For All Mankind has a long-running trend of releasing exceptional season finales, but I think it's fair to say that the streak is over. It's not that season 5's "This Land Is Our Land" is bad; it just falls very short of the high standard that Apple TV's generational space opera has set for itself. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. But is that worse?
Thankfully, the season 5 finale does end with an exciting promise of what's to come. With For All Mankind season 6 set to end the show, we now have our first solid reveal as to what the project's final outing will look like. There is still plenty left to find out when season 6 drops (hopefully in the not-too-distant future), but it would be pretty disappointing if For All Mankind overshared in this respect. I appreciate season 5's restraint.
Why "This Land Is Our Land" is For All Mankind's worst finale so far
When I say "worst," I must once again clarify that it wasn't irredeemable. Far from it. "This Land Is Our Land" is just at the bottom of the pile of For All Mankind finales. Something had to exist in that unfortunate spot. That being said, I do think there is a little daylight when it comes to overall quality between how season 5 ends and how all previous runs came to their respective conclusions.
The highlight is undeniably Kelly Baldwin (Cynthy Wu) and her team finding life on Titan, and then the heartwrenching sacrifice that sees her suffocate as her two crew mates make it to safety. The scientific implications are huge for the show's worldbuilding, and the loss of another member of the Baldwin family is equally emotional in the context of For All Mankind's sci-fi/soap opera formula.
Other than that, everything else felt unfocused and uneven. Even the brief action sequences weren't enough to bump up the overall quality of the episode all that much. On Mars, the most compelling moment was also one of its darkest—when Miles (Tobey Kebbell) torched the invaders' command center and burned them all alive. And then...nothing. There was no real fallout from his brutal tactic. In fact, Miles is elevated to a senior and official position on Mars for his acts. It didn't hit right considering the gravity that the finale had tried to attribute to his actions.
Considering how tense and macabre For All Mankind has felt in recent weeks, "This Land Is Our Land" ends in a manner that comes across as way too light and breezy. It feels more like the conclusion to a fairy tale than a hard-fought battle of political, corporate, and social ideologies. I liked it for what it was, but I didn't love the execution. A real middle-of-the-road affair for one of my favorite modern shows.
Episode Rating: C+
What For All Mankind season 5's cryptic ending means for season 6
The way the water moves as Kelly looks out into the distance on Titan gently implies the presence of alien lifeforms far larger than mere bacteria, although this isn't confirmed. Personally, I think it would be way too sci-fi to show full-blown creatures from Titan, considering how grounded and believable For All Mankind generally is. Still, it's what happens after the episode cuts away from Kelly's final moments that I found even more interesting.
Soundtracked by The Weeknd's 2020 hit "Blinding Lights," For All Mankind engages in one of its signature time jumps, taking the show to the year of the song's release. And yet, all we see is a ruined Soviet spacecraft from the 1990s. That's not just any Soviet spacecraft, though. It's Mars-94, the vessel we saw abandoned after a catastrophic engine failure during the race to Mars in season 3. But what is its relevance in 2020?
Sadly, it's impossible to know for sure. That said, the brief glimpse of 2020 in "This Land Is Our Land" shows the spacecraft's computer burst back into life after many years of inactivity. Exactly what has caused this electronic revival is unclear, although it's not unreasonable to assume it's just a random glitch. What's important to bear in mind here is that the ship has had a very long time to drift further and further from Earth and even Mars.
So, there must be some kind of narrative plan for why Mars-94 is back online. Could it be that it'll start sending signals back to Earth and Mars, and that it's found its way into an area of space that's rich with new discoveries for humanity? I definitely think this is a strong possibility, and I can't wait for For All Mankind to return so we can find out for sure.
For All Mankind is streaming now on Apple TV.
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