Here we go again. Joseph’s reactions, thoughts, and theories from watching the episode. This one for some reason took a lot longer to sift through than the typical episode. Simultaneously published at StarsEndPodcast.com.
Watching Foundation S2E06
Watching the opening credits. I’ve noted before the feeling of decay it evokes. Today though I’m pondering the visual similarity between the opening and the Mural of Souls. That decay permeates the palace and surrounds the Genetic Dynasty. That must be intentional. And it works.
Ignus by the Sea.
Hari’s staring out into the ocean interspersed with chaotic images from under the water. What are those about? Still, he seems contemplative.
Salvor approaches. She can’t sleep. “Weird dreams. Arguments with strangers. I think it’s this place.” Nice foreshadowing, that’s the episode in a nutshell.
She starts a conversation with a kid, who opens with “Your Mother’s memories are full of water.” It’s already clear that water is an important image within the episode.
The kid tries to teach her how to communicate telepathically and then shows her disturbing memories from his past. I’m not sure it’s an execution technically but it’s certainly indicative of the kind of persecution the mentalics must have faced. Joanne is bothered by how casually characters in this series kill each other.
“People didn’t like that I knew what they were thinking.” There’s a ton of places they could go with this as a metaphor.
But I end up liking the kid.
He brings Salvor to the Mentalics’ village where she’s swarmed by them both physically and mentally. There’s a montage of images of harsh persecution that end with Tellum Bond as their savior.
Cut to Salvor conversing with Hari, Gaal, and Tellum. She’s talking about her experience. “I could see and feel everything they experienced. All that pain and suffering. And relief.“ Tellum replies, “Now you know why we are forced to hide. We know things. Know when the kings are full of shit or the husbands are cheating.” Rereading this later that totally sounds like a blackmailer’s point of view.
Tellum’s perspective certainly portrays the Mentalics in a sympathetic light, a stark contrast to the closing moments of the last episode.
Hari makes a strong plea for help while Tellum is disinterested. He invokes the Mule and claims that the alternative to helping is destruction.
Gaal’s precognition comes as a surprise to Tellum.
The language here bugs me. “Gaal’s future is real” ignores all sorts of things that will happen with some kind of probability distribution. It might be the most probable future right now, but it isn’t “the future.” There is no “the future” unless the universe is completely deterministic. It strikes me that this is the same thing that made me uneasy with Brother Dusk worrying about his fingerprints.
We know that clones are not identical to their progenitor, some characteristics will express themselves probabilistically. The fingerprints of a clone, like the markings on a cat will be different.
Now we’re discussing an “inescapable future.” Is that on the table? If it’s true then Psychohistory is pointless and there is no drama. It’s possible that we’re looking at the characters thinking it’s on the table even though it can’t be. Tellum makes some sense until she formulates the issue entirely in terms of Hari’s perceptions. That’s way too limited.
But we’re back onto free will. Jon will be happy.
Hmmm… even natural phenomena occur according to some probability distributions, therefore the universe cannot be deterministic. Thus we have free will. Sounds like something, but I think I’ve used a false dichotomy.
Trantor. Almost.
I like how the ship appears to be aflame as it exits jump space, it’s a nice effect. Is this Bel Riose’s ship? All the Empire’s ships look the same to me.
We zoom in. The people in cryosleep are visible from the outside of the ship. It looks cool, but is there a design scheme that justifies this? It seems wildly dangerous. And dumb.
It’s Poly and Constant’s ride. We see a spacer, named “She Shines Brightly.” Her torso is transparent and what we can see inside looks technological. Yet she asserts that she’s human. Is that in the sense of George 9 and George 10? It looks like a great deal more than genetic engineering.
But modifications to the Spacers have been happening for 600 years, “When our servitude was forged.“ “Forged” evokes chains.
The inside of Trantor station looks a lot like the inside of the Star Bridge. But this thing must be far less efficient than a space elevator.
