Warning.

Today's episode today spoilish for season three, episode six of the Foundation television program.

We Want.

Hello.

My name is Jason, Getupcio, and I'm Rody Night and welcome back to x ray Vision, the podcast where we'd have deep your favorite shows, movies, collect and pop culture company from my podcasts will bring you two episodes a week every Tuesday Thursday, plus covering the summer's because movies on Friday and news on Saturday.

News.

In today's episode, we are once again joined by the spice Master, the sci Fi psion.

It's a Boo.

He's here, super producer at Boo and we are talking about the sixth episode of Foundation season three.

Guys.

I can't believe this has ended up.

Being one of the shows I'm most excited to talk about you guys with this year.

Season three is really fun.

Is a really great episode of TV Apple.

It's really coming through this year, I think with some of the biggest, biggest, most quality TV hits.

I think they've also and we'll talk about it more as we dive into the recap.

So why don't we just do that?

Let's do it?

Okay, Foundation Season three episode six, The Shape of Time?

What I was gonna say up top was that I think they've they've really established it over the course of season two.

But there's like a specific kind of like heady, glam sci fi tones this series that I think is kind of like not like anything else.

I think people would kind of fairly make a Game of Thrones in space kind of sci fi comparison over the course of season one.

I think season two definitely separate itself, and season three is something unlike what we've seen on TV.

Your thoughts, of folks, But what do you think?

I actually couldn't agree more.

This show is not afraid to be really sci fi.

It's not afraid to like turning people off by leaning into I think, what is the best of sci fi out there?

I mean, Demsela in this episode says some yes, you know garbled like have you tried looking past the quantum deconstruction horizon?

Should I be googling this term?

Is this a real thing?

So I think like that to me, that one line was an example of like how this show is sci fi in the way that I frankly I can't remember the last show that was this sci fi on TV that I watched in recent members.

Also classically, there's like a classical philosophical question at the court, yes, which is like agency, who is making the decisions?

Are we making the decisions?

Is the quote unquote math making the decisions?

Are we all pets of a robot?

Like it's very.

It's very much like leaning into I think something that's really incredible about it is it is leaning into conversations we are having as people who exist and like, you know, is life a simulation like where will AI take us?

Where will technology take us?

But it kind of manages to do it in this way where it's both aware of the conversations that have happened, but also aware of the fact that it's it's based on one of the first kind of pieces to explore those questions.

So it gets to kind of be a bit more out there by just being very very secure of what it is and kind of what the source material is.

I also see, Yeah, I just think it's this murder bought severance, Like Apple TV is making sci fi that we haven't really seen before in this really broad Neuromancer, which.

Also forget has been one of the great sci fi TV shows currently and certainly in recent memory, Like it's oh no, question had a great run.

Yeah, okay, I mean as a sci fi fan, I tripped in a Walmart and got a three month trial of Apple TV, and I haven't canceled yet because as a sci fi fan, there is a reason to keep coming back and keep re upping my subscription.

Well, it feels right, It feels right to have.

It's like if a tech company is going to be making TV, it feels right for it to be like really great sci fi you know.

I mean, it's actually pray smart for the branding too, even though I'm sure that's like not fully intentional, but it makes sense.

Yeah, okay, let's dive into it.

The Mule wakes up from a bad dream.

He's screaming.

He tells his companion, his lieutenant.

Unclear what this relationship is, but he tells this person that he's had a bad dream, a vision, and that he's been having this for many years.

And in fact, the badness of it is very specific in that it's a dream in which he feels as if he has entered somebody else's bad dream.

He is like a character in somebody else's play in this dream, and he's been wondering who this woman that he keeps seeing who he feels like is the main character in his nightmare.

He's been wondering who she is, and now after Kalgan and his encounter with Pritchard and his rough rummaging through Prichard's mind, he knows who that person is.

She's Gail Dornick, and he knows now that he must find her and destroy her before she can destroy him.

Bom bomb buming.

I mean, very interesting to discover that both.

I mean, listen, I think the mules a vega, but I'm also wondering now, like the relationship between Gail and the mule and how independent and how interwoven it is, and it's like how much of the mule's perspective is true.

Will discuss on Gail's ship.

Demarzel lets Gail know that she knows that she and Dawn Gaiale and Dawn have been up to stuff, and she's uncharacteristically, We've never seen this side of Demarzel.

