Foundations Goes “Where the Stars Are Scattered Thinly” and largely treads water

Season 2 of Foundation is currently streaming, so I guess I’m doing episode by episode reviews again, at least for now. For my takes on previous episodes, go here.

This review is a little delayed, because the 2023 Dragon Award finalists got in the way. I hope the next one will be back on track.

Warning! There will be spoilers under the cut!

When we last saw Imperial general Bel Riose, he and his flagship were en route to the rim world of Siwenna, which is of course the very place where we first meet Bel Riose in the 1945 novella “The General”.

One of the bridge officers informs Bel Riose that Siwenna has barely any technology and no long-range scanners, so they’re unaware of the Imperial warship in orbit around their planet. Bel Riose wants to keep it that way, so he and Glawen Curr will go down to the surface alone in a typical display of Star Trek type tactics, where the captain and the first officer will both go on an away mission, even though that would be a terrible idea in real life. Nor will they take a shuttle. Instead, they are shot out of the ship in some kind of escape pods which pop open to let Bel Riose and Glawen Curr glide down to the surface of Siwenna in some kind of wingsuit. Not that this makes any sense beyond providing some cool visuals.

The surface of Siwenna is pockmarked with craters. No real reason is given for this, though in the books, Siwenna was bombed by the Empire in retaliation for an uprising (Gee, and they wonder why rim worlds don’t want to stay with the Empire). However, the craters we see are too shallow, too evenly spaced and too close together to be bomb craters. Joseph Kolacinski calls then “giant antlion sandpits” in his review, which makes about as much sense as anything.

Bel Riose and Glawen Curr land in two different craters a bit apart from each other, but quickly meet up. However, a piece of equipment called an extraction pack (since they obviouly can’t fly back into orbit in their wing suits) was also launched along with the two of them and that extraction pack has landed quite a bit away, so Bel Riose and Glawen Curr set out to pick it up. There’s just one problem. Scavengers have found the extraction pack before Riose and Curr can get to it.

Bel Riose and Glawen Curr confront the scavengers who are in the process of carting off the extraction pack. At first, they are polite enough and even offer to pay the scavengers, though the fact that both Riose and Curr are wearing combat fatigues and toting guns somewhat marrs the effect. Nor does it help that the scavengers have (justified) beef with the Empire for effectively abandoning them. At any rate, they’re not handing over that extraction pack, though what they want with it remains a mystery. After all, it’s not as if they can use it, since all it does is take them aboard an Imperial battleship full of unfriendly soldiers.

One of the scavengers gets the brilliant idea to spit into Glawen Curr’s face, whereupon Bel Riose snaps and shoots the spitter in the face. This quickly leads to a free for all. The scavengers have Riose and Curr outnumbered, but the two Imperials are trained soldiers and so they make quick work of scavengers. Only one guy, whom we’ve seen during Brother Constant’s performance in episode 1, escapes. But Riose and Curr know that he will be back with reinforcements, so they hurry to complete their mission.

However, first Glawen Curr confronts his significant other and tells him that shooting random people willy-nilly is not how “we” (not sure if this refers to the Imperial fleet or just Riose and Curr in this context) do things and that they could have resolved the issue without excessive violence. Bel Riose responds that he’s no longer the man he was and that he picked up a few new tricks while in prison on Lepsis. The argument is shelved for now, because Riose and Curr need to fulfill their mission before the scavenger comes back with a bunch of angry friends.

Glawen Curr is right, because there was absolutely no need to kill the scavengers. Not to mention that two white men shooting a bunch of mostly people of colour is not exactly making Bel Riose and Glawen Curr more sympathetic to me. And I did like Bel Riose upon his introduction last episode.

Furthermore, I’m not sure what the purpose of the entire scavenger scene or the elaborate and overly complicated way to get Bel Riose and Glawen Curr to the surface of Siwenna in the first place is beyond filling up runtime. Because none of this is in the books – “The Dead Hand” opens with Bel Riose already on Siwenna, questioning Ducem Barr – nor does it serve any real narrative purpose.

