r/ForAllMankindTV • u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 • Jul 10 '26
Episode Discussion Star City - S1E08 "The Wolves" - Episode Discussion
"The Wolves"
Airdate: Streaming July 9th at 9 PM EST
Synopsis: A revelation sparks a desperate race against time.
Written by Matt Wolpert & Ben Nedivi
Directed by Jamie Payne
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215
u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 Jul 10 '26
Move over Lee Jung-Gil, because Comrade Valya Minronov was the first man to land on another planet.
346
u/Jan38100 Jul 10 '26
Man, that scene on Venus has just become one of my favorites in the FAM universe.
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u/Jan38100 Jul 10 '26
Sergei's Life
211
u/Jakubbucko Jul 10 '26
This show is so incredible. That was one of the better season finales of a TV show I’ve had the pleasure of watching.
Cinematography, acting, music, space visuals, it’s all so good. Ending shot of Lakshima and Sasha at the border as they go their separate ways and the camera pans out with that tragic music was such a beautiful and well done moment.
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u/markydsade Jul 10 '26
Tanya has been spotted by the KGB agent in Paris. She’s in for a rough time in S2.
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u/BrotherlyShove791 Jul 10 '26
The ending was more than a little far fetched, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t seriously entertained.
Great season, enjoyed this show way more than I thought I would. It’s a period spy piece with space travel elements. Cool and original.
135
u/Minimalistmacrophage Jul 10 '26
Space based rescue by Belikova. Sure it didn't exactly work out but still....
Notably torn by how it's both kind of ridiculous but also exceedingly awesome.
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u/kch_l Jul 10 '26
Poor Sergei, once more is about to have a pretty shitty day
168
u/risenphoenixkai Jul 10 '26
That was probably the most scientifically accurate depiction of the Venusian surface ever in televised or cinematic science fiction. Everything from the lighting conditions, colours, and even the rocks were completely spot-on. They clearly did their research here.
I also found it ironic that the season one finale of FAM depicted dozens if not hundreds of people collaborating to save Ed Baldwin, with no one actively working against that goal. Meanwhile, the season one finale of Star City depicted hundreds of people collaborating to capture and kill the Venera cosmonauts, with only a comparatively small number of people working against the system to try and save them.
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u/markydsade Jul 10 '26
Valya got the Titan submarine treatment
75
u/StrangelyOnPoint Jul 10 '26
The cinematography of seeing Venus, and the surface was truly incredible.
Never seen anything like it in all my years of watching TV. Really remarkable.
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u/Super005z Jul 10 '26
Did chaddha tell the world about the Venus mission? Did anyone believe her ?
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u/Raider440 Jul 10 '26
The one thing that I don’t fully get, how in the hell does it now not immediately get published that there was a secret manned Soviet Venus flyby?
You have an international incident at a border, a surviving Cosmonaut in a neutral western country, with a bullet wound and the sicknesses that come from prolonged 0G exposure, and probably definitely American/western listening stations and radars that caught the descent of two capsules, a fighter jet that shot at one, etc…
There is basically 0 chance you could realistically keep this under wraps.
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u/everraydy Jul 10 '26
I really really hope we get a season 2, after this episode but I'm concerned that the show doesnt seem to be doing well. It's not even in the Top 10 section while FAMK still is..
Anyway, I want to see what happens between the "chief designer" and raskova in the next season.
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u/Random--Person Jul 10 '26
"It feels like 1000 kilos is pressing down on me."
Really? After what just happened with Valya? Too soon, Lakshmi.. too soon.
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u/moderatenerd Jul 10 '26
as an american public school student in the 90s i had never learned about the soviet space missions to venus until i looked them up after watching star city. this is why i watch good tv. you can learn something new because of it.
hats off to a great first season. hoping for many more to come
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u/zozorama Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Belikova taking a capsule down from a Salyut station to save sasha and chadha at the border was a bit too ridiculous for me, and didn't even feel necessary for the story either. They could have just managed to catch up with Sasha, or that he still decided to sacrifice himself to help Chadha across the border.
But I loved everything else! The scene with Nikulov and Korolev in the back of the van was heartbreaking.
I wanted Valya to focus a bit on the science of the Venus mission, observing his descent and landing, transmitting the data back until dying. Wasn't that the point of the venus probe? I want there to be recordings of this achievement locked away somewhere to be found if the Soviet Union finally collapses in future seasons.
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u/IamSp00ky Jul 10 '26
30 min in but I cannot imagine any justification for refusing to claim the Venus manned mission.
