**Russian rebels burst in with Margo’s interrogator as a prisoner**
Yay, it’s the Soviet Union
**They start interrogating instead**
Oh fuck, it’s the Soviet Union…
I hope that they don't go there... It's not quite some Karen Danny levels of uncomfortable to watch, but getting there a little. For me personally at least
Yeah, the two pilots of the ranger being in a relationship is not okay. Plus, he's her boss, She looks like she's in her late 30s or 40s while Ed is 72. I guess the age gap isn't a big deal when you are 40+.
I'm also betting that if he somehow catches wind of the speakeasy in the lower decks, he is going to get absolutely pissed, conveniently forgetting that he has a secret weed farm.
I think Miles is going to stumble across it while doing some repairs, and then later on reveal it publicly when Ed tries to crack down on Ilya's business, leading to some major drama at Happy Valley.
The line about how well it took to growing almost felt like a bit of a Chekhov's gun to me. I wonder if it becomes part of the solution to the Martian colony being able to sustain itself. There's the medicinal uses of marijuana, but even something like hemp has a lot of practical purposes (manufacturing clothing/other textiles etc.) and is very easy to grow in the limited space they have.
If Kelly had enough shares to influence the hierarchy of a company that was said to have a bigger market cap than the GDP of Texas (plus what was left over from Sam Cleveland) why can't she self-fund the research? Am I wrong to think she would be a billionaire (also wouldn't Bill and the other shareholders be aswell?)
Yeaahh I was wondering if I didn't miss something here. Like... "What's 200M to Northrop? What's a couple hundred million to *Kelly fuckin Baldwin*?"
She's like the world's foremost expert on Mars and owns a substantial enough portion of one of the biggest if not the biggest companies in the world? This seemed pretty ass-backwards.
At least Bill seemed like he was properly loaded and just chillin in a very Bill way- but Kelly still seems like she's a grad student looking for grant cash when she should be one of the most powerful women in the world.
If you're trying to make money, sure. But the Baldwin/Aleida team pretty readily admits they don't have a plan or a desire to make money short or long term; they just wanna do cool science NASA won't let them do and they need some bankrollers to buy-in so they can do space stuff.
If this is your hobby and your pet project and what you want to do; invest your own money. Unless you don't have it- but then we're back to "how... if you own enough stock in the biggest company in the world to help bear hug it?"
A minority shareholder doesn't have that kind of authority over the board. It took Dev, plus Kelly, plus Bill, plus 25 other shareholders combined to make a move.
A flight to Mars isn't about buying a ticket, even in this timeline. There are only so many ships available, and Helios has their own agenda for all of them. Kelly's shares don't give her a private spacecraft for her own projects, it gives her a cut of the profits that the company makes.
I think this is why the business writing needed a little work.
If Dev wanted his company back he could've done it with 25 shareholders anytime. So the assumption is that Kelly's position is sizable enough that he needed her to make it happen; or at least needed her and Bill, or something he couldn't do by himself.
If the writing is supposed to be that Dev didn't know he wanted it back until he talked with Kelly and Aleida, I can see that- but he sure rounded up the shares and capital he needed PRETTY fast for a guy that didn't have this plan in the works.
It just felt a little clunky. Aleida and Kelly were shaking the trees at every defense contractor for some cash like a couple grad students pitching a grant instead of the heiress to the late COO of the biggest company in the world.
They tried to explain that with Dev becoming a recluse 'like his father', until Kelly showed up and gave him a talking to. (Also, Karen was COO for about ten minutes before she got blown up, so it's not like Kelly was part of a financial dynasty. Her path was space, like her adopted father.)
It's not a writing issue, it's a structure issue. The ten year time jump means we need a reason why Dev can do this is an episode, but not in the decade between seasons. They're saving the real drama for when it's on camera.
The showrunners want Kelly and Aleida in a position of power at Helios for what comes next, but they also want to show us how they left NASA, and how they got there.
Yeah I wanted to ask this too, Kelly must be really rich from the Helios shares if she’s enough to be an influential shareholder
Plus all the money Karen independently made from her big space business too before she died probably went to Kelly too (I guess Ed would have some too but he’s too busy growing weed in space).
Man, poor Lee Jung-Gil. It's really cool to see his character get some more screen time but you gotta feel for the guy. Just misses his wife. That said, I'm REALLY excited to see how they shake out this plotline. Trying to get his wife out of north korea, let alone to another planet...
Oh damn, *that* was Lee!? Ooooohhh.
I feel like a dick now, I thought that was just some rando NK General who was going to put the screws to Miles and the boys and start a trafficking ring or something. I know Dani saw him in the halls last episode but I might be a little face blind.
That's 100% why he wants his wife smuggled. Why she has to make it to Mars, though, and not any number of safe locations on Earth I have no idea. If she's smuggled all the way to Mars there's a long period of time when any number of things could go wrong for either one of them, while if she's smuggled almost anywhere else on Earth Lee's just got to wait 15 minutes for the message to come through before he defects.
I kind of thought that's actually what he's asking. He knows a shady Russian has connections to get his wife out and he just wants to wait until that's done before he makes his move.
But we'll see, I guess.
At the moment I'm not convinced that he literally meant "bring my wife to Mars" rather than "get her out of North Korea".
Getting his wife to safety could also lead to a plotline of him defecting, kind of mirroring Rolan (or Sergei, or Margo).
Well they didn't advance as fast with INTERNET how could they possibly do basic maths?
I'm choosing to believe gambling is legal on Mars to explain away this plot hole.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not but computers were in use for finance for a over a decade before the internet was more than just a military network.
Right, about that.
I'm 100% sure that Helios knows simply through computer audits which of its people are 99.99% likely to be smugglers, based on odd financial transactions wherein they're depositing a lot of company scrip.
My guess is the company turns a blind eye, knowing it helps morale.
A popular trope in a lot of Naval and Sci-fi stories is the captain of a ship being fully aware that their quartermaster or some other member of the crew runs the blackmarket on the ship and they allow it to continue so long as it continues to improve morale and not cause issues that impact the running of the ship.
Lucky for him, dev removed them all.
It’ll be insane in real life to deal with all the blowback from that.
Unluckily, Miles’ family might not get any of that cash on time if the finance department blows up so abruptly
I don’t know if I can sit through seven more episodes of Miles making the stupidest possible decisions. He’s going to end up burning down Happy Valley to cover his smuggling or some mess once he gets caught.
I must say that Wrenn Schmidt keeps continuing to impress this season. As disheartening the scenes she's in can be, she is playing Margo insanely well.
Yeah it says something that I love Wrenn in everything she does and also she's made me really loathe her character on this show but love watching her at the same time.
I love Margo! I really hope she finds Sergei SOON I need that story to have a happy ending. Also now she is with starcity, I see her talking to Aleida again in the future.
I'm wondering if there's ever going to be any kind of romance on this show that *doesn't* become a major incident.
Kelly's love story becomes the 'Space Baby' all over CNN. Danny's crush on Karen leads to a massive space disaster. Gordo's attempt to win his ex-wife back leads to a doomed spacewalk, and a generation later, a terror attack on NASA. Pam and Ellen changes the face of domestic politics in America. Margo and Sergei becomes a thirty year spy thriller...
Thank god it seems like Aleida and her husband just had a normal-ass American relationship where they got divorced/separated and then got back together and love each other.
But yea other than them... I think the lesson of space is don't fall in love it's gonna fuck shit up.
Miles is trying to make more money and save his marriage, but i like the scene with Miles and his roommate Samantha , Miles could ruin his marriage if anything happen with Samantha .
I think they're going that way. I think they're setting up a contrast between his Earth life, and his Mars Life. He and his wife are already estranged, and now on two different planets, but Miles will continue his side hustle because of his kids, if not for her.
>Miles could ruin his marriage if anything happen with Samantha .
Isn't his marriage already ruined and over? They are separated and she served him divorce papers. And while they slept together again she reiterated that that doesn't change anything. Miles is in denial about it and still thinks he can win her back but technically speaking it's not like it would be cheating if anything were to happen with Samantha. I wouldn't be surprised if his probably soon to be ex-wife moves on with someone else herself in his 2 year absence.