Okay, the scene does show that Bel Riose hasn’t come unscathed out of his experience in prison on Lepsis and is no longer the man he was. But that could have been shown in other ways than adding a totally unnecessary action scene that also makes the characters look really bad. As for the oddly complicated way to get Riose and Curr down the surface of Siwenna, I honstly have no idea what the point of that was at all. They could have easily taken a shuttle – after all, it’s said in the dialogue that Siwenna has no long-range scanners and probably no tech to stop a shuttle from landing either. Or they could have just beamed down Star Trek style, because it really doesn’t matter how they get there. In his review, Joseph Kolacinski agrees with me that the whole scavenger interlude adds absolutely nothing to the story and is completely superfluous.

Foundation does have the habit to occasionally throw in an action or a sex scene, supposedly to keep the audience watching, because too many scenes of people talking are considered boring. And the original Foundation stories are very talky with most of the action taking place off-page. But while this problem occasionally popped up in season 1, it’s really, really notable in season 2, whether it’s Brother Day having sex with Demerzel, when they are attacked by eyeless ninjas or Salvor climbing out of the Beggar for some repairs in the middle of a storm or Salvor and Gaal being attacked by mining robots. None of these scenes really serve any purpose and they often feel as if they wandered in from a completely different movie or TV series. Were the writers told to add more action, lest the audience get bored?

What is more, it’s frustrating that SFF shows are peppered with random action or  – less commonly – sex scenes, because the TV executives don’t trust audiences to listen to characters talking without getting bored. Especially since this does not apply to shows set in the real world, apparently. Stuff like Succession or The Bear (which is not actually about a bear) or The White Lotus are critical darlings and apparently also popular enough with audiences, even though they focus a lot on people talking and are not interrupted by random sex or action scenes all the time, at least not as far as I know. So why don’t TV executives trust SFF audiences the way they apparently trust the audience for stuff like Succession or The Bear to follow the story without random sex or action scenes? Is SFF considered to be just entertainment for people who want kicks and explosions, whereas “real adults” (TM) watch Succession or The Bear or The White Lotus (neither of which I’ve ever seen) or whatever and don’t need the kicks and explosions?

Bel Riose and Glawen Curr eventually make it to the surprisingly comfortable desert home of Ducem Barr, the Imperial agent they’re here to see. Now Ducem Barr is a very important character in “The Dead Hand” and the story indeed opens with Bel Riose questioning him, i.e. the very scene we finally get after all that unnecessary stuff with the scavengers. Though the show’s version of Ducem Barr is actually more reminiscent of  his father Onum Barr, an Imperial patrician from Siwenna who has fallen on hard times after opposing the corrupt viceroy of Siwenna, whom Hober Mallow visits in “The Big and the Little”. In the show, Ducem Barr is still an Imperial patrician who was left behind after the Empire pulled out of Siwenna. Nonetheless, he remained loyal and has been sending reports to the Empire ever since, though no one responded in forty years – until Bel Riose and Glawen Curr showed up on his doorstep.

Ducem Barr offers his guests tea, because it is socially inacceptable not to drink tea on Siwenna, a line that’s an almost verbatim quote from “The Dead Hand”, proving once again that the producers have actually read the books, they just choose to ignore most of them. Ducem Barr also does something that a lot of characters do in the books (they were written in the 1940s, after all), but no one else does in the TV show, namely smoking. It’s quite notable, which made me suspect that there was a plot point linked to Ducem Barr’s smoking, Meanwhile, Bel Riose and Glawen Curr admire Ducem Barr’s collection of print books, which are considered rare antiques in this universe. Indeed, Glawen Curr has never seen a book.

After they have gotten the pleasantries out of the way, Ducem Barr shows his guests some recordings of Foundation missionaries. He reports that three missionaries came to Siwenna. One was murdered, as seen in episode 1. As for the other two, Ducem Barr shows his guests a recording of Brother Constant’s little presentation. Riose and Curr are stunned that Brother Constant has a personal forcefield – remember that in the Empire, only the Emperors Three have a personal forceshield. They are even more stunned when Ducem Barr shows them a personal forceshield. This actually happens in the books, where the personal forceshield was a gift from Hober Mallow to Ducem Barr’s father. In the series, I asumme that the forceshield was taken from the murdered missionary.

