For most of the first season of FOR ALL MANKIND, we get a running story about Ed & Karen Baldwin's son Shane. At first it's the story of Ed's relationship with Shane, how he is such a severe and intense father (much to his own regret). Then, once Ed is trapped on the Moon for half a year, we get repeated beats of Shane misbehaving at school alongside the son of another astronaut.
But the thing is, each next iteration of that problem is pretty much the same as the last. Karen is called into the principal's office, told Shane did something; the principal wants to talk about it. Karen insists she'll take care of it. She yells at Shane, who apologizes. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes we don't get the principal beat, or she's there with the other parent. But it really is the same thing over and over.
Then suddenly in 107, Shane is finally given a moment to do more than apologize. Mostly all it amounts to is a temper tantrum, but still. He gets to say words and have emotions.
And then immediately after that he ends up getting hit by a car and dying.
To me it looks like the idea was to force Ed and Karen to confront the dark side of their own parenting choices. Neither parent really stopped to listen to their only child, and this is the result. And obviously it should be this incredibly devastating event. We should feel bad. But I didn't find that to be the case. Shane's death does push Karen to confront some of her own issues. But Ed already has so much going on; he's only just been left on the Moon by himself, for who knows how long. That should be trauma enough.
Also, two episodes later the mission to relieve Ed is going to go completely awry and someone else will end up dying. The fact that this other death has only just happened steals thunder from that one in a big way.
But I think the bigger problem is that we never get to know Shane. He gets no scenes or conversations or moments that are truly his. He is just a problem in his parents' life; and as a result his death doesn't mean anything to us. In fact, his death ends up spotlighting that we never got to know him, which calls attention to the fact that he was just a plot device. And just like that we're pulled out of the story and into questions about the writers and their machinations. Never the place you want your audience to be...
A big tragic moment in a story has the same basic dynamics as a punch line. You set it up, add a wrinkle or two to lead the audience to think one thing is going to happen and then ideally resolve in a completely unexpected way. So, if you know you're going to kill a couple's little boy (God we are monsters as writers, aren't we...), what do you need to do beforehand? Set up not just the parents' relationship to their son but the son himself.
And if you're going to have him acting out, each next incident are those wrinkles meant to be pointing us in a certain direction, for instance telling us the way Ed treats him is really fucking him up, so as to make us think Ed really has to change his ways.
And then BAM, it's too late for that.
(Even as I write this, I'm not convinced killing him was the right way to go. Shane seems a lot more interesting as an ongoing problem for Ed once he gets back. But that's where the showrunner wanted to take it. And in that case, which happens plenty, your job is to craft the best possible version you can.)
TOMORROW: THE UNLIKELY SIDEKICK
