Star City Season 1 Episode 6 Delivers the Biggest Shocker Yet — Review

Critic’s Rating: 4.8 / 5.0

4.8

Star City has reached the point where excellence itself is no longer surprising.

The question is whether each episode can still find a new way to challenge the characters.

Star City Season 1 Episode 6, “Awl in a Shack,” answers with a resounding yes.

Deception emerges as a strong theme, showing how relationships and trust can break down with devastating consequences. And then everything ends with a massive cliffhanger that is bound to reset the show based on how events play out in future episodes.

We’ve enjoyed seeing Irina’s slow but steady evolution from a mere secretary to a calculating asset in the spy program in Star City Season 1.

However, this hour is not centered on her as the Venera mission takes center stage after it is discovered that Valya cheated his way into it to save his skin.

Lyudmilla is out for blood because when she’s wrong, she’s like a dog with a bone, and when she’s right, she’s like a starving dog with a bone.

She lives for this kind of thing — exposing people being used to corrupt the Soviet way of life. When she has them in her crosshairs, I don’t think a happier woman exists in all of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, the Chief Designer lives for another kind of thing — science. Nothing thrills him more than figuring out a particularly hard or never-before-solved problem.

And it’s not like these people have much else going on for them, Chief Designer especially. Since Star City’s series premiere, the state turned him into an attraction for helping them land a man on the moon.

For someone with such brains and ambitions — and especially when used to being busy — doing nothing is worse than death. His entire life now revolves around the Venera mission.

So we get something I don’t think we’ve seen in Star City before: Chief Designer and Lyudmilla collaborate to pull off one of the largest con jobs I’ve ever seen.

Truly, a round of applause for them.

It’s rare to see Chief Designer engage in more than a few seconds of conversation with Lyudmilla because their lives reflect vastly different philosophies.

But when his secret project — a project whose success can help him reclaim his past glory — is threatened by Valya’s deception, he willingly works with Lyudmilla to solve the problem.

I don’t know what’s scarier: Lyudmilla shooting an innocent woman point-blank or her fucking smile as she manipulated Chadha’s husband.

You know a person is evil to the core when their “nice face” gives you the chills.

They weaponize Chadha’s marital secrets, which also stem from deceptive secret-keeping, and trick Chadha into giving them control of the ship. The moment Manpreet is done, the Lyudmilla we know returns — cold, murderous, and evil.

Deception hurts.

Some things, like betrayal, carry varying levels of hurt based on the relationship between the parties involved. But deception has that unique sting that makes someone question their worth.

Even an act of deception from a stranger is painful to move on from.

When people realize that they’ve been deceived, the immediate course of action is to soothe their ego, so when the Venera Three realize they were used, Chadha and Sasha immediately side with Valya and want to free him.

And even without deception, it’s really painful to see someone executed in that manner. Death by rapid depressurization has to be one of the worst ways to go, and witnessing that as a cosmonaut immediately invokes empathy.

But once the polite facade is stripped away, Lyudmilla shockingly decides to execute the entire crew. It’s an agonizingly slow execution, made even more chilling by the realization that the world will likely never know the massacre that just took place in the vacuum of space.

Chief Designer immediately sobers up and realizes why he would never be caught dead playing friends with Lyudmilla: this woman is a monster.

And just like that, to the gulags he’s taken.

Between the explosion on the ship and the Chief Designer’s dramatic exit, I want to believe this is a fakeout, a sleight of hand, but Star City has made it clear that it doesn’t take any prisoners.

I fear this is it for the Venera Three and their biggest champion, Chief Designer.

It’s a development that, if it happens, then everything has officially changed. These people whom I had grown attached to are no more. The Venera mission is no more.

And for those of us who had been engaged in debate about the possibility of landing man on Venus, it might not matter anymore.

Meanwhile, Irina grapples with the fallout from her own deception as Tanya goes on the run, avoiding her.

But even when she’s deceiving people, Irina is always working towards something bigger, which is why she always has enough ammunition to get herself out of problems.

This hour finds her trying to unearth Valya’s handler.

If she’s successful, Lyudmilla will be the happiest woman in all of the Soviet Union at the prospect of torturing and murdering an American spy.

Gut Check

“Awl in a Sack” continues this show’s excellent streak of delivering thrilling hours of television.

No notes.

Intrusive Thoughts

• I had to check out the screener for the next episode because wtf!!

• Which is the most painful slow death ever? That’s what Lyudmilla deserves.

• Chadha and Manpreet are so cute together. Were.

• There’s always that one coward who will ruin a perfect “I am Spartacus” moment.

Over to you, Star City fanatics. What did you think of this hour? Is this it for Sasha, Chadha, and Valya? Were you saddened by the potential for their deaths?

Let’s keep the conversation going — it’s the only way the good stuff survives.

Say something in the comments, share if you’re moved to, and keep reading. Independent voices need readers like you.