Posted on

For All Mankind S2 got a Feb release date! I am really holding out hope for more wlw content in Ellen’s storyline (hopefully with Pam)! That S1 finale gives me hope that they may focus *something on them. Just wanted to share haha :)

Ah, nice, that’s not far off then! Time suddenly seems to have really sped up and now we’re almost at the end of 2020. o_o 

Yes, I’m definitely expecting more for Ellen, they wouldn’t have done so much with her at the end of s1 if they weren’t going to expand on that, right. Can’t highlight how unjust and sad it was and then be like, welp, back to Reagan. And actually, given that President AIDS is back in the picture, and Larry…it’s going to be relevant. 

I’m not sure, now, how I want the relationship with Pam handled. If they rekindled something in the timeskip, great, but I don’t want them to just be in love for 10 years, apart, and only back in each other’s lives because the camera’s back on and it’s time to pick up certain arcs. In that case, I’d almost prefer them having moved on to other people who they’re happy with. …though it would be super romantic, heh. I’ll just wait and and see.

Posted on

In for all mankind 1×06, when Pam asked “does that scare you?” And Ellen replies, “no” I didn’t understand Pam’s reaction to that.. would you be so kind to explain it from your perspective?

Sure! I can offer my interpretation. 

So, this scene starts off with Ellen having gotten anxious enough about the FBI investigation into Larry to voice her fears and frustration and suggest they take a break, right. When they’re talking about it being a phase, I don’t think Ellen even thinks that, she just grabs onto it in the middle of their argument as a possible escape, a fantasy, because otherwise this FBI thing, in one way or another, is her whole life. She originally sat up to resolve this unease by either being reassured or instigating a breakup, whichever way it ends up going.

When she says that she feels like a different person with Pam, she means it in the sense that, oh, this is “normal”  me and now this is the dangerous part that likes a woman at all. She’s just talking about sexuality. But Pam means it in the sense that there’s the regular non-loving Ellen part and the loving-Ellen part as the two different versions of her, she doesn’t just mean sexuality, she’s narrowing it to Ellen specifically, making it suddenly deeper and more romantic and like, signaling a shift in their relationship, something more meaningful and committed and long-term. She knows that’s clear to Ellen too and kind of challenges Ellen, considering the conversation they’re having, if that scares her and Ellen’s “no” means, on some level, accepting that shift, instead of pulling away. So it’s a big step forward for them and Pam is, I think, emotional and pleased about it.

Posted on

What do you hunks in store for Pam and Ellen next season?

Well, I’m not sure! So much will depend on how the timeskip was handled. 10 years will have passed since where we left them and I don’t know if the show will have decided they get back together when Ellen comes back down or they spent all that time apart. 

Assuming that Pam is of course even in next season, I think she and Ellen will still be narratively circling each other, whatever other love interests each might have had in between. As much as I want them to have gotten together, I feel like the incredible sadness of them having spent the 10 years apart might may be glossed over for the increased dramatic value of a reunion onscreen. It’s easy to write that kind of pain when you don’t even have to show it.

For that same narrative value reason, I don’t think Ellen will have come out offscreen so there’s scope for that to happen this season. It would definitely be too early in terms of realism but this show is all about taking little things and making them into sweeping progress and I can see them turning the coming out of someone as wholesome and all American and popular as Ellen into an LGBT milestone and speeding up their acceptance. Surely their world isn’t going to wait till 2015 for gay marriage? 

I’m just not sure, I try to veer between what I want vs logic based on what we’ve seen and what the natural next step would be vs realistic pessimism, considering what we usually end up getting.

Posted on

Hi! Wondering if you’ve seen/your thoughts on the For All Mankind S2 Teaser that was just released!

Hey! Yep, I saw it last night while making the gifset I just posted and was like, does this affect it in any way? …nah. 😛

In case anyone wants to see it:

I guess my biggest takeaways are:

  • lol at them using Sweet Dreams as a backing track
  • they’re really going all-in on the timeskip, everyone’s been aged up
  • I’m glad all the people I liked are there, excepting Pam, although obviously the lack of her in the teaser doesn’t mean anything, Larry wasn’t there either and there was hardly any of Ellen (but she’s still leading missions? Yay!). Not sure if that’s a good thing or not, there’s a lot of Molly but I feel almost nervous, if that means a sendoff or just a lot of her. Also don’t think I saw Aleida?
  • Booooo, Reagan
  • I guess we need some kind of conflict to continue to push the premise of the show, that our program is pushed by competition with Russia or China or somebody and not just for the ideal of progress, but I’m not sure whole gunfights on the moon are where I wanted to go with this

I’m excited but nervous!

Posted on

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.

Posted on

So I just wanted to say thank you for gifing For All Mnkind because I probably wouldn’t have watched it had I not seen your amazing gifs. And WOW I am SOOOOO happy that I watched it. The storylines! The acting! The powerful brilliant women at the heart of the show! It’s all just so great. I wasn’t expecting the show to treat the lesbian relationship with such care while also reflecting the unfortunate historical accuracy of the time. I can’t wait for season two!

I’m so glad you enjoyed it! It really surprised me too, especially after the initial eps. I had no idea women were going to end up being so central to it. When you think about the named male characters, it’s just Ed and Gordo who got to be actual important characters, and Deke too perhaps. All the other men, von Braun, Weisner, Aleida’s dad, Wayne Cobb, they had no journeys of their own to go through, they served as support.

Contrast that with Molly, Tracy, Karen, Dani, Margo, Ellen, Pam, and even Aleida and Marge. The women were so fleshed out and we got to see so much of them and their fears and hopes and dreams. It wasn’t just constant obstacles and uphill battles, they got a chance to solve problems and be heroes, the same as any character in this genre. 

What I especially loved was that the professional ambitious woman archetype, something you usually get ONE of at most in any particular media, we saw a bunch of women who all fit it in their own unique ways. Molly, Margo, Tracy, Dani, and Ellen all wanted so much for the times, each grappling with their own demons and coming from vastly different backgrounds. It really used those first two eps as a Trojan Horse to slip in a whole ton of interesting women Doing Things.

And yessss, the treatment of the lesbian couple in the big season finale! I absolutely didn’t expect even half of as much as we got of them. I clipped a bunch of the relevant parts to make my friend watch and there were so many and so long. Excepting the brief scenes of Aleida and Ed in Jamestown, every other scene ended up being about them. Heck, even Ed’s issues were used as a dramatic foil, we were supposed to get frustrated at him ignoring the messages from Houston and then he was jerked out of his mental state by the huge, real emergency and even was able to team up with Mikhail. And to cap off Karen’s arc by bringing her into Pam’s circle too and using her to bring her into the viewing room! It was such a centering of Ellen and Pam, and such a romantic sympathetic framing for the audience, to show they’re both thinking of each other from literally across space. Throughout the season, we’d seen the template for various astronaut-spouse relationships already, and Ellen/Pam were very much another form of that in this ep, with Larry almost an afterthought. I really hope we’ll get more of them in s2.

Posted on

Any more gifs of Ellen x Pam

I do have a few more on my list but despite how much the finale centered on both of them, it was kind of separate, right, so I don’t have that many more. Were there any particular scenes you wanted?