As you'll undoubtedly recall, the second season of "For All Mankind" culminated with Gordo and Tracy Stevens laying down their lives for the greater good of continued space exploration and international relations between the US and the USSR. Viewers were treated to their entire decision-making process, the development of their makeshift space suits, and their daring and successful dash to the computer panel outside the galley airlock, all of it. In fact, except for Gordo and Tracy themselves, we are the only ones who witnessed the entirety of it. Gordo ended their Not-FaceTime™ call with Molly Cobb to avoid hearing more of her warnings and reminders that it was likely a suicide mission, while everyone else at Jamestown Colony was busy trying to shoot others or attempting not to get shot themselves. The Stevenses didn't leave behind a note of explanation for their sons, and whatever story Commander Rossi and Molly were able to reconstruct isn't the full story.
Since then, everything that's happened—from their nationally televised funeral to the tragic romance of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan in "Love in the Skies" to the commemorative statue of the duct-taped heroes—has attempted to place their story into a definitive, straightforward shape. They loved each other; they drove each other crazy; they were a sensational team who gave their lives for something bigger than themselves.
Season three of "For All Mankind" has been a long-form exercise in unraveling that tidy story. That story has been good enough for most people, but the sons they left behind remain bereft. Danny is psychologically frozen in the moment when he thought he had won Karen's love, only for her to turn around and tell him he was 100% mistaken; Jimmy simply doesn't buy the NASA party line and wants someone to take his skepticism seriously.
Jimmy's best man toast and its withering references to NASA as fundamentally a PR machine that exists to sustain itself, no matter the cost to actual human beings, echo in all of his scenes. The problem with an echo is that if it doesn't come to a natural end quickly, it starts to fold in on itself, becoming a cacophony of undifferentiated noise no one can understand. That's where we find ourselves in "Bring It Down," an episode that reminds us that a story isn't just about the decisions people make but also about the near and far-reaching consequences of those decisions. Jimmy's acquaintances from the "Fuck NASA" rally earlier in the season are now the cornerstone of his social life, and they need him and his casual access to JSC to carry out a new, more daring scheme to expose The Truth. They think they know what that is, but their imagined story isn't any less tidy than the current narrative.Jimmy doesn't seem particularly invested in the most outlandish conspiracy theories espoused by the group's disillusioned Marine and low-key cult leader, but he is very invested in having a genuine group of friends. It's a sweet relief to think that there are people who can appreciate him for his own merits rather than think of him first and foremost as Gordo and Tracy's son. Unfortunately, he's hopped from the frying pan of loneliness to the blazing fire of being brazenly manipulated.
Having fallen like an egg from a tall chicken for Sunny and her Unexpectedly Philosophical Girl Next Door demeanor, Jimmy is now in a deep state of compliance. It's not difficult to convince him to use his superpower of being able to waltz into JSC any time so that Sunny can try to swipe a staff member's security badge. It's heartbreaking that he does so at all, and worse when Sunny & Co. later conduct a little heist to remove Gordo and Tracy's commemorative statue, delivering it to Jimmy as a surprise. He's been having second thoughts about stealing the ID badge, but getting rid of that statue is a meaningful act of friendship. How can he act on second thoughts now?
All along, the Stevens boys have been going off the rails and self-medicating in their own ways to quell the riot of unnameable troubles in their hearts and minds. Jimmy needs people, community, answers, and a big overarching reason for what's happened to his family. Danny just wants to stop feeling so awful. Alone with his thoughts, he's consumed from the inside out by guilt, resentment, rage, love, and longing. Jimmy has joined a cult, while Danny suffers in silence, punctuated by violent outbursts.
On Mars, Danny's worsening drug dependency and Will Tyler's continued existence as a gay man on Mars are both continuing to pose questions about authority and rules. Just as the crews of Phoenix and Sojourner can (and often can't) get around making key decisions without consulting their higher-ups on Earth, so the crews are really only allowing their commanders to command them.
Accordingly, cracks are starting to show. Ed's choices for exercising his authority over Danny are limited to what amounts to either "Go to your room, young man" or "You're losing your rank but still working on this project, Buster." And what's Dani going to do about Will Tyler's quiet defiance, tell her best mechanical engineer not to fix malfunctioning technology that they all need to survive for the next 18 months?
I give both Will and Nick Corrado a lot of credit for how successful they are at maintaining their respective core identities under the extreme conditions of working in a confined space, in a hostile environment, hundreds of millions of miles from home. They're bringing their full selves to work and are figuring out how to make it work in ways that are soul-nourishing to them and don't get in the way of them doing their jobs very competently.
It's intriguing to observe how Danny's most ill-advised choices this season all revolve around his interactions with the endearingly wholesome, open-hearted, and fun-loving Nick. Their initial interactions are marked by interpersonal cruelty (such as tricking Nick into revealing how to hack their computer system so he could view Karen and Ed's video messages), progressing to inexplicably jarring behavior (crushing an annoying but harmless robot dog underfoot while Nick was merely dog-sitting), and culminating in a horrifying catastrophe (deliberately cutting off communications between the water mining site and the Helios base as the mining astronauts plead for assistance to prevent a catastrophic explosion). Throughout, Danny remains uncertain about his true identity—a lovesick mess, an astronaut, a family man, a son of heroes, or a vengeful destroyer intent on undermining the joint Helios-Roscosmos mission to sustain human life on Mars? It must be even more challenging to maintain one's sense of self when one doesn't even know what that self truly is.
Larry and Ellen Wilson believed they knew their true selves, but suddenly they're not doing much better than Danny. Larry, in particular, has become too comfortable with his power and safety, blithely quipping his way through a congressional committee meeting about NASA's relationships with outside contractors and walking directly into a trap. Unprepared for a question about his relationship with a junior White House staffer, he tries to deflect by accusing the committee's chair, Willy Barron, and Democrats in general, of grasping at any opportunity to bring down the Wilson administration. But he can't escape the hook and is maneuvered into perjury, stating under oath that he isn't involved in an extramarital relationship.
Similar to the Whitewater lawsuit against Bill and Hillary Clinton that exposed the former president's history of unwanted advances and illicit relationships with women outside of his marriage, Larry's seemingly insignificant decision to engage in a brief dalliance with a White House aide now poses an existential threat to his wife's administration. The loud and revealing argument between Ellen and Larry in the Oval Office is undoubtedly being recorded by the taping system, which will surely be "absolutely fine" and "nothing to worry about" in upcoming episodes. For now, the most significant outcome of Larry's confession to Ellen is that he leads her to question her entire understanding of why Pam ended their relationship. All these years, Ellen thought Pam left her to resume her relationship with her former partner, Elise, but as Larry puts it, Pam "did for you what you couldn't do for yourself. She knew it was her or your career." The next thing we know, the meticulous, deliberate, and responsible Ellen is taking a spur-of-the-moment side trip to Texas to see Pam. Well, well, well.
