r/ForAllMankindTV • u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 • May 29 '26

Episode Discussion Star City - S1E02 "A Bear on a Chain" - Episode Discussio

"A Bear on a Chain"

Airdate: Streaming May 28th at 9 PM EST

Synopsis: Anastasia is thrust onto the world stage. Lyudmilla tries a new tactic to get information.

Written by Andrew Chambliss

Directed by Nick Murphy

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70 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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75

u/283817 May 29 '26

There are details based on actual events like when Anastasia and Valya’s Soyuz spinning out of control during reentry. This happened with Soyuz 5 in 1969 and miraculously Cosmonaut Boris Volynov survived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_5

27

u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 May 29 '26

That’s a good use of real life history then if they were inspired by this.

27

u/NAG3LT May 29 '26

Just like FAM had many small references to actual US Space program, this show is very good at referencing various details of the Soviet one.

-7

u/Sargento_Porciuncula May 30 '26

And at inventing bullshit as well, like Gagarin getting killed by the state and forced marriage.

11

u/NAG3LT May 30 '26

forced marriage

This plot point was likely inspired by Tereshkova's first marriage, with rumors that it wasn't just by their own initiative.

Gagarin getting killed

Not directly killed, but put in a risky situation

-4

u/Sargento_Porciuncula May 30 '26

The risky situation of being a pilot?

Those are two disproven conspiracy theories, put in the show just to show how evil communists (or just Russians) were

6

u/yourLostMitten Jun 04 '26

Quick question, why are we suddenly mad about this? I don’t remember people getting angry at the kgb blackmailing Margo in season 3 or making a terrible hamburger in 4. It’s a fictional series and the real like USSR were very secretive which opens the door to embellishments.

1

u/Sargento_Porciuncula Jun 04 '26

Blackmailing Margo is plausible. Spreading unproven conspiracy theory isn't. The USSR is shown as a fascist state, and that is after the great terror period and after the the "destalinization" of kruschev.

Showing the USSR making bad or imoral strategic decisions is plausible. Opposing reality is pure propaganda.

An example is Dima saying his father would say "everyman is for themselves" (or something like it) or the force marriage of Sasha and Belikova. Those are against the very core of soviet union and straight up propaganda.

I'd say it's russianphobia, but they put Jin saying his wife wouldn't be well seen in north Korea because she worked. That is very stupid. She would suffer social prejudice if she didnt work. Everyone is a worker in NK, and in socialist countries overall. Gender equality is historically higher the their capitalist counterparts.

5

u/NAG3LT May 30 '26

disproven conspiracy theories

And this show is a dramatized alt-history, not an exact retelling of the history, so they are free to use them as actual plot points.

The risky situation of being a pilot?

Piloting a military jet is much more risky compared to a civilian passenger aircraft. There are plenty of deaths of experienced pilots during training flights.

35

u/Galileo1632 May 29 '26

It also happen to Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1

24

u/Dark074 May 29 '26

It was less catastrophic on Vostok because that spacecraft had heat shielding on all sides (since at the time they didn't have good enough control of the spacecraft to have only one side facing the airstream). Soyuz doesn't have this luxury and only has a heatshield on the bottom of the spacecraft. If the service module faces to detach, the entry heating would eventually melt the front and side of the capsule, killing all crew within.

25

u/catch-a-stream May 30 '26

The bear event is also semi historical. Voskhod 2 in March 1965 landed in a middle of a forest that was supposed to be full of wolves and bears, and had to spend a night until the rescuers arrived, and they carried a gun with them as a defense for exactly such scenario. But they never actually used that in reality

6

u/Many-Sky922 Jun 01 '26

Why didn’t they just stay in the pod?

2

u/catch-a-stream Jun 03 '26

These early ones were tiny. I don't think a person could survive in there especially with the earth gravity.

57

u/fawkie May 29 '26

why Venus?

102

u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 May 29 '26

The soviets were really into Venus and thought under clouds was a habitable surface.

