Star City Has Already Solved One Big Mystery — But The Twist Is Just The Beginning

Although Star City exists at the beginning of the For All Mankind timeline, with its first two episodes, it already introduced a new element that was previously unknown from Season 1 of its parent show. Although this show is mostly about the Soviet cosmonauts taking bold steps into space at the same time NASA’s astronauts were trying to catch up, Star City also revealed that a spy working within Roscosmos was feeding information to the U.S. Star City’s two debut episodes firmly established that this is a spy show just as much as it is a space race show. And, in the shocking third act of the third episode of the series, “Bad Dancer,” we actually learn who the mole is inside of Star City. Not only is this not the person that anyone would expect, but this twist also seems to set up a much bigger mystery for the rest of the series.

Spoilers ahead for Star City episode 3, “Bad Dancer.”

While Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin) continues on her witch hunt to discover the leak inside of Star City, and, in the process, transforms Irina (Agnes O’Casey) into a more brutal instrument of Soviet surveillance, our sympathies are largely with the cosmonauts. Sasha (Solly McLeod) is having an affair with Valya’s (Adam Nagaitis) wife, Tanya (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis), but we’re more or less feeling sorry for all three of them. We’re also especially sympathetic to Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert), the first woman on the Moon, whose public and arranged marriage to Sasha is both complex and surprising.

That said, the older marriage, between Tanya and Valya, is very much at the center of Episode 3, since although Tanya is having an affair that we know about, she becomes suspicious that Valya is, in turn, stepping out on her. Speaking to Inverse before the launch of the show, Serkis pointed out that these characters are at a bad point at the start of the series, but it hasn’t always been like this between them. “They're in this kind of slightly stagnating position at the beginning of the series,” Serkis explains. “But, it was not an arranged marriage [in contrast to Sasha and Anastasia]. Arranged marriages were very common then. But these two found each other and already made compromises and sacrifices to be together.”

This “foundation of love,” as Serkis calls it, makes the betrayals all the more cutting. In Episode 3, Tanya is convinced that what she sees is evidence that Valya is having an affair — why else would he be speaking so cozily with a woman at the coat check?

But, then the episode drops its biggest twist: Valya is the mole inside of Star City, and was the one who planted the transceiver on Luna 17. This failed mission also resulted in tragedy because the transceiver was discovered, and Lyudmilla ordered the Chief Designer (Rhys Ifans) to reboot the power on the craft, resulting in equipment failure and the loss of cosmonaut Pavel Fetisov (Sam Strike). Not only is the loss of Festisov indirectly Valya’s fault — had the spy device not been on the ship, the system's reboot would have never happened — but it's made all the more painful because Valya was literally on the mission and watched it all happen.

In the end, the result of his spying is a deceased comrade, and the fact that his wife thinks he’s having an affair, when, in fact, he’s trying to convince his contact that he’s done spying on his own people.

So, just three episodes in, Star City has already quietly solved what seemed to be the mystery that was going to define the entire series. Like with For All Mankind, the twists here aren’t about a huge hidden secret, but instead, to hook us as to what happens next. At this point, with a secret Venus mission being planned by the Chief Designer, the knowledge that Valya is a spy changes everything.

Star City streams on Apple TV.