For All Mankind Review: The Weight (Season 2 Episode 5)
The series’ women steal the show in For All Mankind Season 2 Episode 5, “The Weight,” an hour that deftly illustrates the complex, difficult, and often painfully performative ways that they must navigate the world they’ve chosen to live in.
Molly’s boys’ club-style decision to let Ed and Gordo off the hook for wrecking an expensive plane and risking their lives — sorry to anyone who really thought that cliffhanger last week was ever going to be a real thing — because they’re just pilots who need risk and danger or whatever feels like a choice made by someone still desperate to prove she’s one of the boys herself, and just like they are.
(As much as I enjoy Molly as a character, there’s always been a sort of Amy Dunne performative “Cool Girl” aspect to the choices she makes within NASA and this is just another in a long line of them. Truly letting these dudes go with just a warning is w i l d.)
At the Baldwin house, Karen is determined to prove that she’s emotionally tough enough to survive another, likely several-years-long stretch, of not knowing whether Ed will come home after any given mission. Last week, she’s basically the person who pushed him to give himself the command of Pathfinder, but here she seems to be struggling with second thoughts. (Particularly after she’s already gotten a middle of the night phone call that hinted he might be dead.)
Ellen reconnects with the former Outpost bartender — and her former girlfriend — Pam Horton, who’s back in town on a book tour in support of her new poetry anthology. (Which, honestly, is a future I kind of love for her.)
The pair hook up again because, of course, they do but their encounter really serves to highlight how empty Ellen’s life has become outside of her space duties. She’s still living a lie, while Pam has moved on entirely — changing careers, getting published, living as an out lesbian in a way that Ellen clearly has never imagined for herself.
Whether her tryst with her ex will push Ellen toward claiming more space in her own life for herself than she’s been allowed thus far is unclear, but we can always hope, right? Truly I find this character so compelling, but her constant willingness to make herself small for others is simultaneously frustrating and deeply understandable.
The bulk of this episode, however, is centered around Tracy Stevens who finally, finally achieves her lifelong dream of making it to the moon.
Only to find out that it’s not the panacea to her problems she’d always assumed it would be.
Tracy, as it turns out, isn’t all that impressed by lunar life. Her work at Jamestown is incredibly repetitive and often dull. She’s having a hard time fitting in amongst her crewmates — thanks to her constant interviews with Johnny Carson and recording of advertisements for various radio stations that set her apart as something other than a regular astronaut.
She can’t sleep because of Jamestown’s constantly rattling air filtration systems. Bored, lonely, and feeling let down by the dream she carried for so long, she starts drinking — some kind of horrible lunar moonshine that leaves her dead-eyed and slow to respond to simple things like conversation, let alone potentially dangerous issues.
Thus far in For All Mankind Season 2, Tracy has been kind of a nonentity — her divorce from Gordo occurred during the gap between seasons, her remarriage took place offscreen to a man we’ve still never seen. She’s been chasing fame by way of commercial appearances and Tonight Show interviews, and along the way, we’ve sort of lost sight of the heroic trailblazer she used to be.
And maybe she has, too. After all, this is a woman that fought for years to be taken seriously — within NASA, by the public at large, even by her own husband. Where has that Tracy gone? What does she want now? And who is she, if going to the moon didn’t turn out to be what she wanted?
In the wake of her dressing down on Jamestown, here’s hoping we might finally get to see something of a return to the Tracy we knew — or at least one we might want to root for in her place.
Additional Thoughts and Observations
- I seriously get distinct, like, The Graduate vibes between Karen and Danny, is all I’m saying. I don’t know if I’m supposed to — but it’s weird.
- Karen’s doing drugs again though!
- Thank goodness that even though everything else about this version of our timeline may be different, the music is the same.
- As much as I often find Gordo irritating — truly, how many times can this man fail upward, I ask you — there’s something deeply endearing about how hard he’s working to get over his claustrophobia and clear PTSD about being in the spacesuit helmet. I’m not sure that I think locking himself in the closet while wearing one is the best way to accomplish that goal, but I have to respect him for trying.
- Given how much the series’ other women are given to do here, the absence of Danielle from “The Weight” – particularly given her latest assignment — feels quite jarring.
What did you think of this episode of For All Mankind? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Lacy Baugher
Lacy is a pop culture enthusiast and television critic who loves period dramas, epic fantasy, space adventures, and the female characters everyone says you're supposed to hate. Ninth Doctor enthusiast, Aziraphale girlie, and cat lady, she's a member of the Television Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes-approved. Find her at LacyMB on all platforms.
One thought on “For All Mankind Review: The Weight (Season 2 Episode 5)”
You are very focused on the women.
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