For All Mankind Season 6 Will End The Series: Here's What We Know
The intergenerational space epic
With a shocking and heartbreaking ending that nobody could have seen coming, For All Mankind has once again moved into the future. But, this time, after the finale of Season 5, the next season will be the concluding season for the entire series.
But what does that mean? Is the series as we know it going to fundamentally change with Season 6? Will Season 6 span more than just the alternate version of the year 2020? With the discovery of alien life, even in microscopic form, on Titan, will For All Mankind Season 6 be full of space aliens?
Here’s what we know, so far, about For All Mankind Season 6, with a few hints from showrunners Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi.
For All Mankind Season 5 spoilers ahead.
For All Mankind Season 6 Release Date
Currently, Season 6 is seemingly in pre-production. This could mean the show releases its final season sometime in 2027, but 2028 is possible, too. Apple TV has not confirmed any release window, only that Season 6 is happening, and that it will be the end of the series.
For All Mankind Season 6 Timeline
Sean Kaufman as Alex Baldwin.
Starting in 1969, For All Mankind has taken us through roughly five decades of alternate history. And, with the ending of Season 5, with the 2020 song “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd, we see that the year is now 2020. This means that the time jump from the end of Season 5 to this teaser is eight years, indicating that For All Mankind Season 6 will take place in 2020, and perhaps beyond.
Will there be the 2020 lockdowns in this timeline? “I think the idea of alternate history is we don't have to revisit the horrors of our actual history,” Nedivi tells Inverse. “So I'm hoping we'll avoid that, but we'll see. We'll see what the For All Mankind version of that is.”
Wolpert also pointed out that although the flash-forward at the end of Season 5 takes us to 2020, it doesn’t mean that the entire season will only stay in 2020. “There's a big span in the 2020s of what that means and where the show will exist,” Wolpert tells Inverse. “Ours is a show that jumps in time often and frequently, and it's driven by the story, but it really captures this concept of what world could we be living in now if things had been a little different. And we do that by catching up with the present in some way.”
For All Mankind Season 6 Plot
The Soviet Mars-94 ship from Season 3 is back. But why?
Very little is known about the actual storyline in For All Mankind Season 6, but one thing is for certain: the discovery of alien life on Titan will have a major impact on the show’s final season. This will not be something that is introduced and then forgotten; the game-changing moments in the last few episodes of Season 5 will very much set up Season 6.
“Season 6 definitely builds on the discovery that was made on Titan in a big way and is the thrust of that final season,” Wolpert says. “Gene Kranz lays this out in Episode 1 [in Season 1] of the show about what's possible with space travel and what's possible if you don't give up. And so it will go in places that I don't think people will expect.”
Wolpert also pointed out that the reappearance of the Mars 94 craft (from Season 3) at the end of Season 5 will be a “mystery” that will “all loop together in unexpected ways in Season 6.”
For All Mankind Season 6 Cast
Mireille Enos has already told Inverse she’s excited to return as Boyd in Season 6.
Like most seasons of For All Mankind, several new characters are certainly expected to appear. But Season 6 will almost certainly be the first season in which no Season 1 characters will appear in major roles, outside of flashbacks. You never know who the show might bring back, but a good bet is that most of the cast will be folks we know about already, or new characters. Here’s the confirmed cast for Season 6, so far.
- Mireille Enos as Boyd. Check out our interview with her here, teasing Boyd’s future role in Season 6.
- Coral Peña as Aleida. Her character has been around since Season 1, when she was a child. Aleida is a huge part of the show’s arc. Peña has often talked about Aleida’s journey into the future.
- Sean Kaufman as Alex Baldwin. The last living Baldwin! Kaufman is carrying the torch forward from this point onward.
- Costa Ronin as Leonid Polivanov. He’s not the governor of Mars anymore, but Ronin has said he will be back.
- Ruby Cruz as Lily Dale. She’s not been confirmed, but it would be strange if Lily wasn’t in Season 6, considering her crucial role in Season 5.
- Ines Asserson as Avery Stevens. The granddaughter of Gordo and Tracy Stevens, and daughter of Danny Stevens, the final shots of Season 5 found Avery reclaiming her family name and visiting the place where her father was exiled on Mars. Avery was the secret weapon of Season 5. She’s surely back for Season 6.
- Edi Gathegi as Dev Ayesa. He’s still the tech mogul of Helios and the man behind the growth of Mars. Imagining Season 6 without Dev is impossible.
Beyond these outright confirmations or very likely returns, we don’t know who else will join the cast of For All Mankind Season 6. And, because this is the final season, we also don’t know if anyone from the past is joining in a surprising way.
