Star City (2026): Dark Fores - S01E04 - RECAP

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I have been griding some series that I had in backlog, today I just realize that thursday nights now are packed because Silo just dropped plus Star City, Cape Fear and Sugar, so much content dont have enough time to post about all of it so Im been picky. Star City confirm as a For All Man Kind spin off has been on another level, its almost like they learn from the first series and episode four opens on a new scene set in intelligence reports from 1963 through 1965, an American spy with a British accent tracking Tanya because she is tied to a dissident group called Zeta smuggling banned Western music out of the country inside instrument cases. Turns out the Americans used Tanya and her music smuggling to get to Valya, it was basically by accident and turn him into an asset, which changes how I look at his betrayal, well just a bit. The best part is when the spy finally approaches Valya at a bus stop to recruit him, but the camera stays behind the bus and the engine noise silence their whole conversation. You do not hear the threats she makes but you feel the weight of it, Valya realizing he is trapped and has to protect his wife. Episode four leans way more into the espionage side of the story than the space stuff since Valya is not just a traitor here, he is a desperate man caught in a terrible position. The season is only halfway through so I need to pick up the pace, they already like two or three episodes ahead me.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32140872/
• Platform: APPLETV

The detective stuff this episode is fantastic, Colonel Raskova pulls Irina off surveillance duty and puts her in charge of tracking down that modified transmitter they found on the sip but its not the entire thing that matters but a small spring and suddenly she is out in the field carrying a gun for the first time, seems like they all train to carry a gun though. Irina goes down to the manufacturing plant and talks to the boss, and it turns out the strange coil inside the transmitter is made of a metal the Soviet Union does not even have, this confirms the device is not from them. There is this scene where they kept the invoices records, we talking the 60s so its all on paper, and somebody sets the files on fire and takes a shot at Irina that blows out a window right next to her face and instead of running after whoever did it she stops to put the fire out, but seems it was too late as there some papers more than half way burn. The real highlight comes later when Irina picks up her daughter from Tanya, asks to use the toilet and starts poking around the bathroom cabinet just as she did previous episode. She finds a perfume bottle from France, notices the spray mechanism is missing its spring and realizes the transmitter piece fits right inside it, it all clicks in and makes perfect sensce, that lead points straight back at Valya. You can watch her put it together and just like that Valya goes from grieving husband to traitor. It is such a satisfying way to discover who is working for the Americans and now Irina holds information that could destroy an entire family and she has to weigh her own ambition against her conscience.

While the spy stuff is fantastic, the story loose a bit of ground and felt a bit off when we shift to the new Indian scientist Lakshmi Chadha arriving at the facility, because her whole introduction feels way too convenient and also little context about her or why is she so important but they do provide such missing context latter on. She gets stuck with a bad workspace, missing equipment and coworkers who barely look at her, and then her husband Manu complains about flies buzzing around their apartment and a he is also very paranoic about they been monitor or even listen, without knowing they been recorded all the time. Later that night at work she hears loud clanking, wanders down into a secret basement, and finds the Chief Designer working on a Venus mission that is supposed to be completely classified. He tells her she is going to Venus with Sasha and Pavel on a nine month mission that leaves in exactly three days and it feel like this news had to be bigger than what they make it look like, but the cast still sold it. For a show that leans this hard on secrecy and surveillance, having a brand new scientist wander into the most classified project on the base makes zero sense. The Chief Designer basically force her to take the mission because there is no time to train a cosmonauts on a reciclying oxigent system that is the key for the mission and she is the one that invent it, even as cool as it might sound having the expert on boadrd but three days is absurd for pilots who usually train for years. Even Sasha seems hesitant to join, still dealing with his own trauma, which makes the rushed timeline feel even more reckless. The show is usually smart about its details, so watching them rush the Venus project this hard just feels like a shortcut.

Watching Anastasia deal with the public relations tour reminds me of how other space shows build their world, once the government gets what it needs out of you, your life belongs to the state and that is a statement this series has made form the very first episode everything belogns to the state and nothing is above. Anastasia has become this full blow puppet and she is signing autographs at a girls school one minute and getting drunk by a lake with the physics faculty the next, watching them shoot off model rockets in their underwear, everybody just trying to feel normal for a little while since she just cant handle her fake life anymore and is about to tip over. The whole oppressive Soviet era vibe reminds me a lot of Chernobyl the HBO tv series and that is one of the best series of all times despite how short it is, everything you say gets monitored and every achievement gets twisted into propaganda. On Star City they make this very clear to their face but always with some kind of excuse that some characters decide to buy and others are just full of all the bs. After what she did on her mission she overheard that they are never letting her fly again because she is worth more to them as a symbol turns her into a trophy rather than a tool. You can see the depression setting in when Sasha finally shows up at the lake to drag her home, their roles completely reversed, him acting serious while she is a drunk mess. They end up arguing in their apartment before the anger turns into sex, such a fascination combination that most of the time only happens in the movies to be honest and its always hilarious, but is a perfect example of just how trapped they both are in this system that they are taking any kind of easy escape from their reality. The paranoia here works a lot like For All Mankind, except this is steeped in secret police and labor camps. Even Raskova is not safe, getting called into an intimidating meeting in Moscow where her superiors subtly threaten her and demand reports so she can be replace but some how she still manage to stay relevant, she been doing this for a long time so she knows how to survive.

At the end I got this sense of disapointment because of the rushed Venus mission timeline but the spy takes over finally introducing the one that poison Valya into walking the left hand path. Watching Sasha at the memorial service, barely holding it together while the widow reads a heavily redacted letter from his dead crewmate does paint the picture about the guilt he is carrying, after all the mission is everything they got, they got no personal life, no public achievements, the states has taken everything from them even the glory so its all personal satisfaction when they make it but this time things went wrong and one of the eagles has fallwn. The state redacting a dead mans final letter to his own widow is just cruel but makes perfect sense how harsh this world is as they manipulate all the information. Raskova also tightens her grip by interrogating the engineers, leading to Sergei getting arrested after a some forbiddent text, I'm not so clear on this one but I guess its just some books that turns up during a search of his place, like she needed to make an example with Moscow breathing down her neck and planted evidence. Half the engineers admit to reading that book but Sergei is the only one who refuses to name names and ends up thrown in a cell and hosed down, showing how arbitrary the justice system is when she ask Sergei "yeah can you name those" refering to his coworkers who have read the same book, makes you think like if he does he rat them out and can be taken in with him but if he stays shut then he keeps them safe so he is the only one who sink, crazy stuff. Now that Irina has a solid lead almost evidence, connecting Valya to that transmitter spring, things are about to explode, forcing an impossible choice between her career and her friends, not really friends but aflter all Tanya is her daughters piano teacher and invite them home for private leasons after all. Despite my complaints about the Venus project, there is preasure at every level including Raskova so its not only those below her anymore. I am giving this episode a solid 8 out of 10, watching all these secrets unfold is a damn good content and the performances across the board are so so good.

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