Brien Allen
The following recap contains spoilers for Foundation S3E4, “The Stress of Her Regard” (written by Jane Espenson & David Kob and directed by Roxann Dawson).
Welcome, dear reader, as we continue our review of the third season of the Apple TV+ series Foundation with Season 3 Episode 4: “The Stress of Her Regard.” It took a little bit for me to understand that title. It’s not that Demerzel is stressing out someone else by thinking of them. She is the one feeling stress, brought on by the impending shift in her concern, from the Genetic Dynasty back to humanity as a whole. Reverting back to the Zeroeth Law, if she ever really fell away from it.
She’s not just pulling herself apart internally. On the one hand, she has her own personal confessor humanizing her to the point of claiming she’s been reincarnated several times over the course of her long life. On the other hand, she has her son/lover dehumanizing her to the point of calling her “it” and mocking her every attempt to reach out for forgiveness. How long can she take this stress? She already cracked when pressed by the Zephyr. What will she do when she catches up with Brother Day?
Do You Feel Regret?
Right out of the gate, we get the answer to one of the core mysteries of the previous two seasons. As expected, Demerzel was the one who brought down the Star Bridge. She did it to save Hari Seldon’s life, because without the Scar there to make his predictions palpable, the Cleons would have surely had him executed instead of merely exiled.
Zephyr Vorellis thinks differently, though. When she initially asks Demerzel if she did it for Empire, she responds that she did it for the Foundation. Telling. She claims that in the near term she judged the Foundation’s success could extend Empire’s reign. But now, of course, in the long term, the Foundation has become Empire’s greatest enemy. An enemy Demerzel helped midwife into being. To the Zephyr, it sounds like Demerzel was playing a long game for her freedom, finding a loophole within the confines of her parameters, even if it takes a few thousand years.
Homecoming
As we surmised last week, Captain Pritcher is indeed an agent of the Second Foundation. Though we may have been wrong about The Mule not being surprised to meet another mentalic. The bigger surprise though is that Gaal and Pritcher are an item. So much for shipping her with Brother Dawn.
Pritcher gives his report to Gaal and the First Speaker. While it seems bleak that his rash action ended up being how The Mule found out about them, Preem sees that they got some intel on The Mule as well. The instrument that Magnifico was playing at the club was not just mesmerizing musically, it was amplifying The Mule’s power. He is also lonely. If he really hasn’t ever met other mentalics like himself, then they represent the unknown to The Mule, and he could be made to fear the Second Foundation.
Later, after sexy time, Pritcher is ruminating on how unfair it is that he has to go back to Foundation right away. He doesn’t outright propose, but he definitely suggests that they too could partake in the antiquated practice of getting married. Gaal counters that they’ve only known each other 32 days in real time. She worries that The Mule got her name from him because he was holding on too hard. He thinks when you’re running out of time, that’s exactly when normal people would take time to declare something that’s theirs.
It Is Time We Start Sharing
Ebling Mis shows up at Mayor Indbur’s office a few days after his visit to the Vault. The two get Ambassador Quent on the line and Mis shares with them both that Empire has the Prime Radiant. This is news to the Ambassador. Likewise, she’s not received news of the “fugitives.” She takes this information to Brother Dusk to propose Empire and Foundation start working together. Foundation can get information on The Mule from his balladeer that could benefit them both. While they wait, Empire can do what they always do, consult their Prime Radiant.
With that mic drop moment, she appeals to Dusk to take stock of the empty chairs in the throne room. Two major forces in the galaxy are embodied in just the two of them right now. It’s time they started sharing. Dusk demands Demerzel hand over the Prime Radiant and then dismisses her. He takes Quent to a backroom and shows her where its predictions stop in four months. She’s too in awe, though, to be concerned at this moment, holding this holy relic in her hands. She wishes she had known he had it, and he wishes he had told her.
Brother Day’s Escape
Brother Day goes on a whirlwind tour of the palace, visiting several folks. First, he goes down to chitchat with the memory of Cleon I. Day wants to get some background info on his predecessor’s journey into Mycogen. He went to get the tools he gifted to Demerzel (and, unstated, that he used to reprogram her). Tools that were a holy relic to the priests of the Inheritance. He and his honor guard killed 20,000 of the church folk, thinking he had eradicated the belief. Now he expects his 24th exponent will finish the job. Day spits at his holographic feet in answer.
Next, Day visits Demerzel, catching her in the middle of using those very same tools. She’s still on the defensive about the consort, but hopeful that speaking with Cleon I can help him understand that her choices are very limited. He disarms her with his charms and with his barbs, enabling him to swipe a little peace offering right out from under her flawless nose. At least she didn’t get spit on.