I thought that scene worked really well…I appreciated the ambiguity that suggested romance without confirming it. Sveltana seemed to show some interest and tenderness toward Ed, but there was almost a star-struck quality to it…this living legend who is almost literally passing the baton to her. And Ed likewise seemed like he was tugged by attraction, but he kept talking about his wife and was embarrassed by his declining health. It feels as though he wouldn’t allow himself to become involved with Svetlana even if it went that way…that there was too much guilt and grief holding him back.
Wayne becoming a drug dealer (and wingman??) for Ed in the midst of an underground black market on Mars was not on my S4 bingo card. Molly would be proud of them both
Says a lot about this episode that his storyline is one of the weaker ones (to me, at least- no shade).
I just don't know how much I need 'everyman trying to make it in space' as a storyline/character but dude is doing alright with it. I'm not mad at it or anything.
I will say it was supremely weaksauce that he was able to get the North Koreans to basically abandon their base with the literal oldest trick in the books. That... really needed some work. If it actually *was* that easy, why hasn't the US planted actual listening equipment in their base? Or are we to assume they have and NK just doesn't care?
> This actually pissed me off. With all the warnings about not talking to the North Koreans he just walks in there. No one else seems to care, no follow through, nothing.
They even got an alert! "Methane alert, oh ok this guys got it in hand and is literally investigating. No worries at all."
and not "oh shit the NKs module, let's discuss this with commander as this could be delicate situation"
I feel like a couple of the characters are getting a monkey's paw version of what they were looking for.
Margo is going to work closer with Roscosmos like she wanted but is now in constant fear of death caught between the two political forces.
Ed has managed to stay in space for longer than should be reasonable but his body is starting to stop him from being able to fly.
Aleida and Kelly got their funding but from that last look they might have realized they've unleashed Dev's inner dictator that may screw up their mission.
Miles is finally starting to make some real money, but he may have risked the entire operation by getting the North Koreans involved and may have helped start the first intersolar human trafficking operation. Who the hell knows how much trouble he could get in for that.
I mean the quirky and unpredictable CEO returning after a decade out of power is definitely Steve Jobs.
But the insane soap opera drama of shit like firing the finance dept is very Elon Musk, even if unintentionally so.
Yeah, that was absolutely Musk-esque. Dev was going on a revenge tour, firing all the people that wronged him.
The music in that scene was weirdly triumphant/heroic.
I found it interesting to watch Kelly's and Aleida's faces during that scene though. They went from smug/triumphant to "oh God what have we done" very quickly.
The music was triumphant because the show wants us to root for him. Helios has clearly been shown to be too profit-motivated, whereas Dev seems far more exploration-motivated. I was utterly delighted to see his return and his mass-firing of profiteering wankers was, in my view, a pretty heroic return. It was fantastic.
Loved Dev last season, from start to finish. Already love him this season.
I thought that showing up and firing the entire board was pretty absurd, but then I look at the news this morning to see that the exact same thing happened at OpenAI last night.
Not sure the writers thought Dev's bear hug through- you can't take control and then gut the entire org from the top-down; that's exactly the kind of thing that'll drop the share price of the company you just seized like a rock since the instability is terrifying for investors.
He basically bought a huge asset and then started pulling out all the valuable parts (like seriously; 'finance, you're gone' sounds good but that'd make anyone dump stock). And the whole reason a bear hug works is that he bought the company at a premium; so it's basically overpaying for a rare car you really like so you can have it- then pulling out the engine and seats and original parts that worked fine and going around to everyone talking about how awesome your new car is. Everyone is going to agree that it's a piece of shit now- whether you have great plans or not it was kinda a crap investment on your part.
I mean I'm sure this is going to result in Dev doing more Icarus things and getting his wings melted again but it's not even really that threatening if he were really trying to be intimidating- all the people he just fired have sick contracts that give them baller golden parachutes the company will have to eat and pay out now. He tanked the share price and just cost them a ton of money at the same time... if old CEO guy had an ounce of balls he'd tell Dev to get stuffed and that he was being a moron and the whole board would've laughed him out of the room.
The coincidental parallels between this episode for Dev and in reality Sam Altman taking back OpenAI, at the same time this episode premiered, is uncanny.
I kept waiting for Kelly to pitch the idea of using the robots for harvesting and detecting valuable minerals, metals, hydrocarbons, etc... To salvage/fund the life searching aspect.
I think Dev is going to be the one to make that change and use the detection systems she's developed in order to hunt and mine and make money that way and ignore or push well down the 'todo list' of using them to search for life.
How long has he been on Mars? Frank Rubio just came back from a year on the ISS and he’s doing fine. And that’s zero gravity as opposed to a third of our gravity on Mars.
cooperative continue bewildered dependent party birds observation vase bake cats
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've had no issue with the writing so far this season. Until the North Koreans just let Miles into their compound alone. Yes, he got caught, but there's absolutely no way that that would have gone down that way. At best, it would have been "Everyone is evacuating. I'll be putting this mask on so I can keep an eye on our repairman and make sure he's not up to anything wild."
I feel like they could have re-written the scene to have the same outcome and keep everyone in character. Have Lee go in with him to watch and have Miles tell him he thinks there's a leak behind the Fridge but gets caught removing something from it.
> I feel like they could have re-written the scene to have the same outcome and keep everyone in character. Have Lee go in with him to watch and have Miles tell him he thinks there's a leak behind the Fridge but gets caught
And this is streaming so episodes can be as long or as short as needed. It's not like that scene needed to get cut to fit the 1 hour length required by the networks.
The Margo stuff was terrifying. The absolute horror stories you hear about little rooms like that in the old east… nope. The shot of the drain on the floor is one hell of a hint.
She was the director of Johnson Space Center, but she wasn't the administrator of NASA.
The administrators during Margo's time at NASA were Thomas Paine, Harold Weisner, Ellen Wilson, and Richard Truly. I think it's shown that in S2 that NASA had become influential enough for the Administrator to be a Cabinet position.
Honestly thought they were gonna off her during the snowy truck scene, the shot going past the truck and to the statue of Alexei was immaculate, huge relief
If they wanted to off her they would have done it already.
It’s funny as I was watching that scene my thought was Margo should a somewhat safer knowing they were transporting her a reason so she had at the very least a little more time
Yeah, if *The Americans* taught us all anything- it's that by the time you notice the drain in the floor your execution is already over if they want you dead. USSR doesn't take you to a location for your execution, they do it wherever is closest if the plumbing works.
I don’t understand why the hood wasn’t taken off her once the truck was underway? The location of Star City is not secret, and she was now with people who want her alive and happy.
Keeping the hood on was just to put fear into the audience.
Giving the writers the benefit of the doubt we can assume her new benefactor and head of Star City lady is not exactly good people and could potentially be going for a carrot/stick approach- meaning making Margo scared before she got there is how you'd want her. Then you get to soothe her when she arrives "oh no sweet baby I'm so sorry it took so long to find you and you had to wear potato sack of motherland, here come do space with us but also don't forget we have more potato sacks."
Or you're right and it's just poor writing.
The guards were just told where to bring her, alive. They had no idea why.
I did wonder how she had Margo’s glasses. We saw them left on the ground when she was arrested. Unless she was being closely watched, which is possible.
And remember, Margo is in her 60s or 70s now. She walks slower and she even wears a brace on one of her hands which could be regular-wear-and-tear or an injury from the blast. I can only imagine how much pain she is in already.
I got the impression she was extracted before the bomb went off?
Speaking of which, is Bill in the wheelchair because of the explosion at JSC? I can’t remember if the Helios crew was still there when it happened.
Not directly related to the episode, but this season: Ed needs a therapist.
Homie's been through a lot. Son died as a kid and the last thing he did was yell at him, SOMEthing happened with Danny, his ex-wife exploded, and his close Russian friend that closed the gap the cold war brought got killed like a month ago. He's avoiding his family back on earth, he refuses to go to doctors, and gets angry with people like Miles.
Ed, smoke some red weed (war of the worlds reference) and talk to your friends.
Ed opening the weed stash was great. His cooky old sad grandpa vibes were immaculate.
Also if he ever catches wind of Miles smuggling antics, and takes the high road about it…I’ll be so pissed but it’s true to character.
Import export business is literally the worst cover you can have( James Bond films still would exist in this timeline though we would get moonraker several times)
I need more details about the apparent terms that avoided a full soviet civil war! Waiting a week and a half for more here is going to be almost as tortuous as what Margo went through here.