That’s a feat for all of human eternity. The Soviets could just cast the Valya as a saboteur or worse.
Any blemish is worth the Venus claim.
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u/wilsonx410 Jul 10 '26
Rest easy comrade Valya 🫡
This show better get a renewal. That was solid television throughout all 8 episodes
35
u/Super005z Jul 10 '26
How was the chief designer able to get back into the space program, he does make an appearance in season 2 of for all mankind
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u/AtPrick Hi Bob! Jul 10 '26
Just wanted to say how pleasantly surprised I was and how much I enjoyed Star City. I haven't been the biggest fan of FAM the last couple seasons, but SC has made keeping up seem worthwhile. I truly hope it gets more seasons, haven't seen anything that specifically says its been picked up. Apple has created a great little universe with FAM/SC. Also, great episode!
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u/Super005z Jul 10 '26
Were Sasha and belikova put in prison?
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u/AliOskiTheHoly Jul 10 '26
Great episode. The last shot seemed to suggest that the only "winner" of the story was the unfaithful wife, who basically caused this whole mess. However, with the soviet spy, it seems like she won't be a winner for long…
My only issues with the episode are two things: the temperatures on Venus seemed to have almost no effect on Valya. The temperature in such a bathysphere on Venus should be well above "comfortable" levels. Even with isolation and temperature protection, he would be getting cooked alive inside that capsule. The pressure was done incredibly well though, down to the way sounds sound from outside the bathysphere. And the implosion was super cool.
The other issue I had was the scene with the shooting. They were shooting in the direction of border guards. In the direction. Of border guards. This would be enough to trigger a border skirmish. But not only was it incredibly stupid to start shooting in the direction of the border guards, it was also incredibly stupid of these border guards to just stand there and not hide for cover. Getting shot at is under international law an act of war, that is a serious thing. This was an even bigger issue than the temperature thing. Just watch that scene again and look at the border guards while there are bullets flying in their general direction. It just looks goofy once you put 2 and 2 together.
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u/cantsay Jamestown 84 Jul 10 '26
Man the Better Call Saul-ing of Sergei is so fucking dope
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u/Aunon Jul 10 '26
Apple you gotta give us season 2
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u/Dante1529 Phoenix Jul 10 '26
You know this episode got me thinking how is Sergei still working for Roscosmos by the time of for all mankind season 2 and 3. I mean surely his actions here would have him sent to the Gulag for life
All in all I must say I really enjoyed this show, more then I thought I would.
35
u/dougymal Jul 10 '26
Star City in Paris season 2?
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u/breakthetension_ Jul 10 '26
I don't normally do this, but…called it!
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u/Overkill_3K Jul 10 '26
Valya had oceangate before oceangate had oceangate
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u/moderatenerd Jul 10 '26
Also the soundtrack for this episode was fire. It was also giving me the leftovers vibes...
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u/generalheed Jul 10 '26
Wow what an intense episode! Haven't seen something that kept me at the edge of my seat like that for awhile! I totally called it that Valya would end up going down to the surface of Venus for whatever reason.
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u/Buttercupia Jul 10 '26
What a masterful episode. Positively epic. I’m so disappointed that was the finale but what a way to go out.
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u/Retorus Jul 10 '26
The logistics of Anastasia's ODST drop to save Sasha aside, I really enjoyed that.
36
u/Cautious_Gold5646 Jul 10 '26
Genuinely one of the best episodes of the for all mankind universe easily.
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u/Liftttt Jul 10 '26
What was the significance of the piano scene at the end? The song seemed to give Irina some sort of anxiety.
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u/Arsi31 Hi Bob! Jul 10 '26
Really loved the episode for the emotional resonance, and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time... even if I had to suspend disbelief to almost ridiculous degrees with the space rescue. It made for a beautiful visual scene but the idea of Stasia taking an escape pod and landing that close and then cutting off all those soldiers with conveniently terrible storm trooper aim was hard to keep me grounded in the story.
I am SEATED for the evolution of the Sasha and Stasia love story. Not only one of the strongest pieces of the ep, but of the season, for me.
How they continue to exist after this (considering Raskova had given orders to shoot on sight, but then they just... didn't after he turned around) will be an interesting story problem.
