Summary: Salvor begins to question the Mentalics' motives. Hober Mallow's proposal to the Spacers meets resistance. Brothers Constant and Poly stand trial.
This thread can contain TV spoilers up to season 2 episode 7.
Air Date: August 25th 2023
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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I know the show doesn't lend itself to this kind of silliness and it shouldn't really happen, but I like to imagine that that pool will gain one additional floating dead body at the end of every episode for the rest of the show.
They’re leaving the fate of Hari Seldon suspiciously unresolved.
Also, I love the how the spacers and the fate of the empire are being explored. The books are on my favorite series but I love the idea of fleshing out new stories in the same universe.
I don't understand the point of giving that seldon a body in the previous episode only to kill him in the next one.
Any chance of a last minute rescue for Salvor?
Tellem Bond is a nasty villain.
My favorite new characters this season are Brother Constant and Cleric Poly.
The Spacers are cool as fuck.
I am also waiting to see what comes of the difference in memory sizes between Cleon I and the clones. What is being edited out of their memories? Is Demerzel the caretaker of this (assuming this was Cleon I's design). Or, is Demerzel playing the long game. I suspect she may be behind the genetic tainting of the line and perhaps even the assassination attempt.
I’m kind of hoping we get something a little different. Maybe that Cleon 1’s memory is larger because he’s still around to add to the heap via some assistance from Demerzel.
The clones are around as useful idiots and to introduce a level of sanity checking to make sure Cleon 1 isn’t left to his own thoughts.
We’ve already seen how opaque the process is for managing memories and editing them are.
Tellem and the Emporer are not dissimilar when it comes to the ruthless way they are enacting their vision. This is reflected in the hand gesture that Tellem Bond uses to incapacitate Salvor (not sure it actually killed her). Almost identical to how Empire gives the command to execute someone.
Blatant speculation that references the books and may spoil the ending of the season
About ending imperial cloning: I don’t think brother Day, or even any Cleonic exponent, can do so.
As Demerzel says, she is loyal to Empire. Right now, that means being loyal to Cleon XVII. Thus she follows his wishes of arranging a marriage and letting him procreate. However, as the memory of Cleon I mentioned to XVI and XVIII back in S02E05, the temperament of XVII had already been accounted for. Therefore I think that when XVII hits 60, the age at which he becomes brother Dusk, Demerzel’s loyalty will automatically shift to XVIII; she is likely programmed to do so.
So all this trying to end genetic cloning is going to result in is demonstrating to Empire that even he cannot end it. And that is exactly what Hari Seldon wanted when he called upon Empire to (try to) end imperial cloning.
This fits in nicely with the overarching theme of psychohistory (and indeed with the theme of Bel Riose in the books): there’s no such thing as a Great Man, no-one is special and outcomes are for the most part fixed and can be known through some fancy math.
I hope the writers are smart enough to go this route, but I have doubts.
Also I don't think Tellem actually rescued all those people, at least not the way they depicted. I think she just implanted those memories into them.
Sorry, is this a TV programme based on the Asimov Foundation books? How have I not even heard of it?
Yes it is. Loosely based on it at least.
It’s on Apple TV+. Not a super popular streaming service, at least among my peers and family
Ah, I didn't actually realise Apple TV was even a streaming TV channel thing, I just sort of assumed it was a physical TV that Apple made and paid no further attention.
Still, I guess it'll eventually be shown on normal TV or at least some other TV service thing.
Well, it’s based on the books to about the same degree as “Starship Troopers” was based on its book. Not that this should stop you from enjoying it.
I quite liked the Starship Troopers film, though I only read the book years later - but I remember people being cross about it not being like the book.
The Foundation books I've read a few times each over the years, but I suppose it depends on the extent of changes - the books cover a huge period of time, and from such a "macro" view, so there's plenty of stories that can fit in those universes without contradicting the original material.
I liked the recent Handmaid's tale TV series, having read the book at school (and for fun, some years later) - that totally did its own thing after the end of the book, but I thought it followed a pretty realistic path, and carried the spirit of the original.
I'll definitely give the Foundation series a try if they show it on something else at some point :)
This was a surprising turn for some, really rooting for princess Vespa, and the scene with constance and hober about getting down just took on a morbid tone.
Also, Hari needs to get gud, his k:d ratio is just barely 1.
I like that they're growing the universe better, this season started out terrible and now is really filling out.
I dunno; there are leading characters that I don't like such as
- Gaal is a mathematician who acts mostly on emotion.
- Tellem is too cunning, and I don't see any chance Gaal and Salvor are going to get ahead of her unless with a weird chance.
- Queen Sareth does not look like a queen but is a delinquent student from a YA book.