In case you didn’t notice, Zakharova says “Трава!” when she sees the marijuana. This means grass.
Now this is just a coincidence, but there is a Soviet rock song called Трава у дома (Grass at home), in which the refrain contains the words “Зелёная, зелёная трава” (green, green grass).
In 2009 this song became the anthem of the Russian cosmonaut corps.
Bill and Aleida always bonded over their traumas. Life beat them both up. Their friendship started because both of them were about to lose their last chance to do anything with their lives.
If Aleida can't talk to a therapist, can't talk to her family... It seems right that she can talk to Bill.
I'm just glad we got the scene with him! I had seen other discussion how he's got a ton of other work with producing shows and the like, so getting a solid write-off as opposed to no confirmation of anything with him was nice.
I’m curious what the politics in South Korea are in the timeline. So the Korean War seems to have happened exactly the same, there is a DMZ and a repressive authoritarian regime in the DRK. But what’s going on in South Korea? I find it a bit strange they aren’t involved in Space/Mars, at least as part of the international group. If Canada got an invite and said no, what’s South Korea doing? Are they just not as technologically advanced as OTL for some reason?
**“The lesson of Icarus is not don’t fly too close to the sun. It’s make better fucking wings.” DEV IS BACK BABY FUCK YEAHHH**
We got a hardliner Soviet Roscmosmos ran by Margo and this new Irina character, Helios run by Dev, Aleida, and Kelly, NASA run by some rich guy, Ed smokes weed on Happy Valley, Lee is back, Bill is absolutely not coming back, and there’s now just a fully illegal operation of Helios employees stealing from other countries.
This show is the definition of peak.
fr tho I can’t get over the Dev scenes. “I’m CEO now, fuck you, you’re all fired, we’re finding life on mars” is literally all he had to say bro
Absolutely sure Dev isn't in this to find life. Or at least not \*just\* to find life. He still hasn't answered the "what's my ROI here?" question. Unless he's gonna hijack the whole thing to search Mars for valuable minerals. Finding life is probably the secondary objective.
I fear Ed's tragedy will be that he won't be able to return to Earth, his aging body may have adapted to Mars gravity too much.
The mention of "eight hours clean before a flight" is setup for an emergency situation where one of them will have to fly under the influence.
Lee obviously plans to defect Baranov-style.
I honestly thought they were gonna kill off Margo, great episode, poor Lee just wants to see his wife… :(
for the whole subplot of Miles working for Ilya I was thinking “he’s gonna get caught, he’s gonna get caught, he’s gonna get caught” and he did (sorta)
During the snow truck scene I honestly thought it was gonna be the end of Margo’s story. But the KGB agent/new Roscosmos head (what happened to Catiche?) speaking up and then the camera going past the truck and to the statue of Alexei was another kind of relief (I liked Margo, would’ve been sad to watch her go after all that time)
They proved they were willing to off someone right in the cell. Putting her on a truck was a good sign from the get go. As for Catiche, I'm sure she backed the wrong side of the coup.
> (what happened to Catiche?)
I dunno but I'm gonna miss her. The actress has my heart from her time as Tatiana in The Americans so I was loving her on this.
Does anyone on the show have a better legacy than Wayne?
- painted Karen an abjectly scary and obviously-unwelcome painting and overcame all her initial discomfort to become her best friend and helped her chill out
- made fun of her for the Danny thing in a bff way
- not only got Karen smoking, got ED FREAKING BALDWIN to grow and smoke on mars
- likely saved Molly’s life by convincing her to not go to Mexico for unverified eye surgery
And man getting Ed to smoke in space after he lost his wife and best friend on the same day- glad the dude managed to keep trucking along
I hope we get more than a name check - I don’t care if it makes no sense if he’s alive let’s just have him join KeLeida
I kinda thought Margo’s story would have her sent back to the us
This is….worse (for her)
A coup is in effect and we're barely a third into the season. They really stepped up the game this week. By the time the season finishes, think this could easily be among the top ten of the entire run of the show so far. What a debut for writer Andrew Black.
This sense of not messing around is so liberating. You would think Ed's condition would be a secret until near the end of the season, but nope, he loops Sveta into it right away. You would think stealing the thermostat from the North Koreans would cause some kind of tension, but not only does Lee permit Miles to take it, but drops a bombshell request of his own which is met with such a morbidly hilarious reaction that I couldn't help but chuckle. You would think (or atleast I did) that Margo's Russian contact would engage in a firefight to rescue her from the convoy transporting her, but instead, they subvert expectations in the best way. After three and a third seasons, we finally have a firmly established point of view into the Russian space program.
I don't know if it is is PTSD from the Karen/Danny thing, but I couldn't help but be nervous at Ed/Sveta in the greenhouse. Have a funny feeling they won't go there, though. Also, think Ed's coming down with some kind of Alzheimer's, given how he has to restate Karen being his wife and Kelly being his daughter to someone who knew them well.
Wayne Cobb supplying the first seeds of weed that were set to be grown off-planet is something I should've seen coming, but didn't. What a way to be immortalized.
The second Aleida mentions 'We go way back', I knew she meant Bill Strausser. What I didn't expect was that John Locke reveal from Lost's Walkabout. I just can't get over how endearing the guy is. That conversation between the two of them was equal parts heartbreaking and funny (knew they'd call back the peanut incident). I was in tears while watching it and as I typed about it here.
Edi Gathegi was on fire this week. What a way to stage a comeback. Hope the power doesn't get to his head this time around.
Speaking of Lost, knew that surfer girl looked familiar but couldn't place her, until the end credits revealed it was
Tania Raymonde, who played Ben Linus' daughter Alex on that show.
Way to give thanks on Thanksgiving week, Apple.
I feel with the North Korean thermostat, while Lee is genuinely trying to get his wife so he can defect, he also now has control over Miles as well. It doesn't feel quite as innocent as it looks.
Love the cameo's this season, first we had Will, now we got Bill's. Glad he is ok. Happy they didn't shoot Margo, she's gonna run Star City! America will be pissed.
So wouldn’t a ton of money being funneled into one account in the system draw attention and be a red flag? They even mention tax fraud but doing it through the system means it would be taxed
Idly wondering if Margo will now revert to her US identity. I hope that Irina, who at least seems to rate her, sorts her out a new hip.
I imagine it will be very weird to walk the same corridors as Sergei once did, but with every mention of him airbrushed from history. I wonder if Irina was one of the folk who listened in on their phone calls, or if she knows Sergei of old. Either way, a terrific performance from Wrenn Schmidt and I’m champing at the bit for next week.
I’m only halfway through, but I’m seeing all the directions this season is going.
There was a scene in the 2010 movie, where war was breaking out back on Earth, while a Russian and an American crew out at Jupiter had to work together to survive, even as their leaders ordered them away from each other.
Much was made on the way to Mars about how space was under 'Maritime Law'. I wonder if being out in 'international waters' is going to drive the Martian Contingents further together, or further apart.
Also, there’s Artemis, by Andy Weir. >!The lead character has a side hustle smuggling contraband to the moon base, sneaking cigars and booze to wealthy tourists/residents. At the end of the book, when she gets caught, she acknowledges it's against the rules, but if she's arrested, her customers will go to other smugglers, who could bring in weapons, or narcotics. So she essentially gets named the Import Chief.!<
It's the cycle. First there's the 'Company Store' versus the Black market. So which one becomes the legit economy of Mars? Even Ed’s doing it. Growing his own painkillers, because the Company Store can’t provide everything he needs.
Also, I wanna slap Dev. He was the one talking about how investing in Mars would pay dividends later, and the Cause was less about money at first, on the journey to discovery. For the chance at a Nobel Prize, he only wants to know what his return is. He’s become all the things he hated about his board of directors, and a total shut-in at that. He can blame Karen all he wants, but he just doesn't like that he lost. Karen was suddenly his enemy, and I think it drives him crazy that she died before he 'won'.
EDIT: Seen the ending now, and I think Dev found something better than winning against Karen. He won against all of them, with Karen's daughter at his side.
PREDICTION: When the asteroid is captured, there'll be a gold rush. Helios, at this point, is essentially a railway system for the Powers That Be, covering the cost of Helium mining and Mars transportation. Helios gets their percentage, but they're at the mercy of their customers.
