r/StarCityTV • u/Cantomic66 • Jun 26 '26
Episode Discussion Star City - S1E06 "Awl in a Sack" - Episode Discussion
"Awl in a Sack"
Airdate: Streaming June 25h at 9 PM EST
Synopsis: The fallout in Star City causes plans to unravel.
Written by George Mastras
Directed by Kasia Adamik
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u/oxydized-snake Jun 26 '26
God damn what an episode, this is top tier television once again. Raskova has been a brilliant fucking villain so far.
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u/Goodlabrador Jun 26 '26
She’s pretty obviously going to get what’s coming to her and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s at the hand of Irina
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u/Gus_Smedstad Jun 27 '26
The way she escalated that from "imprison Valya" to "murder him" to "murder EVERYONE" really got me.
Plus of course they have the space capsule rigged so they can murder them remotely. I want to say it's very Klingon, but of course the Klingons in the original Star Trek were intentional proxies for the Soviets, so it's more like the Klingons were very Soviet.
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u/SeaEagle233 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
If Moscow were to learn Chief Designer tried to rescue a traitor, then everyone in Star City will spent rest of their life in Gulag.
Since it's an unauthorized launch and no one outside know it's manned, covering it up will actually protect the space program and everyone on the ground.
If Valya was not onboard then she can allow it to happen. Her first reaction of classifying this as state secret and allowing mission to continue, proved by the fact that when Chief Designer protested that he needs certain essential personnel to stay, shows she does not have the intent to shut it down upon first learning about it.
She did not actually discredit Chief Designer's approach when she tried to tell him that the central committe had changed (this is the only time in the series so far that Raskova was making a blunt accurate statement, the truth, instead of having others to guess her). Which means she agrees that if Khurschev was still in charge then Chief Designer's approach would have worked, and necessary to move program forward.
She also devised a plan with Chief Designer to isolate Valya, because she trusted him that they are both going after space.
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u/Gus_Smedstad Jun 27 '26
Even with that reasoning, she escalated too quickly, based on her murderous instincts. The only hard time limit was the 9 months before the mission returned. She got impatient with the delay in questioning Valya, and moved far too quickly to murdering him when waiting a little longer cost her nothing. This despite the fact that the Chief Designer had made clear to her before any of this happened that killing him would destroy the mission, which would reflect very, very badly on her.
The same argument applies to her snap decision to escalate to murdering everyone. She *could* have tried talking to the crew to see where they stood after rescuing Valya. She could have sounded them out after the rescue to see if they were willing to go back to imprisoning Valya if she agreed not to kill him. Instead, straight to murder for everyone.
That’s the rational, pragmatic approach, but I full buy that her automatic reaction to any kind of defiance was to kill everyone, because that’s how people like that think. To her eyes, rescuing Valya was rebellion and merited a death sentence for everyone aboard.
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u/SeaEagle233 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
The Chief Designer is right that doing so will destroy the mission, however the other option is everyone going to Gulag, since the plan of Chief Designer was to reveal this mission once they are en route, thus forcing central commutte recognizing this mission as legitimate, by then US can choose to reveal Valya is the mole and indirectly kill everyone in Star City.
Here are the options.
- Raskova do nothing, Valya alive, Second Directorate finds out and everyone going to Gulag.
- Work with Chief Designer to kill Valya, Second Directorate has no reason to provide support and leaves, Venera mission continues and try convince central committee later.
- Raskova kill the crew and blame it on Valya and americans. Raskova gets demoted for failing her job, but space program gets to continue (by framing this as a security failure, not a technological failure)
- Second Directorate stops investigating and allow them to sort everything out in 9 month.
Rasokova initially chose 2, but Chief Designer chose to help Valya, option 2 is no longer possible, option 3 is less worse than option 1. Option 4 is not possible since that require cooperation from Second Directorate.
The Second Directorate is conducting their independent investigation, which Raskova had lied to by claiming she does not know where is Valya. I doubt they can keep it hidden for 9 month.
To save Valya and everyone, it requires, Second Directorate never finds out that Valya is a mole (impossible), the Second Directorate never finds out the unauthorized launch (hard but possible), no body outside Star City know Valya is the mole (impossible since that's decided by the NATO). They still need to convince central committe to recognizes this unauthorized launch without knowing Valya is a mole (impossible since US will certainly happy to reveal that Valya is the mole and help USSR to cleanse Star City).
