Once again, we're enveloped in an episode that oscillates between tentative hopefulness and guarded suspicion, both in interpersonal dynamics and in the realm of international relations. A group of Soviets—engineers, cosmonauts, and a cluster of anonymous political apparatchiks—have arrived in Houston to great fanfare. The Americans are behaving like golden retrievers of world culture, with smiles plastered on their faces as a marching band plays peppy tunes to honor their guests. The Soviets, on the other hand, are considerably more reserved. They could even be described as playing hard to get, an impression only reinforced by their flat, grudgingly accepting to actively hostile responses to the mission approach Margo lays out in their first big meeting. The cosmonauts must not be referred to as astronauts, and they must be given the (ornamental) honorifics of Cosmonaut One and Cosmonaut Two. Sure, fine, whatever. They also want the mission referred to as Soyuz-Apollo rather than Apollo-Soyuz. Okaaaaaay. Most significantly, they do not, cannot, and will not assent to a docking mechanism that visually suggests their ship is the passive recipient of the equipment NASA's ship is using to dock with theirs. Good-faith negotiations on vital yet trivial details! We love it!
Following the absurd meeting, Margo wonders aloud how NASA can be expected to have a successful mission under these conditions. Bradford immediately responds that they won't: The Soviets will stall and make petty demands knowing the Americans will eventually do some stonewalling of their own, and then the Soviets can throw up their hands and return home. This is exquisite, a shining example of peak bureaucracy.
Outside the uncomfortable formalities of that day's meeting, informal conversations between individual people yield much more promising results. After realizing they can't make any progress on an acceptable and functional docking system for Apollo-Soyuz-Apollo, Margo and Sergei hold a secret rendezvous at 11:59 at the jazz club where Margo is the pianist in a trio performing that night. Sergei recognizes immediately what a gesture of trust this is on Margo's part, making it possible for the conversation to turn quickly from toasting shared secrets to the horrors of a war that Sergei believes is inevitable between the U.S. and the USSR. These two don't have the flashiest jobs, but they are the ones who will make or break this mission, and they're very invested in contributing something worthwhile to help calm relations between their home countries. Sergei gets a flash of inspiration from the radioactivity symbol on their drinks coasters, and the totally androgynous interlocking petals docking system begins to emerge. With Aleida's crucial input on incorporating shock absorbers, by Jove, they've got it!
Dani and Stepan set up their own adventures in one-on-one international relations at the Outpost over shots of Jack Daniels and delve into finding substantive common ground rather than the happy-face talking points both of their governments expect them to stick to. Unsurprisingly, that proves very difficult; each of them is such a product of their respective cultures and political systems that being a pilot and going to space are the only qualities they have in common.
A few shots in, Stepan quietly mentions that he had gotten to hold Laika, the dog that was the first living creature from Earth to venture into space. Dani's face lights up as Stepan describes Laika's winning personality—she was assessed as being spirited but balanced and adaptable to new situations, all crucial qualities for any species embarking on space travel. However, her joy fades into sadness when Stepan reveals that the legend of Laika dying peacefully in her sleep while in orbit is a lie. There was a malfunction with one of the systems in her spacecraft, and she died in pain. But her story is too important and powerful as a foundational myth for the USSR's space program for the truth to be widely known. Dani tries to frame Laika as an example of making a noble sacrifice for the motherland and the people she loved, but Stepan won't have it. He'd rather sit with the contrast between his affectionate memories and the bleak reality of her death. Left unspoken is the knowledge they share that when they're talking about Laika, they're also talking about themselves and the expectations of service and self-sacrifice they may be held to in the name of either providing justification for or preventing a war.
Elsewhere, Kelly is getting a head start on her application to the U.S. Naval Academy by drafting her admissions essay. Ed's casual suggestion that she just tell them who she is triggers a cascade of existential questions: Okay, who is she? What makes her a Baldwin? How might her life be unfolding now if she had not been placed for adoption? What if she had been adopted by another family in the U.S. or one in Vietnam?
Kelly knows she's a Baldwin by a series of events she had no hand in: being in an operation airlifting women and children out of Saigon in 1972, being placed in an adoption center in Houston, not having been adopted earlier so she was there when Ed and Karen decided to pursue adoption after Shane's death. The love between Kelly and her parents is deep and sincere, and at the same time, Kelly's feelings about her presence and role in the Baldwin family are deeply contradictory. Kelly presses Ed and Karen on the story of her adoption and learns some details she probably should already have been privy to: Ed and Karen, in the depths of their grief for Shane, were in a trial separation with Ed living at a local hotel. The news about Operation Babylift, which brought Kelly to Houston from Vietnam, prompted them to talk on the phone more and eventually visit the adoption center where Kelly was living.
Kelly summarizes all she's heard with a reductive but by no means unfair observation/question: "So I was your Band-Aid." In their haste to be reassuring, Karen's response that Kelly was really their heart transplant is quite revealing. Again, in their attempts to move past their grief and to make sure Kelly knows how much they love her, Ed and Karen have inadvertently placed a crushing burden on their daughter. No child is responsible for the health of their parents' relationship! I recall vividly that adoption was a taboo subject in the '80s—there was even a very special episode of Family Ties about it—and Karen and Ed have worked hard to get to their current place of more emotional openness than they were capable of nine years ago. Unfortunately, it seems they've missed a couple of crucial steps. The Baldwins have gone this long without at least a couple of more frank conversations with Kelly about Shane and grief and, unsurprisingly for the time, haven't taken any steps to help Kelly connect with her original cultural and racial identity. The transition she's navigating from the family myth (rooted more in being comforting than the truth) to a new self-understanding is abrupt and dramatically shifts her perspective on her entire existence. After scrapping the first few sentences of her admissions essay, Kelly summarizes herself as "the genetic daughter of people I have never met." It's as much a mission statement for Kelly herself as it is an introduction to the admissions committee at Annapolis.
Rewatching this episode, I realized that it's jam-packed with tropes from romance novels. Who knows if it was intentional, but it works. Dani and Stepan have a sincere conversation about one thing that is also about another thing. Sergei and Margo have a secret rendezvous. Ellen and Pam decide to take a second chance at love (more on this in the next recap). And then there's the mother lode: Gordo and Tracy. Let's get into it!
As Jimmy and Tracy fondly reminisced during their virtual birthday celebration, their laughter echoed with the memory of Gordo's culinary mishaps. Jimmy dryly quipped, "He baked a cake and then bought another cake... we destroyed all the evidence," painting a vivid picture of their shared past before Gordo's parents' divorce. Gordo, initially overhearing, then eavesdropping on their conversation, his face flickering with a mix of agony and hope.
The show's love for narrative symmetry led Gordo to ponder Tracy's missed connection outside, gazing fondly at the moon, unaware that Tracy was doing the same from her little window at Jamestown. A mutual pining, unknown to both? A second chance at love? A potentially record-breaking long-distance relationship? The checks were all in order!
Gordo, now fully invested, drew upon reserves of previously unimagined courtliness to visit Tracy and Sam's mansion to inform Sam, calmly and in person, of his intention to win Tracy back while he's on the moon. Where did this Regency romance hero emerge from? What prompted this sudden display of frank gentlemanliness? How does his wealth compare to that of Mr. Darcy or Lord Bridgerton?
Despite these little japes aside, Gordo and Tracy's character development here is both welcome and earned. It's lovely to see, in this perhaps romance plot, the character pining the most being the notoriously unfaithful hotshot pilot who, perhaps too late but with a newfound understanding of the value of the love he lost, now goes to the moon for Tracy. For her alone, he thinks and plans.
