Well… So that happened. Live-reaction stream of conscious and emotional damage with major spoilers below the cut.
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Ooh, Irina family reveal fallout, yes!
Broken picture frame glass and no Tanya means she’s figured it out, I assume.
Please, don’t let Tanya get caught 🥺
The anxiety this show gives me
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“Where have you been?” Yikes, Irina, bit obvious you’ve been out somewhere, turning up in coat and handbag etc…
Small problems divide them and the big ones unite them. ‘She’s outta line but she has a point’ vibes.
“She warned him?” — Irina realising Tanya is still (understandably) hung up on her husband…
“An unauthorised launch” — it really is all falling apart very quickly 😬
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This Venus mission is doomed. Sasha and Valya talking like that — absolutely 100% doomed. Gruesome space deaths à la FAM incoming.
“Free birds in truth, it’s time…” — unsurprisingly, that’s Pushkin, as Sasha accused him (😆), apparently “Мы вольные птицы; пора, брат, пора!” sometimes translated as “We're free birds in truth; it is time, brother, time!", one of the ‘most widely recognized declarations of independence in Russian literature’. So Valya is definitely, 100% doomed. The FAM universe gods punish that sort of thing, by which I mean hope. 🥺
Venera *7*? Christ, how many of these things have they lost already???
They’re just not going to talk them…?
The military want a moon base not a far-off death-trap — again, she’s not wrong.
“This is madness” — dude, your Venus mission is.
“We all know how you secure a confession”, “you have ignored a direct order from the Kremlin, wasted millions of roubles” — this is a marital argument. There’s that weird sort-of friends-but-not vibe again.
“You arrogant, arrogant man” — not wrong 😕
They found Pavel, then. 😬
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Uh oh, first deputy of the second directorate again.
“Your resources are limited” — well, duh
Putting Raskova in her place— he’s going to regret that.
“I can handle it” “and yet you have not” 😬😬😬
I knew he had a purpose! (Not, as I wondered, Zoya’s father though.) That shoe-horned in university reference was telling. “You’re Radyusha” “our neck of the woods” etc. Birds of a feather…
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Holy moly, the American actually turned up. Not sure she’s gonna get her out though. 😕 I can see Tanya just being disposed of by this woman. 😬
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All this betrayal and heartache. (Actually, doesn’t he have a heart problem?)
Oooooh no. Anastasia’s here to see the Chief after that letter. 😭😭😭
“Is that even possible?” “And they’re safe?” “They’re alright for now.” Jfc mate
“You should’ve have sent me with him.” 😭 She wants to be with Sasha 😭😭😭
“I will do everything I can to get him back to you.” THAT IS NOT REASSURING. He knows they’re probably going to die. His hubris is going to kill them all.
Loving this intense violin track! Also the blatant theft of the files. Irina really is obsessed with Tanya.
She often leaves at the first intermission? That’s a bit obvious, isn’t it?
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The earlier argument just ignored and carrying on as usual, again, it’s giving pseudo-marital spat vibes.
“He knows the craft too well” 🫣
“Not if the instructions were in a language he didn’t understand” — wow, she’s inventive. Lakshmi speaking Hindi would do it.
Poor Lakshmi’s husband. “You forced her into it” — kind of true, what choice did she have? If she didn’t go the other two would die of oxygen deprivation very quickly.
“Only nine months, same as a training mission.” So they’re all in the dark for months at a time about where their spouses are. No wonder Tanya went half mad.
Wow, Raskova is impressively manipulative. I see where Irina may have learned it from.
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Oh dear, Irina lost her. But stole one of the transmitters and dropped it on her when she bumps into her. Classic. Man, this show really turns on a dime.
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Sergei looks like he’s going to be sick again. Relatable.
Poor Manpreet. Poor Lakshmi.
“They needed me.” 😭😭😭 She’s going to die.
The Chief is not good at this subterfuge.
“Manu the budding engineer” 😭😭😭
“At least the flies keep you company… I love you too” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 They’re going to take Lakshmi from us.
I cannot imagine how it would feel to be totally at ground control’s mercy and then they just do that without warning. Even knowing you’re the mole, it’d be awful, for Sasha and Lakshmi it’d be absolutely horrific.
Poor Sergei. And Mikhail as well.
