September 16, 2025 • 65 mins
Jason and Rosie are joined by Abu to recap and dive deep into the shocking finale episode of Foundation season three. Then they chat with show creator David S. Goyer about the past, present, and future of the show.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Worrying.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Today's episode contains spoilers for the finale of Foundation season three.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
You are.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello. My name is Jason Cepcio and I'm Rosey Night
and welcome back to xt revision of the podcast where
we dive deep. It's your favorite shows, movies, comics, and
pop culture coming.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
To you from My Heart Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We're bringing three episodes, Weekless News.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
On Sunday, Weekless News on today's episode you've been waiting for.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
It is the finale of Foundation season three. Did they
stick the landing? What happens? We are going to recap it,
and then in a very.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Special interview for the finale, Abou and Jason will be
joined by David S. Gooya, a man behind many of
your favorite superhero movies and now behind Foundation, to really
break down the finale and what.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
It means for the show going forward. But first we
got to recap it.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
First.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Welcome to the program, a Boo who's been helping us
all season unwind the mysteries of Foundation.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Yeah, it's brother Darkness now. Actually, so if we can.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Brother Darkness, I'm glad you got that. We open on Trantur,
where Dusk is looking out over the palace and the balcony.
It's ascension day. He goes down to the decanting tanks,
takes a look at his replacements and all the countless
vats of clones and Lock's eyes with one particular baby clone,
(01:45):
and he moves on. Later, he's getting dressed by his
attendants and the regal ascension robes are being put on him,
and the Royal Tailor's leg I gotta tell you, Dusk,
you're slimmering in the average. Usually they kind of they
tend to blow up a little bit, but you've really
(02:05):
been taking care of yourself.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
And he's having that pelothon, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, and then he's like, hey, guys, is it okay
if I walk to the ascension chambers on my own?
You know, just have have this moment of privacy, this
final moment of privacy on my own. And they're like, Empire,
you got it, you got it.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
This man, come on, this guy is just yes, sending
like I would have sent at least one little spy
after him.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, he convinces him. Meanwhile, Day has gotten into the
palace with the robot head. He finds De Marcel. He
kneels before her. He's like, listen, I've just come from Micagen.
They worship you down there, and.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Look at this.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
They have this authentic robot head. Demrsel is like overcome
with emotion and she sees this, we got a new terminus.
Gail is meditating before the epic battle come and says,
with the mule, and she's thinking about everybody she's lost
over time. Meanwhile, Pritch Torn the rest of the team
are like getting there, you know, racking that they're guns
(03:09):
and like putting the clips in the in the magasine
and it's time to strike at the Gale and Pritch
say they're goodbyes, and the team gets ready to move
move on with Hollow Harry asking Spoon, which is a
reference to how they're gonna use the vault, and the
vault takes off. The Mule meanwhile, knows everybody's coming. Harry
(03:29):
appears in the Black Tongue as a distraction so that
they can immediately, you know, start running around on board.
Everybody's shooting at Hologram Harry. They're shooting at them for
like a minute, nothing is happening. Why do they keep
shooting because of the mentallic powers, and the mentallic powers
are also hiding Gale and her team and they go,
you know, through the through the black tongue with Pritch
(03:52):
sneaking off to go be a hero, I guess, to
go quote save who we can, which you know, I
guess probably means Beta Pritch, we should mention other than
being hot, this guy.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Is a fucking hot because hot baby.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The ultimate Himbo Pritch.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Who is no good at the incredible every time, Yeah,
because he's fucking the bass. So Beta hears people running
around and she's like, I think the ship is under attack.
She gets the door open, red flag number one. It
turns out a red flag number number five. That or
(04:34):
the first one that we've noticed, I guess, and she
tries to get Day up on his don excuse me,
up on his feet, but his legs are too messed
up and he can't go. He's like, you get out
of here, run run, run back to Trantor De Marzelle
takes the Head and Days like, listen, if the if
the Cleons fall, will you still help us? And she
(04:57):
says yeah, my programming, I have to, and Days like
you gotta interface.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
With the head, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, and.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Demares is like, well, I don't know, because if I
interface with the head, it might erase my kleonic programming,
and I have to resist anything that will interfere with
my programming consciously at least. So days like, okay, we'll
show me. And so he begins to like do little
little manipulations inside the head with the with the knitting
(05:26):
needles that Demarzelle has. Dusk arrives back to the Vats.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
He's like escaped.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Anybody watching, nobody, and they just believe they were like
kill at the empire, like we'll just.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
The most powerful and important in the galaxy.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
They lost track of him.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
He's like down there, he's out of breath.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Everyone.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Demarzelle, meanwhile, is like having an inkling that I think
something bad is like happening down the Vats. I gotta
go down there. And days like, well, well, I'm in
the middle of this interfeasing with the head thing, like
you gotta at least help me finish that.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
She's like, I can't.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
My programming says if something's going on in the Vat, I.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Go down there. What what's going on down there?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Is? Dusk is blowing up all the cleons except the
baby my guy, Like what what you think.
Speaker 7 (06:18):
Did explosives first, So he wants you know, much like yeah,
much like nine to eleven was an inside job and
the and the buildings and the buildings were actually pre
implanted with explosives.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Flame here, I guess this is like while he was
doing the navicular, he was also putting a little side
project personally, because you can't have anybody else made this right.
He had to personally put the C four on all them.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Maybe you know what I'm not I'm not necessarily saying
that what he's doing is right. But is he making
an argument that perhaps he is very useful. This man
has done a lot this season while he's just chilling
to then to go in.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
He's tried, he's tried to make that argument. Nobody's listened
to him, and so now he's gonna make it a
fair Yeah, you can't do so he's blowing up all the.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Tanks, but he's trying. Can'ts the baby.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Den Marzelle rushes down there. Ambassador Quinn is like, what
the fuck's going on? Denmarzl demos like like Demarzelle tells
her listen, bad ship's going on.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Go to my room.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
There's a triangular book like in a little satin bag.
Go get it, Go to the library, show the library
in the book, She'll know what to do. Okay, goodbye,
demosel and Day get down to the vats.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It's so disgusting.
Speaker 8 (07:39):
One of the.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Grossest things I was in a show, reason a big
one that I wanted to pull, like a thread I
wanted to pull with you guys, because like, I feel like.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
It's tonally is like a new tone, like I was
not existing it.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Dear discuss like that was just they gross.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
We're saving that one for the finale. Baby like got
ready to be horrified.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
It was.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
It was fucking horrified. So they Demoselle is like talking
to herself. Days with her, and he's like, oh, She's like,
oh my god, there's too many things going on right
now to.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Keep track of.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Meanwhile, up above Pretch, up above New Terminus, Preach finds Beta.
He tells her that hey, good news to warn is alive.
But then he's like.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
The mule, Oh my god, the mule is close and
he falls to his knees and then the power turns off.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Uh uh don don.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Meanwhile, Gail and the crew are trying to get past
the blast doors to get at the mule Ebling misses like,
I know how we can heck in the door. He
figures it out, they get in there, mentallic fight takes place.
The Mule tries to get Gail to like mentallic kill herself,
but he's like doing it with his powers, so he
(08:51):
but he's really not able to do it, so he
starts strangling her, but the lack of oxygen triggers the
gale like you know, boss level powers, and she manages
to pull him into the mind hut, the water hunt,
and in the water hut she kills him and it's
all over, folks. Good guys won.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
The mules definitely everything.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
It's okay have been killed, like at least the mule
is that.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
It was definitely nothing bad could happen.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
But then Gail Feats is like, wait a second, I
still fuel the mule and the mule is Beta.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
The fuck.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
An unreal shocking moment that looking back, there were many
many clues that he didn't.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
She is always there when the Mule is always there,
but they did. She's always their good job of hiding
in plain sight and a boom. This is not more
on this book.
Speaker 6 (09:57):
Ca right, no, no, yeah, yeah, okay, more on this
with in our excellent conversation with David Esquier, but just
suffice to say we were stuck.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Everyone in the room is stunned, especially to her, and
Who's like, wait a second, my wife is the mule.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Oh, she's kind of crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
She easily.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
She puts him to sleep easily, And Gail tries to
take Pritch's gun, but he wrestles it back and he
shoots her. And then he's like, listen, I know what
it seems like, but my mind is not at all
warped by the mule. But I've never felt so much
love in my life.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Just listen to her. She's got a pitch. Yes.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Fantastico then begins to play as the mind battle between
Gail and and Beta begins. But Gail tampered with how
Fantastico's music were, like change the pictu or something so
that it is more in frequency and harmonious.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
With her powers.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And so now Gail's getting stronger, and Gale manages to
get Beta out of her head completely. Back on Trantor,
dem Demoiselle confronts Dusk, who's holding the.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Baby in his arms.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
He lays the baby on the ascender beam and he's like, dude,
I know because of your program, and you're gonna have
to save the baby now, so guess what You're gonna
die with his baby? Watch this, he hits the button,
Demoiselle dives on, the baby gets burned up. Day is
super upset at all this, and at the end of it,
(11:32):
all that's left on the ascender is some slime.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
And the way I was like screaming at my TV because.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
The Johnny not expect the journey that we've been on
with Demoiselle and kind of the understanding of who Demoseel
really is and what Demozel could mean to like oppressed
communities in this world. And then I had also kind
of thought, like I don't know, when he nodded at
the baby, I was like, he's been recognition that the
(12:01):
baby is also him and there is like a cycle
that will always go on with the Cleons, and like
he realizes that it's this fucked up cycle, and maybe
he's gonna I don't save the baby.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Some I'm a lonwolf and cub die Hard, so I get,
you know, into that brain.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
He's like, no, yeah, I thought that too. For a second.
I was like, oh, this is like sort of an
egocentric Yes, I'm still ultimately like I will just naturally
die at some point and my successor should just be
me actually exactly.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
I thought that's where we were going.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
But no, But he's a baby turn into goo.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
He wants to be he wants to be free of
this robot influence once from for all, and he's managed
to do it. Meanwhile, Gail is like racing her in
the Black Tongue. She does uh does Steve Rogers move
from Captain America Civil War, where she uses like a
metal tray to blast to blast through the plateglass window.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Like behavior insane, it's so good.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Her wonderful lieutenants Rassik catches her with the ship, which
is again.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Feels like this.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
That feels like a age of Ultron and the Black
Widow Movies.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Incredible action movies.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Jason David s Gouyle, We feel your your shape and influence.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Hollow Harry is on Gale's ship and he's like, listen,
let me stay in the in the circuits of your
ship and come with you. And I want to meet
body Harry and figure out like how he got his.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Body YadA, yaddi.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I want the body as well, like, I'm so fucking
you don't understand how Borigan is in the vault, just
staring at the vault while is doing nothing, nothing, nothing
for years and years and years and just like popping
out randomly every few centuries, like I want out, And
she's like and and when they jump, obviously like the
Bluetooth connection will be severed with her ship. So he,
(14:05):
you know, gails to agree to download onto the ship
and she's like, no, I can't, Like sorry, you can't
for reasons that I'm honestly like unclear about other than
bodyboy died, Like, wouldn't you still want hollow Harry with you?
But apparently no, he's still an asset, I thought, But
she's like no, and they jump and they leave hollow
(14:26):
Harry back in the fault. I think hallow Harry is.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Gonna become pure villain, Yeah, very much. This was a
turning point for hollow Harry. He's gonna be bad.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Dago's running through the palace after Dusk, who's hiding in
the throne room. They do this like hide and seek
thing around the thrones and days like you fucking crazy
fuck look what you did, like day then goes full
ground and pound mount like he gets the full mount
and he just starts working Dusk over. But Dusk is like, bro,
(14:58):
I got the nana you're not You're actually not doing
anything like this hurts and then say he stands up.
He shoots Day and he's like, because you don't have
you don't have the na nits, So look at you.
You're gonna die now, and he dies in front of Dusk.
