Danielle Poole settles in as the new base commander of Happy Valley and begins to make some changes, while recent arrival Miles Dale realizes that things on Mars aren't as idyllic or as promising as told. Meanwhile on Earth, Kelly and Aleida discuss personal issues over drinks.
- Company Town: The Helios section of Happy Valley starts to resemble this. The workers are forced to live in cramped underground quarter, eat low quality food and the company is nickel-and-diming them for everything. Dale realizes that after all the mandatory fees and charges, his paycheck is lower than he was making at his Earth job. If he tries to quit, Helios can sue him for everything he owns.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Kelly and Aleida run into each other in the Tex-Mex restaurant that used to be the original Outpost and get drunk while ranting to each other about the problems in their professional lives: Kelly's robotics program being scuttled as a costcutting measure and Aleida lamenting her career slowly crashing and burning thanks to her mental health problems. Kelly turns out to be a lightweight that barfs on Aleida's rug and passes out on her couch and is visibly hungover the next morning while Aleida is right as rain and was working on a way to get Kelly's robot program going again in the private sector through the night.
- In Spite of a Nail: The ending heavily implies that Communist hardliners have staged a coup against Gorbachev, except about a decade later than they tried in real life. Whether the coup succeeds, unlike in real life, is yet to be determined.
- Irony: During the disturbance at Artem's newspaper booth, additional police loyal to the new hardliner regime arrive in police vans made by Mercedes-Benz as the company marque is clearly visible on the van's front grills.
- Heroic BSoD: Aleida's mental health problems have evolved to this, as she's refused to work for months and a simple mention of Margo's name triggers traumatic flashbacks to her stepping into her bombed office in the aftermath of the JSC bombing.
- Late to the Tragedy: Margo wakes up to discover that Gorbachev's been seemingly overthrown overnight and discovers that fact long after the fact and seemingly long after everyone else has learned as well.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Margo's attempt to intervene to prevent Artem, the friendly newspaper vendor she's known for a while, from being badly beaten by a cop, naturally results in her getting arrested.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- The baker being evasive about what happened last night, simply telling her to go home immediately, leads Margo to stumble onto an altercation between the police and a crowd of people and ultimately her getting arrested.
- The astronauts tend not to socialize with the Helios support workers. The workers feel that they are exploited by Helios and the astronauts are treating them like second-class citizens. The astronauts think that the workers are highly paid corporate employees who only care about their paychecks. This creates serious tension between the two groups.
- Read the Fine Print: Dale is told to his horror that if he tries to go back to Earth early, Helios will slap him with a massive recuperation fee to "make up for lost investment" i.e. the resources they invested in training and shipping him to Mars. He is also shocked to discover that his contract allows Helios to charge him for the clothing and supplies they provide him. This means that he is earning way less money then he thought he was.
- Wham Line: "Where is Gorbachev?!"
