Watching Foundation: “The Sighted and the Seen”

You’ve figured this out already, yes? Joseph goes on about the episode while watching it. Here be spoilers. Simultaneously published at ComicsTheUniverseAndEverything.net.

Watching Foundation S2E05

Space, a ship.

It must have been the Deliverance. We’re flashing back to just before Hari’s murder.

“I’m not angry, I love you.” “I know that too, Son.” Hari is awful. I’ve never understood why people love that line from Han Solo btw.

Scene shift. Pinocchio Hari is dreaming and talking to an image of Raych. Doubling down. “You got them all fooled. They think you care about them. But the truth is you don’t care about anyone.“

So we’re inside Hari’s head and this is about his insecurities. He still sucks though.

“I was your son and you let me die… we both know it wasn’t the first time.“ What the hell is that about?

The scene shift makes it unclear whether that was a dream or a hallucination. Now Hari is investigating his new body. Just pinch yourself, dude. No need to stick yourself with a knife. If there’s a tetanus booster on this ship at all it’s over a century old!

Space. Again. This time that’s clearly the Beggar.

Now Gaal and Salvor are mocking Hari for having legs. And speculating about Kalle. Maybe she wasn’t the manifestation of the Prime Radiant.

Hari says, “My body is as it was the moment before I died.” Great. So he’s terminally ill again? That seems to be a lot of wasted effort.

They jump to the conclusion that Hari’s been cloned. I have a hard time buying that there is a continuity of consciousness in that case. Teevee magic I guess, but it doesn’t work that way with the Cleons.

This loops us back around to “Measure of a Man” again. Specifically, why Data did not want to be disassembled. Except it’s even harder to believe with an organic human.

“Someone wanted you to be flesh and blood again. And after all that trouble you went to, turning yourself into an idea.” That’s funny.

Everyone’s being incongruously flippant in this scene.

The Empire had to physically send someone to Siwenna for an update. These three learn what’s up with the Foundation by listening to the radio. How does that work?

On the Foundation’s religious phase, Hari says, “It was bound to happen. People do love to kneel.” This might be my favorite line from this episode.

Ignus looks a lot nicer than Oona’s World. The Empire abandoned it a millennium ago.

“Negative ionic particles in the atmosphere have caused a system reboot.“

That’s funny, but it made me Google “Negative ionic particles.” They’re abundant and caused by things like sunlight and waterfalls. There might even be health benefits. They’re not going to bring down a starship. Make up some new substance for your technobabble. Star Trek learned that early on when they switched from lithium to dilithium.

“I’m flying dead stick!” “Is that bad?” Is funny.

“Pain is exhilarating.” “In small doses.” They’re really playing up the comedy.

Then the Beggar crashes into a bunch of trees like in Star Trek: Generations. Where’s Gordi LaForge when you need him?

It’s disappointing after Salvor’s arc last season that her first instinct is to grab a firearm.

Trantor

Markley is reporting to Sereth and Rue. They’ve only learned a little bit.

Base personality for Sareth: shy and sad. But that version died with the rest of her family, she says.

“She wants to copulate!” Is funny. But man, look at Day. That appears to be real anxiety! Demerzel reassures him. Are they just emphasizing that he’s insecure, or is he deteriorating in some way?

But the — flirting doesn’t describe it — is off putting. Is this all a consequence of Demerzel messing with him? Could this be a cumulative consequence of mental manipulation?

“Think of me…” then the clenched fist. Uh… okay… coach? Ugh. I’ve had about enough of this.

“Come in, Sereth, I’ve been anticipating you.” This is all so stilted that I’m uncomfortable even while I’m laughing.

The orbital rings were originally designed to be invisible from the ground but C-17 wanted them to be seen, “like a shackle around the world.” Two things:

1. This is another indication that C-17 is insecure. It’s an ostentatious display of his… “potency.” But:

2. Practically everyone is indoors. Why not just tweak the projections on the ceilings? Or have they profoundly changed the nature of Trantor over the last 150 years? Working theory: the writers forgot or are ignoring things that don’t suit their narratives. There’s a small possibility that the vernacular on Trantor is based on the fiction that there are no domes, but that seems unlikely.

Shouldn’t the technology exist to make the room damage invisible? This looks like a college student tried to hide the nail holes in the wall with blue toothpaste.

Now that Sereth has seen the damage around the room she seems anxious to get down to business.

The man needs to be on top! More insecurity? But then all the awkwardness. And things turn ugly. Sereth beautifully turns it around. “I was trying to figure out if it is safe to live here!” But it’s still ugly. Not at all like her chemistry with C-18.

A summary to Demerzel, followed by “we’re engaged,” *awkward smile.* And we learn that Day did have her family killed.

But more importantly, C-17 really seems off mentally, and to some degree that’s mirrored back by Demerzel.

“30 Years Earlier” kinda.

We flashback to C-16’s encounter with Rue. The perspective shifts, C-16 and Rue are watching the video in the present. I bet there’s also a mirror on the ceiling.

Rue wants to see when he selected her from Gossamer Court. We see that Rue is clever, but we already knew that. The important information here is that it’s not obvious when a memory has been removed, and Rue suggests to C-16 that perhaps his memories have been edited. That’s a thought that’s going to fester.