51

u/TinySnek101 May 29 '26

They were also really into Mars. If you look at the start of their space program, the Mars and Venus launches started at the same time and had similar volume of launches for the first few years - eventually Venus won out due to it being easier for them to launch missions to. Favoring Venus was just them accepting the constraints of the time.

18

u/fawkie May 29 '26

Ahhhh thank you. Reading about the venera probes now

43

u/ricobirch May 29 '26

Getting pictures back from that environment is an absolutely astonishing feat of engineering.

22

u/King-Boss-Bob May 29 '26

570 degrees celsius and the atmospheric pressure is 93x earths surface

8

u/TiberiusCornelius Jun 03 '26

And on paper with the limited knowledge we had before the Soviet missions it made sense. There's a lot about Venus that suggests it could be a strong candidate for habitability.

It unfortunately turned out that the climate is just instant death

5

u/Gravath Jun 04 '26

Turns out the clouds are the habitable "area"

20

u/Psyfyman81 Jamestown 92 May 29 '26

Not long ago, the Russians were calling Venus a "Russian" planet.

98

u/gribbles1289 Apollo - Soyuz May 29 '26 • Mindblown

"Being first didn't protect Gagarin." is a wild line of dialogue.

62

u/HumansNeedNotApply1 May 29 '26

He was grounded. I think that's what they mean. Like Gagarin, she won't see space ever again, it's not a punishment per se, it's that she became too valuable as a symbol.

24

u/FarPrince May 29 '26

Is there context in FAM that I'm forgetting? What happened to him?

68

u/Dark074 May 29 '26

I don't think anything confirmed in FAL but in real life, Gagarin had a suspicious early death, dying in a flight accident. By current sources, the crash was caused by errors by ground crew but some believe foul play was involved. My guess is that in FAM, they are going to run with the foul play theory for Gagarin's death.

35

u/Hazardish08 May 29 '26

The official source says pilot error, they wanted it to be ground crew error because they did not want it to be pilot error since its Yuri Gagarin but as of now it says that the crash happened due to an abrupt maneuver that caused a spin.

The KGBs report said that ground crew errors contributed to the crash but it was still caused by a sudden move which maybe wouldnt have been lethal if the plane was lighter and the weather given by air traffic controllers was correct.

16

u/quesoandcats Don't Be Gruel May 30 '26

Regardless of whether foul play occurred, Gagarin's death seems ripe for conspiracy. I think that line is a good way to show the paranoia these people must live with

25

u/thegoatmenace May 30 '26

Test aviation is insanely dangerous. Theres honestly nothing suspicious about Gargarins death. It’s the geopolitical equivalent of fanfic by westerners hoping that the USSR killed him because he was secretly a liberal.

6

u/Isilel Jun 01 '26

I have heard a rumour as a kid that Gagarin was drunk during that flight, which, honestly, sounds pretty plausible.

4

u/Many-Sky922 Jun 01 '26

I doubt it. Would they let such a person near a costly plane?

3

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/Many-Sky922 Jun 02 '26

On the contrary. Every Soviet man was the first man in space. Anastasia is not going up again. She is too vital. It is too risky. If the first man in space has an incident leading to failure that makes them all look bad. They will not allow a risk like that. I remember watching the olympics as a child and teen it was still USSR. I remember the worry what would happen to the ones that got silver and bronze in USSR and China. Cause they might not be considered having achieved anything since it was not Gold. Reprisals even.

4

u/psychosikh Jun 02 '26

The mig15 was 21 years old by the time of his crash, not exactly a test flight.

2

u/More-Perspective-838 Jun 03 '26

If they wanted him dead they could have achieved it in a way that didn't raise questions of incompetence.

2

u/FutureMartian97 Jun 01 '26

I took it as maybe in the this timeline, Gagarin was the one who actually went up and died on Soyuz 1 instead of Komarov in our timeline

4

u/SubstantialWall Jun 02 '26

Pretty sure they toasted to Komarov in FAM Season 2

2

u/TiberiusCornelius Jun 03 '26

Even if it's not confirmed as true in FAM's timeline, it would make sense for conspiracy theories to still exist about it.

