Episode 6 was one of the most intense episodes of the series so far, got so many threads getting to a conclusion and some to an almost no return point, especially with how careful the tension builds right from the opening, where Irina walks up to her Moscow apartment and notices the security tape on the door is broken. She steps inside looking for Tanya, finds broken glass on the floor next to a dropped photo of a young Irina standing next to Brezhnev, which tells you Tanya saw it and probably panicked. Tanya just starts running into the Moscow streets, ducking into a cafe to use her lipstick to mark a wall before slipping back out, then down under a bridge to a bench by the water, using that old exit plan Valya told her about to finally reach the Americans without even knowing if it was all true because for the most part she thought Valya was getting played by the Americans. You can tell from her face how terrified she was while she waits and it is such a dramatic moment that proofs how good acting is on this series, this show can build suspense without a single action scene. I love how they balance this quiet spy stuff with the massive dangers happening up in orbit, obviously up there its more dangerous because once you make a mistake most of the time is over but on Star City it almost feel like they have no place to go, would be interesting if Tanya really makes it ou alife. I think the series also proof how you do not need explosions to hold attention, just people making terrified decisions while their whole reality falls apart, how Tanya scramble for her life, wondering if Irina would catch up to her before the American handler got there first.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32140872/
- Platform: APPLETV
This episode does a good job at how it isolate Valya up on the spacecraft with a cold, calculated manipulation because in that short time he manage to fool quite the amount of people because neither the Chief Designer or the police knew where the fuck he was and what he was up to. The Chief Designer and Colonel Raskova cannot just radio up and tell Sasha to lock up his best friend, so they bring in Lakshmis husband Manu and pass him off as a spouse getting a rare chance to talk to his wife in Hindi. The Chief Designer slips Manu a note telling him to have Lakshmi reset the some electrical relay like its routine maintenance and she does it without a second thought, all this with the excuse so they can get more talk time but it should felt weird for Sasha at least, I would say Valya didnt catch it because he was probably too scared. Once that reset goes through, the Chief Designer sends Valya into the utility module for a systems check right before the hatch slams shut and locks him in. I have to say this scene makes your stomach drop because you realize how they just trapp him and when Raskova gets on the radio and flat out tells him he is under arrest for treason. Sasha refuses to believe it and pulls a fuse to cut the feed with mission control himself, on that private conversation between Sasha and Valya we got some of the best acting in the episode, Sasha wants his friend to deny it and instead Valya breaks down and admits he did it to protect Tanya. Sasha telling him a man is dead because of those choices, it felt almost like you got blood on your hands, I got blood on your hands because of your treason, there is no other way around it and it gives so much weigth to Valya desicions when he could easily either run away or risk it and go with the state to "protect" them, yeah sounds easy but one way or the other the state would think he is lying and still get them both kill just to cut down the risk or an actual spy on their camp.
Im really enjoying the way this show handles its space story, reminds me of old paranoid cold war movies where the real enemy is not the environment but the bureaucrats pulling strings from comfortable desks back home. The Chief Designer secretly launched an unauthorized mission to Venus just to grab glory for the Soviet Union, believing a successful orbit would make the central committee forgive it. But the show flips that on its head once the standoff with Valya escalates and Colonel Raskova orders the utility module depressurized to execute him without a trial. Her cold, emotionless face while she orders the death of her own cosmonauts turns the show in something a lot darker with a no hope situation and tells you that there is literally no way out of the system. When the Chief Designer refuses to let Valya die and secretly has Sergey open the hatch, he chooses basic decency over party loyalty and gets arrested on the spot, calling Raskova a monster as the guards drag him off. That is the real clash here, scientific progress against ruthless control, but terror escalates when Raskova decides the whole spacecraft has to be purged since Sasha and Lakshmi saved a traitor, and Sergey refuses to depressurize it, so she pulls a gun on another terrified engineer and forces him to flip the switches or put a bullet through his head on the spot, the man choose to keep his life.
There are always a few cracks though and for me the whole sequence of Irina tracking the American felt too easy and convenient, sometimes the shows does this by giving this easy wins, not sure if its to simplify things, its already very dark with a lot of moving pieces. Irina goes to a local concert hall and just happens to find a coat check lady who perfectly remembers the American, saying she comes three or four times a month and always leaves at the first intermission. It felt too convenient and it kept going when Irina follows the American through the streets and slips a tracking device on her right before the two get split up across different buses in the crowd, tech that feels a little too advanced for this era. My frustration hit its peak when Irina picks the lock on the safe house apartment and creeps around while Tanya is drying her hair with a loud hairdryer. We get a huge revelation right before that, the American handler explaining Tanya was the actual target all along because of her old music smuggling ring, meaning Valya was blackmailed just to protect her and that they basically hit the jackpot when he got involve on the space program. That is a great plot development, but it gets buried under the awkward fight after, where Tanya grabs a heavy lamp and smacks Irina over the head, and suddenly this KGB operative looks completely unprepared, like why Irina is going so easy on Tanya? we know she can be ruthless although I think there is going to be a limit for this kindness from her, like knocked out by a scared woman swinging a lamp,, she can do better than that.
The end of this episode leaves you staring at a completely devastating situation, no hope left, just a massive tragedy dropped right in your lap. As the oxygen gets sucked out of the spacecraft, Sasha scrambles looking for any way to stop the remote depressurization commands coming from mission control, ripping a panel open in one last desperate move and pulling a bundle of wires trying to cut the power. Then I think somehow the cables short out instead, sending a spark into the small space although Im not sure how it ignites into a fire that fills up the whole compartment in bright orange flames. The feed goes dead, mission control is left staring helplessly at silent screens and you are stuck with the reality that three people are probably dead on a spacecraft already well into its long trip to Venus. There is no heroic rescue, just fire and silence and the fact that Raskova basically had her own crew killed to snuff out a security threat the second Sasha and Lakshmi tried to save a supposed traitor, I mean where were they going anyways? its this power hunger that made her kill them all, the most logic option would have been let them complete the mission and then make sure to keep them locked up until they arrive once they hit Earth again. This series have this kind of bold move to leave you wondering if a whole group of characters survived this early in the season, leaving Tanya alone with the knowledge that the Americans used her to get to her own husband the entire time. Things really escalate fast on this episode, we go from confirm Valya is missing to get them all killed, plus the end of the episode doesnt really confirm if they all three dead for sure or if the ship blew appart but considering they were on this strong sphere I would doubt it. The scenes in space or I would say related to the ship is what really kept the episode alife and they push this story into some very dark, unpredictable territory. I am giving this episode a solid 7.5/10 because it takes massive risks and delivers real tension, and it proves this series is not playing it safe, right now if we think about it half of the core characters are dead and they would have to build a second story, as important around it.
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