Netflix
Away Series Premiere Review – All Systems Go (1×01)
Hilary Swank is going where no man or woman has gone before in her brand new Netflix series, Away.
Swank stars as Emma, a headstrong and passionate astronaut in charge of commanding the inaugural mission to Mars.
But achieving such greatness comes at a high price and sacrifice, as the streaming drama paints a clear picture of how difficult it is to juggle family and career responsibilities.
While most of us have never been presented with the opportunity to not only make a pitstop at the moon but then (wo)man a ship all the way to Mars, we easily relate to Emma and her frustrations and guilt.
She’s worked her whole life for the trip, but she’s plagued with the guilt of “abandoning” her family for three years followed by the possibility of never making it back home.
She’s making history, but she won’t be there for Lex’s soccer games — and by showing that scene prior to the big media Mars mission media day, the series aims to underscore how important both these things are to her.
The series has found a middle-ground by balancing the two things that mean the world to her.
Her feeling of guilt is only exacerbated when her husband suffers a stroke the day before the big launch and she finds herself at a crossroads: should she continue on with the mission or go back and be with her family who truly needs her?
“The further away I get, I’m actually just getting closer to being back to you.”
The series paints a working woman’s plight through many different avenues. Her husband, a former astronaut, is sidelined after being diagnosed CCM disorder. While he doesn’t hold it against her and encourages her to “be the best,” there’s a hint of resentment when he’s forced to stay behind and watch her accomplish what was also once his dream.
That resentment is quickly wiped away with pride as Matt is a good man who, despite just getting out of surgery, finds it in himself to convince his wife to “do her job” rather than come home to take care of them.
And there’s the workplace drama appeal that anyone can relate to without ever stepping foot into a spaceship. The entire world has agreed to work together and collaborate on this mission, and while the crew seems to get along with each other initially, the dynamic is fractured after an incident on the spaceship that the audience is made privy to through each member’s individual accounts.
They always say there are two sides to every story and then the truth. In this case, there are four sides to the story, and then what actually happened.
Since we don’t get as much information about the crew members as we do about Emma in the pilot episode, these scenes are crucial for getting a sense of who these people are.
Ram only saw the aftermath of the incident, but he has Emma’s back wholeheartedly and informs Darlene that Emma would never ever put them in danger or get rattled.
Kwesi, the man who was lightly injured in the incident, bluntly tells Darlene that Emma saved his life.
Problems arise with the Yu and Misha’s accounts of what transpired. Misha doesn’t seem to trust Emma and says that she “froze” when put in a dangerous situation. He doesn’t believe she’s a good leader nor does he think she has the necessary experience because an “experienced astronaut doesn’t remove the panel,” which allowed for the pretreat, an acid, to escape and burst into a firebomb. In his version, he claims that he came up with the idea to get the water and pour it on the pretreat, but this contradict’s Lu’s version of events.
While Lu believes Emma was reckless in how she handled the situation, she explains that since she’s the on-board chemist, she’s the one who told Misha to get the water thus proving that Misha’s motivations are self-serving.
Eventually, we hear Emma’s side of the story — Kwesi opened the panel just as she shouted for him not to. When the pretreat oozed out, she pulled him to safety and then disregarded Lu’s suggestion to use water and instead, took off her shirt and tried to capture it with her shirt not realizing that her deodorant would cause a reaction.
She informs Putney that her mistake could’ve killed the whole team. Putney is there to assess Emma’s ability to continue on with the mission as all hell is breaking loose at the command center with each nation urging NASA to pull Emma off the mission.
However, he argues that she dove headfirst into a dangerous and unknown situation to save them all without any regard for herself. That’s what makes her a good leader, and that’s the reason they chose her to command this mission.
“Maybe it’s not in our nature to work together. But the future demands otherwise. And we will come together now in pursuit of a dream that was once thought to be impossible. And if we can do this, we can do anything.”
With Putney’s words and her family’s support, Emma once again gains the confidence she needs to command her team, regardless of whether or not they trust her.
At the end of the day, they’re all in this together. There will always be colleagues who think they are better than you or know better than you. There will be those people that undermine you at every step. And while it’s annoying, it’s usually fine in an office setting, but if your workplace environment is jetting off into Mars to do what’s never been done before, you’re going to need everyone on-board. Ego has no place in space, which Emma makes very clear in her final message to the people of Earth.
They all have to work together to survive because the future demands it.
In the final moments of the episode, the crew successfully takes off on their mission to Mars, but this is just one of the many hurdles they’ll likely endure especially with the odds of survival set at 50/50.
