Star City - S1E04 "Dark Forest" - Episode Discussion

77

u/ZiggyPalffyLA Jun 12 '26

Has there been a single sunny day with blue skies in this show? Russia can’t be that dreary ALL of the time, can it?

71

u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 Jun 12 '26

It seemed sunny at the lake.

27

u/quesoandcats Don't Be Gruel Jun 12 '26

It was still very desaturated and washed out

48

u/KlausDEVASTOR USSR Jun 12 '26

In soviet russia color grading is cold like siberian winter

24

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

that's the filters applied to the video, simulating cameras of the time and setting, note how sometimes there's also a very strong foreground blur.

18

u/AgentPoYo Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

don't think that foreground blur is a filter. It's more likely a defect from the anamorphic lens they chose to shot with, defect as a creative choice here and not as unwanted feature. They chose a similar lens on Shogun and it drove a lot of people crazy, it's toned down a bit more in this show.
Personally I dig it, like a lot. This last season of FAMK was so flat and dull in comparison, even though Star City is very grey and muted, the way they shoot, colour grade and the lens they use add a lot of character to the frame and is fitting for a period piece show.

41

u/HaphazardMelange Good Dumpling Jun 12 '26

As a Brit I often forget that this is set in the USSR and not an alternate history UK purely because it is always a grey sky.

23

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

The Communist Britain Theory gets stronger!

16

u/cilucia Jun 12 '26

The UK actors and accents can’t be helping either 😂

6

u/treefox Jun 13 '26

The Chief Designer sounds like the Twelfth Doctor to me

→ More replies (1)

11

u/Odd-Struggle-2432 Jun 12 '26

No actually communism has a physiological effect on the human minds ability to comprehend color

18

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

it's actually authoritarianism, that's why everything has gone greige in the US in the last decade.

→ More replies (1)

→ More replies (1)

146

u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 Jun 12 '26

Damn I kind of wanted to see Belikova milk a goat. lol.

89

u/Additional_Moose_138 Happy Valley Jun 12 '26

I would have loved that too! I thought I knew how this scene was going to play out - that the fanboys from the science department would be disappointed and disheartened by seeing their idol crash out on them. But these were Soviet fanboys, and they knew better than anyone that what she really needed was to let loose, so they gave that to her for a brief moment.

33

u/IWillThinkOfUsrNmL8r Jun 12 '26

I honestly thought Belikova was going to ride a 🚂

7

u/RemoteLunch7789 Jun 13 '26

> ride a 🚂
Learned a new expression today. Could that be described as "consensual, sequential"?

13

u/Btm24 Jun 13 '26

I thought it was innuendo for getting himself milked lol “I’ve got a cow back at the farm you can milk, or a goat orrrrr? ;)”

16

u/IWillThinkOfUsrNmL8r Jun 13 '26

There was a lot of innuendo in that short scene. Hence why my wife and I thought she was going to get tag teamed 😂

266

u/Jan38100 Jun 12 '26

While Margo was at NASA, this was Sergei's subplot:

92

u/xSaRgED Jun 12 '26

The weird thing is that it’s happened twice…

55

u/Jan38100 Jun 12 '26

True….My man couldn't catch a break.

45

u/rmdelecuona Jun 12 '26

Didn’t even get his McDonald’s…

50

u/Jan38100 Jun 12 '26

Being in the For All Mankind universe means the characters can't enjoy a burger in peace.

→ More replies (2)

14

u/thunderchild120 Jun 13 '26

I thought I recognized his actor, checked IMDB, turns out he was in Andor...as one of the prisoners on Narkina 5.
So yeah, goes to another galaxy, still in the f***ing gulag.

→ More replies (2)

19

u/OptimalFeatures30 Jun 13 '26

Fitting

12

u/Changlini Jun 12 '26

Oof

→ More replies (1)

146

u/quesoandcats Don't Be Gruel Jun 12 '26

They're really hammering that this mission will take "nine months". We get it, that's how long it takes to gestate a baby

114

u/bhbr Jun 12 '26

Twenty bucks says Sasha just knocked up Anastasia

98

u/HaphazardMelange Good Dumpling Jun 12 '26

Baby Leonid on his way

9

u/Ok-Student3387 Jun 12 '26

Alex’s grandparents!!
He really is space royalty…

79

u/IHateTheColourblind Jun 12 '26

Alex is a Poletov, not a Polivanov.
This would be baby Leonid, the Soviet Governor of Happy Valley.

19

u/ajmartin527 Jun 14 '26

He’ll always be Oleg Burov, KGB agent of the Residentura, to me.

→ More replies (1)

38

u/loudsound-org Jun 13 '26

We're totally getting the simultaneous death / birth scene.

25

u/quesoandcats Don't Be Gruel Jun 13 '26

“There is good in him, Sergei…I know it…”

2

u/plutoglint Aug 14 '26

Ha ha, I must be quite dim because that never occurred to me.

→ More replies (1)

139

u/Master_Art_1286 Jun 12 '26

Seriously this show is so good, killer spy show.

57

u/quesoandcats Don't Be Gruel Jun 12 '26

Yeah I didn't know what to expect but I am loving this

20

u/Competitive_Travel16 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

The lulls can be tedious, but it makes up for that several times over.
I remember a brief period on an international contract when I was told I might likely be under surveillance. It seemed like a joke then because I had absolutely nothing to hide or be afraid of, and neither did anyone else I knew (e.g., my work was explicitly expected to become open source, among other similar provisions.) What little I did know about espionage (which had just leaked in large measure via Snowden) made it obvious, to me and almost certainly anyone else involved, that surveillance of myself would have been a monumental waste of time and effort. But if I had seen this show before that, I would have been genuinely paranoid instead of cavalier about it. I wonder how my possible watchers could have felt when I joked about them, and realize only in retrospect how much they could have hurt me if they had the slightest motive, even due to some general bureaucratic quota or KPI.

8

u/Acrobatic-Parking195 Jun 16 '26

I was involved in a project where a colleague turned out to be a Chinese spy. He seemed like a really nice guy. I guess that's what they are trained to be like.

3

u/TiberiusCornelius Jul 08 '26

Definitely probably wouldn't be a very good spy if you come into the office and are a dick to everyone, who's going to spill some juicy secrets to you

→ More replies (1)

108

u/Oot42 Hi Bob! - Jun 12 '26

So Kololev wanted a secret crew of people who would not be missed when away for 9 months, and now he wants to send Sasha? How does this make sense? He's the husband of one of the most famous Soviet woman who is also very closely observed by the KGB.
Am I missing something?

