Across its five seasons, For All Mankind has not only created a grand tapestry of alternate history that has built its own world but also created a web of characters across decades that further the legacy of its story. This has been baked into the series from the beginning, too, with the pieces present from the start, and as For All Mankind has fast-forwarded into a new decade with each season, it has only developed this further. A great example of this is how the children of most of the main characters go from being marginal side characters to pivotal stars with their own arcs (and tragic deaths).
For All Mankind previously explored this with characters like Ed and Karen Baldwin’s adopted daughter, Kelly, and Gordo and Tracy Stevens two sons, Danny and Jimmy, who went from having a few scenes to being major focal points. Now that the series has arrived in the 2010s, though, and the last of the old guard in Ed Baldwin is gone, the next generation of characters is fully coming into view. Ed’s grandson Alex Poletov has been a focal point for Season 5 of the series, but the latest episode of For All Mankind threw a curveball at the audience with another surprise legacy character with a major franchise connection, Avery Jarrett, who is revealed to be the granddaughter of Gordo and Tracy and the daughter of Danny Stevens.
At first, For All Mankind keeps it a mystery who this new character taking the spotlight is, revealing a marine strapped to a polygraph machine answering questions. What becomes clear is that the candidate has a history of some unstable moments, but hopes to use their time in the Marine Corps as a means to join OPEF (Off-Planet Expeditionary Force). Eventually, the questions get even more personal, with “AJ” eventually being asked about taking her step-father’s name, revealing her mother made the choice for her. AJ is then asked how she feels about her biological father, noting he died when she was a baby and doesn’t consider him her dad. It’s at this time it becomes clear who AJ really is, and why the Marines are so eager to suss out anything out of the ordinary about her.
What’s clear from the scene is that AJ (now played by Ines Asserson) is fully detached from her family history, hoping to keep it at arm’s length in part to try to become her own person and prove she won’t fall into the same issues. As fans know, Avery’s grandfather, Gordo, had a mental break while on the Jamestown moon base, with her father, Danny, arguably topping his dad’s mental break with his own, killing multiple other astronauts due to his recklessness. Throughout the episode, though, AJ displays a lot of similar characteristics to her paternal lineage, including blowing up on Commander Poole, whom she believes has sabotaged her efforts to join OPEF.
In the end, her fears are squashed when it’s revealed that she has passed the test and been enlisted for OPEF. She’s able to manage this in part by following Commander Poole’s advice, being honest not only with her commanding officer but herself, about why she wants this position. Her second test lets her drop the facade of toughness that she’s been projecting, instead letting her vulnerability take center stage and digging into the trauma she feels about her father’s death.
It would have been very easy for For All Mankind to have ignored the plot thread of Danny’s daughter, especially since the last time we saw Avery was back in Season 4 when Commander Poole was attending her ninth birthday. Prior to that, she had appeared as an infant in a handful of episodes across Season 3. But bringing Avery back into the fold now continues the storytelling trends that For All Mankind has made clear it’s very interested in, the ideas of legacy and how characters view their past and let it influence their futures, how small things in their early lives alter the course of everything they do in the present.
To that end, the question must be asked: Will Avery finally break the curse of being a troubled member of the Stevens family, or will she stumble into the same pratfalls that tripped up her father and grandparents? The series seems poised to answer that question with “Yes,” since she’s already followed the advice of Danielle Poole, which not only got her what she wanted but appeared to heal something inside her directly. Listening to Dani is already the first step she’s taking in doing things differently from her father and grandfather (who had their own chances to follow suit). In Avery’s final scene, she celebrates with her fellow marines about making it into OPEF, where they reveal that she’s headed to the moon. Afterward, she stares up at the lunar body with longing eyes, perhaps wondering what part of herself she’ll find up there and if it can heal something else.
Given the clear trajectory of where For All Mankind is headed, though, with a revolution on Mars on the horizon, we have to wonder how long Avery will actually be on the moon. It would be very much in keeping with the spirit of the show that her work with OPEF would send her to Mars, assuming that the uprising of everyone on the red planet becomes serious enough that the M-6 governments, plus Helios and Kuragin, need reinforcements to get their way. As a result, it seems likely that Avery could make her way to Mars, where she might find herself at odds with, who else, Alex Poletov. For All Mankind has proven time and time again it loves cyclical storytelling, and having Gordo and Ed’s grandchildren on opposing sides of a major conflict off planet seems like the exact kind of storyline it will explore by season’s end.
