[Editor’s note: Do not read on until you’ve watched the season-three finale of For All Mankind.]
For All Mankind has done it again. Apple TV+’s space drama caps its third season with a riveting finale that ends in shocking deaths, a bombing, a baby, a possible romantic reunion, and (obviously) a time jump to 2003. “Stranger In A Strange Land” wraps up multiple storylines—RIP, queen Molly Cobb (Sonya Walger)—while setting the stage for a complicated future as North Korea officially enters the space race.
The show also leaves several narratives up in the air for season four (which began production this month), like what the hell will happen to Danny Stevens (Casey W. Johnson) and will Ellen Wilson (Jodi Balfour) continue her political career. The A.V. Club spoke with For All Mankind showrunners Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert (who created the show with Ronald D. Moore) about Danny’s villainous arc, why Karen Baldwin (Shantel VanSanten) had to die, and how long the show can realistically continue.
The A.V. Club: The season two finale is one of the show’s most lauded and beloved episodes. Was there pressure to deliver a certain type of thrilling ending for the third season?
Ben Nedivi: Pressure? Come on! [Laughs] We definitely feel the pressure to make sure the ending of each season, and the build-up that’s led to it, feels gratifying. We also don’t want it to seem like we are doing the same thing repeatedly. Each season finale needs to feel different. That was the challenge this year, to match the emotional intensity, action, and drama of the season-two finale but still keep it different. I feel like we achieved that in surprising ways. This one was bigger and more ambitious. Every year we start in the writers’ room with crazy goals to reach by the end and there’s a fear of, “How the hell are we going to get there in 10 episodes?” But it helps by this point that our team is a well-oiled machine. We were confident we could pull it off. That’s why we started so many threads earlier in the season.
AVC: Let’s start by unpacking Karen’s thread. She spent all these episodes trying to find her purpose before finding her place at Helios. Why did you decide that this is when she dies?
Matt Wolpert: Because we’re heartless bastards. Just kidding. Honestly, it was incredibly difficult to talk through in the room when we started considering the idea because Karen Baldwin is integral to the show. She’s the heart and soul of it, just like Shantel VanSanten is to all of us. When we started talking about Johnson Space Center’s bombing, it was inspired by the Oklahoma City bombing, and we talked about 9/11 a lot too. There was a sense that so many victims had promising futures. They were rising to be the best version of themselves, but it was snuffed out in a moment. Teeing it up that way highlighted the tragedy for Karen because she had so much left to contribute. That sense of loss will be powerful for the show and the other characters moving forward. And as people who work with these actors for so long, saying goodbye to a close friend and colleague like Shantel is the hardest part.
AVC: How do you think Danny reacts to her death since we don’t get to see it play out? Can you also share why he had to go through this villainous trajectory and obsession with Karen in season three?
BN: I can’t imagine he took it well. We joked at some point that, in the end, when you see him alone in the North Korean capsule with his wife and son’s photo taped, we should add one of Karen. Danny is a truly tragic story. We felt it was appropriate when you’re telling a story of generations like our show does. The way his parents died was as heroes; they’re amazing figures. He had to grow up in Tracy (Sarah Jones) and Gordo’s (Michael Dorman) shadow. He had to fill their shoes while not having them around. A child in that position would rarely grow up in a normal and great way. We wanted to be true to that.
We also want to be true to the fact that as amazing as Gordo and Tracy were, they were very flawed humans. So, of course, their kids could have those issues too. We knew early on that Danny had become the villain of this season. But even when you meet Gordo in season one, everyone hated him back then. He was cheating on his wife; he was always drunk. But by the end of season two, everyone just went, “Oh, I love Gordo!” We wanted to show characters changing over decades. This isn’t a story of redemption for Danny, but it’s much more tragic than you initially think. It’s not just about Karen, as we see in episode eight when he’s talking to Ed [Joel Kinnaman] about his memories of Shane. Karen became a figure who took care of him, so it’s complicated to convey in a tweet or a short amount. We spent days discussing Danny’s trajectory, knowing people will react harshly, and being okay with that reaction. It’s the story we felt we had to tell.
AVC: I was waiting with bated breath for all hell to break loose when Danny tells Ed about his affair with Karen, but Danny never says anything.