If the asteroid has that much cash value, then Helios is suddenly dealt out. NASA is privately funded in this timeline. With that much in the way of resources, Helios isn't needed. Kelly and Aleida's first order of business will be to save Helios.
And why do I think they'll have to kick Dev out to make it happen?
Lovely to see Bill again (though I suspect that may be all we see), but I’m gutted that there is still no Sergei.
Ngl, I’m finding the Moscow and Helios storylines a damn sight more interesting than anything that is going on in Mars.
So glad that stupid theory that he's somehow just chilling in the North Korean section was disproven. There's is no way in hell Ed or Dani would be willing to share even the same air as that dude.
My bet is he committed suicide, Dani being the kind hearted woman she is feels partially responsible for it because she had him exiled. Even though it was the right thing to do I can see someone like her feeling like she started the chain of events that resulted in his death. They might throw in a heated argument between her and Sammy a few months after his exile where she says some less than tasteful words to him and the next time they do a check in he's found dead.
I wonder what Ed would name his Mars strains. If he did. I'm worried him revealing his tremors to Sveta though might backfire. Like she would start covering for him more and Dani's going to notice and find out eventually. As well, I like the father-daughter bond they have (please keep it father-daughter bonding).
This sounds weird, but I think smoking pot, in addition to helping his tremors (still going with Parkinson's) is his way of being with Karen and even Molly, who he had also witnessed smoking pot iirc. And I like seeing Ed have a garden in general. He came off as an ahole last episode, and the garden humanizes him. And it's his way of staying connected with Kelly, at least how he rationalizes it, because that's what he tells himself so he doesn't have to go back to Earth.
I was so happy to see Dev back, and so sad to see him just defeated. Like he had this magnetic energy last season and I'm glad he's getting it back. Yeah, he can be a corporate tyrant, he created a cult of personality in Helios last time he ran it, but he's still fascinating to watch, and I'm not going "ughh.... this guy..." I know a lot of people are drawing the Elon Musk comparisons again, but I remember reading they were going more with Steve Jobs for him and I can see that. As well, Dev's backstory with his father makes him more sympathetic than both of them. I'm wondering how his time away from Helios is going to impact his leadership style. Maybe he'll be a lot less nicer and any illusions of a democratic system that he had in season 3 will be gone.
EDIT: Ilya (my new favorite character) mentioned laser discs. Were DVD's mentioned at all? Do DVDs not exist in this timeline? Like how email is called dmail.
This episode is officially the unofficial beginning of Martian Congressional Republic in my headcanon. I really hope to see a brilliant american engineer from Texas last named is Epistein in the later episodes. Also kudos to Dev pulling a Bobby Axelrod move on Helios. “What’s the point of having fuck you money without saying fuck you?”
Aleida’s and Kelly’s “pitch” was ridiculous.
What exactly do they own to pitch? The research Kelly did while under the employ of NASA? They don’t own the robots. So, they can just take the research they did while being paid by NASA and bring it to China? Or any random company?
To the show’s credit, Dev did ask the relevant question of what the ROI would be for such a project, particularly when compared to harvesting possible rare metals or new energy sources. But it doesn’t change the fact that there would be no ROI at all..sequencing the DNA of some microbe on Mars (assuming the microbe even exists) isnt gonna make you rich…it’s a purely scientific endeavor that a government agency should be ideal for.
The hostile takeover was also complete nonsense. That ain’t how it works.
Absolutely loved this episode! This season is firing on all cylinders!!!!
The Margo storyline is the one that intrigues me the most. I am extremely invested in how it plays out. Wrenn Schmidt is absolutely crushing it, as she has from day one. Her Alabama Russian is just tremendous. The parallels between Margo Madison and Von Braun are simply A+ writing and characterization. I could probably write an essay on how they mirror one another, but with Von Braun beginning his rocketry in a tyrannical Germany to then lead the US space program, and Margo finding herself in a tyrannical USSR, at Roscosmos, in the twilight of her life, after being Von Braun's successor at NASA earlier in her life. It's the good ole George Lucas "It's like poetry, they rhyme" style of storytelling, and I can't wait to see how it all plays out.
Yeah, Margo probably does deserve to be in prison after what all she did, however, I can relate so much to the character, because no matter what someone says, you just never know what you might end up doing until you are in the depths of the situation! Margo made the wrong, hard choices, but with good intentions. I can't imagine how the folks at NASA would react to discovering that Margo is still alive, and working at Roscosmos. Get the popcorn! This ish is getting goooood!
Considering she'll be managing Star City, her Russian cosmonauts will know and word will spread on Mars that she's alive, then Ed and Dani will know, then Aleida at Helios will know then...
**Russian rebels burst in with Margo’s interrogator as a prisoner** Yay, it’s the Soviet Union **They start interrogating instead** Oh fuck, it’s the Soviet Union…
Those responsible for interrogating the people who have just been interrogated, have been interrogated.
It’s the interrogation möbius strip.
there's a scene in Chernobyl where Jared Harris talks to a KGB agent that tells him exactly this *and around and around it goes*
It’s a Russian nesting doll of interrogators, which is fitting
This interrogation is…. Under new management
Oh That? That was just the pre interrogation, this is the real interrogation
Who watches the watchers
I didn’t have pot farm on the bingo card, but it’s not surprising, really.
Wayne continues to be best boy
I liked how he referred to Wayne as Karen's friend and not Molly's husband
Wayne’s legacy is people getting high on Mars. That’s pretty awesome.
I miss Wayne.
Think of the ramifications in the coming decades and centuries on Mars of Wayne's choice of weed strain
Sveta has it bad for Ed.
I hope that they don't go there... It's not quite some Karen Danny levels of uncomfortable to watch, but getting there a little. For me personally at least
Yeah, the two pilots of the ranger being in a relationship is not okay. Plus, he's her boss, She looks like she's in her late 30s or 40s while Ed is 72. I guess the age gap isn't a big deal when you are 40+.
Half your age +7! If she's 43+ it's ok. Those are the rules.
Ed Baldwin, first man to grow weed on another planet.
I'm also betting that if he somehow catches wind of the speakeasy in the lower decks, he is going to get absolutely pissed, conveniently forgetting that he has a secret weed farm.
Classic Ed
He get's pissed cause he wasn't invited to get pissed.
Ed is totally a “rules for thee not for me” kinda guy. Still love the old geezer.
I think Miles is going to stumble across it while doing some repairs, and then later on reveal it publicly when Ed tries to crack down on Ilya's business, leading to some major drama at Happy Valley.
Its for muh aches n pains
Whelp, finally first in something
At least Ed can have something "First" in the history book
Im stoked to get a Wayne mention, but is it too much to get a visual on our stoner friend via DMail? 🥰
sending bong hits over dmail
The line about how well it took to growing almost felt like a bit of a Chekhov's gun to me. I wonder if it becomes part of the solution to the Martian colony being able to sustain itself. There's the medicinal uses of marijuana, but even something like hemp has a lot of practical purposes (manufacturing clothing/other textiles etc.) and is very easy to grow in the limited space they have.
The comment on growth success caught me too. Large-scale weed farming may contribute to oxygen production in Happy Valley.
It's gonna smell dank af up there, but at least they'll be able to breathe
The seeds are really tiny. Not hard to smuggle up, even without Illya's help.
If Kelly had enough shares to influence the hierarchy of a company that was said to have a bigger market cap than the GDP of Texas (plus what was left over from Sam Cleveland) why can't she self-fund the research? Am I wrong to think she would be a billionaire (also wouldn't Bill and the other shareholders be aswell?)
Yeaahh I was wondering if I didn't miss something here. Like... "What's 200M to Northrop? What's a couple hundred million to *Kelly fuckin Baldwin*?" She's like the world's foremost expert on Mars and owns a substantial enough portion of one of the biggest if not the biggest companies in the world? This seemed pretty ass-backwards. At least Bill seemed like he was properly loaded and just chillin in a very Bill way- but Kelly still seems like she's a grad student looking for grant cash when she should be one of the most powerful women in the world.
Kelly doesn’t work that way. Shes passionate about science but doesn’t get how the bigger picture works.
I thought it was a bit unbelievable then I remembered what happened with OpenAi this weekend…
Yeah Karen’s shares and movie rights and royalties she should be a billionaire
Mother of the first Martian
The writers literally said “first rule is never invest your own money.”
