August 4, 2025 • 34 mins
Jason and Rosie are joined by Abu to recap and dive deep into the fourth episode of Foundation season three. Demerzel drops a huge bomb, Day makes his daring escape, and Gaal goes to Trantor to risk it all.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Today's episode, can you spoilers for Foundation season three episode four,
The Stress of Her Regard? Hello, my name is Jason
(00:25):
Concepcion and I'm Rosday Night, and welcome back to the
X ray vision of the podcast where we dive deep
is your favorite shows, movies and comics and pop culture
coming from I podcast will bring you three episodes a week,
every Tuesday, every Thursday. Plus we're covering summer's biggest movies
every Friday, and.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
News on Saturday, News on Saturdays. In today's episode, we
are talking about Foundation season three episode four, as Jason
said in our spoiler warning, The Stress of High Regard
And who do we need to spring us through this
strange space?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
You know who it is. He's flying in on his spaceship.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
He's going to tell you the difference between prim and Pridge,
and his name is and he is our spice master,
ready to throw us into the world of Foundation, which
I'm very happy about because I love this show. But
I often have questions, Aboo, what are you doing?
Speaker 5 (01:16):
I'm doing great and honestly, I'm just here today to
remind everyone to never trust a guy who promises you
his nanites. No, he's never gonna follow through.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
You're not gonna get the nanites.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
That's some sensible world.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
That's some sensible world advice there, guys, that will lead
you on well as you enter into the week.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Let's dive into it. The stress of her regard. We
open in the Imperial Gardens. Demoselle is having her secret
therapy sessions with the Zephyr, and she.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
She's one in the mind. Don't don't reveal this to
your even your therapist face.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
As she immediately revealed off rip first forty seconds of
the episode that it was in fact her that was
behind the devastating starmage bombing and saying one killing millions,
and apparently she did it. She did it because she
(02:19):
thought it would strengthen foundation. She didn't do it at
the best of foundations, her and Harry were not working
together in any kind of way. But she did it
because she believed that it would extend foundations, that Foundations
strengthening through this would extend the amount of time that
Empire was together in whole and raining over the galaxy.
(02:43):
And she insists in this very casual way as she's
speaking about the death of millions, that she engineered that
actually it's a very emotional thing for her, even though
she's like talking about it in this very cold and
calculated way.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Okay, maybe you still did it, like even if you
feel bad about it.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Like, so this is actually this is actually fascinating because
it speaks to a kind of loophole that Demarzelle may
or may not be working. Zephyr thinks, as her therapist
that Demarzelle is actually though her reason was to strengthen Empire,
and that would be the case in the medium term, medium.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Being several centuries.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
In the long term, strengthening foundation would only weaken Empire,
and therefore, Zephyr believes that Demarzelle is using loopholes around
the robot laws that are the basis of her psychology,
and the various other programmings that have been brought in,
and the various other laws that have been put in
(03:47):
to make her serve Empire. She's found loopholes around these things,
and she's using those to essentially free herself from her
current I guess you would call it enslavement to Zephyr says,
maybe you've died twice over and will die again soon.
Zephyr makes Demarsel consider what her original self would think
(04:10):
of herself now and what she's doing, and demrcel Dem
says that I think my old self would destroy the
robot that I am now, and then confronted with the
fact that wait a second, am.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I working against Empire unconsciously.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
She gets mad and tells the Zephyr to leave. This
would be I mean, here's the thing, and we talked
last episode about how being aware of the future can
change it. I think here is a situation in which
Demarzelle becoming aware of her unconscious perhaps struggle to free
yourself from Empire could change that in a drastic way,
(04:54):
because again, her programming that she cannot resist is that
she must serve, protect, and defend Empire, and here she
is being confronted with some pretty compelling evidence that she's
not doing that.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Mm hm fascinating. Aboo, what do you think?
Speaker 5 (05:13):
My god? I loved this. I mean, yeah, I don't
know about y'all, but my therapy sessions also go very
much like this.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Therapy session.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
I'm WoT you tell me this intrinsic truth about myself.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
I really really loved this for me. One of the
most compelling drivers of this season is the Deverzel question
of it all. We set it up early in the
first episode, and we're clearly following through with it. I'm
glad we're getting more therapy scenes. I'm locked in whenever
we're back in this garden with Demrizel. I really appreciate
that we're asking these questions, these existential questions about what
(05:52):
it means for Demozel to be a robot and for
us what it means to be human. You know, like,
this is sci fi ed. It's best. It's what I
love so much about Side I I, and I'm really
glad that the show is mining the depths of that
question same.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's really this was I've been thinking about this for
a while. This is really interesting.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It also like it feels very relevant in twenty twenty
five when I starting to think about what it would
be like to have sentient life that was created, you know,
by science. So I think it's really really good, interesting stuff.
Though I am always like, if it's secret therapy, I
feel like they could be more secretive about it.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
It's like, especially when you're dropping big bombs like this,
but you just bombs, huge bombs, literally bombs.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, literally, So apparently Pritchard flew directly from the party
on Kalgan to Ignis. He arrives on Ignis prem and preach,
Embrace and then Galeen preach make out, Yo.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
What's happening?
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I just want to say, when did this happen?
Speaker 5 (07:00):
This is a that's definitely a huge question. I also
want to just hand it to Gail for a huge
math nerd. She is pulling some fat.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Dying pieces, never ever ever missed every single time.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
That's the thing about Gail. She's a math nerd. But
she only needs to count to ten because that's all.
So Pritches like, I got crazy updates from the party
on Colgan. It went it was nuts, but yeah, and
(07:41):
so let's talk about it. Pream who is a metallic?
Remember they're unignissed the planet of the mentallics, and Preme
bonds everybody's minds together so that they can all basically
see what he saw. And they see the mule meeting,
they see magnificent Gigantakis. And but when they get some
more by yeah, when they get to the memory, the
(08:05):
part of the memory where the mules, where the mule invaded,
Pritchard's mind even hit the residue of that is so
malign and toxic that they all have to like pull away,
and they're all left kind of shocked and befuddled and
pained by that just brief encounter with the Mule's presence.
