Although For All Mankind Season 5 is boldly moving forward with new characters who represent the latest generation of the series, that doesn’t mean the rich legacy of the series is going away. In fact, as Episode 4 puts Alex Baldwin (Sean Kaufman) into a more active role, another previously unreal character makes her debut. And with the help of a very important cameo, this revelation is not only pivotal but also tender and down-to-earth.
Here’s why the debut of For All Mankind’s newest character, Avery Jarrett, as played by Ines Asserson, is such a big deal, and why it reverberates back to the iconic events in the Season 2 finale, five years ago.
Spoilers ahead.
In For All Mankind Season 5, Episode 4, “Open Source,” the situation on Mars gets dicey as Alex learns that Dev (Edi Gathegi) is planning on replacing various miners on Mars with automation. But, back on Earth, a division of the Marines called OPEF — Off-Planet Expeditionary Force — is gearing up to induct new members. And one of those members is Avery, who, when she was a baby, way back in Season 3, wasn’t born with the name Avery Jarrett, but as Avery Stevens. This means she’s the granddaughter of Gordo (Michael Dorman) and Tracy (Sarah Jones), the heroic astronauts who perished in the Season 2 finale, saving the Jamestown Moonbase from a meltdown. It also means her father was Danny Stevens (Casey W. Johnson), who, in Season 3, betrayed Ed (Joel Kinnaman), Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall), and the first humans on Mars, partly because of his depression and addiction issues. So in revealing Avery to the audience, it makes sense that there’s also more than a nod to the past.
After getting grilled by her superiors about her family background, Avery concludes that someone close to her must have talked about her mixed feelings about her biological father. It’s here that we see that Avery is close with Danielle Poole, a character who has been in For All Mankind since the beginning, who we last saw as the commander of the Happy Valley Mars base in Season 4. But, clearly, at this point, Danielle — who would be in her 60s or 70s by this point — is simply retired, and living a normal life. This is one of those twists of realism in For All Mankind, and similar to the fact that Ellen Waverly (Jodi Balfour) — former astronaut and later President of the United States — doesn’t appear in a major role after Season 3. Some characters simply move on with their lives and become private citizens.
Danielle’s presence in this episode is also a smart counterpoint to the passing of Ed Baldwin in Episode 3. Obviously, Ed and Danielle were partners and friends over the years, but they also had a ton of tension, and in Season 4, Ed was partly responsible for the riot that got Danielle shot.
Starting in Season 1, in the now-famous episode “Hi Bob,” Danielle, Ed, and Gordo, while stranded on the Moon, re-enacted an episode of The Bob Newhart Show in order to keep themselves from going nuts, which, of course, made them all go nuts. The phrase “Hi Bob” later became a kind of inside joke within the show, but also with the fans. Ed and Danielle would often greet each other with a simple “Hi Bob.” Famously, with Season 4, when Ed tries out this greeting, amid a ton of tension between him and Dani, she says, “Don’t you f*cking ‘Hi Bob’ me!” In a reference to this moment, Marshall repeated that line on an Instagram post from the official For All Mankind account, revealing her appearance in Episode 4 of Season 5.
Here’s the thing: It’s a good joke, and a nice callback for hardcore fans of the show. But, crucially, Danielle does not say “Hi Bob” (or “Bye Bob”) in the episode in reference to Ed’s passing. Instead, Avery is surprised to see a photo of Ed on Danielle’s mantle, with a flower placed next to it. Danielle tells Avery that the line between love and hate isn’t so clear, which makes perfect sense considering what she and Ed have gone through.
With both this cameo and the full introduction of Avery into the show’s mythos, For All Mankind proved that although its continuity is an integral part of its story structure, callbacks aren’t inserted just for the sake of it. Yes, we may have gotten some deep-cut Easter eggs in Episode 3, which referenced spaceflight history and secrets from Ed’s past. But, despite that, this show isn’t about fan service, because at this point, it’s very clearly marching straight into a shaky and unknown future.
