This article contains major spoilers for A Girl and an Astronaut Season 1 Episode 6, including an open discussion of the ending of A Girl and an Astronaut Season 1.
An impressive attempt at making an intriguing premise as unengaging as possible, the Polish Netflix original series A Girl and an Astronaut is a torpid love triangle set against the backdrop of a sci-fi conspiracy. Leaving all of its most interesting elements by the wayside in favor of an inert love story, the show is also needlessly overcomplicated by a dual timeline gimmick that splits the action between 2022 and 2052.
Given the show’s pointless complexity, we’re on hand to unpack the action, if that’s the word you want to use, and answer some of the essential questions posed by the narrative. Perhaps we can even save you the trouble of watching it?
A Girl and an Astronaut Season 1 Ending Explained
Here’s the general idea: In both timelines, we focus on the three central characters of Marta, Niko, and Bogdan. The latter two are high-flying Polish fighter pilots with a lifelong rivalry, and before long both are competing for both Marta’s affection and a role in a space mission being conducted by the Russian corporation SkyCom. Niko is ultimately chosen for the mission, but something goes wrong, and he’s announced as dead. Thirty years later, though, he plummets back to earth, seemingly no older, throwing Marta’s marriage to Bogdan into disarray and prompting some very awkward questions about his decades-long disappearance.
Before his departure, Marta had chosen to be with Niko, but when he failed to return home as promised, she eventually became closer to Bogdan, who was the one to inform her of Niko’s supposed death in an explosion, perhaps as a means to secure her for himself, or perhaps to spare her the pain of never having Niko’s fate confirmed.
Why didn’t Niko age in space?
Many other elements of the mission were also secretive, but its details come to light throughout the season. Niko didn’t age while in space because he was in a state of sub-hibernation, kept comatose with the aid of cryogenics. This was the real purpose of the mission, which was initially advertised as a test for new stealth systems. In reality, SkyCom CEO Sergei Pudovkin and a veteran engineer named Andrey Davidov had cooked up the scheme as a means to develop curative stem cells in extreme conditions. For Pudovkin, it was a money-spinner, since treatments that required the patient to be sent to space would be astronomically expensive, but for Davidov, it was personal, since he intended to use the stem cells harvested during Niko’s sub-hibernation to cure his daughter of her developing ALS.
Eventually, Pudovkin seeks to profit from Niko’s miraculous return, leading to the involvement of the Russian FSB, which only further imperils Niko when Davidov’s research after his disappearance proves that the experiment was fruitless and that Niko has no real scientific utility. The Russian state attempt to have Niko killed, but he’s able to flee and reunite with Marta.
Who does Marta end up with?
In 2052, Marta is once again faced with the same decision she had to make in 2022, although this time she makes a different decision – in the end, Marta ends up with neither Niko nor Bogdan.
This is one of the silliest narrative decisions the show makes, thoroughly undermining everything that had come before. But here we are. Knowing she can’t remain with Bogdan, who is riddled with heart disease, but also seemingly not willing to upend her life to reunite with Niko, despite him managing to survive not only the SkyCom mission but attempts on his life by the FSB, she simply chooses herself. Niko survives, thanks to Nadia, but he and Marta do not end up together. Likewise, Bogdan helps to secure Niko’s safety but loses his wife.
You can stream A Girl and an Astronaut Season 1 Episode 6 exclusively on Netflix. What did you think of the ending of A Girl and an Astronaut? Let us know in the comments below.
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