For All Mankind Season 5 Episode 3 Review: Home

Losing beloved characters is inevitably part of life as a TV fan. Sometimes, they’re taken from you suddenly, as fans of every Game of Thrones-related property can attest. Sometimes they simply leave, part of the revolving door casting process of television that The Pitt viewers are becoming all too familiar with. 

But sometimes, if you’re very lucky, a show gets the chance to do it right — to pay tribute to a popular or long-running figure in a way that honors everything they’ve come to mean to the story it has told and is still telling. 

Thankfully, For All Mankind Season 5 Episode 3, “Home,” is one of those installments, an hour that bids farewell to original astronaut Ed Baldwin by reminding us, to paraphrase A.A. Milne, how very lucky we were to have had something that makes saying goodbye so hard. 

Though he’s one of the few remaining faces who’ve been around since the series’ first episode, Ed hasn’t always been the easiest character to love. He’s reckless, often full of himself, kind of a bully, and emotionally constipated in ways both large and small. 

He’s been a terrible husband, not once, not twice, but three times, and struggles to be the father or grandparent that either Kelly or Alex deserves.

But, to his credit, Ed loves equally hard — he’s loyal to a fault, stubborn as an ox, and while he may not ever be able to verbally convey what those closest to him truly mean to him, he’ll risk his life for them without blinking. 

“Home” brings so much of Ed’s story full circle, featuring flashbacks to his time in Korea and the time immediately preceding the launch of Apollo 10, the mission that shaped and haunted so much of his life in both NASA and the larger world of the show. 

Despite his rapidly deteriorating condition, Ed refuses to undergo any extraordinary treatments, rejects Kelly’s insistence on bringing in a NASA oncologist, and literally breaks out of his sickbed to go drink at Ilya’s bar while wearing a hospital gown and no pants. It’s the most Ed reaction to anything ever, and it’s almost impossible not to love him for it. 

Elsewhere, Alec is proving himself to be Ed’s grandson by doing his best to ignore everything that’s happening. 

Unlike Kelly, he recognizes that the older man is dying, but doesn’t really know where to put all the complicated feelings he has about his grandfather, the man who constantly — and often rudely — judges and pushes him to do something meaningful with his life, but struggles to show him things like basic affection. 

Ed’s never been easy, but Ed is true, and that’s nowhere more apparent than in this episode, which does its best to prepare us all for a For All Mankind that no longer contains him by allowing the people he loved best to step up alongside him. 

The scene in which Ed and Alec – and eventually Kelly — share a drink at Ilya’s, toast to their family, and collectively agree to pretend that the youngest Baldwin isn’t already a pro at doing shots is one of the most narratively rich and heartwarming scenes the show’s ever done. 

Ed chooses to go out on his own terms, and Kelly and Alec both find a way to allow him to honor his wishes. His final moments on Mars are intertwined with his rescue from Korea and his walk to the Apollo module, reuniting him in death with Karen, Gordo, and even a young Shane as he crosses over into whatever the next great undiscovered country looks like for him. 

For a character who has always had an explorer’s heart, who has viewed the space program — whether to the Moon, Mars, or wherever humanity heads afterward — as a calling, a vocation, a duty, even, it’s a beautiful, touching final moment. 

(Particularly when the show cuts to what is presumably meant to be Ed’s Apollo capsule floating above the Earth as part of the episode’s end credits. Reader, I was already in tears.) 

What will For All Mankind be without Ed? It’s a great question, and one that “Home” wisely doesn’t attempt to answer just yet. 

Sure, several other big plots are more fully set into motion this week. Celia Boyd seems more convinced than ever that Lee Jung-Il is innocent of the murder he was charged with, and that Russian space company Kuragin is into some shady dealings. 

Dale’s daughter, Lily, is getting arrested for political protests, and Kelly seems determined to honor her father by piloting the ship he never got to fly to Mars to Titan. And perhaps most significantly, Aleida is finally heading to Happy Valley to ensure the Soujourner can be retrofitted properly. 

But with Ed dead and Margo left behind on Earth alone — how much will the new For All Mankind resemble what’s come before? It’s a new era, and we’ll have to wait and see. 

Stray Thoughts and Observations

• There are not enough superlatives for Joel Kinnaman, whose performance as Ed has carried this show on his back so often in its later seasons, and who finally, finally gets to take the old age makeup off, right at the end.
• Genuinely sad that Ed and Dev didn’t get a final scene together — particularly since their last conversation wasn’t exactly on the best of terms. 
• Given that Aleida truly was Margo’s last link to the show’s main plotlines, I do wonder how much we’ll see of Wrenn Schmidt for the rest of the season. 
• Sue me, Polivanov and his wife are honestly kind of adorable together. 

---

What did you think of this episode of For All Mankind? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to leave your own rating!

Critic Rating:

Audience Rating:

 

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

Check out our latest TV recommendations, updated weekly!

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!