I guess the cat was out of the bag after episode 4, after finally the american spy has been identify but who is / was working with her was not clear and thats what this episodes does, with Irina putting two and two together about the sabotage coil hidden inside the perfume bottle from last episode and the realization washing over her face is just damn good writing and acting. Now that we know how far the Soviet Union incompetence will go just because they think there is a spy and how far the cosmonauts will go too because of the place where the state has put them in, only then you realize how messed up things are for these characters right now. Irina goes wild on this episode and it almost feels like braging just because she knows everything, as when she went to Tanya's place, the tea kettle starts whistling outside the bathroom door and she goes to check on her sleeping daughter before sitting down with Tanya for tea. She starts grilling Tanya with specific questions about that woman from Moscow, then walks over to the wall and peels back the wallpaper to show a hidden microphone bug. A scene that is expected but it had so much impact because Tanya just looks completely horrified, realizing her entire private life has been recorded by the state without her knowing. Irina does not waste time, she drops the hammer and tells Tanya that Valya is actually an American spy and it breaks your heart watching Tanya process that betrayal. Irina insists that Tanya needs to disappear immediately for her own safety, which shows despite being a hardcore party loyalist, she still has empathy left for this woman. It is a heavy way to start the episode and I is the type of shocking moment that makes you want more out of it.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32140872/
- Platform: APPLETV
Rottentomatoes Rating
This episodes is really interesting and satisfying because it shows how the series handles the pressure cooker environment over at the Venus headquarters, especially when the Chief Designer finally breaks down the mission profile for his cosmonauts. Watching them map out this plan to disguise the launch as a weather satellite mission is honestly ridiculous, I would never imagine you could smugle a ship to Venus and nobody noticing, hiding the crew inside the bathysphere module before docking with a refueling module in Earth orbit. The goal is a Venus flyby, dropping that bathysphere right into the Venus atmosphere, which sounds like a suicide mission since the heat alone would make you burn up and disintegrate. A lot has change around and keeping with the ridiculousness one of those specific changes is Sasha who all of the sudden wants to be the touching husband for Anastasia during that slow morning before he left and at least he stay put not saying a thing about his mission. She walks into the bathroom and finds him suiting up in his flight gear for a training exercise and the look on both their faces says everything about how uncertain things are for both of them. He tells her he will be gone nine months and you can see the jealousy and sadness in her because she knows she will never get to fly again but at the same time that he is not going for training, thats for sure. The actors work out this arranged marriage turning into a pure love relationship almost like it was forge in a bad way and end up becoming true, making you care about them surviving this. We also get a quick resolution for Sergei, after a night in a prison cell, as the Chief Designer negotiates his release with Colonel Raskova and tells him that life is a compromise, which sums up the entire Soviet mindset in one line.
The alternate history vibe here is similar to how things were at the begining in the For All Mankind but this time the spy and conspiracy theme hits so hard to make it worth more, at first I though it was a seperate show but it is in fact a spin off just that AppleTV didnt put that much effort into the PR for some reason, its that sad and dark Soviet Union iron fist grip that makes things more interesting after every achievement it comes back to take little oxigen out of you. The scene where Valya gets confronted by Tanya outside is incredibly tense because it almost feel like guards are chasing them and about to catch them right there, especially when he tries to feed her a secret code about marking a cafe wall and heading to a bridge for extraction because we dont know if its all bs. Tanya is completely disgusted with him and will not play his game, so he is in the worst possible moment alone because not even his wife is with him, I think what hurst Tanya the most is that she might think because he is a spy the state was recording them but none of them know that they do this with almost everyone at Star City, it is part of the program. The military raids the apartment with dogs while Valya runs through the woods and this is where the show goes hardest into that gritty espionage thriller feel. Valya spots Pavel walking by, smoking what he calls his last cigarette for nine months and the way Valya asks him to hold up a second before smashing him in the head with a rock is straight up ruthless, because is such a coward hit from the back to safe his ass somehow, everything but getting caught and this means taking on a trip to Venus for nine months withouth thinking or meassuring the concecuences for the mission because there is not enough time, it was do or die moment. Latter we find out Valya bound and gagged Pavel in a closet so he could steal a spot on the Venus mission, pitching himself as the hero when the Chief Designer panics about being a man down, this was hilarious. It is a desperate move from a guy who knows the government is coming for him and picking a suicide mission over a Soviet gulag shows you the kind of dark choice these characters keep making. I love seeing how far these people will go once they are backed into a corner, tossing their morals aside just to survive another day, on For All Man Kind you got none of this, yes you had those hero moments but it was because of the glory not because you might be thrown into jail for life.
Even though I really like this episode, I do have a few issues with some of the sloppy spy moments back at building twelve, because some of the choices feel too convenient, like the writing got lazy. Irina goes into her office and just uses a desk magnet to wipe portions of the audio tapes and cover her tracks with Tanya and that feels way too easy for a supposedly secure government facility, this was not the first time and I really really though she was going to get caught by her coworker and bring back to Colonel Raskova and she does but for a different reason. The snooty coworker Yegorova gets suspicious and reports Irina to Colonel Raskova for fraternizing with the target, she had her ass right there but didnt know it, and that sets up a confrontation that could blow everything up but it doesnt. Irina just walks in with files and flips the script, claiming she only got close to Tanya to gather evidence that Valya is the actual spy, and Raskova buys it without verifying the timeline. I hate when a show builds up a threat only to resolve it in two seconds and watching Raskova stand over that coworker and force her to apologize and call herself an infantile rat is satisfying, but also feels incredibly unearned. It also bothered me how easily Valya gets through the security checkpoint while running late, showing off who he is, pulling rank on the guard and asking if he knows who he is to avoid getting logged into the system. You are telling me a heavily guarded secret military base just waves people through without proper protocol because someone acts annoyed about a late bus, come on.
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