Review: For All Mankind, "Have a Nice Sol" | Season 4, Episode 2
I wonder if Daniel Powter will write "Bad Sol" in this timeline
It would be unrealistic if Ed Baldwin wasn’t an asshole at this point.
First of all, he’s always been an entitled prick, on a basic level. But now he’s an old entitled prick, and one whose heroism has given him the leeway to basically run Helios’ operations on Mars however he damn well pleases. He’s not a bad person, necessarily, but he’s also been living in a bubble on Mars for eight years, and it’s exacerbated all the things that would naturally happen to a man of his generation.
And so it’s not shocking when Danielle arrives at Happy Valley and realizes that “Old Man Mars” has allowed a dangerous situation to fester. It’s not Ed’s fault that Helios misled recruits like Miles with salaries that included bonuses, nor is it Ed’s fault that the stalled Asteroid Capture program has made those bonuses obsolete. It’s not even Ed’s fault that Helios’ policy is to replace equipment instead of fixing it, leaving the lower levels struggling to access messages from home. However, it’s Ed’s fault that he’s simply sat back and accepted all of this—this is the same man who railed against Helios’ lack of flexibility as he captained their mission to Mars, but he can’t even send an EVA out to a satellite to try to ensure that everyone onboard could have the basic communications afforded to the surface dwellers?