Lyudmilla having to report properly the way she hated. I’m sure making her do that will go swimmingly for all concerned. 😬
1971 — Sergei is only ~30 🥺
Petrovsky taking over the Chief Designer’s office and *jfc* his post 😬
***
WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO SERGEI??? Our poor adorable baby space nerd 🥺
Not a basement cubicle 😭 “You’ll just have to work late.” He would, without a second thought, if he enjoyed it 😭
The irony that horrible cubicles are not just a capitalist worker hellscape 🥺
***
Noooo what have they done to Anastasia? On the up side, she’s blatantly not pregnant. But that may mean they’re going to make Tanya Lenya’s mother, which I guess would explain FAM s5 Irina’s attachment to him…
Her father doesn’t care about her being in mourning, he just wants her to do his work on the farm.
So the thing Salyut lost was a film cartridge. Can none of them do surveillance without getting caught? 🙄
***
Zoya not liking piano lessons any more and wanting Tanya back 🥺 Is that all the Tanya reference we’re going to get? Surely not?
***
“It requires an engineering solution.” Duh.
There it is — he knows about Irina finding out about Valya. That’s not good for Lyudmilla. Irina’s his favourite.
“It’s only a suggestion” lol.
***
Tarasov 🙄 This actor does an amazing job of making me loath this guy.
Oh no, not making her watch film of her and Sasha 😭😭😭😭😭
No wonder she can’t bear it. Poor Anastasia. 😭😭😭😭😭
***
Burkov telling her how it is — “a KGB stooge who can barely tell the difference between liquid oxygen and vodka” 😬 Woah, he’s self-destructing. At least he says it wasn’t insubordination from his team. He’s a goner. There it is, a uniform escorting him out 😬
No, Sergei, keep your head down. What are you doing??? You look so suspicious! Oh, he wants to leave — understandable. “I need a change” 😭😭😭😭😭 He’s so far from meeting Margo.
***
“You’re going to be sick of borchst” 🤣 He’s right, that is a lot of beetroot.
Oh no. Lyudmilla: “it’s better than the gulag” true but also not going to win you any favours
“Galina’s likely in there now sharpening her knives” 🤣
“Not after what you did to my Eagles” 😭😭😭
“I allowed you to take the full responsibility” — because threatening his favourites went so well for you last time, Lyudmilla..?
“He’s not you.” Woah — she admitted it. What a *weird* relationship this is.
Oh, she knows how to push his buttons: “Harm Star City, perhaps irreparably”
“everything we have built together will be destroyed” — god, the parallel with Margo/Sergei, Mars and that asteroid 😭
There’s an algorithm on the Venera computer — jfc a parallel with Mars-94 and og fam Sergei (😭) How dare they hook me all the way back in with that last minute shot teasing FAM season 6? And how dare they do this to us so quickly after that asteroid call back (forward?)? I mean, I salute it, but hot damn it’s hard on my nerves.
***
I hate Anastasia’s father and he deserves to be bothered by unscheduled late night visitors, including Tarasov. (If you knew me, you’d know this is close to me wishing him a horrible death.)
lol — Tarasov sending him to get the drink then waiting for him to leave 🤣
Toasting the dead — I know it’s traditional but what a kick in the teeth for her.
She gets to go back to space? As commander? 🥹
“I don’t believe you are doing this simply as a gesture of goodwill” woah everyone is telling it like it is this episode.
“An alternate narrative.” Jfc the writers are telling it like it is too! Parallel with us, now. 😬
WOAH straight to Baikonur? They were desperate 😬
***
Sergei worked late. Noooooo, what now? what are they doing to his place? Not his records! Poor Sergei. Oh no, they found out he was trying to leave. 😭😭😭
We’re so far away in time from FAM s2 “They know I would never defect” 💔💔💔💔💔 I don’t even wanna think about how much worse it’s going to get between now and then for him to be that certain 😭😭😭😭😭
***
Woah — Petrovsky telling Irina things straight too. He’s a zealot. And she can work with that. Ew “people like us” 🤢
“and you want me to get that for you?” YIKES — bit of a poison chalice, no?