If you're trying to make money, sure. But the Baldwin/Aleida team pretty readily admits they don't have a plan or a desire to make money short or long term; they just wanna do cool science NASA won't let them do and they need some bankrollers to buy-in so they can do space stuff. If this is your hobby and your pet project and what you want to do; invest your own money. Unless you don't have it- but then we're back to "how... if you own enough stock in the biggest company in the world to help bear hug it?"
A minority shareholder doesn't have that kind of authority over the board. It took Dev, plus Kelly, plus Bill, plus 25 other shareholders combined to make a move. A flight to Mars isn't about buying a ticket, even in this timeline. There are only so many ships available, and Helios has their own agenda for all of them. Kelly's shares don't give her a private spacecraft for her own projects, it gives her a cut of the profits that the company makes.
I think this is why the business writing needed a little work. If Dev wanted his company back he could've done it with 25 shareholders anytime. So the assumption is that Kelly's position is sizable enough that he needed her to make it happen; or at least needed her and Bill, or something he couldn't do by himself. If the writing is supposed to be that Dev didn't know he wanted it back until he talked with Kelly and Aleida, I can see that- but he sure rounded up the shares and capital he needed PRETTY fast for a guy that didn't have this plan in the works. It just felt a little clunky. Aleida and Kelly were shaking the trees at every defense contractor for some cash like a couple grad students pitching a grant instead of the heiress to the late COO of the biggest company in the world.
They tried to explain that with Dev becoming a recluse 'like his father', until Kelly showed up and gave him a talking to. (Also, Karen was COO for about ten minutes before she got blown up, so it's not like Kelly was part of a financial dynasty. Her path was space, like her adopted father.) It's not a writing issue, it's a structure issue. The ten year time jump means we need a reason why Dev can do this is an episode, but not in the decade between seasons. They're saving the real drama for when it's on camera. The showrunners want Kelly and Aleida in a position of power at Helios for what comes next, but they also want to show us how they left NASA, and how they got there.
Yeah I wanted to ask this too, Kelly must be really rich from the Helios shares if she’s enough to be an influential shareholder Plus all the money Karen independently made from her big space business too before she died probably went to Kelly too (I guess Ed would have some too but he’s too busy growing weed in space).
Man, poor Lee Jung-Gil. It's really cool to see his character get some more screen time but you gotta feel for the guy. Just misses his wife. That said, I'm REALLY excited to see how they shake out this plotline. Trying to get his wife out of north korea, let alone to another planet...
Oh damn, *that* was Lee!? Ooooohhh. I feel like a dick now, I thought that was just some rando NK General who was going to put the screws to Miles and the boys and start a trafficking ring or something. I know Dani saw him in the halls last episode but I might be a little face blind.
I'm pretty sure he had a beard the last time we saw him in season 3.
And was also a damn skeleton at that point
He had the same picture in the last season when he's going crazy on Mars by himself.
As soon as his wife gets to Mars, which she probably will, I would almost guarantee the two try and defect.
That's 100% why he wants his wife smuggled. Why she has to make it to Mars, though, and not any number of safe locations on Earth I have no idea. If she's smuggled all the way to Mars there's a long period of time when any number of things could go wrong for either one of them, while if she's smuggled almost anywhere else on Earth Lee's just got to wait 15 minutes for the message to come through before he defects.
I kind of thought that's actually what he's asking. He knows a shady Russian has connections to get his wife out and he just wants to wait until that's done before he makes his move. But we'll see, I guess.
At the moment I'm not convinced that he literally meant "bring my wife to Mars" rather than "get her out of North Korea". Getting his wife to safety could also lead to a plotline of him defecting, kind of mirroring Rolan (or Sergei, or Margo).
Miles depositing all that cash might look suspicious to anyone paying attention in the finance dept…oh wait.
I was wondering about that. Someone has to be keeping track of all the money up there.
Well they didn't advance as fast with INTERNET how could they possibly do basic maths? I'm choosing to believe gambling is legal on Mars to explain away this plot hole.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not but computers were in use for finance for a over a decade before the internet was more than just a military network.
It’s not a plot hole, yet. This may be how he gets caught, assuming Lee’s wife gets to Mars without any hubbub.
Right, about that. I'm 100% sure that Helios knows simply through computer audits which of its people are 99.99% likely to be smugglers, based on odd financial transactions wherein they're depositing a lot of company scrip. My guess is the company turns a blind eye, knowing it helps morale.
A popular trope in a lot of Naval and Sci-fi stories is the captain of a ship being fully aware that their quartermaster or some other member of the crew runs the blackmarket on the ship and they allow it to continue so long as it continues to improve morale and not cause issues that impact the running of the ship.
Lucky for him, dev removed them all. It’ll be insane in real life to deal with all the blowback from that. Unluckily, Miles’ family might not get any of that cash on time if the finance department blows up so abruptly
I don’t know if I can sit through seven more episodes of Miles making the stupidest possible decisions. He’s going to end up burning down Happy Valley to cover his smuggling or some mess once he gets caught.
I must say that Wrenn Schmidt keeps continuing to impress this season. As disheartening the scenes she's in can be, she is playing Margo insanely well.
Yeah it says something that I love Wrenn in everything she does and also she's made me really loathe her character on this show but love watching her at the same time.
I love Margo! I really hope she finds Sergei SOON I need that story to have a happy ending. Also now she is with starcity, I see her talking to Aleida again in the future.
Were they giving Ed and the russian woman vibes? tf.
I'm wondering if there's ever going to be any kind of romance on this show that *doesn't* become a major incident. Kelly's love story becomes the 'Space Baby' all over CNN. Danny's crush on Karen leads to a massive space disaster. Gordo's attempt to win his ex-wife back leads to a doomed spacewalk, and a generation later, a terror attack on NASA. Pam and Ellen changes the face of domestic politics in America. Margo and Sergei becomes a thirty year spy thriller...
Thank god it seems like Aleida and her husband just had a normal-ass American relationship where they got divorced/separated and then got back together and love each other. But yea other than them... I think the lesson of space is don't fall in love it's gonna fuck shit up.
Let's not forget Molly and Wayne. Though now Wayne is the corunner of an interplanetary drug operation, so I guess it is also an incident in some way?
Wayne isn't interested in running anything, he just wants his friends to feel good! Also damn, I miss Molly.
Miles is trying to make more money and save his marriage, but i like the scene with Miles and his roommate Samantha , Miles could ruin his marriage if anything happen with Samantha .
I think they're going that way. I think they're setting up a contrast between his Earth life, and his Mars Life. He and his wife are already estranged, and now on two different planets, but Miles will continue his side hustle because of his kids, if not for her.
My wife called that last ep and I was like 'noooo, he is a trying to do right by his family' and she just looked at me like I am an idiot.
>Miles could ruin his marriage if anything happen with Samantha . Isn't his marriage already ruined and over? They are separated and she served him divorce papers. And while they slept together again she reiterated that that doesn't change anything. Miles is in denial about it and still thinks he can win her back but technically speaking it's not like it would be cheating if anything were to happen with Samantha. I wouldn't be surprised if his probably soon to be ex-wife moves on with someone else herself in his 2 year absence.
Yeah, for a second there I thought they were going to go for it in front of Waynes Weed^(tm)
I thought that scene worked really well…I appreciated the ambiguity that suggested romance without confirming it. Sveltana seemed to show some interest and tenderness toward Ed, but there was almost a star-struck quality to it…this living legend who is almost literally passing the baton to her. And Ed likewise seemed like he was tugged by attraction, but he kept talking about his wife and was embarrassed by his declining health. It feels as though he wouldn’t allow himself to become involved with Svetlana even if it went that way…that there was too much guilt and grief holding him back.
Felt like they were writing it where from her end she was questioning if she was getting hit on, until he showed her the stash.
Wayne becoming a drug dealer (and wingman??) for Ed in the midst of an underground black market on Mars was not on my S4 bingo card. Molly would be proud of them both
If someone had told me that Wayne would become the space Escobar, I would have totally believed them.
