With Gordo and Danielle back on Earth, Ed is left to man Jamestown alone and keep tabs on the Russians while he awaits relief. With his son critically injured in the hospital, there is some disagreement at NASA as to whether Ed should be told or not, but is this the sort of secret that can even be kept?

For All Mankind revels in shoving big moments at its audience out of nowhere, and the news of Shane’s accident at the end of the last episode was no exception. With the boy seriously ill in hospital the question becomes whether or not Ed should be told, when he’s got so many other things to contend with and is stuck on his own several hundred thousand miles away. Even if Karen and his NASA colleagues do keep the truth from him, how long can that sort of secret be kept?

Gordo meanwhile has sought psychiatric help in secret, fearing what it might mean for his career if NASA were to find out. It’s genuinely nice to see his recognition of the issue, when he could just as easily have buried it and moved on regardless thanks to Danielle’s own painful sacrifice, and it’s also nice to see him and Danielle working together as such a tight unit in the Capcom room, liaising with Ed on the moon. Clearly that thanks toward the end of the last episode was genuinely meant.

But there’s a real strain on Gordo and Danielle (and the rest of the ground crew) trying to provide support to Ed, who’s getting increasingly worried about the Russians and what exactly they might be up to, while also hiding the truth from him. Karen is her usual self, insisting on being as stoic as ever, not allowing herself to believe that the worst might happen even as it becomes apparent that it might, and determined that she won’t allow Ed to be burdened with the knowledge.

For a show about America making missions into space, it might sound as if things are concentrated in a very small set of circumstances, but that’s what this show has always been about from episode 1 – the real human strains and pressures which affect and underpin the stories of the men and women who do extraordinary things. It carries real heart from its first moment to its last.

Verdict: Raw and devastating as it contrasts the pain of personal trauma against the epic scale of what is being attempted. 9/10

Greg D. Smoth