He knows “how much you had to endure before you came here” — no, no, no, poor Irina. 😭😭😭😭😭 We knew it was bad but why did it have to be this horrific? Maybe she’ll get rid of Petrovsky because he knows and acknowledges that he knows and she must hate that.
“Something good came out of what happened, your daughter” — dude, no, *stop talking*.
“We [people from the same posh neighbourhood] must protect each other” (Is he married already? Please god let him be married already so this is just weird pseudo-paternalistic over-familiarity and not a prelude to a proposal.) Also, clearly no one protected Irina from a fucking predator in their midst, you twerp, stfu.
ETA: he’s not wearing a wedding ring — I went back and checked 😫😫😫 Run, Irina!
WHY? Why do I watch this knowing what they like to do to us? Why do I come back every week?
***
Who’s the guy with Anastasia in the bus? Oh there are two. “So he’s KGB.” She’s not having any nonsense. There it is, they’re both KGB. What a surprise. Turns out Happy Valley in s4 FAM wasn’t the KGB’s first fully trained cosmonaut rodeo.
I do love the launch shots, it has to be said. I’m a total sucker. But we did already establish that because I come back knowing I’m going to get wrecked each week.
“We must remain focused and resilient” he says while distracting them with a pointless speech 🙄
***
Let him out of the basement! What did they do to his pal? Did his friend get whacked or sell him out for a promotion? He’s so upset, it must be the guy got disappeared after being tortured into giving up the information 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭 They must have already known, that’s why they kept him late so they could trash his place. Getting the letter was merely the cherry on the top for them. Stop torturing baby Sergei!
No wonder he was so ready to enter into that agreement with Margo. They are bastards and all their conniving would feel like it was slowing progress down at the cost of human life 😭
Well, this soundtrack isn’t at all menacing… Not. I am afraid. What’s Anastasia going to do? She’s not the 100% obedient patriot and never was 😬
Sergei’s not going to have inspiration in that horrible basement, is he? Surely not? I mean, he’s good enough, but it’s horrible and they don’t deserve it for doing that to him. S1 Margo and her tootsie roll frenzy vibes.
That’s an awfully non-androgynous docking mechanism.
Can’t keep a good man (baby Sergei) down! Not even when they torture him with banal work and destroying his stuff.
***
Lyudmilla in a tracksuit wasn’t on my bingo card but I’ll take it.
Woah, she’s brazen now. Bugging her boss’s home.
Nooooooooo not another baby — “his name was Dima” 🥺 Killed during the war 😭😭😭😭 I knew it would be something like this. I would have preferred a lost love to a lost child ngl. 😔
Irina’s Columbo-ing it — holy shit, she did, she just confessed.
“What are you waiting for?” What a surprise, Lyudmilla playing her as a double agent.
***
Oh, he wants back in ground control so badly. Why can’t he hide how he feels? 😭😭😭
Yeah, do it, Stepanov, come on, man! Yay! He’s doing it for baby Sergei!
“So you’re the one who told me to stab a hole in my suit in outer space” 🤣🤣🤣 Kelly-Aleida “she is the second stage” apology vibes. Finally he gets to talk to someone nice.
He got a signal! Stepanov panicking but baby Sergei can’t be stopped, he’s a man on a mission. He will have that calendar. Woah.
Fucking hell, Venera 7 came back. It got to Venus, swung around and came back. Jfc! I mean, I suppose it would given the trajectory was right. (They’re still dead, the fire would have taken all the oxygen, never mind the horrific burns, and they were being depressurised as well, but the ship may still have collected data.)
Nooooooo! They can’t do that to us! How am I supposed to wait a whole week????
***
Well the season finale looks like it’ll be nuts. 😬
ETA: 1 hr 4mins! Idk if my poor nerves can take it. (How did I turn into P&P’s Mrs Bennet??? When did that happen?)
Do we think giving the Chief Designer’s wife the name ‘Galina’ might be a nod to architect Galina Andreevna Balashova, who worked on the Soviet Space Program, including in Korolev’s OKB-1 from 1957?
Irl Korolev was married twice and neither woman was called Galina.
Galina Balashova - Wikipedia
Some of her work is described in this article, including the logo for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project:
A monograph by Philipp Meuser on the works of soviet architect Galina Balashova