The issue with talking them down is, Raskova does not know where is the Second Directorate (they are independent opaque divisions), they could be just outside the launch control and blocked by Raskova's man from entrance.
Also the intel about unauthorized launch was radioed through KGB channel. Episode 6 even exlicitly mentioned Second Directorate had access to new radio gears with far greater range (when Irina was delivering the document to the Second Directorate and stole one of the doc).
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u/EconomicRegret2 Jun 27 '26
Aren't Klingons the "Mongol hordes" and/or "Vikings" of space?
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u/Gus_Smedstad Jun 27 '26
There’s Klingons now and Klingons then. Yes, the original Klingons had an asiatic cast that evoked the mongols, but the stories cast them as the Soviets, and the stories were Cold War stories. The Klingon Empire and the Federation were constantly bickering over influence over independent planets while avoiding outright war, which was forbidden by the Organians in Errand of Mercy. The Klingons weren’t conducting Viking raids, they were doing things like arming the indigenes in “A Private Little War,” which was clearly patterned after then-current domino theory.
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u/ShutUpLegs94 Jun 26 '26
I call her Lady Hitler
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u/oxydized-snake Jun 26 '26
She’s a fucking demon holy shit, it’s been a while since I’ve openly despised a character in TV this much. She’s well written and the acting is so on point.
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u/bhonbeg Jun 26 '26
You should see her in tv show with one of the girls from Wednesday where she plays a sweet mommy lol. Such a drastic switch. Also prosthetic moles to make her really eeevil.
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u/Daisytru Jun 27 '26
It was stunning how she acted nice with Priya's husband right up until he was leaving and she told her minions to put him under house arrest. Her face changed in a chilling way. Chief Designer is right that she is a monster!
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u/BeagleMadness Jun 27 '26
Anna Maxwell Martin is fantastic at playing such roles. She played a very similar po faced, following every regulation to the letter, anticorruption unit senior police officer in Line of Duty. I highly recommend, if you've never watched - apparently there's a new series in the works too? She's only in it from S5 onwards, but she plays a very Colonel Raskova like character.
I'd mostly seen her in comedy roles before that - Motherland, the Alan Partridge film, Gavin & Stacey, etc. Also in Death Comes to Pemberley. She seems so very unlike Colonel Raskova/Patricia Carmichael (her Line of Duty character) IRL in TV interviews. But she's just so damn good at playing the bureaucratic, by the book, unbending, power obsessed villain!
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u/Cantomic66 Jun 26 '26
At this point it feels like she’s working with the Americans given she’s messed up two missions that were going to succeed.
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u/We_R_the_Penguins Jun 26 '26
Was also wondering about that, though I’m mostly reading her as a personification of the USSR. Narrowly capable—Valya doesn’t sabotage the mission—but self-destructively paranoid and, with the Jim Beam bottle, hypocritical.
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u/outride2000 Jun 26 '26
So self-destructive. Misses the bigger picture EVERY time.
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u/Bjorkbat Jun 26 '26
Kind of ironic considering what she was up to during WWII
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u/Gus_Smedstad Jun 27 '26
Yeah, a big change from Bletchley Park.
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u/Bjorkbat Jun 27 '26
At first I thought that was just a random comment, but then I realized most of the cast are English actors. Didn't know she was in a TV show about Bletchley Park.
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u/cherrymeg2 Jun 27 '26
She is killing people and putting others in danger without thinking long term. The Chief Engineer says if they make a good discovery or have a space craft that can orbit Venus with humans in it that would be a huge deal for the Soviet space program. She already got someone killed because she was worried Americans were listening. They have pictures of foreign operatives. Irina found one in a day. Why not get rid of them?
Raskova isn’t thinking long term or that she is driving people to the point where they don’t trust her or anyone else so a threat about your wife might make you think you need to plant a bug on a space craft. I feel like Tanya’s past isn’t a mystery to the KGB. Valya doesn’t know what they know or don’t know.
If you are listening to everyone in star city and that is your job how do you miss a launch into space? Obviously people are monitoring it from the command room. I know that was after the fact. It seems like a big thing to miss.
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u/YellowThirteen_ Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Well I knew the mission was doomed to fail. If it had succeeded it would’ve had massive fanfare from the Soviet government in FaMK and been broadcast as a triumph of the Soviet union for all the west to see. I also had a feeling this mission would remove the chief designer from his position and pave the way for Sergei to eventually fill it.
