‘For All Mankind’ Recap: ‘Happy Valley’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 304 of ‘For All Mankind’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.
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It is always a wonderful thing, when a television series delivers as promised and gives its fans exactly what they want. Because it means that the writers’ room and production team, fully understand what makes their fans happy and they’re happy to supply it and keep the joy going and that’s another reason why For All Mankind on Apple TV+ is a show that needs to be celebrated. For this is a series that does just that, and for proof… look no further than this week’s episode. Because we’ve been chomping at the bit for several weeks to be thrust into the wonder and majesty of the race to land on Mars, first, and well, ‘Happy Valley’ provided us with nothing short of an epic and thrilling race to reach the red planet.
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A feat that it accomplished, by way of some healthy/unhealthy competition. For when we catch up with the trio of ships moving through the void here, the Helios branded starship Phoenix, was leading the charge. In fact, it was leaving both Sojourner 1 and Mars-94 in its interstellar wake, and it appeared that there was no way NASA or Roscosmos was going to have any shot of landing on Mars, first. Giving Dev the big win he was hoping for. But alas, NASA was not going to be shown up in space again and that’s when Commander Poole unveiled the secret weapon that was loaded on the ship while it was on the moon… a solar sail. One so large and efficient that it allowed NASA to easily overtake Helios and the U.S.S.R. by at least a week, giving NASA the win and sending Dev into a tantrum.

Which is when the unhealthy stuff came into play. Because the Russians were so terrified of losing this second leg of the space race, that they fired up their nuclear engines in an unsafe manner to take the lead… and basically put their cores into meltdown. Meaning that a rescue operation needed to take place and sadly, Helios was not up to the task. For Dev convinced his team that being first was all that mattered, and that rescuing souls was a NASA job, despite having better capabilities to mount a rescue operation. In fact, Dev cared so little about anything outside of the win… he even overrode Commander Baldwin’s command codes to ensure the Phoenix would reach Mars first and that was stunning to say the least and it left the job up to Poole’s crew to achieve and well… even that didn’t quite go as planned.

Because despite being able to bring several of the cosmonauts aboard, not everyone made it safety. For one of their reactors went critical, quicker than expected. A reality that JSC was aware of but was unable to properly warn the ship because of the distance between Earth and Sojourner 1, and that… led to utter disaster. For the reactor went critical and moved Mars-94 onto a direct collision course with Sojourner 1. Which in turn led to the death of the lone cosmonaut left aboard the ship and the loss of two of Poole’s crew, in a horrific and terrifying manner no less. Not to mention, the fate of the rest of the crew was left up in the air since the story faded to black at a critical moment. Which is a powerful and incredible way to close out what turned out to be one epic tale.

For this one really did deliver as promised, since we were treated to a thrilling and exciting race. One that managed to make the slow nature of modern space travel, engaging and compelling. Not to mention, this leg of the race exposed some unfortunate truths, specifically about Dev and Helios. In that, it’s a company that cares not about mankind and humanity’s future amongst the stars, it just claims to. Instead, it is all about that clout and that profit and that’s disgusting to say the least and well… all we can do now, is wait with bated breath to see if Sojourner 1 survived the onslaught of having a giant Russian vessel slam into its hull, and if Dev will face any kind of backlash and accountability for putting profits and prestige over people. Until next time.

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