For All Mankind Season 2 shocker: Who died in the finale?

Wow, that For All Mankind Season 2 finale did not pull any punches. If you thought one big death was bad, imagine watching this show and realizing that two significant characters had met their demise!

BEWARE: Major spoilers ahead for the For All Mankind Season 2 finale, do not keep reading if you haven’t watched the episode yet!

So at the end of the finale, two astronauts made a heroic sacrifice to try and prevent a horrific crisis from happening. Back at the Jamestown base, the crew was held hostage by the Russians and it was up to two other astronauts to do something significant to prevent a nuclear meltdown from destroying the base and rendering the moon uninhabitable.

Yes, at the end of this tragic hour, Gordo and Tracy Stevens sacrificed their lives to save their colleagues and the future of space exploration by stepping out onto the moon without space suits.

For All Mankind executive producer Ronald D. Moore chatted with TVLine about that ending and why he decided it was the right decision for the series, and also what it means for the show headed into its third season (which it was already renewed for).

According to Moore, they made the decision to kill the characters “relatively late in the game.” The writers did envision some different scenarios, such as only one of them dying and the other living on, but utlimately they decided that this course of action was the best one.

“But as time went on and we kept talking about the story, we just kept coming back to it. It was like a gravitational pull, and at a certain point, you start listening to that as writers and going, ‘There’s a reason we keep talking about it,’ and we started to seriously talk about it and game it out and talk about the pros and cons, and what really became clear to us was it was the right ending for their story,” said Moore.

For All Mankind Season 2: Are Gordo and Tracy really dead?

If you were hoping that there could somehow be a fakeout and Gordo and Tracy would return for another season, I’m sorry to say that doesn’t seem to be the case. While there is always the possibility of characters returning in flashbacks and dream sequences, their stories are over and the characters appear to be officially dead.

Plus, it sounds like Moore and the writers have always envisioned this series as being one where characters come and go. About the show’s future, he said, their deaths open “up a lot of things. One of the unique aspects of the show is that this is a generational show. It moves through the decades. So people are going to come and go.”

Still, doesn’t make it any less sad!

Were you shocked by the For All Mankind Season 2 finale? Are you sad that Gordo and Tracy died? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

For All Mankind is now available to stream right now on Apple TV+.