Bel Riose and Glawen Curr are in for even more surprises, when Ducem Barr’s recording of Brother Constant’s sermon reveals that the Foundation not only has technology that is extremely restricted in the Empire, but that they also have technology that shouldn’t exist at all such as jump ships that don’t require spacers.

Now the realisation that the Foundation has technologically outpaced the Empire in the past two centuries is an incredibly powerful moment – so powerful that it doesn’t need random fights with scavengers to add more action. In the books, we actually get that moment twice – once from the Foundation’s POV in “The Big and the Little”, when Hober Mallow travels to Siwenna and realises that Imperial tech is large, cumbersome and outdated and that no one knows anymore how to repair it, should it break down. Meanwhile, the realisation from the Empire’s POV plays out much as it does in the show – when Ducem Barr tells Bel Riose about all the technological miracles the Foundation has and also tells him that the Foundation will win in the end, because Ducem Barr in the books is a true believer in the power of Hari Seldon and his dead hand.

In the show, Bel Riose declares that they must further investigate this potential enemy they had no idea existed until a few weeks ago. However, before they can make more plans, they are interrupted by a lynch mob at Ducem Barr’s door. Turns out the lone scavenger who escaped did get reinforcements and they are justifiably angry that two Imperials killed a bunch of their number and demand that Ducem Barr hand them over. Ducem Barr, however, is not willing to do that. He shows Bel Riose and Glawen Curr a secret escape route hidden behind his bookshelf. It makes sense for Ducem Barr to have a secret escape route, considering that he is an Imperial agent living on a planet that hates the Empire.

Ducem himself, however, won’t come along, because… well, there really isn’t any good reason. However, Ducem Barr is also not eager to fall into the hands of a lynch mob baying for blood. He also explains that he has poisoned himself with his smoking – even though we saw him smoking before the lynch mob showed up. But nicotine doesn’t kill fast enough and is not a very dignified death, so he asks Bel Riose to shoot him. Bel Riose, who as we’ve seen is rather trigger happy, obliges him. He and Glawen Curr escape through the secret exit and activate the extraction pack, which turns out to be some kind of pneumatic tube system to shoot them back to their ship orbit. And no, the pneumatic tubes are not in the books, even though pneumatic tubes were still very much a thing in the 1940s.

To say that the whole Siwenna sequence was handled badly would be an understatement. Because the truth is that the Siwenna scenes are a complete mess, which make Bel Riose look like a trigger-happy jerk, prematurely kill off Ducem Barr, who is a very important character in the books (he joins forces with Foundation agent Latham Devers to outwit Bel Riose) and in general make zero sense. I mean, pneumatic space tubes? Really? Never mind that all the nonsense about scavengers, lynch mobs and pneumatic space tubes almost smothers the actual point of those scenes, namely the realisation that the Foundation has superior technology.

***

Meanwhile on Trantor, Queen Sabeth of the Dominion is conducting an investigation of her own. More precisely, she wants to know if Brother Day arranged for the murder of her whole family and how the hell he managed to survive the assassination attempt by eyeless ninjas in the first episode. As for why Sabeth thinks Day may have had her entire family murdered, Sabeth was never supposed to sit on the throne, because she was considered the weakest member of the royal family. Which makes her the perfect pawn – a weak ruler with the right pedigree – for Day’s dynastic plans.

If the plot of an entire royal family being wiped out under mysterious circumstances only for the least suitable person to end up on the throne and having to solve the mystery, while fending off assassins, sounds familiar, that’s probably because it is. It’s the plot of K.B. Wagers’ Indranan War trilogy (which would make a great TV series) and of Katherine’s Addison’s The Goblin Emperor (would make a good movie or TV show as well). However, nothing like this ever happens in any of the Foundation books.

