For All Mankind Bosses Talk Finale Time Jump, Who Will And Won't Be Back In Potential Season 5 — Plus, Grade It!
Warning: The following contains spoilers for For All Mankind's Season 4 finale. Proceed at your own risk!
Per tradition, For All Mankind wrapped up Season 4 by jumping forward in time from 2003 to 2012, and with that nine-year leap came the reveal that asteroid Goldilocks is now home to the Kuznetsov Station. But which characters will be present in 2012 to explore those asteroid riches in a potential fifth season? (The Apple TV+ drama has yet to be renewed.)
Before showrunners Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert tackle that question in the following Q&A, let's briefly review where the finale left Ed, Dani & Co. ahead of the time jump: A riot broke out on Mars between the Helios workers and security, leading Dani to get shot in the melee as Ed looked on in shock. Surprisingly, the Happy Valley leader survived and made it back down to Earth to reunite with her family.
Meanwhile, Mission "Let's Steal an Asteroid!" was successful, thanks to an unexpected assist from Margo and Aleida back on Earth. They wanted the government to keep investing in Mars and the space program, so they tinkered with the code, sending Goldilocks into Mars' orbit. When the truth got out, Margo took the blame, saving Aleida from a terrible fate, and was taken into FBI custody.
Below, Nedivi and Wolpert reveal which original cast member has likely reached the end of their run on the series. The EPs also discuss Ed's surprising longevity and how the season ender sets the show up to go beyond Mars.
TVLINE | I felt like there was a lot of foreshadowing this season that suggested that maybe Ed might not survive, so much so that I was surprised that he wasn't the one that got shot in this episode. Was there ever a possibility of him dying this season, or just getting shot?
BEN NEDIVI | I mean, we discuss everything, like every possibility. One of the things we try to do is we have a plan at the beginning of the year, but we leave it flexible enough to see how the story's coming through, the footage we're seeing, the scenes, and kind of leave it a little open-ended in the end. But pretty early on, we felt like this is not the season where Ed will [die] because, one, we have more story to tell. And I won't lie — we maybe played into that expectation a little bit there at the end with that shot. [Laughs] We definitely had fun with that, because I think there's definitely a lot of expectation because of the history of the show. "Which character is going to die next?" is something that almost has become expected. So in a strange way, someone not dying is almost a new surprise.
MATT WOLPERT | Yeah, we did that with probably all three of the remaining original, older cast members, where we were aware of the audience expectation of this could be their last go-around in the show. And so, there are moments in each storyline that are sort of teeing up that idea of, "Is this the last time we're going to see them?"
TVLINE | Instead, it's Dani who gets shot, but she does live. So why her? And how did you decide on what her ultimate fate would be?
WOLPERT | As Ben said, we talk through every possibility in the writers' room, and we definitely talked through versions where Danielle dies from that gunshot. We talked through versions where she lived. Really, almost right up until the very end as we were writing it, we didn't know which way we were going to go. We knew that Danielle felt like the right person to be in that position, because her getting shot stops the riot cold, and it felt like that was the one person remaining that everybody would have some level of respect and care for, even those Helios workers, and it felt like that, on a story level, made a lot of sense. And then it was, "Well, is she going to survive or not?" And when it came down to it, it felt like a much more unexpected ending, honestly, to have that reveal of her having survived. And it also felt like such a great moment to have her meet her grandchild for the first time. It keys back to this concept of the show being a generational show and that there is hope in the next generation. That beautiful moment of her meeting this baby kind of encapsulated what our show is all about.
TVLINE | After getting shot during a riot on Mars, is it safe to say that she's going to retire from NASA? I mean, come on!
NEDIVI | [Laughs] Yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say at that point. And it's interesting, in our conversations with Krys [Marshall], we definitely told her like, "This is the end. Most likely, you won't make it out of this season." I'll never forget her reaction to reading the script. She's like, "Wait, I'm alive?!" [Laughs] She was almost disappointed. She didn't have the tragic, heroic death I think she was expecting. But as she saw the episode, more and more to her and to us, it really made sense for that to be the ending. We don't want it to be that the only way you leave the show is by dying or being killed. Like we did with Ellen earlier this season, we felt like it's more realistic that some people leave the show, yes, because they died, but others leave maybe because their story arc is done, or their time in this job no longer makes sense, or they move on to other adventures. ... We're always also thinking about [how] for this show to work, you have to evolve the cast. You have to say goodbye to some of the characters and actors we love the most, and introduce new characters as we go, and that's something that we've done with intention since Season 2.