The pilot may have dug a bit into Emma, but one of the best things about the series is that it features such a diverse cast. The crew members represent China, Russia, the U.K, and India, and it’ll be exciting to get to know them and discover what’s fueling their passions. We briefly got a sense of what matters to them with Misha boasting about his grandchildren, Lu mentioning her “friend,” Ram goofing off about his love of women, and Kwesi’s decision to bring along the Torah.
Plain and simple: it’s a stellar cast, a simple premise, a glimpse at the sacrifices needed the achieve greatness and a look at the possibilities that open up when people put aside their differences and work together.
What did you think of the series premiere of Away?
Ginny and Georgia centers on the heartwarming yet extremely complicated bond between a mother and her daughter after they put down roots in a New England town.
With so many compelling storylines and incredible characters of all ages, it’s no wonder that the coming-of-age drama has become a fan favorite among Netflix audiences.
The second season of Ginny and Georgia premiered on Jan. 5, 2023, which means that a third season is likely far off, especially considering Brianne Howey, who plays Georgia, just announced her first pregnancy, which will possibly delay filming.
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Of course, Netflix has to renew the series for a third season. As of March 28, 2023, it has not given the show a green light for additional episodes.
Fans shouldn’t be too worried, however, as a renewal is very likely considering the show’s performance, the rabid fan base, and the fact that season 3 ended on such a cliffhanger—Netflix knows that fans will be clamoring for another season to see how the situation resolves itself.
As for a premiere date, well, there isn’t one just yet. Until the series is renewed and production begins, it’s a bit too difficult to come up with a date for new episodes. The season could likely arrive in February 2024 if we’re looking at the previous premieres for both seasons 1 and 2, which both debuted at the start of 2021 and 2023, respectively.
But with Howey’s pregnancy thrown into the mix, that could delay things a bit, and it wouldn’t be the worst thing if the series returned during the summer when there’s a lull in content and fans are seeking out something to binge-watch and get invested in.
Either way, when Netflix makes an official decision, you’ll be the first to know as we’ll update this article accordingly!
Until then, you can gear up for the final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Riverdale, and Firefly Lane!
YOU Season 4 introduced a plethora of new characters as it revamped the series with a murder mystery format.
*Warning – stop reading if you haven’t finished YOU Season 4 – Spoilers Ahead *
The shakeup made sense considering Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) uprooted his life following the fiery events in Madre Linda that killed Love Quinn and started over in London, assuming the identity of Professor Jonathan Moore.
Rather quickly, he got pulled into an elite group thanks to his co-worker and neighbor, Malcolm Harding (Stephen Hagan), who was the season’s first victim. Joe/Jonathan naturally despised Malcolm’s group, though he did find Rhys Montrose (Ed Speleers), an author running for Mayor of London, to be a bit of a kindred spirit. They came from the same broken background and shared many of the same views.
As the first half of the season unraveled, Joe sought out advice from Rhys on a handful of occasions, engaging in plenty of long heart-to-hearts with him, so it was kind of shocking when it was revealed that Rhys, as audiences have come to know him, was never real.
Rhys Montrose existed, yes, but he was never friends with Joe, nor was he the Eat the Rich Killer. The version of Rhys that Joe bonded with was a hallucination conjured up by his subconscious to protect himself and eliminate his darker, more deranged thoughts.
You. (L-R) Ed Speleers as Rhys, Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg in episode 410 of You. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023
For much of the season, we saw Joe desperately trying to set himself free from Rhys’ grasp. At first, he saw him as public enemy #1, who somehow figured out Joe’s real identity and roped him into a murder spree by threatening to frame him for the deaths if Joe refused to participate.
However, once Joe realized that Rhys was a figment of his imagination, he began to look for ways to silence the evil little voice forever, while also trying to figure out a plan to cover up the death of the real Rhys Montrose.
Joe was tasked with killing the mayoral candidate, who he assumed at the time was the Eat the Rich Killer, by Kate’s (Charlotte Ritchie) father, Tom Lockwood. When he arrived at Rhys’ secret countryside hideout and tied him up, he was infuriated that Rhys claimed not to know who he was, nor would he admit to kidnapping Marienne (Tati Gabrielle). Eventually, Joe’s rage and anger took over, and he “accidentally” killed Rhys, which is when fake Rhys showed up and revealed that Joe was having a semi-psychotic break.
In the end, Joe’s suicide attempt ensured that his hallucinations were forever gone, though he did embrace the darkness he was trying so hard to snuff out, making him more dangerous than ever.
As for the real Rhys Montrose’s killer, he pinned it all on poor Nadia (Amy-Leigh Hickman), a fan of Rhys’s from the beginning, who flew too close to the sun in her attempts to bring down Joe Goldberg. If only she just listened to Marienne’s advice.