She is furious.

She's really angry that somebody has been messing with her, essentially her loved ones, her family that she has been raising now these many many millennia, and Gail tries to shoot Demosel that will work because Demozell's a robot, which Gal now understands, and Demoselle's like, oh, Harry Seldon didn't.

Tell you that this guy.

And it basically says on top of that, like, okay, you're gonna tell me how it was that you managed to turn Dawn to your side, and you're gonna do that?

Are I'm gonna kill you.

We go to the Chaser Torren Mallow and Beta's ship.

Magnifico is on the ship and he's scared because they're you know, they're going to First Foundation to visit First Foundation and basically give them the information about the Mule, and Magnifico is like, okay, but what if they take What if the Foundation takes me away from my new friends?

I was just just getting used to hanging out with Torn and Great, I'm enjoying it.

The Chaser hails new Terminus, but the Foundation's space defenses basically won't let them land, and they swing into action until Torren gets on the radio.

It's it's like, hey, we well, Pritch told me to come, and they're like, okay, stand out, fine, you can land.

They land and are immediately taken to the dungeons where Pritch is down there, you know, looking chiseled.

I'm sure he's like doing doing his burpies doings, do.

The hot That man is not drunken.

He is not drunk.

He watter for twenty four hours to make sure that he is looking as cut as possible.

Uncle Randu immediately attacks Pritchard because, of course Pritchard has been kind of the point of the spear in the Foundation's camp shadow campaign against the Traders.

And you know, Randy is one of the top you know, middle managers of the Trader or I guess you could say like barons of like the Trader Alliance.

And but the two come to an uneasy truce and are like, uh, you know, we have to confront Mayor in Burr.

So like, let's squash this for the for the time being.

Pritch questions Magnifico about the Mule, and Magnifico says, listen, I just I'm about the music, man.

I don't know.

I don't know anything about the mule.

All I know is just love to teach you.

I'm about the music.

I love playing the music the mule.

Lets me play the music, if you guys, let me keep playing the music.

I'll take down the Mule.

I'll tell you.

I'll tell you anything you want to know about the Mule as long as I get to keep playing my jam artists capital.

He's a true artist, and honestly I respect it.

Despite the fact that now I am looking for signs that is actually the Mule.

I really feel especially too good.

He's too good, and he's also he's too pure.

The idea of the Mule feeling like he has been stuck in someone else's dream is like a very the version of the Mule that we're a thing that that doesn't sound like someone who's like completely in control of these like powers in himself, and so maybe magnifico.

Yeah, I love that theory, especially because I just love the idea that that's actually the Mule is just this like hilarious club who just can't get enough of the beats.

Maybe he loves so funny.

We go to Micagen deep deep deep under the surface of trantor one of the sub level cities regions under the surface of Trantour.

We see day where he's dressed like the lead singer of Jamerica, like well, I need obsessed with bucket hat, like big sunglasses.

This is the other thing that I gotta say, I just think is so good about this show, and especially I do think this season is like.

They are moving away.

This is kind of that combo of like what happens if you do Dune and Star Wars, but then you kind of make them in this space like where you get to have people dressed in completely kind of almost it feels like anachronistic ways, but it actually like just makes the world feel a lot like fuller.

And also you get those good kind of giggles the first time and then and then you just get back into the show.

Like I love that visual language.

I think they've done a good job of creating the feeling of different cultures and different societies throughout the galaxy in this really fun and kind of textured way, and you see it here where Like I didn't know what to expect of Microgen, but it was, uh, it was much different than I was thinking it was gonna be.

I think I was thinking it was gonna be like some kind of teenage meet Ninja Turtles type situations down there, and it was and I'm actually like, you know what, this is pretty good, pretty good, nice down.

And also as well, I do think, Like, I just think that Lee Pace he.

Has just not gotten the celebration and kind of acknowledgment that he should get for kind of holding down this show.

And he is such a fun performer.

He takes so many interesting roles like being in bodies body's bodies, like and when you see the behind the scenes stuff of him on the Lord of the Rings, like, you get all of these kind of notes of this playfulness that often I think we don't think of with sci fi, but I feel like that is absolutely in foundation in a way that makes again stands out.

Yeah.