(08:28):
Britch says, Listen, he went through my mind because for
some reason, I just like walked up to him and
was like.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
What's up?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
I know, Dale pick a bass by, but also like
he's hot, so you know, the best.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
They got and and he says, listen, he didn't get everything,
but he got enough. He knows that Gayale, he knows
that you're behind Second Foundation. He doesn't know that we're
on Ignis, but you know, I would also say here
that while Pritch is saying that, my next question would
(09:02):
be like, well.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
How do you know what?
Speaker 4 (09:03):
How do you know about that?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
This is actually really alarming. He might he might know everything.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
He might, but Preach seems very sure. Prem then realizes,
and perhaps it's because Prem is death that he has
this perspective that ables it enables him to see the
entire picture. He realizes, wait a second, this guy, Magnifico
(09:28):
the Mule is taking him everywhere, and look at the
way everybody's reacting to his music. The music must be
an important medium for the Mule's powers. Perhaps amplifies them,
perhaps it helps, it helps make their effects longer lasting.
(09:50):
Who knows, but clearly he's a part of this.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
Even says I didn't need to hear it, I still.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Think, right, Okay, So I want to know is that
law from the books or is this an addition? Because
I think this is such a cool idea and something
that most sci fi doesn't often touch on.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
You know, obviously we have you know, Jiz music from.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
Star Wars, we have like the Canteena bands, But like
the idea of music as a way of controlling people,
and also because we know that music changes your heart rate,
music makes you more open or depend you know, we've
all seen the famous EDM movie with zach Efron We
Are Your Friends.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I think it might be called like the address this song.
But yeah, I love this concept of like needing the
music to amplify as powers or make people more open
to it. Soboo, is that like a thing from the.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Books that is not?
Speaker 5 (10:44):
No, the whole Magnifico thing is a total reinterpretation. Magnifico
is actually just in the books, just the pseudorym that
the Meal uses. It's not even a different person. The
Meal goes around in the books acting like a clown,
but secretly manipulating people shows under the name of Magnifico.
That's why it's like so ludicrous. He doesn't on purpose
(11:05):
to be ludicrous.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So Prime also discovers that, or realizes that, Look at
the way the Mule is acting. Look at the way
he's surrounding himself with people in this club. He must
be a tremendously lonely person. How will that be something
they can use? We don't know right now. Gail goes swimming,
as she loves to swim. We all know that she
loves to swim and count Prime numbers. She goes swimming,
(11:27):
she has a vision of the Mule, another troubling vision
of the Mule and their confrontation sometime in the future
in the ruins of perhaps transtor So, perhaps some other planet.
Pritch comes to see her and Gail is like, listen,
I've been I've got something cooking with dawn soon to
(11:48):
be day, and I believe that I can get the
Empire to declare war on the Mule. The question is
what we'll first foundation do. Pridge and Bridges like, I
don't know. Mayor Inbert is like a dick and he's
dunk off. Yeah, he's not taking the threat of the
mule seriously. And you know we're in an impast. So
(12:09):
they decide to just spend the night fucking, which is great.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
I'm not gonna I'm happy for them, right, and I
love that this show. This is another thing I think
when people, you know, the Game of Thrones comparisons, I
think people think about the epic scope, the timeline, the money,
but also there's a lot of sex in this show,
Like this is a sexy show.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
But I am also honestly like I did not expect
it to go that way.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
When Pritch is basically like, hey, I don't know anything,
Like what are we gonna do? I don't fucking know,
and girl's like it's okay, you're hot, just come and
have sex with me.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Like he's getting rewards, but he needs to do more business.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
That's true. I also want to touch on the little
disagreement they have here that touches on some big themes
in this show. Fritch seems to really be leaning toward
the idea that the future can be changed, that the
future is malleable and whatever visions Gail that you might
be seeing of your confrontation with the mule don't have
(13:05):
to come to pass, like we can change things. And
Gail seems to be implying that vision that I keep
seeing over and over again, and that hasn't changed in
the all this time that I've been asleep and not asleep.
The vision that has stayed consistent means that it will
come to pass no matter what. And they have sort
(13:26):
of a fundamental disagreement over this idea of their free will.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I mean, how many Gail, how many times has the
has the formula changed? How many times has psychohistory moved
the goalposts?
Speaker 1 (13:40):
It's happening now.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
We've gone from the dark ages are going to happen
in thirty years to they're going to happen in four months.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
And that's like in the last couple of weeks that's happened.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
So I I'm with Pritch on this one.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
And I feel like I feel like the fact.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
That Gail is so close to it and having these
visions that are basically like she's there, I understand why
she feels like this is an immutable thing she's heading towards.
But if you just zoom out, you can it's obvious
that things are changing all.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
The time, like constantly.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
We go to first Foundation. Professor Miss, who I guess
was a spy for Inber, goes to see Mayor Inber.
Remember Professor Miss from the first episode. He went to
the vault and visited with Harry, and he's telling in Bern, Now, hey,
by the way, I went to the vault.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I was in the vault. I was with Harry Selden.
Take away our takeaways are? This is like, what here
are the takeaways?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
What do you mean takeaways of this third crisis is coming?
That's basically that's the big headline. Miss says, Hey, get
that ambassador what's her name, Ambassador Quent, who's meeting all
the time with Empire. She's clearly based on trantor get
her on the horn. I need to talk to her.
(15:19):
He gets her on the horn. Miss is like updating
her about everything from the Harry Selden meeting, and then
drops this bombshell.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Empire has the Prime Radiant. Harry Seldon gave it to her. Oh,
he gave it. Harry Seldon gave it to them.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Quent goes to Empire and comes up with this, I
think clearly something that that she worked out with miss
and with Mayor in ber Yeah, definitely comes up with
this kind of story that torn Mallow Beta and the
DJ Magnifico are citizens of Foundation, but they're working on there.
(15:56):
They this mule approach that they did that was their
own thing, but they are our citizens and so we
like them back. Also, we know that the Empire has
been supplying the traders against the Foundation, So let's just
put all our cards on the table and let's focus
(16:18):
on the mule. And I promise I will share all
the information that our that our fugitives give us about.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
The Mule, and we will all.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Figure out what to do about him. All the Empire
needs to do is just like, let the fugitives don't
apprehend them, let them flee back to us, let them
do their thing. And by the way, I know you
have the prime Radiant that and we need to team
up explicitly and deal with the mule. Dusk then demands
(16:48):
the prime Radiant for de Marcel, who produces it out
of her chest. Dusk believes that the Prime Radiant is
basically like it's just telling us the same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Everything's over in four.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Months actually eat it for he tries to turn it on,
He struggles to turn it on.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
He's with Quent now to kind of show her the thing, and.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
It's also you get the feeling that he and Quent
have there's been some kind of also happens performance anxiety
joke in there, and so it's clear.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
It's definitely like a flattat there.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I think I think they've laid together in the pleasure gardens.