And as that's happening, Dusk is bragging. He's like, yeah,
He's like, man, remember the remember the Galactic Council, Remember
(15:22):
the Lunites, Remember the Cloud Dominion?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
They're gone?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Now did that news get and this is like an
incredible bar He's like, hey, did that news get all
the way down to level eighty eight?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Did he get all the way down of Micagen?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Did you hear about what I did to the to
the Colactic Council illuminis in the Cloud Dominion? Did you
hear about that you didn't get the news that I
took them?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, it's very clear that toy.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
That I built in my like secret that nobody knew about.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Like Dusk is is feeling himself.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It's unreal. Quent arrives at the library with the Triangular book.
The library welcomes her, Quent presents her the book and
she's like, okay, welcome to the Second Foundation, and honestly
the same. It's just pream down there.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
You are literally loved. You came with the Grimmery from Wicked.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Thank you for the moment.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It is just pretty Dusk finally comes down off the
high of launching this coup and taking out De Marsel
and Day and all the other cleons. He gets himself up.
He calls for an attendant and he's like, listen, I'm
the sole emperor now uh, and just follow my orders
as sole emperor. And the guy's like, I have no choice, okay.
(16:46):
In De Marzelle's room, though, the head which was mid
interface operation, suddenly comes to life. The clasp is initiated,
but who could it possibly be calling? We hear colleades
line and we learn from Klai talking to who we
soon see is is one of the last surviving robots.
(17:08):
That Dummarzl was incapable of classmen, so it wouldn't have
worked anything. But Kylle, who is apparently a robot, and
the other surviving robots are on the moon and they've
been waiting for.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
This exact moment. Is this has this been?
Speaker 2 (17:25):
There?
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Has this been?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
The player will have to wait for season four to
find out. Let's go to break and then we will
talk about this man.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Okay, Please, we need your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
You are the only one that's stearing me through this
because I did not.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
See any of this coming.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
There's one of the most surprising and shocking finales I've seen.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
And that's so complimentary, but yeah, like, tell us what happened?
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Yeah, you know what.
Speaker 6 (18:09):
Surprising and shocking for sure, A little less complimentary for me,
I will say, Uh, I came out quite mixed on
this finale, actually, which is not to say I mixed
on this season.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
I thought this was a very strong season of the show.
Speaker 6 (18:25):
Actually, I enjoyed so much of it, and I think
it reached for new heights that the previous seasons haven't,
which I greatly appreciated.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
Clearly, I'm not.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
So sure that we one hundred percent stuck the landing
here in this final episode. A lot of what took
place was beginning to stretch my suspension of disbelief. I
was laughing watching Gail dive out of space into atmosphere
(18:56):
and then herself into a ship mid like drop, no parachute.
I like, that was beyond believability for me.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
That was that was truly steep.
Speaker 6 (19:09):
Nothing has ever hinted at Gale having those sorts of
physical abilities, so I was just like, what's going on here.
I also, I'm as much as I loved Demozel's death
as a shocking thing to happen, I don't know that
we built up to it this LEAs.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Can I say, do you feel like that is death?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Death?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Death?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
There's no, because I know it does look like that,
But I felt the same way. I feel like.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
There's no way that could just be the end of
Demoiselle with everything else that we've experienced through this season.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
No, I actually do think that is the end of Demozel.
I think I think that, yeah, this is the end
of this character. But what I'm a little disappointed in
is that we spent this whole season actually having really
interesting and deeply philosophical explorations of free will and choice
through Demorzelle, and then she spends this whole last episode.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
Going no but my programming, No but my programming. And
I was kind of like.
Speaker 6 (20:07):
Haven't you been questioning and pushing your programming for like
three seasons now, and suddenly you're all about it so
that the plot can happen. It felt a little bit
like a step back for her character, rather than continuing
to follow the threads we've been pulling with Demerzel. So
there were a couple of little moments like that that
felt a little unsatisfying for me in this episode in particular,
(20:28):
But honestly, like, I'm actually willing to overlook a lot
of my grievances just because the rest of the season
was so so good, and I think there were some
genuine shocks. I did not see the beta thing coming
at all, and looking back, I think it was actually seated,
really really well.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
I think the beta thing is well earned.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
I just don't know that we close the loops on
some of the other characters, like Demerzel.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
How do you feel about the Dusk of it All?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I loved watching Dust, Yeah, I Dusk was so I
absolutely love Dusk. Dusk was like a Dusk is like
a He was like a rat in a cage, you know,
with no way out, just doing more and more desperate
things in order to survive, and that he did survive
(21:21):
is kind of thrilling, like everybody underestimated, even to the
point of, like I mean, I it was a small point,
but even even that comment from the tailor of like, oh,
you're in your slimmer than the other ones, clearly he
has been keeping himself strong for this moment, like he
never let go of the rope, and it was it
(21:45):
was really thrilling to see him out maneuver all of
his brothers, both Foundations, Demarzelle and kind of the Mule too.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
Yeah, I agree, What did you guys think? Though I
don't want to bring the energy down. I think they
were just a couple of quibbles I had.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I think I think that as somebody who is coming
to this just as a TV watcher, I do think
this is the best season of the show. And I
do think clearly that you know the get you are right, Like,
there was definitely some a couple of moments where it
was a bit like we got the budget, it's superhero
blockbuster the kind of thing now, which feels very different
(22:26):
to like the esoteric, weird kind of storytelling that this
show is so good at. But I felt like in
general I was hooked on this finale, and I just
couldn't believe what kept happening. Again, I knew that the
mule reveal was going to be crazy, but I didn't
guess if you'd have given me like three people to
pick BITA would not have been on that, which I
(22:47):
think is shows.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
The skill of the writers. That's the kind of twist
we need. I do. I just wonder what a fourth
season of this show looks like.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
That's what I kind of, as a few I am
most interested in because basically everything we know about the
show has changed in the finale of this episode. So obviously,
even if they're going to do the time jump, going
to do everything, we kind of have destroyed most of
what we understand to be kind of the god rails
of the Cleons and the show. So I'm interested in
(23:19):
what a fourth season would look like. Jason, how did
you feel about the finale?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I mean, I liked it.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I agree with I agree with that Boo that particular
to de Marzell, it felt like there was more juice
to squeeze and that I didn't necessarily have a problem
with the way she was manipulated in this episode. What
I would have loved more of is the implications of
(23:48):
how easy it is to manipulate her having a chance
to kind of reverberate more through the season, or at
least be seated in a way that the beta reveal
eventually it was and then was allowed to kind of
like take root. I think that there were I think
that we could have had more hints about Colleis and
(24:13):
the robots on the moon pulling strings and being and
waiting for this moment, because it certainly does seem like
this eventuality was something that they were maybe not moving towards,
but preparing preparing for on some level, and so I
would love to know what their roles are in all
(24:36):
of this. And but generally I think that this the
show reached such operatic heights of the season, both like
of of both like soaring ambition, soaring a plot development
like and almost over the top dedicate Haiti to just
(25:01):
maximalist everything, like the most insane line reads, the most
insane plot twists, and what if we give you a
plot twist every every episode, and like the most insane
characterizations of the even your heroes, like the fact I'm
still laughing at like at body Harry being the type
(25:23):
of guy who like the difference between him and hologram
Harry being that he would build the statues of.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
His friends first before he builds a statue of himself.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
That being the like all of those things working together
to create this like utterly insane self aggrandizing.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
You know, opera space space.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
And I enjoyed it because it was it was just
everything like if there, if everything goes to ten, this
season of the show was like, well what if we
started everything at it?
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Like, yeah, exactly, I think that's very well putting it.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And so in that sense, I enjoyed it because it's
it is rare that you see a show just be
like pushed, like turn everything up and let's really and it.
As Goyer will say, you know in our interview, they
were always working towards this season, so it was it
was delightful and thrilling to see them hit it this hard.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah. I also just think, like, I think this is
such a It seems like a small thing, but if
you really think about it, like when has a show,
let alone a genre show managed to introduce characters who
are essentially like influencers, right, and managed to build in
things that we recognize as modern things like magnifico being
a DJ and not have it completely pull you out
(26:42):
of the show and feel like it's completely unnatural. I
think as soon as that hit for me and it worked,
I just think from then on this show was operating
at like a higher level than a lot of other
They find a way to build in the familiar but
also do the most kind of insane, out there stuff
you can't see, and I think that makes a great show.
And I really hope that people discovered this season, even
(27:07):
if they then want to go back or they want
to stop from the beginning, I just think it really
is one of the best shows on TV, and I
think this finale is like such a crazy, bombastic way
to end this season.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Well, let's take a quick break and then we will
be right back with our conversation with creator and executive
producer David square Wood.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
David A. Squoire, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 8 (27:45):
Nice to be here.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
When we were doing.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
The pod, you were always saying like, we're building towards
this season and has happened, and it has been truly,
I mean, a show hitting its stride just to fit,
fantastic and twisty turney story Aboo and I were saying
it felt like there was like a jaw dropping reveal
almost every episode in the middle of the run of
(28:10):
the season. What's it been like to watch this come out?
Speaker 8 (28:17):
Look, we we we had a long game plan. Yeah,
and I think it's evident from this season that a
lot of little breadcrumbs and things that we put in
place throughout the first two seasons have now make see
my metaphors have now come home, come home to roost.
And so when you start a really sophisticated kind of
(28:43):
story DNS show like this, you have no idea how
it's going to be received or if you're ever going
to get to see some of these plans come to fruition.
But it's nice that insofar as season three goes like
the audience is going a so knew that that was
the case. There were so many things that I was
I tried to make seasons one of the seasons two
(29:05):
as satisfying as possible, while at the same time sort
of sitting on some of these reveals, because it was
my contention that these reveals would be more dramatic and
you know, more well earned if they sort of had
time to cook, if you will. And I think the
whole thing with the like for instance, like the Cleons
(29:27):
having different personalities every season. I think that that I
also believe in kind of the rule of threes, and
so it's that whole idea of nature and nurture and
all that stuff. I really felt like we needed three
seasons to tell that story, three seasons to tell den
results story. But there's so many things that like even
her song where it's revealed in episode eight what her
(29:47):
song is that, I mean that was planned from the beginning. Wow,
I mean virtually all of those planned from the beginning.
So it's nice to see people getting it and connecting
the dots and going aha and generally feeling like it
was very satisfying. But I agree with you, I mean,
there's all there's almost every episode has a kind of big,
(30:12):
at least one, if not multiple, kind of jaw dropping reveals.
Speaker 6 (30:18):
Well, David, I was going to ask, does it feel
to you now you're talking about the Rule of threes
three seasons concluded? Does it feel to you now that
you have completed an arc of the show and now
you get to sort of hit the reset button and
start another arc? Considering how much changed in episode ten,
how many jaw dropping deaths there were at the end
(30:40):
of the season.
Speaker 8 (30:41):
Well, yeah, I mean I originally I had planned eight seasons,
and I had no idea whether or not we were
going to get there, and so I had kind of
had a fallback plan to end in six, to end
in four. And so this certainly what I would call
the end of the first act, because what finally witnesses
the end of the genetic.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Dynasty right at the end of their share.
Speaker 8 (31:04):
So that was that was the big condition that Harry
was hoping to sort of you know, take off the
board in one way or another. What we didn't get
at the end of the season is the fall of
the Mule. But where I wanted to get to was
a place in terms of the audience that now a
(31:27):
sense of like, really anything can happen. Yeah, from this point.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
On, I mean it certainly feels like that. Let's talk
about some of those.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Some of those jaw dropping deaths, because I think we're
still grappling with how many main characters were swept off
the stage, and I think for me, probably the most
shocking one is de Marcel, who I thought.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
For sure was.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Either potent actually the real maestro behind all of this
or certainly had more to give the story, I thought,
And then wow, what I'm blown away to see her die.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
It is a gut punch. Tell us, tell us about that.
Speaker 8 (32:16):
Well, she is one of the She's certainly one of
the maestros, right, yes, I mean I would say she
and Harry, and then as Harry's protege maybe a little
bit gaale right right, yes, and a right of course.