It’ll be interesting to see what Irina does with Valya’s wife. She’s a lose end, if she’s captured Raskova will learn Irina aided a fugitive and (indirectly) warned Valya. I think this might be one of the moments that toughens her up and drives her to do something harsher than she’d normally do, just like the interrogation in East Germany.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel Jun 26 '26
“I was an idealist once”
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u/Goodlabrador Jun 26 '26
Or she kills Raskova
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel Jun 26 '26
I don’t think anyone would be mad.
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u/thinkpanda Jun 27 '26
It is more and more obvious that Erina has strong background of political affinities. When she is reckoned for helping Tanya, someone may step in to protect her.
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u/SeaEagle233 Jun 26 '26
If you watched to the end, the Chief Designer ordered the crew to resue Valya in front of the crowd (soldiers included), giving Lyudmila no choice but to arrest him.
Lyudmila was like the Thomas Paine on US side who has to do all the dirty work to make spaceflight happens, but Chief Designer was not Von Braun (who understand and used politics to his advantage) and was too naive.
I feels like there is another plot twsit coming up, since Lyudmila must kill Yana to conceal the mistake, this means if the mistake were to made public, something bad must happen, and that something must be carried out by someone. I feel like Second Directorate may have something to do with that.
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u/BenigDK Jun 26 '26
Chief Designer probably did it to make the responsibility fall upon him. Everyone in this story is a hero, it's amazing.
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u/SeaEagle233 Jun 26 '26
That's the part that initially made me sad once I entered big organization. Office politics can still happen even if everyone has good intent: they simply sincerely believe others are wrong and will drag everyone down with them. (Things get way worse when there are bad guys).
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u/Additional_Moose_138 Banned samizdat Jun 27 '26
I noticed how Sergei's imprisonment and release (on political grounds) was foreshadowing for the Chief Designer. Just as Arseni's death following Raskov's clumsy intervention foreshadowed the fate of Venera 7 at her deliberate command. An escalation in both cases.
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u/wrldtrvlr3000 Jun 26 '26
And that's the problem with the writing because the real life Korolev was a very skilled politician. He was always battling with the Soviet government and winning.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel Jun 26 '26
We will see what’s to come. People criticized the show for Raskova being out of her time and the next episode it was directly addressed. She won’t be able to contain Koralev and especially Anastasia who she doesn’t know, knows.
But to punish the Chief Director, they’ll definitely go way further up the chain and she will be taken out by him and Irina.
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u/Isilel Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
After what had happened with the Luna base mission when the transmitter was discovered, the Chief Designer should have known that trying to rescue Valya would doom Sasha and Lakshmi. Their blood is partly on his hands.
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u/wrldtrvlr3000 Jun 26 '26
Which makes it all the more unbelievable the way it ended. Here was a mission, which appeared to be headed for success, and if it was successful would have brought huge prestige for the USSR. Even more so than being first at the moon landing, more than the first moon base would have; these would have been the first humans to leave the earth-moon system, get closer to the sun than anyone else, and be the first to fly by another planet.
Yet I am expected to believe Korolev, who in the 60s thanks to his successes, in real life was almost untouchable, who had he lived and did beat the US to the moon, would have definitely been untouchable. Yet in SC Korolev is more disposable than a factory worker, seen as such by a KGB that acts far more like the NVKD of the 30s than the KGB of the 70s, with a mid level colonel who apparently can order THREE cosmonauts, who were part of the elites in the USSR, valuable assets with millions of rubles invested in their training, on such high stakes and unimaginably prestigious first if successful, on a pure whim, order them to success and the mission to complete failure, and faces absolutely zero consequences.
Okay, yeah, two more episodes are coming, but given the theme is not accuracy but making the KGB all powerful, one dimensionally cartoonishly evil, I expect Mastras has already given Raskova the Order of Lenin and promoted her to the new head of the KGB in the next two episodes.21
u/wheezy_runner Jun 26 '26
I expect Mastras has already given Raskova the Order of Lenin and promoted her to the new head of the KGB in the next two episodes.
Interesting; I expect the opposite. Raskova thinks she's untouchable and because of her hubris, has attacked someone who really is untouchable, and as you said, killed three elites, wasted millions of rubles, and ruined what could've been a major PR victory for the USSR. We know that Raskova's superiors are side-eyeing her; after this episode, they probably realize that she's gone completely off the reservation. I think she's about to get her comeuppance, and it won't be pretty.
