Rupture

## Chronology

"**Rupture**" is the eight episode of the first season of *For All Mankind*. It was released on Apple TV+ on December 6, 2019.

## Synopsis

NASA preps a Jamestown relief mission, while Karen waits for news at the hospital.

## Plot

Karen Baldwin is at the hospital, worried. A doctor walks up to her, and asks if Shane has a father. He tells her that Shane was hit by a car when using his bike, but the person who had hit him had run off, and that Shane had sustained serious head injuries, fracturing his skull and had a bleeding brain, which meant he had to undergo surgery, which also worried Karen. She was in complete shock over what was going on. However, the doctor tried to make her feel better, and she tried to think Shane was strong and would overcome the situation.

Ed Baldwin is alone on the Moon and wakes up to country music. He greets Danielle Poole on the radio, who tells him to hook up to the biosensors and to fix the aux tank coupling. He says goodbye and takes a shower, puts on his spacesuit and goes outside, taking pictures.

At NASA, astronauts including Danielle are watching Gordo Stevens being celebrated on TV for having landed them back on Earth. After the report, anchorman Barry Newsome introduces his guests, the crew of Apollo 24, and first congratulates Ellen Wilson on her recent wedding. Deke Slayton mentions that he was, in fact, part of MercuryW and mentioned that he was able to fly, but assigned Ellen as mission commander because he knew she was very capable. However, Newsome mentions that Danielle's accident at Jamestown had raised the question of having women living on the Moon, but Ellen defended her fellow woman. Harrison Liu defends the interviewer's obvious attacking of Ellen, saying he was not worried about serving under her.

Ellen, Harry, and Deke are later told at NASA that when they docked with the LSAM, they would need to perform a system test. Ellen asks what their cargo would be, but the woman told them that they still did not know. Deke asked what the mystery was all about, since it would probably just be 20,000 pounds of food and gas.

Gordo tells his psychologist, Dr. Marsten, that it feels good to be back, keeping in touch with Ed. His shrink asks him if he remembered what he had told him the first time he had been with him. He reminded the astronaut that he needed him to be honest, and Gordo mentions that he is worried about his wife Tracy, who had been acting differently towards him, sending him to a different apartment when she gets mad at him. He tells the doctor that he had been away 145 days and mentioned that Tracy would be going with Molly Cobb up into space, going away for 14 days if everything goes as planned. He starts talking about things falling apart in space.

Aleida Rosales is holding hands with a boy, but they let go when her father Octavio approaches them.

Gordo greets Tracy and tells her that work had been good that day. She tells him he is a son of a bitch, asking where he had really been. She assumes that he had been with a lady, and he tells her that he was seeing a psychiatrist. She tells him that the shit he came up with to save his ass was unbelievable, but he shows her the card, which shocks her. He said he started talking to the doctor because he needed to talk to someone. Tracy asked him what had happened to him on the Moon, but he says that nothing had happened. Tracy picks up the phone and tells Karen she would be with her as soon as she could.

Ed tells NASA that the Soviets were building something, guessing that they were doing something subterranean. Administrator Weisner mentions that they have also talked about subterranean did not mean anything, but Ed mentioned that they had been more aggressive lately, moving across the rim. Weisner reminds them that they are not in a military scenario and is berated by General Weber.

Karen is waiting at the hospital and is joined by Tracy, telling her that Shane was in surgery and explained what had happened. Tracy asks Karen if she wants her to talk to the doctor, but Karen tells her that Shane would be fine. Tracy tells her what she brought and looks at her friend, worried.

On the Moon, Ed moves forward and moves down the crater, where he drills into the crater only to soon find out the Soviets had planted a camera in his working space. Weisner told him to leave it since they did not want any international conflict on the Moon, but Ed disagrees since it was their territory. Weisner mentions that they would talk to the president and orders him to do nothing.

The next morning, Karen is joined by Tracy, who tells her she would not leave. Dr. Josephson walks in and tells them that he usually asks for both parents to be present, but made an exception. He told her that due to the amount of time passed between Shane's accident and his arrival to the hospital, he had lost a lot of oxygen in his brain, so he was now brain-dead, which meant that his brain was no longer functioning even though his heart was. He tells Karen that it was extremely unlikely that Shane would recover from the event, but she compared Shane living to Ed's being on the Moon. She refuses to listen to the doctor and wanted to ask for a second opinion. She told Karen that she wanted NASA's best neurologist, so Tracy started calling Deke while Karen went to see Shane.

Later, Margo Madison was at NASA with Deke and Weisner. Deke told Margo that the neurologist was taking a second look at Shane and that they needed to tell Ed what was happening. Weisner said no, however, since Ed was all alone up there. Deke mentions that knowing Ed, he would want to know, but Margo argued that there had been many studies on the effects of bad news in high-pressure situations. Deke told Margo that this was not an equation, it was Ed's son and the astronaut had a right to know. Margo asked if anybody had talked to Karen, since she had heard a lot of opinions except for hers and it should be her call.

When Deke asked Karen, she said that it was not an option since it was possible that Shane could live. Deke asked her once again if she was sure, but Karen refused to do so until something else happened. Deke said goodbye and told her that he would bring Ed home. Tracy hugged Karen in order to comfort her while Deke said goodbye to his wife as well, who was excited for him to go to the Moon.