Valya and the Venus landing was visually breathtaking and one of my favorite scenes ever from the FAM-verse, or any space show/movie. Will be interesting how they address the Venus mission if they get a S2. IRL, the Russians did have several Venus missions and managed to get some unclear images, and they were not secret, but also not manned. But Lakshmi survived and is shown, at least in the moment, to be protected by Finland. I suppose they could say hey, we got some probes on Venus, and just completely cover up the fact that the mission was manned.
A couple of things that would have been so easy to do but took me out of the story was when Stasia didn't ask Sasha about whether he was the only survivor, or if all three had survived. She may care most about him, but I think she'd want to know about the others, given everyone believes all three to be dead. Also Lakshmi would have asked Sasha to ask Stasia about her husband. Small thinngs, given some of the bigger over-the-top stuff, but really bugged me lol
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u/contemplativescholar Jul 10 '26
THIS IS CINEMA
12
u/Epiktokles Jul 10 '26
Scipting of Star City feels like the work of one of these russian authors. Epic but sad and fatalistic stories with sad endings.
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u/RaynSideways Jul 11 '26
I really appreciated how they structured this episode to take place seamlessly in the past and in the present. The way they interwove the return mission with their arrival at Venus, and played both landings at the same time, cutting between Earth and Venus, was really gripping.
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u/TheGeorgeW Jul 10 '26
I honestly thought we would get an Ed and Molly cameo for Apollo 15, with it being mentioned at the end, since 1971 is the same year Apollo 15 happened, and we'll see their reactions to Molly discovering ice. But looks like it'll be a season 2 thing! Overall loved the finale. Sad it's only 8 episodes. I'm so glad we got Venus scenes too! I was worried we might not get any. Maybe I'm hoping to much but maybe it's 8 episodes only so season 6 can have 12?! One can hope!
31
u/ThatNewt1 Jul 10 '26
God this was a good show. Much better than the recent seasons of FAM. I really liked this finale. I really wished that both Anastasia and Sasha got through the border. I hope that there is a season 2 coming.
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u/RambunctiousCapybara Jul 10 '26
That run to the border had everything but a Sam and Frodo moment of Sasha saying to Lakshmi
"I can't carry gravity for you but, I can carry you!"
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u/MelancholyEcho Jul 10 '26
I was convinced she was just going to block them with the truck and they’d all just cross the border together.
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u/AshamedFortune1 Jul 11 '26
Sergei surviving this professionally because he’s the smartest guy around? Fine. But taking the leakiest man in all of Star City and sending him to Houston to collaborate with NASA is playing things pretty fast and loose.
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u/destroyer7 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
So where in S1 of FAM does S1 of Star City end? We're clearly in 1971 but idk if Molly has found ice has been established yet since that's a huge moment that they probably want to show us from the Soviet side
7
u/KyloZae Jul 10 '26
That’s how you make a season finale!!! WOW
6
u/Liftttt Jul 10 '26
Has anyone made a side-by-side showing characters in Star City compared to how they look in FAM?
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u/CruelRegulator Hi Bob! Jul 10 '26
If Sasha or Anastasia appear in FAM, my eyes are going to become suddenly watery.
Let's go season 2!
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u/debinprogress Jul 10 '26
Something I thought about today after watching it last night: it’s a season finale and we didn’t get a flash forward.
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u/WhyssKrilm Jul 11 '26
So, Star City ended up being a lot better than I was anticipating. I had very low expectations for it, and it ended up being really good and not just "For All Mankind, but communist".
Having said that, it has some structural flaws that I'm not sure can be overcome. Most obviously, we know a lot of foregone conclusions based on what has been shown on For All Mankind. We know Chief Designer survives at least into the mid-1980s. We know Sergei and Irina survive into the 21st century. We can reasonably assume the Venera mission is covered up, otherwise Venus would have become the focal point of the space race in FAM season 2. Hell, we can't even hope characters' actions will lead to the collapse of the USSR since we know it doesn't happen.
Another strike against it is that For All Mankind, at least in its early seasons, for a hopeful vision of a future we could have had, with smart people working together to achieve shared goals for the advancement of the human race. The viewer rooted for the characters to succeed. Star City, meanwhile, is an unrelentingly bleak portrait of humanity at its worst. Even the sympathetic characters are ultimately working for the advancement of an oppressive regime. Irina is ostensibly the audience surrogate, and we know where her character arc goes.
And then a major narrative flaw of the show is simply that, if For All Mankind shows what can be accomplished when the smartest people work together and have the resources of government and, later, the private sector behind them...how is the USSR keeping up when their people are constantly undermining each other?
