For All Mankind Season 3 Episode 9 – Recap and Ending Explained: For All Mankind has an uncanny ability of time dilation or deciding to fast forward in time without losing the potency of the story they have set out to tell. While I am glad that my prediction of the time jump with regards to the pregnancy came true, it is still interesting to unpack what is their endgame here. In the 9th episode of this season, people on the surface of Mars are understandably more interested in getting out of that rock; now with a pregnant woman added to the mix, the stakes just grew significantly higher.

The fact that this episode is only 47 mins long is also a relief, as the episode manages to be a tight one with the focus mostly on the Mars side of things and the subplots are usually given the appropriate amount of focus and not overstaying their welcome. 5 months have passed since the Hab1 was dug out, and now the combined might of NASA, Helios, and Roscosmos are hard at work to repair the MSAM, or Popeye as it is affectionately called so that it can dock at Phoenix which is currently in orbit around the planet. Mars is now the red desert, and almost as a subversion for the viewers, there isn’t any possibility of alien life or first contact yet. But the mountain falling on top of these astronauts and almost killing them has sufficiently granted everyone among the three premier scientific agencies cold feet in reconstructing another new mission. Five months after that disastrous incident has shown Danny Stevens is off the pain meds, working diligently to repair the MSAM. Time will tell if it is an atonement, but right now the important objective is to ensure that the MSAM can house enough methane to achieve liftoff and dock with Phoenix, and that’s what Danny and Mueller are hard at work on.

Back at Happy Valley, the combined crew is coasting on high morale or trying to remain encouraged. Kelly Baldwin is very much pregnant and showing and Russian doctor Mayakovsky is very stern and not a fan of a baby being “born on this forsaken planet” as Martian DNA could hurt the baby. He studiously ignores Ed and Kelly’s scandalized and irritated looks at his bedside manner. But the pregnancy is also serving as a novel form of entertainment and morale boost on Earth, as baby clothes and booties production are on the uptick for the first baby born on Mars.

The earthlings inside the White House could care less regarding this morale boost. The Speaker of the house is more interested in convincing President Wilson to saddle NASA with strong senatorial oversight, instead of it continuing with its independent financial autonomy. His justification is the Mars Mission, and its abject failure, which he believes is dragging President Wilson’s political points down and should be cut from the tether. Wilson however staunchly refuses. Requesting the rest of his posse to leave the room, the speaker uses this alone time with the president to bring up the indiscretion of the first husband Larry Wilson, and his possible perjury for lying under oath. As Ellen tries to deny it, the speaker reminds her of the Oval Office Recording system, a contingency that had been put in place in the Oval Office ever since JFK (we have seen that recording system throughout this season, and now it is finally coming to play). The speaker then explains that he has the power to subpoena and obtain the tapes during the time of Larry’s alleged indiscretion, and if the tapes corroborate, the speaker and the house have sufficient grounds to impeach her. Ellen looks at the speaker in absolute disbelief, asking if he is serious, to which the speaker reminds her that a president hasn’t been impeached by congress in more than 20 years.

At Aleida’s place, she has finally managed to call up Bill Strausser, and now we see Bill and Aleida looking at essentially a murder board replete with paper, evidence, sticky notes(no red string showcasing it all connected, which seems like a missed opportunity) tying the evidence together, Aleida’s conspiracy board pointing fingers to Margo Madison as working for the Soviets. As Bill looks at the board with admiration and disbelief, comparing it to “the lair of a Batman Villain “, Aleida convinces Bill to hear out her theory about Margo, which he agrees to for another beer.

Back at Helios Airspace, Dev Ayesa excitedly lays out his plan to his board of directors for the next 10 years of progress on Mars. From beginning production on Calypso, a new interplanetary ship capable of running on plasma production which would be available to launch by 1999 and able to travel to Mars anytime independent of launch windows, expanding their footprint on the red planet by establishing mining operations, spaceports, greenhouses, dormitories supporting an increasing population and colonies. However a board member correctly points out that the mars mission was a failure (“shitshow” being the operative term), with three astronauts dead, Dev acquiesces to that and counters with the example of the original pioneer settlement of Jamestown in Virginia, whereby he explains that settlement is hard and death of people is collateral damage which needs to be accepted, in favor of the bigger picture, as Dev passionately exclaims that they found water on Mars, enough to sustain thousands. However, Dicky Hillard, board member and later revealed to be Dev’s first partner and responsible for discovering stable nuclear fusion together, remarks that the reality of the situation is the free fall of the stocks, which couldn’t be ignored. The liability report from the accident shows that one of their own had been responsible for the landslide and thus Helios is now vulnerable to onslaughts of lawsuits. Thus Dicky emphasizes that spending billions of dollars on this fantasy of Ayesa is over. The board will not move forward with more Mars mission projects but will pivot back to the mining of Helium-3, their core business. Dev requests for more time to pull them out of this hole, as Karen looks back at the board concerned. In a later scene, Dicky and Karen have a conversation where Dicky reveals why his relationship with Dev is at loggerheads as he is the only person capable of saying “no” to Dev, a man who has completely drunk the kool-aid of his myth. He reveals to Karen that he has heard the whispers that Karen had initiated to her NASA sources for selling off Phoenix to NASA, a plan which was immediately dismissed by Dev, but appreciated by Dicky for the pragmatic approach. Thus Dicky reveals her plan to remove Dev off the board as CEO and install Karen there, much to Karen’s chagrin but also reluctant acceptance.