Aleida Rosales apologized to Margo for arriving late a second time, but she had needed to run all the way to NASA. She asked Aleida about her necklace and her hickey. Margo told Aleida that she was looking forward to changing her life, but was not sure anymore since they needed to discuss Aleida's lies. She gives Aleida a letter from the Kennedy Math and Science Program, which she opened and found out she had been accepted for two advanced tracks. Margo told Aleida that that meant she would transfer to Kennedy school right after the first of the year, which was sooner than she expected and she had to leave all her friends, but Margo got angry since she was losing focus and she needed to work ten times harder than the men.

Aleida got home and got ready for dinner. She looked at her letter once again, but was excited when the boy she liked called.

Karen was walking in the hospital and was joined by a reporter who wanted to ask her questions, but Tracy grabbed the man and shoved him away. Tracy told Karen that it was time for her call with Ed, and she agreed. Karen asked Marge Slayton to look after Shane and left with Tracy to get ready.

Talking to Ed, Karen mentioned problems she had been having with a fence. Ed soon asked her how Shane's game had gone and she told him that it had been good, but when Ed started asking more questions, she started having a hard time answering. She told him that Shane had a good game, being nervous at first, but doing well in the end. They reminisce about Shane when he was younger and Karen mentions that nowadays, it always seemed like Shane did not have enough time. Ed told her that only ten more days and he would be down there, and they said goodbye.

Driving back with Tracy, Karen asks her friend if she had just done something unforgiveable, but Tracy mentions that she did what she had to and told her to just drive.

At Mission Control, Margo told everyone that she knew that everybody was thinking about Ed and Shane, but it was important for them to move forward with their work, so they had decided to not tell Ed so he could focus on Jamestown. This meant they needed to be careful with what they talked about with him especially since the press had gotten ahold of this information. Gordo and Danielle discussed the matter in private and told Margo that since they talked to him, they could not ask them to lie. Margo told them that if they did not lie, then she could find somebody else who would, telling them that this was at the request of Karen, so they would respect that.

While Ed worked out, he got a teletype message from the Soviets, saying "deepest sympathy about your son". Ed asks Gordo what was going on, so the latter suggests that perhaps something had been lost in translation. Ed wonders if maybe the Soviets were monitoring his conversations since he had talked to Karen about Shane earlier. Gordo mentions that he has no idea what they were up to and Ed starts getting angry, mentioning that what the Russians were doing was low, even for them.

Ed walks to the mining site as Karen walks through the hospital. She sees Tracy and Dr. Weddle, the NASA doctor, waiting for her. He told her that there was nothing else he could do for Shane. Ed grabbed the Soviet monitoring device and destroyed it filled with rage. Karen walked into Shane's hospital room and started crying.

When Ed walks back into Jamestown, Karen calls him crying and tells him about what had happened to Shane, which visibly shakes him.

Tracy accompanied Karen to her house and comforted her friend. While they were inside, Karen told Tracy that she was starting with the funeral arrangements since Ed wanted to be buried with the navy, but only qualified for interment if he made flag rank and there was nothing there for children. Tracy told Karen that only a few hours had passed since Shane's death, but Karen asked her to cry somewhere else.

Gordo calls Ed, but he does not answer and turns off communications while drinking a bottle of Chivas and starts banging his head.

## Cast

show/hide list

**Main Cast**

* Joel Kinnaman as Edward Baldwin
* Michael Dorman as Gordo Stevens
* Sarah Jones as Tracy Stevens
* Shantel VanSanten as Karen Baldwin
* Jodi Balfour as Ellen Wilson
* Wrenn Schmidt as Margo Madison

**Guest Starring**

* Chris Bauer as Deke Slayton
* Wallace Langham as Harold Weisner
* Arturo Del Puerto as Octavio Rosales
* Olivia Trujillo as Aleida Rosales
* Krys Marshall as Danielle Poole
* Rebecca Wisocky as Marge Slayton
* Leonora Pitts as Irene Hendricks
* Chris Agos as Buzz Aldrin
* Stephen Oyoung  as Harrison Liu
* Noah Harpster as Bill Strausser
* John Rubinstein  as Doctor Marsten
* Spencer Garrett as Roger Scott
* Megan Dodds as Andrea Walters
* David Gautreaux  as Barry Newsome
* Scott Alan Smith  as Dr. David Josephson

**Co-Starring**

* Tait Blum as Shane Baldwin
* Germain Arroyo  as Anthony
* Tracy Mulholland as Gloria Sedgewick
* Dan Warner as General Arthur Weber
* Brian Johnson  as Grush
* Jeff Denton  as Pendle
* Krystal Torres as Cata
* Kevin Glikmann  as Jerry Biddle
* Jan Munroe  as Dr. Weddle

**Other**

* Jim Meskimen as Ted Kennedy (voice)
* Valeria Chavez  as Bleeding Woman (uncredited)
* Ted Kennedy  as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
* Henry Kissinger  as SelfW (archive footage) (uncredited)
* Heather McPhaul  as Mary Cook (uncredited)

## Appearances

### Events & missions

Mission: **Apollo 22**
Gordo & Danielle return to Earth **Margo Madison
becomes Flight Director**Mission:
 **Apollo 24** (in preparation) **Death of Shane Baldwin**
### Locations & stations

 **Zvezda base** **Jamestown base** **Shackleton crater**
## External links

### Soundtrack

  Soundtrack of episode 1x08, "Rupture" on Tunefind
### Transcript

  Transcript of episode 1x08, "Rupture" on TV Show Transcripts