Foundation: The Sighted and the Seen Books Included
August 13, 2023 8:42 AM - Season 2, Episode 5 - Subscribe
Gaal, Salvor and Hari arrive on Ignis and meet the source of a strange signal they've been tracking. Dawn and Dusk are suspicious of Day.
There was a suspiciously odd-looking person in the background of the group of telepaths. (Didn’t catch whether it was the same actor.) The timelines wouldn’t line up, but the series shows no hesitation putting a character on ice for a while.
posted by supercres at 6:45 PM on August 13, 2023
posted by supercres at 6:45 PM on August 13, 2023
The anti-chemistry between Sareth and Day making all the motions of "people who definitely want to have sex" while, uh, definitely not want to fuck was high comedy to me. Discussions about too much sex/not enough sex in media are kind of boring, but for the record, this is the right amount of payoff for me. A couple seasons worth of Day's sex scenes inform the viewer about memory manipulation, shield auras, imperial politics, and Lee Pace's insane fitness regimen (I watched Pushing Daisies, that man was not born with that physique). The lagniappe was getting the most glorious, least sexy interaction imaginable between the couple-to-be. I don't think I would've enjoyed it as much without seeing Sareth successfully flirt with Dawn in an earlier episode, or establishing Day as a man with a fully functioning libido before that.
(In general, I really like the casting/acting choices for Sareth. She doesn't exactly look like a teenager, but there's a gawkiness to her frame that lets her really lean in to looking casual or overwhelmed and then, a moment later, look like she's scented blood.)
Salvor has really grown on me this season, though she now is in Gaal's unfortunate position of being sundered from everything that's supposed to give a person meaning. But...uh, all that stuff last season was pretty boring to me, and Salvor herself is still pretty fun to watch. I don't see a lot of characters that are action-oriented as she is without being simultaneously characterized as thoughtless or rash. (I guess believing that she really encountered her bf and bringing him back was rash, but honestly who wouldn't have done that??)
The head psychic is played by Rachel House! I love her so much!!
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:49 AM on August 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
(In general, I really like the casting/acting choices for Sareth. She doesn't exactly look like a teenager, but there's a gawkiness to her frame that lets her really lean in to looking casual or overwhelmed and then, a moment later, look like she's scented blood.)
Salvor has really grown on me this season, though she now is in Gaal's unfortunate position of being sundered from everything that's supposed to give a person meaning. But...uh, all that stuff last season was pretty boring to me, and Salvor herself is still pretty fun to watch. I don't see a lot of characters that are action-oriented as she is without being simultaneously characterized as thoughtless or rash. (I guess believing that she really encountered her bf and bringing him back was rash, but honestly who wouldn't have done that??)
The head psychic is played by Rachel House! I love her so much!!
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:49 AM on August 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
I liked how I couldn't _quite_ put my finger on why Hugo felt off, but not quite off enough in ways that couldn't be explained as - well, 150 years have passed and styles change. But I was still like ... wait, is that a body double? Good job on Daniel MacPherson's part.
And yeah, of the returning Foundation cast, Salvor is probably my favorite. Nothing personal about Gaal, but Salvor seems less inclined to take shit from anybody at this point, and better equipped to inform other people that she isn't taking it. I did like seeing Hari attempt to make an effort to patch things up in this episode though - although I wonder if he would have if he weren't flesh and blood.
And yeah, "Is that your toe?" had my wife and I cracking up.
I loved Dusk's reactions to discovering from his conversation with Rue that the memory wipe is seamless and the recipient is unaware there was any editing at all.
So right now we have the replacement of the Church of Hari Seldon with the Traders / Merchant Princes with Hober Mallow, we have Hari/Gaal/Salvor trying to set up the Second Foundation on Ignis and the locals not having it (and maybe leading to the Mule?), we have Sareth and Day's potential nuptials while Sareth tries to confirm that Empire had her family killed for political purposes (which seems like it was basically confirmed, but not to Sareth), and we have Dawn and Dusk discovering there might be some Cleonic memory hijinks going on. Plenty of plots to figure out in the next five episodes!
(I assume the Bel Riose plot will intertwine with the Hober Mallow plot, but maybe it'll get connected to one of the others.)
posted by Kyol at 9:21 AM on August 14, 2023
And yeah, of the returning Foundation cast, Salvor is probably my favorite. Nothing personal about Gaal, but Salvor seems less inclined to take shit from anybody at this point, and better equipped to inform other people that she isn't taking it. I did like seeing Hari attempt to make an effort to patch things up in this episode though - although I wonder if he would have if he weren't flesh and blood.
And yeah, "Is that your toe?" had my wife and I cracking up.
I loved Dusk's reactions to discovering from his conversation with Rue that the memory wipe is seamless and the recipient is unaware there was any editing at all.
So right now we have the replacement of the Church of Hari Seldon with the Traders / Merchant Princes with Hober Mallow, we have Hari/Gaal/Salvor trying to set up the Second Foundation on Ignis and the locals not having it (and maybe leading to the Mule?), we have Sareth and Day's potential nuptials while Sareth tries to confirm that Empire had her family killed for political purposes (which seems like it was basically confirmed, but not to Sareth), and we have Dawn and Dusk discovering there might be some Cleonic memory hijinks going on. Plenty of plots to figure out in the next five episodes!