MW: We talked through so many versions of that in the writers’ room and argued about why Danny should tell Ed or shouldn’t. It’s funny, but every time we went down the road of the truth coming out, it felt oddly mean-spirited. Danny does a lot of bad stuff, but it felt over-the-top cruel with all the other stuff going on. It’s a little small kindness he gives Ed. Even at the end of episode eight, I’m sure people thought he was going to tell Ed about Karen or tell him, “I caused the landslide.” [Laughs] So, yeah, there are a couple of big secrets Danny is keeping. Everything with him is very tricky.
AVC: Danny and Jimmy [David Chandler] got strong audience reactions, and Jimmy is a big part of the bombing that led to Karen’s death. Will we see how the two brothers deal with their actions in season four, even though it’ll probably pick up years later in 2003?
MW: Without getting into too much detail, you’ll definitely understand what happens to them after, and how much more or less you might see of that is an open question right now. We’re in the middle of breaking stories for season four and which characters will best tell this story further.
AVC: North Korea’s mission gets some focus in the finale. How did you come up with their inclusion in the space race at this juncture?
BN: I think especially because Russians and Americans come together over the course of season three, it did feel like we needed an outside presence. The more we thought about whose boots those were on Mars, whether it was Helios, NASA, or the Cosmonauts, any version felt underwhelming. So we played into the idea of having North Korea join in.
For the opening of episode 10, we fought for the idea of turning it into what is essentially a short film where you learn about this new astronaut’s journey and understand who he is as a human, who he loves, and what keeps him going. So by the time you catch up with the scene from episode nine, you feel more sympathy for him than for Danielle [Krys Marshall] and Kuznetsov [Lev Gorn]. We were excited about doing that. We introduced him so late in the season, so we had to be able to quickly show he’s not just the enemy or a villain; that was never our intention.
AVC: For All Mankind is an alternate history sci-fi drama, but how much of our real world and politics inspire your storytelling, especially pertaining to Will Tyler [Robert Bailey Jr.] and Ellen’s coming out, and the aftereffects of their decision?
MW: It’s constantly informing our decisions and what we want to do. One of the blessings of doing a show like this is we can comment on our world without making it too on the nose. Even now, in 2022, we are dealing with societal issues that don’t seem to go away. Ben and I always talk about the arc of history as a push-and-pull between progress and the reaction to said progress. That’s at the heart of our show. In season one, Ellen coming out to Deke and him not reacting well felt like an honest moment. That was in the early ’70s, and in the show’s timeline right now, in the ’90s, they’re still dealing with homophobia. Sending people all the way to Mars highlights that even more. We can do such amazing things and still be as shitty to each other as we can be, and that’s the nature of humanity on a certain level. We joke in the writers’ room that we can go to Mars, but we bring ourselves there; we’re the problem. We’re always going to be who we are, but hopefully, we can get better.
AVC: Was it always the plan to have Margo [Wrenn Schmidt] be the one to defect to Russia instead of Sergei [Piotr Adamczyk] to the U.S.?
BN: We always thought it would be great to get to this part at some point. We never had it exactly mapped out. But her story is fascinating because we don’t want to tell the same stories again. This felt like an opportunity to explore yet another part of the world and yet another part of Margo. She’s come all the way to the top of NASA after starting from the backrooms. She has a choice in this moment to either go to prison or she has to take this offer from the Russians. It’s a tough choice. We know we’re doing something right in the writers’ room when half of us are on a team that says she has to go to prison while the other half is arguing, “What good would she be behind bars? She’s brilliant and can help the space program.” That argument went on for quite a while. It’s just fascinating from a story potential for For All Mankind in season four.
AVC: How long do you envision For All Mankind will go on with all the aging and time jumping? Where does the space race go next?
BN: I feel like we’ve also aged 30 years making this show [Laughs]. We love For All Mankind, it’s a dream come true. The ability to tell this kind of story over decades is so unique. When Ron, Matt, and I created this show, we had a plan for six or seven seasons. In our minds, it was like, “How do we catch up to the present and show how different this world is?” I think that’s still the vision for us. Many things have changed, but we’re still on that roadmap, and we’d love to be able to get to that end and tell the full story.