Catch up on the Netflix Original series, Space Force, with this recap of episode 3, “Mark and Mallory Go to Washington.”
Space Force Season 1 Episodes:
Episode 3 – “Mark and Mallory Go to Washington”
Budget cuts. Tell that to General Mark Naird (Steve Carell) because Dr. Adrian Mallory (John Malkovich) has to traverse the Guggenheim-like architectural base of the Space Force building to dispense an earful… but soo many steps. I mean, is this a research facility, or is it a compound? It’s as if fucking Jean Ralphio from Parks and Rec (Ben Schwartz) and the ACTUAL series character, Fuck Tony (Ben Schwartz) had a child, fed it MDMA, and told it to create an M.C. Escher painting. But in Mark’s words as I would imagine them, “It takes a lot to get to the top.” or some stupid bromide like that. Welcome to the third episode of Space Force (Netflix) titled “Mark and Mallory Go To Washington”.
Back in the pit, as Adrian’s trying to get in, Fuck Tony is roasting Mark to prep him when the shitstorm comes at their testifying before the House Arms Services Committee. To every mudslinging thing F. Tony can sling at him, Mark is his own PR prowess pretties up his response. Sound familiar in the slightest?
Once Fuck Tony and Mark are on the same page, they notify Adrian that they need their A-game to be crisp for the billion dollars they are requesting for lunar exploration and not funding to “give rats stomach aches.”
Speaking of dyspepsia, as Mark approaches Captain Angela Ali (Tawny Newsome), Erin (Diana Silvers) catches her dad for a ride to D.C., just in the nick of time. Newly suspended from school for flipping her teacher the bird, Mark assigns Captain Ali, instead to babysit his daughter about the base, as a reward for insubordination aren’t exactly in her dad’s wheelhouse.
Up above, Fuck Tony nearly turns his grey Armani trousers to khaki Old Navy’s with Mark piloting. Down below, a bored Erin and even less enthusiastic Angela attempt to find common ground.
At the Pentagon, Mark faces off with colleagues, but not before engaging Adrian in a “Patton-off” to psyche himself up.
In the quarters, General Rongley (Diedrich Bader), Chief of Naval Operations (Jane Lynch), General Kick Grabaston (Noah Emmerich) and Commandant of the Marine Corps (Patrick Warburton) have a laugh at Naird’s expense, before shooing away the poor Commandant of the Coast Guard (Larry Joe Campbell).
Back in the gym on base, Obie (Owen Daniels) and Julio (Hector Duran) seem to win a bit of a long run, compliments of Angela for ragging on her guest. This gesture allows Erin to let her guard down and confide in someone that isn’t her dad.
In D.C., Grabaston plays the angles, eeking out a moment to ingratiate himself to Mallory with ecological palaver, promising a whole new (and possibly safer) world under his command, should Mark lose the branch.
As Angela introduces Erin to Meal Armstrong’s, the only Acai stand in the area, providence introduces Erin to Duncan Tabner (Spencer House), a member of Space Force. Duncan is an unassuming but hunky Alabamian displacement that seems to have a slight fancy for Erin, but, ohh right, she’s seeing Yuri (Alex Sparrow). You know, the hot Russian expatriate that may still be on the sketchy side, and after seeing their interaction, so does Angela.
In the Assembly, Rep. Bob White (Tommy Cook) is more than willing to hand over the 150% increase in the budget for Space Force so long as the old coot can see hellfire rained down on America’s enemies from the stars. This won’t be a cakewalk, however, as Rep. Pitosi (Concetta Tomei) takes a few of White’s yielded minutes to put the space-boots to Mark, medium-style. Floundering from few specifics and a report so redacted that it looks like modern art, Mark “taps” out for help to a pissed off Adrian. The panel’s youngest member, Anabela Ysidro-Campos (Ginger Gonzaga) takes a few of Pitosi’s yielded time to bring out a salient point that Adrian agrees with: ask for money to militarize space and everybody turn their head. He’s now in a space where everyone can hear him scream… from the inside.
Meanwhile, Angela suggests Erin get a job to pass the time slinging soft-serve… unlike in the hearing, where the serves are coming harder than Andy Roddick. It cost Space Force $10k to send a fresh, $1.50 orange into space for the crew member and information like that during a budget hearing leaves a pit in everyone’s gut that cannot be digested at the moment.
Mark tries to explain this with his experience in the military. It turns out that money doesn’t matter. People matter. Minds and bodies working tirelessly to put one person into space that can benefit the whole of humanity, and, if that one is risking their life by consuming dehydrated food with filtered urine, he argues a simple taste of the earth is the least we can do, because earth is important and we need to protect it.
Just when the moment is at its zenith and Mark’s speech lands successfully, a team of “Handmaids” interrupts, thinking it’s the Supreme Court Nomination Hearing. It’s no matter though. Specifics aren’t heard until Dr. Mallory chimes in to have General Naird’s back with the facts, Jack.
Overall, the episode picked up more steam as it plugged through. Though light on laughs (not jokes), the addition of a Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez proxy was kind of cute, though not cleverly disguised. However, maybe that’s the point of this all. These moving parts were designed to impugn the president, and I think the next episode will start the first season module that may start steadying for touch-down.
Oh, I don’t mean like a touchdown in American football, as we are still a ways away from that with this series now. Let’s just call it Third in Ten.
