“It’s easy to start a war, but it’s almost impossible to stop one,” Aleida Rosales says in the finale of For All Mankind’s fifth season, referring to the ongoing battle between Mars residents (Marsies, as they like to be called) and the M6 soldiers who’ve landed on the Red Planet. Her simple yet effective statement distills the relevant themes of Apple TV drama’s fifth season: the militarization of space, immigration issues, refugee support, and the way greed breeds violence. While this episode delivers a story worthy of its message, the previous ones mostly failed to exemplify the show’s strengths, focusing instead on dull, clunky subplots over urgency or emotional heft. So “This Land Is Our Land”—while it ties its threads together impressively—doesn’t land with as much of an impact as FAM‘s previous season closers.
Penned by series co-creators Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, as well as The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Kira Snyder, the finale’s script is on-the-nose, but it works because the characters are finally having honest conversations about their circumstances, whether it’s Alex Baldwin unleashing his anger on his family friend, Dev Ayasa, for corporatizing Mars, or Aleida and Irina Morozova forgetting their past to work together. Aleida gets the finale’s meatiest moments: As Helios’ CEO, she landed on Mars a couple of episodes ago, but didn’t take long to discover that here, too, people have turned on each other. That’s why she tells former mechanic/current community leader Miles Dale that Marsies have also helped incite the war with Earth. “They’re not the only ones who led us to this moment,” she tells him, putting equal blame on herself, them, and on M6, a.k.a. the international government coalition back on the homeworld.
Most of season five has focused on the brewing tension between the USSR, the M6, and the Happy Valley citizens on Mars, who have turned their little colony into a bustling hub. So much so that they declared their own independence (which is fine), without realizing they’ll need to co-exist with Earth for both supplies and general harmony. In return, the governing body of the blue planet cut off resources and, eventually, sent up a cavalry to fight off the Martian workforce. So in the finale, both sides lose both people and trust. Miles blows up the M6’s command crew, with the help of Mars’ governor, Leonid Polivanov, who turns against his countryfolk; Alex accidentally shoots his former pal, Marcus, but Alex and Avery save him by getting him to the med bay in time. Still, more lives are on the line. Mars’ Peacekeeper Force, led by Celia, is in the throes of a gunfight with the Marines. Miles’ young daughter is also caught in the crossfire.
It’s not only the soldiers who pay the price of war—another big point “This Land Is Our Land” drives home. Back on Earth, Aleida’s loved ones worry about her safety because communication with Mars is cut off. Kelly Baldwin and her Titan crew are also in grave danger because Aleida has no way of getting in touch with them, making it impossible for Kelly to pass along a vital bit of information: They’ve discovered life on Jupiter’s freaking moon. Now that’s the For All Mankind I wish we were getting more of this year.
While inspecting a sample recovered from Titan’s surface, she realizes that it’s a living organism with a cell structure made of methane, a distinct difference from Earth’s carbon-based lifeforms. This changes everything they knew about the solar system—heck, the whole universe. The joyousness of this arc made me nostalgic for when helium-3 was discovered on the moon in season three, the expansion of the Jamestown lunar base, or the solar storm in season two’s premiere. That version of FAM was genuinely curious about the stories it could mine from scientific discoveries, while making them feel grounded and exciting. Season five has been completely devoid of that quality, with the Titan mission also mostly turning into a verbal fight between Kelly and the Sojourner commander, Stuart. So it’s refreshing to see this discovery, along with that of bioluminescence and wind on Titan. Hopefully, it means that FAM will return to its former glory for the upcoming sixth and final season.
Kelly has taken over as commander and is struggling to figure out her crew’s next steps without guidance from Aleida. They realize they need to head back to Mars with the sample ASAP, but the catch is they don’t have enough oxygen to make it back to their spacecraft. There’s enough for two, so she volunteers to stay behind and let Stuart and an injured Elena go instead. It’s a major sacrifice, but she’s willing to make it because she knows a now-grown-up Alex, in the absence of his mother and grandfather, will be able to survive. And just like that, For All Mankind loses not one, but two Baldwins in season five. Kelly sends an emotional video message back to Alex, recounting how she was adopted by Ed and Karen after she ended up in America. If it weren’t for them, Kelly wouldn’t have become an astronaut, she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant on her way to Mars, and Alex wouldn’t have been born. See, this show can make character beats work—stuff that was missing with season five’s new protagonists.
At Mars’ headquarters, Aleida and Irina team up to restart old Star City satellites (ahem, spin-off, ahem) to try and reach out to Titan. When it doesn’t work, the solution is for Dev to take his space elevator up to the antenna and turn it around so the signal reaches Earth. It’s a wild plan, but again, it feels like classic FAM, so it was enjoyable to watch people who are seemingly annoyed with each other (Aleida/Irina, Alex/Dev) come together for a greater purpose. While Dev does his part, Alex speeds off to warn the Marsies crew that a ceasefire has been declared on Earth, so the war can stop. It just took them a long time to get the message because of the comms being shut down. At the same time, Aleida is able to broadcast the same message from Russia’s President to the M6 crew. With that, war is actually over (for now) and, minus Kelly, the Sojourner crew is heading back from Titan.
The episode ends on an emotional but positive note: Miles Dale is sworn in as the President of Mars, newspapers honor Kelly’s sacrifice (confusing enough, with a photo of Aleida instead), and Avery tearfully visits the place where her dad, Danny, committed suicide. Hopefully, this means she’s able to let go of the weight she’s been carrying about her family and actually engage with the primary storyline. Kelly’s narration continues over the montage, with her talking about—to paraphrase—how the world needs to come together for the greater good, as it has many times before, and can hopefully do so again. With that, For All Mankind plainly puts forth its thesis. If only the team had spent more time fleshing out these urgent ideas across 10 episodes, instead of jamming them into the finale. At least “This Land Is Our Land” proves there’s still some fuel left in this particular engine. Hopefully, they’ll land the ship safely with season six.
Stray observations:
- •Aleida’s daughter, Graciana, visits Margo in jail, hoping that her mom’s former NASA mentor can find out what the hell is going on and if Aleida is alright on Mars. It prompts Margo to call her old astronaut pal, Will Tyler (Robert Bailey Jr.), only for Will to say he can’t help her. So the only thing Margo can offer Graciana is a few words of comfort/advice: “The truth is, not everything can be fixed. Some problems can’t be warped. Some you just have to live with.”
- •So, I suppose this is the last we’ll see of Wrenn Schmidt on FAM, considering a fairly aged Margo is going to spend the rest of her life in prison. It’s truly a new beginning for the show in season six.
- •Watching TV can make you look up things you never thought you would, like how much time it would take to walk 20 kilometers in Titan’s 1/7th gravity. The answer is three to four hours, by the way.
- •One of the many things I’ve been missing from For All Mankind are the stunning VFX shots of space. So I was thrilled to get the shot of Dev standing atop his space elevator antenna, just staring in awe at Mars.
- •Alex and Avery’s bonding is a pretty big deal: They represent a new generation of the legendary Ed and Gordo friendship.
- •To those wondering, the very last shot is of a Soviet ship, Mars-94, which suffered a meltdown in the season three finale, leaving the Cosmonaut crew to be rescued by Sojourner. And now, it seems like the old ship is circling Jupiter, whatever that means.
- •”Blinding Lights” makes for an incredible needle drop in the episode’s closing moments. I did not see that one coming.
Saloni Gajjar is The A.V. Club‘s TV critic.
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