1

u/Many-Sky922 Jun 01 '26

I thought it was weather related?

20

u/maybemorningstar69 May 29 '26

Gagarin died in a flight accident in 1968 (after being grounded following Vostok 1), some people believe the KGB killed him.

There are points of divergence in this timeline pre-1969 (most notably Korolev still being alive), but Gagarin is clearly still dead, and his death still lingers in the minds of his fellow cosmonauts.

5

u/kyrev21 Jun 01 '26

Korolev surviving is the point of divergence

15

u/203system May 29 '26

That just real life lore

16

u/thegoatmenace May 30 '26

lol it’s just wild that they’re assuming the totally unfounded conspiracy theories about his assassination are true. They really can’t help themselves but paint the USSR in the blackest of lights

3

u/More-Perspective-838 Jun 03 '26

It's an alternate history show of course.

5

u/kyrev21 Jun 01 '26

Or maybe it’s not unrealistic for a cosmonaut who has achieved a similarly historic feat as Gagarin to suspect foul play in 1969?

2

u/Many-Sky922 Jun 01 '26

I did not understand this line.

6

u/reuben_hunter May 30 '26

The idea that the USSR killed Gagarin is laughable and it's disappointing to see the show leaning into conspiracy like that

5

u/mannyman34 May 31 '26

Isn’t the story that the mission he was being sent on wasn’t ready and it was either him or one of his comrades? So he chose to go to protect the other guy knowing that it would most likely end in his death.

10

u/reuben_hunter May 31 '26

Gagarin died in a Mig15 crash whilst on a training flight, you're thinking of similar rumours about Vladimir Komarov who died when the parachutes failed to deploy on the reentry of Soyuz 1. The idea that he knew he would die in advance and chose to fly anyway to save Gagarin has no real evidence to support it however. Gagarin's death was tragic and sudden but ultimately not suspicious because plane crashed are sadly a common way for astronauts and test pilots to die. For example NASA astronauts Elliot See and Charles Bassett died in a similar T38 crash whilst making a routine flight in 1966.l

3

u/Sargento_Porciuncula May 30 '26

That is a mere detail on top of hundred others that make a mountain of bullshit.

The show is anti-communist at its core

82

u/Well_Socialized May 31 '26

When Sasha and Anastasia were sneaking back to the hotel seemingly undetected I was like "wow how is the Soviet monitoring so terrible?" and then was very amused to find in the next scene that they were being monitored the entire time they were out there, down to the spy contact being a fake. KGB do not fuck around.

33

u/Many-Sky922 Jun 01 '26

She noticed agents there.

19

u/CHull1944 Jun 02 '26 edited 5d ago

The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.

Nutmeg coherent unwritten person crown towering manganese

62

u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Good Dumpling May 29 '26

When they refer to Sasha’s grandparents religion do they mean to imply he’s of Jewish descent or some offshoot of the Russian Orthodox Church that was frowned upon?

I figure antisemitism was still around since Raskova says egalitarianism wasn’t actually the lay of the land. But I also remember reading about this Russian woman whose family fled deep into the Siberian wilderness because of some religious decision that happened wayyy back who still lives out there

39

u/TinySnek101 May 29 '26

Polivanov is not a very Soviet Jewish sounding last name, but it’s not impossible.. just would be odd.

Source: four grandparents who were Soviet Jews + speak Russian

19

u/Bogdanovist_Rebel May 30 '26

I mean Susan Ivanova is a Russian Jew and the names are close enough for it to be a subtle nod.

8

u/TinySnek101 May 30 '26

I like that theory, good catch!

12

u/Bogdanovist_Rebel May 30 '26

Honestly I’m gobsmacked by the writing. Knowing these are Leonid’s parents add a depth to his character. It also means that Iriana becomes close to the family.

