With the new season of For All Mankind starting on Friday, Alasdair Stuart continues his recaps of the show to date…

It’s 1992.

Ed and Karen Baldwin are divorced. Ellen is running for President against Bill Clinton, Molly, now blind, runs the astronaut program and Mars is next. Polaris, a new orbital hotel built by Karen’s company is the site of Danny’s wedding, and a reunion for Karen, Ed and Danielle. When space junk damages it, Ed is badly injured and Danny, Tracy and Gordo’s oldest son is instrumental in saving the day.

Near destitute due to the disaster, Karen sells Polaris to Dev Ayesa, the founder of Helios Aerospace and the first commercial operation with a good chance of getting to Mars. Molly selects Ed to lead the Mars mission with Danielle as the backup. This enrages Margo so much she fires Molly and reverses the decision. Ed and Dani’s friendship is almost irrevocably broken by this and tensions rack still higher when Dev Ayesa announces that Polaris will be repurposed into Phoenix, their Mars ship.

Commanded by Ed Baldwin.

Danny spins out and is fired from his spot on the Mars mission. Ed hires him for Phoenix’s flight. Sergei continues to get closer to Margo, and she’s blackmailed into giving the KGB plans for NASA’s nuclear engine to save Sergei’s life. Aleida becomes NASA flight director and, two years later, Ellen is elected President as three missions leave Earth for Mars. Phoenix from Earth Orbit, Sojourner 1 from Jamestown and Mars-94 from Baikonur.

The race to Mars is a literal race, with Phoenix far ahead until Sojourner 1 deploys a solar sail and Mars-94 cause their engines to meltdown in an attempt to catch up. Ed defies orders to go and help, but Dev locks him out meaning NASA are the only ones who can make the rescue. They do, but during it a Mars-94 fuel tank bursts and the two ships collide. In one of the nastiest series of deaths in the show’s history, two astronauts and a cosmonaut are killed. The survivors continue on in Sojourner.

Margo bargains with Sojourner 1 resources to get the KGB to release Sergei from prison. Karen resigns in disgust from Helios over their refusal to aid Mars-94 and Aleida discovers the Soviet engines are copies of the American ones.

Phoenix arrives at Mars first, but Ed calls off a landing due to bad weather. Sojourner 1 lands, and Dani and Kuznetsov, the Mars-94 commander, scuffle to be first on the surface, both landing simultaneously.

Not long after, the Sojourner 1 and Mars-94 crews are uneasy housemates at the American Happy Valley base. Helios have also landed and set up their own base. Karen rejoins Helios and controversy breaks as Sojourner crew member Will Tyler reveals he’s gay on a broadcast. Ellen uses Will’s story as the wedge she needs to issue an executive order stating no US military personal can be compelled to reveal their sexuality.

The Soviets discover liquid water and hire Helios to drill it out for them, while concealing it from their NASA colleagues. Sergei tips Margo off. The Soviet team move to Helios, and Sergei is returned to the Soviet Union. Danny develops a painkiller addiction and Ed stands him down from active duty while Aleida begins to suspect Margo of leaking info the Russians. Jimmy, Tracy and Gordo’s younger son, falls in with a radical group protesting the massive job losses in fossil fuels due to the Helium 3 being mined on the Moon.

Dannu’s growing incompetence leads to an accident and collapse which kills several and wounds others, including Ed. Alexei, one of the Russian cosmonauts dies, which devastates Ed’s daughter Kelly, along as part of the Helios mission. They were seeing each other and Kelly, it turns out, is pregnant.

Five months later, and plans are underway for a return to Earth. Danielle and Kuznetsov, looking for parts, drive to salvage something from a Korean probe. On Earth, Alieda and others draw the inescapable conclusion that Margo gave the Soviets the NASA engine design and, to Aleida’s disgust, the FBI are informed. A political crisis forces Ellen to come out at a press conference. On Mars, Dani and Kuz reach the probe and find… a Korean astronaut! He was the first Man on Mars! He was who we saw in the flash forward!

In flashback, we see the North Korean capsule crash in 1995 and Lee Jung-Gil, the only survivor, struggling to survive. Dani and Kuz take him in, while on Earth, Margo is interrogated and Ellen’s Vice-President demands her impeachment. Because this is a world where that has consequences other than re-election.

Matters come to a head everywhere, all at once. Sergei and his family defect, Kelly’s pre-eclampsia means she’s evacuated from Mars in a manner that would make Mark Watney and Roddy Gallagher proud. Strapped to the roof of a lander flown by her dad, Kelly and her son leave the Red Planet to get much needed medical attention, with Kelly flying the rest of the way using a thruster unit. it’s a lovely moment, weird and action packed and sweet, that gives Ed the most on the button metaphor of his life.

While this note is sweet, and Ellen serves out her full second term on Earth (and reunites with her girlfriend!) the rest of the season ends hard. Danny comes clean that the mining accident was his fault and is exiled to live in the downed North Korean capsule. On Earth, the terrorists Jimmy Stevens has fallen in with bomb Johnson Space Centre. Karen is killed and Molly Cobb dies going back into the shattered building repeatedly to help others out. Margo’s body is never found.

Because, as we see in a jump forward to 2003, Margo was extracted by the Russians and is now working for them…