Limit has happened, hasn't.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
What I really love about this scene is how Quent
you can.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's easy, with so much going on, to lose sight
of the fact that Harry Seldon in this world is
like a legendary, an almost quasi religious world historical leader
type figure, and so Quent is frankly blown away to
be holding the prime ratiing, to be in the presence
(17:57):
of the prime radiant, and I thought that was really
important perspective to understand.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Kind of reminds you how other people who on every
day involved in this perceive the kind of power, struggles
and powers that see them.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Later on pitch pitches, Gaiale on getting married Crazy Gail
is like, I barely know you.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
She's like five million years old, like.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Three hundred plus years old. Also, I'm frozen all the time,
so is that really going to work? It's like talking
about a long distance relationship. And clearly also, you know
this is a you have to put aside all of
your personal connections to people when you decide I'm going
to elonger her life by centuries, and it just would
be that's like too painful a thing. I didn't take
(18:43):
this as Gail rejecting him per se, or as like
Gail's trying to protect her own emotions because this is right,
you can just die.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, it doesn't make sense, she's yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
We go to Trantur, where Day is going through it
with song missing. He goes to see og Cleon the
First in the glass case and he's like, hey, I
want to know something from back in the day twenty
six CE, the only twenty sixth year of the Rain
of the First Cleon, and young Cleon appears and Young
(19:20):
Clean is like, how's.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
The empire doing?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Is? Were we in decline? Like what's going on? And
days like forget about that. I want to I want
to know why in the year twenty six of your
rain you went to the depths of trantor to visit Micagen,
which is like an area of Trantor that's like below
the surface.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
What happened there? What's going on?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Like why we discover that that place is populated by
refugees who were supporting the robots during the robot War.
They went down there and they established what is essentially
like a religion that worships robots probably to this day
(20:02):
and certainly to this day because we know that song
is of them.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I was gonna say that is song screwed, right, that's
what they're talking about, is this kind of.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Day is like, why'd you go down there? Like what
was going on down there? And He's like, I went
down there because.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
There were some like ancient.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Fourceps and various like mechanical tools that I needed for
Demozelle's meat. Right, Yeah, I went down right, So I
went down there, I killed twenty thousand people and I
came out with the tools. And then Day spits on
Cleon's feet and leaves, and Cleon is like drama, just
(20:40):
shocked at this, even though he's not like a fully
conscious Cleon, he's only like the most top level like
responses of Cleon. Demozel is in the room, is in
her room using the tools. Her head is detached. She's
like watching her body work on her neck, and Day
comes in and.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Is like, oh, my god, written what am I looking at?
My god? Okay, I'll watch you do it.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And she watches her do this and put her head
back on, and then he's like, I want to talk
to you about what Cleon told me, or just to
want to actually fully tell me about mica Jin and
where he went back in the day. And she's like, well,
what's wrong. You know, what's the problem. What's the problem.
(21:25):
You fucking kidnapped and mind erased the woman I love. Actually,
I'm not even calling my girlfriend. Yes, it seemed like
a just surface level thing. I am in love with
song and you raised her mind and you put her
underground somewhere, but don't you get it? And del Rizille's like, listen,
I know that this is going to sound cold coming
(21:46):
from me, but I'm sorry about it.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And that's it. Yeah, and there's nothing that we can
be done about it. Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Day leaves goes to see the commander at his house.
Is waiting for him at his house, and the commander
is obviously very alarmed to see an emperor in his
house playing with his kids, and he's like, listen, leave it.
Let's leave right now. Your family's gonna be taken care
of the nan Knights all that stuff. We are going
after my girlfriend. We're going to Micagen. Let's start going.
(22:18):
Dawn goes back to the tea house to meet Gail,
who is there in person, no hologram this time. He
was like, listen, the council thing. Demarzel blocked me on that.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
That's dead.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
We're not for some reason, Demarzel doesn't want to do
a siege of Kalvian, so that's gone. Gail is like, well, okay,
I need you to leave Trentor because we need to
work on this all the time, and I can't keep
like having a call you and you sneaking away and
I'm only here on a hologram. We need to be
together so we can work on this, so we can
take on the Mule. They flee just as the forces
(22:48):
of Empire trying to arrest them.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Meanwhile, Commander and Day on the move.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Day gives the commander some nan Nits in a little
box for his family, and then as soon as the
commander picks them up, he shoots the commander.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
He's like, can these fax this?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
And apparently he gets the commander to admit that he's
basically been working with Demarzelle to spy on him, Like
Demarzelle is aware of all of this. So he's like,
but I'm thinking one step ahead of Demarzelle. I'm gonna
put the nan Nights in you and throw your body
somewhere like so that it'll look like I died. They'll
(23:32):
think I'm you, and then I'm dead and now I'm
out of here.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
And then Gale and Don go on the run. We
see Gail use.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Her mentallic powers on the pursuers to basically Jedi mid
trick them into not thinking that she's there, and Don
is like, holy shit, I thought you were lying about
the whole mule thing. I didn't realize more people could
do that. She's like, listen, you're gonna learn everything. You're
gonna learn all this stuff. I'm gonna teach you all
this stuff about everything that's going on. Just come with
(24:04):
me to Foundation.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I am part of Second Foundation and we're gonna work
on this together. And that's it. And we leave this
episode with a shot of Day heading towards the big
elevator that will take him down to the lower levels
of where Mike Agen is, where he can reunite with
his girlfriend's song who will not remember him at all.
Oh wow, this is a great episode of the Foundation
(24:29):
television program.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Yes, off bombshell and honestly it ended with bombshells.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Yeah, and that's what I was gonna say. It's like,
your biggest takeaways from this episode?
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Oh gosh, I mean, here's here's kind of my sacrilegious
thing that I want to say about this show. I
could honestly just watch an entire show of what's happening
on Trantor, Like stuff is so fascinated with everything that's
happening with the slow implosion of the Empires, everything that's
(25:03):
happening with Demerzel, the collapse of the Galactic Empire. Like
as interesting as the Foundation stuff is, I think it's
kind of taking a back seat to just how cool
everything on Trantoris, but also how human and how personal.
