‘For All Mankind’ Recap: ‘Into the Abyss’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This Article contains spoilers for Episode 105 of ‘For All Mankind’.
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If there is one thing that everyone can agree upon in life, it would have to be that second chances are a rare thing indeed. Because moments truly are fleeting and once they are gone, they are gone, leaving us with a tinge of regret if we didn’t take full advantage of an important one. Which makes the moment when the second chance arrives supremely critical for us. Because this is it, this is our chance to right a wrong or to grab hold of something that will make us incredibly happy and it just so happens that the wonder of the second chance, served as the one of the focal points of the next episode of For All Mankind.

For if you recall, Commander Ed Baldwin missed out on an opportunity to become the first person to ever set foot upon the moon, by not going for it whilst he was the skipper of Apollo 10. An act that he regretted to no end, to the point where he nearly walked away from his career as an astronaut over the anguish it caused him. But his second chance to do something outright historic arrived in ‘Into the Abyss’, by way of the data heading back to Earth from Apollo 15’s reconnaissance, since it revealed something quite important. In that, it appeared as though ice was present at the poles of the moon, and if by chance someone could get a sample of that, NASA could very easily get a foothold on Luna by way of a permanent base, and that prompted Ed to face one important decision. 

In that, the crew could either let Apollo 16 handle the search for ice or they could go for it now and potentially come back as heroes and well, thankfully, everyone agreed that going for it was the best way to handle this. Which meant this mission now had extra significance. For not only was the first American woman going to set foot upon the moon, but the discovery of ice would finally put America ahead in the space race at long last. But unfortunately for NASA, the search for ice didn’t quite go as smooth as planned. Because Molly and Ed simply weren’t finding ice at the edge of the crater, which meant they had to dive into the darkness and search for it there since the sun had never kissed the interior of these craters. An act that fell to Molly since she was lighter, and it was also a task that Ed needed to supervise closely. 

After all, one wrong move or too long of a delay on this segment of the mission, and there was a strong chance they would die up there, since they only had so much oxygen. But Ed and Molly showed nothing but guts and resolve in this leg of the mission and for their efforts, they came away with the motherlode. For ice was indeed hiding inside the crater and bringing it back home led to the eventual establishment of Jamestown Base on the lunar surface. But what matters more in this particular tale, is the sheer fact that NASA got its guts back, and that Ed finally got redemption by putting America ahead in the space race and it was also amazing to watch Molly make history as well. Which means this was quite the satisfying tale for certain, one that also offered some serious depth.

Something that came about by way of Wayne Cobb, since he decided to do what was forbidden and talk about his fears and his worries that his wife wouldn’t come back from the depths of outer space. And what makes this so deep and so powerful, is that offers up a genuine sense of humanity in this story, and it dives into something that we don’t hear about enough in regard to space travel and it made for some incredibly powerful moments for certain. In the end however, this was simply a delightful episode through and through, because you really cannot go wrong with an underdog story that is somewhat relatable since we would likely all share in Wayne and Karen’s fears about our loved ones going into space and well, now that America has dealt quite the blow to the Soviet Union, it should be quite interesting to see where this story takes us next, now that a base has been established on the surface of the moon. Until next time.   

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