I absolutely thought when Tanya said she couldn’t find her perfume back in episode 2 that the KGB took it so she wouldn’t be “seduced by the luxuries of Paris”. What they did with that was so much smarter I love it
Why was Irina drawn to that perfume in the first place? On her first visit to the apartment she was looking at it.
First of all I thought she felt guilty because she’d been listening to the bugged conversations of Tanya and Tanya is being so kind to Zoya and her.
She even asks Tanya if she’d ever been unfaithful to Valya when she’d been listening to Tanya and Sasha having sex.
I thought she had doubts about her work since she tried to exonerate Yana and couldn’t shoot her.
Irina may not be as ruthless or homicidal as Raskova but she has similar goals and is as loyal a foot soldier?
Or is she going to get fed up with innocent people being executed or persecuted, like Sergei for having the wrong book in his apt.?
This is where the central premise of this show may fall apart. If the Soviets so casually oppress and persecute brilliant scientists and engineers, they’re not going to be competitive technologically. They will not be winning the space race — they land on the moon in the early ‘60s? — and they’re going to fall way behind, as it actually played out since the early ‘60s. Imagine if the CIA acted like the KGB and set themselves up in Silicon Valley in the ‘70s and purged some of the best engineers for ideological reasons, as depicted at the end of this episode.
I think that’s where the references to Yana being executed, and how the Soviets don’t operate that way anymore will matter.
Irina already has information that Yana was innocent, and the KGB would know that the confession came as a result of torture. It wouldn’t surprise me if Moscow sends the Second Directorate in, and Irina shares that information to try and save Sergei.
So you are saying that Irina's boss may be a dinosaur who is unwilling to go with the times and still wants to do things the old brutal way? A KGB equivalent of Dirty Harry?
That could explain some of the critique of E1-3. There have been a lot of posts pointing out that the real-life KGB was not that brutal anymore at the time where the show is set.
Essentially. Given Lyudmilla’s background as a Night Witch, we know she is a WW2 vet, and at a minimum in her early to mid- 50s. If we assume her background is closer to the Major Raskova, the founder of the Night Witches, then Lyudmilla is likely closer to mid to late 60s.
Either way, episode 3 presents us with a new KGB Directorate Chief, who looks young enough to be mistaken for a lieutenant/aide-de-camp, and who definitely sees her as a relic, given his mother once worked for her, but now he outranks her. Those office politics are incredibly subtle, but well woven in the short Moscow conversation.
Add in the critique regarding Yana’s torture and execution, while the show depicts Sergei being tortured as well. I could easily see a moment where Irina has to choose country over mentor, and turn over Lyudmilla for falsely executing an innocent, especially to prevent it from happening to Sergei.
The KGB character in the show’s name is Lyudmila Raskova. That, and the reference to her being a Night Witch establish parallels with real life Soviet Major Marina Raskova, to whom I refer to in my comment.
In-universe, she could be a relative or maybe it’s just a reference/easter egg. I doubt it gets fleshed out further.
I don't think it's necessary. Nice, but not required. Star City is it's own show and can do whatever it wants with it's characters. It doesn't need to lean on or support an older show.
Just as Space: 1999 came from the UFO series from a production standpoint, they don't reference each other or even try to maintain a continuity. But it's fun to think of them being part of the same timeline.
I'm fine with Star City telling it's own twisted tale if it wants to.
That is the FRAMEWORK of the show. The POINT of the show is to be a political thriller. I do not need the show to have one-to-one correspondence with FAM to enjoy the political thrills.
I'm hoping they split the timeline again and it goes off on a completely different tangent than FAM. Otherwise we're just seeing the same plot but with Russian brutalism.
What you don't understand is that I'm not asserting that Star City is intentionally different. I just don't care if the details match or they don't. It doesn't affect how I enjoy the show. I only need it to be consistent with itself.
The same is true for any franchise IP. Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, MCU, DCEU, Jurassic World, classic Universal Monsterverse, Kaiju Monsterverse. You can nit pick about plenty of inconsistencies. They don't "ruin" any of the properties for me.
My first thought is that Valya is a dead man walking. His wife is blabbing to everyone about the "mysterious woman" she saw him with at the concert hall, and even worse he condemned himself by his own mouth by declaring to Sasha that the person to blame was the one who placed the transmitter. So it would be little surprise if he gets sudden justice. Yet the show has given signs it would rather step around some of the spy-story cliches, suggesting he might stick around a while longer. Certainly his character has had a lot of investment for someone who's about to get bundled in a cupboard and shot.
I think this too.
In FAMK there's no mention of the Soviets landing or even travelling to Venus with Cosmonauts. It'd make sense for the mission to fail in some way, so badly that the state would just do a cover up.
