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Yo that last episode of For all mankind was incredible! Ellen x Pam = ? but it’s so good that we get a wlw couple at the front of an episode like this. Karen and Pam bonding was unexpected but so welcome. So glad we’re getting a second season!

It was such a nice surprise. I fully expected much of the ep to be about rescuing Ellen and Deke and hoped that would mean some moments with a concerned Pam watching from the bar, but I did not know we would get this bounty. To make almost the whole ep about them as people and their relationship, the extra length season finale! 

I can’t remember if I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: I’m coming to a point, because I guess we’re getting the rep to finally support it, where it’s so valuable to me to see us take up real space (no pun intended) in stories meant for everyone. A lot of my big ships this year were from shows where the characters were central, where their story was important. Juliantina, Atypical, Killjoys (perhaps less so this season but the finale paid off in spades), Domlene, For All Mankind. Oh, and a special mention for Runaways that took a decade and a half old fanon ship and made them one of the core plot points of their entire show. We’re so used to having to read into things that aren’t really there, with subtext ships, and then “graduating” to canon ships with side characters that barely get any screentime, it’s like Disney movie rep, something that could easily be cut out and not make a difference. But when our stories are so important that they can’t be cut out, when everyone has to focus on us. Us! Imagine trying to watch that For All Mankind finale with all references to Ellen and Pam’s relationship cut out. 

It’s kind of funny that we actually saw Pam before Ellen, an established presence from early on. I genuinely can’t picture where we’re supposed to see her in nine years for season 2, but I also can’t imagine that they’ve written her out. I’m really glad they gave her that friendship with Karen, both as a way to bring her into the viewing room and create another central dynamic, but also because Karen needed that too. I hope we see that next season too, a friendship of Wayne, Karen, and Pam, the unconventional astronaut significant other trio.

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1) For all mankind musings since I just finished it: The actress who plays Tracy Stevens looks so much like Lauren German when she’s in her NASA training duds also her entire demeanor changes too. Episode 3 where all the women are introduced was when the show got good. Maybe it’s my female bias, but they livened the show up. When Ellen tells Deke who she’s in love with his reaction was a gut punch.

2) The Margo/von Braun relationship was an interesting storyline. I thought the dialogue for their big confrontation(Saturn 5 report) was some of the best of the season an acting. I was totally hoping she’d made a copy of the report, but didn’t think she’d use the “system” to get a higher position. I also have a crush on Margo.

3) One more thing about For all Mankind. Karen seemed oddly angry and dismissive about the female astronauts, but the show never addressed why she has this opinion/view. She was so dismissive of Tracy and generally negative about all the women. I don’t know if she just couldn’t imagine a woman achieving it because she couldn’t see past her own life/a woman’s role, etc… She was just so vocal I thought the show would address it by she and Tracy having a big confrontation.

Ohhh, Lauren German. Huh, maybe. She’s been reminding me of someone, that might be it. And I do love how she changes between the two worlds! She’s probably the one character that straddles both, everyone else–actually, I guess Gordo had to make the reverse transition, from astronaut to astronaut husband. Funny how that worked out for them, heh. 

Absolutely agreed on the jump in ep 3, I was actually kind of angry at ep 1 and 2 because of how they were focusing on the problems of this white guy who frankly deserved the punishment from NASA he’d gotten! Of all the stories to tell in that time. Though I did like him again after he did the right thing at the hearing but the show still wasn’t as good as promised. I don’t think it’s just a female bias, it genuinely wasn’t offering that much that was new and interesting.

Deke’s reaction…man, did you also think that at first his laugh was to signal it wasn’t a big deal? Like, oh, you were getting so nervous about that? Pfft, we’re gonna die, don’t worry about it. But noooo. God, I don’t want to think about how far back that set her. It is actually a not tiny fear of mine that we shall find out that all nine years between her landing in Jamestown and the Sea Dragon taking off in the post-credit sequence will have them be separate. I felt so bad for her, in such a specific personal way. Not only what you get for opening up to people, but about this particular thing! I’m never gonna trust anyone. >_>

Oh, that von Braun-Margo scene was amazing! The von Braun actor is so good. I’m kind of sad we got so little of him, he was so watchable. Not just as an actor, but as a character. I loved the vocabulary they used for him, he had such a different way of speaking. Although, I actually did not love the revelation about her father, it didn’t really have the impact on me it should have had. We didn’t know the guy and it didn’t really seem to hold any kind of significance for the plot at that point, it just seemed to have been thrown in for drama. Like, if it’d actually changed how she thought about her father, if we’d seen any parts before or after dealing with how she thought of him, if it changed her in any way, fine. But it just was there like, ooh, look at how heavy. 

But, on the flip side, I loved the conversation after about the reason for the explosion and why Margo hadn’t progressed through as she should have. That was great. And I’m glad she used it. She deserved her place in flight command. And heh, I love her too. I originally was hoping she might be the gay, not married and well, just giving off those vibes. I love when she’s all rapid fire explaining sciencey things in that accent.

Oh, yes, that weird thing with Karen when the women astronauts were announced. I really thought she was going to blow up at Tracy at some point too, maybe over the situation with their kids, say that Tracy wasn’t giving her kid enough attention and it was affecting Shane. But my original theory for her anger was that she was…jealous? Not because she wanted to be an astronaut, but because for years she’d sacrificed so much for Ed’s career, always being the supportive wife, it was just the way of things, the men went through admittedly tough training and selection to be astronauts, often through the military and active service, with all the help their wives gave them, and now here the wives were just gonna go ahead and do that same thing? Then why’d she give up so much without complaint, if it wasn’t necessary? If she could have been off doing something else? Was there even something else she wanted to do? That’s why I was so shocked by them taking Shane from her, tbh, they’d already made her undergo this soul searching and identity crisis earlier on. And then to take away her only child? Ooooof. I’m happy she got to end the season on a high note.