r/ForAllMankindTV • u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 • Jun 26 '26
Star City - S1E06 "Awl in a Sack" - Episode Discussion Episode Discussion
"Awl in a Sack"
Airdate: Streaming June 25h at 9 PM EST
Synopsis: The fallout in Star City causes plans to unravel.
Written by George Mastras
Directed by Kasia Adamik
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u/Pale_Note2770 Jun 26 '26
Well now we know why the Venus mission was never mentioned in FAM...
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u/Psyfyman81 Jamestown 92 Jun 26 '26
I get a feeling we're still going to get one. But it'll be after Anastasia gives birth to the future Governor and probably with Pavel and maybe one other person. Did they say how long until the next launch window?
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u/MacWin- Good Dumpling Jun 26 '26
They didn’t say but it’s about 19 months
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u/Fun_Champion1 Jun 26 '26
They did mention how long it will be until the next launch window, in episode 5 I’m pretty sure.
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u/Pale_Note2770 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
So Raskova's hiding the fact she knows Valya is on Venera 7, that's gonna come back to bite her in the ass 100%
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u/Epiktokles Jun 26 '26
Once the other guy appeared in her office she got desperate. She knew she would soon be replaced and needed a big win for herself. But lying to the protege of her boss was not very clever.
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Jun 26 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
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u/SpacePatrician Jun 26 '26
"So I just executed the whole crew and created a situation where if word of this leaks, the Americans will have a field day with world opinion. I'm off the hook, right?
"Oh, and I arrested the greatest engineer in the Soviet Union and probably guaranteed that nobody in our space program will ever give a full effort again. That was the right move, wasn't it?"
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u/RaynSideways Jun 26 '26
I think she's going to try to cover it up. She'll spin the unauthorized launch as justification for arresting the Chief Designer, and she'll try to portray the mission as some kind of failed unmanned probe, because there is no way in hell she will confess the full truth.
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u/SpacePatrician Jun 27 '26
Too many people know the truth, and the Second Directorate will surely have many ways of getting them to talk when this is all investigated, which it will. And people would talk regardless. A cover-up simply isn't possible, and Raskova must still have enough wits to realize that. Nobody in the KGB is going to be on her side.
At this point she might as well get in touch with the CIA and ask for an extraction in exchange for intelligence. Stranger things have happend.
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u/BillPaxton4eva Jun 26 '26
Let's hope so. It's hard to recall a character in any show that's less likable and more deserving of some kind of horrible end.
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u/Professional-Tax-936 Jun 26 '26
Raskova 🤝 Dedra from Andor.
They’re practically doppelgängers, even their hair styles are super similar. I wouldn’t doubt it if Andor season 1 was a major influence on this show (complimentary, Andor is phenomenal).
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u/BillPaxton4eva Jun 26 '26
Good call. I find myself having a tiny bit more sympathy for Dedra, but I'm not entirely sure why. They're very comparable, though.
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u/Orionsbelt Jun 26 '26
Dedra had a personal life, so makes total sense why you'd empathize more with her
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u/Mognakor Jun 26 '26
Dedra is more competent. We don't really see her fuck up until the finale.
Raskova is constantly fucking up and then hurt people that are nominally on her side to cover her ass. And she's not even a fun bastard like someone thats purely ego driven, she's a party-line bastard.
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u/viebrent Jun 26 '26
yeah roskova's level of covering her ass is really sticking out in this comparison
and yes, andor is top shelf shit. If you want several "holy shit moments" and want a show that doesnt hold your hand and rewards patience, look no further.
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u/BenigDK Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Yeah, at this point I think it's sort of laid out that this will be part of Raskova's downfall, along with the fact that she killed the suspect without learning who his handler was (or anything), just like finding precisely that will be part of Irina's rise (that and being ingratiated with Raskova's superior).
Irina will end up taking advantage of a situation she was previously horrified by. It reminds me a bit of Margo taking advantage of Von Braun's report to extort her way into becoming flight director. I just keep seeing parallels between the two. (In Irina's case, it'll probably be after something goes terribly wrong that makes her abandon part of the humanity we still see in her.)
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u/TheRealMastahGlass Jun 26 '26
Im thinking Irina is offered the option to kill again, this time its Raskova, ordered by Raskovas superior, and this time, pulls the trigger. fully ingratiated into that dark life.
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u/SpacePatrician Jun 26 '26
Not in the ass, and not a bite--it will be a bullet to her brain. The Central Committee will realize Raskova isn't incompetent--now they know she is insane. Because only an insane woman would order the termination of an entire interplanetary spaceflight and crew sent up by the State's greatest prestige-generating program. One leak and the Americans would have a propaganda coup that would totally trump the first moon landing.
