Foundation S3E6 Recap and Analysis: Shots Fired

The following recap contains spoilers for Foundation S3E6, “The Shape of Time” (written by Caitlin Parrish & Leigh Dana Jackson and directed by Christopher J. Byrne).

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Welcome, dear reader, as we continue our review of the third season of the Apple TV+ series Foundation with Season 3 Episode 6: “The Shape of Time.” Wow, that meeting between Gaal and Demerzel was fantastic, starting with shots fired and ending with a couple of new revelation whoppers. Day and Song’s reunion goes far worse and ends with shots fired. And then the Vault opening devolves into an all-out shooting match that no one saw coming.

Despite all of the conflict, this episode had a tremendous amount of information sharing between characters. One of the things I’m loving about this season. No creating artificial tension by keeping certain characters uninformed. Despite that, even as more and more factions come together to face the threat of The Mule, he just continues to steamroll right over them all. Where is the Second Foundation when you need them?

Bad Dreams

The poor Mule wakes up to a nightmare. Well, not a nightmare, it’s a vision. He describes it as if he was wearing someone else’s dream. Interesting wording. Apparently, he has been having visions of Gaal, as she has of him. But there are some interesting nuances to the discussion he has with his henchman about it.

He initially calls her a girl but then immediately corrects himself to calling her a woman. Gaal has been a woman his entire life. What could that mean? He says her face haunts him. She has visited him in a thousand dreams and now she is at his throat. We don’t get to see what it is that he sees in his visions, but I suspect it plays out differently in his version than Gaal’s. He has to find her before she finds him. He has to destroy her, even if he has to burn everything to do it.

It almost sounds like he’s been given a mission to do so. Like Gaal has been built up in his mind to be this boogeyman for him. Oh, and did I mention the mentalic sheen that was on the beginning of this scene? That visual tip of the hat they give us to let us know some mind control hanky-panky is going on. Very interesting indeed.

A Meeting of Minds

We pick back up with Gaal and Demerzel on the Beggar’s Lament right where we left them. Sounds like Brother Dawn is truly dead. Gaal thinks that should be no big deal to Demerzel since she has his replacement in a tank. Demerzel explodes on her, raging that she watched his first steps and then deftly dodging (mostly) blaster shots to put Gaal in a dangling-in-midair choke.

Gaal avoids death by explaining to Demerzel about the Second Foundation. Demerzel, in turn, drops the bomb on her (and us) that she didn’t just give Empire a little nudge to keep Hari alive with the Star Bridge. She was in cahoots with Hari from the beginning. He somehow knew she was a robot from the moment they met, and he recruited her to use her memories to complete his dataset. She’s practically the Godmother of Psychohistory. No wonder she got a little testy with Zephyr Vorellis when she implied Demerzel was helping the Foundation as a long game against Empire.

Demerzel uses an old interrogation technique to mind meld with Gaal and see her future vision of The Mule. She recognizes the landmarks as being the Imperial Library on Trantor. Pushing further, she examines the apparent nothingness that is all Gaal can see beyond the battle scene. That is inaccurate, however. There is an infrasonic signature of gravitational waves emanating from a black hole. Four months from now, Gaal will be orbiting the ergosphere of a black hole.

Love Sick Fool

Brother Day is having a fantastic time being out of the palace. The sights and sounds of the Mycogen sector are like Blade Runner on acid. He pauses to buy Song a little gift and catches the news feed about events on Kalgan, further ratifying his decision to cut and run.

When he arrives on Song’s doorstep, she initially has no idea who he is. Then, when she realizes, she’s confused and scared. He is trying so hard to be cool, but he’s too eager to have his Song back. When he tries to push the “stolen” memories on her, she secretly calls for help. Help arrives in the form of Oceanglass-49, Songbird-17’s lifemate. There’s little doubt this was just a business arrangement for her.

Although, you gotta wonder now, why would someone from Mycogen even propose the idea of being part of the Gossamer Court? Cleon I almost wiped her people out. Even as a business arrangement that came with a lot of money, how could she have brought herself to pretend so convincingly to love him, unless there was more to it? Well, she was at least telling the truth about him not enjoying meeting her family.

The Third Crisis Resolved

The fugitives plus one arrive at Foundation Station and use the magic words of “Captain Han Pritcher” to gain permission to dock and come on through…straight into his holding cell. Not as visitors, they’re staying. Pritcher gets chastised by Bayta since they did what he couldn’t. Realizing they have Magnifico and the visi-sonor on New Terminus, he asks Magnifico if he would work against the Mule. He answers that he would gladly play for another purpose.

Indbur pulls everyone, minus Pritcher, back to his office to talk. The Mayor and Randu can’t help falling back into the same old squabbles that were going to make for the original Third Crisis. Toran pipes up and reminds them that The Mule is coming for both Foundation and Empire. He’s looked into the Mule’s eyes, and there is nothing in him but cruelty and want.

Indbur agrees to listen to Magnifico play, and as Gaal’s voiceover informs us, the music allows the competing factions within the Foundation to be unified by the gravity of threat from The Mule. Just like that, Magnifico has resolved the Third Crisis.

