I think it's waking up. You and the other encyclopedists, you've been
preparing for some distant crisis. But I think it's here now.
Hey guys, Pete here. This is my breakdown of Foundation season 1 episode 3
"The Mathematician's Ghost". I'll be recapping what happened and then I'll give you my thoughts about
the episode and the direction of the series. of course this will contain spoilers if you're not
caught up. and with that out of the way let's get into it. episode 2 ended on a big turn with Raych
killing Hari Seldon and sending Gaal into space on an escape pod. a little later in this episode
we get a confirmation from Hugo that people do go into hibernation or cryo sleep and I assume that's
there to let us know what happened to Gaal. episode 3 opened with another turn in that it opted not
to provide the resolution or aftermath of the event on the ship and instead decided to jump
around on the timeline. the episode opens with another voiceover narration from Gaal talking
about ghosts. the empire's and more specifically the palace of the empire's ghost is Cleon the first.
we go back in time 400 years to the end of his reign and see him planning with Demerzel
for what comes after his death. this makes her role more explicit. you see that she was there
to plan it, that she was involved in setting up the clone program and the transition, and that
kind of implies that she was actually running the empire for a period of time since she says that
the first brother dawn they put on the throne was still a baby. there's an emphasis on loyalty here.
her loyalty to the empire. to Cleon's dynasty, and the question of if the empire will be loyal to her.
so far we're only working with vague references to what's going on with robots in the tv show
which means all of this is still a mystery. from there we jump to 19 years after the Starbridge
bombing. it's the strange time in the cycle where lee pace is playing Brother Dawn. that doesn't last
for long though because it's Brother Dusk's last day before becoming Brother Darkness or the end
of his life which they refer to as his ascension. this is the version of Dusk who was in favor of
mercy for Anacreon and Thespis and he's still thinking about that and what Hari Seldon said
now that he's reaching the end. as a final present they all go up to destroy what's left of the Starbridge
in orbit. as they're looking at it for the last time dawn and day promised to make something
better in Cleon's honor for the outgoing Dusk. we see that the work was ongoing when the original
Cleon died it then became a very visible reminder of his legacy on Trantor and then of course it
fell during the attack. Demerzel has been there from its beginning to its end and she almost
looks emotional here and Dusk asked her about it later in this odd exchange where he questions her
love for him and her feelings for the original Cleon. she tells him that he's enough but after
he closes his eyes she continues saying it's just that you always leave me.
in the morning he goes to his ascension. Brother Dawn becomes the new Brother Day having grown into their greatness.
the new Dawn is presented as the old Dusk is ready to incinerate himself and something about
that situation starts to feel wrong to him. there may be something to this because he's experienced
this same ceremony in the past but before we find out, Demerzel grabs his arm starts to sing to him
and then encourages him on his way to meet his end. from there the story jumps forward another
17 years where we meet the 14th edition of cleon who was the baby that was crying at the ceremony
as he's becoming a young man. after that we transition to see the colonists arrive on Terminus
because everything about their landing is planned out they're surprised to find the Vault when they
get there. as they approach it they experience the null field and everyone gets knocked out they
scuttle the slow ship, they crash it on the surface, and then they build up the colony. there's a brief
scene of Salvor when she's younger. her parents are talking about her being a dreamer or a thinker
and she seems to be fascinated by the Vault. we fast forward to where she's grown and watch her
do an experiment where she discovers that the null field is expanding, it's getting bigger. in her role
as the warden we see that she's working on this fence this sort of generated field that protects
their colony and we also see the encyclopedists working to preserve knowledge to follow through
on Hari's plan. Salvor takes her mother to the vault to show her that the null field is growing
and they talk about her connection to it how her mother found her underneath it as a child at the
time her parents kept this a secret because they didn't want her to be treated differently
we learned that Salvor was drawn to it she thought it was calling to her and then when
she was underneath it she couldn't understand why it was hurting her mother when asked if she can
hear it now if it's calling her she just says that she thinks it's waking up so even though
they kept it a secret it's mentioned that she's still an outsider and we see that she doesn't
really mix with the other colonists and to that her mom reminds her that she's always been special
her boyfriend Hugo who's a trader arrives he's got a 29 hour stop on the planet we see
some of their romance some of their life how that works and after they have sex she has a
feeling which gets her out of bed and she leaves to check the perimeter she ends up seeing or
more likely imagining a child running into the old ship she's never able to catch up with it and to
get a good look but as viewers we can see that he has what looks like Raych's knife in his hand
he disappears after she follows him inside and she just finds one of those bishop claw creatures that
are native to the planet there and when she scares it away she notices something in the sky above
the planet her and Hugo check it out through her telescope and they realize that Anacreon ships
have shown up this is the first time anyone's come to the planet in 30 years she takes this
information to the encyclopedists who don't really think it's a big deal as far as they're concerned