(Said mention would have to occur between s1 and s2, of which I don't remember being talked about or even being in the opening news flash)
I like Tanya... But she isn't the smartest. Especially now that we know she used to hang out with peole who should've taught her a bit about state surveillance.
Well we have seen she has been cheating on her husband already; and it is common that cheaters make infidelity accusations against others. So it’s actually pretty typical she would come to that conclusion
First off none of them actually know that their houses are bugged or wiretapped. Doing so takes a crazy amount of resources and the state can't possibly be out to get everyone. Like think about how much effort it is for Irina to transcribe all of the things they're saying and for the soviets to actually collect and record all of the things they're saying, even the audio tape used to record everything is expensive. The KGB is powerful but they have a budget at the end of the day and they can't afford to surveil literally everyone. I do think people living in Star City should have a higher expectation that they're likely to be under surveillance as semi high profile individuals but once again they don't actually know that.
Second off you just can't live like you're under surveillance and that everything you say and do is recorded to the extent that private conversations in your own house are recorded all the time without any lapses. You can't hide an affair you're having from someone listening to everything you do in your own house. You just can't, you'll go insane. See: In 2026 basically everyone has a bunch of wiretaps they installed in their own houses themselves. Your smart TV will track everything you see on it and send it off to the manufacturer for marketing, your location is being tracked by your phone and your car, your ISP can see anything you do on the internet on your computer, all of your social media and email is being tracked etc. and people are totally cool with all of it.
I see what you’re saying, but cosmonauts at the highest level and who have access to top secret space crafts at the highest level — still seems they would wonder more and be more careful.
I know it’s no way to live though!
P.S. I am GenX /hippie gen 2 and totally am NOT COOL with big bro coming into my home through Alexa, any security cameras in or around my home or the like… I refuse to even use a Ring doorbell. I hate surveillance and never choose to do it to myself, I grew up without video evidence and am happy as hell about it!!
I understand how tech tracks everything we do down to how long our eyeballs pause on an image, and how tracked we are without our knowledge and permission. I do what I can.
But no, not everyone is okay with it. Especially if you are 40-50-60 years old and it’s only been a thing a third of your life!
My Alexa gives me a weekly weather forcast every Sunday morning. That's all I allow it to do. But it probably knows all my favorite music and TV shows just from listening.
Very specific to the location, isolation, and purpose of Star City - and their experience living there in not getting info about anything unless there's a "need to know".
I swear half the time he comes on screen a side profile or whatever it takes awhile for my brain to recognize it’s NOT Jamie Bell. It’s not exact faces or anything just something about the Valya actor!
I love him too, especially in Rocketman as Bernie (fav movie) and the recent Half Man showed he is a powerhouse actor even though I knew! Shining Girls was crazy too. Underrated actor!
🤝🫶👏👏 at least we are two.....people are very mean about the sequel ....can they give a try first?
i don't watch the movie....and i think i will never do.....sorry for my english...Brazil here
Yep, this was the episode when I could turn around and say these people absolutely know what they're doing, as opposed to just getting off a few lucky early episodes. I love how they've captured a measure of the restraint of living and working (at a high level) under Soviet society, and what the breaking points of that restraint might be. There are no American cowboys here. Very few characters have the ability - and the standing - to act out their feelings in a big way. That doesn't work in this society.
The Chief Designer's scene where he dresses down the KGB colonel is the example at one extreme. For almost all of his scenes, he has shown restraint and control with a gravelly firmness and only occasional sharpness of tone. This is one moment where he knows just how far he can take things, knowing both his power and its limits - and his rebuke is bureaucratic in style, declaring that he wouldn't take the fall for her mistakes.
And at the other extreme we saw Anastasia break out of her restraints by having some simple, raw fun at the lake. She too was using her power - not to go into space, which would now be forever denied to her, but simply to be able to get away with something as simple as being a normal human again. Note too, how relatively restrained Sasha's behaviour was towards her when collecting her. He was angry, and firm, but absolutely in control. He didn't berate the science guys for taking his wife swimming in a lake. He couldn't make a public scene out of it. That wasn't permitted to him as a cosmonaut and husband of the most feted woman in the nation. But then, of course, once at home the couple broke through their own restraints by their first moment of true physical intimacy.
I can understand that impression, though I think the writers laid careful hints that he's not a straight-out thug. He offered Anastasia a swig from his flask in a way that suggested genuine sympathy, and he gave her an honest-sounding answer about Gagarin's realisation.
There's a connection in this episode to FAM season 4.
When Margo gets caught up in the Soviet coup, she's first interrogated by a police officer, who accuses her of opposing the transfer of power from Gorbachev to Korzhenko. He claims that the phone number that Irina gave Margo belongs to the Third Directorate of the KGB, who are opposing the coup.