But just because you're and that's one of the things
that we sort of say in nine is that there
are really three three mothers of the math. There there
(32:40):
was Calai, there was Demoisel, and there was Yanna in
a way, and and then Harry of course with the
other architect of math. But just because your maestro doesn't
mean you can't be swept off the bloor. And so
I think I think, you know, when I first proposed
(33:02):
in season four, I'm sorry, And when we were breaking
season three that we killed both Day you know and Demerzelle,
my writers just were like almost staged a rebellion. But
I but but a lot of times I love what
I like to do in the writer's room is I
(33:23):
call it like turning over the apple cart, right, I
like to say, like, okay, but hypothetically, just bear with me,
what would that mean if and then and the question
is if, you know, is it interesting to see? I
always knew that I wanted Dusk to not accept his fate,
you know, gracefully, and and so I thought, well, he,
(33:46):
you know, Demrozel's the real threat. And and if he
you know, I don't know in his mind that he
was fully intending to kill Demerzel from the very beginning.
But I think at least midway through the season, he
was thinking, I'm definitely gonna destroy the Clone Banks because
if I destroy the Clone Banks, that might reset Demriselle's
(34:10):
programming and conditions, right. But I think then events just
got to a point where he saw the opportunity to
sort of destroy the Cone Banks and get rid of her,
and and then he's got this literal death star. So
he was like, Okay, well fuck it, I'll do it.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
You know, probably the same day he decided to become
the consequential, you.
Speaker 8 (34:32):
Know, yeah, yeah, probably.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
All clicked on the same day for him exactly.
Speaker 8 (34:39):
But you know, it's a it's it's been gratifying to
watch people's you know. And I went back and forth
because I I I enjoyed doing the pot the Official
Foundation podcast with you Jason, and I still am very
proud of the season. And it's largely tracks with, you know,
(35:02):
everything that I planned. And so I was as I had,
I don't know dozens of people reaching out saying, oh
we missed a podcast, and oh this and that, and
I was like, okay, I guess I got I guess
I owe it to the fans to do this. I'm
doing one other podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Well we really, we really appreciate it. I wanted to
just mention what a fun ride Dusk was this season,
because wasn't he I mean he was, first of all,
so obviously going through it from the first when we
meet him watching old youtubes of yeah dusks getting vaporized,
and then I quite enjoyed the kind of rollercoaster ride
(35:44):
of him trying to pretend like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm
fine ascension, Yeah totally yeah.
Speaker 8 (35:49):
But he's also lobbying Dawn and he's lobbying you know, Demrozelle,
and he lobby his day and like so he's going
back and forth.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, but I should stick around, right, I mean, we
got this organism, you kind.
Speaker 8 (36:04):
Of need me.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
What a fun ride, Yeah, tell us about like crafting
that story because he was fantastic this season.
Speaker 8 (36:10):
Well, one of the things that's when you get to
do multiple seasons and you've got so many talented actors,
you think about what they're capable of and what we've
seen them do like in any given season, and what
would be fun to see them do differently. And so
as we were putting together the season, that's how we
started talking about brother Dude, which we were calling him
(36:33):
that even before you know, the Internet, and and then
we thought, Okay, it'll be really fun to see really
all of the Cleons kind of step into their own
in a way we haven't fully seen and try to
really break free other I mean, we've seen Dawn break free,
but he really really tries to break free, you know here.
(36:56):
And I just thought it would be fun to have
Terry be because most of the time, you know, in
season one, we had the beautiful tone poem of me
on the first and he seems to be gentle and
he seems to be the conscience of the emperors, and
I just thought it would be and Terry's such a
(37:17):
lovely guy, really fun to just by the end just
have him be fucking evil. So it's just like, well,
what happened we seen them do before and what would
he And so I said to Terry, I was talking
to him about what we were planning for season three,
(37:37):
and I knew that he'd been wanting to lose weight,
and so I said, can you drop twenty pounds like
in between seasons? And He's like and I was like why,
And I told him what I want to do, not
that that required it, but I thought it was sure.
But he did it. Yeah, And he was sending me
progress pictures of losing weight, you know, in between seasons,
(37:58):
and I was like, cool because they are like there's
more spring in your step and more. Yeah, so he
put on he lost twenty pounds and then the still
it's amazing, put on twenty.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Yes, he's fantastic this season.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:12):
You know, David, hearing you talking about the writing process
is really fascinating to me because I'm getting this very
like meta vibe, like you are the psychohistorian. You've planned
out this like huge, for sure season arc of the show,
but then as you go you're sort of correcting the
math and also turning the apple card over. Right, You're
(38:33):
saying like okay, but what if? What if mule comes
in and the plan all goes to shit? How does
that play out? How do we play with that?
Speaker 5 (38:40):
Is that.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
Something you've had to Is that something you've learned over
your long writing career is turn the apple card over, ask.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
The what if questions.
Speaker 6 (38:49):
Don't be afraid of letting go of the math. How
committed are you typically to your math versus try something
totally new?
Speaker 8 (38:57):
Look. I had coming into the show six years ago,
a definite, big stroke plan, and I had a definitive
end in my mind. I knew what the last episode
was and who sort of makes it all the way
through to the end, who doesn't. And I knew what
(39:18):
the big beats of every season weren't as one would
expect season one, season two were more fleshed out, and
then as we got further on, you know, it got
a little broader. So it's a combination of both, which
is to say, you know, I'm experienced enough to know
that One of the beautiful things about the television show
(39:41):
as opposed to a movie is you do have the
ability to not in real time, but respond a little
bit in between seasons, right, So part of it is
you can see you know what your your season regular
series regulars are came beloved with the excel at what
they don't excel at, and sometimes you think both that
(40:04):
they One of the things that I realized, and he
was very resistant at first in season one with Day,
is that he's capable of being funny and particularly learnedly
as like a straight man kind of And so we
put more of that stuff in season two, whereas we
hadn't originally anticipated that. And then so you you have
(40:28):
to allow yourself the ability to course correct and some
of the things. Sometimes what we did is things that
I was intending to do. I need some things that
in season two that I wasn't planning to do until
season four. But like that's where I realized. Like when
I was working with Chris Nolan on the Batman movies,
sometimes we would talk about an idea for the next movie,
(40:49):
and he would say, fuck it, let's do it now,
because you never know if you have a good idea,
use it now. So it's a combination of like using
it now if we have a good idea, and at
the same time still pulling some things back. And so
I did see my my position a little bit as
if I had like one foot in the first foundation
(41:10):
of one foot in the second foundings a little bit
and so so there's a plan, but we're also a
little bit sometimes manipulating it in real time. If that
makes sense.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
It does as the man with the plan. Let's talk
about plans, because I think one of the big conversation
points for us this season was like, Who's plan are
we in? Are we in Harry's plan? Which Harry is
planner in? Are we in Gale's plan? Is this actually
De Marzille's plan? Is this Calli's plan? Whose plan?
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Is the mule in?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Is the mule a actual player in this game? Or
is the mule a piece played by someone else? And
we revealed a lot about the Mule and shocking fashion
this season.
Speaker 8 (41:57):
But like.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
I guess, so, I'll ask you where does what's the
status of the plan now? And if there ever was
a plan, is it still running?
Speaker 8 (42:10):
It is mostly not still running. We are mostly off
book because the thing about now, I will say a
couple of things. On one hand, the fall, while while
the plan anticipated certain ways that the empire could fall, right,
(42:31):
and this is not exactly the way that this was
not one of those anticipated, you know, paths. Empire falling
does fall in line with the plan, right, it fell
later than the plan, but does fall in line with
the plan. And so once empire falls, other conditions are
(42:55):
are are put into effect that to a certain extent,
psychohistory can predict once this sort of central power faults.
The mule was something that was was not planned, and
so this is what I would say, Vampire falls and
they can get rid of the mule. There's a possibility
they could get a plan in some form back on track,
(43:19):
but we've still got the mule out there. Who's this
big spoiler?
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Tell us about that mule switch up? Which I mean, listen,
we had our own theories.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Was that wrong?
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Tell us about that one because that was a real
like who ambush well?
Speaker 8 (43:42):
And it's it's funny because I would say this season
cleaves the most directly to the books out of all
the seasons, and the revealing in the books is that
Magnifico is the mule. Uh And to a certain extent
it was shocking at the time it happened. But there's
(44:05):
mention of a pirate, a guy whose eyes glow and
you know, we can do all these things, but he's
never seen in the books, which is why we wanted
to build up the straw dog, the red herring of that.
He's mentioned in the books, but we never actually see
him on screen, And so I contend that if you're
trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes, there needs
(44:25):
to be a credible alternate, Like if we don't ever
show the Warlord, then it's it's hard not to suspect
someone like Magnifico, and so book readers, in the book,
Magnifico is the mule and Beta is the one. Beta's
(44:46):
even in the book is sort of craftier than Jip Beer's,
and Beta's the one kind of figures it up. But
I thought, well, I think if asthmav we're alive today,
you know there were very Beta was the first sort
of fairly well fleshed out female character in Asthma's books.
(45:09):
But I don't think it ever would have occurred to
Asthma back then to make the villain a woman, because
if you think about the time that Asma was writing that,
but I think if you've been writing it now, it
might have occurred to him. And I think, you know,
I saw some people online complaining initially about Beta and
torn and they seemed so vapid and dismissive, and I
was like, but that is such a perfect way to,
(45:34):
you know, confuse the audience. And I still think, you know,
she dressed like a showgirl and she and I think
as the season went on, it became apparent to the
audience that she was more clever than she appeared. But
I'm kind of surprised that you guys didn't see that
coming because I think in the last couple of episodes
we're putting like, there's some stuff in episode eight where
(45:56):
we're sort of like, hey, look here.
Speaker 5 (45:58):
Yeah, magnifico things. I love Beta.
Speaker 6 (46:02):
Yes, it's like a neon side pointing at Beta.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Absolutely in retrospect.
Speaker 8 (46:09):
Yes, but see why is that? Why is that because
why didn't you? Is it because we still don't we
still have these sort of you know, condition feelings about
female characters or like why why is that that? Because
you're smart guys, you know. I don't know if you're
a writer a boot, but you're you're a writer also,
(46:30):
you know, And and it's like why, like, and I
haven't seen anyone theorize it online, Like why is that?
Speaker 2 (46:37):
It's a great question, I think because she honestly. First
of all, the red herring of Magnifico worked delightfully. And
I think the pacing of the story, and this is
just for me. Your mileage may vary, but the pacing
of the story because just when we were beginning to
really try to interrogate, well are they going to do
the magnificent thing, we get the flashback to the Mule
(46:58):
where you cast a young character who is like, Okay,
well that's him, so it's not magnificent unless and then
you and then by the time you start to interrogate that, well,
how much do we trust that? And that was that
an implanted memory?
Speaker 8 (47:13):
It was that's when you get to the mule. The
warlord thought he was the mule, right, Yes, that's what
you did, because that's that's what you do for a
good you know, a good misdirect, Like he thought that
was his memory. And then we sort of revisited again
and we see it wasn't even his memory and it
(47:34):
was a little girl instead. And and you understand why
they might have in that society saved the male baby,
but not like a ten year old girl or whatever
it is.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
But sorry, all I'm saying is I think it was
just camouflaged wonderfully. And you know, as again as a
as a person who love stories reads a lot writes,
there is something truly wonderful about getting hoodwinked. When you
think I've seen all, I've seen the moves, it's been great.
Speaker 8 (48:10):
We all watch these shows and we all think this
character is a plot am or this or that, and
and I I was like, are we going to get
away with no one suspecting Beta? Oh my god? We did?
Are we going to get away with killing Day and
then dem Resel? Oh my god? Because I think everybody's like, well,
(48:31):
Day's going to survive or certainly Demrizel will survive, you know.
But it's like I was like, fuck, we did, Like
I you know, like it's hard to it's hard to
pool or hood we as you said, a sophisticated serialized
(48:51):
storytelling audience these days, it's really hard.
