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We’re simple women with simple urges.
When you see someone struggling like that:
When you see those arms:
Annnd, you forget the rare third option, when you want to hold and be held by this goof who has been holding tomato slices for 15 minutes:
I did, anon. Did you have a particular request?
2) The Margo/von Braun relationship was an interesting storyline. I thought the dialogue for their big confrontation(Saturn 5 report) was some of the best of the season an acting. I was totally hoping she’d made a copy of the report, but didn’t think she’d use the “system” to get a higher position. I also have a crush on Margo.
3) One more thing about For all Mankind. Karen seemed oddly angry and dismissive about the female astronauts, but the show never addressed why she has this opinion/view. She was so dismissive of Tracy and generally negative about all the women. I don’t know if she just couldn’t imagine a woman achieving it because she couldn’t see past her own life/a woman’s role, etc… She was just so vocal I thought the show would address it by she and Tracy having a big confrontation.
Ohhh, Lauren German. Huh, maybe. She’s been reminding me of someone, that might be it. And I do love how she changes between the two worlds! She’s probably the one character that straddles both, everyone else–actually, I guess Gordo had to make the reverse transition, from astronaut to astronaut husband. Funny how that worked out for them, heh.
Absolutely agreed on the jump in ep 3, I was actually kind of angry at ep 1 and 2 because of how they were focusing on the problems of this white guy who frankly deserved the punishment from NASA he’d gotten! Of all the stories to tell in that time. Though I did like him again after he did the right thing at the hearing but the show still wasn’t as good as promised. I don’t think it’s just a female bias, it genuinely wasn’t offering that much that was new and interesting.
Deke’s reaction…man, did you also think that at first his laugh was to signal it wasn’t a big deal? Like, oh, you were getting so nervous about that? Pfft, we’re gonna die, don’t worry about it. But noooo. God, I don’t want to think about how far back that set her. It is actually a not tiny fear of mine that we shall find out that all nine years between her landing in Jamestown and the Sea Dragon taking off in the post-credit sequence will have them be separate. I felt so bad for her, in such a specific personal way. Not only what you get for opening up to people, but about this particular thing! I’m never gonna trust anyone. >_>
Oh, that von Braun-Margo scene was amazing! The von Braun actor is so good. I’m kind of sad we got so little of him, he was so watchable. Not just as an actor, but as a character. I loved the vocabulary they used for him, he had such a different way of speaking. Although, I actually did not love the revelation about her father, it didn’t really have the impact on me it should have had. We didn’t know the guy and it didn’t really seem to hold any kind of significance for the plot at that point, it just seemed to have been thrown in for drama. Like, if it’d actually changed how she thought about her father, if we’d seen any parts before or after dealing with how she thought of him, if it changed her in any way, fine. But it just was there like, ooh, look at how heavy.
But, on the flip side, I loved the conversation after about the reason for the explosion and why Margo hadn’t progressed through as she should have. That was great. And I’m glad she used it. She deserved her place in flight command. And heh, I love her too. I originally was hoping she might be the gay, not married and well, just giving off those vibes. I love when she’s all rapid fire explaining sciencey things in that accent.
Oh, yes, that weird thing with Karen when the women astronauts were announced. I really thought she was going to blow up at Tracy at some point too, maybe over the situation with their kids, say that Tracy wasn’t giving her kid enough attention and it was affecting Shane. But my original theory for her anger was that she was…jealous? Not because she wanted to be an astronaut, but because for years she’d sacrificed so much for Ed’s career, always being the supportive wife, it was just the way of things, the men went through admittedly tough training and selection to be astronauts, often through the military and active service, with all the help their wives gave them, and now here the wives were just gonna go ahead and do that same thing? Then why’d she give up so much without complaint, if it wasn’t necessary? If she could have been off doing something else? Was there even something else she wanted to do? That’s why I was so shocked by them taking Shane from her, tbh, they’d already made her undergo this soul searching and identity crisis earlier on. And then to take away her only child? Ooooof. I’m happy she got to end the season on a high note.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! It really surprised me too, especially after the initial eps. I had no idea women were going to end up being so central to it. When you think about the named male characters, it’s just Ed and Gordo who got to be actual important characters, and Deke too perhaps. All the other men, von Braun, Weisner, Aleida’s dad, Wayne Cobb, they had no journeys of their own to go through, they served as support.
Contrast that with Molly, Tracy, Karen, Dani, Margo, Ellen, Pam, and even Aleida and Marge. The women were so fleshed out and we got to see so much of them and their fears and hopes and dreams. It wasn’t just constant obstacles and uphill battles, they got a chance to solve problems and be heroes, the same as any character in this genre.