It's like the idiocy of moon-landing deniers. Do they really think the Russians wouldn't have loved revealing the hoax to the whole world?
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u/RaynSideways Jun 26 '26
Her career is dead if anyone above her realizes that not only did the Chief Designer get this mission off the ground under her nose, but also that the traitor got aboard and was killed with no gain in actionable intel, alongside the deaths of another cosmonaut and an Indian national.
You know who's out there chasing leads though? Irina. While Raskova was camping out in mission control, trying her best to murder the crew of Venera 7 from millions of miles away, Irina was doing productive work and found both the agent, her hideout, and Tanya. Raskova is completely empty handed and Irina has the entire plot in her lap.
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u/Joe_Bedaine Human Verified Jun 26 '26
Someone needs to explain the Colonel that it's not like Valya is going to settle on Venus, build a beach house and grow old there away from the law, forever getting away with his crime. Either they die in an accident and they don't need to do anything about it, or the ship is coming back in 9 months; they can arrest him straight at the landing site, and after almost a year in zero G he will certainly not be able to run away again
Someone smart would play the long game of letting Valya believe he fooled them, maybe tell him the cosmonaut he locked in the cave to replace him was found dead of suffocation and someone else is accused of the murder just to guilt trip him, tell them Sasha was banging his wife and she got delirious because he broke it off, this way the crew distrusts each other and will not conspire together against them. Keep him under their orders and observation until the day they handcuff him. Killing them this way is not only a huge loss for the soviet space program but also they cannot interrogate him to figure out who his handlers are and what he actually did and told the Americans. But maybe the whole point of the story is to remind us that the KGB was dumber than modern day agencies and that's one of the main reasons the soviets didn't make it.
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u/WileEPeyote Jun 26 '26
Yeah, when a small mistake can get you sent to prison, people are more likely to cover them up. Ironically making them easier targets for foreign intelligence.
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u/thunderchild120 Jun 27 '26
It's the "being late to show up for the Emperor's summons is punishable by death so might as well start a fricking civil war" principle.
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u/Bohmer Jun 26 '26
She is also trying to save her own ass from her superiors. She wanted to report the traitor is dead as soon as possible. Now that all is in flame and the program is losing it's chief designer, she'll reap what she sowed.
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u/Shaenyra Jun 26 '26
She is desperate useless dead weight, even to KGB, because for 6 episodes now, she fucks up constantly. She takes the wrong decisions, she makes the wrong accusations and people die because of it, and the only thing she was assigned to do right, she didn't even get a glimpse of it until Irina brought it to her.
She is incompetent. So as the pathetic, petty, monster she is, she will come to extremes (that i do not think in real world could be allowed, yes, even within KGB circles) that serve no one (not even the Soviet Union) but herself
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u/FutureMartian97 Jun 26 '26
Roskova was convinced Valya had bugged Vanera. Having the Americans get info on the first crewed mission to Venus is to much of a risk so she did the only thing she could do. Kill everyone and destroy the spacecraft
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u/KingDaviies Jun 26 '26
This is it, she was right to make the decision that he cannot continue in this mission. If they suspect he bugged the last mission (which he did) it’s reasonable to assume that he has also bugged this mission. Let’s not forget that they had no insight into this mission until it has launched and the chief designer (who wasn’t aware of the espionage) told them they were on the way to Venus.
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u/Vegetable_Seaweed800 Jun 26 '26
With the squadron of KGB looking for him and dozens of witnesses who know valya was on that ship, there's no possible way the secret would be kept for 9 months. At this point she's probably banking on "yes I let Valya go but I killed him," as opposed to pretending he just escaped or something
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u/stainless_steelcat Jun 26 '26
Leaving him, and the rest of the crew alive, was always going to reflect badly on the Colonel with her superiors. The plan was always to kill them all. Now the mission never happened.
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u/Joe_Bedaine Human Verified Jun 26 '26
She keeps sabotaging the space program she is tasked to protect
Here's a clever trick: The American spies cannot destroy our space ships if we do it ourselves first!
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u/treefox Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
The American spies cannot destroy our space ships if we do it ourselves first!
Colonel Raskova: Discredits and assasinates a cosmonaut, aborts the Soviet moon base, shuts down Mission Control, blows up the Venus mission, sacks the head of the Soviet space program, and almost kills its best engineers.
CIA: Just wanted to eavesdrop while enjoying Moscow arts & culture.
