When you hear the name Edison, what do you think of? Does it illuminate your mind with thoughts of perseverance? Does it spark up your interest in invention? Does it sound like espionage and duplicity? On the seventh episode of Space Force (Netflix) titled “Edison Jaymes”, we see that sometimes view things as a flash in the night… not a flash in the pan.
With still no plug on the leak that was sprung to India in the last episode, General Mark Naird (Steve Carell) the POTUS as a penance wants Space Force to pair with private industry to fuel the Lunar satellite launch. This big cog in the machine is none other than Elon Musk proxy Edison Jaymes (Kaitlin Olson) much to the delight of Dr. Adrian Mallory (John Malkovich) and to the worriment of Fuck Tony (Ben Schwartz), as Edison’s PR person, Hannah Howard (Janina Gavankar) who got him fired from American Apparel by leaking his text messages.
Meeting Edison face-to-face, Mark is thrown for a loop. Power blazer, power stance, power product, Edison cuts to the chase without any waste, just like her product which makes their rocket burn more cleanly. Though Mark isn’t used to a woman CEO being this curt, Adrian is unequivocally “stanning” in her presence.
Elsewhere on base, Mark’s daughter Erin (Diana Silvers) is homesick, though her Grandpa Fred (Fred Willard) assures her that during those formative teenage years, friendships are as easily remembered as they are forgotten… and just like that, they are as Edison Jaymes’ Mercedes Maybach rolls in. I mean, curiosity trumps any long-lasting friendships, right?
Admiring the luxe ebony interior, teenage knuckleheadedness doesn’t go out of style, as Erin catapults her ice cream cone all over due to Duncan Tabner (Spencer House) spooking her by knocking on the window. What always never goes out of style for curious teens? Bolting when getting in a sticky situation.
Back inside, Adrian tries to impress Edison with his newest endeavor for resisting pathogens in space, but she asserts her team can do it in half the time and with a quarter of the resources. Adrian’s a little cut short, but a mere few feet away, Fuck Tony’s being verbally judo chopped down by Hannah, handing out NDA’s. I think he may be in love (Oh, he’s the type that would dig that.)
Meanwhile, Captain Angela Ali (Tawny Newsome) approaches Dr. Chan Kaifang (Jimmy O. Yang), requesting him to teach her Astro-botany. Apparently, the stoic Chan can be persuaded by $50 an hour.
While Mark flaunts his trophies, Edison butters him up by stroking his ‘innovative’ ego. The tech-wizard wants to hear Mark’s thoughts and certainly won’t take no for an answer. He proceeds to relay this very interesting idea of human-to-human international interaction via cybernetic handshakes. She seems receptive enough to not be giving him straight lip-service, but as one cog in the machine, you can see the other cogs spinning in her head. With a kind word and a handshake, Mark’s been turned.
Reeling over her soft-serve spillage in something worth more than three of her lifetimes, Erin tries to align stories with Duncan. Her story generation, however, does not compute with Duncan as he’s bereft of the ability to visualize. Imagination isn’t Duncan’s strong suit, but I think it a little gauche for the resident country bumpkin to suffer from Aphantasia just to give him more personal agency.
Edison and the crew tour the Space Force grounds, she all to a demonstration of her “Skinny Fuel”, a self-sustaining rosé colored rocket fuel that costs and weighs less in addition to running cleaner to any in existence. Adrian inquires about the molecular structure, as NASA had been trying to concoct one for years to no avail. This trade secret Miss Jaymes won’t budge on, but through a simple gas grill, demonstrates. The crowd seems impressed, but something’s biting at Adrian’s ankles.
He simply is put off by her lack of sharing its composition, but Mark is a visual man. He’s impressed by the sausage, not what lies in the casing. Mark also dismisses Adrian’s concerns as mere jealousy. Jealousy as in that because Mark is smart for being on board with her, she must be dumb. It seems Edison’s buttering up Mark like an English Muffin had sunk into his “nooks and crannies.” Wait, ew… but the metaphor works. Kind of. Well, now that Adrian’s out for the day, Edison has the rest of hers to spend with Mark.
Already late for their session, Dr. Chan finds out why Captain Ali wants this tutelage of botany: for her Astronaut Aptitude Test. She wants to be one and her tutor does get a few digs in, though she is serious. I sense some chemistry going on here. Only that amount of playful haranguing can belie romantic feelings.
As Edison is shopping for Mark’s dapper do’her’well for his next hopefully conjugal visit, operating on a now all too well algorithm, he’s not too keen on the look. Edison knows how with the slip of her silver tongue play to his strengths and make the tiger come emerge?
Meanwhile, as Hannah is tweeting her ass off and Fuck Tony is jealous for her client. As she so eloquently says, “She’s doing Bonobos meets Blue Apron” as well as the rocket fuel- she has like a hundred projects running because “if one thing works, no one remembers a failure.” Operative word: IF.
Back at learning-lab aka lunchtime, Captain Ali clashes with Chan on the machinations of biology. As she asks for a snack break, the romantic tension only grows pricklier, like an aloe vera plant… The key to its soothing properties is that you have to shave it down to get to its soothing point…
Before Mark, Adrian and Edison see the rocket’s inaugural test launch, Fuck Tony defuses the situation. He’s got hot goss from Hannah from a simple inflection. ‘Yeh.’ That’s enough to have Mark and Adrian going on a little excursion.
Once Erin and Duncan’s little walkabout the base has concluded to her with shaking hands, there is one thing we realize Duncan is truly talented at… being charming with being himself and trying… soo hard. I mean, with a face and a body like that, how could you not compare him to the Trent of Daria’s?
In mission control, all hands are on deck and both Edison and Hannah are on tenterhooks. Lift off!
The only thing is that Mark didn’t use any Skinny Fuel. She looked at things with rosé colored glasses while Mark and his team looked at them with coke bottled ones. This was her failure but as Edison said, “for every failure, there is a success… or at least it’s off the books for this one, boys!”
Once all pictures are taken and secrets are buried, Adrian gets his digs into Edison, Hannah gets her lips on F. Tony and Mark gets aide du camp back for a final sartorial say before his big day… but like all good endings, there is a bad one.
It turns out though the satellite has successfully landed on the moon, another did as well… well, a Chinese base had. Slightly bigger than a bread box and slightly smaller than NOTHING.
Nothing they can’t solve… right?
