Here we go again! My random thoughts and reactions as I watched, and rewatched, the episode. Spoiler Alert, obviously.

Simultaneously published at Stars End: a Foundation Podcast and Comics, The Universe, and Everything.

Watching Foundation S3E06

Panicky Mule, not a nightmare but “a vision.”  Pritcher… “He was like me… I realize… he gave me a great gift.”

Initially, I wondered if this was “the Mule” exhibiting powers without Magnifico.  But, “I felt I was wearing someone else’s dreams.”  Says otherwise.  Combine this with his soliloquy on the jump gate; I think this tells us he’s not the guy pulling the strings.

“I have to destroy her even if I have to destroy everything to do it,” is threatening, but it could also be desperate.  We don’t actually know the range of these mental powers.  For that matter, this compulsion could have been planted by Magnifico long ago.

The Beggar

Perfect repeat of Demerzel confronting Gaal from S3E05, but it continues.

She claims C25 was killed 12 seconds into that airlock explosion.

Looking back, it’s about 20 seconds after the explosion that we lose sight of Dawn after he is sucked out of the airlock.  I’m pretty sure he’s alive at that point.  I’m not sure I believe her.  This could be Demerzel trying to get the emotional high ground.

“I raised him! I watched his first steps!”  That looks like real anger.  Is it?

It certainly seems to be after the little dust-up between the two.  Demerzel has questions.

“The Millennium Torus” is actually “The Chaser.”

Sounds like a beverage.  “The Climber” might be more apt.

Magnifico is playing the visi-sonar as the ship approaches Terminus.  Bayta is solicitous of him, calling him “puppy.” That is certainly the demeanor he wants to portray.

The foreshadowing is coming fast and thick. “You and I… we’re good at making people love us.”

They are met with hostility.  The actor playing Randu looks a lot like William Windom here.

Torin tries to counter the hostility by name-dropping Pritcher.  I didn’t expect that to work.  Joanne knew they’d be arrested, but I didn’t see it coming.

Now I have to ask, how much of this is Magnifico’s doing?  On second watch, I’m now expecting that Pritcher has already been compromised by “The Mule.”

It’s interesting because we know that The Mule’s control is subtle.  It changes allegiances while leaving the personality largely intact.  If Pritcher HAS, at this point, already been compromised, given that he’s a member of the Second Foundation, he could be laying the groundwork for Magnifico‘s arrival.

That hangs together nicely.  Otherwise, Magnifico‘s range would have to be effectively infinite.  That would be a power level nearly impossible to contend with.

On the other hand, Pritcher sure seems to be sold on the idea that Magnifico merely intensifies the Mule’s powers.  The control would have to be especially nuanced for that to work.  Or Pritcher could be a great actor.  Or I’m wrong.

But pitting Magnifico against this Mule in a psychic battle has its appeal.

Speaking of subtle, referring to Torin as Bayta’s “pet” is an indication that he isn’t the sweet, hapless, xxxxxxx that we’re thinking here.

Mycogen

C24 is in full Brother Dude mode as he walks through an outdoor market. He’s watching a news broadcast as I ponder just how unMycogenian this place is.  

One of the vendors makes me wonder: could that be Mother Rittah?

This exchange is straight from the books.

“Dainties. Raw dainties. For the outside market, they’re flavored in different ways, but here in Mycogen, we eat them unflavored—the only way.”

She put one in her mouth and said, “I never have enough.”

Seldon put his sphere into his mouth and felt it dissolve and disappear rapidly. His mouth, for a moment, ran liquid, and then it slid, almost of its own accord, down his throat.

He stood for a moment, amazed. It was slightly sweet and, for that matter, had an even fainter bitter aftertaste, but the main sensation eluded him.

“May I have another?” he said.

“Have half a dozen,” said Raindrop Forty-Three, holding out her hand. “They never have quite the same taste twice and have practically no calories. Just taste.”

She was right. He tried to have the dainty linger in his mouth; he tried licking it carefully; tried biting off a piece. However, the most careful lick destroyed it. When a bit was crunched off a piece, the rest of it disappeared at once. And each taste was undefinable and not quite like the one before.

“The only trouble is,” said the Sister happily, “that every once in a while you have a very unusual one and you never forget it, but you never have it again either. I had one when I was nine—” Her expression suddenly lost its excitement and she said, “It’s a good thing. It teaches you the evanescence of things of the world.”

— Prelude to Foundation

Dude gets to Song’s apartment. We see a look of recognition and fear on Song’s face.

On the Beggar

Demerzel worked with Hari, answering why he gave her the Radiant.  Early on, Hari pointed out that assisting Foundation and Empire were not mutually exclusive goals in the short term.  First, there’s a balancing act (emphasis mine).  Demerzel provided the data Hari needed to complete his model.

Could that be part of the glitch?  If the programming is conflated with the data, the end of the Cleonic Dynasty is the end of Demerzel’s world, according to her current operating system.

And she realizes that the so-called shadows in the mathematics are the Second Foundation.

Gaal confesses to her dumb plan from the last episode.  Of course, the Mule isn’t in the plan.  Apparently, neither of them is; she calls herself and the so-called Mule “outliers.”