Since Sabeth considers herself the weak link of the Dominion dynasty, she seeks out the weakest link among the Cleons, namely Brother Dawn, and invites him to a private stroll in the Imperial gardens. She also clearly tries to seduce Dawn. And Dawn, who like his predecessor Cleon VIII whom we met in season 1, thinks with his dangly end, almost falls for it.

Sabeth persuades Dawn to take her to a secluded place in the shadow of a giant banyan tree, which makes me as a long-time fan of banyan trees happy. Then she asks point blanc, if he thinks that Day ordered her family killed and if Dawn thinks he would be capable of giving such an order. Dawn replies that he doesn’t think he would be capable of mass murder, but that age changes a man. He’s not even wrong, because all of the Dawns we’ve seen so far have been shy and a little bewildered by what’s going on around them. They only become hardarses, once they turn into Day or Dusk. Dawn, in turn, asks if Sabeth was behind the assassination attempt on Day in the first episode of the season. Sabeth denies this, but then I don’t trust her any further than I can throw her.

While Sabeth is trying to seduce Dawn to get some information out of him, her assistant Rue is doing the same to Dusk. For it turns out that Rue was once one of the Imperial courtesans in the gossamer court, i.e. the Cleons’ private brothel/harem full of willing partners of either sex (this part is made very clear in this episode, suggesting that the Cleons or at least some of them are bisexual). After their night with the Emperor, those courtesans have their memories wiped. Years ago, Rue spent a night with Dusk, had her memories wiped and returned home in triumph, because apparently being chosen to be an Imperial courtesan is a big deal in the Dominion, which I assume was still part of the Empire at this point.

Dusk and Rue now walk through the gossamer court, where the various courtesans of both sexes are enjoying each other’s company. After all, it’s not as if they have anything else to do since Day is busy boning Demerzel and Dusk and Dawn are about to fall under the spell of the Dominion’s ladies. As a result, these scenes full of naked people frolicking about in the background harken back to the infamous sexposition scenes of Game of Thrones, where crucial worldbuilding information was inevitably discussed during sex scenes, lest the audience get bored. Yes, Foundation doesn’t just give us random, completely unnecessary action scenes to enliven the scenes of people talking, which are actually important to the plot, no the show now does sexposition as well. Sigh, someone at Apple Plus really thinks we’re all idiots.

Dusk and Rue reminisce about their last encounter or rather Dusk reminisces, since Rue doesn’t remember anything about it – or so we think. Dusk also shows off his murals and once again completely geeks out. Painting murals to record the genetic dynasty’s history may be part of the job description of a Brother Dusk, but this particular Dusk clearly relishes the job and even started working on his murals, when he was still Day. His enthusiasm makes remarkably likeable – for a Dusk.

Even later, Rue, Sareth and a bodyguard meet with an Imperial palace guard at the banyan tree, since Dawn helpfully pointed out that this is a secluded spot free of observation. The palace guard takes off his ostentatious helmet to reveal a scarred face and says he would pass on information to Sareth, only that he is subjected to regular brain scans like everybody who works on the palace grounds. Sareth and Rue assure him that’s no problem, because Dominion scientists figured out how to circumvent Imperial brain scans and mindwipes. Which means that Rue absolutely remembers her encounter with Dusk in every detail.

Once again, the Cleon plot strand is enjoyable enough, though it still has fuck all to do with the books. Also, Sareth and Rue are playing a very dangerous game, if they think they can outwit the Cleons. In fact, I strong suspect that Sareth will never marry Day and she and her entourage will all die horribly.

***

Meanwhile, Poly Verisof and Brother Constant are hauling Hober Mallow back to Terminus. Of course, Hober isn’t particularly willing to go, so Brother Constant knocked him out and then secured him in a cargo net, since the Spirit only has two seats. Hober isn’t too happy about that, especially since he also threw up all over himself, though that doesn’t stop him from flirting with Brother Constant, who clearly reciprocates Hober’s attentions. Poly Verisof watches both of them warily, since he knows Hober of old from his priesthood training and think s he’s a fucking arsehole.