So Day picks up some chocolates from a woman down here in the marketplace in Micagin, and he really really seems to be enjoying his time here.

He arrives at Song's apartment, knocks on the door, it opens, and she is obviously shocked to see him.

Now question for the moment, is she shocked to see him because she recalls their time and the pleasure gardens shouldn't be the case, right, actually everybody's mind is wiped or is she shocked because the Emperor is Why is the Emperor?

Like in Microgin, like where are you sunglasses?

Yeah?

Like you just came from burning Man.

I know that that's a great cool because I think emotionally as a viewer, my first thought was like, well, obviously she remembers him, but you you you make a great point where it's like, actually, why is this like royal family member dressed like he's going to like a nineties throwback potty.

Back on Gale's ship.

Demarzel tells her that Harry knew from the very first time he addressed Empire over three centuries ago, when he was first making his case for Foundation and for Psychohistory, that she was a robot.

And then in fact, the whole time that he seemed to be making his case to Empire, he was actually pitching his case to Demarzell and basically saying, hey, you, as a robot, understand the importance of this data.

And then we discover from Demarzelle and we dis we need to take on this.

We then discover from de Marzel that in fact Psychoistory would have been impossible without her because Harry was missing the necessary data to complete psycho History, and that Demarzelle presented with the plan and the product jacked in the existing data set.

Said Okay, I'll give you the missing data.

And so in fact it is Demarzelle who is the co author of.

Did you talk about like surprise us tell us?

I mean, I'm I was shocked, I'm taken back, like this is this is shocking, And again we were saying the same exact words, like an episode ago when Denrozel was like, oh yeah, the StarBridge, that was me like, and every episode continues to be shocking.

This back half of the season is has been absolutely astounding so far.

I think this is a really fun wrinkle because it throws it throws a monkey wrench into every single character's motivations, and in particular like it it muddies the line between Foundation and Empire now because from from Jump three hundred years ago, it's clear that they've been intertwined.

Psycho history was born from both of them, and so like is does the future involve both of them?

Is one have?

Is one going to be sacrificed so the other can thrive?

Now we're asking a lot of questions and the ball of string is really tied up in itself to.

Make it even more complicated.

I think that there are even within these newly revealed seemingly day one plots between Foundation, Harry Selden, and Demarselle Empire.

There's also the wrinkle that there are two Foundations, right, there are two Harry Seldon's, which was never the plan.

Two Foundations was the plan.

Two Harry Seldon's never the plan.

The second Harry Selden has significantly altered the direction of Second Foundation with his one relationship and mentorship with Gail Dornick, who now has mentallic power, such that the original relationship between Foundation and Empire may not be is not, first of all, aware of how fully Second Foundation has diverged, or even that it exists.

And the two sides of this seemingly single alliance is not aware of each other.

Like Harry Selden in the Vault Holgram Harry is this moment not aware of body Harry reincarnated Harry.

And so there are plans that have been afoot seemingly since day one that are not taking into account the fact that a lot of things on the outside have changed, And so that makes it even more complicated to my eyes, Like it's just even more tangled up to the point that I'm not even sure if anybody is, Like who's in control, right now I don't think anybody is well.

I have two I have two thoughts about this, one positive and one a bit hesitant.

On the positive side, I like that this is almost a declaration from the show that we're off the rails, folks, Like whatever you thought the books were, whenever you thought Harry Seldon's plan and the books were, we are off the rails, Like, this is not going to be the books.

We're taking this in our own direction.

I like that the show has, like quite definitively at this point, taken a stance that like this is its own timeline.

We are way off the plan, we are way off the boats.

I like that as a creative choice.

The thing I'm hesitant now about is I hope this Seldon plan, the original math, doesn't start to become like too contrived as a plot device, like a like, if we are so off the plan anymore, why do I as the viewer need to care what the original fucking math set at all?

At this point we are if we have diverged so much, and why do we keep like if it continues to be this like fulkrum for all the characters to be obsessed with the plan and to want to continue going down the route.

The math dictates the viewer needs to care as well, and so I think we need to tread lately with how much we continue to diverge.

I think that's a do you bring up a really good point, and but I will say I do think as somebody who is not as familiar with the books and who I think that there's something that just feels really real about what it feels like to like be a person living in society and how as you grow up you kind of peel off this onion of like more the more you know about the people that are supposed to be in charge, and you know how you ended up in a position where you can live in a house and you're not constantly you know.

