With the show having really come into its own towards the end of Season 1, the finale of Star City is a suddenly enticing proposition for fans of For All Mankind who were longing for a return to its more sober alt-history roots. The paranoiac espionage drama has reached a fever pitch, and with many competing subplots all in play, not to mention some franchise-building busywork to be accomplished with recognisable FAM characters like Irina and Sergei, there is all kinds of stuff we should probably be paying attention to.
Here are some things that I think will probably happen, and why, although take into account it’s all pure guesswork, and I could be totally wrong, as I often am. Don’t tell anyone that, though.
The Venera-7 Returns… And the Crew Is Alive
Needless to say, the bulk of the finale will likely revolve around the penultimate episode’s sudden cliffhanger that the Venera-7 remains intact and is heading back to Earth. After Lyudmilla sabotaged the mission to kill Valya, and — it was implied — Sasha and Lakshmi for trying to save him, the Soviet Union framed the whole thing as a training mission gone wrong. So, the return of the vessel, potentially with cosmonauts alive on board who could blow the whistle on what really happened, is kind of a massive deal.
My prediction is that the crew will also be alive. As unlikely as this is, given that we seemed to see them all taking an explosion face-first in a pressurized tin can, it makes more sense narratively. It has widely been speculated that Anastasia and Sasha are the parents of Leonid “Lenya” Polivanov, the Martian colony governor in For All Mankind Season 5. Since Anastasia isn’t pregnant and hasn’t given birth in the year that elapsed while Sasha was presumed dead in space, it stands to reason that Sasha has to survive to sire Leonid (unless the surname is a fake-out, which would feel pretty cheap).
If Sasha survived, then it would make sense that Lakshmi also survived, since she was necessary to maintain the craft’s breathable environment. This doesn’t bode especially well for Valya, and I assume that if anyone did bite the bullet, it would have been him, but we’ll have to wait and see in that regard.
The Political Fallout
Whether the cosmonauts survive or not, the return of the Venera-7 is going to have massive political consequences. It had a spy aboard, and then was wiped out off the books to protect that error. Lyudmilla would definitely be held to account for it if the precise circumstances of that ever came to light, especially with Petrovsky already gunning for her.
In For All Mankind, there’s no mention of a successful manned mission to Venus coming out of the Soviet Union, so the assumption is that the whole thing gets covered up regardless. But that could take one of any number of forms. It could be covered up internally by the KGB, for Lyudmilla to protect herself; the Venera 7 could land somewhere else, be it an allied nation or potentially an enemy like the U.S., leading to things being covered up so as not to give the Soviet Union any more “wins” than they necessarily need, and so on, and so forth. The safest bet, though, is that the craft’s return is bad news for everyone, except the cosmonauts who have potentially survived it.
A Space Set-Piece
A more minor, throwaway theory here, but with Star City having taken great pains to get Anastasia back into space, and with currently only her and Sergei being aware of what’s happening, there’s a chance that they may work together to try and intercept or divert the craft before it lands on Earth.
This would excuse a space set-piece, which is always fun, but I’m not totally sure how it might play with the rest of Salyut-1, presuming they don’t continue to sleep through everything. Since the show has made Ana’s grief about Sasha extremely clear, it’s obvious that she would go above and beyond in an effort to save him if she believed he was alive. Something to consider.
Irina’s Villain Origin Will Continue
Star City continues to provide a softer, more layered portrayal of Irina, especially with her refusal to bug Lyudmilla’s apartment, despite Petrovsky’s instruction to do so. Irina is now working as a double agent for Lyudmilla, and I’m assuming that they’re both going to work together to unseat Petrovsky. This could possibly lead to the reinstatement of the Chief Designer.
However, this doesn’t entirely track with Irina’s For All Mankind characterisation. At some point, she needs to rise up the ranks more rapidly and become more ruthless, and the obvious assumption is that this would occur at Lyudmilla’s expense. However, it’s also possible that if she and Lyudmilla work together to get rid of Petrovsky, Lyudmilla may age out of the KGB naturally, and groom Irina to take her place. Or, more to the point, Lyumilla could be disgraced by whatever is revealed on account of the Venera 7’s return, freeing a path for Irina.
There’s also the burgeoning theory that Irina is related in some way to Leonid Brezhnev. There are two variations of this, both based on Brezhnev being present in the photograph that Tanya found in Irina’s apartment. One is that Irina is a relative — possibly an illegitimate child — of Brezhnev, which has afforded her some nepotistic luxuries. The other, much darker theory is that Brezhnev is Zoya’s father — in reality, he apparently had a penchant for underage girls — and that Irina told Tanya this in the brief snippet of cut-out audio.
Could we see more direct involvement from Bezhnev in the finale? At this point, anything is possible.
