For All Mankind: Crossing the Line

December 22, 2023 3:45 PM - Season 4, Episode 7

Helios workers go on strike. "Moscow Margo" returns to Houston with diplomatic immunity. Dev, Kelly and Alexei arrive on Mars.

God, it was so nice to not have Miles have any lines or actions in this episode. I'm so. so. sick. of his stupid already and I feel we're at the very beginnings of it.

Dev comes rolling in and...well, he's being Dev.

Aleida cusses in a TV interview, as she is wont to do.

I'm impressed that diplomatic immunity has been extended to Margo like that. Television.

Alexei seems to thrive on Mars gravity and not so much Poppa's attentions.

"Hey, wanna help me steal an asteroid?" made me think of Leverage, big time.

posted by jenfullmoon (16 comments total)

It’s tiiiime for Space Mistakes!

- running the primary flow through the secondary regulator is a classic Space Mistake

- anyone trusting Dev is probably making a Space Mistake
posted by sixswitch at 4:12 PM on December 22, 2023 [5 favorites]

I remain perplexed that other than the actor not being available that Miles was not in the union busting scene, pushing everyone aside to get himself that nearly $1 million dollar bonus the second Dev finished speaking.

Framing the attempt at bypassing a critical piece of equipment as "terrorism" was a choice. Did Dale not tell Danielle that it was their own screw up that caused the explosion? Also weird how the episode ramped up a 9/11 military response with an intrusion of privacy and then....Dev talked it all way. I must wonder there must be a plan ahead of time for the paramilitarization to come back. Likewise, the reference to 15 North Koreans, a very specific, and bigger number than we've seen, was also an important point I guess, too.

I also had a hard time believing Ed Baldwin was at any time really motivated by "Mars is the future!" versus just "I'm going to stick it to Danielle for grounding me!" Dev? Yes. Ed? No.

Perhaps the best scene in the episode was the doctor engaging with Alex (right name?) and talking briefly about his father.

Listening to Margo speak Russian at length was....painful. I feel sorry for native Russian speakers.

Anyways...I'm on for asteroid theft 2003.
posted by Atreides at 4:46 PM on December 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

you wouldn’t download an asteroid
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:52 PM on December 22, 2023 [12 favorites]

I am so ready for a Dr Dima, Space MD spin-off.
posted by Major Clanger at 4:56 PM on December 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

I remain perplexed that other than the actor not being available that Miles was not in the union busting scene, pushing everyone aside to get himself that nearly $1 million dollar bonus the second Dev finished speaking.

LOL, good point. Actor must have been sick that week for him to have not taken over the entire plot.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:57 PM on December 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

It was extremely predictable that Dev was headed to Mars to steal the asteroid, but using the strike breaking maneuver to find co-conspirators was inspired. Of course Ed wouldn't cross the line; and Dev's argument specifically fell flat with him. He doesn't need to send money back home, when his family literally just moved to Mars. The baffling thing here is that Helios seems to be the one that started the labor dispute by altering the terms so dramatically and unilaterally. It seems odd that Dev was only able to solve this problem he created in person.

Someone on reddit postulates: Ed's shaky hand flubs the martian asteroid plan, and instead of an orbit he manages to replicate the lunar "dress rehearsal" that pissed him off so much in Season 1 Episode 1, just a long cinematic zoom over Martian terrain, and eventually flung back out to space.

So who are the covert assets in Happy Valley? My favorite long shot: Dev. Maybe CIA thinks they can control him. Maybe the Director who wanted a War on Terror is fine with the asteroid on Mars, if it means he gets to be Overlord of the Jackboot Thugs on Mars. Maybe Dev is using the fact that everyone expects him to steal it--even the Russians say Dev is not aligned with NASA--to sabotage the heist from the inside.
posted by pwnguin at 6:16 PM on December 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

NASA and ROSCOSMOS agreeing to the Helios workers’ workplace safety concerns right after they blew up the fuel processing plant is very on-point for this get’r’done timeline. I mean, if you see a part is missing there are ways around it, but you normally run a few tests on your bypass before flipping the production switch.

But for a group that wants improved workplace safety, shame on the technicians for not capping the lines and putting a “removed from service” tag where the fuel regulator was. There’s a right and safe way to stop the wheels of industry.

And Ed loves his canned parmesan cheese more than he loves his grandson.
posted by cardboard at 11:35 AM on December 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Ed doesn't even know his grandson.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:47 AM on December 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

random guess/wish, there's going to be a four year timeskip at some point in the last three episodes, maybe just right at the end of the season finale. why? because this song came out in 2007.

i'd die tho if they did, i'd die all the way
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:07 AM on December 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

and just because i can't stop thinking about this show and am basically more excited about the next episode than i am about christmas, i've been thinking hard about what they're going to do about the music when they get past the 2020s. the most daring (but also super gross) thing they could do is:

1. identify several emerging musicians with the right sound for a hopepunky alt-timeline scifi show
2. pay them to put together new tracks to use on the show
3. take advantage of their integratable lines of business (hello apple music) to
4. promote the hell out of those bands, thereby
5. attempting to self-fulfill their prophecy about what the early 2030s will sound like

gross, gross, gross, when big conglomerates pull that kinda stunt it's always gross, but tell me, just try to tell me, that it's not the way they're going to handle it.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 10:14 AM on December 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

but tell me, just try to tell me, that it's not the way they're going to handle it.

Alternative: lean into Apple's classic music streaming acquisition and utilize some performances of Holst for a season.
posted by pwnguin at 12:41 PM on December 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

It was weird that Miles was left out of the strike business. I think I saw him in the crowd holding up a sign saying "If I spoke SAG would make them pay me".

The "sneak in through the sewers and turn everything on in an unsafe way" plan seemed really stupid and I'm amazed Danielle signed off on it. The XO should be fired for making the bypass decision. That's not terrorism, that's incompetence.

Ed continues to be the worst. I loved the contrast between Dr. Dima making a real connection with the grandson and Ed ruining his spaghetti and assuming he'd be liked just because he's Awesome Space Hero Grandpa.

Dev on the other hand... I never liked him as the hope of private enterprise in space, but as a beard-stroking Bond villain? I think that works for me. The idea of Mars stealing the asteroid and declaring independence (and spending 100 years getting what they need by trading Iridium with Earth) is fascinating.

Dev is also completely incompetent though, so I'm assuming the BEST case scenario will be losing the asteroid forever.

Music: I assume they'll do what every show about the future does and have all of the characters be strangely obsessed with the music of the 20th century, as if no new music is worth listening to. Or just play some techno from 20 years ago and call it futuristic. (What is Juno Reaktor up to?)

Here's the actual future of music though.
posted by mmoncur at 10:30 PM on December 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

They could always wrap around and soundtrack the 2030s exclusively with big band music.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:06 PM on December 26, 2023 [2 favorites]

For All Mankind 2030s: non-stop space rock.
posted by fairmettle at 2:41 AM on December 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Mars stealing the asteroid and declaring independence
They’re gonna have to crash it into the planet, right? Otherwise earth could just figure out a way to steal it back.
posted by coriolisdave at 3:21 AM on January 25

They're taking like it'll be mined in orbit, but that seems pretty easy to steal back! I'm in space soap opera mode for this season, though. I'm trying really hard not to think.
posted by Acari at 9:26 AM on February 11