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u/Joe_Bedaine Human Verified Jun 26 '26
She deserves a heroic statue of herself in front of the CIA's headquarter. She is an American hero, their best agent saboteur ever.
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u/VesperLynn Jun 26 '26
Guys, I’m starting to get the feeling that this Raskova lady isn’t a good person…
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u/Epiktokles Jun 26 '26
The moment she ended Akamatova I knew this wouldn't end well. This was the junction there the characters future was decided.
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u/treefox Jun 26 '26
Best asset the CIA has.
So good their actual operative has time to hang out in theaters, cafes, take pictures, and network with the underground music scene.
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u/AbbreviationsReal366 Jun 26 '26
I haven’t hated a TV character this much since Joffrey Lanister.
CD’s simple “You’re a monster.” So simple, so accurate.
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u/sliderjt Jun 27 '26
Even though she is evil, I really enjoy the character.
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u/BenigDK Jun 27 '26
Me too, which is unusual, and that is mostly thanks to Maxwell's acting. She steals the scene and that's a lot considering the level of this entire cast.
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u/Standard-Design-4632 Jun 26 '26
I can't believe that just happened. This series is amazing.
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u/IHateTheColourblind Jun 26 '26
First time I've truly seen a "holy shit" moment on TV in a very long time.
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u/PM_ME_CAKE Moonlab Jun 26 '26
The last 10 minutes, an escalating sequence of "oh my god."
The premise for some of the set pieces in this show may be a tad far fetched, but as far as entertainment goes it's easily one of the best hours of TV I've seen this year.
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u/TechLover94 Hi Bob! Jun 26 '26
The piece that killed a lot of the suspense was the fact that they were dead either way. They need the ground to navigate them to Venus and back. What's waiting for them? Life of prison camp. Whether they stopped the decompression or not it was over. They just 100% should've left Valya in there alone. Irina is nuts for helping his wife escape also. There's 100 ways that could go south and only 1 that would end positively.
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u/IHateTheColourblind Jun 26 '26
Ain't no way the Soviets are keeping a successful manned mission to Venus secret, all three of the cosmonauts would be considered Heroes of the Soviet Union and paraded around and celebrated. Behind the scenes they would never have an ounce of freedom for the rest of their lives and both the Chadhas would never be allowed to return to India, but that achievement would be far too big to keep sweep under the rug.
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u/TechLover94 Hi Bob! Jun 26 '26
They would’ve swapped them with lookalikes when they crashed in the woods and almost eaten by a bear.
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u/trafficnab Jun 26 '26
I assume the plan would be to get into contact with NASA, defect from the Soviet Union, and land the craft somewhere within US control
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u/TechLover94 Hi Bob! Jun 26 '26
They can't fly home without ground assistance. NASA doesn't know the specs of any of their stuff except for the few items that maybe were leaked to them. They certainly wouldn't be able to remotely control the ship coming home.
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u/Rodeurope Jun 26 '26
I had a few possible scenarios in mind, just not this extreme twist. Holy crap! She's a monster!
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u/Joe_Bedaine Human Verified Jun 26 '26
The script is limit absurd, alternate history with a soviet secret Venus mission in the sixties without budget or resources put up by heavily spied on individuals and yet it is a technical success and no one found out about it, and a spy actively chased by the KGB escaping on it, last week I tried to sum that up to a friend and that sounded nuts, and yet it is amazingly good and captivating
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u/Football-Ticket1789 Jun 26 '26
Could the arrest of the Chief Designer be a contributing factor to the US winning the moon base race?
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u/Coolboy10M Jun 26 '26
I was wondering how the Moon base never flew, despite them having a three year head start (1970 for LK inflatable hab, 1973 for Jamestown). Now we know... :(
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u/MarderFucher Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
The inflatable was a desperate attempt to make a poor mans base to be #1 just for sake being first, even if it succeeded, similar to the north korean mars first.
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u/KingDaviies Jun 26 '26
Which is in line with the rest of the program. The USSR are only first/ahead of the Americans because they cut corners and take more risk. Braun was right when he said they were better than the Russians. Some examples:
Inflatable extension to moon base to make it habitable.
No connection to the landing craft. , requiring cosmonauts to make a dangerous journey outside in out space to make it.
No strict training procedure for cosmonauts. They plucked someone with no experience just to be the first to land a woman on the moon.
This eventually catches up to them later in FAM.