Like I feel much more attached to Dawn, day and
dusk than I do to Gale or Pridge or Prem
(25:26):
And now with Harry gone, I am actually kind of
feeling the lack of Harry's presence in that half of
the story, whereas whereas the tran tour side of the
story just continues to get stronger and stronger. And I
had chills with the final shot. And I believe near
the end of the episode, Day has this little voiceover
moment where he's like, nobody escapes Empire, not even a Kleon,
(25:49):
but I'm going to see how far I can get. Yeah, Like,
I got chills at that. I loved this episode.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Human thing to have through this. It's the same reason
why even the Game of Ferns was like nothing like
what we could kind of comprehend. You have these characters
you follow, you have these human journeys, and I think
this idea of like wanting to escape your fate, wanting
to be with the person you love, there's a classical trope,
you know, classical themes, and I think that's really clever.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I can't stop thinking about the de Marzelle piece and
whether or not she is working for or against Empire.
I don't think she knows. She clearly does not know
if she's working for or against. And I do wonder
if I wonder what her moves now are predicated on,
(26:40):
because clearly she's trying to hold everything together. She's been
using the Prime Radiant to try and see around the
corner and figure out.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
A way to.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Keep Empire in power for longer than it seems like
it's going to be. None of that is working, and
at the same time, it's also kind of clear that
she hastened this fall on by the bombing of the StarBridge.
I mean about walk me through what her thinking on
(27:12):
the bombing of the StarBridge and how that would actually
strengthen Empire, I guess because it would put them on
a war footing against Foundation and make people feel like
Foundation is bad and should be exit. Therefore, you know,
all rally around the empire. But where do you think, So,
what do you think her motivations are? And where do
(27:33):
you think she stands now in terms of her actual motives.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
I think she.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Says a really powerful line to the therapist at the start.
It's something along the lines of the Cleons are driven
by their emotions and not their logic, and I know
this about them, And she admits like one of the
reasons that she did the whole StarBridge thing was to
(28:03):
give Harry Selden's predictions credibility that things were going to
collapse that empire was in decline in order to stop
the day of that era, Day seventeen or day seven,
whatever it was, from just killing Harry Seldon and ending
the Foundation outright. And so I think she's certainly manipulating
(28:26):
the Empires in that sense, but the larger question of
why does she feel like empire needs to exist? I
do think this is another read on Empire and on
the Cleons by Demsel. I think she knows that they
are at their best when they have a shared and
common adversary to work against, and right now we're watching
(28:50):
them crash out because they have no unifying force to
work against. Right now, it's a great and all they're
facing is their ultimate demise and their decline, and there's
nothing they can do about that. There's no one enemy
they can point at to rally themselves into action. And
I think Demisel recognizes that about Empire and maybe realize
(29:12):
we need Foundation as an enemy so that empire emboldened
and strengthened.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I think that makes sense. We're headed towards the situation
where in three or four days in fictional time, Ascension
Day will happen. Theoretically, dusk is you know, moves on
to greener pastures and the Great Under. Everybody moves up
a slot, but days Gone has left, escaped and is
(29:42):
heading towards Micagen down also gone off planet.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Do we unspool to.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
New emperors Emperor Cleons and then keep Dusk like in
play just because like we need somebody offense. This is
I mean, this is Dusk's opening, right, He's like, listen,
everybody's we gotta have somebody.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Everybody's good.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
It's just me. I'm the only one.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
End. What do we do? What do we do here?
Speaker 5 (30:17):
Boo gosh, I don't know what we do because I
will say. Dusk also is pushing back against Demerzelle. He
showed the ambassador the Prime Radiant and was like, Demrizel,
it don't come to this meeting. I'll find you're not
invited to this. Like all of the Cleons, especially now,
I think, Jason, you made a point earlier that knowing
(30:39):
the future alters the future, right, just the knowledge of it.
And I think knowing that Demerzel is a robot has
altered the Cleons way off course, right like now now
they are all actively working against Demerzelle. Dusk has built
his death star without Demrizel's knowledge. Apparently Don has escaped,
(30:59):
Day is off doing whatever he wants. I think Demiselas
is starting to lose her grasp on the cleons, And
I don't know how you get that. Even if you
decant a new one, they still know you're a robot.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
They still I agree with you, But I would imagine
the desire to like re up the memory wiping progress.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
I was gonna say, I feel like that's probably how.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
That she had been running for centuries up to up
to the up to the mid season two where that
was revealed. Maybe there's a way that she can like
wipe certain memories and then decant a new one and
then get a pure version. But even now, I don't
see how, because they would have the decantids would, for instance,
(31:51):
have all of Day's memories up to the moment that
he left.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
The palace, right like, so would understand like, oh.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Off the reservation, like working against Demmersello and Empire, and
Dawn is out there doing who knows what, like right,
so they would have their memories right until they left
the palace, right.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
I also just wonder if, like the Demosel was seeing now,
is this also something to do with like her become
Demosel becoming obsessed with like am I working for? Am
I working against? Like what's happening? I wonder if that
journey also just has her crash out a little bit
and kind of stop the focus on what she's supposed
(32:36):
to be doing and become more of this kind of
internal battle almost like it was giving. It's very, uh,
total recall, like both the story and the Honors Watchenegga movie,
but like the idea of like are you really this
person that you think you are or are you someone else?
And that's been pushed down inside you, like the Quaid
House a thing. I'm so interested to see where they
(32:57):
go with that, because that to get back to where
they were and to get back to what Demozel is
supposed to be doing is a really really complicated thing.
So maybe that doesn't even come up for a little while.
