Spoilers, obviously. This will work the same as these did for season 1. Some notes, some thoughts, and some musings from when I watched the episode. But if you want to hear more of my Dors theory, that’s on the podcast. Simultaneously published at Comics, The Universe, and Everything.

Watching Foundation S2E01

It looks like Hari is having a breakdown but in black and white, so you know… It must be artistic?

Joanne says Hari’s rant is like they were trying to channel Shakespeare. They did not.

Gaal’s narration starts, “Any man can be a success but it takes a madman to be great.”

Back to where Gaal meets Salvor. Salvor’s affect is different; “(Mari) carried me, raised me. But I was always yours, I think.” She still wants to feel special. Gaal stomps on it and Salvor seems crestfallen.

Shift to Trantor. The Empire is shrinking, nibbled away by the First Foundation.

But those rings around the planet are cool. Those must be the “monument” the others promised to C11, even bigger and more impressive than the star bridge.

Well, that’s icky. But we learn that Demerzel, like Data is “fully functional.” We never saw this with Data though.

The tone here is wildly different from S1, then “Just be you, your voice.”

Oh, this is a dream of sexy time and ninjas.

Ninjas. So we don’t know where humanity came from we’ve probably forgotten To Kill a Mockingbird and Seurat and Exile on Main Street… But there are still ninjas?

This is very comic-bookish.

But wait. Is this not a dream? Wow!

We see a recurring motif again with Demerzel carrying Brother Day. Not somber this time.

And there’s the first good laugh of the entire series.

Hari again. Now in living color. Is this the inside of the vault? It looks like a picture of a modular form from this documentary. Did one of the producers see this? They might also be going for an Escheresque mindscape.

Flashback to Hari’s childhood. Mom praises his spatial skills, and Dad slaps him around.

But the spatial stuff is relevant. Hari’s figuring out where he is.

Different surrealist imagery. If they’re trying to evoke MC Escher they’re not getting there. Warehouse 13 managed it though.

Yanna? Someone from Hari’s past. Why not Dors?

“Something’s breaking the future,” claims Hari. “…I need to fix it.”

Some nonsense math betrays that the image of Yanna isn’t really her.

Shift to Synnax focussed on the Prime Radiant. Oh.

Gaal wakes with a start and gets all maternal, looking for Salvor.

Neither sleeps well. Salvor points out that similarity, dreaming of the past or the future. Gaal shuts this down and Salvor is crestfallen again. But precognition and retrocognition (which Salvor’s thing is evidently called (Where is Arthur C. Clarke when you need him?)) can’t be all that different. Which of these two is supposed to be the genius?

My coin says you’re lying? What the hell is the basis for that?

We get to see Terminus. Unsurprisingly, the settlement has grown over the last nearly 200 years.

The narration tells us that “Dark waters are rising everywhere.”

A red klaxon is ringing, which hasn’t been heard in 138 years. The Vault is waking up.

I know that actor. He was the murderer in “Mr. Monk and the Three Pies.”

Yup, we’re in Foundation and Empire. At least sort of. Talk of preparing for the inevitable war with the Empire. Also, these guys: director, warden, and brigadier sound like time lords, oddly enough.

Back to Hari in cyberspace. Now the other character is presenting herself as Kalle, of the Ninth Proof of Folding. Hari figures out that he’s inside the Prime Radiant.

Gaal did it.

Copies of Hari? Yeah, a lot more than two I bet.

Gaal shows Salvor how the Prime Radiant works. The Red line, blue line stuff is pretty effective, but it seems derivative from Loki.

The interregnum is getting longer. I think this is all about the Second Foundation. We’ve talked about this on the podcast. Psychohistory I’d like a GPS or a maps app. But you also need real-time information, like traffic reports to make real-time adjustments. That’s the role of the Second Foundation. Because of Gaal, AI Hari never started the Second Foundation.