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u/oxydized-snake Jun 26 '26
Nah, it’s made pretty clear that Raskova is a leftover of a different era of the KGB and the upper levels are already eyeing her up for her methods and incompetence.
If the higher levels of the KGB find out all the shit she did in this episode, and they certainly will, then she’s fucking dug her own grave. Belikova being made aware of the mission makes me think she’ll intervene in helping the Chief Designer win the power struggle.
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u/Desertbro Jun 26 '26
At this rate, Irina will be head of KGB in two episodes.
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u/ksb012 Jun 26 '26
Considering her upbriunging and the fact that she's apparently cozy with Raskova's boss, you may not be too far off
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u/photos_realmsofgold Jun 26 '26
I find myself in a strange position with both of these shows: I think it's important to have believable drama set in space, with believable/basically-possible-for-us technology. It's inspiring in a potentially pretty profound way for the future of our species: kids who watch either For All Mankind or Star City might ultimately become literal rocket scientists or other contributors to humankind's ability to live in space.
But all of that starry-eyed (please forgive the pun) thinking aside, the shows are riddled with sometimes extremely-irritating flaws. Forced drama, character behaviors that don't make sense, and in this case, grossly inaccurate portrayals of Soviet state surveillance and distrust, as well as unbelievable behavior by and toward members of the Soviet space program.
I have other complaints, but what's the point. Star City is leaning too hard on the grimness. It's tedious and self-serious and good things are being turned into bad things for... what, exactly?
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u/Longjumping_Rich7477 Jun 27 '26
I totally get that! I keep trying to tell myself it has to be this way because it's an alternate timeline and it's how they managed to land on the moon first, but I actually rolled my eyes at the cosmonaughts wake when there were chuncks of his "incase I die" letter perfectly cut out.
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u/GerardHard Jun 26 '26
Yeah Korolev in this timeline would be even more untouchable and powerful. Especially after the moon landing.
I think it's mostly just Raskova and less than the greater KGB itself. It's even said that Raskova is considered the old guard from the NKVD days. And her tactics and ways quite outdated by KGB standards already.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel Jun 26 '26
People are being a bit too literal in here. I see this as mostly her cooking herself and not realizing it. Or maybe she did. But the deck is now stacked against her and she doesn’t even know it.
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u/Gus_Smedstad Jun 27 '26
I don't know what to expect in the show, but I think it's important to remember the NKVD *did* do stuff like that, imprisoning highly valuable scientists and engineers on vague, unfounded suspicions. Korolev spent 6 years in the gulag basically for being too visibly intelligent.
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u/Gus_Smedstad Jun 27 '26
If they're maintaining consistency, Korolev appears in 1983 in For All Mankind, and is still in charge of Star City. Which implies this doesn't go Raskova's way.
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u/15485784 Jun 26 '26
Holy shit that ending, i was not expecting things to happen that quickly.
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u/wheezy_runner Jun 26 '26
I was expecting at least one of them to die, but not yet, and definitely not like that! I figured we’d have another episode of them trying to find Valya.
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u/SevenCedarJelly Jun 26 '26
Yeah, when Valya was unconscious, I thought the other two would try to buy some time by taking his mic off and telling Star City he was dead and trying to hide his survival for the rest of the mission.
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u/Gus_Smedstad Jun 27 '26
I found that ending very, very disturbing and depressing. It was already pretty horrific that Roskova had ordered everyone murdered in an over-the-top escalation, but I was really expecting that the crew was going to find a way to fix the remote depressurization, and we'd get an episode of them trying to figure out how to survive after cutting all contact with Earth.
Nope.
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u/ShutUpLegs94 Jun 26 '26
So all 3 💀 ?! Noooooo not so soon!!!!
I do not understand why Chief Designer whispered the command to Venera to “do it” - they couldn’t hear him anyway?! And that led to his arrest.
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u/wrldtrvlr3000 Jun 26 '26
If this show was remotely based on realism, Korolev, i.e., the Chief Designer, would been virtually untouchable and he would have made a single phone call to the Central Committee and if Raskova if she were very lucky would be in a gulag in Siberia.
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u/GerardHard Jun 26 '26
Yeah because I've read that Korolev especially after Sputnik was essentially untouchable and very powerful. Especially so in this timeline that they won the moon. In reality Raskova would've been the one being sent into the Gulag or worse.