Hober Mallow also shows Brother Constant one of his ill-gotten treasures, a rare bottle of wine from a tidally locked planet whose vineyards were on the day side, exposed to constant sunshine. Unfortunately, the Empire bombed the planet to smithereens (they are bomb happy, aren’t they?), so this bottle of wine of one the last of its kind in the universe and Hober is saving it for a special occasion, which prompts Brother Constant to ask him just what precisely Hober is waiting for.

The tidbit about the tidally locked planet made me smile, because it’s such a callback to the golden age and the pulp science fiction shared solar system, when Mercury was believed to be tidally locked (spoiler alert: It isn’t). Tidally locked planets largely vanished with the pulp era, though they still pop up on occasion in science fiction. The 2020 Hugo finalist for Best Novel and Locus Award winner The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders is set on a tidally locked planet that’s very much like Mercury was described during the pulp era. Another tidally locked planet that readers of this blog may be familiar with is Eternia of Masters of the Universe fame, which is divided into a light and a dark hemisphere, though this division was created by magic, more precisely by a spell cast by Hordak going awry, rather than nature. Eternia is also a rare example of a tidally locked planet that has wine – Prince Adam is quite fond of it. Finally, Joseph Kolacinski points out that there actually is a tidally locked planet named Radole in the Foundation story “The Mule”.

Hober Mallow also asks Brother Constant what her real name is, whereupon she replies that she’s Thesbian and that their culture requires that they keep their real names. This is quite interesting, because it suggests that at this fairly early point in the Foundation’s history, the people of the Four Kingdoms – or rather only of Anacreon and Thesbis, since the TV series reduced the number of hostile neighbour kingdoms to only two – are considered as much Foundationers as the original inhabitants of Terminus. Brother Constant’s father is after all the director of the Foundation. This is quite different from the books where Hober Mallow is considered not a real Foundationer, because he’s from Smyrno rather than Terminus.

Before Hober Mallow and Brother Constant can talk some more about wine and true names, the Spirit lands and Hober, who still looks as if he’d much rather be anywhere else, is taken to see Director Sermak. On the way, he says his name graffitied all over the vault, which makes him want to bolt even more. And honestly, who could blame him? However, Brother Constant and Poly Verisof make sure that Hober does not run away.

There’s a brief reunion with Director Sermak who welcomes his daughter Brother Constant and also introduces his second-in-command, Councillor Sutt. Readers of the books will remember Councillor Jorane Sutt as Hober Mallow’s chief nemesis in “The Big and the Little”. At any rate, I would keep an eye on that guy.

However, the reunion is shortlived, because Poly Verisof, Brother Constant and Director Sermak usher Hober Mallow towards the Vault. Hober is still reluctant to go and his reluctance increases when he almost stumbles over the charred remains of Warden Jaeggar Fount. “Wait a minute, do you mean that used to be a person?” And frankly, whatever one thinks of the man, it does seem insensitive to just leave the charred remains of Jaeggar Fount lying around rather than removing and burying them – or whatever the Church of the Galactic Spirit does.

However, Hober’s protests are ignored and he’s literally sucked into the Vault. To everybody’s relief, the Vault does not incinerate Hober, but then it specifically asked for him, so incinerating him would be very rude. Poly Verisof and Brother Constant briefly argue what to do now and then decide to go after him. Cause Brother Constant really likes Hober Mallow and nothing in the galaxy could keep Poly Verisof from going into that Vault to meet Hari Seldon again. Director Sermak refuses to go, because he considers himself too important to risk incineration. “Governance depends on me continuing to govern.” No, dude, it doesn’t. You’re not important to this story at all.

In true Time Lord fashion – yes, wrong franchise, I know – the Vault is bigger, much bigger, on the inside than on the outside. Time also passes differently in and outside the Vault, because when Poly and Constant enter a few minutes after Hober, they find a very exhausted as well as hungry and thirsty Hober Mallow who claims to have been wandering the Vault for two days. Hober also admits to having peed and pooped in the Vault, which is totally on point for the character as he is portrayed in the TV series.