This version of Day is paranoid, and cavalier. “Somebody get me a damn blasted robe so my manhood isn’t flapping around,” is funny and odd. “Damn blasted?” Who says, “damn blasted?” Dawn’s reaction might be the funniest thing here.

The ninjas were “blind angels.” And again with the executions.

Day confesses to feeling fear and doesn’t want to die. Says he “feels like a singular soul.” This could be the source of his odd behavior or the result of it. Was this the endgame of the genetic alteration plot? The plotters signed their work with that silly brouhaha in S1. Maybe this Day becomes a Luminist. Maybe he already is.

To Dawn, “Do you feel like a singular soul?” Is a loaded question.

This Dawn is radically different from C14.1. But he still buys into the philosophy of the Genetic Dynasty. Day thinks Dawn and Dusk are threatened by his upcoming marriage.

And this would be a better plan to bring down the dynasty. Convert Day to Luminism. Convince a Day that he’s distinct from the other Cleons, maybe even convince him that he has a soul that the others lack. If he buys into that, starting a family of “singular souls” to succeed him is a natural response to keep the Empire out of soulless hands. Then the Genetic Dynasty theoretically ends.

Demerzel is a mainframe now. Decentralized to where? Or what? Now Day wants to know if their sexy time is indecent. This behavior makes me wonder anew how Demerzel is tied into the plot from S1 and if sexy time is a tool to manipulate Day.

Then, “Pardon me, I have to put my head on.”

The rings around Trantor are populated.

Our first look at Queen Sareth. She thinks the Empire is frightened.

Now we see Dusk. He’s more outwardly disapproving than Dawn. “Foreigners seem more foreign every year.” A tinge of nativism.

Day sees his marriage as a way to address the genetic drift by introducing new genes. Exacerbating the “problem” is an odd response. Dusk says, “Steering into the rapids is an odd cure.” Day claims it’s the boldest one. That doesn’t ring true. If the Genetic Dynasty is the problem, though, replacing it with individual rulers who you believe do have souls makes sense.

Gaal and Salvor decide to leave Synnax. “The Beggar’s tough.” Is a glib, too-convenient answer to whether the ship can fly after being derelict and waterlogged for more than a century. They have a plan to raise the ship leaves neither of them brain-dead. Barely it seems.

Salvor’s back to being disappointed by the reunion even though there’s finally an inkling of progress.

The Queen is presented to the emperors, Day = C17. Sareth is “Doyen of the Trade Leagues.” Do we get the Merchant Princes in through the side door? “Most excellent” reminds me of Bill and Ted.

Right off Sareth calls herself a usurper.

She brings a gift of active pigments, and Dusk is excited; he can’t get these! Is this a signal of the Empire’s decline? She on the other hand is dismissive of Day’s gift.

The Dayparts are called away. Lord Dorwin has drifted into the range of imperial Wi-Fi. That doesn’t make any sense. But now the Empire knows that Terminus is still up and kicking.

“There have been rumors of an alliance at the edge of the galaxy, led by magicians who glow in the darkness, and fly unaided through the air, and whom weapons cannot touch, who speak of a galactic spirit who will return and guide his people to a promised new age.“

Compare this to this quote from “The Merchant Princes.”: “…when I was young there was a small ship of strange men, who did not know our customs and could not tell where they came from. They talked of magicians at the edge of the Galaxy; magicians who glowed in the darkness, who flew unaided through the air, and whom weapons would not touch.”

Demerzel counsels caution.

Back inside the Prime Radiant. “Show your work.” Lol. He’s been speaking to the Radiant itself. “Your work was always incomplete. Perhaps I am its completion.”

“I’ll explain more if you can meet me in Oona’s world,” says the radiant. “You’ll appreciate it down to your bones.“ I think the end result of this will be Dors Venabili.

Hari escapes the Radiant just in time to help Gaal and Salvor escape Synnax, assuming that the “reckoning” doesn’t take too long.

All Images from Foundation on Apple TV+.