We get another huge Cleon-Welcome-Hologram. I didn’t think about it back in Season 1 but the grainy texture of the figure also harkens back to the opening credits and their images of decay.
Poly comments “best to assume will be met with resistance.”
They get through customs, and the tone is light even though Constant calls the official “terrifying in a really friendly way.” Poly wants to party “on the prophet’s expense account.”
Ignus
Salvor and Hari have a long chat at the beach on a wide variety of topics including why someone gave Hari a body and who is at fault for what happened with Raych.
Tellum comes to Gaal on the Beggar under the pretense of apologizing for what she said about Hari. When Gaal points out that Hari’s trying to save humanity, Tellum replies, “Me too, the ones who deserve it.” That’s a very supervillain thing to say. By and large no one thinks that they themself is evil. Everybody thinks that they are the good guy.
Tellum is back to being sinister. She is full of praise and mind games as she offers Gaal leadership of the Mentalics. The price is turning away from Hari. “You can even call them the Second Foundation if you want” is disingenuous.
Space: The Spirit.
Hober drops out of jump space in the middle of nowhere. He’s trying to calm down Beki when a huge ship appears.
Ignus
Salvor and Hari are still at the seaside. The previous conversation continues. Hari asserts that the Second Foundation is not there to fight the First only to prod it. We learned that Pinocchio Harry, edited Hologram Harry’s knowledge so he does not have the complete plan, which makes sense. From the books, we know that The Foundation shouldn’t have psychohistorians because it should be developing naturally. Except the show pooped on that idea in season one. We also learn that Pinocchio Harry can use the Prime Radiant to spy on Hologram Hari because of quantum gobbledygook. They don’t point out that windows work both ways.
Hari and Salvor pull a fish from the water just as Gaal and Tellum arrive. Gaal is surprisingly amenable to Tellum’s offer now. She’s been hooked.
Hari is rightfully suspicious and Tellum confronts him with information she’s pulled from his mind. He storms off.
Trantor
Poly and Brother Constant finally get to their room and Constant tucks Poly into bed. He asks her to flush some of his drugs.
Then he goes on about belief and faith. Faith is pure. Poly believes in Hari Seldon because he saw Hari when he first left the Vault. But Constant has faith and her faith puts Poly’s belief to shame. This is probably the least Asimovian thing in this entire series. It brings me back to the following quote.
There are many aspects of the universe that still cannot be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance implies only ignorance that may someday be conquered. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
Isaac Asimov, “The Threat of Creationism,” The New York Times, 14 June 1981
But that’s not important right now. The Secret Police are here with some party favors.
Cut to Day in a Stadium.
This stadium would be a great place to see the Stones. Will Keith still be alive?
Huge crowd. Dignitaries on stage. Dawn and Dusk are well off to the side.
“Hey! Do you know how the Aztecs used to rip people’s hearts out? Well, guess what! I’m engaged!”
He reveals a comically large statue of Empress Winoset, mother of Cleon I.
Symbolically this signals a huge political shift away from the Genetic Dynasty
Bow before your new Empress, Sereth the First! Also, I am ending the Genetic Dynasty, we will be making Emperors the old-fashioned way! With test tubes and Petrie dishes! Wait, they do that now… With other test tubes and Petrie dishes! Plus a cocktail stirrer!
Day steps back and Sereth steps forward. This was not a planned part of today’s event.
She leads with some faux populism. “I am not wed to just one man, I am wed to all that people of imperium … I vow to you that your voices will be heard.” It’s the proper inverted pyramid of leadership. But I don’t think Sereth buys it. Day certainly doesn’t buy it and looks pissed.
This might lead to a January 6th metaphor, but who would be the home team, and would be the challengers?
The Spirit
Hober has evidentially been brought on board that huge ship. He discovers a vast empty space with little to no gravity and floaty spacers. If this thing were spinning it would make sense. But that hallway seemed to have normal gravity, and it would’ve been on the axis. Those two things are contradictory. A spacer approaches, “Why have you defiled the Home-Swarm?
