For All Mankind Review: A City Upon A Hill (Season 1 Episode 10)

Desperate measures and a chance at course correction makes For All Mankind Season 1 Episode 10, “A City Upon A Hill,” an exercise in chaotic nerves. It’s done in such a precise, focused manner that the nail-biting last ditch efforts are as impactful as possible, and affect everyone in some way.

The episode does well with using what has come before, using what we know to build up a chance for redemption for Ed, and a chance to prove herself in Ellen. Both come with leaps of faith, one metaphorical and one literal, making the season finale a huge success in closing out the ambitious story that alternate history provides.

Bonding with others comes in three acts on the episode, through Ed and Mikhail, through Ellen and Deke, and through Karen and Pam.

Ed and the Russian cosmonaut have moments of clarity between them, where the breakthrough is by stripping back the brutish nature and doing what’s right. The near-murder of Mikhail from For All Mankind Season 1 Episode 9, “Bent Bird,” is treated like a misunderstanding, where spy games leave Ed and his new buddy as agents of a bigger cause, doing what they can in the name of country.

But once their words start flowing, there’s barely any difference between them, two family men who are so far from home. It’s that moment of clarity, the moment of truth where simply surviving is all they can do, and saving Ellen and Deke matters far more than the petty squabbles over ice. Kindness wins the day, even if there’s a nefarious moment where Mikhail is left alone alongside Jamestown Base.

Deke’s death comes after some tough realization that despite his progressiveness towards women, he’s not quite there for Ellen’s truth. There’s a complexity to it, so that while he does not accept Ellen for who she is, it’s framed that he considers her secret a risk that can hurt everyone. It’s a series of scenes that paint his character a little differently than what’s come before, but is at least done with layers to it.

His final words to Ellen are still with praise, knowing she will continue to do great things. His closed-mindedness toward her sexuality is a harsh reality of the times swinging back around, threatening to eat up the progress made, but it’s done in a somewhat elegant way where his dismissal of her truth hurts, but is still done with an eye toward the program and its safety measures, rather than judging Ellen.

Jodi Balfour is able to say so much with her reactions and body language, despite the layers of the astronaut suit, as her closeness to Deke slowly becomes a distance, and her eyes lose something in them the more the truth comes out. Ellen gets to stand out a lot more during this episode, and Balfour matches it with a fire that makes one hopeful Ellen appears much more in the future.

It’s a rather complicated way to close out Deke as a character, but it does allow for Ellen’s bravery and triumph throughout the episode to show that she can do more than what’s asked of her when the time comes. Chris Bauer has been a fantastic addition on the show, bringing an intense focus to Deke Slayton while doing what’s right for the women in the program.

Karen and Pam, as it turns out, make for good friends. There’s a sense of prejudices and first impressions painting the wrong picture of them both, judging each other based on image and the power they each have at the bar; but both end up coming out the other side realizing that neither have a perfect life, and that struggles come for everyone.

In the end, it’s about who you care about, and that alignment is stronger than any other bond on For All Mankind. It allows Karen to continue to break out of her on-rails view of life, and to accept those, like Wayne, who she normally would not associate with.

The big moment of the episode is the transfer scene, the hand-off that can easily go wrong and leave our main characters doomed. Matt Wolpert & Ben Nedivi, along with John Dahl’s direction, put so much pressure on the scene, so much riding on it, that it nearly starts to feel like a balloon ready to burst.

That Ed initially misses, and Ellen has to almost sacrifice herself to catch it, is the kind of moment For All Mankind handles with such success, feel-good moments of human triumph.

The post-credits sequence is a sign of where the second season could potentially head, with 1983 and the launching of a rocket with plutonium onboard. It’s likely not for a power plant, but rather for weapons use. Despite Ed and Mikhail’s nice ending, the space race and arms race up in the sky has not ceased despite the years, and the sending of plutonium sounds like it’s all the more dangerous up there.

For All Mankind Season 1 Episode 10, “A City Upon A Hill,” is about building on what’s come before, both physically and emotionally, and finding out who someone really is by opening up and allowing them in. While this still proves difficult for some characters, it’s just not their time yet to realize this key point yet, and with a second season coming, there’s plenty of time for these cosmonaut heroes to find their way.

This is an exceptionally strong series, and stands out as a beacon that hope still has its place on television.

Some stray thoughts on the episode:

• The scene of Gordo handing over his pin to Tracy is one of the most touching moments of the episode, as it comes across as not only a handing of the torch, but showing that how much respect he has for her. Michael Dorman and Sarah Jones have been exceptional throughout the season, and this episode, though they aren’t in it as much, continues that trend.
• As an extra aside, this has been one of the most talented casts in some time, not a single weak link among them. For All Mankind really knocks it out of the park with its performers and pitch-perfect casting.

 

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For All Mankind airs Fridays on Apple TV+.

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