This episode’s title, “Crossing the Line,†is punching well above its weight in word economy. In my original notes, I wrote that it works on two levels, but on further reflection and calculations, my revised number is six major line-crossings, and two or three smaller line-crossings for good measure. Whether that’s exceptionally clever or crosses yet another line into whatever insufferable nonsense lies beyond cleverness, it’s a very helpful organizational frame for the episode’s many twists and turns.
First, the strike, in which Happy Valley management accuses its workers of crossing the line of contractual obligation, and the workers retort that management has been crossing reasonable workplace safety lines for ages and now proposes to add insult to literal injury by not paying them properly for their dangerous work. Two of the most consistent strengths of both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA prior to and throughout their strikes this year were the clarity of their demands and their seemingly unshakeable solidarity as they negotiated new collective bargaining agreements. Those are aspects of successful labor actions that take a lot of time to develop, refine, and maintain, and they are aspects of the Happy Valley workers’ strike that are almost nowhere in evidence.
The negotiation session, if we can even call it that, is a disaster from start to finish. Massey is the only person in that overcrowded conference room prepared to have a serious, clear conversation about the issues, so the entire scene is a big, snarky shouting match. Dani can’t believe Ed’s union-man talk is sincere, while he snipes back that “it’s time for you to climb down off your goddamn throne and do what’s right.†He’s so far into “You’re not wrong, Walter, you’re just an asshole†territory that I would like to smack him directly upside his stubborn little head.
The only person who consistently sounds like an adult speaking in good faith throughout the episode here is Massey, and thanks to Ed talking over her, her points and questions don’t land as they ought to. Dani claims to have bent over backward to address workers’ concerns but by doing what, other than fixing the communications satellite when she first arrived at Happy Valley? That wasn’t going the extra mile, it was putting in some necessary effort to meet a basic need that everyone on base is entitled to.
I struggle with how poorly Dani is handling the strike; it feels very out of character for her to have missed the signs of its approach, and for her to be so wrong-footed in response. The most generous interpretation I can muster is to lay most of the blame on the intensity and urgency of the Goldilocks capture mission. However advantageous it would be to guide that $2 trillion hunk of rock to Earth, it can’t be done at the expense of the safety of workers with minimal job security, earning insultingly low wages. She’s just plain wrong here, and Palmer’s reflexive authoritarian yelling about the strikers being in breach of contract would be almost funny if it weren’t so unhelpful. The workers would be adhering to their contractual obligations if they weren’t being treated like so much space junk waiting to happen.
From here, the workers and management trade off line-crossing acts of provocation with increasing degrees of ingenuity and pig-headedness until their one-upmanship results in tragedy. The strikers piling all of the space suits in a heap between HQ and the fuel plant, and then using rovers to block entrance to the airlocks, is a stroke of genius that even Palmer grudgingly admires. A team of scabs (astronauts and cosmonauts, plus Palmer) then drain some water refinement pipes and belly-crawl 800 yards to gain entrance to the fuel plant to get it back online. Everyone involved is nothing if not good at mechanical problem-solving.
One person’s master stroke of “annoying but not inherently dangerous†sabotage is another’s industrial disaster waiting to happen, though. When the scabs bypass the missing primary gas-flow regulator (swiped by one of the striking workers almost as an afterthought), their workaround quickly overloads the argon production system, leading to an explosion that kills four and seriously injures four more of the astronaut-cosmonaut team.
Two things are true here: The explosion was unambiguously awful and should never have happened, and this is exactly the kind of thing that can happen when overconfident and impatient people disrespect their less-credentialed coworkers and insist on pursuing an untested alternate solution. The astronauts and cosmonauts are engineers, not a bunch of amateurs trying their best. A few more minutes of thought could have prevented the explosion. Unsurprisingly, nobody on the management side of things on Mars or on Earth sees it that way, and they accuse the striking workers of crossing a line into … terrorism? Acts of nonviolent sabotage are very inconvenient (disruption to business as usual is one of the key overarching goals of such tactics!) and the regulator theft could cause Happy Valley to lose their shot at capturing Goldilocks, but that does not rise to the level of terrorism.
It was bad enough when Irina and Eli were chummily framing the strike as “a tantrum†and scoffing at the “crazy†demand to mine Goldilocks in Mars orbit. The next thing we know, the CIA deputy director is laying out options for armed quashing of the strike. It turns out there are both CIA and KGB assets up on Mars, and they have access to “standard attenuated energy projectile systems,†a grotesquely euphemistic name for “high-pressure nitrogen weapons firing nonlethal rounds, which cannot pierce the walls of the HAB.†Will’s immediate follow-up question about what amount to high-tech rubber bullets — “do they pierce skin?†— is the gentlest imaginable response to this choice tidbit of information.