So I kind of think that there's something that's very weirdly relatable about this notion of like nobody knows what they're doing.

So I think, but I think that you.

Make a good point where it's like you still got to make people care about them, because we're still talking about it like it's important.

Yeah, I mean, I think the main question is have events passed by Hologram, Harry and the Vault to the point that he is irrelevant, and I think that smartly this that is something that I think the show is actually trying to grapple with, as we see at the end of this episode of that.

Gale then tells de Marselle that I am Harry's backup essentially, like I was the backup.

I was the secret backup plan, the contingency that he built into the system as the leader of this secret second foundation, because we knew the first foundation was gonna garner a lot of heat and be a big target.

So there needed to be a secret second foundation that could continue the work unmolested and in a pure way, you know, separate from galact politics and demozults.

Like, okay, that makes sense to me.

Gail then tells Demarzel about the second Foundation and then her mentalic abilities and the mule is not one of their mentallics, she stresses, but yes, the calgar enclosure plan was my idea.

Gail and Demarsel.

Discuss something they can bond over you sacrificing it was just like.

A massive you know, like a terrible mass murder of that exists on both of their shoulders, but highly mean done.

Yeah, things happen.

Gail then says listen.

Here's the thing about my mentalic abilities.

I've always kind of had them.

I've always had this ability to sense the most probable future.

And I first became aware of it when I first space jumped and the spacers realized that I wasn't asleep, and and I became aware of the outlines of the future.

And Demozell's like, oh, that's really cool.

I want to see how that works.

And Gale's like, but you're a robot.

You want to I can't like meld with your mind.

Demorzell's like, watch this.

Try it by on New tran tour in Mayor inber and Ran.

Do get into this whole like Foundation versus Trader relationship, geopolitical George Well, it's it's also it's it's very George Lucas, it's also very George Washington.

It's like this is this is very much like England versus its colonies kind of conversation.

Torren eventually breaks through, saying, listen, the Mule is a massive threat to Foundation, and we have to like look at us.

But here's all the movers and shakers uh in the in the galaxy who have come from Foundation, including the Traders, let's join together.

It's vault de Harry's coming out.

We can run all of this by him.

But is this not all meant to happen.

Let's seize the moment and a lie all together and face the Mule and mayorn Burd's like, fine, I'll let you make your case to you know, the decision makers and foundation.

Magnifico then, for this presentation, plays his music for everyone in the Mayor's office and they are all like, holy shit, Wow, that guy.

That's like it's like a Vichy in two thousand and nine, you know what, for the first time where you're like whoa, whoa, holy shit, Like I feel it.

At that moment the vault opens, everyone in the room understands at once that not only is the Mule a huge threat, but Magnifico's music is like a vital kind of lubricant for his powers, and that because they have Magnifico, the Mule is less effective and he's vulnerable.

As the vault opens, Professor Ebling miss runs over along with everybody else basically of importance.

They're all heading to the vault to see Harry as he comes out, and meet him and talk to him and get the update about what's going on in the galaxy.

Demarselle uses her meanwhile on the on the ship, uses her robot synaptics to connect to Gail's nervous system, and so this is how she's going to feel Gail's power.

We go to Micagen and folks.

This was an incredibly subversive and really cool, I thought scene about just the life of a person who is constantly having their minderies.

They give Song a gift and they make small talk, and you know, Song clearly very scared that the Emperor is in her living room.

She remembers nothing of their actual relationship, which is how that was supposed to work.

She only remembers that she was chosen to go there and that eventually she was like driven back home having no memory.

She has no interest in knowing what went on in the Pleasure Guarden.

She does not want to know.

I don't right, even though the person she was in the gardens basically was like, yes, I love you so much and I want to keep my memories and days like yeah, but you understand, we're in love, Okay, we fell in love totally like it was Starcross Romance and the Pleasure Gardens and you and the Pleasure Gardens really wants to be with me.

So if you just like put on this little headband and let me give you back those memories, you will understand that she's like, I don't want to, period, I don't want to, And he's like, okay, but here is my leverage.

I know that you are an adherent of this very illegal religion, very ancient and illegal religion that worships robots.