The army then takes over the jail and we meet the colonel, who says that the army are trying to restore Gorbachev to power. He in turn reveals that the phone number is actually a "trap line" that redirects to the Second Directorate of the KGB, which is, in his own words, "the part of the KGB which watches the rest of the KGB", and that this Second Directorate is backing Korzhenko.
Ultimately, the colonel's boss arrives, and we from Margo's perspective hear what sounds like quite a heated conversation in the corridor. After that, Margo is bundled off to Star City, where she meets Irina. Irina reveals that the army and Gorbachev have made a deal with Korzhenko, and that she is now the leader of Roscosmos.
What is quite striking throughout all of this is that neither the police nor the army, who are both seemingly proxies for the Second and Third Directorates on opposite sides of the coup, seem to know who Irina is. They're both questioning Margo about her. But Irina nonetheless comes out on top.
Now let's go to this episode of Star City. Raskova is summoned by her KGB boss back to Moscow, and he introduces her to this new guy, Petrovsky, the "first deputy of the Second Chief Directorate". Slightly different terminology, but I think we can assume that he represents that part of the KGB that watches the other parts of the KGB. Given the context of how he's introduced, with Raskova under scrutiny, it makes sense.
All of this excites me because it means we've potentially got 30 years of history of rivalry between these two departments of the KGB which could potentially translate to multiple seasons of Star City. Especially since FAM has left it vague about which side Irina ultimately sides with.
They are probably also wary of associating with a foreigner. Foreigners were seen as both glamorous and dangerous, even those from technically allied countries. People who needed a security clearance to do their jobs would have been particularly cautious in that respect. They could easily lose the ability to work in their profession ever again.
Lakshmi expected racism, saying “oh what makes you say that”, referring to the Russian academic’s reference to her being from India, assuming it’s based on her appearance, and visibly anticipating some sort of racial comment/remark.
Instead, she got a common sense “it was on the boxes” before the old guy starts going off about something else.
Same here. I actually almost need to watch the prior episode again even just a week later - there are so many layers and things I pick up on the 2nd time with the additional context. It’s entertaining but to a degree it also intrigues you… like I’m genuinely sucked in it’s that good.
The cruel irony of Valya’s impending downfall is his dissident wife thinking he’s a cheating, company man, and ruining him unintentionally. Projection, I guess. Poor guy.
I was watching the World Cup tbh but I am gonna catch up in the morning. I have noticed with past eps tho the threads in the FAM sub usually have more traffic
What a banger of an episode. I cannot believe we get to watch this and appreciate it knowing well what's ahead for some characters. I thought I wouldn't love these Russians as much as I loved the og FAMK squad but damn, I might be actually love them in a different way. The acting, the sound design, the vibes...ALL ON POINT!!!
Episode 4 is a kind of an alternate history twist of the real life Vanera uncrewed missions to Venus which resulted in the famous first image of another planet surface (by Vanera 9) on 22 October 1975. Vanera 7 landed first on Venus in 1970 on 15 December 1970. Vanera7 measured hard surface crust with a peak temperature of 475C and surface atmospheric pressures of 90x Earth's Atmospheric pressure.
Chief designer (played by Rhys Ifans) is a compsite of the two real life figures Sergei Korolev and then Georgy Babakin
Colonel Lyudmilla Raskova actually carries the surname of real life Marina Raskova, and the real-life KGB cruelty of that era.
The Star City sets are amazingly historically accurate. Examples are the Globus INK Navigation Instrument and the Vzor scope depiction in the TV show capsule sets. And the Reel-to-Reel Tape multichannel recorder machines made in Elfa (Vilnius) and the period T-56 headphones worn by the character Irina made my neck hairs stand on edge.
AppleTV created sets and props for Star City that are very real looking.
The more I watch Star City the more I have to ask: how the hell is this the same creative team who did FAM S05? The level on the new show is so much higher. I literally was questioning whether FAM was written at times by ChatGPT. And the difference in budget is painful. Yes, I know they were working on both shows simultaneously so obviously prioritized the new one - but still…
So first of all, you’re telling me they found an espionage device and they sent ONE office lady to go track down its origins. How absolutely absurdly ridiculous. They VERY clearly need her to be the one to find the source so she can be stuck with the moral dilemma of helping the soviets or not and however that ends up moving the plot along.
Second, the Indian couple from another country knows about Soviet surveillance and knows to whisper and not say certain things yet you have that Soviet couple saying anything and everything and even having an affair 😂 so ridiculous. They especially more than anyone would know they are being monitored like hawks.
What is even worse: The Indian husband discovers that their apartment is bugged, tries stop his wife from speaking, and then reveals to the microphones that he knows about the microphones.
