Yo that last episode of For all mankind was incredible! Ellen x Pam = ? but it’s so good that we get a wlw couple at the front of an episode like this. Karen and Pam bonding was unexpected but so welcome. So glad we’re getting a second season!
It was such a nice surprise. I fully expected much of the ep to be about rescuing Ellen and Deke and hoped that would mean some moments with a concerned Pam watching from the bar, but I did not know we would get this bounty. To make almost the whole ep about them as people and their relationship, the extra length season finale!
I can’t remember if I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: I’m coming to a point, because I guess we’re getting the rep to finally support it, where it’s so valuable to me to see us take up real space (no pun intended) in stories meant for everyone. A lot of my big ships this year were from shows where the characters were central, where their story was important. Juliantina, Atypical, Killjoys (perhaps less so this season but the finale paid off in spades), Domlene, For All Mankind. Oh, and a special mention for Runaways that took a decade and a half old fanon ship and made them one of the core plot points of their entire show. We’re so used to having to read into things that aren’t really there, with subtext ships, and then “graduating” to canon ships with side characters that barely get any screentime, it’s like Disney movie rep, something that could easily be cut out and not make a difference. But when our stories are so important that they can’t be cut out, when everyone has to focus on us. Us! Imagine trying to watch that For All Mankind finale with all references to Ellen and Pam’s relationship cut out.
It’s kind of funny that we actually saw Pam before Ellen, an established presence from early on. I genuinely can’t picture where we’re supposed to see her in nine years for season 2, but I also can’t imagine that they’ve written her out. I’m really glad they gave her that friendship with Karen, both as a way to bring her into the viewing room and create another central dynamic, but also because Karen needed that too. I hope we see that next season too, a friendship of Wayne, Karen, and Pam, the unconventional astronaut significant other trio.
So I just wanted to say thank you for gifing For All Mnkind because I probably wouldn’t have watched it had I not seen your amazing gifs. And WOW I am SOOOOO happy that I watched it. The storylines! The acting! The powerful brilliant women at the heart of the show! It’s all just so great. I wasn’t expecting the show to treat the lesbian relationship with such care while also reflecting the unfortunate historical accuracy of the time. I can’t wait for season two!
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.
Any more gifs of Ellen x Pam
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?
Which are your thoughts about Pam and Ellen on the finale of “For all mankind”? ?
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!