That said, while Rue claimed it’s very hard to tell whether your memory has been edited, she describes a clear discontinuity, the obvious sensation of lost time that is abundant in UFO narratives.

I still think the Cleons would never allow the concubines to have any awareness of the encounter.

Ignus

It’s like another Dungeons and Dragons moment when Salvor encounters a guy in a hoodie. I hope she noticed that his skin changed color.

No such luck. She think’s that’s Hugo. He gives a long narrative that barely manages to be plausible. Don’t trust it.

Back on the Beggar, Gaal and Hari are discussing Salvor’s future. It’s softer than the conversation from the last episode, but it still misses the point. The future is mutable; if you change the big stuff, all the details will be different.

“… an embryo is a very different proposition to an actual person.”

Salvor brings “Hugo” to the ship. She should be smarter but I suppose wishful thinking can be pretty powerful.

Hari is suspicious and asks Hugo how tall he is. Hugo says he’s just under 2 m tall. That’s close to 6’7”. 181 cm is about 5’11”.

Hari moves on to weight and fixates on a difference of 3 kg. The difference of 3 kg between what Hugo and Salvor should weigh together. That’s about 7 pounds; a pretty trivial difference after 150 years, even if you ignore the fact that the two are carrying equipment. Shrinking 8 inches is a lot harder than gaining a few pounds.

On the other hand, I think the writers are bad at the metric system. You’re not going to sweat 7 pounds off in the jungle and it isn’t merely a few beers. It’s a bit much, even if you are being hyperbolic.

It all becomes moot as the sensors detect life forms approaching the ship.

Then they’re in a big kerfuffle which ends with “Hugo” saying “Unthink their Minds.” They should have led with that.

Trantor

Sareth and friends are back at the Banyan Tree. She seems to be learning things about the assassination attempt that the instigator would already know. But the memory audits come into play. They can’t get a Cleon’s but maybe one of the Doctors’.

Nice touch with the keeper’s eyes. But that shouldn’t have worked and Markley is going to wind up dead.

Dusk questions Demerzel about memory adjustments. Day took complete power over that after the attack. Dusk wants to know how he could figure out if his memory has been changed.

They like doing effects with people’s eyes this season.

Markley brings the memory audit to Sareth and Rue. They learn Demerzel is a robot. That will have huge consequences, I think. It’s clear these three never even pondered that possibility.

But this is interesting. Sereth says, “I’ve touched her hand. It was warm and alive.”

Compare this to what Gaal says about Kalle. In Episode 3 it’s “I’m telling you, she felt alive!” In this episode, it’s “I met her, she’s as solid as me, but she didn’t register as living on our scopes.”

Kalle is almost certainly a robot.

I thought Demerzel, having decentralized consciousness meant within her body but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Kalle is an avatar of Demerzel.

But I don’t think that is likely. I think “Kalle” is actually Dors Venabili, who interfaced with the Prime Radiant to communicate with Hari (rather than it becoming sentient). I think that the image of Kalle is a second attempt by Dors, after Yanna, to put Hari at ease. We’ll be formally introduced soon.

Dawn and Dusk are going to drop a few quarters into the fortune-telling machine that is Cleon the First.

C-1 is no help. “If you become divided, you dishonor me, and what I devised.“

“I am here to give you what you need. Nothing more.”

I wonder how often Demerzel consults this simulacrum.

Now Dawn and Dusk want to see the size of the memory files for all the Cleons. That alone seems silly. I wonder if there will be dozens or hundreds more Cleons than they expected.

They’re pondering if they are no longer at the “top of the heap” or if they are in danger.

Dusk ponders his legacy and what Day is up to. “I should have seen this coming.”

To Dusk: “Perhaps Day did you a favor by giving away your chair.”

Dusk and Dawn’s memory files aren’t suspiciously small but C-1’s is startlingly large.

Incidentally, if they only alter Cleons’ memories so they don’t know that they died I’d like to see how C-14b turned out, having the memories of someone who was colorblind, betrayed, and hunted. I’ll bet that guy was an even bigger mess than usual.

Ignus

Salvor, Gaal, and Hari wake up in a hut.

Hey! There’s that staircase from the trailer.

They find the group of people we saw with telepathic powers earlier. Is this the nucleus of the Second Foundation?

Pa’a introduces herself as a goddess.

This is annoying. Pa’a introduced herself as “remote” yet Hari making’s a big deal of her not casting a shadow. Yet it works; in another Oz reference, Tellum Bond is revealed. So why the “remote” comment?

The real Tellum Bond called Hari “mentally incomplete.” She called Gaal and Salvor to Ignus because of their mental abilities. Mentalics = “sighted.”

“Do not worship children. It is not good for them.“ Does that explain Michael Jackson? My theory has been that he peaked when he was ten.

A refuge for Telepaths, many of whom had to flee their homes before they were killed, like Gaal.

They do recognize that using Hugo’s image was quite a violation.

All that stuff with Raych’s at the start of the episode was Tellum Bond trying to read Hari. “Hari’s very murky inside,” she says.

We end with Tellum Bond learning of the Prime Radiant. “I will find it and break it. There’s not going to be a Second Foundation.”

Still good, but sloppy. We’re certainly off the break-neck pace of the first two episodes. That’s fine as long as we don’t try to cram The Mule in here.

All Images from Foundation on Apple TV+.