'For All Mankind': Gordo's struggle with wife Tracy’s achievements as he flits between insecurities and being supportive is fun to watch
Gordo Stevens (Michael Dorman) has a problem. He is not the best example of a faithful husband and in the first few episodes of 'For All Mankind', we saw how much this tortured his wife Tracy Stevens (Sarah Jones).
She waited for him to return after his missions day after day, to see his safe return with the other wives, but Gordo always managed to find a woman to entertain his needs. One day, when he is on a call with Tracy, the woman who just rolled out of Gordo's bed ends up flushing the toilet.
Tracy is sure he is with someone, but she doesn't mention it. Instead, she ends up expressing her anger by throwing Gordo's things outside on the lawn. This one time, she is sure she wants to divorce him.
It's Karen Baldwin (Shantel VanSanten) who stops her from doing so by pointing out how this would affect Tracy's son. Karen explains society's opinion of women who are divorced and of broken families.
Tracy changes her mind, and just in time. After Gordo returns, he and Tracy are informed by Deke Slayton (Chris Bauer), the Head of Astronauts' Office that the POTUS wants her to be a part of a rigorous training program that will train the first group of female astronauts.
The one to stay on top of the class and not get cut by the trainers over the training period will be assigned to a future mission to the moon. Gordo initially doesn't see this as a problem. In fact, he supports Tracy being a part of the operation.
It also helps that Deke ironed out the deal further by adding Gordo to the Apollo 15 mission run. When Tracy wants to quit the program midway because of how she is pressured by people on the program and her friends back home, Gordo stops her from doing so.
All of this support, however, vanishes as the reality of what it means to be the husband of a working woman hits him. Initially, he tries not to let all of this bother him, but Deke pulls him out of the Apollo 15 mission to accommodate Molly Cobb (Sonya Walger) on the mission.
While he is going through a difficulty such as this, he sees Tracy celebrated for completing the training, becoming one of the first women astronauts in the country and get assigned a mission. He sees her take out more time for work, especially when she is required to make appearances for publicity and Gordo sees how this would give her the same opportunity it gave him. An opportunity to not stay faithful to him.
Coincidentally, when Tracy is working out of state and gets a call from Gordo, she runs to the washroom to flush the toilet while he is on call. She doesn't tell him it was her, or that she was alone to smooth feathers with him. Instead, she hangs up on him and this eats at him.
He ends up attacking Tracy for not being a good mother because she is spending so much time away from her son. The same man who supported her once because it helped him as well, now turned around to tell her she was not a good mother and this turnaround is fascinating.
Gordo's struggle between being a good husband and being a self-serving man who is entitled and craves attention is something that has to be explored further. The conflict within him and how this affects their future relationship would be fascinating to watch. As he flits between being supportive and insecure, there is a role reversal here that puts Gordo in Tracy's shoes.
The next episode of 'For All Mankind' can be streamed on Apple TV+ on Friday.