Speaker 5 (48:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (48:55):
And I think David, to your point, Beta being the
female villain of this story, I'm sure caught many folks
off guard because in this season she is very much
leaning into the sort of typical female like caretaker role
for Magnifico, and so you yeah, it's just like very disarming.
(49:16):
She is just so likable and lovable and kind of
fits the mold that you assume in your mind. This
character is supposed to fit for the whole season, and
she has some really standout moments throughout the season, and
she shows some surprising intuition in moments, but that only
just makes her more endearing and less suspicious.
Speaker 5 (49:35):
So I think the bait.
Speaker 6 (49:36):
And switch works like so well because I'm totally disarmed.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
The one now where I'm where I am disappointed myself
for not thinking about it. Here's the moment where I
really I feel like, gosh, we should have known. Is
you know, post battle, Dawn's legs are fucked up, They're
up there. The mule, who we think is the mule,
is you know this episodating? Yes, yes, is lording over Dawn.
(50:06):
And then Beta says, you know what, stop it and
get out of here.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
She does.
Speaker 8 (50:11):
I thought that was like sob.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
And I noted it at the time in my recap
like he kind of hems in haws, but he does it,
which is And.
Speaker 8 (50:22):
I saw some people online going, oh, it must be
because Magnifico likes her and this guy knows not to
mess with the you know, the bosses girl, you know
like that, but it's like to me, it's like but
like you're everyone is like like missing the obvious, which
is like she's a mule.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Like yeah, that is the one now where in retrospect
I should have been like, oh, yeah, okay, because he
did what he listens to her, he leaves and yeah,
just incredible. But but again the way it is framed
where it seems like she's too scared to speak up
until that moment where his his torture of Dawn becomes
(51:07):
just too much for her to bear. And again in
that in that caretaker frame, her kind of objection feels
like this protectiveness where you and I totally I fell
for it.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
I feel for it where I'm like, well she's.
Speaker 8 (51:24):
I mean, look, she's an interesting study case. And she
talks about this a bit in episode ten because she
she has those instincts, but she also has a space pirates,
like she's both. But what she did was she kind
of with a space pirate Like I said, he was
like a useful idiot, but he's also like a useful
(51:45):
id Like she's sort of like, oh, he's doing the dumping.
The dumping and if you think about like how naskety.
This was like when the Space Pirate was doing what
he did to Torn in the club. Yeah, and she's
like she does love Torn, but like she's you know,
it's like if you think about it from her perspective,
(52:08):
and she's got these abilities and she can set up
this other target that everyone thinks is it's useful, right.
And I think about when she convinces rand New to
go to Foundation and then they had that scene where
(52:28):
they play, you know, for all the leaders of Foundation.
I mean she was just manipulating all of it. Wow,
so that you know, she could get the Whisper ship
fleets and all the book.
Speaker 5 (52:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (52:40):
As a writer, David, thinking back on your very impressive career,
is this the most satisfying thing a writer can do?
To be able to fully pull something like this off?
Speaker 5 (52:51):
Or you know, just speaking as a right, Yeah, this
is fun for you.
Speaker 6 (52:55):
You get to watch everyone just get the theories wrong.
Speaker 8 (52:57):
Yeah. Yeah, it is fun. It is because it's really
it's increasingly harder and harder.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
It's really hard.
Speaker 8 (53:05):
It's harder. It's hard to keep secrets, it's hard to
There was this this young actress I can't remember her
name who in because we shot some footage of Young
Beta at the same time as we were shooting Young Mule.
We would just like swap, you know, the young girl
(53:26):
out for the young boy. Yeah. So she was I
can't remember how many shots she was, but she she
she posted and even Apple didn't catch this. She she
tagged me, she posted online on Instagram like I play
Young Beta. And I was like, I wonder if anyone's
paying attention to this or like could see there's a
potential clue there, because there's like a couple behind the
(53:48):
scenes shots of her, like on the rawsome location, and
and I was like, shit, that's if you if people
were really intrepid, like that's a spoiler. But even Apple
didn't catch that it was out there. And I was like, well,
I'm not going to raise my hand now because then
people might notice, you know that you said.
Speaker 6 (54:08):
That, Wow, you get to play with the audience.
Speaker 1 (54:14):
Yeahs reuly great.
Speaker 5 (54:17):
What is so?
Speaker 2 (54:19):
What is Gail thinking now? She's dedicated centuries of her
life and multiple of her boyfriends to this mission, and
her and her daughter who she never got to really
spend enough time with and had this incredible mentor in Harry,
(54:41):
who you know, turns out to be not exactly a Charlottean,
but certainly not what he was hyped up to be.
And how does she face the future now.
Speaker 8 (54:56):
Well, coming out of this season, Like at this point when.
Speaker 9 (54:59):
She leaves, her husband has been converted and literally stabbed her,
like tried to stab her in the heart and misses
like stabs her, you know, between the ribs.
Speaker 8 (55:15):
She doesn't know if Second Foundation had made it to Trantle.
She doesn't know yet that Vault Harry has aligned with Beta,
So as bad as it is, she doesn't even know
how bad it's about to get. Uh, She's really fucked
(55:37):
come next season.
Speaker 5 (55:40):
And I'm wondering word.
Speaker 8 (55:43):
Is exactly exactly? And I think that the one of
the things that I had set out to do from
the beginning with this show was there are very few
characters in the show who one could say are all
good or all bad, right, And I really wanted to
show in the case of like Demoiselle and the Cleons,
(56:05):
like they are just trapped in this It's like generational
trauma to the nth degree, like where it's like they're
where you can you can you can have empathy for
all four of them, like at different points, right, But
they're just so fucked to like, you know, we say
it in the second episode of season one, like how
(56:26):
many times do we do this? Like you always do?
It's like, we're fucked, Demoiselle Dawn Data, We're all fucked.
And and Gale this season sort of becomes Harry and
like she makes this play to sacrifice Coulgan and you know,
billions of people die and she's wrong and she but
(56:48):
but then I had always said, you know, like that
the only uh tiny sliver of government power I ever had.
As I was on the board of the Writer's Guild
for two terms, and it became apparent to me that
(57:09):
even on something small like that, one had to make compromises,
and one sometimes had to make decisions that it were
for the greater good, knowing that small slivers of your
constituency would be disadvantaged by this decision. And that's just governance, right,
And so then you extrapolate that to a state or
(57:29):
a country, you know, like Washington, or the world, or
then an empire, and like, in order to make decisions
like that, I had always said, you know, we're dealing
with tens of thousands of worlds. Sometimes you're going to
have to make decisions where whole planets are going to
be allowed to go follow or be sacrificed. That's just
(57:50):
the the scale of the math forces that. Now. Is
it good?
Speaker 6 (57:56):
Is it bad?
Speaker 8 (57:56):
I don't know. But if you like I would say
to you, you guys like today, like if you knew
that you could say the entire planet, but you would
have to kill ten innocent people? Would you do it? Most?
I would. I would feel bad about it, but I
would do it, you know. And now scale that up?
Speaker 1 (58:18):
Yeah to the galaxy?
Speaker 6 (58:21):
Yeah, to tens of thousands of years.
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Well you mentioned Demrsela. I guess we should.
Speaker 7 (58:26):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (58:27):
She was the subject of so much theorizing between a
Boo and myself where and the characterization of her really
trying to figure out and unwrap her own consciousness. Am
I working against am I secretly working against empire? Or
am I not? Do I want to be free? And
am I trying to find a loophole that would allow
me to do that? Or am I not did I
(58:49):
start this whole thing? Or am I actually the defender
of empire? And then when people kind of cross that
line with her, she very strongly says, oh no, no,
you've got me wrong. I am still like the reaper
of the Empire. What a complicated character tell us about
like unraveling all that with her this season.
Speaker 8 (59:11):
Well, I suppose this goes back to my no one's
all good and no one's all bad, because I personally
have a lot of I really like the character of Demosol,
and I have a ton of empathy for her, and
particularly after the reveal of episode nine and season two,
you know that short, yeah, but then she does some
(59:33):
insanely funked up things this y season, not the least
which is like basically destroys her entire religion like home
planet and like and and you know, has confesses to
Virellas but then erases her memory. I mean, that's just
a brutal scene. And I just I like sitting in
(59:53):
this uneasy place with you. I think Salva largely was
almost all good, you know. And I would say the
Warlord could arguably be considered because he's so just sadistic,
almost all bad. We don't really know what is, you know,
but there are very few characters that you could categorize
(01:00:15):
it's sort of almost all good or almost all bad.
And that's just Demrisella is one of the same, which
is she's also not human. Yeah, And so you think
about a character that's been alive for thousands of years
and had those things done, and she's it would be
(01:00:35):
it as an audience, as audience members, we want to
imbue her with the same sort of feelings that we have.
But but I kept saying, you know, to Laura, to
the directors, to my fellow writers, she's not human. She
(01:01:00):
will never be human. She operates on a completely different scale.
She operates on and so it's a we're going to
lean into that because we know that the audience will
want that, but she's not and it would will always
be a mistake to assume she's here.
Speaker 6 (01:01:19):
Yeah, And there were a ton of disarming scenes like
that this season. Her outburst when she's talking to Gail
and when she talks about raising the Cleons.
Speaker 5 (01:01:28):
You know, that's so huge.
Speaker 8 (01:01:29):
I do think, I do think. I do think she
does love the Cleons. And the question is does she
love them because she loves them or does she love
them because she was forced to love them? I mean,
I don't know that we'll ever be able to untangle that.
Speaker 6 (01:01:45):
Right, Yeah, And Jason and I chatted so much about
this during our coverage this season. But I think Demosel,
maybe even more than any other character in the cast,
is the vehicle through which you get to explore so
much of the dead stuff that makes sci fi so
good and why I love sci fi so much, so
much of the philosophy, the big questions about what does
(01:02:09):
it mean to be human? How do we find our purpose?
And so it was artbreaking for me to watch Demrozel go.
Speaker 5 (01:02:18):
She will be missed. I will personally be missing her deeply.
Speaker 8 (01:02:23):
But I think that you know, if you're telling a
really good story, and at a certain point, if you're
honoring the story, the motivations of the characters that you've
created will supersede the ending that you want, as is
(01:02:48):
godlike being outside of the story. And so that's one
of the reasons why I love breaking that so much,
Because if you think about Walt and Jesse in their
relationship right, there are so many times when Walt should
have cut Jesse loose, when it would have been to
his benefit to have cut Jesse loose, and he goes
(01:03:10):
back for Jesse sort of again and again and again again.
It's like this Achilles heel or he can't It's you know,
he can have this honest relationship with Jesse in a
way that he can't with his own son. And so
what I like about when stories evolve in that way
is that the character choices that you know, in this case,
Vince and his fellow writers set up supersede what the
(01:03:34):
plot should do, right, And that's when I think storytelling
becomes really interesting. But I also think it's you can't
really do that in a first season, and sometimes it
almost takes until the third season to do that well,
because you have the audience has to really understand the
motivations of the characters and get really deep in there
(01:03:58):
for those kind of choices that make sense where you say, ah,
that doesn't that's not the most logical thing to do
for the plot, but that makes sense for the character
because as humans, we make choices all the time that
our contrary to our own self interests. I mean, we
do it all the time, all the time. And so
(01:04:19):
I think a show becomes really alive when you can
live with the characters long enough that you their choices
make sense from a characters standpoint. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Yeah, well, David, congratulations on a crazy season. Thank you
so much for joining us this was fun.
Speaker 8 (01:04:38):
Please come back yeah anytime.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
On the next episode of X ray Vision, We're diving
into Alien Earth episode seven. That's it for this episode.
Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Thanks for listening by.
Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepts You, I'm
Rosie Night and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Our executive produces a Joel Monique and Aaron Cortman.
Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Our supervising producer is Abu Zafar.
Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Fay Wag.
Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 4 (01:05:16):
And Heidi our discord moderator.