Maybe Demozelle is just doing trying.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
To work out We've got another Demoiselle bomb or two
left in this season.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
I think they're holding back.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, And I mean Ascension Day is looming, guys, I mean.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
A historic ascension day.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
It's gonna be so fucking messy. Like these guys are
so messy and I love them.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Well, Laboo, thank you for joining us again to take
on Foundation Season three. Coming up on Extra Vision, we're
talking X Men, We're talking weapons and more, and that's
it for this episode. Thanks for listening. X ray Vision
is hosted by Jason steps Young and Rosie Knight and
(33:54):
is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Our supervising producer is Abu Safar.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Fay Wag.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and
Heidi our discord moderator
Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Today's episode, can you spoilers for Foundation season three episode four,
The Stress of Her Regard? Hello, my name is Jason
(00:25):
Concepcion and I'm Rosday Night, and welcome back to the
X ray vision of the podcast where we dive deep
is your favorite shows, movies and comics and pop culture
coming from I podcast will bring you three episodes a week,
every Tuesday, every Thursday. Plus we're covering summer's biggest movies
every Friday, and.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
News on Saturday, News on Saturdays. In today's episode, we
are talking about Foundation season three episode four, as Jason
said in our spoiler warning, The Stress of High Regard
And who do we need to spring us through this
strange space?
Speaker 4 (01:00):
You know who it is. He's flying in on his spaceship.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
He's going to tell you the difference between prim and Pridge,
and his name is and he is our spice master,
ready to throw us into the world of Foundation, which
I'm very happy about because I love this show. But
I often have questions, Aboo, what are you doing?
Speaker 5 (01:16):
I'm doing great and honestly, I'm just here today to
remind everyone to never trust a guy who promises you
his nanites. No, he's never gonna follow through.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
You're not gonna get the nanites.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
That's some sensible world.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
That's some sensible world advice there, guys, that will lead
you on well as you enter into the week.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Let's dive into it. The stress of her regard. We
open in the Imperial Gardens. Demoselle is having her secret
therapy sessions with the Zephyr, and she.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
She's one in the mind. Don't don't reveal this to
your even your therapist face.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
As she immediately revealed off rip first forty seconds of
the episode that it was in fact her that was
behind the devastating starmage bombing and saying one killing millions,
and apparently she did it. She did it because she
(02:19):
thought it would strengthen foundation. She didn't do it at
the best of foundations, her and Harry were not working
together in any kind of way. But she did it
because she believed that it would extend foundations, that Foundations
strengthening through this would extend the amount of time that
Empire was together in whole and raining over the galaxy.
(02:43):
And she insists in this very casual way as she's
speaking about the death of millions, that she engineered that
actually it's a very emotional thing for her, even though
she's like talking about it in this very cold and
calculated way.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Okay, maybe you still did it, like even if you
feel bad about it.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Like, so this is actually this is actually fascinating because
it speaks to a kind of loophole that Demarzelle may
or may not be working. Zephyr thinks, as her therapist
that Demarzelle is actually though her reason was to strengthen Empire,
and that would be the case in the medium term, medium.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Being several centuries.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
In the long term, strengthening foundation would only weaken Empire,
and therefore, Zephyr believes that Demarzelle is using loopholes around
the robot laws that are the basis of her psychology,
and the various other programmings that have been brought in,
and the various other laws that have been put in
(03:47):
to make her serve Empire. She's found loopholes around these things,
and she's using those to essentially free herself from her
current I guess you would call it enslavement to Zephyr says,
maybe you've died twice over and will die again soon.
Zephyr makes Demarsel consider what her original self would think
(04:10):
of herself now and what she's doing, and demrcel Dem
says that I think my old self would destroy the
robot that I am now, and then confronted with the
fact that wait a second, am.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I working against Empire unconsciously.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
She gets mad and tells the Zephyr to leave. This
would be I mean, here's the thing, and we talked
last episode about how being aware of the future can
change it. I think here is a situation in which
Demarzelle becoming aware of her unconscious perhaps struggle to free
yourself from Empire could change that in a drastic way,
(04:54):
because again, her programming that she cannot resist is that
she must serve, protect, and defend Empire, and here she
is being confronted with some pretty compelling evidence that she's
not doing that.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Mm hm fascinating. Aboo, what do you think?
Speaker 5 (05:13):
My god? I loved this. I mean, yeah, I don't
know about y'all, but my therapy sessions also go very
much like this.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Therapy session.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
I'm WoT you tell me this intrinsic truth about myself.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
I really really loved this for me. One of the
most compelling drivers of this season is the Deverzel question
of it all. We set it up early in the
first episode, and we're clearly following through with it. I'm
glad we're getting more therapy scenes. I'm locked in whenever
we're back in this garden with Demrizel. I really appreciate
that we're asking these questions, these existential questions about what
(05:52):
it means for Demozel to be a robot and for
us what it means to be human. You know, like,
this is sci fi ed. It's best. It's what I
love so much about Side I I, and I'm really
glad that the show is mining the depths of that
question same.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's really this was I've been thinking about this for
a while. This is really interesting.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It also like it feels very relevant in twenty twenty
five when I starting to think about what it would
be like to have sentient life that was created, you know,
by science. So I think it's really really good, interesting stuff.
Though I am always like, if it's secret therapy, I
feel like they could be more secretive about it.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
It's like, especially when you're dropping big bombs like this,
but you just bombs, huge bombs, literally bombs.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, literally, So apparently Pritchard flew directly from the party
on Kalgan to Ignis. He arrives on Ignis prem and preach,
Embrace and then Galeen preach make out, Yo.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
What's happening?
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I just want to say, when did this happen?
Speaker 5 (07:00):
This is a that's definitely a huge question. I also
want to just hand it to Gail for a huge
math nerd. She is pulling some fat.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Dying pieces, never ever ever missed every single time.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
That's the thing about Gail. She's a math nerd. But
she only needs to count to ten because that's all.
So Pritches like, I got crazy updates from the party
on Colgan. It went it was nuts, but yeah, and
(07:41):
so let's talk about it. Pream who is a metallic?
Remember they're unignissed the planet of the mentallics, and Preme
bonds everybody's minds together so that they can all basically
see what he saw. And they see the mule meeting,
they see magnificent Gigantakis. And but when they get some
more by yeah, when they get to the memory, the
(08:05):
part of the memory where the mules, where the mule invaded,
Pritchard's mind even hit the residue of that is so
malign and toxic that they all have to like pull away,
and they're all left kind of shocked and befuddled and
pained by that just brief encounter with the Mule's presence.
(08:28):
Britch says, Listen, he went through my mind because for
some reason, I just like walked up to him and
was like.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
What's up?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
I know, Dale pick a bass by, but also like
he's hot, so you know, the best.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
They got and and he says, listen, he didn't get everything,
but he got enough. He knows that Gayale, he knows
that you're behind Second Foundation. He doesn't know that we're
on Ignis, but you know, I would also say here
that while Pritch is saying that, my next question would
(09:02):
be like, well.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
How do you know what?