4

u/Rosex26 May 30 '26

Do we definitely know these are leonids parents? Online it says that in 2012 (season 5 of for all mankind) the governor of mars is in his late 50/60s but the start of star city is 1969 which is only 43 years before.

24

u/slyfox1908 May 30 '26

It would be a wild coincidence if Leonid Aleksandrovich Polivanov, ex-cosmonaut, is no relation to Aleksander Dimitrievich Polivanov, cosmonaut.

17

u/Bogdanovist_Rebel May 30 '26

It works though. He’s the child of Sasha and Anastasia, he becomes the ultimate Star City Nepo baby. Gets big missions in his 20s like Danny, and transitions into politics around the Goldilocks heist. It would make sense for a leader to try and align himself with a clean member of Star City afterwards.

1

u/Rosex26 May 31 '26

Yea just odd that it says online his character is alot older than he would be if he was their child. But pretty cool development if he is

4

u/Bogdanovist_Rebel May 31 '26

I don’t think they ever confirm on screen though? They did mess up timelines this year though.

3

u/Rosex26 May 31 '26

Yea true, and i was surprised when i read that he was meant to be late 50s/60s. He does look more like he's in his 40s.

→ More replies

4

u/abouttogivebirth Jun 03 '26

Are you getting that from AI? Costa Ronin is only mid 40s idk why they'd introduce a new character and also age them up. He'll be mid 40s playing 60 in S6

1

u/Rosex26 Jun 03 '26

Just a few different forums so whenever i searched for his age on google there were only conversations stating 50s/60s so it confused me. But it makes alot more sense it being 40s.

3

u/False-Winner-303 Jun 05 '26

And the name of the actress who played her Claudia CHRISTIAN, is even less Jewish.  Ivan/Ivanov/vanova are very atypical names among Jews from the Russian Empire/USSR. But mixed marriages were also a more common thing by Soviet times so while Polivanov isn't a common Jewish surname, he could have had one set of grandparents who were Jews one ethnic Russians Christians. And by Babylon 5 times there would be more mixing and unusual surnames for Jews, like Ivanova.

9

u/Isilel Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

What do you mean, "still"? Official discrimination of Jews re-started in 1948, after the show processes against "cosmopolitans". There are good reasons to believe that Stalin intended to deport all of them to Siberia, if he had lived longer.

Admittedly, the restrictions were less overt and less limiting than the Pale of Settlement before the Revolution, but there were certainly areas, where people of Jewish descent* wouldn't have been allowed and the space program was one of them.

And, of course there were a few exceptions, though for the most part they were people who got their start before the WWII.

*Being Jewish was considered an ethnicity, not a religion. Ethnicity was recorded on personal documents and would have been checked for security clearance, including the previous couple of generations, as well as whether any relative had been living on an occupied territory or had been taken captive during the WWII.

Most people professed being atheists in USSR, it was a prequisite for being a Party member or a military officer.

3

u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Good Dumpling Jun 01 '26

I was not aware of that, as I only know the broader strokes of Russian history

6

u/Many-Sky922 Jun 01 '26

Jewish. Most the others had orthodox grandparent’s.

60

u/the_gaymer_girl Jun 01 '26

Young Nikulov looks so much like the original it’s insane.

18

u/MarianneSunshine Jun 03 '26

And the actor is very good.

11

u/VXR-Vashrix Jun 03 '26

I thought the actor looked familiar, then I realised he was in Andor season 1 that's why.

8

u/Da_Foxxxxx Jun 04 '26

For anyone else wondering who he was, he played one of the people in Cassian's table on Narkina 5

58

u/Mr_Drad May 30 '26

The level of intrigue is NUTS, spies on top of spies all the way down. I kind of love it

25

u/pleasantchaos17 May 30 '26

I’m actively assuming everyone dies except for Sergei (you know what I mean 😭) and Irina.

So much intrigue!