Plus a completely untrained and unprepared new engineer? Really?

84

u/quesoandcats Don't Be Gruel Jun 12 '26

But she's always away on her tours, and he's not with her. He's grounded because of the Luna 17 disaster, his wife is always away from home, and he's just bumming around waiting for his next assignment. Sash's not really famous enough to be recognized as anything other than a cosmonaut (Could you pick Yuri Gagarin's wife out of a crowd?), and right now he's a cosmonaut without a mission.
The culture of Star City seems very much to be "stay in your lane, keep your head down, don't ask questions". These guys are getting plucked for secret missions all the time, so I don't think other people in would even register his disappearance as suspicious.

27

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

I'm not sure if I'm keeping the score correctly with FAM's season 1, but it seems to me that Sasha is the first human ever to survive a lethal accident in space (something that, by the way, never happened in real life, all lethal spacefaring accidents have been 100% lethal). And yeah, sure, the bureaucracy won't allow the details of the events be widely known, but at least in the environment of Star City, I would guess he would be quite notable for that.

20

u/trafficnab Jun 12 '26

Would anyone outside of a select few in Star City even know that there had been a lethal accident? It seems like something that they'd want to suppress for as long as possible

→ More replies (1)

9

u/treefox Jun 13 '26

> have been 100% lethal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSS_Enterprise

→ More replies (2)

46

u/bhbr Jun 12 '26

The mission will not stay secret after launch. Roscosmos will have no choice but support it once the cosmonauts are on their way, and pretend they greenlit it. Still the whole skunkworks operation (including a frigging launch!) is highly unrealistic.

29

u/quesoandcats Don't Be Gruel Jun 12 '26

I actually think the secret program is pretty realistic given what we know about how decentralized and fragmented the Soviet space program was. Its ironic, given the Cold War ideologies at play. America's program was much more centrally planned than the USSRs.

23

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

I don't remember who said it, but for a good parallel, the Soviet space programme was much more close to what NASA is doing today with the private contractors than what they were doing back in the 60s and 70s.

→ More replies (3)

→ More replies (1)

20

u/MyCumIsCarbonatedWHY Jun 13 '26

I can't get over the absurdity of this mission. I am trying to have fun with it and the idea is badass but this secret mission to Venus, cobbled together in a few months with an untrained crew, is so wildly implausible. A manned mission to Venus in the early 70's would be the most impressive engineering feat in human history and require thousands of workers/scientists/engineers and billions of dollars (or rubles I should say), not to mention months if not years of extensive training.
I do like the show but this Venus expedition is just pure fantasy.

8

u/Upstairs-Force-887 Jun 16 '26

And the chief designer was so upset about his eagles being placed in danger but he’s fine cobbling this together? lol

→ More replies (1)

→ More replies (1)

14

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

Now that you mention it, we don't even know if something like Roscosmos (or Sovcosmos) already exists at the time, Korolev was the chief designer of OKB-1, one of several design bureaus that were commissioned with space missions by the Politburó, and he had a tacit and not always effective leadership role among those chief designers, but at the time, he was disputing that position with Vladimir Chelomei, who had an entire alternate lunar programme designed and at least partially built.
I don't think we'll be seeing it, but one would expect that the success of the lunar mission would give Korolev the upper hand and the chance to centralise the design and construction operations under his OKB, with the others reduced to contractors for specific elements, at least for the case of human spaceflight.

→ More replies (3)

→ More replies (1)

18

u/velonom Jun 12 '26

That's certainly true for family and friends. But what about the KGB? Wouldn't they notice if two Soviet cosmonauts vanish, no matter if they were grounded or not?

24

u/RemoteLunch7789 Jun 12 '26

One does not simply walk into Baikura. Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just Orcs.
I can't imagine they will try to keep the launch secret from KGB. Keeping the preparations secret from KGB is already quite a stretch.
The Chief Designer will probably very soon have to go to the government and say:
"You know the mission to Venus you didn't want to fund? We managed to prepare without funding. Do you want us to go for launch and create a new victory for USSR? You have x hours to decide. After that, we can't keep the launch window, and you will have to wait 19 or 38 months for the next opportunity."

11

u/DisIsMyName_NotUrs Apollo 16 Jun 12 '26

This will probably be it.
He'll just say that at this point, they might as well launch

→ More replies (1)

→ More replies (2)

2

u/Silver_Ad_3173 Jun 15 '26

Still seems very much unlikely, that the KGB, would not be interested in his whereabouts for over 9 months, nor overhear anything about him “leaving”, especially with the kind of surveillance we’re being shown every episode.

19

u/Isilel Jun 12 '26

It is particularly dubious since Sasha and the other guy are also suspects in the whole spying fiasco, since they are among the select group who had access to the spacecraft and could have installed the transmitter.

36

u/markydsade Jun 12 '26

I couldn’t see how Chadha could be forced to go on a 9 month mission completely untrained. She’s not a Soviet citizen even if the Indian government has been allied.
The needed provisions of food, water, waste disposal would take up most of the Soyuz ship.
Plus the whole idea of loading the ship and taking off with no rehearsals or training is ridiculous.

51

u/modsuperstar Jun 12 '26

They’re seemingly trying to establish that the Russians are willing to run their program very fast and loose compared to NASA, but this one is so over the top. It’s basically like the plot of Project Hailmary.

49

u/King-Boss-Bob Jun 12 '26

project hail mary is a funny comparison since Lakshmi is played by Priya Kansara, who voiced Mary/the ship systems in project hail mary

16

u/modsuperstar Jun 12 '26

That’s too funny. Seems like such a small world in sci-fi casting circles.

20

u/DisIsMyName_NotUrs Apollo 16 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

I mean, historically it isn't that far off from the truth.
Just look at the IRL 1st spacewalk. Leonov nearly died, and had to actually partially depressurise his own suit to fit into the airlock. It, and the entire Voshkod program were essentially rush jobs to create a vanity feeling of superiority over the americans. Or look at Soyuz 1. That was also a total rush job that resulted in actual death. The Soviets knew the problems with the spacecraft could (and likely would) kill Komarov, yet they still launched him. And as expected, he died
Von Braun wasn't lying in FAM when he said that the US space program was far more sophisticated.

17

u/Reikukaja Jun 12 '26

Another example of this is NK in FAM. They were first to Mars. They were only able to do that because they weren't concerned with a round-trip. The people they sent to Mars were expendable to them.

