‘For All Mankind’ Boss Explains That Beyoncé Needledrop

Talk about setting a tone. The fifth season of For All Mankind has returned with a bang — or, more accurately, a banger. Warning: There are spoilers ahead for For All Mankind Season 5 Episode 1, “First Light.”

The season begins in the usual course, with a news montage update about everything that’s happened since we last left off. It’s now the 2010s, and while Mars is a thriving community of Happy Valley-ers, Earthlings are getting restless about their investment.

As is also custom for the series, a timely anthem also ushers in the new season, along with footage of some of the characters getting into gear for their days: Beyoncé‘s “Run the World (Girls).”

Executive producer Matt Wolpert said of the selection, “It’s so funny because we think about the especially that sort of wake-up montage needle drop. We tend to find those more and more when we are working on it in the editorial. But Ben [Nedivi] threw that one out in one of the early drafts. And I was like, ‘I don’t know if that’s gonna work, Ben.’ And I saw it, and I was like, ‘That is amazing. That works so well. I don’t care how much it costs, we’re using that.'”

Wolpert continued, “It is really a fun way to, especially as the world changes more on the alt history, be able to capture the tone of the time we’re telling the story. And through these needle drops, it really just plants your brain in that place and makes you feel like you’re in the 2010s. I’m really happy with the needle drops this year.”

Related

'For All Mankind' Season 5's New Decade & Characters, Explained

We also get an update on the main players: Ed (Joel Kinnaman) is persona non grata after being convicted in absentia for the theft of the asteroid and still causing trouble anyway; Margot (Wrenn Schmidt) is bored in prison for treason; Aleida (Coral Peña) is busy (and rather unhappy with) being both a mother and Helios MVP; Dev (Edi Gathegi) is championing the development of a new self-sustaining base on Mars; Jung-Gil (C.S. Lee) is running a shop in the marketplace until he’s arrested for murder; Miles (Toby Kebbell) is raising a teenager on the red planet and overseeing a new organization called the Sons & Daughters of Mars; Kelly (Cynthy Lu) is also grappling with parental woes, too, plus drilling for biological samples to find life beyond Earth. And we’re introduced to the newcomers: guard Celia Boyd (Mirielle Enos), Kelly’s newly-graduated son Alex (Sean Kaufmann), who randomly finds a dead body on an excursion, Miles’ also-teenaged daughter Lily (Ruby Cruz), and Mars Governor Leonid “Lenya” Polivanov (Costa Ronin).

The Bey track is not the only showstopping soundtrack addition in store for fans this season, so stay tuned for more timely jams to come!

For All Mankind, Fridays, Apple TV