Speaker 4 (09:03):
How do you know about that?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
This is actually really alarming. He might he might know everything.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
He might, but Preach seems very sure. Prem then realizes,
and perhaps it's because Prem is death that he has
this perspective that ables it enables him to see the
entire picture. He realizes, wait a second, this guy, Magnifico
(09:28):
the Mule is taking him everywhere, and look at the
way everybody's reacting to his music. The music must be
an important medium for the Mule's powers. Perhaps amplifies them,
perhaps it helps, it helps make their effects longer lasting.
(09:50):
Who knows, but clearly he's a part of this.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
Even says I didn't need to hear it, I still.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Think, right, Okay, So I want to know is that
law from the books or is this an addition? Because
I think this is such a cool idea and something
that most sci fi doesn't often touch on.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
You know, obviously we have you know, Jiz music from.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
Star Wars, we have like the Canteena bands, But like
the idea of music as a way of controlling people,
and also because we know that music changes your heart rate,
music makes you more open or depend you know, we've
all seen the famous EDM movie with zach Efron We
Are Your Friends.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I think it might be called like the address this song.
But yeah, I love this concept of like needing the
music to amplify as powers or make people more open
to it. Soboo, is that like a thing from the.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Books that is not?
Speaker 5 (10:44):
No, the whole Magnifico thing is a total reinterpretation. Magnifico
is actually just in the books, just the pseudorym that
the Meal uses. It's not even a different person. The
Meal goes around in the books acting like a clown,
but secretly manipulating people shows under the name of Magnifico.
That's why it's like so ludicrous. He doesn't on purpose
(11:05):
to be ludicrous.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
So Prime also discovers that, or realizes that, Look at
the way the Mule is acting. Look at the way
he's surrounding himself with people in this club. He must
be a tremendously lonely person. How will that be something
they can use? We don't know right now. Gail goes swimming,
as she loves to swim. We all know that she
loves to swim and count Prime numbers. She goes swimming,
(11:27):
she has a vision of the Mule, another troubling vision
of the Mule and their confrontation sometime in the future
in the ruins of perhaps transtor So, perhaps some other planet.
Pritch comes to see her and Gail is like, listen,
I've been I've got something cooking with dawn soon to
(11:48):
be day, and I believe that I can get the
Empire to declare war on the Mule. The question is
what we'll first foundation do. Pridge and Bridges like, I
don't know. Mayor Inbert is like a dick and he's
dunk off. Yeah, he's not taking the threat of the
mule seriously. And you know we're in an impast. So
(12:09):
they decide to just spend the night fucking, which is great.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
I'm not gonna I'm happy for them, right, and I
love that this show. This is another thing I think
when people, you know, the Game of Thrones comparisons, I
think people think about the epic scope, the timeline, the money,
but also there's a lot of sex in this show,
Like this is a sexy show.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
But I am also honestly like I did not expect
it to go that way.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
When Pritch is basically like, hey, I don't know anything,
Like what are we gonna do? I don't fucking know,
and girl's like it's okay, you're hot, just come and
have sex with me.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Like he's getting rewards, but he needs to do more business.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
That's true. I also want to touch on the little
disagreement they have here that touches on some big themes
in this show. Fritch seems to really be leaning toward
the idea that the future can be changed, that the
future is malleable and whatever visions Gail that you might
be seeing of your confrontation with the mule don't have
(13:05):
to come to pass, like we can change things. And
Gail seems to be implying that vision that I keep
seeing over and over again, and that hasn't changed in
the all this time that I've been asleep and not asleep.
The vision that has stayed consistent means that it will
come to pass no matter what. And they have sort
(13:26):
of a fundamental disagreement over this idea of their free will.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I mean, how many Gail, how many times has the
has the formula changed? How many times has psychohistory moved
the goalposts?
Speaker 1 (13:40):
It's happening now.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
We've gone from the dark ages are going to happen
in thirty years to they're going to happen in four months.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
And that's like in the last couple of weeks that's happened.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
So I I'm with Pritch on this one.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
And I feel like I feel like the fact.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
That Gail is so close to it and having these
visions that are basically like she's there, I understand why
she feels like this is an immutable thing she's heading towards.
But if you just zoom out, you can it's obvious
that things are changing all.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
The time, like constantly.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
We go to first Foundation. Professor Miss, who I guess
was a spy for Inber, goes to see Mayor Inber.
Remember Professor Miss from the first episode. He went to
the vault and visited with Harry, and he's telling in Bern, Now, hey,
by the way, I went to the vault.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
I was in the vault. I was with Harry Selden.
Take away our takeaways are? This is like, what here
are the takeaways?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
What do you mean takeaways of this third crisis is coming?
That's basically that's the big headline. Miss says, Hey, get
that ambassador what's her name, Ambassador Quent, who's meeting all
the time with Empire. She's clearly based on trantor get
her on the horn. I need to talk to her.
(15:19):
He gets her on the horn. Miss is like updating
her about everything from the Harry Selden meeting, and then
drops this bombshell.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Empire has the Prime Radiant. Harry Seldon gave it to her. Oh,
he gave it. Harry Seldon gave it to them.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Quent goes to Empire and comes up with this, I
think clearly something that that she worked out with miss
and with Mayor in ber Yeah, definitely comes up with
this kind of story that torn Mallow Beta and the
DJ Magnifico are citizens of Foundation, but they're working on there.
(15:56):
They this mule approach that they did that was their
own thing, but they are our citizens and so we
like them back. Also, we know that the Empire has
been supplying the traders against the Foundation, So let's just
put all our cards on the table and let's focus
(16:18):
on the mule. And I promise I will share all
the information that our that our fugitives give us about.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
The Mule, and we will all.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Figure out what to do about him. All the Empire
needs to do is just like, let the fugitives don't
apprehend them, let them flee back to us, let them
do their thing. And by the way, I know you
have the prime Radiant that and we need to team
up explicitly and deal with the mule. Dusk then demands
(16:48):
the prime Radiant for de Marcel, who produces it out
of her chest. Dusk believes that the Prime Radiant is
basically like it's just telling us the same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Everything's over in four.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Months actually eat it for he tries to turn it on,
He struggles to turn it on.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
He's with Quent now to kind of show her the thing, and.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
It's also you get the feeling that he and Quent
have there's been some kind of also happens performance anxiety
joke in there, and so it's clear.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
It's definitely like a flattat there.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I think I think they've laid together in the pleasure gardens.