This New Crisis

With that behind them, it’s time to go see Dr. Seldon at the Vault. Everyone, minus Pritcher, makes their way down and inside the Vault. Hari appears and begins giving them his prepared speech to usher along a resolution to the conflict between the too undisciplined outer arm of the Foundation and the too authoritarian central government. Once again, Toran pipes up to get the conversation back on the right track, asking “What about The Mule?” Vault Hari has no idea what “The Mule” is.

And that’s when all heck breaks loose. The Mule appears and informs Seldon of his plan, to take the reins of Foundation and then march on Trantor together. Looking above, the sky is full of Foundation ships firing on each other, reminiscent of the takeover of Kalgan. Alarmed, Hari blinks out and raises the null field. Everyone flees and the last thing we see is the Vault restoring its impenetrable outer surface. Once again, the tortoise is tucked away, hiding in his shell.

Quick Takes

A couple of quick takes on the rest of the episode:

• If Gaal thought Demerzel was human, why didn’t she just reach out and try to put her to sleep like she did last episode with the guards on Clarion Station? Since Demerzel took charge and initiated the mind meld with Gaal, we technically still don’t know yet that mind control powers won’t work on her.
• I absolutely love the callback scenes from the pilot episode. They establish that the continuity has been baked into the show from beginning to end. I just hope they can still make it to that end without Goyer.
• How did The Mule get to New Terminus? Does he have whisper drive technology on the Blacktongue? Because it seems highly doubtful that the Foundation would allow an Empire jump gate anywhere near their doorstep.
• What’s with all the pet and dog references in this episode? Bayta calls Magnifico “puppy.” He, in turn, refers to Toran as her pet. Randu objects to Indbur talking about sending Magnifico back to his master, saying he’s not a dog. It was a strange little theme this episode.
• Not only does Indbur agree to hear Magnifico play, he gathers all his brigadiers, commanders, and everyone who matters in the Foundation leadership to hear him play. While those folks are gathering, he tells Magnifico not to make him look like a fool. Um, were these all the same brigadiers and generals who would be shooting at each other an hour later under The Mule’s mind control? Oh, Indbur, you fool.
• The true sword dangling on a string right above the Vault is Indbur’s space station office. That feels like a hint that we’ll see it dropped from space onto the Vault by the end of the season. That is, of course, not how real-world orbital mechanics works, but that’s never stopped the writers before.
• Brother Day still has the peace offering and has tipped his hat about the existence of a robot at the palace. So, they probably won’t just outright kill him. Probably.
• So, the future battle scene is at the Imperial Library. Nice reuse of a set to keep the production costs down. I totally approve.
• If the “ergosphere of a black hole” sounds familiar, that’s because it was part of Brother Dusk’s eloquent underling’s description of how the Novacula works in Episode 2. It sounds like Chekhov’s black hole bomb is going to be used to destroy Trantor four months from now.
• It was a little unclear to me if the writers are trying to say that Gaal being awake during her first jump gave her the ability to see into the future, or if she inherently had that ability but it was activated by her being awake during that jump.
• Demerzel only says that Dawn’s nanites stopped transmitting his vitals. If the writers intended to kill him off, why did they bother having Dawn suited up, helmet and all. Very suspicious, as is any off-screen death.
• Once again, the Mule chimes in on the conversation as if he had been standing there in the room all along, as he did in the last episode with the Galactic Council. Maybe that’s just a manifestation of his powers, but it feels like possibly something more is going on there. At the very least, if it indicates he is there in person, as is the case at the Vault, that would imply he was also at Clarion Station in person. Perhaps that is what happened to the jettisoned Brother Dawn. He was swooped up by The Mule and carried off.
• Pritcher is definitely not safe. Expect a rematch between him and The Mule next episode. Will we find out Gaal wiped the location of Second Foundation from his memory, I wonder? Because he’s not going to be able to keep The Mule out this time, and yet we know The Mule is still searching for the location by the time he meets Gaal. Or, sad to say, maybe Pritcher will take his own life somehow to protect Gaal.

Best lines of the episode:

• “I raised him! I watched his first steps!”
• “Don’t be frightened, puppy.”
• “Why does this keep happening to us?”
• “You’re the one who got the dizzies on your mission and ran away, remember?”
• “Be nice.” “I am nice.”
• “I provide the Mule’s dark fanfare. Giving tumble to his wonders.”
• “Yes. Sedition is passed down like a birth defect in your family tree.”
• “You know, I’d kinda like to meet this Seldon fella everyone’s always banging on about.”
• “Maybe it’s ego. But I just assumed I was very good at sex.”
• “Both statements are inaccurate.”
• “I didn’t come here with an army, I came with some f***ing candy.”
• “While you’ve been pontificating down there, I’ve been proliferating up here.”
• “When I grasped your throat, I assumed you would not survive our conversation.”

Conclusion

Another episode full of some great reveals. Demerzel’s reveal about her involvement with the foundation of psychohistory. Song’s reveal that she already has a life partner. And Hari’s reveal that the Seldon Plan is not going to save the Foundation from The Mule. Things are looking grim for our heroes as we head towards the season finale, with only four episodes remaining.

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.

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All images courtesy of Apple TV+