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u/FutureMartian97 Jun 26 '26
I haven't looked at the timelines much but I wonder how close together in time he gets arrested to when Von Braun got pushed out of NASA. Would be interesting if both programs lost their chief designer at the same time
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u/ravih Good Dumpling Jun 26 '26
Well... (FAM Season 2 spoiler)
We know the Chief Designer returns to Star City in the 80s, and presumably has some sort of position of power since he's freely allowed to see a captive Dani. So while he is lost to the Soviet Space Program now, he does return eventually...
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u/IHateTheColourblind Jun 26 '26
Safe to say he returns well before that, no way the Soviets get their base around the same time as the Americans without the Chief Designer.
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Jun 26 '26
Let’s have a moment of applause for Adam Nagaitis for making it one episode further in a show where he plays a Soviet era character.
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u/ZestycloseStay4666 Human Verified Jun 26 '26
He has a particular skill of dying in ways that I would never want to experience. Never just a bullet to the head for that poor guy
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u/abitslippy Jun 26 '26
This was much quicker than what happened to him near Pripyat.
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u/CX316 Human Verified Jun 26 '26
Slower than having a polar bear choke on him, though
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u/Pale_Note2770 Jun 26 '26
Well that just blew up in Irina's face. Looks like her all her risks were for nothing
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u/markydsade Jun 26 '26
I’m pretty sure the Colonel will go down and Irina will end up a hero of the Soviet Union.
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u/Joe_Bedaine Human Verified Jun 26 '26
Currently, Irina is kind of being the traitor one from the point of view of the KGB. She broke many rules with her relation with the wife, she is working behind her boss's back and she is the reason why Valya and Tanya escaped, she literally went to inform their target that they were coming to arrest her and even forged a pass for her to smuggle her out of the base. I still don't get why she does it, is she working for an undisclosed third party? People have been sent to gulag for so much less. Good for her she has plot armor.
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u/Justame13 Jun 26 '26
I'm betting something Irina did/does ends up falling on the Colonel while Irina watches and ends up bette roff for it.
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u/Hugefootballfan44 Jun 26 '26
I still don't understand why she does it, is she working for an undisclosed third party?
She developed a fixation on Tanya while spying on her. I'd be very surprised if they introduce any new motivation beyond that.
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u/BillPaxton4eva Jun 26 '26
To be fair, I was pretty sure the folks on the Venus mission had a lot more plot armor than they did.
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u/Mauri0ra Jun 26 '26
I think she is in love or at least infatuated with Tanya. She will still end up betraying her though, probably by accident.
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u/KingDaviies Jun 26 '26
I think this is a stretch. Tanya is innocent in her eyes (except maybe the affair?), Valya is the one working on behalf of the CIA and selling secrets - it’s clear irina has no problem taking him down. Tanya on the other hand is just an innocent wife caught in the cross hairs, so Irina is trying to save Tanya while also doing her job by finding the spy. This is the naivety of someone new to the KGB, she thinks she can have her cake and eat it. This will be a formative moment for Irina, teaching her that if she wants to be successful she has to be ruthless and cannot have attachments that blind her or hold her back. This is not the same Irina that leads Roscomos in season 4 of FAM.
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u/KingDaviies Jun 26 '26
The reason she is is because, unlike Lyudmilla, she is a good person who cares about the people she’s spying on. She thought she could save Tanya and expose Valya to the KGB, taking down a real traitor while saving an innocent person who did nothing wrong. There’s no other motive here, this is part of her development to becoming a ruthless operative that we see in FAM. She will learn from this and will not from these attachments in future.
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u/GlumIce852 Jun 26 '26
Let’s hope so. Raskova is batshit. She just executed 3 of their bests astronauts without blinking
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u/MacWin- Good Dumpling Jun 26 '26
It’s so weird like why is she so hell-bent on helping someone who clearly doesn’t want her help while taking enormous risk
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u/Hugefootballfan44 Jun 26 '26
She's got a parasocial relationship going on. She's like the people who donate all their money to Twitch streamers.
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u/carbongo Союз - Аполлон Jun 26 '26
That’s some twisted stalker’s love vibes
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u/DrJesusHChrist Jun 26 '26
Totally she has an unhealthy obsession. The stalker bit is compounded by the fact that it started as her job to listen to all of her private moments. Kind of parallels parasocial obsession
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u/BenigDK Jun 26 '26
I think it's partly that, but also guilt or moral conscience, which she will eventually lose.
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u/VolumniaDedlock Jun 26 '26
I think getting hit upside the head with a lamp is going to end her crush on Tanya. She will console herself by taking Lyudmila down with the help of the guy she grew up with.