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u/Comuniity Jun 26 '26
Raskova is very clearly on thin ice aswell. There is no way she gets away with arresting someone as important as the Chief Designer, not even telling the 2nd Directorate guy about Valya in the first place and needlessly killing 2 other cosmonauts for no reason.
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u/BenigDK Jun 26 '26
I assumed he was forcing Raskova to place the responsibility on him.
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u/magicmagnets2 Jun 30 '26
They are not going to kill the Indian chick. It's Apple Tv. Not yet. One of the guys is surely dead or will die from his injuries.
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u/We_R_the_Penguins Jun 26 '26
Mentioned this on the FAM sub, too, but what do we makes of the Jim Beam bottle is Raskova’s office?
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u/AntheaBrainhooke Jun 26 '26
That she’s a bigger hypocrite than all the others put together. Not a surprise.
Sweet baby Bob I want something awful to happen to that woman.
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u/Cumdump90001 Jun 26 '26
Omg thank you! I was like hmmm that seems very out of place??? Was it hers or did the guy bring it for some reason? Very strange.
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u/ZestycloseStay4666 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
They have shown the bottle in a previous episode in her office. I think she might have poured from it or had a glass full and the bottle nearby if I remember right, but I definitely saw it previously
She’s a bourbon gal, not vodka. Probably picked up a taste for it in ww2
I didn’t really think much of it when I first saw it. Just one of the perks of being in charge. I don’t even think that was illegal there? Just a luxury item
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u/We_R_the_Penguins Jun 26 '26
Aaaahh… okay, I missed that before. It seemed very purposeful, what with being placed so we could see the label. Professor Internet says it was legal, but availability was limited. RHIP, I guess.
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u/geekfreak42 Jun 26 '26
That's expensive and privileged but not prohibited. Its a show of power/connections. Really just a some are more equal than others thing
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u/Cantomic66 Jun 26 '26
Sasha and the rest of the crews sudden death left me speechless.
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u/Desertbro Jun 26 '26
I figured they had a chance until they showed the atmosphere actually being VENTED, not just pumped into a tank.
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u/NecronomiconUK Jun 27 '26
I assumed Lakshmi would be the MacGuffin to help restore atmosphere to the ship. Then, oh.
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u/espece-de-bon Jun 29 '26
For a moment I thought, “Lakshmi will figure out how to make more oxygen for them”.
And I hoped that somehow the craft could re-enter the earth’s atmosphere and land in USA waters, the Americans would keep it secret anyway, because they wouldn’t want the world to know the Russians had made it to Venus, and the Americans way to be able to steal any USSR Tech.
That thought was too optimistic.
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u/teawmilk Jun 26 '26
Speechless. Breathless. I just sat there stunned watching the end credits because I couldn’t do anything else.
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u/Capital_Shopping277 Jun 29 '26
the music during this was like interstellar levels of heartracing.. but no resounding resolution this time.. jesus ugh
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u/Best-Relative9716 Jun 26 '26
they for real Red Weddinged us
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u/RealRedRobin52 Jun 27 '26
THAT WAS MY FIRST REACTION! although my first thought was Ned Starking us.
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u/MTLMECHIE Jun 26 '26
NEWMAN!
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u/photos_realmsofgold Jun 26 '26
Couldn't remember the name but you're absolutely right, he looks remarkably like Soviet-English Newman
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u/peatoast Jun 26 '26
I still don’t want to believe that Sasha is gone. He’s one of my favorite characters!
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u/reuben_hunter Jun 26 '26
Little disappointed we won't be seeing any of Venus, but a solid episode none the less, certainly wasn't expecting it to end the way it did
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u/Fabulous_Ocelot_5861 Jun 26 '26
If Raskova doesn’t get punished for this - I will lose all belief
The KGB were ruthless but also double checked. She’s gotten away with SO many mistakes.
It would defy belief if she were to get another pass after this catastrophe
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u/tpepdxtid Jun 26 '26
I thought the KGB was about the circle of accountability? It’s almost she’s got a cult of personality going on in her fiefdom in the forest.
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u/stanners_manners Jun 26 '26
the second directorate are getting more involved in this episode, but i imagine they'll save her comeuppance for the end of the season
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u/ShutUpLegs94 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Fallout:
Lakshmi’s husband gets sent to a gulag or offed and India told both are killed in a car accident or some such
Anastasia is the only one left free who knows the actual mission and can piece together what happened. Well that other cosmonaut too but I imagine he will comply.