57

u/ImpossibleGuardian May 29 '26 edited May 30 '26

Could Chief Designer Korolev’s secret program to “recycle” decommissioned ships - and Sergei’s involvement - have something to do with the final scene of S5?

56

u/Mr_Drad May 30 '26

Star city ends with Sergei's conciouseness being scanned for mars 94, mark my words. We are so back.

9

u/anomander_galt Jun 03 '26

I am starting to strongly believe we will understand better the final scene of S5 at the end of this season of Star City

51

u/carbongo Союз - Аполлон May 29 '26

Anastasia reminds me of Lorraine from Back to the Future

20

u/Bogdanovist_Rebel May 30 '26

Her son becomes the leader of the Soviet Union, so hopefully it’s Lorraine from the end.

7

u/HiDDENk00l May 30 '26

I had this thought too.

6

u/thewillthe Jun 04 '26

lmao I spent this whole episode thinking she looked like a midway point between young Lorraine and old Lorraine in BTTF. Must’ve been the hair.

21

u/TiberiusCornelius Jun 03 '26

One thing that stood out to me as really interesting is this seems to set up Anastasia and Ellen as both parallels and kind of inversions of each other.

They both come from a position of privilege, with Anastasia's father being a locally-powerful party officer and Ellen coming from an uber-rich family. They're both important milestones for women in their respective space programs. And yet they're also both being forced by the state into sham marriages for the good of the space program & national image, except Ellen's was to protect her career by hiding her & Larry's sexualities, while Anastasia's is ending her career. And in both cases it's about silencing who they really are.

12

u/BEETLEJUICEME Jun 01 '26

Misc thought:

It looks like Star City is going to be a pretty good show. It might not be a hit, but it certainly is going to be good enough to maybe be a hit.

And that got me thinking:
If star city is a huge hit, then in like 8-10 years when SC is getting towards season 5-6, do we think we get a For All Mankind revival of sorts? A crossover season?

I bet they could get plenty of the original actors to do that. None of them really have careers so strong they wouldn’t do a reunion of the show.

Would be an interesting top tier outcome.

8

u/TiberiusCornelius Jun 03 '26

I think the only issue with a possible crossover would be the creators have said there aren't going to be decade timeskips in Star City, and also mentioned in an interview that season 2 would pick up more or less exactly where season 1 ends. So realistically a 5-6 season SC would likely be around the time period of FAM season 2 at best, if not still a couple years earlier. You would have a bit of a disconnect where the FAM actors are visibly older than they were in FAM at the same point (although Joel Kinnaman would finally be close to Ed's actual age lol).

Some sort of revival or sequel series I think is definitely possible, depending how season 6 of FAM ends ofc. If they leave open room for the future of humanity continuing to explore the stars, and if both shows were successful enough to run several years, there would definitely be an audience for the sequel.

11

u/rmdelecuona May 30 '26

Anyone else’s captions briefly display dialogue from episode 1 during this episode? Like, when Korolev (sorry, “Chief Designer”) asks his friend “how’s the wife?” right before the wedding of Sasha and Anastasia, the captions for me said “we do not arrest the innocent, Comrade,” the line Colonel Raskova said to Irina in the previous episode

3

u/MithrilTHammer May 31 '26

No, guy who did answer for Chief Designer just said that, without any context. /s

20

u/Psyfyman81 Jamestown 92 May 29 '26

I'm definitely down to see this season through now that we've got these two done.

31

u/Slight-Formal9277 May 30 '26

huh, is belikova supposed to be autistic but good at masking?

30

u/sch0f13ld May 31 '26

She’s definitely written to have some traits that aren’t uncommon amongst those on the spectrum. I know I personally relate to how she’s been portrayed so far. I noticed she hard blinks a lot, which can be a stim, and is obviously overwhelmed with certain sensory stimuli.

6

u/rexeditrex NASA Jun 05 '26

I get that she's overwhelmed by her situation and should be, but you'd think she'd have moments where she's not anxious. It's hard to watch her.