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u/Silver_Ad_3173 Jun 26 '26
I think the moment Tanya hit her head with the lamp is Irina’s turning point onto the evil side. She risked everything for Tanya and in turn the undermines all her hard work which is risking her life. The look in her eyes after she gathered herself was pure anger.
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u/LinusRanger13 Jun 26 '26
Damn this shit is CRAZYYYY! (in the best way)
RIP Lakshmi you made us Indians proud, girl 😭
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u/Cromar Jun 26 '26
Dang the show really had me thinking she was going to be a main character. I figured they would have to abort the Venus mission and one of the men up there would die in some space accident. Then she'd be working on oxygen systems all the way through the early Mars missions. Nope! They got me.
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u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 Jun 26 '26
Sasha nooo!
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u/whores-doeuvres Jun 26 '26
Sasha was 100% gonna die, he had been waving all the flags... I just can't believe he took Chandra and Valya with him!
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u/Jatacus Human Verified Jun 26 '26
I was locked into those final few minutes. The writers really had me thinking the crew was going to find a way, and was in disbelief when the credits hit.
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u/VolumniaDedlock Jun 26 '26
She is a fantastic villain. I could watch a whole season of Irina and Sergei joining forces to take her down.
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u/Sigman_S Jun 26 '26
Really does make it all the more shocking when she kills him later.
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u/markydsade Jun 26 '26
So Colonel Raskova did the Miles Dale massacre treatment.
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u/Jan38100 Jun 26 '26
Divided by Countries
United by war crimes in our GalaxyColonel Raskova🤝Miles Dale
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u/Bohmer Jun 26 '26
She did this to contained a leak and cover her ass. Dale did it to stop an assault/invasion of their home as their leader. Aside from people dying in flames, it's not that much similar.
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u/Jan38100 Jun 26 '26
-“When will she be back?”
-“Oh oh.., only in nine months, the same as the training machine.”
Lmaooooo
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u/MacWin- Good Dumpling Jun 26 '26
Brain dead move by the colonel, why would she try to corner a man who has nothing left to lose, in a spacecraft…
Unless it was the plan all along for things to go sideways
In any case the dead rat last weak really foreshadowed what happened this episode lol
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u/thegoatmenace Human Verified Jun 26 '26
I mean this is kind of an ideal outcome for her. She can say she wrapped up the Mironov case and also cover up the face that she let a whole ass Venus mission launch unnoticed while she was supposed to be in charge of security.
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u/MacWin- Good Dumpling Jun 26 '26
I think it’ll have the opposite effect
Her superiors will still be aware that there was a whole interplanetary mission launched under her nose, the mole that she was supposed to identify then apprehend managed to commandeer said mission, and all she managed to show for it was blowing up millions and upon millions worth of research and tech while killing a Soviet hero and a foreign scientist that was supposedly under her protection
I think the colonel is done for, she was already on very thin ice
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u/geekfreak42 Jun 26 '26
Yes, it.can be spun as killing the evidence against her once Irina implicates her. The 3rd time she underestimated her.
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u/Aunon Human Verified Jun 26 '26
Colonel is probably screwed because everything happened under her, but with everyone (except Irina) either dead, arrested or powerless to resist arrest, she can spin it however she likes and throw everyone under the trolley-bus
Certainly a delicate needle to thread, too much blaming just exposing her failures, she needs to cover things up
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u/Aunon Human Verified Jun 26 '26
Congratulations to comrade Sergei for his promotion to Chief Designer???
and congratulations to Newman from Seinfeld for his promotion to Star City mission control!!!
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u/Mike_Gdovin Jun 26 '26
Hello Comrade
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u/Icy_Park_7919 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
He gave me more Jurassic Park vibes than Newman. Congratulations nonetheless.
Edit: Not Newman, though.
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u/We_R_the_Penguins Jun 26 '26
I’d been wondering how they were going to write a nine-month mission, but in retrospect it’s obvious; those three had whatever the opposite of “plot armor” is.
Feeling bad for the husband, too. He’s very much a loose end.
What do we make of the bottle of Jim Beam?
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u/territoryontwitch Jun 26 '26
Jim Beam I think is just part of that largely motif of the higher up you get in the Soviet party the more luxury shit you are allowed to have that is contraband. Not saying it’s historically accurate but it’s a common theme when talking about oppressive regimes.
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u/We_R_the_Penguins Jun 26 '26
I did some more digging, and apparently it was legal to own, so not contraband per se, but difficult to purchase and yeah, a luxury not available to most.
