The tension has been building all season on For All Mankind between childhood Marsee besties Lily Dale (Ruby Cruz) and Alex Baldwin (Sean Kaufman), and Friday’s (May 1) new episode finally brought things to a head. Warning: The following post contains spoilers for For All Mankind Season 5 Episode 6, “No Sudden Moves.”
Most of the episode saw the two teens hospitalized for their injuries sustained during the riot, and when Lily finally awoke, her father, Miles (Toby Kebbell), had already left to help diffuse the hostile hostage situation that was underway between the rebels and the governor and his administrative officials. However, her mother was right there to report to her that Alex had been by her side for most of her slumberous recovery… and that his feelings for her might be more than friendly at this point.
Though Lily seemed shocked by that assessment, it didn’t take her long to realize she, too, had feelings for Alex and decided to be by his bedside when he woke up and give him a long-overdue kiss.
For Ruby Cruz, the experience of delving into these new feelings between them was “cool.”
She told TV Insider, “Living on Mars, growing up on Mars, in that isolation, it’s like she has her partner in crime, the other person in this world that really understands her experience, and they’re so close, I think it was really cool exploring those feelings — the platonic versus romantic feelings of really caring about someone and being so close to someone that you don’t even have space to really feel out your feelings. And I think it was the heightened environment of everything that they’re going through that really clarified how much she really cared, and in what way she really cares about Alex, and how precious time is with each other, because of how chaotic [it is], and everything’s crescendoing.”
“I think she just realizes who she really cares about and she really wants to spend her time with, and who really cares about her,” Cruz continued. As for what’s next for them, she teased, “As things keep happening and things keep exploding and growing, and the fire keeps rising, I think she is just growing closer and closer to this person that she’s sharing it with [who’s] understanding what’s going on.”
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Elsewhere in the episode, Celia Boyd (Mireille Enos) also found herself helping Miles keep the peace between the rioters and the other peacekeepers by giving them key intel, but also securing the weapons both sides wanted for herself to keep things from becoming deadly.
According to Mireille Enos, Celia’s ability to thread this needle so nimbly speaks to her smarts and her character.
“Celiaa blew up her life on Earth. She’s trying to find a rock to crawl under. She wants nobody to pay attention to her… but she can’t keep her mouth shut because, actually, her moral compass is so focused on truth and justice. That’s like her Achilles heel: ‘Why is nobody telling the truth?’ And so one thing leads to another, and she finds her hero’s journey,” the actress explained of her decision to get into the mix of this mess.
As for why she trusted Miles to align with she explained, “I think she had spent time in Helios’ bar that was her after-work hangout. She knew that he was a good guy. She knew that he was someone that the common man looked up to, and while she spent her working hours with the peacekeepers, I think when she wasn’t working, she was trying to just blend in with the community. She knew him a little bit, and knew he was a good guy…. When she fled the riot, I don’t think she was going to join the rebels. She just knew, once the MPKs were turning their weapons on the unarmed civilians, she knew she couldn’t belong to that group anymore, and it was just kind of a happy accident that she stumbled upon Miles in that predicament.”
As for Celia’s decision to secure the much-desired weapons well away from the two parties of the fight, Enos said, “She’s a smarty. And actually, I think that’s one of the big signs of what an excellent leader she actually is, that she’s willing to draw the line in the sand of, ‘Neither side is fully in the right, and so I’m just gonna hold the line.'”
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