Worrying.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
Today's episode contains spoilers for the finale of Foundation season three.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
You are.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello. My name is Jason Cepcio and I'm Rosey Night
and welcome back to xt revision of the podcast where
we dive deep. It's your favorite shows, movies, comics, and
pop culture coming.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
To you from My Heart Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We're bringing three episodes, Weekless News.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
On Sunday, Weekless News on today's episode you've been waiting for.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
It is the finale of Foundation season three. Did they
stick the landing? What happens? We are going to recap it,
and then in a very.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Special interview for the finale, Abou and Jason will be
joined by David S. Gooya, a man behind many of
your favorite superhero movies and now behind Foundation, to really
break down the finale and what.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
It means for the show going forward. But first we
got to recap it.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
First.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Welcome to the program, a Boo who's been helping us
all season unwind the mysteries of Foundation.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Yeah, it's brother Darkness now. Actually, so if we can.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Brother Darkness, I'm glad you got that. We open on Trantur,
where Dusk is looking out over the palace and the balcony.
It's ascension day. He goes down to the decanting tanks,
takes a look at his replacements and all the countless
vats of clones and Lock's eyes with one particular baby clone,
(01:45):
and he moves on. Later, he's getting dressed by his
attendants and the regal ascension robes are being put on him,
and the Royal Tailor's leg I gotta tell you, Dusk,
you're slimmering in the average. Usually they kind of they
tend to blow up a little bit, but you've really
(02:05):
been taking care of yourself.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
And he's having that pelothon, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, and then he's like, hey, guys, is it okay
if I walk to the ascension chambers on my own?
You know, just have have this moment of privacy, this
final moment of privacy on my own. And they're like, Empire,
you got it, you got it.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
This man, come on, this guy is just yes, sending
like I would have sent at least one little spy
after him.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, he convinces him. Meanwhile, Day has gotten into the
palace with the robot head. He finds De Marcel. He
kneels before her. He's like, listen, I've just come from Micagen.
They worship you down there, and.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Look at this.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
They have this authentic robot head. Demrsel is like overcome
with emotion and she sees this, we got a new terminus.
Gail is meditating before the epic battle come and says,
with the mule, and she's thinking about everybody she's lost
over time. Meanwhile, Pritch Torn the rest of the team
are like getting there, you know, racking that they're guns
(03:09):
and like putting the clips in the in the magasine
and it's time to strike at the Gale and Pritch
say they're goodbyes, and the team gets ready to move
move on with Hollow Harry asking Spoon, which is a
reference to how they're gonna use the vault, and the
vault takes off. The Mule meanwhile, knows everybody's coming. Harry
(03:29):
appears in the Black Tongue as a distraction so that
they can immediately, you know, start running around on board.
Everybody's shooting at Hologram Harry. They're shooting at them for
like a minute, nothing is happening. Why do they keep
shooting because of the mentallic powers, and the mentallic powers
are also hiding Gale and her team and they go,
you know, through the through the black tongue with Pritch
(03:52):
sneaking off to go be a hero, I guess, to
go quote save who we can, which you know, I
guess probably means Beta Pritch, we should mention other than
being hot, this guy.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Is a fucking hot because hot baby.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The ultimate Himbo Pritch.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Who is no good at the incredible every time, Yeah,
because he's fucking the bass. So Beta hears people running
around and she's like, I think the ship is under attack.
She gets the door open, red flag number one. It
turns out a red flag number number five. That or
(04:34):
the first one that we've noticed, I guess, and she
tries to get Day up on his don excuse me,
up on his feet, but his legs are too messed
up and he can't go. He's like, you get out
of here, run run, run back to Trantor De Marzelle
takes the Head and Days like, listen, if the if
the Cleons fall, will you still help us? And she
(04:57):
says yeah, my programming, I have to, and Days like
you gotta interface.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
With the head, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, and.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Demares is like, well, I don't know, because if I
interface with the head, it might erase my kleonic programming,
and I have to resist anything that will interfere with
my programming consciously at least. So days like, okay, we'll
show me. And so he begins to like do little
little manipulations inside the head with the with the knitting
(05:26):
needles that Demarzelle has. Dusk arrives back to the Vats.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
He's like escaped.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Anybody watching, nobody, and they just believe they were like
kill at the empire, like we'll just.
Speaker 6 (05:40):
The most powerful and important in the galaxy.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
They lost track of him.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
He's like down there, he's out of breath.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Everyone.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Demarzelle, meanwhile, is like having an inkling that I think
something bad is like happening down the Vats. I gotta
go down there. And days like, well, well, I'm in
the middle of this interfeasing with the head thing, like
you gotta at least help me finish that.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
She's like, I can't.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
My programming says if something's going on in the Vat, I.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Go down there. What what's going on down there?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Is? Dusk is blowing up all the cleons except the
baby my guy, Like what what you think.
Speaker 7 (06:18):
Did explosives first, So he wants you know, much like yeah,
much like nine to eleven was an inside job and
the and the buildings and the buildings were actually pre
implanted with explosives.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Flame here, I guess this is like while he was
doing the navicular, he was also putting a little side
project personally, because you can't have anybody else made this right.
He had to personally put the C four on all them.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Maybe you know what I'm not I'm not necessarily saying
that what he's doing is right. But is he making
an argument that perhaps he is very useful. This man
has done a lot this season while he's just chilling
to then to go in.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
He's tried, he's tried to make that argument. Nobody's listened
to him, and so now he's gonna make it a
fair Yeah, you can't do so he's blowing up all the.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Tanks, but he's trying. Can'ts the baby.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Den Marzelle rushes down there. Ambassador Quinn is like, what
the fuck's going on? Denmarzl demos like like Demarzelle tells
her listen, bad ship's going on.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
Go to my room.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
There's a triangular book like in a little satin bag.
Go get it, Go to the library, show the library
in the book, She'll know what to do. Okay, goodbye,
demosel and Day get down to the vats.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
It's so disgusting.
Speaker 8 (07:39):
One of the.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Grossest things I was in a show, reason a big
one that I wanted to pull, like a thread I
wanted to pull with you guys, because like, I feel like.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
It's tonally is like a new tone, like I was
not existing it.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Dear discuss like that was just they gross.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
We're saving that one for the finale. Baby like got
ready to be horrified.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
It was.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
It was fucking horrified. So they Demoselle is like talking
to herself. Days with her, and he's like, oh, She's like,
oh my god, there's too many things going on right
now to.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Keep track of.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Meanwhile, up above Pretch, up above New Terminus, Preach finds Beta.
He tells her that hey, good news to warn is alive.
But then he's like.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
The mule, Oh my god, the mule is close and
he falls to his knees and then the power turns off.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Uh uh don don.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Meanwhile, Gail and the crew are trying to get past
the blast doors to get at the mule Ebling misses like,
I know how we can heck in the door. He
figures it out, they get in there, mentallic fight takes place.
The Mule tries to get Gail to like mentallic kill herself,
but he's like doing it with his powers, so he
(08:51):
but he's really not able to do it, so he
starts strangling her, but the lack of oxygen triggers the
gale like you know, boss level powers, and she manages
to pull him into the mind hut, the water hunt,
and in the water hut she kills him and it's
all over, folks. Good guys won.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
The mules definitely everything.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
It's okay have been killed, like at least the mule
is that.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
It was definitely nothing bad could happen.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
But then Gail Feats is like, wait a second, I
still fuel the mule and the mule is Beta.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
The fuck.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
An unreal shocking moment that looking back, there were many
many clues that he didn't.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
She is always there when the Mule is always there,
but they did. She's always their good job of hiding
in plain sight and a boom. This is not more
on this book.
Speaker 6 (09:57):
Ca right, no, no, yeah, yeah, okay, more on this
with in our excellent conversation with David Esquier, but just
suffice to say we were stuck.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Everyone in the room is stunned, especially to her, and
Who's like, wait a second, my wife is the mule.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Oh, she's kind of crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
She easily.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
She puts him to sleep easily, And Gail tries to
take Pritch's gun, but he wrestles it back and he
shoots her. And then he's like, listen, I know what
it seems like, but my mind is not at all
warped by the mule. But I've never felt so much
love in my life.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Just listen to her. She's got a pitch. Yes.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Fantastico then begins to play as the mind battle between
Gail and and Beta begins. But Gail tampered with how
Fantastico's music were, like change the pictu or something so
that it is more in frequency and harmonious.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
With her powers.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
And so now Gail's getting stronger, and Gale manages to
get Beta out of her head completely. Back on Trantor,
dem Demoiselle confronts Dusk, who's holding the.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Baby in his arms.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
He lays the baby on the ascender beam and he's like, dude,
I know because of your program, and you're gonna have
to save the baby now, so guess what You're gonna
die with his baby? Watch this, he hits the button,
Demoiselle dives on, the baby gets burned up. Day is
super upset at all this, and at the end of it,
(11:32):
all that's left on the ascender is some slime.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
And the way I was like screaming at my TV because.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
The Johnny not expect the journey that we've been on
with Demoiselle and kind of the understanding of who Demoseel
really is and what Demozel could mean to like oppressed
communities in this world. And then I had also kind
of thought, like I don't know, when he nodded at
the baby, I was like, he's been recognition that the
(12:01):
baby is also him and there is like a cycle
that will always go on with the Cleons, and like
he realizes that it's this fucked up cycle, and maybe
he's gonna I don't save the baby.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Some I'm a lonwolf and cub die Hard, so I get,
you know, into that brain.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
He's like, no, yeah, I thought that too. For a second.
I was like, oh, this is like sort of an
egocentric Yes, I'm still ultimately like I will just naturally
die at some point and my successor should just be
me actually exactly.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
I thought that's where we were going.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
But no, But he's a baby turn into goo.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
He wants to be he wants to be free of
this robot influence once from for all, and he's managed
to do it. Meanwhile, Gail is like racing her in
the Black Tongue. She does uh does Steve Rogers move
from Captain America Civil War, where she uses like a
metal tray to blast to blast through the plateglass window.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Like behavior insane, it's so good.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Her wonderful lieutenants Rassik catches her with the ship, which
is again.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Feels like this.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
That feels like a age of Ultron and the Black
Widow Movies.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Incredible action movies.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Jason David s Gouyle, We feel your your shape and influence.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Hollow Harry is on Gale's ship and he's like, listen,
let me stay in the in the circuits of your
ship and come with you. And I want to meet
body Harry and figure out like how he got his.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Body YadA, yaddi.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
I want the body as well, like, I'm so fucking
you don't understand how Borigan is in the vault, just
staring at the vault while is doing nothing, nothing, nothing
for years and years and years and just like popping
out randomly every few centuries, like I want out, And
she's like and and when they jump, obviously like the
Bluetooth connection will be severed with her ship. So he,
(14:05):
you know, gails to agree to download onto the ship
and she's like, no, I can't, Like sorry, you can't
for reasons that I'm honestly like unclear about other than
bodyboy died, Like, wouldn't you still want hollow Harry with you?
But apparently no, he's still an asset, I thought, But
she's like no, and they jump and they leave hollow
(14:26):
Harry back in the fault. I think hallow Harry is.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Gonna become pure villain, Yeah, very much. This was a
turning point for hollow Harry. He's gonna be bad.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Dago's running through the palace after Dusk, who's hiding in
the throne room. They do this like hide and seek
thing around the thrones and days like you fucking crazy
fuck look what you did, like day then goes full
ground and pound mount like he gets the full mount
and he just starts working Dusk over. But Dusk is like, bro,
(14:58):
I got the nana you're not You're actually not doing
anything like this hurts and then say he stands up.
He shoots Day and he's like, because you don't have
you don't have the na nits, So look at you.
You're gonna die now, and he dies in front of Dusk.