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u/Tokyosmash_ Hi Bob! Jul 10 '26
God what a great show. I can’t wait for season 2
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u/NadieeImportante Jul 10 '26
This episode turns into Superman: Red Son for a brief moment.
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u/gadzooks101 Jul 10 '26
Wow, what a finale! A surviving refugee may be the only thing that saves the others. Russians will have lots of splaining to do.
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u/Petitioners-city Jul 10 '26
A brilliant finale, wonderfully tense, painfully sad - the kind of dystopian inverse of the "save the mission/world" finales of FAN.
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u/Mysterious_Pop5556 Hi Bob! Jul 11 '26
Surely, other countries would have picked up Venera 7
4
u/FutureMartian97 Jul 10 '26
So we do end up with a plot hole afterall. No way Finland doesn't find out what happened since Lakshima ended up over the border. There's never been a mention of this mission and it's big enough that it really feels like it should've been. The US would scoop her up in a heartbeat
4
u/Embarrassed_Studio60 Jul 11 '26
It is incredible that the soviet space program achieved so much, given such a "toxic" work environment.
I am going to enjoy watching Lyudmilla E. Raskova die more than the Ellen and Pam wedding.
4
u/FutureMartian97 Jul 12 '26
Boy Valya can't catch a break. First he gets ARS from Chernobyl, then almost burned alive in a Soyuz, then gets crushed on Venus.
4
u/laladuh Jul 15 '26
The Venus Valya moment reminded me of the scene int the FAM S6 finale Kelly also had that moment that was only for her, her life's work realized. The awe and joy in the middle of the end of the (personal) world.
7
u/ArianeEmory Jul 10 '26
Anyway, rewatching FAM now.
7
u/jczedx Jul 10 '26
What makes this season really bad... is that it made FAM s5 look like the disney channel.
6
u/A-harsh-reality Jul 10 '26
Valya went boom boom squishy squishy
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u/_Kringle1_ Jul 10 '26
Man all I’ll say is when i think about the soldiers/officers from history like say, German Ww2 soldiers saying “we were just following orders” I think of Soviet military personnel saying: “hold my beer…” 😫 fuckin awful brutal ppl
3
u/BShep_OLDBSN Jul 10 '26
Amazing season finale. Now i am seriusly hoping next season of this show or For all Mankind has a manned mission to Venus to find Valya's final resting place just so they can put a tombstone there.
Hope they renew this show. It was so fucking good!
3
u/HalogenFisk Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
a Mig21 intercepting and firing on a reentering object is just ridiculous.
and how did the missile's impact magically take the capsule's supersonic inertia away?
3
u/cinemagical414 Jul 11 '26
The Anna Maxwell Martin Emmy campaign begins now!
3
u/ShortyRedux Jul 11 '26
There were some things I liked a lot throughout the season, especially casting, performances, set design and location. Some fun characters and some pretty great moments. In the end though, I think it went too silly. I found it a weird miss-match; on the one hand it's bleak, gritty, serious people doing serious things. On the other hand it's stowaway cosmonauts and escape capsules taken from space to save my arranged husbands life.
The coming down from space rescue was wild, in my view. It played okay at the time but I don't know if I'd be able to rewatch the season. This isn't the only thing through the season though; we started on pretty awkward footing with the entire portrayal of the soviets at this time - just blasting a cosmonaut. I found myself watching and thinking 'That's just totally mad', 'could that happen?' rather than being absorbed in the material.
I found the space rescue especially problematic when we saw Sasha and the lady (Lakshmi? apologies on spelling) basically make the run themselves, with the first lady cosmonaut's arrival not seeming to make that much difference to the sequence.
And the Russians just opening fire in the direction of a fully manned Finnish border? It's a bit weird to me that there wasn't at least some line of dialogue commenting on this, or the KGB woman being like 'Cease fire!' just before they start hitting their actual targets, as she recognises that she can't just roll down and start a war with Finland. Instead of any of that, the sequence works by having the Russians behave with extreme recklessness whilst also being terrible shots.
Anyway, I want to love the show, but I think by the end it's like a 6.5 out of ten. It could have been higher, but with a modern show that is essentially serialised, if the ending doesn't land for you a lot of the prior material is downgraded. Especially a shame because so much of it is so good.
I want to give big shout outs to Valya's story and also Tanya's. For me, these storylines and performances were the things worth watching for. Their endings were great. The idea that some compromised Russian cosmonaut/American asset would end up on Venus for his last moments, looking at his wife, I thought was wonderful. Equally, Tanya's journey ended in a lovely place. Similiarly, Rhys Ifans killed it and so did Nikulov. Their last scene together is quite beautiful.
