WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for For All Mankind season 4, episode 7, “Crossing the Line.”
The Mars strike is resolved by the end of For All Mankind season 4, episode 7, “Crossing the Line,” but the M-7 nations’ plan to send Goldilocks to Earth is still in jeopardy. Despite NASA and Roscosmos being on the same page when it comes to resolving the dispute, their actions only exacerbate the situation. It’s only when Helios founder Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi) arrives on Mars that a solution to the industrial dispute presents itself. However, as Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt) observed earlier in the episode, Dev’s interests always trump the bigger picture, and he reveals his ulterior motive to Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) by episode’s end.
With only three episodes left in For All Mankind season 4, “Crossing the Line” lays the groundwork for the finale and the future of the Martian colony. As much as Ed’s solidarity with the Helios workers is driven by his fallout with Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall), FAM season 4, episode 7 reveals that he has other reasons for throwing his lot in with the striking workers. At the end of his career, Ed is striving to stay relevant. The way Ed sees it, if the Goldilocks asteroid is sent to Earth and not Mars, then his sacrifices of the past eight years will have been for nothing.
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4 Dev and Ed Plot to Steal Goldilocks From The M-7 Nations
“Do you want to help me steal an asteroid?”
In the final scene of For All Mankind season 4, episode 7, “Crossing the Line”, Dev visits Ed in his quarters to ask for his help. The aging astronaut isn’t too keen on helping Dev after he brought the strike to an end and seemingly signed off on the plan to take Goldilocks back to Earth. However, Dev quickly reveals that his strike resolution was a means to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Helios workers who accepted the pay-off lacked the vision that Dev needs for the second stage of his plan, to steal Goldilocks and establish a fully independent Martian colony.
Ed has also shown no interest in returning to Earth, and wants to spend his remaining years building something that will last on the Red Planet. Over dinner with his daughter Kelly Baldwin (Cynthy Wu), Ed outlines his fear that, without asteroid mining, Happy Valley will become a backwater scientific research station, rather than the launchpad for future space exploration. As Dev points out when resolving the strike, “space is a business,” so capturing the Goldilocks asteroid will give him and Ed an incredible bargaining chip for the future of Happy Valley and life on Mars.
3 For All Mankind’s Mars Strike Resolution Explained
The Helios workers inadvertently cause a fatal accident.
With the Helios workers on strike, until the M-7 agrees to mine Golidlocks on Mars, Happy Valley cannot generate the fuel it would require for the mission. Roscosmos and NASA sign off on their cosmonauts and astronauts doing the work themselves, but it’s a strategy doomed to fail because of their lack of expertise. Something that’s only exacerbated when the strikers place all available space suits outside on the Martian surface. What’s worse is that one of the Helios workers, Maya, disconnected a regulator valve, believing that work on the fuel generators would cease when this was discovered. Instead, a lash-up to circumvent the regulator creates an explosion that claims one life and seriously injures others.
The cosmonauts and astronauts are then deputized as law enforcement officers, sent to find the saboteurs and incarcerate them. As Ed and Samantha Massey (Tyner Rushing) try to hold the line, Dev offers the Helios workers a new benefits package to break the deadlock. His promise of immunity for any criminal acts conducted during the strike is the sweetener that Maya needs to get back to work. For others, a quadruple payday bonus is enough to convince the other strikers to turn their backs on the cause that they’ve fought so hard for. It’s a sickening moment for Samantha, but Dev and Ed will likely recruit her for their Goldilocks heist.
2 Kelly Baldwin Struggles To Reconnect With Her Father
While her son Alex is more at home on Mars than on Earth.
Kelly and Alex arrive at Happy Valley at the start of For All Mankind season 4, episode 7, with Ed’s daughter keen to get started on her search for life on Mars. Almost immediately, however, Kelly finds herself at odds with Ed over how he interacts with his grandson. For Alex, Ed Baldwin had just been a figure in a pre-recorded video, as his grandfather hadn’t returned to Earth in years. Faced with his grandfather in the flesh, on an alien world, is understandably overwhelming for the boy, but old-fashioned assertive astronaut Ed cannot fathom this. Ed forces Parmesan on to Alex despite him not wanting to try it and is rightly chastised by Kelly as a result.
What’s interesting about the scenes with Kelly is that the subject of Ed Baldwin’s health concerns don’t come up. Only Danielle and Palmer are aware of Ed’s tremors, and neither will likely see it as their responsibility to inform Kelly about it. Meanwhile, Alex’s health is actually improved by living on Mars, given that he was born in space at the end of For All Mankind season 3. Ed’s desire to make Mars a fully functioning colony, along with Alex’s natural predisposition for the Red Planet’s low gravity and Kelly’s scientific research mission should mean that he could get a happy ending. The only question is whether Ed can stay out of his own way for long enough to secure a happy retirement on Mars with his daughter and grandson.
1 “Moscow Margo” Returns To NASA
Aleida is outraged at Margo Madison’s return to the USA.
Although Roscosmos and NASA appear to be on the same page when it comes to the striking Helios workers in For All Mankind, the US and Soviet governments are still trying to score points off each other. Aleida Rosales (Coral Peña) is shocked to discover that the Soviet Union is sending Margo to the USA to be their representative on the Goldilocks project. After a disastrous interview about “Moscow Margo” on the right-wing news network Eagle News, Aleida is inspired by her husband to push back. Confronting NASA director Eli Hobson (Daniel Stern), Aleida refuses to work with her former mentor, who has been described as “the worst traitor in American history.“
After Margo’s public defection to the Soviet Union in For All Mankind season 4, episode 6, she was vilified in the media. Returning to Houston at the end of For All Mankind season 4, episode 7, Margo is taken on a very public, ceremonial tour of the Molly Cobb Space Center. She’s greeted by protesters, angry at her being given diplomatic immunity for selling information to the Soviet Union. It’s unclear whether Margo and Aleida can ever reconcile their differences, as the M-7 nations work together to secure the Goldilocks asteroid; unless Ed Baldwin and Dev Ayesa get there first.
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.