(I assume the Bel Riose plot will intertwine with the Hober Mallow plot, but maybe it'll get connected to one of the others.)
posted by Kyol at 9:21 AM on August 14, 2023
we have Dawn and Dusk discovering there might be some Cleonic memory hijinks going on
On this thread.. When Dusk and Dawn hit up the archivist for metadata, did anyone else pick up the implication that a memory wipe had just happened?
At least, that was my take-away from the archivist's question
posted by coriolisdave at 5:36 PM on August 14, 2023
On this thread.. When Dusk and Dawn hit up the archivist for metadata, did anyone else pick up the implication that a memory wipe had just happened?
At least, that was my take-away from the archivist's question
posted by coriolisdave at 5:36 PM on August 14, 2023
I have long forgotten what happens in the books but my assumption is that memory wipes are routine and that is not Day but Demerzel that has been engineering them to manipulate Empire over generations. Occasionally one aspect of Empire or another gets suspicious but it doesn't matter since keeping memory wipes secret is a self-fixing problem.
posted by AndrewStephens at 9:18 AM on August 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by AndrewStephens at 9:18 AM on August 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Did Cleon the 1st do a lot of editing of Cleon the 2nd, and it's just sort of turned into a permanent True Thought™ campaign?
Well, the discrepancy can be resolved a few ways: either their memories are being wiped or someone else's are growing. Growing, either because that Cleon I gets called upon regularly and updated, or because someone is hiding things there. For all we know its the Cleon dynasty C:\Users\System.old folder of porn they just uncovered.
Overall, it seems clear the Empire is borrowing heavily from Rome: we have a triumvirate, the beginnings of a split, and season 2 introduces Sareth as a Cleopatra.
that is not Day but Demerzel that has been engineering them to manipulate Empire over generations. Occasionally one aspect of Empire or another gets suspicious but it doesn't matter since keeping memory wipes secret is a self-fixing problem.
So one question is, why, if there are clones around, did Demerzel bother to save Day? One option is that the genetic line is tainted in some way and clones are no longer viable. But, what if she wanted to produce a video to leak to Sareth? Or heck, maybe all the Cleons have been boning Demerzel all along and the memory archives deleted, except for the Cleon the first, and Day gets to keep his memories until he dies?
posted by pwnguin at 8:01 PM on August 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well, the discrepancy can be resolved a few ways: either their memories are being wiped or someone else's are growing. Growing, either because that Cleon I gets called upon regularly and updated, or because someone is hiding things there. For all we know its the Cleon dynasty C:\Users\System.old folder of porn they just uncovered.
Overall, it seems clear the Empire is borrowing heavily from Rome: we have a triumvirate, the beginnings of a split, and season 2 introduces Sareth as a Cleopatra.
that is not Day but Demerzel that has been engineering them to manipulate Empire over generations. Occasionally one aspect of Empire or another gets suspicious but it doesn't matter since keeping memory wipes secret is a self-fixing problem.
So one question is, why, if there are clones around, did Demerzel bother to save Day? One option is that the genetic line is tainted in some way and clones are no longer viable. But, what if she wanted to produce a video to leak to Sareth? Or heck, maybe all the Cleons have been boning Demerzel all along and the memory archives deleted, except for the Cleon the first, and Day gets to keep his memories until he dies?
posted by pwnguin at 8:01 PM on August 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
After a season and a half, I think I am fully on board with this show, and I think one of my favorite things is the way that they clearly love getting a single actor to play multiple characters. In the companion podcast, they've even talked about how they got Lee Pace on board by telling him he'd be playing very different incarnations of Cleon over time, and that they now consider "Harry" and "Dr. Seldon" to be two separate, diverging characters.
I think this is probably my new Game of Thrones? But like in the "good early seasons" sense
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:26 AM on August 17, 2023
I think this is probably my new Game of Thrones? But like in the "good early seasons" sense
posted by DoctorFedora at 1:26 AM on August 17, 2023
When Dusk and Dawn hit up the archivist for metadata, did anyone else pick up the implication that a memory wipe had just happened?
I took the archivist's question to refer to the unauthorized request by Sareth's inside man before... I thought he was busted for sure but the question just wooshed over their heads.
posted by yoHighness at 3:50 AM on August 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
I took the archivist's question to refer to the unauthorized request by Sareth's inside man before... I thought he was busted for sure but the question just wooshed over their heads.
posted by yoHighness at 3:50 AM on August 17, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yeah, a little bit of that, a little bit of "goddamn I'm going to have such a fuckin' migraine pulling all that data for these weirdos, but it's the job."
posted by Kyol at 8:34 AM on August 17, 2023
posted by Kyol at 8:34 AM on August 17, 2023
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Anywho - mmmm, a planet of telepaths - will Gaal realize that telepaths and the Mule are related? What's going on with Brothers Empire? Did Cleon the 1st do a lot of editing of Cleon the 2nd, and it's just sort of turned into a permanent True Thought™ campaign? I'm still trying to figure out where Queen Sareth's plot will end up. Honestly, I suspect that's sort of the real attraction for book readers, since Empire was sort of out of the stories pretty early on, at least as a singular character. I mean, so was everybody, due to structural issues, but ... yeah. But the fall of Empire is fascinating because it can't happen too quickly, at least not on Trantor, but we know it's happening because psychohistory tells us so.
posted by Kyol at 8:46 AM on August 13, 2023