The last stop is Commander Mavon’s home, where Day finally gets to meet his wonderful family. He informs Mavon that they have to leave now, right now, and his family will all be taken care of as promised. They take speeder bikes past the checkpoint to a spillway that will lead into the bowels of Trantor. Day tosses his aura and drains out his nanites in preparation for his trip.
While Mavon is distracted loading the nanite container into his bike’s saddlebag, Day draws a gun on him and fires. Turns out Mavon was still loyal to Empire, having flashed a signal with his lights as they passed the checkpoint. However, Day anticipated this. The nanites were always going to go to Maven, so that their signature would be traced to his body, giving Day time to be long gone. There was never another way out of this.
Brother Dawn’s Escape
While Day is making his escape, Dawn receives a new message from Gaal to meet at the teahouse. This time, she’s come in person, so it really must be bad. He tells her that the Enclosure plan was dead on arrival, as even Brother Day thinks it’s a bad idea. Gaal has a new plan though, but for it to work, Dawn has to leave Trantor with her, right now. They were always going to have to do things the hard way.
Right on cue, troops come pouring into the teahouse through the front door, and Gaal and Dawn slip out the back. They race through tunnels, pursued by more clavigers on speeder bikes. When the soldiers dismount to search an alcove they’ve duck into, Gaal masks their presence and makes the soldiers forget they were even in that tunnel.
They jump onto the Beggar’s Banquet, literally, and she finally reveals that her organization is the Second Foundation, and they can do a great many things. As Gaal and Brother Dawn emerge onto Trantor’s surface and make the jump off-world, Brother Day drives almost directly underneath them, heading into the tunnels that will take him in the opposite direction.
Quick Takes
A couple of quick takes on the rest of the episode:
- Uh oh, Pritcher’s gonna die. (My first thought when seeing that he’s involved with Gaal.)
- OK, I want to know what the fourth line of Preem’s little poem for Captain Pritcher was. “See the man from Foundation One! On his hip he wears a gun. He’s secretly Foundation Two.” And…what?!?
- Bravo to the writers for having Pritcher say out loud some of the criticisms of the famous phrase, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Shouldn’t that be the first refuge? A fun nod to the book fans.
- During Demerzel’s discussion with Brother Day, she talks of the connection she was meant to have with others of her kind. She calls it the clasp, where robots shared one mind when they wanted to. Tuck that away for future reference.
- The speeder bikes gave me a flashback of Haven, but luckily it was nothing like that.
- Day is now completely defenseless, no aura and no nanites. Will his peace offering really be enough to keep him alive? Song said she didn’t think he’d enjoy meeting her family.
- Will Demerzel decant a new Dawn and Day, just to have them go through the Ascension ceremony? Or will this be Dusk’s chance to have his thread spooled out while she deals with the crisis?
- Now we have a second Dawn that has managed to escape, despite Brother Day’s pronouncement at the end of the episode. In S2E10, Dawn XVIII and Queen Sareth escaped, right as the Second Foundation was being formed. Could Gaal want Dawn to come with her to meet his…what would they be? Great, great, great, great, great, great cousins? (I might be off a ‘great’ or two.)
- Could Demerzel having let Dawn XVIII get away be another long game she was playing within the confines of her programming to bring about the eventual fall of Empire?
- We seem to be heading towards the fall of Trantor on one of several possible paths. There’s Brother Dusk’s black hole bomb, which would be my first pick. There’s the impending conquest of The Mule, of course. But also, so much emphasis has been placed on Mycogen supplying the food for all of Trantor this season. Another Chekhov’s Gun if ever there was one.
Best lines of the episode:
- “I have eyesight which far outstrips your own. I am built to watch. And worse, to remember.”
- “Assassination is a failure of spycraft.”
- “Yes, worry when you should applaud, you unprintable bastard.”
- “Anyway, he kicked me out.”
- “You know, it happens sometimes. I understand. I can give you a minute.”
- “I wish I’d known you had it.” “I wish I’d told you.”
- “Yes. If you are awake, be awake.”
- “You may have overstated the resemblance.”
- “Did someone get mad and break your neck?”
- “The ideal? Do robots dream of wiping their own a**es then?”
- “No one can escape Empire. Not even Empire. But I’m gonna see how far I can go.”
Conclusion
Another banger episode, my favorite of the season so far. (I’ve been saying that every episode this season.) These writers are on fire. All too often, bad writers will create artificial tension by having characters not share information, to the point of frustrating the heck out of their audience. In this episode, we have everyone actually sharing information and the tension couldn’t be higher. The week-long wait is getting harder to bear with each episode.
That’s all for this week. Please let us know your thoughts and feelings about this week’s episode, and any theories you have on what’s to come, in the comments below. Remember that TV Obsessive will provide continuing coverage of Foundation throughout Season 3 and beyond.
All images courtesy of Apple TV+