But if the mathematics breaks down whenever either of them is factored into the plan, how is she confidently predicting what the Mule will do?  The whole basis of the dumb plan is what Gaal thinks the Mule will do next.

Gaal goes on about the Spacer’s concept of time, and it reminds me a little of Star Trek’s Wormhole aliens and a lot of this.

New theory proposes time has three dimensions, with space as a secondary effect

And we get a welcome bit of detail dating back to when Gaal woke up during a jump.  “I saw my lifetime as a line, and then as a plane, and then I wrapped that plane around me like a blanket, and it was a shape that I could manipulate.”  Nonsense, but evocative nonsense.

“We need to mind meld.  I doubt you will enjoy it.”

New Terminus

Ebling!!  With a pocket watch!!

Indbur and Randu are squabbling.  Torin gets to the point.  ”The Mule is coming here.”

“Just listen to Magnifico play,” says Bayta.  This is a bad idea.  I’m sad that we’re probably abandoning the plot point about Magnifico never manipulating Bayta.

Indbur doubles down.  “That’s not dumb enough!  I’ll listen!  You’ll listen!  Everyone who matters will listen!”  It’s nice when the characters being stupid is driven by the plot.

Back to the Beggar

“I can extrude filaments from my body and access your brain via your sinuses” made me laugh really hard!  Spock never did that!

New Terminus

I think this almost seems like cheating on the part of the narration.  Magnifico plays the visi-sonor, and the Traders and the Foundationers realize they can all join hands, sing about Coca-Cola, and defeat the Mule.

“That’s the way it works, it disarms you.” No crap.

They’re all looking up at the sun!  And only the smart one has glasses!  Also, how is he the only guy at the vault?

Mycogen

C24 gives Song some candy.  That doesn’t look like a box.  Where is the rest of the box?

It’s interesting to see Dude so far out of his comfort zone that he’s kind of a mess.

Song seems completely different and very transactional.

I thought Cloud Dominion needed special technology to restore memories. This process seems more like opening a can of Coca-Cola.

C24 says, “You looked at me and saw a person who might do you a kindness, so I did.

Song doesn’t want the memories back.  It wasn’t part of the deal.  Also, she doesn’t want to breach her contract. It seems to be very lucrative.

This has to end up at “Kindness.  I’ll never try that again.”

The Beggar

“My mind, to your mind.  Your thoughts to my thoughts,” this time with glowing red fingertips and terrifying tendrils.

The two share Gaal’s vision, and we learn some things.  Demerzel says that the encounter with the Mule will happen in the Imperial Library.  I wonder if that means the Vault.

That’s an odd place for an eclipse motif.  Demerzel has cycled through a hard reboot.  Could she have returned to factory specifications? That would save us some time.

After the fight with the Mule, we discover that Gaal will end up “orbiting the ergo sphere of a black hole.”  Gravity that is so strong, not even time can escape.  That did not end well for Bill Potts.

Pritcher’s Cell

Indbur has figured out that Han has divided loyalties.  In a lie by omission, he simply states that he’s loyal to the Seldon Plan.

Indbur leaves him in his cell and leaves for the Vault.  This must be important in the next episode.  But does Han save the day or drive the last nail into the coffin?  Even he may not know for sure.

Mycogen

Song, who we learn is really Songbird-17, has called in reinforcements.  C24 never should’ve tossed that personal aura.  “If I ever told you I loved you, it is because I was scared of you.  I never could’ve loved you.” Ouch.

This isn’t going at all where I thought the Mycogen storyline would go.  I was hoping for stories about Daneel from Mother Rittah, learning about robots (yeah, I know, that’s Billybotton), and all sorts of huge revelations. None of that so far.

New Terminus

Ain’t no party like an eclipse party!  Someone should tell the producers that totality only lasts a couple of minutes.

That looks like Stonehenge in the background.

“I thought he’d be taller.”

Like Salvor, Vault Hari has no time for random data with pretensions.

Just like in the book, Hari thinks the situation with the traders is the third crisis.  “A too undisciplined outer arm pitted against a too authoritarian central government.”

“But, what about the Mule, Dr. Seldon?”

“What is the Mule?”

The Warden gets a phone call, but how did “the Mule” get her number?

The vault has a Sunroof. Opened, we can see Foundation ships firing on each other.

Apparently, Vault Hari is also undergoing a hard reboot.  This Hari, like Cleon 1, had a lot more agency in previous seasons.  And everyone flees the Vault.

The Beggar

It seems like the Cleonic programming still exists, but Demerzel allows Gaal to live.  That gives me a faint hope that the first law still exists somewhere in there.

Demerzel learns of the sack of New Terminus.  “The Mule” could be on Trantor, “in a heartbeat.“  Why doesn’t Demerzel ask Gail to bring her back to Trantor?  That’s gotta be quicker than using jump gates.

New Terminus

It’s disconcerting to see the Vault turn black as everyone runs for their lives.  Will we get Bayta’s Kooky Crew when some survivors reach the Beggar?

Review:

The second run through of this one was way more fun than usual. That’s mainly because, on the first run through, it became obvious that Magnifico was laying the groundwork for “the Mule’s” attack.

Not quite as great as S3E04, but solid and exciting! The revelations here are big and

All Images from Foundation on Apple TV+.