For All Mankind Season 5 Just Gave Its Best Character A Perfect Send-Off
by Jeremy Mathai · /FilmWarning: This article contains major spoilers for episode 3 of "For All Mankind" season 5, "Home."
Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened. In the span of one episode, the greatest gimmick and the best character in all of "For All Mankind" reached its natural conclusion — and it couldn't have been more perfect. While the action this time around has mostly been focused on the mysteries to be found on Mars (including potential evidence of extraterrestrial biosigns), fans and casual viewers alike have been united over a very different question instead: How the heck is Joel Kinnamon's grumpy octogenarian Ed Baldwin still alive and kicking? Considering the decade-long time jumps between the show's seasons, along with the fact that he's been a central character since episode 1, it's a fair point to raise. Well, even the ageless Admiral Ed couldn't outrun time itself, and season 5, episode 3, aptly titled "Home," finally gives him the send-off he deserved.
Despite the sands of time working against him, Ed's death feels like a shocking development so early in the Apple TV show's fifth and penultimate season. Given everything he's survived to this point (a cold war waged on Earth's moon, the dissolution of multiple marriages, hijacking an asteroid, and way too many reckless, and occasionally illegal, actions to list here), we were beginning to believe that the man was truly impervious to anything life had to throw at him. Tragically, that's proven not to be the case. But, whatever else might be said about this stubborn son of a you-know-what, at least he was able to go out on his own terms.
Yes, Ed Baldwin died as he lived: breaking the rules, causing a stir, and doing everything in his power to help a friend in need.
Ed Baldwin's final arc in For All Mankind perfectly sums up the character
How do you sum up the life of a character as all-encompassing as Ed Baldwin in just a single article? You can't, but that only lends further credence to why he has always been the best and most complicated figure throughout "For All Mankind." When we first met him in season 1, the hotheaded astronaut wasted no time establishing exactly what kind of a personality we could expect from him moving forward. Taking NASA's loss to the Soviet space program personally, Ed's tantalizingly close brush to becoming the first man to walk on the Moon on Apollo 10 fueled him for the rest of his life. It also caused him to act out constantly, upsetting his superiors and even alienating his friends and family with his rogue antics.
It's safe to say he maintained this anti-authority streak for the remainder of his days. In the end, Ed's involvement in hijacking an asteroid away from Earth and keeping it in Mars orbit branded him a criminal to everyone back home. On Mars, his exile came with an ankle monitor to keep him from any further mischief as a retired admiral ... not that it made any difference, of course. Nobody tells Ed Baldwin what to do. Not only did he avoid disclosing his cancer diagnosis to his daughter Kelly (Cynthy Wu) and grandson Alex (Sean Kaufman), but he refused radiation treatment outright. And when explicitly told by his doctor never to pilot a ship again, due to the adverse health effects this would cause, well, I don't have to relitigate what inevitably happens next.
More than anything else, though, Baldwin's ceaseless loyalty to those he loves most ended up defining his legacy.
For All Mankind kills off Ed Baldwin in its most emotional episode yet
Ed Baldwin's arc was never going to end any other way. Time makes strange bedfellows for us all, as our favorite astronaut discovered throughout his experiences on "For All Mankind." But even he wouldn't have predicted that he'd become so close with his North Korean counterpart Lee Jung-Gil (C.S. Lee), the "ujunaut" who became the first person to step foot on Mars and eventually played a large role in protecting Baldwin and his unionizing pals in season 4. It's no exaggeration to say that the Goldilocks asteroid never would've ended up parked in Mars orbit (thus guaranteeing NASA and every other space agency's continued funding of the red planet) if it weren't for him. Fast-forward roughly a decade, and it's little surprise that Baldwin and Lee became close friends.
Of course Ed would leap to Lee's defense when the latter is accused of committing the first murder on Mars. Naturally, that requires him breaking some interplanetary laws and risking his own health, but what else is new? When it's clear that his actions have taken a toll on his body, "Home" spends much of its runtime mixing its present-day storyline with flashbacks of a young Ed during the Korean War. Over the course of the hour, he's made his peace with his past and his remaining family ... and even gets one last glimpse of bestie Gordo (Michael Dorman) and ex-wife Karen (Shantel VanSanten). By the time he's holding hands in his hospital bed with Kelly and Alex, we're all ready to say goodbye.
Who's cutting onions up here on Mars? RIP Ed Baldwin, a man who simply never took "No" for an answer. "For All Mankind" will never be the same without you.