I think we can all agree that season three of For All Mankind took a massive step back in storytelling acumen following the pretty darn perfect second season of the series (which, for my money, remains one of the best seasons of television in recent memory, save for one misstep – which, in turn, led to much of what made season three a mess). Well, I’m happy to report that, for the most part, season four of the series is back on the right course, providing us with a chance to catch back up with the show’s central characters (who are continuing to defy expectations and continue working into their 60s and 70s), while also adding a couple new faces to the cast and providing some much needed character development for two of the show’s middle-aged continuing characters.
As with each new season, the series has jumped into a new decade, with the action of the first seven episodes (seven of the season’s ten episodes were provided for review) taking place in 2003-2004. Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman, sporting a much more convincing old age make-up look this time around) is still on Mars. In fact, he’s rarely left the red planet following the events of season three, opting to hide out on Happy Valley rather than take any steps to address the deep trauma and loss he’s experienced over the last few decades. And if you doubt this read, take a look at the photographs that dot Ed’s windows in the season premiere: shots of him with Shane and Karen from back in season one, Molly Cobb after discovering ice on the Moon, Ed and Gordo back in their Apollo days. A list of people he cared about and lost, in various ways, over the last several decades. Even with Kelly and his seven-year-old grandson Alex back on Earth, the ghosts of the past won’t let Ed come home. Oh, and Ed still has his stubborn streak and a heck of a selfish temper to boot – both of which make an appearance in the early going of the season.
Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall, doing great work, as usual) has retired from NASA and appears to be enjoying her time on Earth, spending time with her husband and stepson. Naturally, just when she thought she was out, something pulls her back in. Before long, Dani is heading back to Mars (which means she will have to confront her own Martian trauma – through a series of flashbacks that shows us just what happened during that first Mars mission, while the astronauts waited for their delayed rescue) to try and do some damage control after a mission goes off the rails. While I think we’d all love to see Dani get the chance to relax and enjoy her later years in peace, it is nice to see her get the chance to work alongside Ed again – and it’s a boon for the series to have Marshall and Kinnaman bouncing off one another throughout the season. If there’s one major criticism I have for the series it is that it has not done enough to craft new characters to fill in for the show’s original ones as they inevitably age out of the series. When it comes to the original series astronauts, the only ones left are Ed and Dani,* and while we get to see Will and Kuznetsov in season four, they aren’t central characters who can potentially anchor the series in future seasons.
*While Ellen isn’t in the series this time around, we do get a resolution to her story in the news reel catch-up at the opening of the season, along with a quick note on the fate of Jimmy and his bombing friends. And, as I’m sure some people will be wondering, Wayne, Molly’s delightful husband, gets a really fun shout out this season as well.
And then there’s the other two original characters, Margo (the exceptional Wrenn Schmidt, who really shines throughout the season) and Aleida (Coral Pena, who absolutely comes into her own this time around). Margo is, as we saw in the flash-forward at the end of season three, living in Moscow. Only, things are getting a bit dicey in the Soviet Union – Gorbachev is opening up to the West, inviting more hard-line Soviets to push back. And Margo is being sidelined by the current team at Roscosmos (who don’t want to be seen as accepting help from a Westerner, despite having accepted help from her in the past). So, she’s on the sidelines, wondering if saving Sergei was worth essentially wasting her life in the USSR . . . until she’s not (come on, you didn’t think the series would put her in such a prime position to allow us a look at the operation in the Soviet Union and then not use her!). I won’t get into just how this all comes about, but as someone who spent college studying the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, it is quite the arc. And Schmidt is absolutely sensational this time around. Margo has spent so much time being on the outside, but knowing she’s the smartest one in the room, but now she’s on the outside and trying to prove both to herself and others that she should be in the room. It’s a very different take on the character than in past seasons and it’s utterly fascinating to watch this story unfold. As for Aleida, while she’s still State-side, her story remains indelibly linked to Margo’s. While she can’t hide from her emotional trauma on Mars like Ed, she’s still unwilling to process the PTSD she has from the bombing at the end of season three. Listless and looking for a purpose, Aleida has seen her career stall, her personal life wobble, and her confidence fall. Naturally, something comes around to bring her back into the game, but Pena does a heck of a job letting us see under Aleida’s surface and understand just how rough she has it. For a character I’ve rarely found compelling on the series, I was absolutely fascinated with her arc this season.
The big new piece of story this season is the advent of asteroid mining, which means that Happy Valley now houses a host of regular, non-astronaut workers. And, as you might expect, the addition of regular blue-collar folks to the mix has created a haves and have nots situation. Tensions are high between the groups (with the astronauts often unthinkingly assuming the base workers are there to clean up after them and fix their tech when needed) and they rarely mix. And when an upcoming mission has its parameters change at the last minute, well, it’s not great for those workers (who are led by new main cast members Toby Kebbell and Tyner Rushing). But, as I mentioned earlier in the piece, this arc doesn’t really work all that well because we’re conditioned to see the side of the astronauts. We’ve spent almost no time with these new characters (and Kebbell’s character, who gets the most fleshing out of the new ones, isn’t all that likeable to begin with), and we’re expected to care about them at the level we care about those we’ve known for seasons? Yeah, not going to happen. The story itself is fine, and it makes sense within the bounds of the universe, but it’s not nearly as compelling as seeing how Margo is acclimating to Moscow or how Aleida gets her groove back. Heck, even Dev – a character the writers still can’t quite figure out what to do with – is more compelling than the new workers’ arc. If only the writers had spent time in season three developing a new generation of characters . . .
But there doesn’t appear to be anything trending towards as big of a miss as season three’s disastrous Danny Stevens arc (an arc to which we do get a resolution for this season – and it’s a blessedly short one). So, chalk that up as a win. And, most importantly, the stories being told are character-focused, anchored to individuals whose stories we want to see the resolution to (the worker unrest links directly to both Ed and Dani, so that helps a lot when things get a bit overwrought, and you start to see just what’s about to occur before the writers even get there). And the cast is doing some of their best work to date. I found myself wanting to push play on the next episode immediately upon finishing each one, eager to find out just what was in store for characters we’ve spent so much time with. And I cannot wait to see how the season ends.
For All Mankind’s fourth season premieres on November 10 on AppleTV+. Seven of the season’s ten episodes were provided for review.
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