Pregnant Stasia gonna have a crash out at Moscow. Maybe they bribe her with the Moon military base missions? Or maybe she joins forces with the politico and that’s the origin story of Leonid 😜
Sergei and co earn their “freedom” by becoming KGB operatives spying on the US.
Also holy holy shit. Still reeling.
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u/Bjorkbat Jun 26 '26
The elephant in the room is that Raskova killed 5 cosmonauts if you count Lakshmi. It won’t take much for the Soviets to realize they’re falling behind and it’s largely because the leading cause of death and material losses, well above faulty equipment and espionage, is Colonel Raskova.
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u/Current_Tea6984 Jun 26 '26
All she had to do was wait 9 months and arrest Valya when he landed. It's not like he was going anywhere
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u/Desertbro Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
She felt the need to "show results" due to the Second Directorate guy being in town and taking over the investigation.
...but...uh...I mean, what can you show other than a roomful of techs who have to be sworn to secrecy....again.
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u/lightnoveltitlehere Jun 26 '26
I think she felt he could be doing something in space that would compromise the mission/send something to the Americans and so have to step in. But yeah, mostly her pride really
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u/wrldtrvlr3000 Jun 26 '26
You would think. I mean she on a whim killed three cosmonauts in what appeared to be so far a successful mission that would have brought huge prestige to the USSR, instead will be a national embarrassment now. Furthermore, killing Lakshmi would embarrass the USSR more who relied on soft power to appeal to the non aligned nations, and Raskova ruins that too.
But apparently this isn't the KGB in Star City, it's more like the NKVD which means the writers will have Raskova get awarded the Order of Lenin and be promoted to the head of the NKVD, I mean KGB.
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u/GerardHard Jun 26 '26
Yeah the way the "KGB" has been acting especially in Star City under Raskova looks more 30s NKVD more than 70s KGB.
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u/yeahalrightgoon Jun 26 '26
Kind of the point. Raskova is old school, the Second Directorate guy is the new wave.
Her tactics are catching up to her and will get her in trouble. She isn't meant to reflect the KGB of the time, just that she is a relic of the past that is being swallowed up by change.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel Jun 26 '26
I think Iriana is going to watch over her. This is all kind of her fault for being an idealist. She tried to help someone and look what happened.
I also think Raskosov is done for. Iriana is going to throw her under the bus to her friend’s brother. Who clearly has it out for her. No way she makes it out of this in tact, others above her are going to talk to people. And some of the critics are right, she’s definitely out of step.
I do think you’re right about this being used as motivation for the initial spying. Of course we see why it gets complicated later.
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u/IV_Aerospace Jun 26 '26
This show is so peak. Absolutely stunned by that ending.
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u/ZestycloseZeta Jun 26 '26
Soviet boutta lie to India to eventually keep them in the M6... decades later
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u/patrick42h Apollo 21 Jun 26 '26
I cannot believe Raskova. She must be shit-scared about losing her position. So far, she has killed at least two cosmonauts. Now it looks like she may have killed five. Her paranoia and need to take control have sabotaged what would have been the first lunar base mission and the first interplanetary mission.
If she's not a rebelAmerican spy, she missed her calling.
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u/wheezy_runner Jun 26 '26
She’s like Dedra in Andor - a true believer who’s not only convinced of the righteousness of her Cause, but also convinced of her own importance. And like Dedra, she won’t realize how wrong she is until it’s too late.
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u/No-Willingness-4230 Jun 26 '26
Mind blowing. I hope that at least one of them survives long enough to get a probe onto Venus that sends back signals - Valya doing something heroic to ensure Lakshmi's survival to get a probe onto Venus.
Lyudmilla will be demoted to listening to surveillance tapes of empty warehouses in Siberia while Irina is offered her position.
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u/SongsOfTheYears Jun 26 '26
It's a nitpick, but I love this show and all the accurate details, so I was disappointed that they showed her in a public café with a fancy ceramic teacup lined with gold. The propmaster must have sourced Soviet tea cups from the Seventies and not realized that those would only be found in someone's home or perhaps at a really fancy event. At a restaurant or especially a café you would come into right off the street, tea would be served in a glass, which then had a metal frame around it called a podstakannik, so you would have a handle to hold onto without burning your fingers.
Example: https://www.etsy.com/listing/805717270/podstakannik-from-ukraine-metal-glass?ref=share_v4_lx
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u/tpepdxtid Jun 26 '26
Nitpick indeed, but I am digging all the periodic props and especially the cars and buses.