Limit has happened, hasn't.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
What I really love about this scene is how Quent
you can.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's easy, with so much going on, to lose sight
of the fact that Harry Seldon in this world is
like a legendary, an almost quasi religious world historical leader
type figure, and so Quent is frankly blown away to
be holding the prime ratiing, to be in the presence
(17:57):
of the prime radiant, and I thought that was really
important perspective to understand.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Kind of reminds you how other people who on every
day involved in this perceive the kind of power, struggles
and powers that see them.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Later on pitch pitches, Gaiale on getting married Crazy Gail
is like, I barely know you.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
She's like five million years old, like.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Three hundred plus years old. Also, I'm frozen all the time,
so is that really going to work? It's like talking
about a long distance relationship. And clearly also, you know
this is a you have to put aside all of
your personal connections to people when you decide I'm going
to elonger her life by centuries, and it just would
be that's like too painful a thing. I didn't take
(18:43):
this as Gail rejecting him per se, or as like
Gail's trying to protect her own emotions because this is right,
you can just die.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, it doesn't make sense, she's yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
We go to Trantur, where Day is going through it
with song missing. He goes to see og Cleon the
First in the glass case and he's like, hey, I
want to know something from back in the day twenty
six CE, the only twenty sixth year of the Rain
of the First Cleon, and young Cleon appears and Young
(19:20):
Clean is like, how's.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
The empire doing?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Is? Were we in decline? Like what's going on? And
days like forget about that. I want to I want
to know why in the year twenty six of your
rain you went to the depths of trantor to visit Micagen,
which is like an area of Trantor that's like below
the surface.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
What happened there? What's going on?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Like why we discover that that place is populated by
refugees who were supporting the robots during the robot War.
They went down there and they established what is essentially
like a religion that worships robots probably to this day
(20:02):
and certainly to this day because we know that song
is of them.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
I was gonna say that is song screwed, right, that's
what they're talking about, is this kind of.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Day is like, why'd you go down there? Like what
was going on down there? And He's like, I went
down there because.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
There were some like ancient.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Fourceps and various like mechanical tools that I needed for
Demozelle's meat. Right, Yeah, I went down right, So I
went down there, I killed twenty thousand people and I
came out with the tools. And then Day spits on
Cleon's feet and leaves, and Cleon is like drama, just
(20:40):
shocked at this, even though he's not like a fully
conscious Cleon, he's only like the most top level like
responses of Cleon. Demozel is in the room, is in
her room using the tools. Her head is detached. She's
like watching her body work on her neck, and Day
comes in and.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Is like, oh, my god, written what am I looking at?
My god? Okay, I'll watch you do it.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And she watches her do this and put her head
back on, and then he's like, I want to talk
to you about what Cleon told me, or just to
want to actually fully tell me about mica Jin and
where he went back in the day. And she's like, well,
what's wrong. You know, what's the problem. What's the problem.
(21:25):
You fucking kidnapped and mind erased the woman I love. Actually,
I'm not even calling my girlfriend. Yes, it seemed like
a just surface level thing. I am in love with
song and you raised her mind and you put her
underground somewhere, but don't you get it? And del Rizille's like, listen,
I know that this is going to sound cold coming
(21:46):
from me, but I'm sorry about it.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And that's it. Yeah, and there's nothing that we can
be done about it. Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Day leaves goes to see the commander at his house.
Is waiting for him at his house, and the commander
is obviously very alarmed to see an emperor in his
house playing with his kids, and he's like, listen, leave it.
Let's leave right now. Your family's gonna be taken care
of the nan Knights all that stuff. We are going
after my girlfriend. We're going to Micagen. Let's start going.
(22:18):
Dawn goes back to the tea house to meet Gail,
who is there in person, no hologram this time. He
was like, listen, the council thing. Demarzel blocked me on that.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
That's dead.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
We're not for some reason, Demarzel doesn't want to do
a siege of Kalvian, so that's gone. Gail is like, well, okay,
I need you to leave Trentor because we need to
work on this all the time, and I can't keep
like having a call you and you sneaking away and
I'm only here on a hologram. We need to be
together so we can work on this, so we can
take on the Mule. They flee just as the forces
(22:48):
of Empire trying to arrest them.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Meanwhile, Commander and Day on the move.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Day gives the commander some nan Nits in a little
box for his family, and then as soon as the
commander picks them up, he shoots the commander.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
He's like, can these fax this?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
And apparently he gets the commander to admit that he's
basically been working with Demarzelle to spy on him, Like
Demarzelle is aware of all of this. So he's like,
but I'm thinking one step ahead of Demarzelle. I'm gonna
put the nan Nights in you and throw your body
somewhere like so that it'll look like I died. They'll
(23:32):
think I'm you, and then I'm dead and now I'm
out of here.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
And then Gale and Don go on the run. We
see Gail use.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Her mentallic powers on the pursuers to basically Jedi mid
trick them into not thinking that she's there, and Don
is like, holy shit, I thought you were lying about
the whole mule thing. I didn't realize more people could
do that. She's like, listen, you're gonna learn everything. You're
gonna learn all this stuff. I'm gonna teach you all
this stuff about everything that's going on. Just come with
(24:04):
me to Foundation.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I am part of Second Foundation and we're gonna work
on this together. And that's it. And we leave this
episode with a shot of Day heading towards the big
elevator that will take him down to the lower levels
of where Mike Agen is, where he can reunite with
his girlfriend's song who will not remember him at all.
Oh wow, this is a great episode of the Foundation
(24:29):
television program.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Yes, off bombshell and honestly it ended with bombshells.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Yeah, and that's what I was gonna say. It's like,
your biggest takeaways from this episode?
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Oh gosh, I mean, here's here's kind of my sacrilegious
thing that I want to say about this show. I
could honestly just watch an entire show of what's happening
on Trantor, Like stuff is so fascinated with everything that's
happening with the slow implosion of the Empires, everything that's
(25:03):
happening with Demerzel, the collapse of the Galactic Empire. Like
as interesting as the Foundation stuff is, I think it's
kind of taking a back seat to just how cool
everything on Trantoris, but also how human and how personal.
