‘For All Mankind’ Boss Explains A.J. Jarrett’s ‘Comeback’ Story

The latest episode of For All Mankind, “Open Source,” brings a fresh new face into the fold … but she bears a striking resemblance to some series favorites. Warning: The following post contains spoilers for For All Mankind Season 5 Episode 4.

In it, Kelly (Cynthy Wu) and Alex (Sean Kaufman) reel over the death of Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman), with the latter uncovering a dark secret of Helios’, and Aleida (Coral Peña) arrives on Mars to confront Dev (Edi Gathegi) over his development projects. Back on Earth, though, A.J. Jarrett (Ines Asserson) efforts to follow in both her father and grandfather’s footsteps — even if she bears her stepfather’s last name.

Yes, A.J. is formerly known as Avery Stevens, the daughter of Danny and Amber, and is now all grown up and working to get a spot in OPEF (Off-Planet Expeditionary Force). To get there, she’ll have to reckon with her long-buried feelings of abandonment by her father, who died by suicide after being exiled on Mars when she was a baby.

Not only does A.J. sound like her late, great grandpa, Gordo, but she looks like both him and Tracy, a fact which certainly didn’t hurt the actress’ casting chances.

Executive producer Matt Wolpert told TV Insider of the choice, “It was such a treat to get to cast that. And Ines, crazily, looks like she’s Sarah Jones and Michael Dorman blended into one person. And so we saw her and what she brought to the performance, and it was actually very straightforward once we saw her audition. We were like, ‘Oh, that’s, that’s A.J.'”

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The reintroduction of the character, who was last seen as a little girl in Season 4’s 2003 storyline during her 9th birthday party, holds deeper significance than just her doppelganger status. She’s also a very promising addition to the team, as she’s no-nonsense and tough as nails. In fact, she’s so tough that her examiners have to do a second polygraph test to get her to even break into her emotional core ever so slightly — and even that only happens after she’s coached by Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) to do so.

She’s bringing back the Stevens family energy the show’s been missing, according to Wolpert. “Just to have that generational story also told — because the Stevens are such a part of the history of For All Mankind and the spirit of For All Mankind, and there are peaks and valleys in families in terms of the company contributions of generations. And I think getting to kind of tell the — for lack of a better word — comeback story of the Stevens family this season was really a special opportunity for us,” he explained.

For All Mankind, Season 5, Fridays, Apple TV