How For All Mankind Season 5’s Sci-Fi Revolution Rewrites History (And An Infamous Meme) – SlashFilm

Warning: This article contains spoilers for “For All Mankind” Season 5, Episode 6, “No Sudden Moves.”

As far as alternate histories go, “For All Mankind” and its basic premise that Russia beat the U.S. to Earth’s moon in the 1960s is the gift that keeps on giving. The Apple TV series has had an endless amount of fun throughout the years imagining all the possibilities this offers, from advancements in technology light-years ahead of our own to famous celebrities living very different lives to entire world events completely diverging from how we know them to have unfolded. Season 5 even establishes that the streaming era died before it ever got off the ground. This is sci-fi in the purest sense of the word, and it’s all led to one of the most shocking (and darkly amusing) moments in the show.

“For All Mankind” might be currently exploring the interplanetary politics of a growing faction of Mars colonists and their simmering discontent with Earth, but this latest reveal is as homebound as it gets. Remember, in this timeline, the 1990s and early 2000s hardly resemble the decades that we (well, most of us, at least) lived through. Al Gore was elected President of the United States, climate change has already effectively been dealt with, and — this is the biggie — 9/11 never happened. Sounds as idyllic as it gets, right?

Well, history has a way of repeating itself, even in ways we never quite expected. In Episode 6, “No Sudden Moves,” the Martian revolution takes its most violent step yet, and the fallout is felt as far away as Earth. In the process, we appear to witness this timeline’s version of 9/11 … and it puts its own twist on the infamous George W. Bush 9/11 internet meme.

It sure looks like “For All Mankind” is going there for its major Season 5 conflict. For most of the season, the increasingly volatile powder keg on Mars (stoked partially by the late Ed Baldwin) has threatened to blow, and it’s finally reached the point of no return. As the so-called Marsies invade the control room and take Governor Leonid Polivanov (Costa Ronin) hostage, led by the disgruntled hothead Gerardo Ortiz-Niño (Salvador Chacon), their attempt to prevent the widespread automation of activities on Mars turns into full-blown revolution. It doesn’t take long for this brazen act to make its way back to humanity’s home planet, which is where we enjoy yet another quintessential “For All Mankind” moment.

In a newsreel montage, we see the moment that current “Earth First” President James Bragg (Randy Oglesby) receives the groundbreaking news from the Red Planet … while visiting a high school in Sarasota, Florida, no less. Sound familiar? On the morning of September 11, 2001, then-President George W. Bush was in the exact same setting and the moment he received the news would go on to inspire an ironic internet meme. While the parallel in “For All Mankind” has only led to scattered injuries from the clash between protestors and so-called Mars Peacekeepers, as opposed to the tragic loss of thousands of lives both on 9/11 and in the months and years that followed in two separate unjust wars, the ramifications here are nearly as existential.

For Mars, the secret plans by Helios founder Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi) to institute full automation on Mars presents a threat to every colonist’s livelihood. For Earth, any interruption of iridium shipments from the captured asteroid would tank the economy. It’s a stalemate.

Leave it to “For All Mankind” to turn what could’ve just been a one-off Easter egg and a dark joke into a strong thematic parallel tying the whole episode together. One of the funnier sources of amusement in this episode comes from the idea of yet another protest between haves and have-nots devolving into a class struggle on Mars. The Season 4 finale depicted an asteroid heist in the midst of a riot sequence that could’ve ended very badly once a single gunshot goes off. This time around, both protestors and their supposed Peacekeepers are armed to the teeth in a standoff that could have much more dire consequences for all involved.

Take the revolutionaries’ desperate measures, brainstormed by reluctant leader Miles Dale (Toby Kebbell). With the Martian governor’s forced cooperation, they film a video where he informs Earth and the M-6 (the charter made up of nations with an invested stake in Mars) that they will no longer deliver shipments of precious iridium metal back home until their demands are met. It’s a bluff, considering that none of the rebels have any wish to actually harm their hostages. To nobody’s surprise, the US’ cowboy President Bragg calls them on it, denouncing them as criminals and insisting that he will never “negotiate with terrorists” — a loaded phrase, if there ever was one, and one that instantly draws battle lines that will reverberate throughout the rest of the season.

It’s probably too simplistic to unequivocally call this the 9/11 of “For All Mankind,” but the connections are certainly there. The results remain to be seen, but this may prove to be just as messy. 

New episodes of “For All Mankind” stream on Apple TV every Friday.