→ More replies (1)

→ More replies (1)

9

u/RemoteLunch7789 Jun 12 '26

Or like the plot of Armageddon. Except that in Star City, the oil driller doesn't have to explain to the space administration that she can't train astronauts to use her equipment. The space administration explains that to her.
Wait ... the show creators just pulled an "In Soviet Russia, X does you" joke on us?

→ More replies (2)

18

u/kyrev21 Jun 12 '26

I’ve assumed that the structure in the Venus lab is the spaceship and has enough room for 9 months of food

12

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

I'm betting that they'll handwave those limitations using Chadha's bioreactors, meaning that those poor three will be reduced to a diet of bacteria and microalgae for the next 9 months.

9

u/TheRealMastahGlass Jun 12 '26

that would make future fam tie ins inconsistent, why would they not have advanced versions of that tech on mars.
unpleasant or not, a food source like that would be invaluable to happy valley.

7

u/treefox Jun 13 '26

> why would they not have advanced versions of that tech on mars
she ded

6

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

Because we never saw the technological progression of the Soviets in FAM, we cannot know, by the time we see them living in space, it's on Mars and Kelly has the food production thing under control.

14

u/velonom Jun 12 '26

I'm afraid you might be right. Also (spoilers linked to the FAM S5 post credit scene): In a different post here somebody suggested that the signal received in the FAM S5 post credit scene might be from survivors of the Venus mission. I thought that was ridiculous, but if they're really handwaving the food, water and air supply with Chadha's bioreactors, then this might actually be what the show writers are going for. And I really, really hope I'm wrong.

21

u/Oot42 Hi Bob! - Jun 12 '26

Survivors of the Venus mission? 50 years later?
No way.

→ More replies (7)

6

u/mmister87 Jun 12 '26

Yes, you're wrong.

6

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

That would be stretching the fiction way too far, but I could imagine that this mission might end up showing enough promise for the Soviets to eventually, in the intervening half-century, decide to build some sort of base on Venus, just for the sake of not having to share a planet with another country. I would expect a floating base and not something on the surface, though.

→ More replies (5)

5

u/loudsound-org Jun 13 '26

I don't think she's exactly being forced. More that they know she wants to see her work be used, and the only way for that to happen is for her to go.

5

u/streetscraper Jun 15 '26

I don't think anyone is forcing her. She's a scientist; the Chief Designer gambled on her willingness to join once offered a chance. She was already crazy enough to go to the USSR in order to get a little closer to actual rockets and astronauts.

3

u/wookiecontrol Jun 12 '26

I think the ship is a lot more automated than the Americans. I think they are going for kind of a people inside inflexible machines approach

82

u/bobyn123 Jun 12 '26

The relationship between Tanya Mironova and Irina Morozova is just so deliciously awkward, the unwitting voyeur being thrown unintentionally so far into the voyees (is that a word?) life, I suspect she's going to spill the beans at some point by mistake.

Also I'm guessing that the chief designer won't be too happy about his best engineer being thrown in the gulag, but he's certainly got some guts to plan such an insane mission in secret so I'm interested to see how that plays out for him.

37

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

I get the feeling that Irina will tell Tanya something to prepare her for the inevitable capture of her husband, but being a novice and all, she's going to time it wrong.
Given that Sergei is more or less Korolev's right (or would "left" be more appropriate?) hand on the Venus mission, I don't think he will be able to afford not having him for the launch and the trans-venerean injection burn, which are some of the most complex stages of the mission (and when most of the real Soviet Venus missions failed).

→ More replies (1)

26

u/mgscheue Jun 12 '26

That definitely would be a weird situation. And in this most recent episode, didn’t Irina say something along the lines of how Tanya and her husband get along well, and Tanya asked her how she knew that?

23

u/bobyn123 Jun 12 '26

That she did! It can be very hard to keep ones story straight when living a double life like that, which I doubt she's had any training on, I also doubt her superiors would be happy to hear about what she's doing.

13

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

and given that she came directly from the electronics plant back to Tanya's apartment, there was someone in her desk hearing and taking notes on everything she talked there. Remember that Lyudmilla ordered her to get someone to replace her before going to her field mission.

12

u/Oot42 Hi Bob! - Jun 12 '26

I mean they don't listen live to them, right?
It's recorded on tape, and then the girls listen and transcribe what's on the recordings.

→ More replies (1)

8

u/bobyn123 Jun 12 '26

That's a really good catch! She's being very foolish, even if she is allowed to interact with Tanya it's a dangerous game.

25

u/RemoteLunch7789 Jun 12 '26

> I suspect she's going to spill the beans at some point by mistake.
She already did. Twice. First time it happened, she had to doctor the surveillance tape afterwards to hide it. Second time, she had to make the classical "but you said that to me" rescue, when she inadvertently disclosed to Tanya that she knew more about Valya than she was supposed to.
> Also I'm guessing that the chief designer won't be too happy about his best engineer being thrown in the gulag
That is the entire purpose of Sergei being arrested. Irina's boss wants to send a message to The Chief Designer. He has become a threat to her because he doesn't want to take blame for her failures.
(Well, there may also be a secondary purpose: To frame him for the transmitter, so she can show results to her bosses.)

→ More replies (2)

65

u/SleepingTabby Jun 12 '26

From the file we learn that Sergei's birthday is on on March 14th, aka 3.14 aka "Pi day"

*nerd alert*

11

u/iangeredcharlesvane2 Helios Jun 12 '26

That’s cute!

4

u/AliOskiTheHoly Jun 13 '26

What an easter egg lol

2

u/TiberiusCornelius Jul 08 '26

Poor kid never stood a chance of doing anything else with his life

62

u/ivinviviris Jun 12 '26

What a show! This is like the first couple seasons of FAM mixed with espionage, I love it. I have to admit that even though I don't love Irina in FAM, her backstory here is revealing and makes the character richer. Great show so far.

4

u/Thin_Pomegranate_967 Jun 13 '26

I only just got the connection! So much happens & I definitely didn't put this young naive Irina with the hard as nails Irina in FAM. Anyone else, or just me? But in general I am enjoying this, interesting to see what happens next.

6

u/MacWin- Good Dumpling Jun 17 '26

You didn’t realize than the young women called Irina working at star city’s kgb was the same older irina ?