TVLINE | You just said this is most likely Dani's last season, but you have more story to tell with Ed? So Joel Kinnaman will be back, if there is a Season 5?
NEDIVI | At this point, we don't want to say anything, honestly. Until a Season 5 [is ordered], until we're able to sit in a room and really discuss what we want to do with a Season 5, we don't like to commit to anything at this stage. So I would leave that open. ... In general, the rule has been, for Matt and I at least, if we feel there's no more story to tell with [a] character, and by story, I mean good, meaty story, then that's usually the sign that it's time to move on.
TVLINE | I'm just surprised with Ed in particular because he is one of the characters that is getting up there in age and he is sick. So there's a lot of factors that suggest that maybe he's not going to survive that nine-year time jump.
WOLPERT | Potentially. [Laughs] Tune in and find out!
TVLINE | The other point of this original cast member triangle is Margo. What is her potential future with the show if it's renewed?
WOLPERT | There's definitely an element of seeing her being arrested and let out of [the space center] for the last time that has a nice closure to it, and a lot of the beginnings of Margo's story in the first season, you can see the echoes of those in the end of Season 4. But who knows what the future might hold for prison-bound Margo Madison. You can never count her out.
TVLINE | After confessing that she thwarted the asteroid capture mission, the Russians withdrew her diplomatic immunity. Between that and the way that she blew up at Irina for Sergei's murder, is being taken into custody by the FBI a better future for her than if she had to go back to Russia to face the consequences?
NEDIVI | By the way, it's that choice that really fascinated us in the writers' room and when we were working on the script, because it felt, to us, that by the end, it was the better choice. I think she's realizing her fate the moment she finds out about Sergei. I think that does hang heavily on her, and it's at that moment, she realizes, "The only option for me now is to face justice." She also maybe, deep down, feels that there is some guilt there. I don't think it's that everything she did was totally aboveboard, and I think she knows that, even if she has her reasons. So there's something about that ending, where it's not just her going to prison. She's also taking the fall for Aleida. That's a big part of that. She realizes, by turning herself in, by saying it's on her, that she's protecting Aleida from that kind of fate, and giving [Margo] that kind of heroic moment really is a great kind of climactic moment of that relationship and everything they've been through, not only this season, but from the very beginning. So it felt like a really beautiful ending [to] the season for her, and there's something almost happy about that moment of her going to jail. It almost feels like a fitting ending, and I feel she's, in a certain way, OK with it. Not that she's excited about going to prison, but I think she feels like, "This is what I should be doing. This is the right way to do it," and that protecting Aleida is even more reason to do this choice rather than go back to Russia.
TVLINE | But if Irina forced her to go back to Russia, I would think she's definitely dead. But since she's going into FBI custody, I was like, "She could potentially live to see Season 5."
WOLPERT | It's definitely a possibility. Prison is not that safe a place, though. So you never know. [Laughs]
TVLINE | You end the finale with another time jump: It goes from 2003 to 2012, and there's this whole station now on the asteroid. What kind of a stage did you want to set for a potential Season 5?
NEDIVI | For us, that image at the end says two things: One, that this insane heist actually worked. It paid off. They are investing in Mars and investing in the asteroid, which, if that's the case, you have to imagine that the impact of that on Mars would be huge, as well. So for us, what's always exciting in pushing forward with the show is imagining where we can go. So that means not only with the asteroid and the impact that has on Mars, and possibly going to a colony now that is much bigger than the one you see in Season 4, but even the potential now of going further than Mars. That's always been in the back of our minds, that roadmap of the show, and the further we can go with it, the further we can take space travel, as well.
For All Mankind fans, what did you think of the Season 4 ender? Grade it below, then hit the comments!