NASA Vending Machine (watching "For All Mankind"‪)‬ The Incomparable

It’s splitsville! “For All Mankind” explores rifts between supports of the old and new Soviet regimes, but there’s also an Earth-Mars dichotomy, the re-emergence of Cold War fault lines, the downstairs grunts versus the upstairs astronaut heroes on Mars, and even the Helios workers versus their billionare boss. Meanwhile, things are bad for Comrade Semonov, but Margo has finally found late-night coffee thanks to the washer from a cafeteria chair and—most importantly by far—a Soviet vending machine....

Our season storylines begin to come into focus this week, as Kelly and Aleida encourage Dev to have his Steve Jobs moment, Margo learns about the calm atmosphere found at Soviet Union police stations, Ed finds calm in hydroponics, and Miles discovers that black market shenanigans can really snowball....

This week we’ve got an upstairs/downstairs thing going on at Happy Valley, where newbie Miles is learning about black market speakeasies and base commander Danielle is enjoying some fresh pasta. Back on Earth, Kelly and Aleida join forces to TP things and build a business, and they’re all out of toilet paper. But the most important, earth-shaking thing in this episode is undoubtedly the triumphant Martian reappearance of a fateful vending machine!...

“You know, when I was a child, I liked to go to my father’s factory and enjoy the vending machine…” We’re back! And so is “For All Mankind,” complete with a new opening montage of “historical facts”, another dangerous adventure in outer space, some check-ins with old characters, and some surprising new ones....

So it all comes down to this. It’s the mega-length season finale of “For All Mankind,” in which many plot threads and characters will be explosively resolved! (But what of the vending machine? Won’t anyone think of the vending machine?) We get information about our surprising new character, Dev and Margo offer final(?) pep talks, Jimmy struggles to do the right thing, Molly talks Ed through trying not to crash, and we count references to “Watchmen”, “Apollo 13”, and even “Goodfellas.” Finally, there’s the needle drop for the 21st century, but it’s showing us a rather unexpected location. See you...

Digging out on Mars, reinventing Watergate at home, and investigating a Soviet asset. There’s a lot going on in this episode of “For All Mankind” even before the last five minutes happen!...