For All Mankind Season 5 Episode 2 Review: The Hard Six

For All Mankind Season 5 Episode 2 is called “The Hard Six”. For those who don’t gamble, this is a craps term for rolling a pair of threes on two dice. It’s called a “hard six” because it requires betting on a specific pair, a roll that is considerably less likely to occur than an “easy six” (a 5+1 or 4+2), or any combination of numbers that add up to 7, but whose payout is ultimately much higher.

The idea of “rolling a hard six” is often used as an idiom outside the world of the casino to justify taking extreme risks with a potentially high payoff, especially when in a desperate situation. And, man, if that isn’t just the plot of this episode in a nutshell.

As “The Hard Six” opens, almost everyone in Happy Valley is reeling from the news that OG North Korean ujunaut Lee Jung-Il — technically the first human to set foot on Mars! — is being charged with murder. 

The dead man, Yoon Tae-Min, was a crater refugee who was strangely close to Lee’s wife, and Lee’s the obvious suspect.  But the question is whether he’ll be allowed to attempt to prove his innocence on the planet he’s come to call home.

It’s interesting that, pretty much immediately, almost no one seems to believe he’s actually guilty. (Even the teens are on his side!) And with good reason — Lee’s a legend on the base. 

Not only is he a literal living piece of history, but he played a pivotal role in helping make the Goldilocks heist a success and holding off the CIA and KGB agents trying to break into the North Korean sector. He later defected to Mars after North Korea was kicked out of the M-7.

At this point, if the planet has mascots, he’s one of them. Yet almost no one is willing to fight for him. Even Dev — billionaire rebel that he is — seems to be fine with towing the party line. (Perhaps that’s understandable, since it also seems as though this might actually be Mars’s first murder.)

But while the question of what to do with Lee may dominate the episode, “The Hard Six” is a story about Ed Baldwin. Which, to a degree, makes sense. It seems that a not insignificant chunk of For All Mankind Season 5 is going to be about, not just Ed’s creeping mortality, but his legacy. And Happy Valley, the world they’ve made there — that’s as much Ed’s doing as it is Dev’s. 

As anyone who’s watched For All Mankind for any length of time already knows, Ed Baldwin isn’t an especially nice — or even particularly good — person. He’s been a terrible husband, an absentee father, and borderline abusive to his loved ones in a variety of ways. He’s bullheaded, short-tempered, emotionally constipated, and a marginal alcoholic at the best of times.

But Ed is also loyal to a fault to the people and things he cares about, and Joel Kinnaman has perfected conveying the hidden depths of his feelings without ever saying anything that could be remotely construed as sentimental out loud. 

At this point in Ed’s life, Lee is basically family. The two have been uniquely bonded ever since the earliest days of Mars exploration, when Danielle Poole and Grigory Kuznetsov discovered Lee’s capsule and prevented his suicide. 

Ed was the only member of their team who spoke Korean back then — albeit in an extremely limited capacity, thanks to service as a fighter pilot in the Korean War — and so was Lee’s first real contact with humanity in the better part of a year.

As they subsequently starved and suffered together in those early days at Happy Valley, the two became close, teaching one another their respective languages and connecting (as they all did) during a situation that almost no one else will ever be able to understand. 

In Season 4, Lee played a key role in the Goldilocks heist; Ed helped smuggle his friend’s wife onto the base. They’re bonded in a severe brothers-in-arms sort of way, and it’s evident how much each cares about the other. (Even if they can only express it in the gruff way that old men so often do.)

The other thing is that, for all his faults, Ed’s a hero, in ways both large and small.

Yes, he’s done some ill-advised, reckless, even downright awful things over the course of this series. You can blame him for some part in multiple tragedies. (Not purposefully, mind, but that doesn’t always matter.)

But he’s always shown up to do the right thing when it counts, and he shows up for Lee here — masterminding a complicated scheme to break him out of jail and help him reach the ISN base that might give him asylum and keep him from being extradited to his almost certain death on Earth. 

No, it’s not a perfect solution, but it’s one that keeps all the proverbial pieces on the board until Ed can find a better option.

Maybe the least surprising thing about this episode is that Ed’s willing to put his own life on the line to help Lee — and that he does it without a moment’s hesitation. Cancer apparently can’t beat Ed Baldwin, but his own stupid big heart might. 

At this point in For All Mankind’s run, it’s almost impossible to imagine the show without Ed. So many of its larger plots over the years have been driven by some combination of his bravery, recklessness, and sheer bravado. (Including the bulk of this episode!) Where would we be — where would Mars be — without him?

That’s a question next week will have to answer, one way or another. 

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• Kelly Baldwin is so her father’s daughter, and you truly love to see it.
• Ed getting himself arrested so he can talk to Lee is the most in-character move, and I love him for it. (Also, apparently, the two of them are…the only prisoners on all of Mars??)
• Mireille Enos back doing investigative work into whatever secretive business is happening on the surface at night is giving me serious The Killing flashbacks, and I’m into it. 
• Starbucks has officially made it to Mars, something that gives me, an avowed Starbucks junkie, great joy
• I didn’t like Miles all that much last season, even when he finally managed to do the right thing, and while I won’t be surprised if he turns informant for Palmer, I’ll be mad. 

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New episodes of For All Mankind stream Fridays on Apple TV.

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