Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for For All Mankind S5E6, “No Sudden Moves” (written by Colby Day and directed by Sylvain White)
For All Mankind S5E6 picks up moments after the events of last week’s episode. After their violent altercation with the MPK, the protestors have taken over the MOCC. Gerardo (Salvador Chacon) holds a gun to Lenya’s (Costa Ronin) head and forces him to tell Phoenix to belay any shipments to Mars. Then, Lenya asks what his hostage takers’ demands are, and Ger pistol-whips him before demanding that all of the comms be shut down.
Gerardo does not have a plan.
Alex (Sean Kaufman) and Lily (Ruby Cruz) are in the med bay after taking baton blows to the head. Lily’s situation is the more severe, as she begins this episode unconscious (though she’ll wake up and kiss Alex later). Her parents, Miles (Toby Kebbell) and Mandy (Shannon Lucio), are at her side, but when they learn about the crisis the base faces, Mandy urges Miles to go to the MOCC to try and calm everything down, since he has a history with the SDM and they trust him.
On the way, Miles is accosted by some cops, but Boyd (Mireille Enos) intervenes to save him. Miles convinces Boyd to come to the MOCC with him, as they agree some level heads could help things from getting worse. That arguably pans out, as Miles ultimately allows Aleida (Coral Peña) to contact the Sojourner, which is on its way to Titan, and to restore the positions of those tasked with overseeing the critical functions of the Mars base.
However, it also leads to Irina (Svetlana Efremova) getting Miles’s ear. I don’t know what she’s up to, but I don’t trust her, and it’s worth noting how her remarks about leverage factor into the decision to use the iridium being mined on Mars as such. Miles, Boyd, and Gerardo make Lenya film a video message with their demands—the cessation of all automation plans, along with a representative to the M-6 elected by the people of Mars, who would have veto power over decisions about what happens on Mars.
President Bragg (Randy Oglesby) responds to this message on behalf of the entire M-6, with a brutality we might have predicted based on what For All Mankind has told us about his politics. Mars will be cut off from all supplies from Earth, including food and medicine, until the situation is resolved.
Of course, that may not be entirely true, since the ISN is also on Mars, even if we’ve seen very little of them at this point. Lee Jung-gil (C.S. Lee) returns to Happy Valley in S5E6, after he learns of the coup, and while his intent is merely to take Moon (Banyah Maria Choi) back to the ISN base with him, she insists that the people who helped him now need his help. It will be interesting to see where that goes.
Beyond possible assistance from the ISN, it’s not entirely clear to what extent Happy Valley can sustain itself at this point. Certainly, they are growing some food, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Domino’s depends on supplies from Earth. More importantly, I gather that the colony depends on Earth for things like medicine. Dev (Edi Gathegi) wants to make Meru self-sufficient, but Mars isn’t there yet.
When it comes down to it, what happens may depend on how far the people of Mars (with the SDM in control) are willing to take things. Bragg’s posture is hostile, and surely the scenes with Avery (Ines Høysæter Asserson) and Marcus (Barrett Carnahan) in S5E6 presage a deployment of marines to Mars to quash this whole thing. Would the SDM be willing to keep them from landing (through violence)?
Palmer (Myk Watford) is also surely gathering forces on Mars to attempt to retake the MOCC, and even if Boyd kept him from getting all of the stashed assault weapons, I think he got some of them. And Dev, who gets accosted as he tries to visit the med bay, seems to have had enough with all of this nonsense.
I want to be on the side of the SDM in all of this, but For All Mankind makes it a bit difficult by focusing more on the form of the dispute than its content. It’s tempting to just want everyone to settle down, particularly when the mission to Titan is at stake. And, at the same time, while it’s easy to see why workers would object to automation plans that would take their jobs and force them back to Earth, it’s not clear that automation in and of itself is a bad idea. For All Mankind is butting up against a number of questions it isn’t fully exploring, and it doesn’t help that Miles and Gerardo seem to have no idea what they’re doing.
I miss Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman).