And as that's happening, Dusk is bragging. He's like, yeah,
He's like, man, remember the remember the Galactic Council, Remember
(15:22):
the Lunites, Remember the Cloud Dominion?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
They're gone?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Now did that news get and this is like an
incredible bar He's like, hey, did that news get all
the way down to level eighty eight?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Did he get all the way down of Micagen?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Did you hear about what I did to the to
the Colactic Council illuminis in the Cloud Dominion? Did you
hear about that you didn't get the news that I
took them?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, it's very clear that toy.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
That I built in my like secret that nobody knew about.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Like Dusk is is feeling himself.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
It's unreal. Quent arrives at the library with the Triangular book.
The library welcomes her, Quent presents her the book and
she's like, okay, welcome to the Second Foundation, and honestly
the same. It's just pream down there.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
You are literally loved. You came with the Grimmery from Wicked.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Thank you for the moment.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It is just pretty Dusk finally comes down off the
high of launching this coup and taking out De Marsel
and Day and all the other cleons. He gets himself up.
He calls for an attendant and he's like, listen, I'm
the sole emperor now uh, and just follow my orders
as sole emperor. And the guy's like, I have no choice, okay.
(16:46):
In De Marzelle's room, though, the head which was mid
interface operation, suddenly comes to life. The clasp is initiated,
but who could it possibly be calling? We hear colleades
line and we learn from Klai talking to who we
soon see is is one of the last surviving robots.
(17:08):
That Dummarzl was incapable of classmen, so it wouldn't have
worked anything. But Kylle, who is apparently a robot, and
the other surviving robots are on the moon and they've
been waiting for.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
This exact moment. Is this has this been?
Speaker 2 (17:25):
There?
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Has this been?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
The player will have to wait for season four to
find out. Let's go to break and then we will
talk about this man.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Okay, Please, we need your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
You are the only one that's stearing me through this
because I did not.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
See any of this coming.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
There's one of the most surprising and shocking finales I've seen.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
And that's so complimentary, but yeah, like, tell us what happened?
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Yeah, you know what.
Speaker 6 (18:09):
Surprising and shocking for sure, A little less complimentary for me,
I will say, Uh, I came out quite mixed on
this finale, actually, which is not to say I mixed
on this season.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
I thought this was a very strong season of the show.
Speaker 6 (18:25):
Actually, I enjoyed so much of it, and I think
it reached for new heights that the previous seasons haven't,
which I greatly appreciated.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
Clearly, I'm not.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
So sure that we one hundred percent stuck the landing
here in this final episode. A lot of what took
place was beginning to stretch my suspension of disbelief. I
was laughing watching Gail dive out of space into atmosphere
(18:56):
and then herself into a ship mid like drop, no parachute.
I like, that was beyond believability for me.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
That was that was truly steep.
Speaker 6 (19:09):
Nothing has ever hinted at Gale having those sorts of
physical abilities, so I was just like, what's going on here.
I also, I'm as much as I loved Demozel's death
as a shocking thing to happen, I don't know that
we built up to it this LEAs.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Can I say, do you feel like that is death?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Death?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Death?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
There's no, because I know it does look like that,
But I felt the same way. I feel like.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
There's no way that could just be the end of
Demoiselle with everything else that we've experienced through this season.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
No, I actually do think that is the end of Demozel.
I think I think that, yeah, this is the end
of this character. But what I'm a little disappointed in
is that we spent this whole season actually having really
interesting and deeply philosophical explorations of free will and choice
through Demorzelle, and then she spends this whole last episode.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
Going no but my programming, No but my programming. And
I was kind of like.
Speaker 6 (20:07):
Haven't you been questioning and pushing your programming for like
three seasons now, and suddenly you're all about it so
that the plot can happen. It felt a little bit
like a step back for her character, rather than continuing
to follow the threads we've been pulling with Demerzel. So
there were a couple of little moments like that that
felt a little unsatisfying for me in this episode in particular,
(20:28):
But honestly, like, I'm actually willing to overlook a lot
of my grievances just because the rest of the season
was so so good, and I think there were some
genuine shocks. I did not see the beta thing coming
at all, and looking back, I think it was actually seated,
really really well.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
I think the beta thing is well earned.
Speaker 6 (20:50):
I just don't know that we close the loops on
some of the other characters, like Demerzel.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
How do you feel about the Dusk of it All?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I loved watching Dust, Yeah, I Dusk was so I
absolutely love Dusk. Dusk was like a Dusk is like
a He was like a rat in a cage, you know,
with no way out, just doing more and more desperate
things in order to survive, and that he did survive
(21:21):
is kind of thrilling, like everybody underestimated, even to the
point of, like I mean, I it was a small point,
but even even that comment from the tailor of like, oh,
you're in your slimmer than the other ones, clearly he
has been keeping himself strong for this moment, like he
never let go of the rope, and it was it
(21:45):
was really thrilling to see him out maneuver all of
his brothers, both Foundations, Demarzelle and kind of the Mule too.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
Yeah, I agree, What did you guys think? Though I
don't want to bring the energy down. I think they
were just a couple of quibbles I had.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I think I think that as somebody who is coming
to this just as a TV watcher, I do think
this is the best season of the show. And I
do think clearly that you know the get you are right, Like,
there was definitely some a couple of moments where it
was a bit like we got the budget, it's superhero
blockbuster the kind of thing now, which feels very different
(22:26):
to like the esoteric, weird kind of storytelling that this
show is so good at. But I felt like in
general I was hooked on this finale, and I just
couldn't believe what kept happening. Again, I knew that the
mule reveal was going to be crazy, but I didn't
guess if you'd have given me like three people to
pick BITA would not have been on that, which I
(22:47):
think is shows.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
The skill of the writers. That's the kind of twist
we need. I do. I just wonder what a fourth
season of this show looks like.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
That's what I kind of, as a few I am
most interested in because basically everything we know about the
show has changed in the finale of this episode. So obviously,
even if they're going to do the time jump, going
to do everything, we kind of have destroyed most of
what we understand to be kind of the god rails
of the Cleons and the show. So I'm interested in
(23:19):
what a fourth season would look like. Jason, how did
you feel about the finale?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I mean, I liked it.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I agree with I agree with that Boo that particular
to de Marzell, it felt like there was more juice
to squeeze and that I didn't necessarily have a problem
with the way she was manipulated in this episode. What
I would have loved more of is the implications of
(23:48):
how easy it is to manipulate her having a chance
to kind of reverberate more through the season, or at
least be seated in a way that the beta reveal
eventually it was and then was allowed to kind of
like take root. I think that there were I think
that we could have had more hints about Colleis and
(24:13):
the robots on the moon pulling strings and being and
waiting for this moment, because it certainly does seem like
this eventuality was something that they were maybe not moving towards,
but preparing preparing for on some level, and so I
would love to know what their roles are in all
(24:36):
of this. And but generally I think that this the
show reached such operatic heights of the season, both like
of of both like soaring ambition, soaring a plot development
like and almost over the top dedicate Haiti to just
(25:01):
maximalist everything, like the most insane line reads, the most
insane plot twists, and what if we give you a
plot twist every every episode, and like the most insane
characterizations of the even your heroes, like the fact I'm
still laughing at like at body Harry being the type
(25:23):
of guy who like the difference between him and hologram
Harry being that he would build the statues of.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
His friends first before he builds a statue of himself.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
That being the like all of those things working together
to create this like utterly insane self aggrandizing.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
You know, opera space space.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
And I enjoyed it because it was it was just
everything like if there, if everything goes to ten, this
season of the show was like, well what if we
started everything at it?
Speaker 3 (25:58):
Like, yeah, exactly, I think that's very well putting it.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And so in that sense, I enjoyed it because it's
it is rare that you see a show just be
like pushed, like turn everything up and let's really and it.
As Goyer will say, you know in our interview, they
were always working towards this season, so it was it
was delightful and thrilling to see them hit it this hard.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah. I also just think, like, I think this is
such a It seems like a small thing, but if
you really think about it, like when has a show,
let alone a genre show managed to introduce characters who
are essentially like influencers, right, and managed to build in
things that we recognize as modern things like magnifico being
a DJ and not have it completely pull you out
(26:42):
of the show and feel like it's completely unnatural. I
think as soon as that hit for me and it worked,
I just think from then on this show was operating
at like a higher level than a lot of other
They find a way to build in the familiar but
also do the most kind of insane, out there stuff
you can't see, and I think that makes a great show.
And I really hope that people discovered this season, even
(27:07):
if they then want to go back or they want
to stop from the beginning, I just think it really
is one of the best shows on TV, and I
think this finale is like such a crazy, bombastic way
to end this season.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Well, let's take a quick break and then we will
be right back with our conversation with creator and executive
producer David square Wood.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
David A. Squoire, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 8 (27:45):
Nice to be here.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
When we were doing.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
The pod, you were always saying like, we're building towards
this season and has happened, and it has been truly,
I mean, a show hitting its stride just to fit,
fantastic and twisty turney story Aboo and I were saying
it felt like there was like a jaw dropping reveal
almost every episode in the middle of the run of
(28:10):
the season. What's it been like to watch this come out?
Speaker 8 (28:17):
Look, we we we had a long game plan. Yeah,
and I think it's evident from this season that a
lot of little breadcrumbs and things that we put in
place throughout the first two seasons have now make see
my metaphors have now come home, come home to roost.
And so when you start a really sophisticated kind of
(28:43):
story DNS show like this, you have no idea how
it's going to be received or if you're ever going
to get to see some of these plans come to fruition.
But it's nice that insofar as season three goes like
the audience is going a so knew that that was
the case. There were so many things that I was
I tried to make seasons one of the seasons two
(29:05):
as satisfying as possible, while at the same time sort
of sitting on some of these reveals, because it was
my contention that these reveals would be more dramatic and
you know, more well earned if they sort of had
time to cook, if you will. And I think the
whole thing with the like for instance, like the Cleons
(29:27):
having different personalities every season. I think that that I
also believe in kind of the rule of threes, and
so it's that whole idea of nature and nurture and
all that stuff. I really felt like we needed three
seasons to tell that story, three seasons to tell den
results story. But there's so many things that like even
her song where it's revealed in episode eight what her
(29:47):
song is that, I mean that was planned from the beginning. Wow,
I mean virtually all of those planned from the beginning.
So it's nice to see people getting it and connecting
the dots and going aha and generally feeling like it
was very satisfying. But I agree with you, I mean,
there's all there's almost every episode has a kind of big,
(30:12):
at least one, if not multiple, kind of jaw dropping reveals.
Speaker 6 (30:18):
Well, David, I was going to ask, does it feel
to you now you're talking about the Rule of threes
three seasons concluded? Does it feel to you now that
you have completed an arc of the show and now
you get to sort of hit the reset button and
start another arc? Considering how much changed in episode ten,
how many jaw dropping deaths there were at the end
(30:40):
of the season.
Speaker 8 (30:41):
Well, yeah, I mean I originally I had planned eight seasons,
and I had no idea whether or not we were
going to get there, and so I had kind of
had a fallback plan to end in six, to end
in four. And so this certainly what I would call
the end of the first act, because what finally witnesses
the end of the genetic.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Dynasty right at the end of their share.
Speaker 8 (31:04):
So that was that was the big condition that Harry
was hoping to sort of you know, take off the
board in one way or another. What we didn't get
at the end of the season is the fall of
the Mule. But where I wanted to get to was
a place in terms of the audience that now a
(31:27):
sense of like, really anything can happen. Yeah, from this point.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
On, I mean it certainly feels like that. Let's talk
about some of those.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Some of those jaw dropping deaths, because I think we're
still grappling with how many main characters were swept off
the stage, and I think for me, probably the most
shocking one is de Marcel, who I thought.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
For sure was.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Either potent actually the real maestro behind all of this
or certainly had more to give the story, I thought,
And then wow, what I'm blown away to see her die.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
It is a gut punch. Tell us, tell us about that.
Speaker 8 (32:16):
Well, she is one of the She's certainly one of
the maestros, right, yes, I mean I would say she
and Harry, and then as Harry's protege maybe a little
bit gaale right right, yes, and a right of course.
