For all humanity ended its second season with a devastating twist that shaped how the sci-fi show would work in the future. As one of the best and longest-running science fiction shows on Apple TV+, For all humanity is one of the platform’s main projects in its genre. When its second run of episodes concluded in 2021, the finale took everyone by surprise with a shocking pair of character deaths, and For all humanity has since taken advantage of the moment to make it even more attractive. With For all humanity Season 5 on the way, the ripples are still being felt.
For all humanityThe alternate timeline begins with the Soviet Union winning the space race, heightening the already bitter rivalry between the Russians and the US. The event serves as a major catalyst, sending the show into the realm of historical fiction rather than biographical drama. Of course, one of the biggest divergences between the events of the show and genuine history is that both nations’ space programs advance much faster than they do in reality. Sometimes developments don’t seem like science fiction, but they are. However, For all humanity intentionally lacks the utopian edge.
For All Mankind’s Season 2 Finale Came Frustratingly Close to Giving Gordo and Tracy Their Happy Ending
Michael Dorman’s character came very close to winning his wife back for good
Gordon “Gordo” Stevens (Michael Dorman) and his wife Tracy (Sarah Jones) have an incredibly dysfunctional relationship in For all humanity season 1. Sure, Gordo’s alcoholism and infidelity create most of the problems, but it’s still obvious that the two shouldn’t be together. At the beginning of For all humanity Season 2, they finally called it a day. As the season progresses, Gordo has several opportunities to win back his children’s motherand he succeeds when they are stationed together at the Jamestown moon base. Unfortunately, the reunion location also becomes their undoing.
The Stevens’ sacrifice saves the entire base from annihilation, but it’s still devastatingly upsetting that they spend what little time they have left after reuniting in such danger. The Moon is a dangerous environment at the best of times, but going out wrapped from head to toe in a makeshift spacesuit made of duct tape gave them very little chance of survival. For all humanity It even makes the audience dare to hope showing Gordo and Tracy almost managing to go back in time before their makeshift equipment failed, making the shot of them dead in the decompression chamber all the more damning.
Why Gordo and Tracy’s story for all humanity could not have ended any other way
For All Mankind doesn’t do happy endings
For all humanity There are bursts of optimism, but space swallows them very quickly. It’s not a show that thrives on positive events and it wouldn’t be as good if it did. It was always unlikely that Gordo and Tracy would have survived the dangerous moonwalkeven by real-world logic, but it becomes even more certain that they would die when considering what show the events took place on.
Allowing Gordo and Tracy to survive and grow old together would have been very strange in the larger scheme of things.
Despite all the obstacles faced by the characters in For all humanity, the Apple TV+ sci-fi show tirelessly tries to build something approaching a storybook ending. By the time of the Season 2 finale, this may not have been as incorporated into the show’s formula, but in retrospect, allowing Gordo and Tracy to survive and grow old together would have been very strange in the larger scheme of things. Still, that doesn’t stop their deaths from being any less depressing.
For All Man Kind’s second season finale ensured that the show’s future would remain unpredictable
Apple TV+ has ensured that it’s impossible to say where the story will go next
Gordo’s redemption arc gets a lot of attention in For all humanity 2nd season. As such, it looks like Dorman’s character will get what he wants. Not only will his return to the moon serve as a kind of immersive therapy following his breakdown in Jamestown in season one, but regaining his physical and mental health is heavily implied to be what he needs to do to win Tracy back. For all humanity checks all these narrative boxes, but then makes the last minute decision to have it all end in tragedy.
Stevens’ death set a strong precedent for the program’s future. In short, no one is safe and hoping for a happy ending will only end in brutal disappointment. The ethos has even extended to characters who are considered safe on Earth, as strengthened and demonstrated by the deaths of Molly Cobb (Sonya Walger) and Karen Baldwin (Shantel VanSanten) in the Season 3 finale. For all humanityThe Season 2 finale wasn’t the first time characters died unexpectedly, but it made sure the audience knew it would continue.
Imagine a world where the global space race never ended – For All Mankind is a gripping “what if” take on history that explores what would have happened in the race to the Moon between the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as space programs and effects of the race on the astronauts and their families afterwards. The Apple TV+ series is from Ronald D. Moore and stars Joel Kinnaman as a NASA astronaut. For All Mankind also features historic astronauts like Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.
- Cast
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Michaela Conlin, Jodi Balfour, Coral Peña, Colm Feore, Sarah Jones, Wrenn Schmidt, Casey W. Johnson, Cynthy Wu, Shantel VanSanten, Michael Harney, Krys Marshall, Joel Kinnaman, Sonya Walger, Michael Dorman
- Release date
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November 1, 2019
- Presenter
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Ronald D. Moore