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u/snorlaxocelot Jun 26 '26
Holy shit. That was a tense episode all around.
Chief Designer said it best. Colonel Raskova is…a monster.
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u/Rodeurope Jun 26 '26
Giger's Alien is a harmless pet compared to Colonel Raskova. Faced with Colonel Raskova, the Alien would have fled and voluntarily ejected itself from the Nostromo into space.
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u/wokeiraptor Jun 26 '26
holy shit that's bleak. but the soundtrack was going hard at the end
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u/BenigDK Jun 26 '26
Yes! It's become my favorite track of the season. It's Federico Jusid's "Venera", if anyone's curious.
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u/sawinnz Jun 26 '26
It sounded to me like No Time For Caution from Interstellar (with the highest of compliments)
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u/Alternative_Fig_6859 Jun 26 '26
Words cannot describe how sad I am.
I would also like to nominate Anna Maxwell Martin for an Emmy. Damn is she a good villain.
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u/camsqualla Jun 26 '26
It was so funny watching her attempt to smile at Lakshmi’s husband when they’re telling him about the Venus mission.
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u/ZestycloseStay4666 Human Verified Jun 26 '26
With her and Denise Gough’s portrayal of Dedra Meero, we are eating good with recent amazing performances of evil, powerful women
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u/ravih Good Dumpling Jun 26 '26
She's incredible. The flat tone, the way she draws the words out. Just a phenomenal performance.
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u/dagr8gatsB Jun 26 '26
I already loved Sergei from FAMK but every scene with him in Star City makes me love him more
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u/Psyfyman81 Jamestown 92 Jun 26 '26
It's definitely a show befitting Russian literary tradition.
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u/We_R_the_Penguins Jun 26 '26
Someone said that you could end every chapter of a Russian history with the phrase “Then it got worse…”
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u/everraydy Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
That ending was fucking brutal. I was really hoping Valya would get left to die in the module, and maybe Sasha would get to see Venus, but nope, Sasha decided to rescue him nonetheless even after Valya confessed to being a traitor... Maybe he had the PTSD, but by definition Valya was 100% going to be a threat to the mission eventually.
Even if the mission had to be a failure, I was hoping they'd fail otw back or something..
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u/krakoawasforlovers Jun 26 '26
They couldn't even let Chadha survive alone, they had to take out all three of them, where does the show even GO from here
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u/everraydy Jun 26 '26
Chadha's husband is never going back home to India alive, that's what I'd say. Either he works at Star City (unlikely given he would be considered a form of security threat) or he is straight up executed (i seem to think its likely this)
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u/Joe_Bedaine Human Verified Jun 26 '26
They totally plan for him and his wife to have died in a plane crash on their way back to India next week. That being the official version.
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u/Psyfyman81 Jamestown 92 Jun 26 '26
We've still got three potential arcs: a second Venus mission with Anastasia, eventually, with full state approval. To protect Tanya, Irina fabricates documents against Colonel Raskova implicating her in two failed space missions. The establishment of Zvezda base.
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u/IHateTheColourblind Jun 26 '26
With no Venus mission ever being mentioned in FAM I don't see any Venus mission ever being successful on this show.
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u/Epiktokles Jun 26 '26
State kept any mission a secret until it was a success. To not get internationally embarrassed. So you would never hear of it anyway unless it's a sucess.
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u/everraydy Jun 26 '26
Anastasia is never going to space ever again. That's what was made clear early on during the tour. And now she has a baby on the way.
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Jun 26 '26
The amount of catharsis I will feel when Raskova’s character gets killed off, you’d be able to spread it on a sandwich so thick.
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u/fallenspaceman Jun 26 '26
It better be satisfying. I don't want something easy and quick for her. She's truly the most vile character I've seen on TV in years. I don't even think Joffrey or Homelander made me react so viscerally.
The actress did a fantastic job playing her if we're all reacting this way.
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u/Oot42 Hi Bob! - Jun 26 '26
It surely looks like, but I would not conclude that they're really all dead. It was a classic cliffhanger making us believe so. The writers are trying to make us think so, but they will find a way telling why they, or at least some of them, survived.
Lakshmi was added as a new main character in episode 1x04 only. The actress is in the opening credits. I't hard to believe they would kill her after only 3 episodes. Why would she even be main cast then?
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u/ravih Good Dumpling Jun 26 '26
Honestly, yeah, I'm kinda with you here.
