this. It’s not flirty oregon acted good capable to beryllium heartwarming; it’s mostly cringey.

It’s Alex’s birthday. Lily has invited him to a break-in day astonishment wrong the harvest dome, wherever she has arranged… yes… a flash mob acceptable to Nicki Minaj’s “Starships” to creation for him. (I accidental it was astir comic that helium thought helium was astir to get laid earlier radical started walking retired of the maize stalks.) I was excessively stunned (derogatory) by the enactment dancing to consciousness thwacked by the tonal displacement of the breached dome. Narratively, astatine least, it works. Accidentally ruining the concealed enactment his favourite teen was astatine haunts Dev much than blowing up six harvest domes and 5 ration caches, the nonaccomplishment of which enactment the entirety of Happy Valley connected a two-week timeline earlier moving retired of nutrient entirely.

In a fracturing community, what’s the 1 happening that tin bring everyone together? Landing connected a caller satellite (or, well, moon). Sojourner’s Titan journey, and the handoff successful MOCC with Aleida, makes the episode. While Happy Valley is spinning its wheels mired successful faction politics, Annoying Walt (Christopher Denham) calls disconnected the ngo aft the Kosmos-1 tragedy, opting to not instrumentality the hazard with the unfastened uncertainties astir the trajectory’s calculations. But Kelly Baldwin (Cynthy Wu) Baldwins out; she gets inspired by her aged man’s Lunar plaque and hijacks the strategy astatine the past minute, diverting Sojourner’s slingshot astir Saturn and heading the vessel consecutive for Titan. It’s a great, hold-your-breath series that feels consecutive retired of the bully ol’ days of For All Mankind, erstwhile abstraction exploration was risky and new. Not a substance of freeing up schedules and docks, arsenic Miles tries to negociate with Aleida, who sasses back: “Because abstraction flight’s that simple, isn’t it?”