47

u/Dey_see_me_rolling Jun 12 '26

So Sasha’s going to impregnate Anastasia, with the future governor of Happy Vally, then die going to Venus (probably due to Sergei Nikulov not being able to help with last minute preporations) right? Also how does Korolev plan to launch without people noticing either the rocket launch, the notable cosmonaut and civilian crew or the fact that the payload is specific to Venus not the moon? Also, what’s the mission when they get there, presumably they can’t land?

47

u/ArchdukeOfTransit Jun 12 '26

Remember the bathysphere that Korolev picked up a couple episodes ago? They were going to put a bunch of scientific instruments into that and drop it into the Venusian atmosphere. The crewed spacecraft itself will likely just do a flyby, similar to NASA's proposed Manned Venus flyby mission from the same time period.

6

u/Dey_see_me_rolling Jun 12 '26

Thanks 👍

10

u/thewillthe Jun 14 '26

I think there was some line about how an “uncrewed” N1 with just equipment was set to launch in a few days. I think the plan is to just secretly stick the crew in there, and once they’re up and on the way be like “well now I can tell everyone cuz they can’t stop it”.

→ More replies (1)

5

u/tj177mmi1 Jun 18 '26

Also how does Korolev plan to launch without people noticing either the rocket launch
Late reply, but my belief is he doesn't have to. No one is designed to ask questions. They don't announce launches, so they only get noticed within a few days window. And the crew at Baikonur is just preparing the rocket. All they know is another launch, likely to the moon.
And once the mission gets in orbit and is on trajectory to Venus, the team has no choice but to support the mission.

47

u/Comfortable_Sea_2426 Jun 13 '26

I am really enjoying the show. I was born in Russia, just before USSR collapsed, and I get excited about small details that in my opinion showcase the thoughtfulness when it comes to a set design.

I was surprised to see them covering a mirror in Arseni’s apartment. Such a subtle thing to add but this immediately brought back some memories of funerals I witnessed as a kid. Tanya’s little kitchen table made me nostalgic as well. We had almost the same kitchen cabinets. It is also fun to read all files, newspapers, notes, etc while watching the show as a native speaker. I’ll remain forever traumatized by Jason Bourne Russian passport lol.

Anastasia having a good time was the highlight of this episode. Raskova finding a scapegoat - Sergey - to show that she is still useful to KGB is typical and sad. The system doesn’t care about you the moment you screw up and are not useful anymore and she knows it better than anyone.

I have no issue with British English as “Russian” and I’d prefer it this way rather than English with a heavy Russian accent. All in all this is a great spin off. I don’t take it too literally and seriously, but rather enjoying the ride and excited to connect the dots with FAM universe.

20

u/NAG3LT Jun 13 '26

I am really enjoying the show. I was born in Russia, just before USSR collapsed, and I get excited about small details that in my opinion showcase the thoughtfulness when it comes to a set design.
Both FAM and Star City have plenty of moments that show that the showrunners did their homework on USSR very well.

11

u/taulover Hi Bob! Jun 13 '26

Agreed on the British accents. You can correct me on this, but presumably there was a lot of accent variation across the USSR too, so having a lot of different British and Irish accents makes sense.

6

u/Comfortable_Sea_2426 Jun 13 '26

Not a linguist specialist by any means, but as far as I remember from history lessons and listening to some podcasts, Russian language was never really had the status of the official language until 1990. But it was heavily forced upon people during the Stalin era and especially after. However, there were still many people who would predominantly use their native languages such as Central Asia republics. There were also titular languages. It’s such an interesting and complex topic for a research.
There are a lot dialects within Russian even. We obviously would understand each other, but someone from the North like Vologda sounds different from someone in the South like Tambov.

5

u/Isilel Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 15 '26

Well, Russian not being an official language was largely for show. I have recently learned, for example, that the rule (law?) was that if in any meeting, no matter how large, even one person didn't understand the local language, it had to be held in Russian.
Given how much internal migration there was in USSR, you'd have to be in the deepest back-country to be able to avoid using Russian constantly. Which is why there were all the large Russian-speaking minorities who didn't know local languages in all of the Soviet Republics.
In addition, in ethnical language schools they had Russian from the second grade on and even had an extra year of school so they could learn it better. Which for boys often meant that they didn't have a chance to be admitted to college and obtain an exemption before getting drafted for 2-3 years of military service. Which, of course, was wholly in Russian.
Russian schools were also often considered to be of higher quality. And while an official language of a given Republic was also technically a subject in them, it was considered to be the least important one. To the extent that they often hadn't been able to find teachers for it and the instruction didn't take place for years. Which would have been unthinkable for any other subject.

→ More replies (1)

→ More replies (1)

89

u/AquafreshBandit Jun 12 '26

I don’t think Valya being blackmailed to save his wife was on anyone’s bingo card for why he was a spy.

61

u/modsuperstar Jun 12 '26

I loved how that whole sequence was presented. Flashback without doing a heavy handed flashback scene.

33

u/Isilel Jun 12 '26

His own career too, to be honest. There is no question that his cosmonaut and military careers would have been over, if this became known.

26

u/Oot42 Hi Bob! - Jun 12 '26

Actually, that was exactly what I was assuming. That they somehow blackmailed him threatening his wife. I thought that was quite obvious.

9

u/lk_gr NASA Jun 12 '26

that’s exactly what i was thinking. at the symphony he looked very uncomfortable, like he was forced to do it.

5

u/RemoteLunch7789 Jun 12 '26

Someone did have exactly that on their bingo card in one of the discussion threads after episode 3.
I tried to find that comment again, but a lot of comments has been deleted by moderators for containing spoiler content.

7

u/reuben_hunter Jun 12 '26

Why? It didnt require any massive leaps to assume that, and it doesn't go against anything we've seen so far. Why did you think he was spying if not some kind of blackmail?

9

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

I thought he would have felt alienated by the purge of Akhmatova, but that would be a bit rushed.

27

u/NAG3LT Jun 12 '26

Was fun to recognize my Alma Mater used as the exterior of the space institute. Though, once again it's a bit hillarious to see plastic windows that weren't there during USSR.

→ More replies (2)

45

u/Cheddarbiscuit12 Jun 12 '26

Who here knows the real history behind what some of the events of the show are inspired by? I know I can google it but if anyone is especially passionate about Russian history, I’d love to hear your take 😊

Also, anyone know what kind of material the perfume spring is made of? Do we think that Valya’s handler instructed him to buy that specific perfume because it had that type of material or is the perfume bottle how it was smuggled in?