A huge congrats to the YOU team for pulling off yet another jaw-dropping twist, and to both Badgley and Speleers for completely immersing themselves in their dual characters.
Just when you thought you figured out where the season was headed, YOU pulls out the rug from under you yet again.
I’m definitely starting to feel the whiplash that Joe/Jonathan must be feeling right about now.
Things have gone from crazy to crazier rather quickly, as Rhys unveiled his true plan—along with how Joe is involved—while Joe came out victorious in front of the elite group once again, and all while a new suspect started piecing things together and realizing that Joe knows way more than he’s led on.
While Joe spent numerous hours trying to figure out a plan to get close to Rhys, Rhys just appeared at Joe’s place one night without so much as lifting a finger. Joe may think he’s the invisible one in the city, but for a man who’s so well-known and loved, Rhys seems to get around without anyone noticing.
And he made the rules of the game very clear—either Joe finds someone to frame for all the deaths or he goes down as the Eat-the-Rich killer, which isn’t exactly ideal. A little incentive goes a long way, so while Joe tried to distance himself initially, he couldn’t shake the desire for self-preservation and took the bait. He took the task rather seriously as it was either kill or be killed; he knew someone had to go down for it, but it had to be the right person.
With time running out, he genuinely began to consider Connie, but despite being an irrelevant character, he couldn’t justify pinning it on someone who was struggling with addiction and trying to turn their life around. Connie wasn’t a threat to anyone, except for maybe himself, so Joe couldn’t justify destroying his life.
But Dawn, well, she fell right into his lap. The few times we saw her snapping photos of the elite, and focusing on Joe–including when she spotted him at Rhys’ mayoral rally—I was convinced that she recognized him from his previous life. And that seems to be what the series wanted me to think so that they could pull a fast one on us because when Dawn pulled Phoebe aside to a “safe room” to keep her protected from the killer, it was revealed that Dawn was just an obsessive stalker who was connived that she was friends with the elite, Phoebe in particular. Dawn was a threat to a lot of people, so Joe took advantage of it. He framed her by planting Simon’s ear in her belongings, and since no one would ever believe a word she said over Phoebe’s accounts of what happened, Dawn couldn’t prove her innocence. Plus, she made an ideal suspect since she was at nearly every single event where a murder occurred as she was stalking the group. I mean, it couldn’t have been any more perfect if Joe had tried to plan it himself.
You. Ed Speleers as Rhys in episode 406 of You. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023
However, his heroics did raise some questions from Nadia, his student and the lover of all murder mysteries. She noticed that Jonathan seemed to be at the center of every single scenario, oftentimes being championed as a hero, though he’s not actually connected to any of these people in any meaningful way. It’s a dangerous thing to play detective, especially when you’re setting your sights on Joe Goldberg. Jonathan seems to like Nadia, but if she threatened him, I don’t think Joe would hesitate to take her down. Self-preservation is his M.O., remember?
Once Joe thought he finally got Rhys off of his back by framing Dawn, he decided to give into his desires and pursue a relationship with Kate. Honestly, Kate makes some really poor decisions, starting with just accepting Jonathan for who he is now and promising never to ask questions about his past. She wants someone to see her for who she is in the moment so badly that she’s letting logic take a backseat. Why would someone want to deny their past so badly unless they did something truly unforgivable? Kate wants to shed her past because of her connection to her father and she thinks that makes her and Jonathan equal, but they are not the same.
By the time she realizes the truth about who Joe is, it might be too late.
As for Rhys, did Joe think he was really going to get rid of him that easily? Rhys has always wanted a friend to help him get to the finish line so to speak. He believes that they are the same, so he wasn’t going to just let Joe slip away.
And while his motive wasn’t evident at first, he seems hellbent on taking out those who don’t deserve their success and wealth. The three victims, Malcolm, Simon, and Gemma, all threatened his mayoral run in some way, so they were taken care of, and now, he’s setting his sights on the ultimate villain–Kate’s father. She may have a complicated relationship with her tycoon dad, but I don’t think Kate would ever want to see anything bad happen to him, let alone at the hands of the man she’s in love with.
However, Rhys doesn’t seem to give Joe much of a choice as he still holds all of the cards. One might think that Joe could just handle this in the same way he always does, but well, you can’t just try to kill a killer. He’d see that coming from miles away. Joe needs to be strategic and deliberate in his plan, so for now, he has to play along. I, for one, am curious to see what all the hubbub is about Kate’s father–is he really as terrible as she makes him out to be?
As for Rhys, what is the catch? Fans were disappointed with the first half of the season since his reveal as the killer was obvious—and his motives, including his desire to kill Kate’s father–are exactly shocking or game-changing. What are we missing?
What did you think of the episode?
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