Losing pressure? He’s going to die. I mean, they all are, but him imminently.
“You need to listen to Colonel Raskova” = “I can’t save you”
“He is responsible for Petrov’s death not you” — she is pushing all the buttons available 🫣
Sasha pulling the fuse on the mics 😬
I’m so sad those three are for the chop 😭
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Not a creepy music-box doll 😬 Is that a reference to Tanya’s being a rehearsal pianist and also a tiny doll in the grand scheme of things?
“It was unfortunate, what happened to the two of you, but it was unavoidable” — woah. Brutal.
She’s really just laying it all out for her? Surely that means Tanya’s definitely going die, and knowing it was her past that they used to manipulate Valya. She really told her she destroyed Valya’s life. Wow. “he was doing it all to protect you”
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Aw, Lakshmi feeling guilty and Sasha telling her she couldn’t have known. “This is what they do… We have to stick together”
It’s too late, Lakshmi knows he lied about Pavel. They’re all going to die and it’ll be gruesome and they’ll be miserable when it happens.
“Just tell me I’m right”
Poor Sasha. Poor Valya. “I didn’t have a choice” — stop doing a Margo, Valya, explain what they had over you!!! It doesn’t even make a difference if he knows now, and he’d probably get it because he understands caring about your wife…
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Surprise, surprise, Irina’s after Tanya not the American. I really hope she doesn’t end up throwing Tanya to the wolves somehow. Or accidentally killing her in a tussle. But it would be on-brand…
That creepy doll again. They really know how to do menacing. Why do I watch this show when I know what it’s going to do to me???
Oh no. I think she might have just knocked some sense into Irina and broken the obsession. Please don’t replace it with vengeance, Irina. But, again, that would be on-brand… 😬
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JFC! Depressurise it??? “my engineers are not executioners” oh god what foreshadowing 🫣
“Otherwise you’re all going to prison.” Oh no, it’s shy Mikhail, the one who puts his hand up to speak, he can’t do anything but obey 😭
Sergei trying to help them 😭😭😭 I don’t think I can watch.
“Arrest the Chief Designer” — Jesus, she actually has. That’s surely a death sentence for all three of the crew.
“You’re a monster” That reaction shot is supposed to imply she has feelings, I suppose, but he does have a bit of a point…
Space ship shot = impending horrible space death
OMFG I can’t watch 🫣
“Depressurise the entire ship” WTF???
Oh no. Not Sergei. Oh god, the guilt of someone else having to do it because you couldn’t is as bad as having to do it himself 😭😭😭😭😭
“They’re decompressing the module again” — no, it’s the whole ship Sasha 😭
That poor engineer. (Was his name Victor?) Top notch trembling hands acting.
God, not the fucking soundtrack 😭😭😭🫣🫣🫣😭😭😭
Even if they manage to stop it they’re still dead 😭 We’re running out of episode so something horrific is coming to tie off this loose end, isn’t it?
HOW ARE THEY KILLING LAKSHMI LIKE THIS? Where’s the friendship with Sergei they teased in the publicity? They had like 2 scenes together or something??? She had 3 days to train???
OMFG. The Soviets used 100% oxygen didn’t they? (Dani said it in FAM? Fuck, that’s why they had those line with Lakshmi reporting the rate being like 90-something %?) That’s why it ignited. Wish I could say I can’t believe the writers did that but I can. I am a veteran of FAM. But why does it still feel so awful even though I suspected it was coming?
Oh Christ, Sergei’s face. No wonder he was fucking terrified of them in FAM.
THIS FUCKING SOUNDTRACK 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
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The way the Apple TV app returns to the show screen at the end of the credits and the episode description is just “The fallout in Star City causes plans to unravel” really is a kick in the teeth. 100% awful user experience. Jfc.
SC s1e06: Sasha Polivanov dies when a high concentration of oxygen was ignited in an enclosed space.
FAM s5e10: Lenya Polivanov, Sasha’s son, proposes and helps orchestrate the deaths of M7 forces when… a high concentration of oxygen was ignited in an enclosed space.
I want to say something about it happening in both cases as the result of Valya’s and Lenya’s deception (albeit in different ways), and the USSR state wins in both cases, but I can’t think it through with the headache I have at the moment. Suffice it to say: 😭
