Could the United States actually lose the space raceagain?For All Mankindhas shown with its thrilling third season that this show is not a fluke. With every episode,For All Mankindknows how to build to a heart-stopping conclusion, intertwining different storylines in sometimes unpredictable ways. “Coming Home,” the penultimate episode of this season, flips the status quo of the astronauts and engineers on its head, introducing another inhabitant of the red planet — a North Korean man. But how exactly did we get here? Was this man first?
North Korea is first mentioned in the opening montage of Season 3, which describes the country’s attempts to enter the space race, ramping up its space program and abandoning previous ballistic missile programs (further proving that we indeed are currently in the worst timeline). That doesn’t mean they’re that good at it though. In fact, the debris crashing into the Polaris space hotel initiates the inciting incident of the season — debris from a faulty North Korean rocket launch. This series event is actually what allows Helios Aerospace to acquire Polaris and not only compete in the race to Mars but also accelerate it.
But the destruction of the drill at Helios Base actually incorporates North Korea into the Mars community. During the cliff collapse, the rendezvous radar in the Mars Surface Access Module (MSAM) becomes damaged. When Danny Stevens (Casey W. Johnson), who is also responsible for their situation, and the others discover that its primary integration card is fried, and the spare is aboard the Phoenix in space. Without the card, they can’t dock with Phoenix, so they’re stuck. However, there are probes previously landed on Mars which use the same rendezvous radars.
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The closest Soviet probe is 1,500 kilometers away, too far to get Kelly Baldwin (Cynthy Wu) up to Phoenix, the safest place to give birth to her baby. Thankfully, a system sold to People’s Republic of Korea is only 89 kilometers out. This probe launched in the 1994 window, causing us to wonder what its trajectory would have been in comparison to the United States, Russia, and Helios. When Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) and Grigory Kuznetsov (Lev Gorn) arrive at the probe site, the two are already in a rush due to Kelly’s deteriorating condition and preeclampsia. They observe footsteps while approaching the site, alerting the two to the nearby North Korean astronaut, but not in time to get a jump on the situation. In the final moments of the episode, the American and the Soviet find themselves on the other end of the North Korean’s gun.
What a cliffhanger! Not only does this put Kelly and her baby’s livelihood in further jeopardy, but the discovery that the previously thought unmanned probe was actually manned could put the world on a large scale off-balance with North Korea actually stepping up to the challenge of this alternate history’s space race. Once again,For All Mankinddoes an excellent job at setting up this grand shift while still allowing room for shock and awe. With only one episode left, there are still many questions left to answer, and this character introduction doesn’t help to take any off the list.