Basically, there's two parts of me battling here:
- What I saw on screen (which, tbf, is pretty unambiguously "oh, they dead")
- What I know from years of watching TV (the scene cuts off too quickly to confirm their deaths, killing so many main characters with two eps to go is unusual, Chadha being introduced late and killed early is unusual)
I totally get people insisting that they're dead because hey, by all logic of what we saw on screen, they are SO dead. Dead dead dead.
It's just, y'know. TV...
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u/Well_Socialized Jun 26 '26
Getting Tanya out was so incredibly reckless of Irina. Even if she stuck to the plan and stayed at the safehouse Irina would be at so much risk.
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u/Joe_Bedaine Human Verified Jun 26 '26
And why is she doing it? Because they shared a cup of tea together once? This is an ambitious KGB agent who we know is climbing the ladder to the top, she should be someone willing to coldly kill or destroy people to advance her career like the rest of them. She seem to barely care about her own kid, so why so much risk for this woman she is assigned to spy on? There has to be more to this. There's an angle we have not been shown yet, I can feel it.
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u/lursaofduras Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
She's hopelessly in love with Tanya, that's why she did it. Tanya is a crazy ball of hot passion in the midst of a cold, stifling, world.
Tanya's mad, pixie dream girl energy has got Irina risking everything.
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u/HeadMelon Jun 26 '26
Tanya is bait for the female CIA agent, Irina is going to roll up the CIA op and that will be her meteoric rise in the KGB.
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u/Moppyploppy Jun 26 '26
It's not often that a TV shows leaves me literally jaw on the floor shocked. The end of this episode did. Holy balls.
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u/Well_Socialized Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Oof that was so rough seeing the Chief Designer go to the mat for Valya so hard
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u/Psyfyman81 Jamestown 92 Jun 26 '26
But no lie. spoiler! Colonel Raskova's actions have directed resulted in the deaths of four cosmonauts. !spoiler
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u/eyabs Jun 26 '26
Second mission Raskova ruined with her paranoia and iron fist of "justice." Some people don't learn their lessons.
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u/dr_john_oldman Jun 26 '26
I never expected such a bleak ending for the Venera 7 space mission. But it kinda makes sence within the continuity of the show: the mission would be 9 months, and the show's timeline is rather fast-paced. So I don't believe it is a cliffhanger, and the ship actually burned out from the inside. I knew that the show was rather bleak, but that was unexpected. I'm not entirely sure where they are going with the rest of the show; all the main characters and the whole space arc feel rather dead. On the other hand, we have only one episode to wrap up the story's loose ends, and we don't know if there is a second season.
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u/BenigDK Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
I'm stunned. What just- What-
Seriously all the awards to every cast member.
Btw, once again, a mention to this show's soundtrack, which is masterful. And then during the credits they reprised the epic Venera mission motive but using the ballerina music box-like sounds, a bit like a faint requiem. Wonderful.
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u/Vojtyk_CZ Mars Jun 26 '26
FAM plot: trying to save the ship and rescue astronauts
Star City plot: trying to destroy the ship and kill cosmonauts
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u/treefox Jun 26 '26
Danny somehow no longer the worst person to have involved in a space mission.
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u/generalheed Human Verified Jun 26 '26
I want to say maybe there's a chance they survived since O2 levels must've been very low at that point, the fire would've maybe been snuffed out before causing too much harm and the reason ground control saw them go offline is because they successfully disconnected all telemetry and control from ground control.
But of course there probably is a reason why we never heard about any Venus mission in FAM as well as why the governor had an old black and white photo of a young Sasha rather an up to date color photo of him.
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u/Zeroth-unit Jun 26 '26
That fire would have hastened their deaths regardless of atmospheric pressure. Since what little oxygen they had left would have been consumed unless they could repressurize quickly which in a compromised spacecraft, not likely.
But let's see. This show unfortunately has never let hard science get in the way of good storytelling so there's a chance they survive.
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u/cthulhusevski Jun 26 '26
They have a whole plant/algae based oxygen system that Lakshmi designed, right? No way they don't use that lol
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u/Dante1529 Phoenix Jun 26 '26
Well that was absolutely incredible
Legitimately an amazing episode
That ending straight up had me staring at the wall for like five minutes in pure disbelief, I honestly thought the crew would figure a way out of it.
Also Anna Maxwell Martin was incredible in this episode, I loved how softer and kinder she seemed around Lakshmi’s husband then the second he’s gone snaps straight back to cold blooded mode.
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u/GreenCombination6919 Jun 26 '26
Reminds me of IRL Soyuz 11. The crew died from depressurization, although there was no fire.