A few moments later, Director Sermak also appears. Apparently, the time difference inside and outside the Vault is very inconsistent. When Brother Constant asked whatever happened to the importance governing Terminus, Director Sermak replies that he left Jorane Sutt in charge. That will probably turn out to be a very bad idea.

Together, our four intrepid explorers wander through the Vault. Both Hober Mallow and Director Sermak would clearly love to be somewhere else, Brother Constant is torn between awe and unease and Poly Verisof is elated to be wandering about inside the math of Hari Seldon. He’s also inside Hari Seldon himself, which none of our four heroes really seem to be aware of.

After a fairly brief period of wandering about – apparently, the Vault wanted not just Hober Mallow but at least one Foundation priest as well – our four intrepid explorers step into a remarkably realistic replica of Hari’s study on Terminus and are greeted by none other Hari Seldon himself – or rather his hologram. The Prime Radiant is resting on his desk, even though Salvor absconded with it 134 years earlier. Hari explain that it is a quantum computer and can exist in two places at once.

Otherwise, Hari is the perfect host. He offers them food – which Hober hungrily devours – and wine. When someone asks, where Hari got the food and wine from, he replies that they are made from his body with all the subtlety of a sledge hammer.

Taking in the people in weird red robes, Hari notes with satisfaction that the Foundation appears to have entered its religious phase, just as he predicted. Brother Constant near faints with awe, whereas Hari doesn’t seem to be entirely sure what to do with people who think he’s a prophet and worship and resorts to patting her on the head like a dog.

Poly Verisof introduces himself and after some prompting, Hari does indeed remember having met Poly as a little boy. Hari also shows more interest in Poly than in Brother Constant, because he clearly recognises that Poly is smart – he realises that the Vault is a tesseract – and that he could’ve or should’ve been more than the washed up priest of a sham religion. Though in both the books and the TV series, Poly Verisof is a highly respected man as the high priest of Scientism a.k.a. the Church of the Galactic Spirit (Hari asking Brother Constant what exactly they’ve called their religion is really funny). Book Poly also knows that the whole thing is a scam and is indeed one of the few priests aware of this. TV series clearly takes the whole thing very seriously, as does Brother Constant.

As for Director Sermak, Hari knows who he is, but has zero interest in him and basically dismisses him with “Nice suit. And now could you just leave govern Terminus or compile the Encyclopaedia Galactica or whatever it is that you do.”

The question of course remains just how Hari, who is after all a sentient hologram inside a Vault, knows who Director Sermak is and knows enough about Hober Mallow to specifically ask for him. I guess while Hari’s consciousness is sleeping, the Vault automatically monitors communications and identifies people who might be useful to furthering the plan. Besides, Hari tells Hober that he has heard about him, his less legal exploits and his impressive number of bedmates – note the gender-neutral term.

Brother Constant wants to know why in the universe the Vault incinerated Warden Jaeggar Fount. Hari replies that he detected the warden trying to enter the Vault and felt the need to kill him, because he fears that otherwise the warden might have declared himself the one true prophet. Besides, a god has to show divine wrath at some point to be taken seriously. Apparently, fake religions and prophets are fine for Hari Seldon, but not for anybody else.

That said, the Vault killing the warden was just as unnecessary and out of character as Bel Riose killing the scavengers. Hari’s explanation also feels weak, almost as if one of the writers realised, “Oops, we had the Vault incinerate a guy and turn him into a charred black spot on the floor two episodes ago, so we’d better come up with a good explanation for that.”

