Pathfinder
- Episode aired Mar 12, 2021
- TV-MA
- 1h
IMDb RATING
7.6/10
1.6K
YOUR RATING
With a little help from Molly, Ed plans a career change - as his old Jamestown crewmates Gordo and Danielle struggle.With a little help from Molly, Ed plans a career change - as his old Jamestown crewmates Gordo and Danielle struggle.With a little help from Molly, Ed plans a career change - as his old Jamestown crewmates Gordo and Danielle struggle.
Cynthy Wu
- Kelly Baldwin
- (credit only)
Coral Peña
- Aleida Rosales
- (credit only)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe first depiction of NASA astronaut Sally Ride. In reality she was America's first woman in space. Some aspects of the characters of the show are based on Ride, such as Gordo and Tracy Stevens (the "married space couple"; Ride was married to fellow astronaut Steve Hawley), and Ellen Wilson (a closeted lesbian astronaut, married to a man to stifle suspicion).
- GoofsThe episode opens with Karen cooking breakfast, and she starts with putting eggs in a frying pan. A bit later, she adds raw bacon. Just a couple minutes later, she serves the breakfast to Ed, and somehow the bacon is done with the eggs being over easy. There is no way bacon would cook that fast without it absolutely burning the eggs to a crisp.
- ConnectionsFeatures Asteroids (1979)
- SoundtracksFor All Mankind Main Title
Written by Jeff Russo
Featured review
Moon action.....
Joel Kinnaman's Ed Baldwin has always been one of the series' main protagonists, but For All Mankind Season 2 Episode 4, "Pathfinder," proves why he's often one of its most difficult to root for. True, we've seen him suffer - losing his son Shane last season was a blow not many men would have been able to recover from, and being stuck on the moon when it happened obviously made everything worse. His friendship with Gordo has always been rather charming, and their ability to be emotional with one another is a rare thing in male characters fro this time period. But Ed is also a character who's always had something of a difficult, even selfish streak - whether it was his internalized misogyny toward women joining the space program, his willingness to let Danielle cover-up for his breakdown, his need to constantly "handle" Gordo's mistakes for him. And as the head of the astronaut office, Ed seems generally competent, but his obvious nepotism is - or at least should be -- worrisome to everyone. He puts Gordo on a mission to the moon when it's clear that he's very far from ready for active duty. (He's a drunk, wildly out of shape, and has been on the ground for a decad And he seems to be totally okay with covering up the fact that his friend's having panic attacks that could endanger other astronauts, too. There's a certain air about this that isn't just selfish - it feels like a strange payback for the fact that Apollo 10 didn't quite make it to the moon first. So, I guess if Ed couldn't be first on the moon, he'll... make history another way? It's not exactly sure how we're meant to read Ed's choices here, but they hardly seem noble, or in the best interests of the program. But, for what it's worth, Ed's conversation with Danielle about race in the space program is something that For All Mankind has needed for a long time. In truth, it needs more of it - if only because it is very obvious that even nearly 15 years since a Black woman went into space, there still just aren't many Black people in the program, and certainly not leading missions. Is that Ed's fault? Not entirely, but he does bear some responsibility. After all, he was all too willing to let Dani cover for him in Jamestown, and has certainly reaped the benefits of that mission in the years since, while she still appears to be stuck in the same place.
helpful•95
- GusherPop
- Aug 12, 2022
Details
- Runtime1 hour
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content