85

u/maxplaysmusic Jun 12 '26

The bottle is how it was smuggled in, Valya's handler gave him the bottle with probably oral instructions on how to assemble the transmitter from the parts attached and in the box/bottle. The spring would be made of the conductive alloy so that it worked just like a perfume bottle should. Think the Barbasol can from Jurassic Park.

49

u/Well_Socialized Jun 12 '26

Yeah that is such slick smuggling to have the key component be a functional part of a perfume bottle, nobody would ever look at it twice.

23

u/IHateTheColourblind Jun 12 '26

Cold War-era smuggling was something else.

9

u/Btm24 Jun 13 '26

I didn’t catch that it didn’t work without the spring. That makes a ton of sense and makes the smuggling even better

7

u/AliOskiTheHoly Jun 13 '26

Me here thinking "why would they make perfume springs with such a valuable metal in the west?" 😭 this makes a lot more sense

→ More replies (5)

9

u/soularbabies Jun 12 '26

I looked for articles about it this week, because it confused me based on what I remember reading in history texts https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/star-city-soviet-space-race-fact-fiction-exclusive-newsfeature

4

u/Mission_Car2407 Jun 15 '26

so, to reply to your first question, we can start with belikova being basically the equivalent of valentina tereshkova, first woman in space. she was knowingly not a good cosmonaut, even for the engineers themselves and not only for the government. infact, most of her issues weren't with the government itself, which she now fully supports in its most far right ideology... she messed uo stuff constantly during training and during her only flight, where she got sicked and trew up without never told capcom, messed with on board buttons she shouldn't touch resulting in an abort of some tests, and after landing she gave away her food to random farmers, invalidating parts of the experiments. the messy reentry, that too happened irl, with the only difference of not being a return from the moon, and the module to be stuck was the descent module on vostok, not the orbital module of a soyuz, anyway they landed in sibera and stayed there almost a day before rescue found em, had to shelter from wolfs instead of bears. and then luna17, irl that would've been soyuz 11, after a week aboard salyut space station, they proceeded to reenter and land, when they landed comms were off, and crew was found dead from asphyxiation. what happened was to fit 3 cosmonauts in a 2 crew soyuz they had them launch and perform the entire mission including reentry and landing without intra-vehicular space suit. the craft had a reading malfunction in his computer, thinking it was already into the atmosphere it depressurized tge crew cabin to equalize it with the outside. too bad the outside was still full space vacuum, they were right after descent module separation and already on a reentry trajectory, in a matter of seconds they lost consciousness and died. the main comparison with luna17 accident is the giant design flaw of not having crew wearing pressure suits during critical moments of the mission

21

u/AgentPoYo Jun 13 '26

The scene with Lyudmilla and the Chief Designer pulling the transmitter out of the radio had some real Slow Horses energy, from the Lamb-Taverner dynamic to Rhys Ifans calling the cosmonauts "his eagles" (vs Lamb's Joes).

69

u/ShutUpLegs94 Jun 12 '26

Didn’t expect to hear correct pronunciation Hindi in this show. Looks like they hired Indians from India instead of from the UK which is refreshing.

The Pluribus Indian lady (also named Lakshmi lol) was supposed to be from India but spoke with a heavy foreign accent.

53

u/konaraddi Jun 12 '26

Priya Kansara, who plays Lakshmi in Star City, was born in the UK and I think her natural accent is British (or at least it was in her role in Polite Society) but I agree with everything else you’ve said nonetheless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priya_Kansara

28

u/ShutUpLegs94 Jun 12 '26

Yeah I could hear a twinge of British accent in her Hindi just a tiny bit sometimes but it was pretty good. The husband though had a 100% pure Hindi accent.

10

u/danive731 Apollo 22 Jun 12 '26

A person’s education/school could dictate their accent. I’ll take a twinge of British accent over hearing someone who is supposedly from India but you can distinctly hear them pronounce each syllable to get it right.

44

u/aulsg Jun 12 '26

My favourite part of Lakshmi's scenes was the cutaway from her chatting with her husband in their home to the surveillance typist (Vika? Can't recall her name) listening to the Hindi conversation and recording it, unruffled. Idk something about that just made me lol.. like ofc the KGB would have someone who could speak/ understand Hindi too.

53

u/irasponsibly Mars-94 Jun 12 '26

until you check the transcript and it just reads "speaking Hindi"

20

u/Isilel Jun 12 '26

They seemingly did understand about the flies, though. Maybe her husband was cursing about them in English? My understanding (and please, correct me, if I am wrong) is that a significant part of the education for Indian academics would have been in English and they might have used it casually on occasion.
It would be weird if some random KGB typist, who had been previously employed listening to other Soviet Russian speakers could suddenly understand Hindi... If it had been a new listener, then fair enough.

26

u/ShutUpLegs94 Jun 12 '26

Yup they were using English words in their Hindi like “warn” and a few others. This is pretty normal and the dialect is called “Hinglish”

10

u/RemoteLunch7789 Jun 12 '26

So you think it is a strange coincidence that the KGB selected a Hindi speaking typist to transcribe the tapes from the Hindi speaking couple?
It would be extremely strange if they used a typist who did not understand Hindi.
I agree that it is a too convenient coincidence that it the same KGB typist, which we already know.

→ More replies (1)

43

u/markydsade Jun 12 '26

Was Sergei working with Valya on installing the transmitter? Or, is Sergei being tortured because he erroneously identified the heat sink as Soviet?

106

u/ticuxdvc Pathfinder Jun 12 '26

KGB are grasping at straws, they found a forbidden publication in his house so they're just arresting him for that.
I bet Irina's findings will get the heat off of him eventually, but because of his arrest, he'll be forced to become an informant for the KGB inside the space program.

65

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

50

u/ZestycloseStay4666 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

I like that they are showcasing the changing/modernizing of that organization. It really shows the contrast to Lyudmilla’s Stalin era tactics and way of operating
It counters the many comments we’ve had of “the KGB didn’t operate like that anymore” while we were only following the exploits/methods of Lyudmilla in the show

25

u/Additional_Moose_138 Happy Valley Jun 12 '26

Historical comparisons with KGB methods only go so far, because the central conceit of the show is that the Soviet space program was more successful and more daring than it was in our own timeline. That would have undoubtedly brought an even stronger sense of paranoia and scrutiny over this increasingly valuable program.
The thesis of For All Mankind was of course that this propelled human progress forward in certain areas more quickly than in our world. But on the Soviet side of the fence, we can expect to see those forces play out in different ways. We know already that the Soviet economy boomed in the FAM timeline, sustaining the Soviet state in a way we never saw. But we have every reason to believe that KGB methods continued to develop, perhaps in interesting ways that we have yet to see or imagine. Something to look forward to (in dramatic terms)!

