I appreciate you addressing that if the writers didn't intend it to be about masculinity thematically, you at least addressing that. However, just quoting a writer with the line "this is about masculinity" doen't add credibility to your argument. That's the laziest kind of quoting. Quote her very very specific line rather than a verbatim topic of yours.

I also disagree with your blanket labelling people fo "nice guy"s. Nice guys are toxic and bad people to you? There's a certain argument for someone who expects something out of a women because she's nice, but where does the line cross over to men who are just lonely and receive the constant societal mesaging that if they keep putting themselves out there that they'll find someone. What about a person who is receiving some signals and interprets that as worth enough to make a move. That's more of an apt description of the Josh Hartnett character

And so, why focus on toxic masculinity in this review if it's not the show's intention?

Well, regardless of what the showrunner and writer intended, it's an inescapable element of the show itself. When you have an episode focused on two middle-class white leads in 1960s America and how those men process their feelings in the wake of trauma, masculinity is an inescapable element. As Brynna Arens in Den of Geek notes about the show, and more specifically, it's ending: "[It's not] just a commentary on trauma and the vast loneliness of space, [but] also serves as an argument against toxic masculinity."