But just because you're and that's one of the things
that we sort of say in nine is that there
are really three three mothers of the math. There there
(32:40):
was Calai, there was Demoisel, and there was Yanna in
a way, and and then Harry of course with the
other architect of math. But just because your maestro doesn't
mean you can't be swept off the bloor. And so
I think I think, you know, when I first proposed
(33:02):
in season four, I'm sorry, And when we were breaking
season three that we killed both Day you know and Demerzelle,
my writers just were like almost staged a rebellion. But
I but but a lot of times I love what
I like to do in the writer's room is I
(33:23):
call it like turning over the apple cart, right, I
like to say, like, okay, but hypothetically, just bear with me,
what would that mean if and then and the question
is if, you know, is it interesting to see? I
always knew that I wanted Dusk to not accept his fate,
you know, gracefully, and and so I thought, well, he,
(33:46):
you know, Demrozel's the real threat. And and if he
you know, I don't know in his mind that he
was fully intending to kill Demerzel from the very beginning.
But I think at least midway through the season, he
was thinking, I'm definitely gonna destroy the Clone Banks because
if I destroy the Clone Banks, that might reset Demriselle's
(34:10):
programming and conditions, right. But I think then events just
got to a point where he saw the opportunity to
sort of destroy the Cone Banks and get rid of her,
and and then he's got this literal death star. So
he was like, Okay, well fuck it, I'll do it.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
You know, probably the same day he decided to become
the consequential, you.
Speaker 8 (34:32):
Know, yeah, yeah, probably.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
All clicked on the same day for him exactly.
Speaker 8 (34:39):
But you know, it's a it's it's been gratifying to
watch people's you know. And I went back and forth
because I I I enjoyed doing the pot the Official
Foundation podcast with you Jason, and I still am very
proud of the season. And it's largely tracks with, you know,
(35:02):
everything that I planned. And so I was as I had,
I don't know dozens of people reaching out saying, oh
we missed a podcast, and oh this and that, and
I was like, okay, I guess I got I guess
I owe it to the fans to do this. I'm
doing one other podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Well we really, we really appreciate it. I wanted to
just mention what a fun ride Dusk was this season,
because wasn't he I mean he was, first of all,
so obviously going through it from the first when we
meet him watching old youtubes of yeah dusks getting vaporized,
and then I quite enjoyed the kind of rollercoaster ride
(35:44):
of him trying to pretend like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm
fine ascension, Yeah totally yeah.
Speaker 8 (35:49):
But he's also lobbying Dawn and he's lobbying you know, Demrozelle,
and he lobby his day and like so he's going
back and forth.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, but I should stick around, right, I mean, we
got this organism, you kind.
Speaker 8 (36:04):
Of need me.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
What a fun ride, Yeah, tell us about like crafting
that story because he was fantastic this season.
Speaker 8 (36:10):
Well, one of the things that's when you get to
do multiple seasons and you've got so many talented actors,
you think about what they're capable of and what we've
seen them do like in any given season, and what
would be fun to see them do differently. And so
as we were putting together the season, that's how we
started talking about brother Dude, which we were calling him
(36:33):
that even before you know, the Internet, and and then
we thought, Okay, it'll be really fun to see really
all of the Cleons kind of step into their own
in a way we haven't fully seen and try to
really break free other I mean, we've seen Dawn break free,
but he really really tries to break free, you know here.
(36:56):
And I just thought it would be fun to have
Terry be because most of the time, you know, in
season one, we had the beautiful tone poem of me
on the first and he seems to be gentle and
he seems to be the conscience of the emperors, and
I just thought it would be and Terry's such a
(37:17):
lovely guy, really fun to just by the end just
have him be fucking evil. So it's just like, well,
what happened we seen them do before and what would
he And so I said to Terry, I was talking
to him about what we were planning for season three,
(37:37):
and I knew that he'd been wanting to lose weight,
and so I said, can you drop twenty pounds like
in between seasons? And He's like and I was like why,
And I told him what I want to do, not
that that required it, but I thought it was sure.
But he did it. Yeah, And he was sending me
progress pictures of losing weight, you know, in between seasons,
(37:58):
and I was like, cool because they are like there's
more spring in your step and more. Yeah, so he
put on he lost twenty pounds and then the still
it's amazing, put on twenty.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Yes, he's fantastic this season.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (38:12):
You know, David, hearing you talking about the writing process
is really fascinating to me because I'm getting this very
like meta vibe, like you are the psychohistorian. You've planned
out this like huge, for sure season arc of the show,
but then as you go you're sort of correcting the
math and also turning the apple card over. Right, You're
(38:33):
saying like okay, but what if? What if mule comes
in and the plan all goes to shit? How does
that play out? How do we play with that?
Speaker 5 (38:40):
Is that.
Speaker 6 (38:43):
Something you've had to Is that something you've learned over
your long writing career is turn the apple card over, ask.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
The what if questions.
Speaker 6 (38:49):
Don't be afraid of letting go of the math. How
committed are you typically to your math versus try something
totally new?
Speaker 8 (38:57):
Look. I had coming into the show six years ago,
a definite, big stroke plan, and I had a definitive
end in my mind. I knew what the last episode
was and who sort of makes it all the way
through to the end, who doesn't. And I knew what
(39:18):
the big beats of every season weren't as one would
expect season one, season two were more fleshed out, and
then as we got further on, you know, it got
a little broader. So it's a combination of both, which
is to say, you know, I'm experienced enough to know
that One of the beautiful things about the television show
(39:41):
as opposed to a movie is you do have the
ability to not in real time, but respond a little
bit in between seasons, right, So part of it is
you can see you know what your your season regular
series regulars are came beloved with the excel at what
they don't excel at, and sometimes you think both that
(40:04):
they One of the things that I realized, and he
was very resistant at first in season one with Day,
is that he's capable of being funny and particularly learnedly
as like a straight man kind of And so we
put more of that stuff in season two, whereas we
hadn't originally anticipated that. And then so you you have
(40:28):
to allow yourself the ability to course correct and some
of the things. Sometimes what we did is things that
I was intending to do. I need some things that
in season two that I wasn't planning to do until
season four. But like that's where I realized. Like when
I was working with Chris Nolan on the Batman movies,
sometimes we would talk about an idea for the next movie,
(40:49):
and he would say, fuck it, let's do it now,
because you never know if you have a good idea,
use it now. So it's a combination of like using
it now if we have a good idea, and at
the same time still pulling some things back. And so
I did see my my position a little bit as
if I had like one foot in the first foundation
(41:10):
of one foot in the second foundings a little bit
and so so there's a plan, but we're also a
little bit sometimes manipulating it in real time. If that
makes sense.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
It does as the man with the plan. Let's talk
about plans, because I think one of the big conversation
points for us this season was like, Who's plan are
we in? Are we in Harry's plan? Which Harry is
planner in? Are we in Gale's plan? Is this actually
De Marzille's plan? Is this Calli's plan? Whose plan?
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Is the mule in?
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Is the mule a actual player in this game? Or
is the mule a piece played by someone else? And
we revealed a lot about the Mule and shocking fashion
this season.
Speaker 8 (41:57):
But like.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
I guess, so, I'll ask you where does what's the
status of the plan now? And if there ever was
a plan, is it still running?
Speaker 8 (42:10):
It is mostly not still running. We are mostly off
book because the thing about now, I will say a
couple of things. On one hand, the fall, while while
the plan anticipated certain ways that the empire could fall, right,
(42:31):
and this is not exactly the way that this was
not one of those anticipated, you know, paths. Empire falling
does fall in line with the plan, right, it fell
later than the plan, but does fall in line with
the plan. And so once empire falls, other conditions are
(42:55):
are are put into effect that to a certain extent,
psychohistory can predict once this sort of central power faults.
The mule was something that was was not planned, and
so this is what I would say, Vampire falls and
they can get rid of the mule. There's a possibility
they could get a plan in some form back on track,
(43:19):
but we've still got the mule out there. Who's this
big spoiler?
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Tell us about that mule switch up? Which I mean, listen,
we had our own theories.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Was that wrong?
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Tell us about that one because that was a real
like who ambush well?
Speaker 8 (43:42):
And it's it's funny because I would say this season
cleaves the most directly to the books out of all
the seasons, and the revealing in the books is that
Magnifico is the mule. Uh And to a certain extent
it was shocking at the time it happened. But there's
(44:05):
mention of a pirate, a guy whose eyes glow and
you know, we can do all these things, but he's
never seen in the books, which is why we wanted
to build up the straw dog, the red herring of that.
He's mentioned in the books, but we never actually see
him on screen, And so I contend that if you're
trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes, there needs
(44:25):
to be a credible alternate, Like if we don't ever
show the Warlord, then it's it's hard not to suspect
someone like Magnifico, and so book readers, in the book,
Magnifico is the mule and Beta is the one. Beta's
(44:46):
even in the book is sort of craftier than Jip Beer's,
and Beta's the one kind of figures it up. But
I thought, well, I think if asthmav we're alive today,
you know there were very Beta was the first sort
of fairly well fleshed out female character in Asthma's books.
(45:09):
But I don't think it ever would have occurred to
Asthma back then to make the villain a woman, because
if you think about the time that Asma was writing that,
but I think if you've been writing it now, it
might have occurred to him. And I think, you know,
I saw some people online complaining initially about Beta and
torn and they seemed so vapid and dismissive, and I
was like, but that is such a perfect way to,
(45:34):
you know, confuse the audience. And I still think, you know,
she dressed like a showgirl and she and I think
as the season went on, it became apparent to the
audience that she was more clever than she appeared. But
I'm kind of surprised that you guys didn't see that
coming because I think in the last couple of episodes
we're putting like, there's some stuff in episode eight where
(45:56):
we're sort of like, hey, look here.
Speaker 5 (45:58):
Yeah, magnifico things. I love Beta.
Speaker 6 (46:02):
Yes, it's like a neon side pointing at Beta.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Absolutely in retrospect.
Speaker 8 (46:09):
Yes, but see why is that? Why is that because
why didn't you? Is it because we still don't we
still have these sort of you know, condition feelings about
female characters or like why why is that that? Because
you're smart guys, you know. I don't know if you're
a writer a boot, but you're you're a writer also,
(46:30):
you know, And and it's like why, like, and I
haven't seen anyone theorize it online, Like why is that?
Speaker 2 (46:37):
It's a great question, I think because she honestly. First
of all, the red herring of Magnifico worked delightfully. And
I think the pacing of the story, and this is
just for me. Your mileage may vary, but the pacing
of the story because just when we were beginning to
really try to interrogate, well are they going to do
the magnificent thing, we get the flashback to the Mule
(46:58):
where you cast a young character who is like, Okay,
well that's him, so it's not magnificent unless and then
you and then by the time you start to interrogate that, well,
how much do we trust that? And that was that
an implanted memory?
Speaker 8 (47:13):
It was that's when you get to the mule. The
warlord thought he was the mule, right, Yes, that's what
you did, because that's that's what you do for a
good you know, a good misdirect, Like he thought that
was his memory. And then we sort of revisited again
and we see it wasn't even his memory and it
(47:34):
was a little girl instead. And and you understand why
they might have in that society saved the male baby,
but not like a ten year old girl or whatever
it is.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
But sorry, all I'm saying is I think it was
just camouflaged wonderfully. And you know, as again as a
as a person who love stories reads a lot writes,
there is something truly wonderful about getting hoodwinked. When you
think I've seen all, I've seen the moves, it's been great.
Speaker 8 (48:10):
We all watch these shows and we all think this
character is a plot am or this or that, and
and I I was like, are we going to get
away with no one suspecting Beta? Oh my god? We did?
Are we going to get away with killing Day and
then dem Resel? Oh my god? Because I think everybody's like, well,
(48:31):
Day's going to survive or certainly Demrizel will survive, you know.
But it's like I was like, fuck, we did, Like
I you know, like it's hard to it's hard to
pool or hood we as you said, a sophisticated serialized
(48:51):
storytelling audience these days, it's really hard.