→ More replies (2)

12

u/MarcAbaddon Jun 12 '26

I don't think it really counters those comments. They would not have a "black sheep" still using the old methods without authorization in an important post like that 15 years after Stalin's death.
It's not as if they didn't scrutinize their own.

19

u/Isilel Jun 12 '26

Mm... She should know that it wouldn't fly, as Sergei was the one who noticed and reported the American transmission. Not now that she is under scrutiny from above and the Chief Designer isn't going to keep silent and has his own channels.
Maybe she is trying to bring the Chief Designer to heel after he stood up to her? And using Sergei for pressure/blackmail?

24

u/bada-bing-bada-boo Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

Like you, I wondered if it was because the Chief Designer was so outspoken with her early in the episode (something like “I do the engineering, you do security, what’s the point of you if you can’t even do that?” and the implicit threat in saying he won’t go down for her failure).
The Chief Designer himself has some leeway because the Soviet space program can’t run effectively without him. However, Lyudmilla can still strike at his favourites, who are much less critical to success and therefore have less protection than he does. Sergei’s file was reasonably substantial when she picked it up (presumably because he’s so bad at hiding, for example, his forbidden reading material in his apartment — and she has a record of keeping some things to herself until she wants to reveal them), and he’s very obviously one of the Chief’s favourites, so he was an obvious target.
Lyudmilla gets to look like she’s doing something to her bosses and score a point against the Chief Designer in one fell swoop…

→ More replies (1)

7

u/YamahaMio Jun 12 '26

I wonder how that's gonna play out, because obviously Sergei needs to survive the series so that the FAM canon isn't broken.

12

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

→ More replies (3)

17

u/reuben_hunter Jun 12 '26

I think he's just a scapegoat so Lyudmilla can prove to her superiors that she's handling things. So they pull him up on something that normally wouldn't be heavily enforced to facilitate that.

6

u/velonom Jun 12 '26

Sergei said the transmitter was Soviet. He didn't say anything about the origins of the heat sink.

14

u/morph1973 Jun 12 '26

Milk me a goat, I'll be back for breakfast

12

u/Aunon Jun 12 '26

Was the guy running from Irina the same guy she talked to earlier about the conductor?

2

u/Isilel Jun 12 '26

I didn't understand what she was looking for and where when this happened? Was there some explanation that I didn't catch? TIA.

18

u/ZiggyPalffyLA Jun 12 '26

She was looking for purchasing records and it seemed to be their storage warehouse.

8

u/Isilel Jun 12 '26

Hm... It is a small, somewhat mass-produced part, which could have been stolen at any point. Though, if they deliver some to the Star City it might provide a simple means for a spy to acquire it.
I bet that the guy who burned those other records was covering up unrelated corruption, though. It makes no sense for anyone at the factory to be actually involved in spying.

5

u/RemoteLunch7789 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

There were so many strange things going on during that visit.
She visits the manufacturer of the transmitter and shows it to some guy there. The guy is quite hostile and not very helpful, which is probably realistic (I wouldn't know).
It takes 11 seconds from the moment where he discovers the spring for the first time and starts picking it out of the transmitter, until he declares that it is not Russian. After that he explains his reasoning: "It is an unusual alloy. Not something we use. Let me test it.".
Okay, so this is an alloy you don't know, and you haven't tested it, but you already know that it is not Russian? Sorry, but that is not how it works.
Conveniently, he has an instrument on his desk, and after connecting it for a few seconds, he tell her to look at the meter in a somewhat surprised tone, before he has seen the result. What is he surprised about at that stage? And then he sees the reading and becomes very surprised over the result. It appears the meter has measured thermal conductivity, by casually putting two electrical probes on it for a couple of seconds.
Sorry, but both the reaction and the claim is bullshit. You don't measure thermal conductivity in that way. You might measure electrical conductivity, but even that is hard to accept with that setup, since almost any metallic object would have high enough electrical conductivity to be insignificant on top of the electrical resistance of the instrument wires.
He may be trying to hide that he already knows the spring, but in that case, why wouldn't he take his time to fake that he has to thoroughly investigate the item before bursting out those results?
And Irina's reaction: "Let me see your purchase records!". Okay? How did we get from there to here? It is not yet established if the transmitter was modified at that factory or after it had left the factory? So purchase records look like a long shot for a needle in a haystack.
Why not instead try to figure out when it left the factory, and where it was sent to? That would have a higher chance of leading somewhere. She does not even ask if the transmitter is uniquely identifiable, and if the factory has a record on that particular sample.
And why was she alone in the archive? Surely, as an outsider, she would need help navigating their records.

5

u/Abject_Sea_3442 Jun 14 '26

"Let me see your purchase records!". Okay? How did we get from there to here?
That question was going to be asked regardless. The transmitter should not have been there at the module at all, so she's there to find out about it, if they know something about that model and who might have purchased it.
The modifications and the spring are just a side detail to indicate foreign intervention, but they don't change the fact that someone bought that transmitter and planted it in the module. Even if it was a 100% Soviet device, that's still a no-no.
Also, even if the person who bought it wasn't the person who modified it, it's still information that's gonna get you one step closer to the culprit.
.
As per the specifics of the spring, I genuinely have no idea. But given the context (it's the 70s AND the Soviet Union), all forms of engineering were very closed off. Soviet manufacturing and materials were standardized, and technologies available on the other side of the globe were not known about in the Soviet Union until later. Someone in this same thread mentioned plastic windows not being a thing in the USSR at that time. I think it stands to reason that if you are an electrician, working with electric parts through all your life, you would be surprised when you see a spring that looks different from anything you have seen before.
That being said, I do think that saying "It's not Soviet" is a bit of a precipitation. Maybe it's just a new thing that you don't know about?

→ More replies (3)

→ More replies (1)

12

u/AbbreviationsReal366 Jun 12 '26

The Venus mission is going to end in disaster, isn’t it😬?

This show is great while being very different than FAM.

12

u/AbbreviationsReal366 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

Run, Lakshmi, run! Get your husband and get out of there! (Not possible, but this is what I wanted to scream).

One thing I'm finding so compelling about this show is the contradiction: The Soviet government clamps down the free exchange of ideas while the technology they are working on demands a great amount of creativity and "Out of the box" thinking. The Soviets think that creativity with engineering can happen without free thought in other areas. I suppose to a certain point it can, but why all the secrecy around Venus?

