For All Mankind Season 5 Bounces Back in Episode 4 in a Way That Feels Like the Real Start of the Season

Full spoilers follow for For All Mankind Season 5, Episode 4, which is streaming on Apple TV now. It seems the rebellious spirit of Ed Baldwin (may he rest in peace) has roused the young adults in Happy Valley into doing some crazy, status quo-shattering stuff. If Alex (Sean Kaufman) was concerned about his grandpa’s approval from the great beyond as he shuffled into his new entry-level data-entry job at Helios, he sure needn’t worry now. By the episode’s end, Alex and Lily Dale (Ruby Cruz) — future journalism student at Tulane! — have busted open a corporate conspiracy that would fundamentally decimate the systems and community built to support life on Mars. As Alex discovers in files buried under access-locked protocols in Helios’ database, Helios and Kuragin had entered into a secret agreement to automate work on Mars, replacing 98% of the planet’s personnel. It also means that all of the people displaced by bots (sounds familiar…) would be sent back to Earth. It’s confounding on many levels, in part because it’s a violation of union-agreed protections. But why invest in the food systems — and opening a Domino’s and Starbucks — if they were just going to get rid of the bustling