At Aleida’s place, Bill and Aleida are working through all the evidence that Aleida had procured, and Bill is convinced that Margo is a spy, and urges Aleida to submit her evidence to the FBI. He is convinced because he couldn’t believe how exact all the numbers were, and how they did not make any effort to hide them. He is also shocked but later impressed that Aleida had seriously considered him as the double agent. But now Bill realizes that it is not the ravings of a crazy woman. However Aleida, for obvious reasons pertaining to her past, has issues regarding authority. Her father’s deportation based on baseless suspicions of him spying on NASA still sticks in her craw. Later at the outpost, Bill ambushes Aleida with an FBI Agent who informs her that she understands her reticence as Bill had already informed her about what happened with her father, which only serves to make Aleida angrier and distrustful. It reaches the final straw when the agent informs her that irrespective of her cooperation, a file on the investigation had already been opened and she would soon be called to testify against Margo. Aleida storms out of the bar, but not before telling Bill, “You are fucking dead to me”. Searing betrayal, frustration, and anger Aleida return home to the garage where she tears down her conspiracy board, weeping and shaking. Her father Octavio enters to see her crumpled on the floor. As he tries to console the sobbing Aleida, he briefly mistakes Aleida for her mother. It’s simultaneously a heartwarming and heartbreaking moment, as we see dementia had completely started to take over Octavio, a thread that had been developing in the background throughout this season.

At the MSAM, Danny, Tyler, and Mueller are checking the rendezvous radar and realize that the primary integration card had been completely damaged. Without the rendezvous radar, it would be impossible for the MSAM to dock with Phoenix. Tyler reveals that Soujourner doesn’t have an extra card because it was never installed due to NASA’S hurry of catching up in the space race. Back at Happy Valley, Ed reveals that the parts were bought by Kyiv and not fabricated in the USA. Kuznetsov reveals that the same integration chip is currently present on Mars, installed in previous soviet probes that had landed on Mars. Back at NASA, Margo is teleconferencing with Strausser and Roscosmos’ head Leonard Catiche, and Margo cleverly maneuvers the conversation to make Catiche reveal whether the soviets had sold these integration chips to other countries. When Catiche answers in the affirmative revealing that they had sold these chips to India, Turkey, and North Korea, Margo and Strausser decide to search for probes sent by these countries. They find that the closest such probe containing the chip is a North Korean chip some eighty-nine kilometers away. With their destination set, Danielle and Kuznetsov decide to make the nine-hour journey as they are the only ones among the crew who could be spared to make this journey.

The Helios analysis of the drilling accident is finally sent by Phoenix to Ed and the rest at Happy Valley. As Ed reads through what he perceives as bureaucratic garbage, he reveals that it was discovered and logged as operator failure and the blame is laid at the cold dead feet of Nick Carrado, as the man is not present to defend himself. Ever the spoilt brat and acting out, Danny grumbles about the injustice of it all and walks out of the room. The rest of the crew shrug their shoulders.

At the white house, Larry decides to call a press conference to out himself and protect Ellen from the scandal, basically removing himself as dead weight. But like it had been teased from the beginning of the season, and as the whole episode has been piling on her, she finally takes the decision. Hijacking his conference, Ellen Wilson apologizes to the whole world for lying and comes out of the closet. The entire nation is shocked. Pam, Ellen’s ex-girlfriend comes close to tears on seeing Ellen finally taking a stand. Back on Mars, Will Tyler watches with tears in his eyes as he is awarded the presidential medal of freedom, to be given to him when he returns to Earth. As Baranov finally acknowledges Tyler’s bravery and the two embrace, the rest of the crew ready themselves for a drink, only to discover that Kelly is unconscious at the nursery. Calling Mayakovsky in horror, Ed watches as Mayakovsky leans down and realizes that Kelly’s heart is beating too fast. They carry her to the sick bay where Mayakovsky deduces that she is suffering from preeclampsia. Mueller radios Dani and Kuznetsov, who is on the way to the location of the nearest North Korean probe. As they approach the probe Kuznetsov sees a footprint near the North Korean ship. Before Danielle could recover from the shock of seeing the footprint, they come face to face with a North Korean astronaut brandishing a pistol, with Kuznetsov shouting to not shoot; and For All Mankind leaves us with the biggest cliffhanger yet.

The pregnancy as the conflict is interesting and yet far more grounded of a choice than little green aliens. But the cliffhanger this episode leaves us with is quite possibly the biggest bomb of the season. Does the question arise as to how is it possible? Does this mean that the North Korean had arrived on Mars first? This episode also feels the most streamlined, with a minimum of focus given to unnecessary subplots. But with the next episode’s finale, there are quite a lot of subplots and plot threads to tie up, and also live up to the excitement of the Season 2 finale. Whether that is possible is debatable, but so far the quality of this episode has been excellent, and do expect a finale with a much bigger runtime, as the show races to the finish line and like every season jump to the next decade.

A cinephile who is slowly and steadily exploring the horizons of the literature of films and pop culture. Loves reading books and comics. He loves listening to podcasts while obsessing about the continuity in comics.

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