What I especially loved was that the professional ambitious woman archetype, something you usually get ONE of at most in any particular media, we saw a bunch of women who all fit it in their own unique ways. Molly, Margo, Tracy, Dani, and Ellen all wanted so much for the times, each grappling with their own demons and coming from vastly different backgrounds. It really used those first two eps as a Trojan Horse to slip in a whole ton of interesting women Doing Things.
And yessss, the treatment of the lesbian couple in the big season finale! I absolutely didn’t expect even half of as much as we got of them. I clipped a bunch of the relevant parts to make my friend watch and there were so many and so long. Excepting the brief scenes of Aleida and Ed in Jamestown, every other scene ended up being about them. Heck, even Ed’s issues were used as a dramatic foil, we were supposed to get frustrated at him ignoring the messages from Houston and then he was jerked out of his mental state by the huge, real emergency and even was able to team up with Mikhail. And to cap off Karen’s arc by bringing her into Pam’s circle too and using her to bring her into the viewing room! It was such a centering of Ellen and Pam, and such a romantic sympathetic framing for the audience, to show they’re both thinking of each other from literally across space. Throughout the season, we’d seen the template for various astronaut-spouse relationships already, and Ellen/Pam were very much another form of that in this ep, with Larry almost an afterthought. I really hope we’ll get more of them in s2.
I do have a few more on my list but despite how much the finale centered on both of them, it was kind of separate, right, so I don’t have that many more. Were there any particular scenes you wanted?
Oh come now, anon, she would have been a strained kind of polite before awkwardly extricating herself from the convo and then sharing a look with the other wives. 😛
But really, she probably would have been nice in an unknowingly patronizing way, I think she really did want to be as good a hostess and supporter of the whole astronaut fam as she could be. Her priorities have just shifted now, she’s still about the people, not so much the rules and etiquette.
Ohhh, I don’t know, anon. On the one hand, awww, presuming it’s end of the series Aneela and Kendry, having grown considerably from when we met them, that would be such an improvement for baby Dutch over the childhood Khlyen did give her. But I did love grown up Dutch with Kendry. It’s such a catch 22, without the suffering that made her, she wouldn’t be the person who then saves all of them in turn.
But it’d have been so darling to see baby Dutch get the childhood she (and Aneela!) both deserved. They’d have been so protective! And if they were the people they are now, immortal, they wouldn’t even have to deal with training while also competing with her, as the Qresh seem to operate. Even those glimpses of a not very balanced Aneela with young Dutch were so lovely, to imagine them together with more support…ugh, the Lady and Khlyen have so much to answer for.
Okay, I stayed up to watch this and remain unspoiled even though I have a work deadline tomorrow, so I have to sleep right after, but, let me post below the cut.
I loved it! I loved it I loved it I loved it.
What a tense, good hour (and 15 minutes!) of TV, with all the various arcs, and this is the number one preference I have for a show, where it’s a well written well executed genre show with wlw part of it, they’re part of the main action, they’re there, they make an impact, as characters, and their relationship is given a chance to shine.
Ellen telling Deke had me already so hyped and then his reaction broke my heart, I loved Deke, my favorite guy on the show, I’m so glad he redeemed himself on that and I really will miss him so much, Marge realizing was so effective. But the moment they showed Pam watching, I freaking KNEW where they were going, to parallel her watching it unfold with everyone else, her always on the outside, I couldn’t have DREAMED they’d bring Karen in to bond with her and like, I’m so curious to know what it is she thinks after seeing Pam that emotional about it, like, does she suspect about Ellen or does she think Pam’s in love with Deke or Ed or Harry?
I’m fine with how things were left, this is the end of season 1 only, there’s so much plot to go through, and they showed so much already, through both Ellen up there and Pam down there, this is what a bulk of the finale was focused on! To give their story that kind of focus, and that kind of sympathy!
And to end with freaking Commander Ellen Waverly (I’m not gonna use Wilson) as the lone woman on the moon, the female John Glenn/Ed Baldwin/Captain America type, I love that!
Yep, me too! The ep’s out now, I guess. Good luck to them!
I was thinking the exact same thing, anon! I’ve watched that last scene a bunch of times, mostly for the tension ratcheting up, and then the Molly rescue, and it was certainly suspenseful to have TWO ships in trouble at the same time, but 24 literally went off screen and all focus shifted to 25.The last we hear of it is that it’s still all quiet and gonna miss the moon by a large distance and from that I’ve seen people say Ellen dies, which she might still, but she hasn’t yet, not in this ep.
If you watch the start, the burst of speed when the engine fires knocks her head against the console, presumably unconscious, and that’s why 24 goes silent. I expect most of the last ep to deal with her waking up and helping Deke, or maybe be helped by him if he’s able to get inside, and then they have to figure out how to either get to the moon after all or get home. If she dies, it’ll be in this ep (and obviously I hope it won’t happen).
And through that all, I better see Pam watching it unfold and be concerned as heck! Otherwise, what even is the point of it all.