For All Mankind Season 4’s Ending, Explained

Apple TV+’s alternative history science fiction series For All Mankind has wrapped its fourth season with interplanetary intrigue and heightened geopolitical drama. Here’s how For All Mankind Season 4 ends and how it sets up Season 5.

For All Mankind Season 4’s Ending, Explained

For All Mankind Season 4 saw the United States and the Soviet Union become interested in mining asteroids for their valuable resources, employing civilian contractors to do the hard work. All civilian laborers bristled with military and government personnel on the joint colony on Mars, and tensions increased when presumed dead NASA official Margo Madison was revealed to be alive in the Soviet Union working with their space program. And in the face of these strained diplomatic relations, the private corporation Helios Aerospace had plans of its own for asteroid mining.

The American and Soviet space programs planned to bypass Mars by bringing asteroids directly into Earth’s orbit to mine them, cutting down on costs, time, and distance to harvest their resources. Realizing this would mean an eventual shutdown of humanity’s presence on Mars, Helios CEO Dev Ayesa and veteran astronaut Ed Baldwin plan to hijack the asteroid and bring it to Mars, forcing a continued presence on the planet rather than curtailing humanity’s outer space ambitions. The Soviet and American governments become privy to this and have CIA and KGB operatives secretly stationed on Mars to begin brutally interrogating black marketers on the base.

After learning that the asteroid hijackers are taking refuge in the North Korean section of the base, the CIA authorizes an attack on the section, only to be intercepted by disgruntled miners. In the bitter skirmish that takes place, NASA base commander Danielle Poole is shot and gravely wounded but survives and is sent back to Earth after order is restored. Helios engineer Aleida Rosales, working with Margo, succeeds in hacking into the asteroid capture program and bringing it to Mars, to the American and Soviet’s frustration.

Soviet space administrator Irina Morozova suspects Aleida’s role in the sabotage, but Margo quickly and publicly takes the blame for the incident and is arrested. Upon returning home, Irina faces a full Soviet inquiry regarding the mission’s failure to bring the asteroid to Earth, with investigators waiting for her in her office. NASA administrator Eli Hobson is similarly disgraced when news of the CIA’s presence and tactics on Mars leaks to the press.

How For All Mankind Season 4 Sets Up Season 5

Every preceding season finale of For All Mankind ends with a time jump to the decade where the next season will be set, and Season 4 is no different. For his role in helping Helios, North Korean station commander Lee Jung-gil is reunited with his wife, who arrives on Mars with a group of fellow North Korean refugees. Jumping ahead to 2012, Dev is on a mining facility on the asteroid called Goldilocks, named after the late cosmonaut Dimitry Kuznetzov, who first made contact with it in the season premiere.