'For All Mankind' Season 2 Episode 1: Is Molly’s life in danger? Moon mission goes south after solar shower
Spoilers ahead for 'For All Mankind' Season 2 Episode 1
'For All Mankind' Season 2 picks up a decade after the events of season 1 where Edward Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) and his wife Karen (Shantel VanSanten) had lost their son to an accident and Gordo Stevens had learned about his mental threshold after being forced to live on the moon longer than planned. In the beginning, we see that the US has sent more astronauts to research the stretch of ice that was found by Molly Cobb (Sonya Walger) in season 1. Since then, there has been no big step forward, except for the push for the militarization of the Jamestown Base on the moon.
Of course, Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt) is wary about this and about the fact that the US would even house a department of the navy within NASA. Ellen Waverly (Jodi Balfour) and Molly are on the Jamestown Base, on what could be Ellen's last run on the moon. A long line of astronauts wait to see the sunrise over a peak near the ice field, and things are moving seemingly smooth.
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On Earth, we see that Edward and his family have moved on from the tragedy, at least on the surface. They have adopted a daughter, and Edward has been appointed the Chief Astronaut on NASA, while Margo has become the Flight Director of missions. Edward's best friend Gordo, on the other hand, is not taking up any missions and instead, he goes around as a spokesperson who is raking in a fortune by speaking about his experience of helping a fellow astronaut who broke her arm while on a mission. Of course, not many seem to know the truth about Danielle Poole's (Krys Marshall) sacrifice. Now, speaking of Molly, here's how she put herself in danger.
Is Molly Cobb infected by radiation?
Even as Ellen gets ready to leave, the other astronauts are busy taking samples from their discovery site, and one of them happens to be Molly. When Molly is collecting samples in the depths of one of the crevices, bad news arrives from Margo and Edward. Turns out, a solar shower event is to occur soon, and while this will not affect the Earth's surface, it will affect the moon's surface and anyone on the moon will risk opening themselves up to harmful radiation. Ellen gets instructions from Margo to instruct all personnel to return to their base and lockdown hard until the event crosses.
However, Molly, who is still collecting samples in the crevices, is unable to return on time. One of her colleagues who was on the surface and was expected to hide out in one of the caves with her doesn't respond either and so in an attempt to find him and save him from the radiation, she ends up putting herself at risk. She removes the device that signifies if she had been infected by radiation and leaves it in the depths of the cave while she saves her colleague.
In truth, however, she has left herself completely open to the solar radiation that can cause cancer among other things.
Will she reveal the truth to her team?
The fact that Molly hid her radiation watch in the depths of the cave while she saved another astronaut indicates that she doesn't plan on letting her team in on the truth. Will she be forced to reveal the truth to her family and friends in the future?
'For All Mankind' Season 2 episodes will release every Friday on Apple TV+.