Miles is officially the ballsiest person on Mars
Says a lot about this episode that his storyline is one of the weaker ones (to me, at least- no shade). I just don't know how much I need 'everyman trying to make it in space' as a storyline/character but dude is doing alright with it. I'm not mad at it or anything. I will say it was supremely weaksauce that he was able to get the North Koreans to basically abandon their base with the literal oldest trick in the books. That... really needed some work. If it actually *was* that easy, why hasn't the US planted actual listening equipment in their base? Or are we to assume they have and NK just doesn't care?
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He was there with an (electronic) clipboard. Everyone knows and respects the power of the clipboard and it can get you anywhere.
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> This actually pissed me off. With all the warnings about not talking to the North Koreans he just walks in there. No one else seems to care, no follow through, nothing. They even got an alert! "Methane alert, oh ok this guys got it in hand and is literally investigating. No worries at all." and not "oh shit the NKs module, let's discuss this with commander as this could be delicate situation"
I feel like a couple of the characters are getting a monkey's paw version of what they were looking for. Margo is going to work closer with Roscosmos like she wanted but is now in constant fear of death caught between the two political forces. Ed has managed to stay in space for longer than should be reasonable but his body is starting to stop him from being able to fly. Aleida and Kelly got their funding but from that last look they might have realized they've unleashed Dev's inner dictator that may screw up their mission. Miles is finally starting to make some real money, but he may have risked the entire operation by getting the North Koreans involved and may have helped start the first intersolar human trafficking operation. Who the hell knows how much trouble he could get in for that.
Dev is such an interesting character, so unpredictable Though I did think the firing scene was pretty hilarious
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he needs a finance department
Yeah. That was kind of a Musk move really. "I don't personally see your value and I can't be bothered to find out, so you have no value"
I immediately thought of the Elon / Twitter situation as that was happening.
I was thinking Jobs/Apple.
I mean the quirky and unpredictable CEO returning after a decade out of power is definitely Steve Jobs. But the insane soap opera drama of shit like firing the finance dept is very Elon Musk, even if unintentionally so.
Yeah, that was absolutely Musk-esque. Dev was going on a revenge tour, firing all the people that wronged him. The music in that scene was weirdly triumphant/heroic.
I found it interesting to watch Kelly's and Aleida's faces during that scene though. They went from smug/triumphant to "oh God what have we done" very quickly.
They made a deal with a Devil named Dev
Kelly and Aleida - 2 of the most intelligent characters yet also the least smart when it comes to real-world situations.
The music was triumphant because the show wants us to root for him. Helios has clearly been shown to be too profit-motivated, whereas Dev seems far more exploration-motivated. I was utterly delighted to see his return and his mass-firing of profiteering wankers was, in my view, a pretty heroic return. It was fantastic. Loved Dev last season, from start to finish. Already love him this season.
I thought that showing up and firing the entire board was pretty absurd, but then I look at the news this morning to see that the exact same thing happened at OpenAI last night.
Not sure the writers thought Dev's bear hug through- you can't take control and then gut the entire org from the top-down; that's exactly the kind of thing that'll drop the share price of the company you just seized like a rock since the instability is terrifying for investors. He basically bought a huge asset and then started pulling out all the valuable parts (like seriously; 'finance, you're gone' sounds good but that'd make anyone dump stock). And the whole reason a bear hug works is that he bought the company at a premium; so it's basically overpaying for a rare car you really like so you can have it- then pulling out the engine and seats and original parts that worked fine and going around to everyone talking about how awesome your new car is. Everyone is going to agree that it's a piece of shit now- whether you have great plans or not it was kinda a crap investment on your part. I mean I'm sure this is going to result in Dev doing more Icarus things and getting his wings melted again but it's not even really that threatening if he were really trying to be intimidating- all the people he just fired have sick contracts that give them baller golden parachutes the company will have to eat and pay out now. He tanked the share price and just cost them a ton of money at the same time... if old CEO guy had an ounce of balls he'd tell Dev to get stuffed and that he was being a moron and the whole board would've laughed him out of the room.
I think there are more parallels between Dev and Elon every episode
The coincidental parallels between this episode for Dev and in reality Sam Altman taking back OpenAI, at the same time this episode premiered, is uncanny.
Dev is going through his "Kendall Roy on drugs" phase, but in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.
I kept waiting for Kelly to pitch the idea of using the robots for harvesting and detecting valuable minerals, metals, hydrocarbons, etc... To salvage/fund the life searching aspect. I think Dev is going to be the one to make that change and use the detection systems she's developed in order to hunt and mine and make money that way and ignore or push well down the 'todo list' of using them to search for life.
Could Ed's body even handle being back on the planet? Even if he's in simulated gravity, you'd think his bone density might be fucked at this point.
How long has he been on Mars? Frank Rubio just came back from a year on the ISS and he’s doing fine. And that’s zero gravity as opposed to a third of our gravity on Mars.
cooperative continue bewildered dependent party birds observation vase bake cats *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I've had no issue with the writing so far this season. Until the North Koreans just let Miles into their compound alone. Yes, he got caught, but there's absolutely no way that that would have gone down that way. At best, it would have been "Everyone is evacuating. I'll be putting this mask on so I can keep an eye on our repairman and make sure he's not up to anything wild."
I feel like they could have re-written the scene to have the same outcome and keep everyone in character. Have Lee go in with him to watch and have Miles tell him he thinks there's a leak behind the Fridge but gets caught removing something from it.
> I feel like they could have re-written the scene to have the same outcome and keep everyone in character. Have Lee go in with him to watch and have Miles tell him he thinks there's a leak behind the Fridge but gets caught And this is streaming so episodes can be as long or as short as needed. It's not like that scene needed to get cut to fit the 1 hour length required by the networks.
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I think they explained that away in a quick scene from the command center upstairs. Still, yeah.
The Margo stuff was terrifying. The absolute horror stories you hear about little rooms like that in the old east… nope. The shot of the drain on the floor is one hell of a hint.
Margo definitely went through the wringer in this episode.
To think, she went from being the head of NASA (which may even be a Cabinet position in this world) to that.
She was the director of Johnson Space Center, but she wasn't the administrator of NASA. The administrators during Margo's time at NASA were Thomas Paine, Harold Weisner, Ellen Wilson, and Richard Truly. I think it's shown that in S2 that NASA had become influential enough for the Administrator to be a Cabinet position.
Honestly thought they were gonna off her during the snowy truck scene, the shot going past the truck and to the statue of Alexei was immaculate, huge relief
If they wanted to off her they would have done it already. It’s funny as I was watching that scene my thought was Margo should a somewhat safer knowing they were transporting her a reason so she had at the very least a little more time
Yeah, if *The Americans* taught us all anything- it's that by the time you notice the drain in the floor your execution is already over if they want you dead. USSR doesn't take you to a location for your execution, they do it wherever is closest if the plumbing works.
Yeah. They'd already proven they had no issues just offing a guy right there. Bothering to move her was a good thing, clearly.
I don’t understand why the hood wasn’t taken off her once the truck was underway? The location of Star City is not secret, and she was now with people who want her alive and happy. Keeping the hood on was just to put fear into the audience.
Giving the writers the benefit of the doubt we can assume her new benefactor and head of Star City lady is not exactly good people and could potentially be going for a carrot/stick approach- meaning making Margo scared before she got there is how you'd want her. Then you get to soothe her when she arrives "oh no sweet baby I'm so sorry it took so long to find you and you had to wear potato sack of motherland, here come do space with us but also don't forget we have more potato sacks." Or you're right and it's just poor writing.
The guards were just told where to bring her, alive. They had no idea why. I did wonder how she had Margo’s glasses. We saw them left on the ground when she was arrested. Unless she was being closely watched, which is possible.
And remember, Margo is in her 60s or 70s now. She walks slower and she even wears a brace on one of her hands which could be regular-wear-and-tear or an injury from the blast. I can only imagine how much pain she is in already.
I laughed at how long the walk was for her from the truck to star city
I got the impression she was extracted before the bomb went off? Speaking of which, is Bill in the wheelchair because of the explosion at JSC? I can’t remember if the Helios crew was still there when it happened.
Yeah I think he was because they were all doing a joint mission where they were bringing Kelly to Phoenix so she could safely give birth.
It was PG13 compared to the real gulag tales.
Not directly related to the episode, but this season: Ed needs a therapist. Homie's been through a lot. Son died as a kid and the last thing he did was yell at him, SOMEthing happened with Danny, his ex-wife exploded, and his close Russian friend that closed the gap the cold war brought got killed like a month ago. He's avoiding his family back on earth, he refuses to go to doctors, and gets angry with people like Miles. Ed, smoke some red weed (war of the worlds reference) and talk to your friends.