As for why Hari woke up and called everybody into the Vault – or rather, he called for Hober Mallow, cause the others just tagged along – Hari wants to prevent a war. This actually does track with the books, because in “The Big and the Little”, Hober Mallow wins the war with Korell by not engaging and waiting for their systems to break down and the Foundation’s economic embargo doing its work. And in “The General”, all out was with the Empire is averted by Latham Devers (whom we haven’t seen yet, unless he is replaced by Hober Mallow) and and Ducem Barr undermining Bel Riose and ultimately convincing the Emperor – who is actually named Cleon – that Riose is a greater threat than the Foundation. Indeed, the fact that the Seldon Plan and its executors will always try to resolve crisises non-violently and with as little bloodshed as possible is one of the things I always loved about the books. I’m glad that the series is at least sticking to that aspect.

But in order to avert all-out war with the Empire, Hari needs everybody’s help. He dismisses Director Sermak and basically tells him, “Continue doing whatever you’re doing”. However, Hari does have a job for Poly and Brother Constant, namely travel to Trantor as peace envoys and spread the good word of Hari Seldon at the heart of the Empire. Oh yes, and maybe don’t use one of your jump ships, cause we don’t really want the Empire to know about Foundation technology.. Why do I fears that he’s been just sent Poly and Brother Constant to become martyrs for the cause?

As for Hober Mallow, Hari wants to speak with him alone. So he waits until everybody has left on their respective errands and then asks Hober a few questions about himself. We learn that Hober Mallow is still from Smyrno and that he does not come from a privileged background, had a violent father and little formal education and has basically survived by his own wits. Hari tries to bond with Hober over the shared experience of having a violent father (as revealed in the first episode of the season), but Hober isn’t having any of it.

He calls Hari out on his bullshit and tells Hari that he has no right to criticise Hober, considering Hari has a whole church of people who worship him. Hari admits that he knows that it’s all bullshit, but that religion is a phase that all successful civilisations go through and that eventually it will be replaced by something else. The latter is exactly what happens in the books, when the Foundation shifts from exerting its religious influence to exerting its economic influence during Hober Mallow’s time.

That said, I do have some quibbles with the first statement. Whether you believe that religions are a necessary phase for successful civilisations or not – and personally, I think religions can as much a force for evil than as for good and can hinder civilisational development as much as further it – Scientism a.k.a. the Church of the Galactic Spirit is a scam used by the Foundation to keep their aggressive neighbours in the Four Kingdoms under control and to expand their influence over the Outer Rim. It’s literally Karl Marx’s “opiate for the masses”. The reason the Foundation becomes a successful civilisation is because it deploys a religion it knows is a scam to keep potential enemies under control and gradually absorb them.

As for whether religion is a necessary phase for a successful civilisation, I’m not sure how Asimov would have responded to that statement. He was an atheist, but did show interest in religion, though it always seemed to be along the line of, “What is this, what purpose does it serve (one could view Foundation is one attempt to answer that question) and why do people believe in it?” Meanwhile, his contemporary L. Sprague De Camp quite clearly describes religion of any kind as a force that hinders progress and needs to be kept down in his 1939 alternate history novel Last Darkness Fall.

But while Hari and Hober both know that the Church of the Galactic Spirit is a scam, in the TV series many Foundationers actually seem to believe in it. Not just Poly Verisof, who has a drug and alcohol problem, but also Brother Constant who is the daughter of the Director and therefore belongs to the Foundation’s ruling class, even if she is Thesbian, i.e. not from Terminus. In short, in the show the Foundation has violated the rule of drug dealers to never consume your own wares and has decided to partake in some of the opiate intended for the masses elsewhere.  It’s certainly interesting that even though the TV-series shows that the “miracles” performed by the Foundation missionaries are fake, so far the show can’t quite bring himself to openly say, “Yes, it’s all fake and used to control the gullible.” Which again makes me wonder why it is apparently impossible to show a fake religion that’s explicitly used to control the population in 2023, when it was possible to write about thsi in the 1940s without any problems or pushback?

Hari also has a job for Hober Mallow. For while Poly Verisof and Brother Constant will travel to Trantor as the friendly and peaceful face of the Foundation, Hari knows that this may not be enough and that he also needs a dagger behind the back to do the job, if diplomacy fails. And that dagger is Hober Mallow.

