Why The For All Mankind Season 5 Finale Failed Its Big Mars Revolution Story

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Warning: This article contains major spoilers for the Season 5 finale of "For All Mankind."

From the beginning of Season 5, "For All Mankind" has been building to all-out violence erupting between the two main factions battling it out on Mars. The ongoing Martian revolution storyline has established very straightforward stakes: an entire population of working-class, blue collar colonists fighting against a billionaire entrepreneur dead-set on an automated workforce and a coalition of so-called M-6 Nations on Earth with a financial incentive to ensure that production on the Red Planet remains uninterrupted. Fictional conflicts don't get much more clear-cut than that — particularly when, on top of this, the show's writers add the threat of highly-trained military forces armed to the teeth and with orders to achieve their objectives at all costs.

Unfortunately, something seems to have been lost in translation somewhere along the way. Much of the Season 5 finale (titled "This Land is Our Land") treats this inevitable confrontation with all the weight and stakes it deserves ... until it doesn't. For Miles Dale's (Toby Kebbell) increasingly desperate (and Soviet-aided) rebels, protecting their planet and way of life is worth any sacrifice, whether it be diplomatic relations with Earth or even their very lives. Still, the episode goes out of its way to question their methods (mostly through Coral Peña's politically-neutral Aleida Rosales) and their willingness to spill blood to defend their homes — a judgment never once extended to the literal soldiers taking over the Happy Valley base. Once the episode essentially asks that we extend our sympathies to the aggressors while finger-wagging the "Marsies," it truly feels like its writers have lost the plot.

In rushing to take a mealy-mouthed "Both sides are wrong" stance, "For All Mankind" fails its most important arc and characters.

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Of the many questionable moments in the Season 5 finale, nothing compares to watching young, disaffected "Marsie" Alex (Sean Kaufman) and trooper A.J. Jarrett (Ines Asserson) share a contrived series of scenes together. After his accidental shooting of best bud Marcus Haskell (Barrett Carnahan), Alex sits down with A.J. in the aftermath to bemoan what's brought their respective sides to such a state. But rather than point the blame where it inarguably lies (an invasion force with lethal intentions gunning down hordes of untrained civilians without once second-guessing their orders), the episode asks us to pretend as if both sides are equally in the wrong. Seriously, this is what happens: A firsthand witness to all the brutality and violence inflicted by an oppressive military sits down with the enemy, bonds with her over their mutual, injured friend, and then simply shakes her hand and wishes her "Godspeed" on her way to shooting more of his friends.

Misguided doesn't even begin to cover it, folks. It's one thing to watch recent episodes devote more and more screen time to characters like A.J. and Marcus, obviously to set up their personal confrontation with Alex. It's quite another to treat them as almost impartial observers to the story, as if joining a militarized organization like the Off-Planet Expeditionary Force (OPEF) wasn't an active choice that would involve, you know, shooting people. Instead of questioning their mission or raising doubts about using deadly weapons and live rounds against civilians, they storm the Mars base and eliminate targets with ruthless precision ... only to then ask us to feel empathy when A.J. expresses sadness about shooting someone between the eyes.

Again, what the heck are we even doing here?

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In all fairness, it's abundantly clear why "For All Mankind" ends its fifth season the way it does. Its writers approached things from the basic point of view that all violence is bad and that deescalating conflict is the only path forward ... regardless of whether that actually fits the story or not. That's certainly a nice thought and makes for a fine hypothetical discussion, of course, but in practice? For a show like this with an overall arc as politically potent as this one, well, let's just say one can feel the scripts bending over backwards to justify the overall conclusion.

Whether a commentary on the Iraq War (as evidenced by that rewritten meme earlier in the season) or something more immediate like Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza, "For All Mankind" can't help but fall woefully short with its ceasefire resolution. Not only do the circumstances feel awfully strained, pitting both sides in a deadly shootout that spells certain doom for all involved (which, again, could've been avoided if only the trigger-happy troops decided not to fight back against overmatched civilians), but it beggars belief that the ending montage apparently shows that nobody faces any consequences for their actions whatsoever. Not only are the OPEF and those who sent them to commit a handful of war crimes not hauled into court to be held accountable, but Miles seemingly gets promoted despite killing an entire room of OPEF leaders. Even Elon Musk-avatar Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi) receives a get-out-of-jail-free card for starting this whole mess in the first place ... by simply planting some new crops?

Season 5 has some of the best moments in all of "For All Mankind," but the finale simply doesn't ring true.