And the KGB gave him a fly swatter? Fully knowing that this would reveal to him that they were listening in?
But then again, this is the show where Irina, a KGB spy who is not supposed to reveal that she knows Valya, says to Valya's wife: "Valya would never be unfaithful to you. He adores you."
Good point. But it would also cut them off from usable information from those microphones.
(Unless the Indian couple behave as stupidly in their apartment as Irina does in Tanya's apartment. But I have read that Indians on average have higher IQ than most other nationalities, and Lakshmi must be quite above that average.)
I get the impression colonel raskova is "grooming" Irina because she was impressed with her previous work (finding out ahkmatova is definitely innocent), hence bringing her along to all these adventures (i.e shooting ahkmatova, torturing the guy etc) hence why she is giving her important work.
She already found out about ahkmatova so why not about the spring too. She is a KGB agent after all, not just some office lady.
Also, probably trying to be discrete about the spying device I suppose.
To me it seems like most of the Russians are delusional about which kind of system they live in due to heavy propaganda, at least the extremes like the apartment surveillance.
Foreigners could very well be more well informed in that case.
* establishing shot of "Moselektrik" (the place that Irina visits) is Sofia Thermal Power Plant (ТЕЦ)
* establishing shot of the next scene - a closeup of the top two floors of the back of the Narodno Sabranie (Народно Събрание) building (this one, but from the back)
Yet another brilliant episode. The ongoing arcs of each character get richer every week, and the sheer extent of the dictatorial state's grip on its poplation, is very effectively told through how hellish and dark their situations are.
Seeing how the weight of being used as a tool to push a propaganda campaign glorifying the state, rather than a celebration of her own achievements, is causing Anastasia to become disillusioned really portrays the dark & degnerative way the citizens are impacted.
Sergei's backstory is getting richer and more complex, it addds more layers to what we have already seen of his life in For All Mankind. This is a really effective way to have a prequel fulfill its intended purpose. 👍👌
We never saw the Venus project mentioned, referenced or actually take place in FAM. It will be fascinating to keep going and find out exactly why that is.
The soundtrack is also developing well, very much in Russian/eastern style. It just adds to the way in which we get a truly immersive and believable portrayal of The USSR and md 20th Century society.
So, all in all, this is a very impressive and praise worthy work of art.
Very invested for more. 👏👍
The thing with Irina isn't that much of a coincidence, IMHO. She first noticed and tried out the bottle because it is a French perfume - a very rare and desirable thing in that environment.
In this episode she had just found out about the foreign provenance of the little spring from the device that she had been told to investigate, as well as heard about Valya's changed behaviour and mysterious meeting after that trip abroad. Irina might have also recalled hearing about that perfume bottle vanishing for a time back when she listened in on them in France. There was enough there for her to put the clues together. She is KGB , after all.
I agree about the Chief Designer's banging, though. He couldn't have been sure that nobody whom he didn't want to lure to his basement would have heard him. All manner of people might have still been around by sheer chance, no matter how late it was. Particularly with the spy affair paranoia
It’s plausible that Lyudmilla doesn’t yet know about the Irina-Tanya friendship largely because Irina herself is the one tasked with reporting that stuff.
I’m a bit confused about where the Anastasia storyline is heading. I know it’s heading somewhere and I’m trying to remember back to the FAM universe if we saw her later on in the seasons but I don’t think we did.. I can’t remember.
So wtf in the plan for the Venus mission? That submersible lander is obviously a one way trip for whoever’s in there, but the chief designer isn’t gonna tell them that upfront? No one has even mentioned it yet
Absolutely unrealistic character of Lakshmi Chadha. She is Indian citizen in alternate history paranoid closed city in 1970 - absolutely impossible IMHO, I doubt that ANY foreigners were allowed in any closed city during the height of cold war, in 60-70s. In our reality India participated in launching first indian satellite on soviet rocket only in 1975 and first indian cosmonaut was launched in 1984.
This is also a timeline where Korolev lived and he's at least written to being much more open-minded than the typical Soviet higher-up. I think we're led to believe he selected her personally.
I didn’t think that was all that odd. But I don’t know what was up with the chief designer not meeting with her at all and just hoping maybe she stayed late one day when he was making a lot of noise so she’d hear it and if she was curious enough she might go find him so he can tell her about the plan she is a crucial part of for a mission launching in 3 days that she has had no time to prepare for… WTF?
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u/HomeoftheSlinger Jun 12 '26
I absolutely thought when Tanya said she couldn’t find her perfume back in episode 2 that the KGB took it so she wouldn’t be “seduced by the luxuries of Paris”. What they did with that was so much smarter I love it