'For All Mankind' Episode 5 sees Molly Cobb take risky decisions and push herself to bring back ice from the moon for all womankind
Spoilers ahead for episode 5 of 'For All Mankind'
'For All Mankind' Episode 5 finally saw team U.S. one-up team the Soviet Union in the space war. The one person President Nixon was unhappy about putting in the next mission to the moon, is the reason the entire country can celebrate in the glory of being the first country to find actual evidence of H20 (water) on the moon.
Molly Cobb (Sonya Walger) was never meant to go past the testing stage of being an astronaut. In fact, the President made it pretty clear to the Head of Astronauts' Office, Deke Slayton (Chris Bauer), he would prefer Sarah Jones' character Tracy Stevens (a white blonde housewife who had a passion for flying) to be the first U.S. woman on the moon.
His argument was that she, meaning Tracy, was better looking, which would ensure good looking pictures for the press. According to the POTUS, the only reason he saw women as a part of the mission was as a campaign ploy to attract more of the women vote for the upcoming election.
It is this mentality Molly stands up against from the beginning of the show and she continues to fight it even during her journey to and back from the moon. Mission Apollo 15 turned out to be a huge success, all because of Molly's perseverance despite and an entire room of men and one woman telling her to pull back.
Their intention was to ensure Molly's safe return given that the time she could spend exploring the surface of the moon's craters was limited. She cut it close and at any second could have run out of the air to breathe.
She could have also taken Edward Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman), her fellow astronaut on the mission with her if she continued to explore any further. The fact that she had to climb down while being tied to a rope that was controlled by Ed, already put her in a precarious situation.
Then, she took an extra 30 seconds to bring back a sample of ice buried under moon dust. A move that was life-threatening, and yet she made that call because it was important to her to be not just the first woman on the moon, but also the first woman to be a part of a mission that succeeded in finding proof of water's existence on the moon.
Before landing on the moon's surface, men in the flight control room informed the Apollo 15 crew their landing site was not close to the speculated water source points. We learn that the landing site that would be appropriate to find the water source point ends up adding 4,000 kilometers to their mission run. Ed calls for a change in plan, but Molly is hesitant.
Yes, the same woman who later put her life at risk was hesitant about changing the landing site because she was worried about the mission failing because of unknown landing circumstances. They had no knowledge about the new landing site, which meant that a lot of what came next would be unexpected.
She did not want to be the reason women in the future were kept away from doing what they loved because they were not good enough. Ed, who understands her perspective, left it to her to make the call and she chose to risk it in the end.
What influenced her? Our bet is the letter that was read to her, which was written by a little girl who was a fan of hers. In the letter, the little girl talks about how she has always loved to play with rockets her brother owned but would get into trouble all the time.
Once Molly was announced as the first woman astronaut to land on the moon though, her father bought her a miniature Apollo 15 to play with. The impact this letter made on Molly was visible. She responded by trying her best on the mission laden with responsibility.
The next episode of 'For All Mankind' can be streamed on Friday on Apple TV+.