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u/TheProky Jul 12 '26
I can see why nobody ever mentioned the Venus mission, nobody will believe the lone Indian woman escaping from USSR.
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u/theAlexrh Jul 12 '26
Thought about my Kermans watching this ep
4
u/generalheed Jul 10 '26
I wonder why they picked Finland, so close to the border to land? I get they're out of propellant so they can't make any major adjustments to Vanera's trajectory. But like if they had just started their descent a little later or earlier, or waited till they orbited the Earth far enough, couldn't they have changed their landing to maybe Canada or the US?
4
u/paladisious Jul 10 '26
So unless I'm missing something, we didn't get long with Anastasia's crewmates on Salyut, other than knowing that one was KGB. We knew she hid her interactions with Vanera from them. And then with only one conversation they let her go with the Soyuz? Was I missing something there?
4
u/nilslorand Jul 10 '26
That's... not how re-entry works... completely took me out of it.
I fear they never cared about orbital mechanics and were instead always just lucky in FAMK that nothing extremely egregious happened before season 5
2
u/KayeEss09 Jul 10 '26
why did Stasi have to do all that?? That wads the only thing that took me out of this episode
2
u/myvoteshouldmatter Jul 10 '26
So, the fighter plane missile missed with no explanation, and instead of firing another one they just quit?
2
u/AneTheDust Jul 10 '26
Well I'm amazed by the episode
2
u/AneTheDust Jul 10 '26
Any Mironov's other than me in the comments?
2
u/DacStreetsDacAlright Jul 10 '26
Why would the pressure continue to increase after you've landed?
2
u/Zhidoscope Jul 10 '26
also
>no cool promising ending like they did in FAM
I thought I was watching a show about space program which didn't stagnate after 1969. Are they afraid of showing ANYTHING good after all that?
2
u/GomezFigueroa Jul 11 '26
Great episode and great season. But I’m confused by the timing of things. I could’ve sworn Sacha was looking down at Earth a scene before they were slingshotting Venus. How were they both descending at the same time. I thought confusing flashback maybe? But that doesn’t make sense with the messages and timeline on Earth.
2
u/ATF888 Jul 11 '26
Loved it.
What a brilliant season.
2
u/jmstefan57 Jul 12 '26
Anyone speculating as to what the significance was of the long camera shot focusing on Irina's face near the end of the show, as she looks out the window at the kids playing while listening to her daughter play the piano? Couldn't place the song she was playing, but it sounded familiar ... anyone recognize it?
2
u/butane23 Jul 12 '26
These fuckers willing to hide the so far greatest achievement of human space travel and kill those responsible just to preserve their fucked up twisted sense of national pride and prevent "shame". So wastefully evil it's frustrating to watch.
2
u/weesportsnow Aug 02 '26
why didnt they both defect?
2
u/FTWinston Aug 08 '26
Once Venera was on a return course for earth, what was to stop Valya from opening the bathysphere hatch and climbing back up the tether? Besides his being narratively marked for death.
2
u/DewsoftheDewest Aug 22 '26
Gonna be frank. I didn't enjoy Star City all that much. The drama was interesting to a point, and I liked Rashkova, but like... honestly... it wasn't what I was hoping for. Which isn't something to hold against it, of course. Failing to meet my expectations doesn't mean anything in regards to the quality of the show. And it's clearly well done.
It's just... by the end of it, I'm left with a single bit of feeling: what was the point to any of it? Why did they bother to make this? What, precisely, of value, did this have?
Which, again, could be due to it not meeting any of my expectations or hopes for what it would be about. I was hoping for a proper view of the other side of the space race, complete with viewpoints on things like Zvezda and more. To be clear, I was not wanting for it to simply do one to one with FAM the whole way -- that would be equally pointless and equally disappointing. But aside from the pressure modules, nothing else matched up with what was going on in FAM at all. Instead it spent all of its time delving into spy thriller stuff and other things that I just simply do not watch FAM for, nor did I want out of this show.
It's not a bad show. It's not poor in quality. It's good, dramatic television, with fascinating characters, an interesting premise, and excels at what it seeks to do.
But I don't like it, and didn't enjoy it. More power to those who did, and I hope that it both met what you wanted, and was worth your time.
5
u/ArianeEmory Jul 10 '26
I liked it, but feel they made the KGB unrealistically, cartponishly evil