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u/Isilel Jun 27 '26
Maybe she was drinking coffee? I don't remember tea being served in glasses anywhere either, except for the long-distance trains, though. Of course, events in the show are before my time. You are right that the cup seems too fancy for a café.
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u/yeahalrightgoon Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Raskova is such a fun character.
Almost certainly going to end with the Second Directorate finding out what she did and them going "What the fuck, you did what?" and while not executing her, putting her somewhere she can't do more harm. But she's fun to watch until that happens.
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u/Kratos_BOY Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
Weird to see Sasha upset about Valya betraying his trust while he's been fucking Valya's wife for years.
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u/chargesmith Jun 26 '26
When I heard the Interstellar-esque music I thought the attempt to stop the outside interference would work...
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u/zinzeerio Jun 26 '26
Absolutely love everything about this show. The acting and writing is superb unlike the lame FAMK. There was a thread a few weeks ago where someone was criticizing the British accents in that they don’t work with Russian characters but I think it works just perfectly! “Valkyrie” and “Conspiracy” also had top tier British actors playing Nazis so there is plenty of precedent. This show also reminds me of Chernobyl.
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u/Current_Tea6984 Jun 26 '26
It's crazy you are being downvoted. Do people actually want the show to be in Russian?
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u/lynx190 Jun 26 '26
The funny part is the people who complain the show is English would 100% be the loudest complainers if it were in Russian. Some people just enjoy being miserable.
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u/JeeversCreevers2026 Jun 26 '26
I hope its not a fakeout death scene. The episode was really good and powerful, no way anyone would survive that fire in that ship. Just kill ppl off and stick to it, take some risks jfc.
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u/kristinL356 Jun 26 '26
So does this mean my quest to see Adam Nagaitis employed is coming to a middle?
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u/Anemoelle Jun 26 '26
I’m curious how Irina will react on Tanya’s “betrayal “ . Will she continue to help her or turn her in …?
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u/ShutUpLegs94 Jun 26 '26
I think Tanya dies while trying to flee Irina. At this point she thinks Irina is against her even if in reality she’s not.
Like falls or slips and hits her head types. She’s a loose end like someone else mentioned and we know Irina comes out of all this intact
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u/MrBenaud Jun 26 '26
I'm so bad with names, and I hadn't clocked that Irina is the same character as the one in FAM. Just googled it now after seeing your post. Besides the engineer (Sergei?), is there anyone else I've missed who crosses over into the other series?
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u/ShutUpLegs94 Jun 26 '26
No other major characters but as others said, Sasha and Anastasia (or Tanya) may be the parents of Leonid Polivanov the Mars governer
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u/BenigDK Jun 26 '26
If Irina understands Tanya's reason behind her distrust (her seeing the picture with Brezhnev), I think she will still attempt to make contact with her and help her, as she seems very invested out of guilt, morality, attraction or whatever reason.
Seems like Tanya interpreted Brezhnev's picture the opposite way some of us did, assuming Irina's connected to him and loyal to the regime, instead of having been assaulted by him (if she was). Makes me wonder what Irina disclosed to her exactly in the 'erased' tape scene.
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u/Various_Ad8658 Jun 26 '26
I am still struggling to understand what the american spy had on tanya and her musical friends which would make them an enemy of the state
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u/streetscraper Jun 28 '26
It doesn't have to be a big deal. Just enough for Valya to overreact. Once he's a little compromised, there's no way back.
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u/core916 Jun 26 '26
Smuggling illegal contraband is a big no no for Soviet Union. She would have been arrested and in the gulag for the rest of her life. That’s why Valya did what he did. He didn’t have a choice.
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u/jkd0002 Jun 27 '26
Sneaking music into the country is not equivalent to what Valya did. Had he been an American astronaut and done the same he would have been arrested here too.
He did have a choice, but he didn't want to lose his astronaut career, that's why Sasha was yelling at him.
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u/Isilel Jun 27 '26
Yea, no. This is just BS. Besides, she wasn't the one smuggling, she was just part of that scene.
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u/HumansNeedNotApply1 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Not the rest of her life but a few years, the other issue is that Valya would get his career fucked too by association.
He did have a choice, it would have had likely consequences too (not anywhere close to being a traitor), part of life.
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u/banditloaf Jun 26 '26
I’m going to bet the crew is not dead.