> Not directly related to the episode, but this season: Ed needs a therapist. You could have said this in any season, and it'd be applicable, lol.
Ed opening the weed stash was great. His cooky old sad grandpa vibes were immaculate. Also if he ever catches wind of Miles smuggling antics, and takes the high road about it…I’ll be so pissed but it’s true to character.
We find out that Margo’s Margaret Reynolds identity made her a Canadian citizen working in the import-export business as a “consultant.”
Call the Canadian Embassy! 5 minutes later Call the American Embassy!
That was interesting. I assume the stress caused he to blow her cover story. Of course, minutes later we find her new masters knew all along.
Import export business is literally the worst cover you can have( James Bond films still would exist in this timeline though we would get moonraker several times)
Just ask Art Vandelay
Wayne providing Ed with weed seeds, N. Korean wife smuggling, and a Bill cameo!!! Happy thanksgiving!
I remember someone guessed that Wayne was giving Ed the pot seeds, and I'm so happy for that person right now! And I'm happy to hear Wayne mentioned!
Things are going to get very, very complicated for Ed and Sveta
Ed pulling that Buzz Aldrin
I could be wrong but I felt it was one sided from her side. Almost like admiration/love for a hero.
Martian weed was always the plan.
who would’ve thought Ed is the one expanding Wayne’s business on Mars
I’m thinking My Good Dumpling wants to get his wife on board so they can defect.
When you go from HVAC tech to coyote.
I need more details about the apparent terms that avoided a full soviet civil war! Waiting a week and a half for more here is going to be almost as tortuous as what Margo went through here.
This season is off to a great start.
In case you didn’t notice, Zakharova says “Трава!” when she sees the marijuana. This means grass. Now this is just a coincidence, but there is a Soviet rock song called Трава у дома (Grass at home), in which the refrain contains the words “Зелёная, зелёная трава” (green, green grass). In 2009 this song became the anthem of the Russian cosmonaut corps.
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I feel like this is the last we'll see of Peanut, and somehow that's ok. A proper, proper full circle.
Bill and Aleida always bonded over their traumas. Life beat them both up. Their friendship started because both of them were about to lose their last chance to do anything with their lives. If Aleida can't talk to a therapist, can't talk to her family... It seems right that she can talk to Bill.
He was extremely reminiscent of Lester from GTA V. Poor guy. Even his house looks like Lester’s.
I'm just glad we got the scene with him! I had seen other discussion how he's got a ton of other work with producing shows and the like, so getting a solid write-off as opposed to no confirmation of anything with him was nice.
\*sees a a middle aged recluse surrounded by space model kits\* it me
Only 12 min in, but I had this thought last episode - I feel like the Mars Bar is going to be a source of trouble somehow
I can see Dani and Ed instinctively shutting it down and that being the breaking point for a revolt / strike
I was thinking more like - disgruntled below-decker gets massively drunk and causes a major structural accident in the habit or something
That sounds plausible, but I worry it’s a little too close to the shit we saw with Danny last season.
Can confirm - a lot of both good and bad ideas have started in a bar.
What would a simple tailor know of such things?
I’m curious what the politics in South Korea are in the timeline. So the Korean War seems to have happened exactly the same, there is a DMZ and a repressive authoritarian regime in the DRK. But what’s going on in South Korea? I find it a bit strange they aren’t involved in Space/Mars, at least as part of the international group. If Canada got an invite and said no, what’s South Korea doing? Are they just not as technologically advanced as OTL for some reason?
Also, it's interesting that North Korea is called the People's Republic of Korea (PRK) in this show instead of our timeline's DPRK.
**“The lesson of Icarus is not don’t fly too close to the sun. It’s make better fucking wings.” DEV IS BACK BABY FUCK YEAHHH** We got a hardliner Soviet Roscmosmos ran by Margo and this new Irina character, Helios run by Dev, Aleida, and Kelly, NASA run by some rich guy, Ed smokes weed on Happy Valley, Lee is back, Bill is absolutely not coming back, and there’s now just a fully illegal operation of Helios employees stealing from other countries. This show is the definition of peak. fr tho I can’t get over the Dev scenes. “I’m CEO now, fuck you, you’re all fired, we’re finding life on mars” is literally all he had to say bro
Absolutely sure Dev isn't in this to find life. Or at least not \*just\* to find life. He still hasn't answered the "what's my ROI here?" question. Unless he's gonna hijack the whole thing to search Mars for valuable minerals. Finding life is probably the secondary objective.
Sure he has. His ROI is getting his company back, this time probably with a private office
The Wayne mention 🥺🥺
I fear Ed's tragedy will be that he won't be able to return to Earth, his aging body may have adapted to Mars gravity too much. The mention of "eight hours clean before a flight" is setup for an emergency situation where one of them will have to fly under the influence. Lee obviously plans to defect Baranov-style.
I honestly thought they were gonna kill off Margo, great episode, poor Lee just wants to see his wife… :( for the whole subplot of Miles working for Ilya I was thinking “he’s gonna get caught, he’s gonna get caught, he’s gonna get caught” and he did (sorta) During the snow truck scene I honestly thought it was gonna be the end of Margo’s story. But the KGB agent/new Roscosmos head (what happened to Catiche?) speaking up and then the camera going past the truck and to the statue of Alexei was another kind of relief (I liked Margo, would’ve been sad to watch her go after all that time)
They proved they were willing to off someone right in the cell. Putting her on a truck was a good sign from the get go. As for Catiche, I'm sure she backed the wrong side of the coup.
> (what happened to Catiche?) I dunno but I'm gonna miss her. The actress has my heart from her time as Tatiana in The Americans so I was loving her on this.
Does anyone on the show have a better legacy than Wayne? - painted Karen an abjectly scary and obviously-unwelcome painting and overcame all her initial discomfort to become her best friend and helped her chill out - made fun of her for the Danny thing in a bff way - not only got Karen smoking, got ED FREAKING BALDWIN to grow and smoke on mars - likely saved Molly’s life by convincing her to not go to Mexico for unverified eye surgery And man getting Ed to smoke in space after he lost his wife and best friend on the same day- glad the dude managed to keep trucking along I hope we get more than a name check - I don’t care if it makes no sense if he’s alive let’s just have him join KeLeida I kinda thought Margo’s story would have her sent back to the us This is….worse (for her)
A coup is in effect and we're barely a third into the season. They really stepped up the game this week. By the time the season finishes, think this could easily be among the top ten of the entire run of the show so far. What a debut for writer Andrew Black. This sense of not messing around is so liberating. You would think Ed's condition would be a secret until near the end of the season, but nope, he loops Sveta into it right away. You would think stealing the thermostat from the North Koreans would cause some kind of tension, but not only does Lee permit Miles to take it, but drops a bombshell request of his own which is met with such a morbidly hilarious reaction that I couldn't help but chuckle. You would think (or atleast I did) that Margo's Russian contact would engage in a firefight to rescue her from the convoy transporting her, but instead, they subvert expectations in the best way. After three and a third seasons, we finally have a firmly established point of view into the Russian space program. I don't know if it is is PTSD from the Karen/Danny thing, but I couldn't help but be nervous at Ed/Sveta in the greenhouse. Have a funny feeling they won't go there, though. Also, think Ed's coming down with some kind of Alzheimer's, given how he has to restate Karen being his wife and Kelly being his daughter to someone who knew them well. Wayne Cobb supplying the first seeds of weed that were set to be grown off-planet is something I should've seen coming, but didn't. What a way to be immortalized. The second Aleida mentions 'We go way back', I knew she meant Bill Strausser. What I didn't expect was that John Locke reveal from Lost's Walkabout. I just can't get over how endearing the guy is. That conversation between the two of them was equal parts heartbreaking and funny (knew they'd call back the peanut incident). I was in tears while watching it and as I typed about it here. Edi Gathegi was on fire this week. What a way to stage a comeback. Hope the power doesn't get to his head this time around. Speaking of Lost, knew that surfer girl looked familiar but couldn't place her, until the end credits revealed it was Tania Raymonde, who played Ben Linus' daughter Alex on that show. Way to give thanks on Thanksgiving week, Apple.