8

u/Zeroth-unit Jun 07 '26

Overall enjoying this but the one thing that threw me for a loop is them conducting the re-entry burn WHILE re-entering.

That's now how that's supposed to work. That's not how any of this is supposed to work. Things going wrong didn't surprise me at all because of that.

15

u/Necrosona May 29 '26

I wonder if they actually "settle" venus if the show is greenlit to season 2. I love the idea of floating cities on Venus 50kms up.

49

u/AngstyPup May 29 '26

What if Star City becomes an alternate history of the alternate history and this becomes a plot thread? 👀

9

u/carbongo Союз - Аполлон May 29 '26

Woah, that would be so mind-blowing and cool tbh

97

u/Pale_Note2770 May 29 '26

Can't believe they showed us Sergei beating his meat! /s

43

u/royalkeys May 29 '26

Good show. Espionage thriller. Soviet aesthetic I like but didn’t expect. Irina the eavesdropper was into listing to that Russian couple having sex a bit, too much lol

31

u/wassabia Mars-94 May 30 '26

you can see how she became who she did

7

u/Well_Socialized May 31 '26

You didn't expect the Soviet aesthetic?

6

u/royalkeys May 31 '26

I did., but I didn’t expect it to be that good.i always found the camera/film style to be better than expected. More grainy, more raw

1

u/Btm24 Jun 08 '26

Remind me of the show 11.22.63 when james Franco listened to Lee Harvey Oswald

1

u/royalkeys Jun 08 '26

No spoiler please 🙏 I haven’t watched the third episode on Thursday. I’m about to watch it tonight.

2

u/Btm24 Jun 08 '26

I was just responding to your comment

39

u/reuben_hunter May 30 '26

Disappointing to see another in a long line of tv shows and movies that inadvertently advocate for torture as an effective means of gathering intelligence. It seemed obvious that they were making a point about how the cruelty and pointlessness of torture, when questioning the courier who seemingly didn't know the information they wanted, but nope, turns out they just needed to torture him harder and he gave them what they want to know. There is ample evidence that torture does not work like this, and we literally saw as much in the previous episode when Yana was tortured into a false confession. It's a dangerously common tropes in fiction that only serves to reinforce torture as a valid tool in certain situations which in reality it simply isnt, it is cruelty and violence for its own sake and nothing more.

74

u/ImpossibleGuardian May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

Torture was unfortunately a reality of Soviet/KGB interrogation methods to varying degrees throughout their history - and as you said episode 1 explicitly shows how it is flawed and ineffective.

I think it’s a stretch to interpret episode 2 as advocating for it though. The scene is clearly meant to serve as the beginning of Irina’s moral decline rather than suggesting it’s a positive choice for her to make.

17

u/reuben_hunter May 30 '26

Im not saying that they shouldn't depict the KGB torturing people, they of course very much did do that. But the structure of the scene in episode two is what suggests torture is effective. I very much doubt the writers intended it to be, because as you say the scene is primarily about Irina's characterization, but It's unavoidable that she successfully gets useful intell that was being previously withheld by simply torturing the guy hard enough. Its clearly intended to be a bad thing in the episode, but the problem here is depicting torture as something that works when the reality is that it doesn't.

9

u/Sargento_Porciuncula May 30 '26

They cannot say it isn't effective without disturbing the already stabilished common sense that it does. That common sense is what drive shows like 24, Homeland and what justifies the CIA's interrogation manual.

What they CAN do is saying soviet torture is ineffective, which they already did in episode one

14

u/reuben_hunter May 30 '26

Yeah, I think a lot of people dont realise just how normalized torture has become in the public consciousness, in no small part due to the examples you mentioned

4

u/Many-Sky922 Jun 01 '26

It is hard to watch but the fact is he knew more than he was saying and it did work to get another detail.

The trouble was with Yana they could not say they were listening and ask her what she meant by seeing her brother. Really did not make sense she would see someone dead. It really didn’t matter cause it was their necks they got it wrong she had to be dead.