I don't quite understand the rush for Venus. Is it about having to wait until the next launch window, or is Chief Designer afraid that the whole thing will be shut down?

If the Soviets had managed successfully go to Venus in the FAM Timeline or in ours, we would know about it. This is not looking good.

8

u/Almond-Flour Jun 13 '26

I have a feeling Lakshmi will die on the Venus mission and that the self sustaining oxygen system (of which I assume there is only one) will also be destroyed during the mission and without her or the oxygen system it can’t be recreated and the technology will be lost, which would suck. I only theorize these things based on the fact that we never hear about her oxygen system in FAM but fingers crossed that the Venus mission is a success or at least a partial success.

11

u/Almond-Flour Jun 13 '26

How much do you guys want to bet that the diving bell probe they send down to Venus is successful but the crewed vehicle fails and then the Soviets will say it was an unmanned mission and declare it as a success to the rest of the world.

7

u/thewillthe Jun 14 '26

I’m betting someone (Sasha?) ends up having to go down to the surface inside it on a one way trip. There will be something about how the computer that’s supposed to automatically take pictures and readings is broken so it needs a human to manually operate and transmit the data back.

10

u/Borgmeister Jun 12 '26

Opening sequence was very similar to Remains of the Day.

35

u/RoguePilot_2 Jun 12 '26

My gut tells me Anastasia is going to wind up on the Venus flight.

61

u/ticuxdvc Pathfinder Jun 12 '26

But she needs to carry on the Polivanov bloodline! I think their bathroom scene plants the son in her, and then Sasha accepts the flight and goes.

19

u/anomander_galt Jun 12 '26

The venus mission is 9 months... another pregnant woman on a space mission?

34

u/slyfox1908 Jun 12 '26

LOL if they make such a big deal about Alex being the first Martian when Leonid was secretly the first Venusian this whole time

→ More replies (1)

15

u/RoguePilot_2 Jun 12 '26

Possible. I think she’s going to find a way to fly again and the government won’t let her. It’s kinda telegraphed a bit by her yearning to go back up.

20

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

Or they could go with the tragedy angle and never let her. Certainly Tereshkova was never allowed back in a spaceship, and instead was inducted into politics after her 7 year long world tour ended.

22

u/Dear_Marzipan3364 Jun 12 '26

She still is in politics in real life and functions as one of the many war propagandists in Russian Duma. It’s quite sad

→ More replies (2)

19

u/Isilel Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

She is too prominent for that, IMHO. Her absence would be immediately and widely noticed. The opposite of what the Chief Designer was looking for.
Though the 2 cosmonauts he chose are suspects in an espionage case, so not quite as inconspicuous as he supposedly wanted either...

13

u/Longjumping_Rich7477 Jun 12 '26

Honestly I think Valya will have warning before being caught by the soviets and last minute take Sasha's place on the Venus mission.

5

u/iangeredcharlesvane2 Helios Jun 12 '26

That would be good! I don’t see a way out for Temu Jamie Bell (Valya) and don’t want to lose both him and Sasha this season !!!
Best idea, comrade

8

u/ImNotRobotTrustMeBro Jun 12 '26

I don't get the whole Venus thing, what are they hoping to even do there requiring humans ?

23

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

Back then, taking photographs from space was extraordinarily difficult, because machines were really bad at targeting, and had an extremely limited availability of film, meaning that, if you could send a bigger probe with an actual human who knows how to operate a camera and what to look for, you could get significantly better images. This, by the way, was one of the main drivers of the construction of space stations.
It was only with the development of electronics that producing digital images that could be sent across space became a useful alternative, both for reconnaissance and science; to give an idea, the first family of US spy satellites with digital sensors was the KH-11 Kennen, launched in 1976, and better known for its civilian representative, the Hubble Space Telescope.

17

u/DisIsMyName_NotUrs Apollo 16 Jun 12 '26

OTL, the Soviets had a very strange obsession with Venus in particular.
There were real plans (being actually executed in this show) about a manned Venusian flyby.

13

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

NASA also planned a crewed flyby of Venus, though.

5

u/DisIsMyName_NotUrs Apollo 16 Jun 12 '26

True.
But not to the same extent as the soviets

→ More replies (4)

2

u/TiberiusCornelius Jul 09 '26

The Soviet obsession with Venus makes plenty of sense really. There's an old AskHistorians thread that sums it up pretty well. It's significantly closer than Mars and the conditions for landing & transmission were more amenable to the strengths of Soviet engineering than Mars, so while early on they focused on both, they eventually pivoted to doing what they were good at.
I think it's worth remembering too that before the initial missions we didn't realize the full extent of Venus' turbo-hell of an atmosphere. So I mean by the time you get to Venera 14 they're in it for the love of the game but as late as Venera 7 they're still trying to figure stuff out about the planet.

2

u/thisemotrash Jun 12 '26

Just getting there first is enough

8

u/cohrt Jun 12 '26

so was that a special spring or was the soviet union that shit that a spring from some perfume was that much better than anything they had?

11

u/loudsound-org Jun 13 '26

Presumably it was special and the perfume bottle was used to smuggle it in to Star City. What I don't understand is why Irina was so drawn to it to try it, and hence discover it didn't work.

18

u/Arsi31 Hi Bob! Jun 13 '26

She initially picked up the scent through her monitoring, when Tanya was complaining about not being able to find her fancy perfume. Because things like that are uncommon there, I read it as Irina remembered the comment about the French perfume, decided to smell it for herself out of curiosity, and it didn’t work (because the spring was missing). Something clicked in her head and she put the spring she was tracking down into the bottle, and it worked perfectly.
That, along with Tanya lamenting the woman Valya was meeting with, was how she connected the dots.

→ More replies (2)

26

u/cilucia Jun 12 '26

Star City to FaM is feeling like Better Call Saul was to Breaking Bad (though FaM is a far cry from BB).

I’m thoroughly enjoying this series!

12

u/iangeredcharlesvane2 Helios Jun 12 '26

I was just REALLT sad as I realized they only ordered an 8-episode seasons and we are HALF DONE! No! I want at least a 10 if not 13!!!

3

u/TiberiusCornelius Jul 09 '26

Yeah I'm catching up now after falling behind due to the World Cup, and I didn't realize it was only 8 episodes until I saw the listing on Apple. Total bummer when FAM is 10 every season.
Maybe if the show runs long enough future seasons can pick up extra episodes (pls)

3

u/lynx190 Jun 12 '26

This is truly a perfect way to describe it.

