I come in peace... three times a night -- FOR ALL MANKIND (Apple TV Plus)

You can sneak abortifacients into someone’s food/drink.

Oh, great, so is that going to be a subplot now, too?

Finished my s2 rewatch. It's definitely the 80s blockbuster version of FAM: compared to s1 they've turned up the action, the drama, the plot(holes) all the way. It just about hangs together and it's a hell of a ride - the final episode is so kinetic that even if I'd seen it before, it still felt like anything could happen.

(I did skip the Karen/Danny scenes)

You can see how you get to s3 from s2, just keep going along the same trajectory and lose sight of where you started.

Glad they didn't go with the hinted subplot re pregnancy, HOLY SHIT at the end of this episode.

wtf was that ending!

I was hoping Ellen would do the thing, aka the I'M GAY, Y'ALL speech at some point as I couldn't see this going into a drawn-out political clusterfuck

I mean, it will be that, but not probably not with her turning into Nixon

Though not without teasing us with some Watergate Greatest Hits first.

I know that largely speaking we're here for the spaceships but the emotional beats still got hard, even if some of it is a little undercooked.

But yeah this show has been spoiling us stupid with their endings this season.

With the twin towers appearing prominently behind every news clip, wondering if Jimmy or the truthers are going to do 9/11 at the beginning of the next series.

Also no one seems to have noticed the missing statue yet.

yeah wow @ that ending

i expect a great many things but i truly never expected that

lol I jokingly called it a second or two before the reveal! My wife was like, no way. And the show responded a moment later with: way!

this was an ok ep, good human drama (as opposed to silly human drama).

Yeah good drama. do we think the North Korean dude was sent up to Mars without a way back home Laika-style? He looked like he was on his own. And how did the eye in the sky on the Phoenix not spot their activity? But still cool twist

I imagine Phoenix wasn’t looking: they only knew the probe was there just before they went to find it because the Russians gave them the coordinates.

The Watergate-y subplot, can anyone clarify.

The original incriminating conversation was in the Oval Office right, not on the phone? Or am I misremembering?

So if they're reviewing the tape in the Oval Office, and there are mics are in the room, wouldn't it just get taped over again?

The incriminating conversation was taped in the Oval Office not on the phone. When they showed the portraits on the wall in show Oval Office pretty sure it was Nixon in the center flanked by Lincoln and Washington. And yeah listening back to their conversation would re-record it.

just got to the new episode now lol that was ridiculous

good parts of the episode:

- Pam watching TV
- "you're dead to me" after Bill does to Aleida what her boyfriend did in S2

agh meant to do hidden text not quotes but I guess it doesn't matter much

Ah, they should have played How Bizarre over the end of episode reveal imo.

*bump*

HOLY SHIT

But no post-credits flash-forward!

What do you mean?

Oh.

Curious to hear what the non-James posters think.

my review: mostly lol, kind of sad

One thing I meant to post about after my recent rewatch was the almost-totally-unexamined evocation of the colonisation of America as the precedent for space exploration...like I think literally once someone says "what about the Indians?" but it's all Lewis and Clark and the Mayflower and Jamestown and pioneer days. I get that it is totally how e.g. Gordo would see things but considering that attention to other aspects of social justice is a defining characteristic of the show it's pretty weird to put it in the season-closing monologues in S1 (by Ellen) and S3 (by Kelly).

the Margo exfiltration twist was ridiculous and totally out of established character (not to mention how did it even happen)

oh yeah Danny in space prison (with a halfheartedly buried gun nearby) also ridiculous

This season was okay, it feels like the excitement of the alt-history aspect has faded, not that they're not pursuing that line, obv, but maybe it's just not sustainable. I liked the cold-war-iness of the first season best.

If the whole Jimmy plot was just a device for the last episode, then ugh, that could have been so much better done, and the exact purpose of this weird cell of 'activists' should have been telegraphed a bit more clearly and could have been written with more genuine threat imho.

Rmde at Radiohead.

pretty bad season, i expected a downturn but not one this steep

the Margo exfiltration twist was ridiculous and totally out of established character (not to mention how did it even happen)
I assume it was organised by the Russian lady from the Americans? And the fact the building got blown up was a convenient happenstance to let Margo look like she'd died.

I assume, speaking of which, that was based off the Oklahoma City bombing?

LOL @ Danny in Space Jail.

hm I meant to spoilertag all of that oh well.

I was with every single ridiculous moment all the way to the end INCLUDING dangerously pregnant Kelly propelling herself into orbit if only to prove that NASA still thinks of astronauts as crash test dummies AND exiling Danny to Shuttle North Korea AND bewigged weirdos blowing up JSC because, well, uh. its 1995 and we have to…. but they just couldn’t help themselves and they just fucking make Margo LIVE?!

for why?

I trust Moore for one thing and that is to just fucking wholesale kill major cast members on a whim and if he is not going to do that them what are we even doing here

also i really fucking hate Pam and her stupid groucho eyebrows

i do really love this show though

or i will in a couple of days

sorry last thing

cut to kelly delivering baby on earth and the doctors being all sorry you are both completely made of radiation theres no way either of you can live we’re sorry beeeeeeeeeep

I really wanted some sort of alien contact scenario to happen and for the whole series to make a left turn, also given the episode's ending, jump-ahead moment, they're gonna run out of timeline pretty soon, totally praying that they're not cooking up some sort of Q/Trump/4Chan/Conspiracy/tinfoil hat story.

…isn’t that what we just had???

In a way, sure. But I wonder if there will be a full-on Trump analog (with all the bullshit that goes with it) in the same way this was an Oklahoma Bombings one.

wtf VG, Pam’s great

i can’t stand her & i don’t know why so i’m putting it down to eyebrows and I stand by it

Love Pam.

I see a lot of love for Pam elsewhere too, but I kind of think she's something of a non-entity? Probably her s1 appearances coloring my outlook.

Nitpicky complaint: Apparently the trip to Mars takes 6-7 months -- how could the DPKR capsule sustain TWO people for that long? If their capsule had more compartments for food/pooping, wouldn't any other space agency have been able to determine it was bigger than an unmanned probe?

Also this isn't another point, I just wanted to see how adding an empty newline works in spoiler tags.

I think the capsule that landed would have only been a part of the larger ship that got them to Mars, so the capsule itself only needed supplies, etc, for the time AFTER landing.

And then with one crewmember dead, the survivor then had twice as much food.

Presumably there’s an uncrewed North Korean ship in a decaying Martian orbit that nobody has spotted yet, since Mars hasn’t got a big network of satellites looking out for such things.

yeah that was my thinking too

So Margo and Sergei kinda switch places ? I like Sergei as a character and actor - though sounds unlikely he will survive to next season with all the torture. RIP Molly and Karen but Molly more. The whole Jimmy / nutters angle was poorly written. Hopefully we’ve seen the last of the Stevens brothers. The original cast should have aged out of active roles, it’s should be up to the Aleida, Kelly and space baby in 2003. Overall not as good as S1 and S3 :(

Why are we assuming S4 will jump to 2003? That couldve just been a flashforward, and Margo wont be seen again (a la Martha), or much anyway.

Surely at least they'll have to do a catchup of what happened to the remainders on Mars. Jumping 8 years without any explanatory story would be utterly daft.

WTF why does the hide tag fail if I have a line spacer?