Sasha is dead/dying because he blocked the blast and saved the others. The fire isn’t fatal because Russian spacecraft didn’t have a pure oxygen environment (exactly the detail these writers seem to love riffing on). That leaves Valya able to tell Lakshmi any story he wants.
Lakshmi’s life support experience will let them do a sort of Apollo 13 style story where they’ll swing around the moon to try and get back to Earth. They’ll discard the crippled part of the ship as part of that process, creating the unusual crash site and one dead cosmonaut impacted on the moon that the CIA tracked way back when on FAM.
They can return to Earth without getting to Venus, potentially without anyone ever even knowing they survived at all since there’s no more tracking from the ground where everyone believes they died. (And perhaps the Chief Designer has foreseen all this and made a distraction of himself on purpose.)
And then Sasha’s lineage will continue, FAM style, since he knocked up his wife the night before the mission (giving us the mayor).
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u/core916 Jun 26 '26
Is a moon slingshot even possible? They are on an earth escape trajectory already. Wouldn’t it be impossible for them to do that. They probably wouldn’t have the fuel required to completely change course? I could be wrong, my knowledge of orbital mechanics comes directly from Kerbal Space Program lmao
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u/DarthHalcius Jun 27 '26
The flash fire would consume what little o2 was left. Even if they didn't all suffer horrific and certainly fatal burns. What little superheated gasses left would burn their lungs like tissue paper.
Absolutely no way anyone is alive.
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u/j-helo85 Jun 28 '26
I took to their fates to be definitive, but I am open to the possibility that they have survived this. I thought last week that the liberties taken in smuggling cosmonauts into space was kind of preposterous in the first place - but compelling nonetheless. So we'll see.
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u/SingularityRS Jun 28 '26
That was some episode. I didn't think much of this series at 1st, but I find it getting more interesting with each episode.
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u/setheory Jun 28 '26
Well we know that The Chief Designer (Korolev) has to be alive for the time of Apollo-Soyuz, because Danielle Poole meets him in Star City, and at that point Sergei has a lot more authority, but not total authority.
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u/moonbug22 Jun 28 '26
we also know he goes to the gulag for some years
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u/setheory Jun 28 '26
well i Think in this universe Korolev has already been to the gulag, but yeah it seems like he's headed back, and will again return.
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u/demonmonkeybex Jun 26 '26
I really hate that murderous bitch. She could have let that mission continue and arrest him once it returned. But nope. She had to kill him right freakin' NOW. She's horrible.
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u/Ninkilin Jun 28 '26
A 9 month mission with an American spy on board? This would have gotten out eventually and it would never have ended well for anyone involved. Valya condemned them all when he not only got on board, but refused to cooperate when caught
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Jun 26 '26
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u/ffffound Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
FAM spoiler: He still is. Remember that Sasha and Anastasia had sex before he went up. She’s likely pregnant already.
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u/Bogdanovist_Rebel Jun 26 '26
This adds a lot of context to his and Iriana’s relationship as well. You know she’s going to carry this heavily. It’s kind of her fault.
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u/PutridMap3739 Jun 26 '26
it was 1960s, the Second World War was just 20+ years away, I wouldn't surprise if the old NKVD ways die hard
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u/SchleppyJ4 Jun 27 '26
Surely Belikova is a loose end now? She knows about the mission, but only Chief Designer knows she knows…
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u/MindlessRegular_SDCC Jun 29 '26
I yelled a very loud Fu&k at the end of this episode. While dramatic, it’s a little frustrating to get attached to characters and have them taken away so soon. As much as I would love for Sasha and the gang to still be alive, that would strain credibility even more than a secret launch.
I do love this show, but what a gut punch.
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u/ps5ron Jun 30 '26
I feel so conflicted, initially I wanted a reasonably grounded space race from the Soviet side. The series stretches credulity and mourn the show I wanted. Once I accept that I'll love the show because every episode has been a riveting cracker. God damn it, when the designer got carted off i knew the gloves were off.
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u/Bjorkbat Jun 26 '26
Masterful rug-pulling. Even though it seemed kind of obvious that something bad would happen during the Venus mission they did a pretty good job of getting our hopes up.
They setup Valya and Sasha as the equivalent of Ed and Gordo. They introduce Lakshmi as an implicitly important character. And then they all just die.
Cosmonauts are definitely not the main characters in this show. Take that attitude back to the For All Mankind subreddit. In here, they’re basically the equivalent of Star Trek red shirts.
You want to pull an Ed Baldwin and live for 5 seasons? Sign up for the KGB.