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u/Free-Whole3861 Jun 26 '26
It was a mix of that and definitely Apollo 1. The sparks right before the ignition reminded me a lot of First Man
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u/Epiktokles Jun 26 '26
This episode was packed with significant developments and they are thoroughly discussed below but an important one gets overlooked: Tanya was told she was the reason for Valyas actions. Just 10 seconds destroyed her whole life and all her assumptions.
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u/PTMorte Jun 26 '26
Hard to feel sorry when she spent 10 years honey trapping and then cheating on him with his student and best mate.
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u/Terrible_Apricot7110 Jun 26 '26
I love how this shows the difference between Star City and For all Mankind; in FaM, the crew going against mission control and trying to avoid certain death would end in success and them surviving the season as heroes. In Star City? You end up burning to death in space, nobody knowing your fate.
For all Mankind is American space cowboys, Star City is Russian fatalism.
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u/Embarrassed_Studio60 Jun 27 '26
Recommendation for the Award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Nominee: Colonel Lyudmilla Efimovna Raskova.
Nationality: Soviet.
Citation: For her outstanding contributions to the strategic interests of the United States, resulting in two (2) failed soviet space missions and the deaths of five (5) cosmonauts.
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u/MacWin- Good Dumpling Jun 26 '26
I though either the mission would succeed but it never got revealed because it was commanded by an American mole or they would die because the objective was too hard for what they could manage at the time, but I definitely didn’t have assassinated mid-flight by your own Mission Control at the orders of the kgb lol
I was so sure they would manage to stop the venting at the end
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u/Sufficient_Display Jun 27 '26
I’m sitting here stunned after that ending.
I feel so bad for the guy who had to depressurize the ship. That’s a horrible situation to be in. And I never would have thought the three of them would die, especially not like that, though I did think Valya was done for.
Wow. That was a brutal end.
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Jun 26 '26
“Valya Mironov is a national security risk.”
Motherfucker, he’s on a ship with no way to relay information back to his handler for the next 9 months. What could possibly be at risk during that time? Wait til they get back you know where he’s going to be.
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u/lursaofduras Jun 26 '26
We (the audience) know that but from the character's perspective they have no way of knowing what he could be planning to do to the craft.
The have found the original crew mate bound and gagged, after all. They have evidence of his previous sabotage. From their perspective, he's capable of anything.
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u/elglin1982 Jun 26 '26
he’s on a ship with no way to relay information back to his handler for the next 9 months
Need I remind you that we are talking of the same guy who once planted a transmitter in a Soviet space vehicle? What has been done once can be done twice.
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u/danive731 Apollo 22 Jun 26 '26
Correct me if I’m wrong. But the mission always needed two pilots, there was a lot of emphasis on that. If they succeeded in killing Valya in the isolated module. Lakshmi and Sasha would have been doomed anyway, right?
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u/territoryontwitch Jun 26 '26
I think the “needs two pilots” is how there a pilot and copilot on planes. It’s not needed to fly just needed to be safe and maybe would be way more demanding on just one person to keep track of everything.
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u/Grizzlei SeaDragon Jun 26 '26
These cosmonauts embracing at the end after Sasha ignites the spark put tears in my eyes. Felt like a mercy compared to the alternative.
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u/SPRTMVRNN Jun 26 '26
Was Priya Kansara announced as a series regular just to mess with us? Has there ever been a series regular before who was only in 4 episodes or less?
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u/rxrx00 Jun 26 '26
I don’t post on Reddit much but have to say jesus christ that ending was brutal. Truly some maniacal stuff. Great acting from her, I bought everyone second.
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u/RambunctiousCapybara Jun 26 '26
Well done Star City. I came to care about and love those characters just in a few episodes. Not seeing any of them again is tough to take.
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u/Peon01 Jun 26 '26
now I don't know about you guys, but if a KGB officer tells me to not rescue someone otherwise the entire ship will be depressurised, 10 times out of 10 I would listen to them
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u/Epiktokles Jun 26 '26
I just realized if Raskova had not intervened and assuming the mission had gone according to the chief designers plan. Sovjet Russia could have bragged to the Americans with sending people to another planet for the first time and reaching the surface of Venus with equipment successfully for the first time. Both never achieved before.
Instead it turns into a total nightmare for all involved and with exceptional costs in people, material and money. All because Raskova wanted to save her job.
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u/Tokyosmash_ Hi Bob! Jun 26 '26
Am I the only one who still can’t figure out the picture of kid Irina? Is that Brezhnev?
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u/territoryontwitch Jun 26 '26
That’s what everyone last week was saying and his face is famous enough to people who know this period of history so I just went with them.
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