Like I feel much more attached to Dawn, day and
dusk than I do to Gale or Pridge or Prem
(25:26):
And now with Harry gone, I am actually kind of
feeling the lack of Harry's presence in that half of
the story, whereas whereas the tran tour side of the
story just continues to get stronger and stronger. And I
had chills with the final shot. And I believe near
the end of the episode, Day has this little voiceover
moment where he's like, nobody escapes Empire, not even a Kleon,
(25:49):
but I'm going to see how far I can get. Yeah, Like,
I got chills at that. I loved this episode.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Human thing to have through this. It's the same reason
why even the Game of Ferns was like nothing like
what we could kind of comprehend. You have these characters
you follow, you have these human journeys, and I think
this idea of like wanting to escape your fate, wanting
to be with the person you love, there's a classical trope,
you know, classical themes, and I think that's really clever.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I can't stop thinking about the de Marzelle piece and
whether or not she is working for or against Empire.
I don't think she knows. She clearly does not know
if she's working for or against. And I do wonder
if I wonder what her moves now are predicated on,
(26:40):
because clearly she's trying to hold everything together. She's been
using the Prime Radiant to try and see around the
corner and figure out.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
A way to.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Keep Empire in power for longer than it seems like
it's going to be. None of that is working, and
at the same time, it's also kind of clear that
she hastened this fall on by the bombing of the StarBridge.
I mean about walk me through what her thinking on
(27:12):
the bombing of the StarBridge and how that would actually
strengthen Empire, I guess because it would put them on
a war footing against Foundation and make people feel like
Foundation is bad and should be exit. Therefore, you know,
all rally around the empire. But where do you think, So,
what do you think her motivations are? And where do
(27:33):
you think she stands now in terms of her actual motives.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
I think she.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Says a really powerful line to the therapist at the start.
It's something along the lines of the Cleons are driven
by their emotions and not their logic, and I know
this about them, And she admits like one of the
reasons that she did the whole StarBridge thing was to
(28:03):
give Harry Selden's predictions credibility that things were going to
collapse that empire was in decline in order to stop
the day of that era, Day seventeen or day seven,
whatever it was, from just killing Harry Seldon and ending
the Foundation outright. And so I think she's certainly manipulating
(28:26):
the Empires in that sense, but the larger question of
why does she feel like empire needs to exist? I
do think this is another read on Empire and on
the Cleons by Demsel. I think she knows that they
are at their best when they have a shared and
common adversary to work against, and right now we're watching
(28:50):
them crash out because they have no unifying force to
work against. Right now, it's a great and all they're
facing is their ultimate demise and their decline, and there's
nothing they can do about that. There's no one enemy
they can point at to rally themselves into action. And
I think Demisel recognizes that about Empire and maybe realize
(29:12):
we need Foundation as an enemy so that empire emboldened
and strengthened.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I think that makes sense. We're headed towards the situation
where in three or four days in fictional time, Ascension
Day will happen. Theoretically, dusk is you know, moves on
to greener pastures and the Great Under. Everybody moves up
a slot, but days Gone has left, escaped and is
(29:42):
heading towards Micagen down also gone off planet.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Do we unspool to.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
New emperors Emperor Cleons and then keep Dusk like in
play just because like we need somebody offense. This is
I mean, this is Dusk's opening, right, He's like, listen,
everybody's we gotta have somebody.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Everybody's good.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
It's just me. I'm the only one.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
End. What do we do? What do we do here?
Speaker 5 (30:17):
Boo gosh, I don't know what we do because I
will say. Dusk also is pushing back against Demerzelle. He
showed the ambassador the Prime Radiant and was like, Demrizel,
it don't come to this meeting. I'll find you're not
invited to this. Like all of the Cleons, especially now,
I think, Jason, you made a point earlier that knowing
(30:39):
the future alters the future, right, just the knowledge of it.
And I think knowing that Demerzel is a robot has
altered the Cleons way off course, right like now now
they are all actively working against Demerzelle. Dusk has built
his death star without Demrizel's knowledge. Apparently Don has escaped,
(30:59):
Day is off doing whatever he wants. I think Demiselas
is starting to lose her grasp on the cleons, And
I don't know how you get that. Even if you
decant a new one, they still know you're a robot.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
They still I agree with you, But I would imagine
the desire to like re up the memory wiping progress.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
I was gonna say, I feel like that's probably how.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
That she had been running for centuries up to up
to the up to the mid season two where that
was revealed. Maybe there's a way that she can like
wipe certain memories and then decant a new one and
then get a pure version. But even now, I don't
see how, because they would have the decantids would, for instance,
(31:51):
have all of Day's memories up to the moment that
he left.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
The palace, right like, so would understand like, oh.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Off the reservation, like working against Demmersello and Empire, and
Dawn is out there doing who knows what, like right,
so they would have their memories right until they left
the palace, right.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
I also just wonder if, like the Demosel was seeing now,
is this also something to do with like her become
Demosel becoming obsessed with like am I working for? Am
I working against? Like what's happening? I wonder if that
journey also just has her crash out a little bit
and kind of stop the focus on what she's supposed
(32:36):
to be doing and become more of this kind of
internal battle almost like it was giving. It's very, uh,
total recall, like both the story and the Honors Watchenegga movie,
but like the idea of like are you really this
person that you think you are or are you someone else?
And that's been pushed down inside you, like the Quaid
House a thing. I'm so interested to see where they
(32:57):
go with that, because that to get back to where
they were and to get back to what Demozel is
supposed to be doing is a really really complicated thing.
So maybe that doesn't even come up for a little while.
Maybe Demozelle is just doing trying.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
To work out We've got another Demoiselle bomb or two
left in this season.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
I think they're holding back.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, And I mean Ascension Day is looming, guys, I mean.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
A historic ascension day.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
It's gonna be so fucking messy. Like these guys are
so messy and I love them.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Well, Laboo, thank you for joining us again to take
on Foundation Season three. Coming up on Extra Vision, we're
talking X Men, We're talking weapons and more, and that's
it for this episode. Thanks for listening. X ray Vision
is hosted by Jason steps Young and Rosie Knight and
(33:54):
is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Our supervising producer is Abu Safar.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Fay Wag.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kauffman.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and
Heidi our discord moderator
Hosts And Creators
Jason Concepcion
Rosie Knight
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