For All Mankind Season 5 Brings Back The Show's Biggest Villain

Spoilers ahead for "For All Mankind" Season 5, Episode 5, "Svoboda."

"For All Mankind" doesn't really do villains. One of Apple TV's best sci-fi shows (which is saying something considering the streamer's excellence in this area), it's an alternate history drama where the space race never ended, ushering in an era where science is the biggest priority. It's not that the series is lacking in tragedy or suspense, either. In fact, every season has at least one big disaster that results in lots of deaths, illustrating the human cost of space exploration and scientific breakthrough.

Nevertheless, "For All Mankind" doesn't focus on big bad evil characters. It has plenty of antagonistic figures, sure, particularly those who oppose missions into space or jeopardize missions through their incompetence. But traditional, mustache-twirling villains? Not so much, with one notable exception: Irina Morozova (Svetlana Efremova).

Morozova was first introduced in Season 4 as the new head of Roscosmos, the Soviet space agency. She's a seemingly nice enough politician who offers a helping hand to the former NASA director Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt) and recruits her to continue her work after defecting to the Soviet Union. In reality, though, Morozova is anything but nice, as she's soon revealed to be the previously unseen KGB handler who was responsible for manipulating Margo into giving away trade secrets for years. On top of that, she rules Roscosmos with an iron grip, ensuring that anyone who disappoints her immediately vanishes without a trace. As such, Margo is essentially held hostage by Morozova for most of Season 4.

Basically, Morozova is the closest thing that this show has to a proper villain. Now, after being relieved of duty back in Season 4, "For All Mankind" Season 5, Episode 5, "Svoboda," has brought her back to wreak havoc once again.

It turns out that the Soviet Union does not take kindly to the head of its space agency letting the asteroid it was very much looking forward to mining get stolen by workers from Mars. So, the latest episode of "For All Mankind" opens with a flashback showing Morozova being sent to a Siberian work camp and tortured daily until she falsely confesses to her involvement in Season 4's climactic asteroid heist.

It's cathartic as hell to see Morozova suffer for her past crimes, especially since we know Margo is also in a prison. Unfortunately, this isn't "Halloween Kills," so evil doesn't die tonight. Instead, the master manipulator Morozova manages to not only get released from the gulag (with the help of her old KGB connections), but to then get hired as a powerful member of the Kuragin corporation.

This is where things get interesting, with Morozova once again posed to serve as this season's primary antagonist. Kuragin, a Russian energy company, has been around for a while on the show, having risen to become a huge conglomerate and key player in space exploration. Most importantly, it's the force behind the (most likely doomed) space elevator being built on Mars in Season 5, along with the plot to automate mining operations on the red planet. With tensions rising between Mars and Earth, this will almost certainly lead to violence as Mars' citizens fight for their independence. That Morozova will be at the center of all this and somehow benefitting from it should come as little surprise.

"For All Mankind" is currently streaming on Apple TV, with new episodes of Season 5 dropping on Fridays.