Speaker 5 (48:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (48:55):
And I think David, to your point, Beta being the
female villain of this story, I'm sure caught many folks
off guard because in this season she is very much
leaning into the sort of typical female like caretaker role
for Magnifico, and so you yeah, it's just like very disarming.
(49:16):
She is just so likable and lovable and kind of
fits the mold that you assume in your mind. This
character is supposed to fit for the whole season, and
she has some really standout moments throughout the season, and
she shows some surprising intuition in moments, but that only
just makes her more endearing and less suspicious.
Speaker 5 (49:35):
So I think the bait.
Speaker 6 (49:36):
And switch works like so well because I'm totally disarmed.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
The one now where I'm where I am disappointed myself
for not thinking about it. Here's the moment where I
really I feel like, gosh, we should have known. Is
you know, post battle, Dawn's legs are fucked up, They're
up there. The mule, who we think is the mule,
is you know this episodating? Yes, yes, is lording over Dawn.
(50:06):
And then Beta says, you know what, stop it and
get out of here.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
She does.
Speaker 8 (50:11):
I thought that was like sob.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
And I noted it at the time in my recap
like he kind of hems in haws, but he does it,
which is And.
Speaker 8 (50:22):
I saw some people online going, oh, it must be
because Magnifico likes her and this guy knows not to
mess with the you know, the bosses girl, you know
like that, but it's like to me, it's like but
like you're everyone is like like missing the obvious, which
is like she's a mule.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
Like yeah, that is the one now where in retrospect
I should have been like, oh, yeah, okay, because he
did what he listens to her, he leaves and yeah,
just incredible. But but again the way it is framed
where it seems like she's too scared to speak up
until that moment where his his torture of Dawn becomes
(51:07):
just too much for her to bear. And again in
that in that caretaker frame, her kind of objection feels
like this protectiveness where you and I totally I fell
for it.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
I feel for it where I'm like, well she's.
Speaker 8 (51:24):
I mean, look, she's an interesting study case. And she
talks about this a bit in episode ten because she
she has those instincts, but she also has a space pirates,
like she's both. But what she did was she kind
of with a space pirate Like I said, he was
like a useful idiot, but he's also like a useful
(51:45):
id Like she's sort of like, oh, he's doing the dumping.
The dumping and if you think about like how naskety.
This was like when the Space Pirate was doing what
he did to Torn in the club. Yeah, and she's
like she does love Torn, but like she's you know,
it's like if you think about it from her perspective,
(52:08):
and she's got these abilities and she can set up
this other target that everyone thinks is it's useful, right.
And I think about when she convinces rand New to
go to Foundation and then they had that scene where
(52:28):
they play, you know, for all the leaders of Foundation.
I mean she was just manipulating all of it. Wow,
so that you know, she could get the Whisper ship
fleets and all the book.
Speaker 5 (52:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (52:40):
As a writer, David, thinking back on your very impressive career,
is this the most satisfying thing a writer can do?
To be able to fully pull something like this off?
Speaker 5 (52:51):
Or you know, just speaking as a right, Yeah, this
is fun for you.
Speaker 6 (52:55):
You get to watch everyone just get the theories wrong.
Speaker 8 (52:57):
Yeah. Yeah, it is fun. It is because it's really
it's increasingly harder and harder.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
It's really hard.
Speaker 8 (53:05):
It's harder. It's hard to keep secrets, it's hard to
There was this this young actress I can't remember her
name who in because we shot some footage of Young
Beta at the same time as we were shooting Young Mule.
We would just like swap, you know, the young girl
(53:26):
out for the young boy. Yeah. So she was I
can't remember how many shots she was, but she she
she posted and even Apple didn't catch this. She she
tagged me, she posted online on Instagram like I play
Young Beta. And I was like, I wonder if anyone's
paying attention to this or like could see there's a
potential clue there, because there's like a couple behind the
(53:48):
scenes shots of her, like on the rawsome location, and
and I was like, shit, that's if you if people
were really intrepid, like that's a spoiler. But even Apple
didn't catch that it was out there. And I was like, well,
I'm not going to raise my hand now because then
people might notice, you know that you said.
Speaker 6 (54:08):
That, Wow, you get to play with the audience.
Speaker 1 (54:14):
Yeahs reuly great.
Speaker 5 (54:17):
What is so?
Speaker 2 (54:19):
What is Gail thinking now? She's dedicated centuries of her
life and multiple of her boyfriends to this mission, and
her and her daughter who she never got to really
spend enough time with and had this incredible mentor in Harry,
(54:41):
who you know, turns out to be not exactly a Charlottean,
but certainly not what he was hyped up to be.
And how does she face the future now.
Speaker 8 (54:56):
Well, coming out of this season, Like at this point when.
Speaker 9 (54:59):
She leaves, her husband has been converted and literally stabbed her,
like tried to stab her in the heart and misses
like stabs her, you know, between the ribs.
Speaker 8 (55:15):
She doesn't know if Second Foundation had made it to Trantle.
She doesn't know yet that Vault Harry has aligned with Beta,
So as bad as it is, she doesn't even know
how bad it's about to get. Uh, She's really fucked
(55:37):
come next season.
Speaker 5 (55:40):
And I'm wondering word.
Speaker 8 (55:43):
Is exactly exactly? And I think that the one of
the things that I had set out to do from
the beginning with this show was there are very few
characters in the show who one could say are all
good or all bad, right, And I really wanted to
show in the case of like Demoiselle and the Cleons,
(56:05):
like they are just trapped in this It's like generational
trauma to the nth degree, like where it's like they're
where you can you can you can have empathy for
all four of them, like at different points, right, But
they're just so fucked to like, you know, we say
it in the second episode of season one, like how
(56:26):
many times do we do this? Like you always do?
It's like, we're fucked, Demoiselle Dawn Data, We're all fucked.
And and Gale this season sort of becomes Harry and
like she makes this play to sacrifice Coulgan and you know,
billions of people die and she's wrong and she but
(56:48):
but then I had always said, you know, like that
the only uh tiny sliver of government power I ever had.
As I was on the board of the Writer's Guild
for two terms, and it became apparent to me that
(57:09):
even on something small like that, one had to make compromises,
and one sometimes had to make decisions that it were
for the greater good, knowing that small slivers of your
constituency would be disadvantaged by this decision. And that's just governance, right,
And so then you extrapolate that to a state or
(57:29):
a country, you know, like Washington, or the world, or
then an empire, and like, in order to make decisions
like that, I had always said, you know, we're dealing
with tens of thousands of worlds. Sometimes you're going to
have to make decisions where whole planets are going to
be allowed to go follow or be sacrificed. That's just
(57:50):
the the scale of the math forces that. Now. Is
it good?
Speaker 6 (57:56):
Is it bad?
Speaker 8 (57:56):
I don't know. But if you like I would say
to you, you guys like today, like if you knew
that you could say the entire planet, but you would
have to kill ten innocent people? Would you do it? Most?
I would. I would feel bad about it, but I
would do it, you know. And now scale that up?
Speaker 1 (58:18):
Yeah to the galaxy?
Speaker 6 (58:21):
Yeah, to tens of thousands of years.
Speaker 2 (58:24):
Well you mentioned Demrsela. I guess we should.
Speaker 7 (58:26):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (58:27):
She was the subject of so much theorizing between a
Boo and myself where and the characterization of her really
trying to figure out and unwrap her own consciousness. Am
I working against am I secretly working against empire? Or
am I not? Do I want to be free? And
am I trying to find a loophole that would allow
me to do that? Or am I not did I
(58:49):
start this whole thing? Or am I actually the defender
of empire? And then when people kind of cross that
line with her, she very strongly says, oh no, no,
you've got me wrong. I am still like the reaper
of the Empire. What a complicated character tell us about
like unraveling all that with her this season.
Speaker 8 (59:11):
Well, I suppose this goes back to my no one's
all good and no one's all bad, because I personally
have a lot of I really like the character of Demosol,
and I have a ton of empathy for her, and
particularly after the reveal of episode nine and season two,
you know that short, yeah, but then she does some
(59:33):
insanely funked up things this y season, not the least
which is like basically destroys her entire religion like home
planet and like and and you know, has confesses to
Virellas but then erases her memory. I mean, that's just
a brutal scene. And I just I like sitting in
(59:53):
this uneasy place with you. I think Salva largely was
almost all good, you know. And I would say the
Warlord could arguably be considered because he's so just sadistic,
almost all bad. We don't really know what is, you know,
but there are very few characters that you could categorize
(01:00:15):
it's sort of almost all good or almost all bad.
And that's just Demrisella is one of the same, which
is she's also not human. Yeah, And so you think
about a character that's been alive for thousands of years
and had those things done, and she's it would be
(01:00:35):
it as an audience, as audience members, we want to
imbue her with the same sort of feelings that we have.
But but I kept saying, you know, to Laura, to
the directors, to my fellow writers, she's not human. She
(01:01:00):
will never be human. She operates on a completely different scale.
She operates on and so it's a we're going to
lean into that because we know that the audience will
want that, but she's not and it would will always
be a mistake to assume she's here.
Speaker 6 (01:01:19):
Yeah, And there were a ton of disarming scenes like
that this season. Her outburst when she's talking to Gail
and when she talks about raising the Cleons.
Speaker 5 (01:01:28):
You know, that's so huge.
Speaker 8 (01:01:29):
I do think, I do think. I do think she
does love the Cleons. And the question is does she
love them because she loves them or does she love
them because she was forced to love them? I mean,
I don't know that we'll ever be able to untangle that.
Speaker 6 (01:01:45):
Right, Yeah, And Jason and I chatted so much about
this during our coverage this season. But I think Demosel,
maybe even more than any other character in the cast,
is the vehicle through which you get to explore so
much of the dead stuff that makes sci fi so
good and why I love sci fi so much, so
much of the philosophy, the big questions about what does
(01:02:09):
it mean to be human? How do we find our purpose?
And so it was artbreaking for me to watch Demrozel go.
Speaker 5 (01:02:18):
She will be missed. I will personally be missing her deeply.
Speaker 8 (01:02:23):
But I think that you know, if you're telling a
really good story, and at a certain point, if you're
honoring the story, the motivations of the characters that you've
created will supersede the ending that you want, as is
(01:02:48):
godlike being outside of the story. And so that's one
of the reasons why I love breaking that so much,
Because if you think about Walt and Jesse in their
relationship right, there are so many times when Walt should
have cut Jesse loose, when it would have been to
his benefit to have cut Jesse loose, and he goes
(01:03:10):
back for Jesse sort of again and again and again again.
It's like this Achilles heel or he can't It's you know,
he can have this honest relationship with Jesse in a
way that he can't with his own son. And so
what I like about when stories evolve in that way
is that the character choices that you know, in this case,
Vince and his fellow writers set up supersede what the
(01:03:34):
plot should do, right, And that's when I think storytelling
becomes really interesting. But I also think it's you can't
really do that in a first season, and sometimes it
almost takes until the third season to do that well,
because you have the audience has to really understand the
motivations of the characters and get really deep in there
(01:03:58):
for those kind of choices that make sense where you say, ah,
that doesn't that's not the most logical thing to do
for the plot, but that makes sense for the character
because as humans, we make choices all the time that
our contrary to our own self interests. I mean, we
do it all the time, all the time. And so
(01:04:19):
I think a show becomes really alive when you can
live with the characters long enough that you their choices
make sense from a characters standpoint. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Yeah, well, David, congratulations on a crazy season. Thank you
so much for joining us this was fun.
Speaker 8 (01:04:38):
Please come back yeah anytime.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
On the next episode of X ray Vision, We're diving
into Alien Earth episode seven. That's it for this episode.
Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Thanks for listening by.
Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepts You, I'm
Rosie Night and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Our executive produces a Joel Monique and Aaron Cortman.
Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Our supervising producer is Abu Zafar.
Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Fay Wag.
Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 4 (01:05:16):
And Heidi our discord moderator.
Hosts And Creators
Jason Concepcion
Rosie Knight
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