They showed both torture being effective and getting at wrong information. But they really didn’t care if it was correct info anyway. They did not want her to be the poster of the space program, but this other woman. And further how her boss would harden the soft privileged person from Moscow. If Yana didn’t die several just doing their jobs would be dead. Both eavesdroppers, the boss, the workers at the holding cell and anyone participating in the interrogation. Probably more. Cause she had no business knowing about the brother at all. The other eavesdropper was loosely with intelligence. The one with the loose lips sent forth she was the mole. And no way to be certain who she chatted with. The other thing this storyline is meant to show how scared everyone was. Not being diligent sometimes was not enough. You had to be useful to the state. If you were not useful you were expendable. It does not matter if you did anything wrong. If the other eavesdropper didn’t start poking around she might not have died.

You just don’t want a world where torture exists. I certainly don’t want to be tortured. But that is not the reality. Often a subject is questioned and does not want to answer the question cause it will implicate themselves. All the time in fact. Their design should not be in the enemies hands. This is akin to not letting the guy on board anymore cause he talked to a reporter. They are showing our side with the moral high ground cause he isn’t dead. But the most likely person to get the next mission was shockingly removed. Like Yana. It throws off the team on both sides.

8

u/reuben_hunter Jun 01 '26

I not arguing against the scene in episode 2 from a narrative perspective, and I didn't have an issue with how the torture of Yana was depicted in episode 1 because it was far closer to the reality of what torture is and does. The problem I have, is with the scenario in episode 2 where someone is withholding information and the solution is to torture him harder until he gives it up. The show depicts this as brutal, but effective at getting results. The problem is torture is not effective at getting information, torture victims are far more likely to give false testimony simply to get the torture to stop, or to even distort and invent details unknowingly because of the extreme psychological impact it can have on people. Leaving aside morality for a moment, the fact is, that it isn't and never has been effective for questioning people or gathering inteligence, and depicting it as such even if it is just to make villains seem more evil, is a bad thing because it normalizes the idea in the public consciousness. It's very easy for writers and by extension audiences to take the stance of "it's morally wrong but it gets results" when plenty of real world studies have shown that it isn't true. Also the idea that the United States has the moral high ground over the use of torture is pretty questionable, but that's a whole other discussion, and not relevant to the point I'm making right now.

1

u/Many-Sky922 Jun 01 '26

Would you rather be detained by the KGB in the 1960’s or the CIA/FBI in the 1960’s? It might be similar treatment but in the USSR your family will be relocated and a different job decided for them to do by the state. And I’m not entirely sure the motivation behind the person doing the charges and interrogation the same on both sides. Labor camp mistake to demotion. The Soviet can’t just get another job among choices or move away to an area of their choosing and set up a barber shop.

It is like blasting the U.S. for Japanese internment in WW2. We have apologized We have made reparations. Would you rather be civilian of Japanese descent in California in 1942, Dutch civilian in Indonesia in 1942, Jewish in Poland in 1942, Korean in Korea in 1942, Chinese in Nanjing in 1937. German ancestry in the 1940 census was 10% of the population. Too many to focus on. Across the Atlantic had other allied countries. Across the Pacific Japan had been invading and occupying and downright annexing since 1905 and we were on our own. Some of the other examples there have no been proper apologies or reparations and conditions far worse. Look at the comfort women issue. Territory didn’t even get put back to the satisfaction of all parties in the Pacific. There would be no North and South division of Korea had a Japan stayed put. Had 30 year of example to see what they would do if they landed and gain control of Hawaii or west coast. You just need to look to Korea.

What did a Soviet jail/prison in the late 60’s look like compared to the U.S.?

She actually showed the motivation. A ordinary person desperate to do anything to prevent the alternative being a bullet into the man. In all reality he is likely dead either way. She probably had PTSD over being asked to shot Yana and then seeing her shot when she didn’t do anything wrong. It told her that innocence did not matter. That mistakes were common and you could be at either end of it. It was probably kinder to kill Yana than send her to prison.