they're a part of the empire they're protected by the emperor and all they need to do is just call
them let them know what's happening and they'll intervene because of course this is an Anacreon
when they attempt to make contact they realize that the comms buoy isn't working they look for
rational reasons that this might be happening things unrelated to what's going on with the ships
above their planet but Salvor is not convinced she starts taking stock of the weapons and preparing
for the worst thinking that they just went by the buoy so they probably destroyed it on their way
and we see the division here she's considered an outlier they actually call her that and basically
dismiss anything that she says they realize they have about 40 hours until they arrive
in an act of desperation salver's mom pulls out the prime radiant which she collected
from Hari's room after he was killed just to see if maybe salvor will connect with it
Salvor had never seen it doesn't know anything about it and her mom asked her to take a look at
it because if she was part of the plan it would make it a lot easier to believe in it she seems
fascinated but there doesn't seem to be anything that she can do you see the equations swirl around
and then sort of fall but it's not clear if she had any effect on that at all and before they
leave she makes the distinction that different is not the same as special as they're waiting for
the ships to get there she has another feeling she ends up chasing the vision of the young Raych again
but this time she finds the creature and notices it's been shot by an arrow she finds
herself surrounded with what looks like a group of warriors saying that Anacreons are not allowed
on imperial soil what are you doing here and the episode ends there. to wrap it up we got a pretty
interesting look into the genetic dynasty and i think that was the strongest part of the episode
we're left with the impression that after Hari's death after the exile of the encyclopedists
things carry on with the empire and the clones continue to be a nice addition i thought the
transition from the end of the second episode into this one was a little jarring there was a good
build up for that somewhat shocking conclusion and then it felt like we were picking up with a
completely different show in the third episode i think some of the sequences here work well on
their own but the whole was a little disorienting and nothing was actually wrapped up by the end
i said in my last video that i try to look at the show on its own merits rather than comparing it
to the source material and i think as an episode of tv that this one didn't work nearly as well
as the first two the high point continues to be the production the way things look
the scuttling of the ship was impressive it was nice to see the statue of Hari on Terminus
the colony is believable as far as that goes it seems pretty clear that they're trying to have
Terminus present the polar opposite of Trantor and i think most of that works on the cleon side of
things it's setting up mysteries about Demezel's loyalty and overall role while fleshing out the
mechanics of how the genetic dynasty operates it's notable that the one member who was concerned with
harry selden passed on in this episode that could be an indication that they're no longer concerned
with the foundation 19 years after his death and likely less so in the timeline 17 years after that
is there something going on with the new brother dawn i mean i'm not sure why you include that
bit there at the ceremony if there isn't but it kind of came out of nowhere so it's not clear
where it's headed the idea of demerzel being in love with cleon that's a bit hard to parse given
that she's a robot seeing her look emotional is one thing but i wonder if there's not some angle
where the cleons are interpreting her devotion as love because they're human and they see it through
that lens as i said the whole concept of robots in the tv show is just mysterious and i hope as
they move forward they continue to fill in the blanks on the Terminus side they're establishing
themselves getting things going and now they're up against the threat from their angry neighbors
and the Anacreons should still be feeling the effects of the attacks on their planet and so i guess
maybe that's why they're there it went back and forth some trying to develop salvor's character
while showing what the foundationers or the encyclopedists were up to and i don't think it
really pulled off either thing but part of that might be related to the fact that they ended on
another cliffhanger there's some light references to Hari and what happened Salvor's mom had the
prime radiant raych was not amongst the people who landed on terminus and doesn't seem to be around
doesn't seem to have ever been around but overall the ending of episode 2 is still a mystery as well
as far as the adaptation goes I like seeing Lewis Pirrene I like that the divides there between
the encyclopedists and salvor although it has a way different feeling based on how
she's being introduced i think they could have done a better job building up the encyclopedists
but hopefully that'll continue into the next episode some ripple effects are starting to
show up now from the changes they made the emphasis on salvor being special certainly
echoes what they were setting up with Gaal makes it seem more likely that there's a reason she's
seeing visions of a young raych running around with a knife i suppose a lot of what they're
doing now will depend on the payoffs that follow down the road as a book reader i miss the old
version of salvor hardin and am hoping to be pleasantly surprised in what happens to this
changed version and i think i'll leave it there let me know what you think in the comments for
the non-readers how did you think this held up in comparison to the first two episodes do you think
they lost all the momentum they build up with harry's death in book readers let me know what's
on your mind just remember to mark your spoilers please like this video if you enjoyed it please
subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and thanks for watching i'll talk to you soon