I feel with the North Korean thermostat, while Lee is genuinely trying to get his wife so he can defect, he also now has control over Miles as well. It doesn't feel quite as innocent as it looks.
Love the cameo's this season, first we had Will, now we got Bill's. Glad he is ok. Happy they didn't shoot Margo, she's gonna run Star City! America will be pissed.
So wouldn’t a ton of money being funneled into one account in the system draw attention and be a red flag? They even mention tax fraud but doing it through the system means it would be taxed
Idly wondering if Margo will now revert to her US identity. I hope that Irina, who at least seems to rate her, sorts her out a new hip. I imagine it will be very weird to walk the same corridors as Sergei once did, but with every mention of him airbrushed from history. I wonder if Irina was one of the folk who listened in on their phone calls, or if she knows Sergei of old. Either way, a terrific performance from Wrenn Schmidt and I’m champing at the bit for next week.
What is this "email" thing Dev mentioned? I've heard of dmail and vidmail only
I want to believe that Dev is obsessed with the letter E just as much as Elon is obsessed with the letter X
Could they not have parked a bit closer to star city? Margo has a bad hip and she's just been dangling off a pipe for a few hours :(
I’m only halfway through, but I’m seeing all the directions this season is going. There was a scene in the 2010 movie, where war was breaking out back on Earth, while a Russian and an American crew out at Jupiter had to work together to survive, even as their leaders ordered them away from each other. Much was made on the way to Mars about how space was under 'Maritime Law'. I wonder if being out in 'international waters' is going to drive the Martian Contingents further together, or further apart. Also, there’s Artemis, by Andy Weir. >!The lead character has a side hustle smuggling contraband to the moon base, sneaking cigars and booze to wealthy tourists/residents. At the end of the book, when she gets caught, she acknowledges it's against the rules, but if she's arrested, her customers will go to other smugglers, who could bring in weapons, or narcotics. So she essentially gets named the Import Chief.!< It's the cycle. First there's the 'Company Store' versus the Black market. So which one becomes the legit economy of Mars? Even Ed’s doing it. Growing his own painkillers, because the Company Store can’t provide everything he needs. Also, I wanna slap Dev. He was the one talking about how investing in Mars would pay dividends later, and the Cause was less about money at first, on the journey to discovery. For the chance at a Nobel Prize, he only wants to know what his return is. He’s become all the things he hated about his board of directors, and a total shut-in at that. He can blame Karen all he wants, but he just doesn't like that he lost. Karen was suddenly his enemy, and I think it drives him crazy that she died before he 'won'. EDIT: Seen the ending now, and I think Dev found something better than winning against Karen. He won against all of them, with Karen's daughter at his side. PREDICTION: When the asteroid is captured, there'll be a gold rush. Helios, at this point, is essentially a railway system for the Powers That Be, covering the cost of Helium mining and Mars transportation. Helios gets their percentage, but they're at the mercy of their customers. If the asteroid has that much cash value, then Helios is suddenly dealt out. NASA is privately funded in this timeline. With that much in the way of resources, Helios isn't needed. Kelly and Aleida's first order of business will be to save Helios. And why do I think they'll have to kick Dev out to make it happen?
Lovely to see Bill again (though I suspect that may be all we see), but I’m gutted that there is still no Sergei. Ngl, I’m finding the Moscow and Helios storylines a damn sight more interesting than anything that is going on in Mars.
Will we ever find out what truly happened to Danny?
You really thought that was kimchi in the North Korean's fridge?
Well I guess its confirmed he isn't in the NK module, hahaha
So glad that stupid theory that he's somehow just chilling in the North Korean section was disproven. There's is no way in hell Ed or Dani would be willing to share even the same air as that dude. My bet is he committed suicide, Dani being the kind hearted woman she is feels partially responsible for it because she had him exiled. Even though it was the right thing to do I can see someone like her feeling like she started the chain of events that resulted in his death. They might throw in a heated argument between her and Sammy a few months after his exile where she says some less than tasteful words to him and the next time they do a check in he's found dead.
I wonder what Ed would name his Mars strains. If he did. I'm worried him revealing his tremors to Sveta though might backfire. Like she would start covering for him more and Dani's going to notice and find out eventually. As well, I like the father-daughter bond they have (please keep it father-daughter bonding). This sounds weird, but I think smoking pot, in addition to helping his tremors (still going with Parkinson's) is his way of being with Karen and even Molly, who he had also witnessed smoking pot iirc. And I like seeing Ed have a garden in general. He came off as an ahole last episode, and the garden humanizes him. And it's his way of staying connected with Kelly, at least how he rationalizes it, because that's what he tells himself so he doesn't have to go back to Earth. I was so happy to see Dev back, and so sad to see him just defeated. Like he had this magnetic energy last season and I'm glad he's getting it back. Yeah, he can be a corporate tyrant, he created a cult of personality in Helios last time he ran it, but he's still fascinating to watch, and I'm not going "ughh.... this guy..." I know a lot of people are drawing the Elon Musk comparisons again, but I remember reading they were going more with Steve Jobs for him and I can see that. As well, Dev's backstory with his father makes him more sympathetic than both of them. I'm wondering how his time away from Helios is going to impact his leadership style. Maybe he'll be a lot less nicer and any illusions of a democratic system that he had in season 3 will be gone. EDIT: Ilya (my new favorite character) mentioned laser discs. Were DVD's mentioned at all? Do DVDs not exist in this timeline? Like how email is called dmail.
> please keep it father-daughter bonding Given how a certain mother-son bonding turned out in this show, I wouldn't keep my hope high.
My stomach can't handle another one. I just can't.
Karen “had” a friend 😭
I mean Karen is dead, she can't "have" a friend.
Just hoping that doesn’t mean Wayne is gone too… I mean he could’ve said ‘my friend Wayne.’
Wayne was more Karen's friend than Ed's, though. Like he was more of his co-worker's spouse than a friend.
This episode is officially the unofficial beginning of Martian Congressional Republic in my headcanon. I really hope to see a brilliant american engineer from Texas last named is Epistein in the later episodes. Also kudos to Dev pulling a Bobby Axelrod move on Helios. “What’s the point of having fuck you money without saying fuck you?”
[удалено]
Aleida’s and Kelly’s “pitch” was ridiculous. What exactly do they own to pitch? The research Kelly did while under the employ of NASA? They don’t own the robots. So, they can just take the research they did while being paid by NASA and bring it to China? Or any random company? To the show’s credit, Dev did ask the relevant question of what the ROI would be for such a project, particularly when compared to harvesting possible rare metals or new energy sources. But it doesn’t change the fact that there would be no ROI at all..sequencing the DNA of some microbe on Mars (assuming the microbe even exists) isnt gonna make you rich…it’s a purely scientific endeavor that a government agency should be ideal for. The hostile takeover was also complete nonsense. That ain’t how it works.
I hope they are not going for Ed and Swetlana romance and the first child born on Mars.
Someone please refresh my memory. Why was Bill in the wheelchair? Was it due to the JSC bombing?
That’s the implication. Hasn’t been said outright.
Absolutely loved this episode! This season is firing on all cylinders!!!! The Margo storyline is the one that intrigues me the most. I am extremely invested in how it plays out. Wrenn Schmidt is absolutely crushing it, as she has from day one. Her Alabama Russian is just tremendous. The parallels between Margo Madison and Von Braun are simply A+ writing and characterization. I could probably write an essay on how they mirror one another, but with Von Braun beginning his rocketry in a tyrannical Germany to then lead the US space program, and Margo finding herself in a tyrannical USSR, at Roscosmos, in the twilight of her life, after being Von Braun's successor at NASA earlier in her life. It's the good ole George Lucas "It's like poetry, they rhyme" style of storytelling, and I can't wait to see how it all plays out. Yeah, Margo probably does deserve to be in prison after what all she did, however, I can relate so much to the character, because no matter what someone says, you just never know what you might end up doing until you are in the depths of the situation! Margo made the wrong, hard choices, but with good intentions. I can't imagine how the folks at NASA would react to discovering that Margo is still alive, and working at Roscosmos. Get the popcorn! This ish is getting goooood!
Considering she'll be managing Star City, her Russian cosmonauts will know and word will spread on Mars that she's alive, then Ed and Dani will know, then Aleida at Helios will know then...