Review: For All Mankind 5x05: “Svoboda”

Written by Kira Snyder Directed by Sylvain White

With the leak of the automation plans at the end of the previous episode, I wondered how long it would take for Alex and Lily to get caught. It’s not like they weren’t the most obvious suspects, and they are surrounded by people who are (usually) pretty smart. What’s shocking is the relative lack of consequences, particularly for Alex.

I really don’t get Dev’s line of thinking here. If he’s all about Meru, what exactly does he stand to gain by betraying the current Mars population? Unless, of course, he is looking to populate Meru with a bunch of rich people from Earth and automate all of the tasks that less fortunate folks would normally do. But even then, there are people on Mars that have grown up there, and shipping them to Earth would be problematic on several levels. I know Dev has always been very self-centered, but his motivations to support this are strange.

Of course, if this was cooked up by the M6 nations in the first place, with a lot of support from Kuragin, then maybe Dev felt like the only way to ensure that Helios kept a seat at the table was to play along. Even so, why not just say that, even just to Aleida? And why keep it a secret from her when she’s the CEO? Granted, he probably knew that she wouldn’t agree and hoped that things would progress until it was too late for her to change direction, but I still feel like there’s a bit of hand-waving going on with this aspect of the plot.

And then there’s Alex. Dev does a particularly bad job of trying to convince Alex that leaking the information was a mistake. But he also effectively lets Alex off the hook. Dev may feel like Alex is as close to family as he’s willing to have, given their previous interactions, but Alex still should be in a lot more trouble than he is. It’s not like Dev is going to successfully get the matter swept under the rug.

It also never occurred to Alex and Lily that leaking the information to Lily’s employers wouldn’t immediately place her under suspicion? I get that they are young, but it would have been much smarter to leak the information to a different outlet. Regardless, it feels like Lily, at least, would have been screwed if matters hadn't escalated to a revolt by the end of the episode.

With all of this broiling throughout the episode, it’s a little strange that we actually get the truth about the murder earlier this season. It turns out that the illegal nighttime activities by Kuragin were being guarded and monitored by Peacekeepers, on orders from their command. Boyd learns this from her partner, who effectively confesses to the murder. Frankly, the way it plays out, I’m surprised Boyd didn't end up dead during the riot. Then again, what exactly is she going to do? (By the way, we haven’t heard a thing about Lee in a while, have we?) It just feels a bit underwhelming for those revelations to come right before an event that overshadows all of it.

A lot of attention is spent on Irina, as the episode actually begins with a fairly long prelude detailing her time in a gulag before her current tenure with Kuragin. We are reminded that she is ex-KGB and she even advises the governor to quell the protest by whatever means necessary. That obviously works spectacularly, but the real question is how her presence on Mars might disrupt the Sojourner I mission to Titan. Assuming, of course, she survives the oncoming mob.

I thought the finale to the episode was handled fairly well. There are certain ways that a peaceful protest will escalate into a violent situation, and most of them are covered here. Arguably, the governor makes a terrible decision (thanks, Irina) and law enforcement was all too ready to go on the assault. It’s still to be seen how many lives might be lost, but it’s heavily foreshadowed that something is going to happen to the governor’s wife as a result of all this. And that will just escalate matters even further.

It’s becoming a bit of a refrain for me this season, but while much of the drama can be compelling, I really wish more of the plot was centered on the space exploration elements. That was a huge draw of the early seasons for me, and it just feels like it’s window dressing now. There’s reason to think that the riot on Mars will have an impact on the mission to Titan, given the end of the episode, but I want some of that wonder back that has been missing of late.