CIA Deputy Director Bob protests that he’s simply providing Eli and Will with information in the event that things escalate further. How, Eli wonders aloud, would authorizing a handful of intelligence officers to implement martial law on Mars de-escalate anything? Great question! Bob continues to hammer away about the importance of re-establishing control and stopping terrorist attacks, and Will’s suggestion of deputizing and arming Happy Valley personnel who have “adequate military training†manages to sway Eli. Space Guns 1.0 were a terrible idea in season two, and it’s not at all clear how this is a better option than putting the CIA and KGB in charge. Nonetheless, Dani duly hands out the Space Guns 2.0 and directs the team to “find those responsible for the explosion, and keep an eye out for anything suspicious so we can prevent any further tragedy.â€
The Space Pinkertons plotline — another line crossed with a vengeance — highlights how sensible people can lose their ability to make sensible decisions when fafillions of dollars are at stake. It’s as if nobody at Happy Valley or NASA has heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment; the “security†sweeps montage shows us a group of people who were already more powerful than the striking workers using their unearned and unnecessary power boost to behave like prison guards run amok. They’re turning over people’s bunks, destroying innocuous personal property, assaulting workers who protest — all to send a message. A helpful message would be something along the lines of, “We all need to take a breath and calm down,†but instead, what they’re transmitting loud and clear is, “The beatings will continue until morale improves.â€
It’s a perfect moment for Dev — who has just arrived on Mars and outside of the strike, seems the happiest and most at ease we’ve ever seen him — to swoop into the not-so-secret worker meeting area with a five-pound bag of sugar, pouring it out in a line between himself and the strikers. If there’s a way to do something dramatically, Dev will always find it. I don’t believe for a moment his professed respect for the workers’ clarity in bargaining and staunch standing of their ground, but he does know how to make a persuasive argument for getting back to work. His offer is a powerfully appealing combo pack of health and safety improvements, along with a package including higher pension contributions, better health care, a big one-time bonus, and most significantly, amnesty from any “terrorist†actions they may have participated in. It’s too tempting to pass up, and once the first person takes the deal, nearly all of the remaining dominoes fall. In the end, only Ed, Massey, Gerardo, Julie, and Holly (a.k.a. “Sparksâ€) haven’t crossed one line and gotten back into another. Thus endeth the Mars strike of 2003, I guess.
Back on Earth, we have a handful of comparatively smaller line-crossings. Margo gets breezily voluntold that she will be returning to Houston to chair key sessions in preparation for capturing Goldilocks. No need to worry about diplomatic immunity, it’s all been arranged by her new Motherland! Aleida’s response to this update — which she receives on-camera during an interview on Eagle News — is to cuss a blue streak and give her interviewer the finger as she storms off set. Icon. I only wish we’d gotten to see more of it. Aleida’s absolute refusal to suffer fools is perhaps not her most hirable quality, but it is one of her best.
One of Kelly Baldwin’s best qualities is her readiness to be loving and frank with her father. He’s regressed so much this season that it’s unsurprising to see that he relates to Alex the way he used to act with Shane. The Old Ed demanded respect from his late son without earning it, and he’s attempting to do the same with Alex, but Kelly won’t stand for it. It’s an imperfect and bumpy reunion, but at least the lower gravity on Mars is good for Alex’s health; Dr. Mayakovsky is very happy with his improved blood pressure and lung capacity.
The last line crossing is the biggest of the episode, one worthy of Dev’s penchant for drama. The sol following Ed’s not-so-great spaghetti dinner with Kelly and Alex, he barges into Ed’s quarters and monologues at him about how the two of them are birds of a feather: Neither wants to return to Earth, and both want Mars to grow into “a living, breathing society†for the future. How is that even going to be possible, now that Dev broke the strike? It looks like Dev was playing a quick round of 12-dimensional chess, using his strike-breaking to bring out the workers who “really believe in something bigger than themselves.†To do what, exactly? Why, what else: to “take what is rightfully ours.†It’s time for an asteroid heist!
Houston, We Have Some Bullet Points:
• A fun alternate history moment: The Eagle News interviewer notes that “Senate Majority Leader Feinstein has called [Margo] the worst traitor in U.S. history!â€
• Eli welcoming Margo to the Molly Cobb Space Center is both gracious and pointed, as her defection is so intertwined with the JSC bombing that took Molly’s life. I note that Eli and Margo walk past a memorial to the victims of the bombing, and that the memorial to Gordo and Tracy Stevens has not been restored to its place from last season. Is it still in Amber and Avery Stevens’s back yard?
• Javi, I see your Audioslave T-shirt, and appreciate the opportunity to furnish a reminder that their debut self-titled album is an underappreciated classic, “Like a Stone†is a banger, and this timeline continues to mourn the loss of Chris Cornell. I hope he’s still making art in yours.