WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for For All Mankind season 4, episode 5, “Goldilocks.”
For All Mankind season 4 has finally revealed what happened to Danny Stevens (Casey W. Johnson), and it’s far worse than anyone could have imagined. The troubled son of NASA legends Gordo (Michael Dorman) and Tracy Stevens (Sarah Jones), Danny’s issues with substance abuse caused a catastrophic mission failure in the season 3 finale. As punishment, Danny was exiled to solitary confinement inside the North Korean spaceship. The For All Mankind season 4 premiere revealed that something bad had happened to Danny in the eight year time jump between seasons, but it remained an intriguing mystery throughout the first four episodes.
Now, in For All Mankind season 4, episode 5, Danny’s fate is revealed in harrowing flashbacks to the aftermath of the drilling disaster. It had been hinted that Danny never made it back from Mars, with it being heavily implied that the young astronaut had died. As the working relationship between Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) and Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) deteriorates further, the brutal truth about what happened to Danny after For All Mankind season 3 is finally revealed.
For All Mankind Season 4’s Controversial Character Exit Defended By Showrunners
The showrunners of For All Mankind season 4 defend one controversial character’s stunning exit, teasing that their story isn’t over yet.
Danny’s Death In For All Mankind Season 4 Was Worse Than Expected
The flashbacks in For All Mankind season 4, episode 5 reveal the desperate state of life on the Mars base. Stranded on the Red Planet with dwindling supplies, Dani, Ed and their fellow astronauts came close to starving as they awaited rescue. While the situation was desperate, the astronauts at least had each other to rely on for support. Exiled to the North Korean spaceship, Danny only had regular visits from Danielle to break up the monotony of his isolation. For All Mankind revealed that Danny begged Danielle to let him come back to the base, but she declined his request, leaving him to remain in solitary confinement.
On her next visit, Danielle and Ed find Danny’s body on the Mars surface, sitting in his space suit. It appears that Danny took his own life by going out on to the Red Planet’s surface and allowing his oxygen to run out. Another possibility is that his body finally gave out as he struggled with the scarcity of food supplies and his own drug withdrawal. Whatever happened, it’s a devastating and tragic ending for Danny in For All Mankind season 4, because he died alone and isolated, and never got the chance to redeem himself for causing the fatal accident.
Danny’s Story Was Always Going To End Tragically In For All Mankind
Danny’s story was never going to end well in For All Mankind, as he’d burned a lot of bridges. He had an affair with Ed’s wife, Karen Baldwin (Shantel VanStanten), and harbored an unhealthy obsession with her until her death in the Johnson Space Center bombing. Danny was also responsible for the deaths of several colleagues on Mars, and so it’s unlikely that the anger on the base would have ever quelled to the point that he was allowed out of exile. In fact, it appears from the flashbacks in “Goldilocks” that Danny wouldn’t have survived as long as he had if it weren’t for Danielle bringing him supplies.
Danny’s ending is brutal and tragic, but it feels like his For All Mankind story was always going to end badly. There was perhaps some hope that he had a hero’s death like his parents, redeeming himself for the accident by saving the lives of everyone left on Mars. Tragically, this wasn’t the case, and the isolation and desperate circumstances of his Martian predicament led Danny to give up the fight for life. It’s clear now that Ed and Dani haven’t really been fighting over the decision to send Svetlana Zakharova (Masha Mashkova) back to Earth, they’ve been grappling with their guilt over the tragic fate of their late friends Gordo and Tracy.
For All Mankind season 4 streams Fridays on AppleTV+.
For All Mankind
Imagine a world where the global space race never ended – For All Mankind is a thrilling “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 the space programs and the race’s effects on the astronauts and their families in the aftermath. The Apple TV+ series hails from Ronald D. Moore and stars Joel Kinnaman as a NASA astronaut. For All Mankind also features historical astronauts like Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.
