The Sands of Ares

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The Sands of Ares

season 3, episode 8

General Information

Episode

3x08 (28)

Air date

29 July 2022

Run time

64 minutes

Timeframe

Early April 1995

Writer

Joe Menosky
Eric W. Phillips

Director

Dan Liu

Chronology

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"Bring It Down"	"Coming Home"

"The Sands of Ares" is the eight episode of the third season of For All Mankind. It was released on Apple TV+ on July 29, 2022.

Synopsis

After a sudden crisis, the Martian crews pull together.

Plot[]

The NASA team at Happy Valley learn of the landslide on Mars and try to make contact. Alexei Poletov manages to dig himself out and searches for other survivors, where he finds Louisa Mueller, though the two find Nick Corrado and Isabel Castillo didn't make it.

Ellen Wilson confronts Pam Horton on the latters letter written 10 years ago. Pam expresses she gave her up in hopes Ellen could make a difference for people like them, but was disappointed when Ellen only came up with compromies during her tenure. Ellen is then alerted by the Secret Service^W about the Valles Marineris incident.

Happy Valley makes contact with Phoenix, and learn HAB 1 was buried from the landslide, while HAB 2 was able to be raised. Meanwhile, on Earth, Helios Aerospace and Roscosmos agree to collaborate with NASA on a rescue mission, while Karen Baldwin decides to bring comfort to the families of those not accounted for.

Danny Stevens cleans out Ed Baldwin's wound while having doubts they'd make it out, believing even if there was a rescue mission, they would lose oxygen before they could be dug out.

The Happy Valley team arrive at Helios' HAB 2, where they coordinate the rescue mission as Poletov and Mueller return and use their knowledge to pinpoint where HAB 1 could be buried. Poletov and Kelly Baldwin work on a search mission using a GPR connecetd to a rover in search of a signal from HAB 1. During which, Alexei takes Aspirin due to his head trauma from the landslide. After bringing comfort to Kelly, they manage to pick up a signal from HAB 1 and send the coordinates for the rescue team.

While planning the rescue mission, Margo Madison notices Dev Ayesa had wandered off and finds him in the Mission Control viewing room. He confides to her that his father built components for the Saturn V, but lost his job and never recovered following the Apollo 23 incident. Dev admits he tells the story, but always leaves out the stories of failure, as Americans only care about success.

Jimmy and Amber Stevens worry back on Earth. Karen arrives to bring comfort to the two, but Jimmy believes the reports on the incident aren't true, and there is something else at play. After cooking up a meal, Amber breaks down as she continues to worry about Danny. Shortly after, they learn that they managed to make contact with Ed and Danny's HAB, and there is still hope.

Ellen returns to the White House, and Larry confronts her about it. Ellen defends that what she did is no worse than what Larry himself did. Larry suggests Ellen should've taken comfort, as the disaster would quiet talks about her recent political decisions. When the Vice President and the NASA administrator arrive, Ellen dismisses Larry.

At JSC, Dev proposes to set off a bomb reaction downstream of the HAB, causing the debris to flow down, exposing the HAB 1 to the surface. Others suggest it's too risky, as a miscalculation would kill Baldwin and Stevens. Dev defends it's an engineering problem they'd have to take. After making the calculations, Rolan Baranov and Will Tyler leave to set the explosives in the lava tube^W underneath the buried rover.

Ed tries to instill hope for survival to Danny, and warns him back in the Korean War^W, the first to give up were the first to die. An angered Danny teases Ed for making his son Shane fear him. Ed retaliates and the two briefly get into an altercation, which opens up Ed's wound. Danny quickly apologizes and rushes to fix Ed up once again.

When Karen tries to bring comfort to Jimmy, the latter conronts her about her affair with his brother. She confesses she was mad at the time, but Jimmy believes she used him, just like everyone has. The two confide with each other in hating the space program.

As the HAB 2 arrives, Alexei collapses from his head trauma, which gets worse as they pressurized. Dr. Mayakovsky rushes to bring aid, requiring to drill into his skull to release the pressure, but requires a blood transfusion, which luckly Kelly shared the same blood type.

A remorseful Danny admits that Ed was right, and offers to help Ed into his space suit. But Ed, feeling guilty admits he argued with Kelly just before the incident, just like he argued with Shane before he passed away. Danny confesses that he was behind all the mischief, but let Shane take the blame. Feeling guilty for his death, Danny wanted to live the life Shane deserved, and that it should've been him on Mars instead. Ed brings comfort to Danny. As Danny was about to confess one last thing, the explosion goes off.

Amber and Karen receive another call, where they learn that Danny and Ed were succesfully rescued. Amber embraces Karen and Jimmy, after finally finding some comfort.

Ed awakes, but learns of the casualties from the landslide. Kelly cries over Alexei, who didn't survive the procedure. Sometime after, Grigory Kuznetsov tells Mayakovsky he did everything he could, but that Kelly would soon find out about her pregnancy, and that they need to report to Moscow and her commander before it puts the crews at risk.