This must be about the Foundation giving the spacers something to free them from the yoke of the Empire. Spacers gotta space!
Ignus
Salvor finds Hari and he’s kind of a mess. Tellum has been messing with his head. He tells Salvor to protect the Prime Radiant then runs off.
Salvor is approaching Gaal and now Gaal is being weird. “It can’t be all about the plan all of the time. I didn’t have time to shop, but I picked up this piece of fruit off of the ground. Happy birthday!“
All kidding aside, it’s kind of sweet.
Then they see Hari take off in the Beggar. Is it even space-worthy after that crash? Joanne Immediately points out the ship should only respond to Salvor. Something’s fishy.
Cut to a pool in the ocean. Hari’s tied to steaks in the water and the tide is coming in. This is a particularly cruel way to execute someone. The only purpose it might serve is to give the protagonists time to figure out what’s going on and stage a rescue. Well and a here’s-my-evil-plan-so-you-can-figure-out-how-to-stop-it speech.
Tellum et al. created an illusion and moved the ship. They can therefore search for the Prime Radiant at their leisure. That is probably a lie. I suspect that the ship is right where they left it.
The Mentalics here are the proverbial group who respond to persecution by persecuting others. Two wrongs don’t make a right your mom would say.
There’s the “who’s human and who isn’t” thing again. “This isn’t murder, I would never kill one of my own.” No nuance here. If the gig on Ignus doesn’t work out, Tellum could have a second career programming robots on Solaria.
Hari has faith in the plan. Tellem says she has faith in Gaal. Then she leaves Hari to die.
As Hari sinks under the water we see that same image from the very beginning of the episode. Perhaps this entire thing is a flashback.
But we get some backstory for Hari.
Little Kid Hari has figured out a pattern of some stampeding animals. Is he safe because he walked the path through them? It seems impossible that the Moon Shrike stampede even has a pattern. But we’re in a universe where Psychohistory works, so who am I to judge?
Scares his Mom. Pisses off his Dad, who smacks him in the mouth.
Mom calls him Hariton. Hariton!?!
Cut to a University. And that haircut. Hari looks like the son that 1964’s Ringo Starr and Moe Howard never had.
We see the highlights of Hari and Yanna’s relationship starting with Yanna inviting herself to share Hari’s Office. “Don’t worry, Dr. Seldon. I think your theory is brilliant. You just need help making it practical. We are going to do wonderful things together.”
We can only call her “Dors Light.”
We get the highlights of Hari and Yanna’s relationship in montage form: Hari and Yanna making a date, Hari showing Yanna a prototype of the Prime Radiant, and Yanna telling Hari that she’s pregnant.
Then the unpleasant sequence begins. Twer drops by to tell Yanna and Hari that they must move to Streeling University on Trantor or else have their work seized.
Hari won’t. Yanna tells Hari, “Streeling University is tucked up against the ribs of the Empire, and that’s the best place to slide in a knife.“ Then she drops the title, “The gods made wine to compensate those who can’t afford revenge.“
That ties most of the episode together and this sequence ends in a dark place. Hari bent or revenge is not as interesting as Hari wanting to save humanity. There are a lot of parallels between Tellum and Hari being pushed through intolerable abuse to act darkly in return. This might be foreshadowing Hari’s response to his attempted murder assuming he survives. It may, it just now occurs to me, might be the answer to the question Salvor won’t shut up about. “Why give Hari a body?” “Because I really want to kill that guy!” Ultimately though it’s the Phara thing all over again except Phara was interesting and nuanced.
And there’s a huge risk here. For me Hari’s close to Bojack Horseman or Walter White territory. This will be a worse series if the audience has to write him off as an irredeemable bastard.
This episode might be a low point for the series. It was disjointed and just seemed to wallow in darkness for the sole purpose of being grim. Bleh. Go back to the strangely out-of-place attempts at comedy, please.
All Images from Foundation on Apple TV+.
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