The first season of Apple TV’s Star City has wrapped up with a finale that left viewers with plenty to process. The For All Mankind spin-off delivered an ending filled with sacrifice, romance and political tension. The episode titled “The Wolves” answered many questions while setting up new conflicts for the characters.
The season followed the Soviet space program during the Cold War, showing the intense pressure and paranoia inside Star City. The finale brought together multiple storylines, from the secret Venus mission to the personal struggles of the cosmonauts and the people who control their fate.
Valya Mironov’s Final Mission Ends in Tragedy on Venus
Valya Mironov played by Adam Nagaitis, made the ultimate sacrifice in the season finale. After the Venera spacecraft went off course following a depressurization incident, Valya came up with a plan to fix the trajectory.
He volunteered to use the attached bathysphere to manually correct the ship’s path. This meant he would land on Venus with no way to return to Earth. Valya successfully fixed the course, allowing Sasha and Lakshmi to head back home.
His final moments showed him laughing at the sight of Venus from ground level. The joy did not last long. The bathysphere collapsed under Venus’s extreme atmospheric pressure, killing him instantly. The show compared this to the Titan submersible implosion, where pressure crushed the vessel in a split second.
Co-showrunner Matt Wolpert spoke about the scene’s creation. He said the team did research into the science behind the implosion.
“There was definitely some research that went into that. I don’t know if it will hold fully up to the scrutiny of physics,” Wolpert told SYFY Wire.
Ben Nedivi, another co-creator, explained why Venus was chosen for this moment. He noted that the Soviet Union had real history with Venus missions. The harsh conditions of the planet meant anyone landing there would not survive.
“The reality of Venus is that you can’t survive on the surface,” Nedivi said.
The creators wanted to show someone becoming the first person to reach Venus, even if only for a brief moment. Wolpert praised Nagaitis for his performance, saying the actor showed both fear and excitement in the scene.
“You see the victory on his face when he first looks out and sees that, and he just laughs, and you feel this sense of achievement from him,” Wolpert said.
Sergei Nikulov’s Secret Message Changes Everything
Sergei Nikulov, played by Josef Davies, played a key role in the finale. He discovered that the Venera crew had survived the explosion that everyone believed had killed them.
Nikulov figured this out through a coded signal that used his own specific algorithm. This discovery proved the spacecraft had survived the disaster.
He then worked with the Chief Designer, played by Rhys Ifans, to secretly send landing instructions to the returning spacecraft. They planned to land the crew in Finland to avoid Soviet capture.
The finale showed Nikulov meeting with the Chief Designer and Galina. The Chief Designer warned him about listening devices in the house. They came up with the idea for Nikulov to write his message in flour to avoid detection. He wrote the word “alive”.
This moment showed the extreme measures characters had to take just to communicate safely. The constant surveillance and paranoia defined life inside Star City.
Sasha and Anastasia’s Love Story Takes a Painful Turn
The finale also focused heavily on the relationship between Sasha Polivanov (Solly McLeod) and Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert). Their arranged marriage turned into a genuine romance throughout the season.
Anastasia, who was aboard the Salyut 1 space station, learned that Sasha was alive and returning to Earth. She made the daring choice to steal a transport ship and crash-land near the Finland border to save him.
Sasha and Lakshmi landed in Finland, but the KGB was close behind. Anastasia arrived and blocked the KGB’s path, sacrificing her own freedom. When Sasha saw this, he could not leave her. He helped Lakshmi cross the border to safety and then surrendered to the KGB with a peaceful smile.
Wolpert compared their story to classic Russian literature.
“The fact that the forces of the world pull them apart and they struggle against that just felt very Russian to us,” Wolpert told Variety.
“In that Russian literature kind of way, like ‘Anna Karenina’ and ‘War and Peace,’ and all these Tolstoy books about two star-crossed lovers who the world is conspiring to keep apart. But they’re not willing to let that happen, and sometimes it costs them everything.”
Tanya’s Escape and the KGB’s Long Reach
Tanya, played by Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, also had her story resolved in the finale. She was smuggled out of the Soviet Union and ended up in Paris. The final moments showed her with blonde hair, living a new life in secret.
The show added a chilling twist to her story. The epilogue showed that Irina Morozova (Agnes O’Casey) was listening to her daughter play piano. The camera then cut to Paris, where Tanya was being watched by a young woman named Celine.
Celine had appeared earlier in the season, testing Anastasia’s loyalty at a Paris nightclub. She worked for Raskova. This reveal showed that no one could truly escape the KGB’s surveillance.
“This, directly, tells us that no matter how much you flee the Soviet Union, the KGB will have you well located,” a report from Espinof noted.
Irina’s character also developed significantly in the finale. She took steps toward becoming the ruthless KGB operator seen in later seasons of For All Mankind. The season showed her playing her own games, selectively wiping recordings and stealing documents.
The Venera Mission’s Survival Explained
The finale explained how the Venera crew survived the explosion that seemed to kill them in Episode 6. Colonel Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin) had ordered the depressurization of the spacecraft to kill Valya.
The depressurization actually saved the crew. The lack of oxygen extinguished the fire that had started on board. The crew survived but found themselves adrift and off course.
The outgassing from the depressurization shifted Venera’s trajectory so severely that the crew would miss Venus entirely. They would eventually be pulled toward the sun if nothing changed. This created the need for Valya’s sacrifice.
Raskova’s actions throughout the season showed her ruthless dedication to the state. She viewed anyone who helped a traitor as equally guilty. She forced engineers to depressurize the entire ship at gunpoint.
The Chief Designer was arrested following the Venus mission fallout. Irina also risked being exposed. The political consequences rippled through Star City’s chain of command.
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Lakshmi Chadha’s Path to Freedom
Lakshmi Chadha, played by Priya Kansara, was the only Venera crew member to reach freedom. She crossed the border into Finland after Sasha helped her to safety.
This made her the only character from the main cast who could potentially tell the Western world about the secret Venus mission. Her survival also created an interesting parallel with For All Mankind‘s timeline, where the Venus mission remained a secret.
The show’s creators built the season toward the reveal that the Venera crew survived. They worked with scientific advisers to find a realistic explanation for how the crew could survive the explosion.
Wolpert explained that the timing of the depressurization was key.
“The oxygen was quite low in the craft itself and was being pulled out of the craft still, and so the fire actually would have been sucked out,” Wolpert explained.
“It would have singed them, it would have had an initial burst, and then been sucked out the same way the air was being sucked out.”
The season ended with many questions unanswered. Apple TV has not yet confirmed a second season. The show received strong reviews throughout its first run.
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