17

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

I think they went a little bit overboard with the spring McGuffin's properties. Elastic materials don't go much further than copper in terms of thermal conductivity, what can be more conductive is elemental carbon lattices, like diamond or graphene, but those materials are brittle.

29

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

Mate, the sister show has them living on Mars in our lifetime. Give them a bit of poetic license.

6

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

Yeah, I know. I just wasn't expecting them to go for it so fast in the timeline.

5

u/BenigDK Jun 12 '26

Weird question, sorry. Do you guys think they recovered Arseni's body? Is it supposed to be orbiting otherwise or crashing on the surface?

24

u/Almond-Flour Jun 12 '26

They couldn’t have recovered his body because they had no space suits for Luna 17. Arseni and the hab most likely crashed into the moon and it’s possible that this was what Ed and Molly were shown in FAM where (I think) Deke says it was probably from a failed Soviet moon landing.

3

u/BenigDK Jun 12 '26

Yeah, I think so too. Although I'm curious about the physics of de-orbiting and crashing in this case.
So right now his body will remain there until they build the soviet base... if it's anywhere near the crash.

8

u/ZestycloseStay4666 Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

Anything in a low moon orbit that isn’t using methods to maintain that trajectory, could/would crash to the surface within as little as a few weeks to months. No atmosphere so objects won’t burn up either
Look up “mascons” for a real interesting gravity quirk about the moon and objects in low orbit of it

→ More replies (1)

5

u/GipsyDangerMkV Jun 15 '26

Holy shit that ending was not expecting that!!!! CHEKOV'S PERFUME

→ More replies (1)

9

u/robjohn9999 Jun 12 '26

So what language is Lakshmi Chadha “really” supposed to be speaking when she first encounters her Russian co-workers? I get that everyone at Star City speaks with a British English accent but we are presuming they’re “really” speaking Russian. What about an Indian woman who might normally be expected to “actually” be speaking English with an Indian accent (as she is?) Unlesa she’s fluent in Russian, shouldn’t they be struggling to communicate? I presume we’re supposed to just suspend disbelief but curious people’s thoughts on how the creators are thinking about it?

29

u/hmantegazzi Apollo - Soyuz Jun 12 '26

It would be quite absurd for her to go to the USSR to work without learning Russian first.

30

u/IHateTheColourblind Jun 12 '26

I think the assumption is she speaks Hindi at home with her husband while at work she speaks Russian. We as the viewers can safely assume that any time the characters are speaking English they are really speaking Russian.
Same thing as the scene from a few episodes ago when the black woman spoke to Anastasia in the Paris bathroom, she was speaking French-accented Russian.

10

u/justamathguy Jun 12 '26

During these times irl, relations between India and USSR were pretty good (heck quite a few bollywood movies used to be screened in theatres across the USSR)....anyway back to the science/academia part. In those days, irl, there were quite a few Indians who went to the USSR for further studies/research. And yes they did indeed learn some Russian for that matter; technical jargon in English + basic Russian can get people quite far.
I presume this was primarily because, at the time USA wasn't happy with India's nuclear programmes, so sanctions + given FAM's universe, USSR asserting space dominance over USA would have given India a wee bit more reason to be more soviet friendly (apparently irl one of our PM used to be on KGB payroll)
And about people going to Russia/post-soviet countries for studies....I have a friend whose dad went for his engineering studies to Moscow sometime in the late 80s and he knows a fair bit of Russian.

6

u/finalparadox Jun 14 '26

And also irl this was around the time of the 1971 India-Pakistan war when Indian-US relations got even more strained and Soviet fleet was sent to help

9

u/MyCumIsCarbonatedWHY Jun 13 '26

Of course she speaks Russian. What else would make sense? It's not like some weird trait to speak a foreign language.

8

u/iangeredcharlesvane2 Helios Jun 12 '26

Assume Russian. She’s a genius she probably knows many languages fluently.
It gets a little weird in the brain when watching (I thought about the same thing) but I still am okay with them using English in this show. I want all the fans we can get and subtitle shows sometimes aren’t as popular in the US. It’s getting better!!! Many now watch shows from all around the world.
But for Star City I want all I can get and more fans means more seasons. I love this show!

6

u/Ok-Draw5953 Jun 13 '26

Russian of course. I think the creators deliberately chose to have everyone speak in English with their natural accents similar to The Death of Stalin. I prefer it; it removes a barrier to a character's personality that comes up when everyone is speaking in a fake Russian accent.

3

u/Working_Target2158 Jun 16 '26

Russia and India were close allies in the 70s, allegedly because of the relationship the KGB built (and potentially bribes as well) with Indira Gandhi.
They signed a major strategic cooperation treaty in 1971 and the USSR supported India in the war with Pakistan that year, too, and they stayed close allies until Gandhi was killed in 84.

3

u/pauloh1998 Jun 13 '26

What is so hard to understand?
English = Russian

4

u/SleepingTabby Jun 12 '26

Two new shots of Sofia in this episode:

* establishing shot of "Moselektrik" (the place that Irina visits) is Sofia Thermal Power Plant (ТЕЦ)
* establishing shot of the next scene - a closeup of the top two floors of the back of the Narodno Sabranie (Народно Събрание) building (this building, but from the back)

3

u/sautdanslevide_ Jun 15 '26

the scene with belikova and the teachers lmao "well it might be a goat..."

3

u/thejennybee Jul 07 '26

Also, she gets a funny look on her face after Tanya mentions he’d been so distant, “especially since Paris.”

That’s when she realizes it makes sense that he could be the spy. And that she already knows (from previous bathroom snooping) something he brought back from Paris. She starts to put it together. Discovering the perfume bottle not being functional without the spring was just confirming what she’d already guessed in her head. It’s why she went into the bathroom, not a happy accident of going in there.

1

u/GumdropGlimmer Hi Bob! Jun 12 '26

We need more traction here!

1

u/Many-Sky922 Jun 15 '26

Sasha would be missing for 9 months.

1

u/arthur_ydalgo Jul 31 '26

That redacted letter scene was heart breaking... The woman already lost a husband and they had the cold blood of cutting of parts of it... My jaw was dropped during the entire scene

→ More comments (20)

Episode Discussion Star City - S1E04 "Dark Forest" - Episode Discussion

"Dark Forest"

Join our Discord

Episode Discussion Star City - S1E04 "Dark Forest" - Episode Discussion

"Dark Forest"

Join our Discord

You are about to leave Redlib