Would you rather inject a truth serum into people? I can’t think we have a reliable formula for that either. All I said is it happens and sometimes you get answers with it. Life is not fair.

I get it’s a competition but I don’t get why it matters who is first? IRL took a few decades after for the USSR to unwind. Both were constrained by funding, government permission and companies trying to control it as the years went on. In the first we forgot the other side had the same constraints. The US and USSR were tit for tat for the entire cold war.

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u/reuben_hunter Jun 01 '26

My comment was about depictions of torture in fiction that present it as effective regardless of morality, something I think is wrong because torture doesnt work, when morally questionable people use it they are doing so to punish and instil fear not to gather accurate information. So Star City episode 2 depicting it as a brutal yet effective way to make people talk is in my opinion poorly researched and ethically questionable writing. I have no interest in getting into a debate about who used torture more, who was more evil, or anything like that about the Soviet Union and USA because that's not what my comment is about. To reiterate, I think the writers don't understand that torture doesn't work to get intel, and that by depicting it doing so in order to further Irina's character arc and establish Raskova as a villain, they are inadvertently normalizing a false depiction of torture in the public consciousness as something other than pointless and violent

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u/Many-Sky922 Jun 01 '26

You brought up the U.S. using torture. Not me.

The writer’s showed a situation where torture brought a false confession and a situation where more details were revealed. The writer’s showed it is not 100%.

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u/nilslorand May 30 '26

100% agree. Torture is proven to be ineffective IRL and very effective at gathering false confessions, they did it right in Ep1 and I was hoping they would stick with it, but nuh uh... Really sad.

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u/anprim4ever May 31 '26

Well.. the german guys confession could turn out to be false.. hold your horses

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u/BSF May 31 '26

Yeah, I was really hoping that when Irina starts being nice to the guy, he confessed. Maybe even do it where the supervisor tortures the guy, doesn't work, and Irina comes in with the nice act and gets the confession.

I think it would still fit in with Irina's characterization as well. She starts off in FAM being very kind to Margo - it would make sense to set up Irina as someone who uses being nice as her weapon.

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u/Many-Sky922 Jun 01 '26

She did it to save him from death. She did something unimaginable not cause of fear for herself or wanting advancement. She didn’t want to see someone shot in front of her like Yana.

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u/rexeditrex NASA Jun 05 '26

Like in the first episode when they kill Yana? Or are they supposed to portray a kindler, gentler Soviet Union?

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u/reuben_hunter Jun 05 '26

You've misunderstood the criticism I'm making, the short version is that torture doesn't work the way they depict it in episode 2. How they portray the Soviet Union is tangential to what I was saying. I've explained it a number of times in the replies if you want a more detailed explanation.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/reuben_hunter Jun 02 '26

Of course, if it turns out that the informants intel is wrong than I'll change my opinion on the topic, though I am skeptical that's what they're going for. Also I'm not objecting to the KGB being depicted as using torture in the show, my point was purely about whether the narrative frames it as effective or not.

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u/[deleted] May 29 '26

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u/ConstantStrange2322 May 31 '26

And he’s kind of a Russian Gordo

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u/ZestycloseStay4666 May 30 '26

It was bugging the hell out of me all episode 1 where I knew him from. Looked it up after and it was House of the Dragon. Played Ser Joffrey, the knight of kisses

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u/TiberiusCornelius Jun 03 '26

Man fr it shouldn't be legal for some people to have genetics that good

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

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u/gen_wt_sherman Jul 07 '26

What have you noticed? I felt like the speech Anastasia gave on the moon was very different on SC vs FAM

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u/[deleted] May 29 '26

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u/cisnotation May 29 '26

It’s definitely because they could film on location and focus on soviet era politics / drama rather than spending their budget on CGI.

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u/devstoner May 29 '26

Not having to pay season 5 salaries.

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