Hello and welcome to the 2022 Summer TV Binge of For All Mankind on Apple TV. That is a “What If” storyline if the United States lost the space race to the moon. I’m going to be covering seasons one and two this summer, so let’s get going with “Red Moon.”
1. The Russians Strike First
The show wastes no time and shows people around the country and the world, glued to their television screens, watching as a man makes his descent onto the moon. Rather than the short, “One small step for man..” speech most people know it is, “I take this step for my country, for my people, and for the Marxist-Leninist way of life. Knowing that today is one small step on a journey that someday will take us all to the stars.” The Russians struck first, and as it was being translated to the world, the people’s look of curiosity quickly shifted to disgust. The U.S. has lost the space race, and now we’ll see what that means for the rest of this season. The show also gives background to the role the president had in the goal of reaching the moon first and how Kennedy started it, Johnson ran it, and now Nixon may have fumbled the ball to achieve that goal. Now there’s even more of a reason for the program to be potentially shut down or who to blame rightfully.
2. The Quote Heard Around The Country
In the aftermath of this catastrophic loss, we, the audience, get introduced to the main character Edward Baldwin played by Joel Kinnaman. Edward is an astronaut in the NASA program and the leader of the last mission that was doing a test run of the spaceship but not landing on the moon. In his anger and “drunkness,” he gives quotes to a reporter who is running around a bar filled with astronauts hoping for something to write on the front of the paper the next day. Edward’s quote ends up being bulletin board material for his bosses and the entire country as he calls out NASA for being cowards after a fire during a test flight. I think there is some validity to his points about the difference between being careful and changing their entire dynamic, but it’s one of those times when your boss asks for the truth, and you don’t tell the blunt truth of it all. He nearly gets canned, but since he’s our protagonist, he will have to eat crow in “Siberia,” AKA a desk job at NASA.
3. Bigger Goals In Mind
Now another storyline that gets about a third of the episode belongs to another NASA employee named Margo Madison, who is played by Wrenn Schmidt and has hopes of being a NASA controller. We’re shown that although she has the intelligence and the dedication, she sleeps in her tiny office, the work she still has some fear when it comes to speaking up. There’s a man, Wernher Von Braun, pushing her to step up, and it’s uncertain whether he’s trying to be a father-like figure or a romantic partner. Either way, his advice to step up seems to land and lead her into a positive mindset for what will happen next.
4. Mysterious Girl
A few times during the episode, we’re shown a little girl in Mexico at the beginning watching the Russians moon landing with her family, another when her mother passes away, and the last when she is crossing the border with her father while listening to the U.S. moon landing. Not much else is given, and we’re only told her name, Aleida, very briefly at the beginning of the episode. It may not seem like much, but with a show centered around “What If” history, it feels like she may have some importance later on down the road. It stands out only because it adds another question about where else this show can go.
5. The Silence Is Deafening
With fire under their asses, the NASA program has to have a successful launch of Apollo 11, or it will be the end of everything else they have in the pipeline. Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins have to make sure it goes perfect…..so of course, it does not. It’s a heart-stopping few minutes in the episode because then the question arises whether the rest of the season is about them trying to save NASA or these men? Well, it’s going to be about the latter of the two, and when we’re finally relieved that they’re alive, it becomes about the new game plan to bring them back to Earth.