Once Hober Mallow emerges from the Vault, he tells Poly Verisof and Brother Constant that Hari Seldon has decreed that Hober is supposed to take their ship, the Spirit. I’m pretty sure that Hari Seldon never actually said that and Brother Constant is slightly doubtful as well and tells Hober to make sure to feed the bishop’s claw she keeps as a pet and beast of burden.

Constant also tells Hober quite blatantly that she would love to become one of his bedmates. Hober manfully tries to refuse and tells her he’s not a robe chaser and not really interesting in deflowering virgins. Brother Constant tells him that no fear, she’s no virgin and absolutely knows what to do. Hober says, “Well, maybe after the mission”, whereupon Brother Constant replies that she has the premonition that if it doesn’t happen now, it will never happen. There’s something ominous about this, almsot as if either Brother Constant or Hober Mallow or both will not survive this mission. Of course, we know that Hober survives, though I have no idea what will happen to Constant, since she does not exist in the books. I wonder if Brother Constant is the show’s replacement for Jaim Twer, a former priest turned spy for the Foundation who accompanies Hober Mallow on his mission to Korell in the novels, or maybe even Ankor Jael, Hober Mallow’s occasional nude sunbathing partner cum sounding board.

I like the banter between Hober and Constant and they have a lot of chemistry. Dimitri Leonidas and Isabella Laughland are both great in their roles. However, it does annoy that the character who’s as close to canonically gay as anybody in the entire Foundation saga has sexual tension with a woman in the TV show. That said, the repeated use of the gender neutral term “bedmates” suggest that Hober is bisexual or pansexual.

In general, this episode was fun and I was thoroughly entertained while watching it. However, it’s also notable in spite of lots of things happening, the plot doesn’t progress a whole lot. The most important things in this episode were Bel Riose learning that the Foundation has technology that is far superior to the Empire’s, a revelation that was buried among unnecessary action scenes which did nothing at all to advance the plot and made Bel Riose look like a trigger-happy jerk, and Hari Seldon giving missions to Poly Verisof, Brother Constant and Hober Mallow and also admitting to Hober that the Church of the Galactic Spirit is a phase and a scam. The Empire plot strand had some progress as well, though I have no idea how relevant Sareth and her suspicions are, because none of that happens in the books.

All crucial scenes, even the Trantor scenes, were scenes of people talking, which is probably why we got those unnecessary action scenes on Siwenna and the equally unnecessary background sex scenes on Trantor. Because the showrunners seem to be terminally afraid to let Foundation be what ninety percent of the books are, namely people talking. Of course, the books as they are would not make for compelling television and there are plenty off-screen action scenes that could be put on screen. But could we maybe add action scenes that make more sense than Bel Riose gunning down random scavangers and that don’t look like they wandered in from an episode of The Mandalorian like most of the action scenes involving Gaal Dornik and Salvor Hardin.

Talking of Gaal and Salvor, they as well as Brother Day and Demerzel are absent this episode, though Gaal does provide some voice over narration about sexual attraction, how it causes indivual people to be born and how psychohistory can’t predict any of that. Now I’m sure Day and Demerzel were way too busy with each other to note Day’s bride-to-be trying to seduce his clone brothers. As for Gaal and Salvor, I find that I didn’t miss them at all, because neither is supposed to even be in the story anymore at this point. Others disagree, for example Geek Girl Authority reviewer Julia Roth explicitly notes that she misses Gaal and Salvor.

All in all, I find that so far, I enjoy this season of Foundation more than season 1, even though it still has comparatively little to do with the books. I guess part of the reason is that Hober Mallow, Brother Constant, Poly Verisof, Bel Riose and Glawen Curr, as they are portrayed in the series, are more compelling characters than perpetually whiny Gaal and Salvor Hardin, who was turned from the smooth operator of the books into a not particularly interesting action girl character. Of course, both Hober Mallow and Poly Verisof are greatly changed from their book counterparts as well (though Bel Riose is fairly constant), but they are so much fun to watch that I’m more willing to go along with the changes.

Anyway, onwards to episode 5.