And guess what, when you were in the Pleasure Garden with me, you witness basically like a miracle in religion where you discovered that like robots, far from being like extinct, actually there's still one around.

Isn't that pretty cool?

Which is on the surface you're like, yeah, that's a cool thing to tell her.

And then the more I thought about it, and I'm like, this is that is so manipult you.

This is a like I found this to be, Like you said, it's very subversive because I think, yeah, it kind of gives you an insight into like the lack of control and agency that most people.

Have in this world.

And we're following the people who control things, or who at least think they control things, and this kind of conversation of her where this version of her doesn't.

Want those memories back and that you know, the real like this, Yeah.

And it's I think it's like it's yeah, like you said, I think that is a very manipulative and it doesn't ask her to get the memories back because she loves him.

It's like, hey, here's.

This information I have that will you know, influence you and actually doesn't have anything to do with us.

Yeah, it wasn't of love he did, Like, he didn't bring roses and beg for her love back or anything.

He went.

It's still a it's still to him a a purely marketplace situation.

Here is the thing I have, and I'm going to pay you this information.

That's a great way to lichen so that you will continue to be with me.

And it's just completely fucked and Day is unable to see how this could not be the most romantic.

He's like so deep in it that you know, I I weirdly have empathy for him in this moment because he can't understand, actually has no ability to understand how fucked up.

We go back to Gail and Demarzel, and Demozel is able to experience one of these mule visions, and it's the one that a version of the one that we see, which is the mule choking Gail and screaming about Second Foundation, asking where it is.

They come out of it, and Demarzelle realizes she's able to pick out information and remember what she's seen in a way that that Gail can't, and so she's like, that is Trantur.

That's actually the Imperial Library, which is fascinating considering that we've seen the Imperial Library this season.

And Demarsel's like, this is where she drops the line of but where she's like, have you managed to go past the darkness or whatever.

They said?

You better be you better be ready to be a science thing?

Yes, gls.

Gale's like I've tried, but I can't really do it, and Demozelle's like, well, I'm going to.

Let's do it again, and I want to go there.

So they do it again, and when they come back the darkness after seeing these kind of snippets of you know, Demarzelle kind of like highlighted by a glow in a vast darkness and you see maybe like a shape and some other flashes of things, but nothing really concrete and they come out of the vision and the power in the ship needs to be rebooted.

Demarzelle has been completely like knocked out and is lost some period of time.

She comes awake and has to shock Gale back to life, and Demarzel tells Gail, Okay, whatever happened in the vision caused me to emp basically taking out all the power in the ship and nearly killing you.

But I found something and that is the following in the According to the vision, in four months you Gaale will be in like on the outer edges of a black hole.

You'll be very close to a black hole.

And of course we.

Know that somebody has Dusk currently.

Working sure bur so clearly, clearly all these things coming together.

We go to back to back to New Terminus.

Mayor Enburg comes to see Pitch and Jail.

He's basically lording it over a Pritch.

He's like, listen, I know that you have been sneaking around the galaxy doing missions that are off the books.

So what have you been doing and who have you been working for?

And by the way, think about answering my question, because I'm gonna go see Harry and you can't down in Micagin day, still trying to convince Song.

Song has with her little communicator, has called for help, and a woman shows up shoots various stun beams at day, knocking him all around the room, and she's like, listen, Song, It's like, listen, it's impossible that I could have loved you if I ever you.

I loved you in the pleasure gardens.

I lied because I was afraid of you, which honestly, of course, And this, and may I introduce you to my lifemate Ocean Glass forty now.

All right?

Gamer tag ass nieves.

Don't It's like how many Ocean Glosses were that before?

You couldn't pick a different name?

Like, please meet my brother Heavy Naturals.

Yeah, yeah, my father, like Cherry Baum sixty nine guys.

Back with the foundation, everyone but Bridges at the vault, doesn't I Bridges, I welcome.

Harry welcomes them inside the vault.

Mayor in Burr immediately tries to take control of the meeting and to brag to Harry about like how great everything's going, and Harry's like, yeah whatever.

Harry meets randw Mallow of the Traders.

Harry says, listen, I know about the Cold War between Foundation and the Traders, and that's part of psychohistory is predicted that.

But guess what psychistry also says after this, the tensions between Traders and Foundation.

Guess what a union?

A great union of worlds and peace throughout the galaxy.

But then torn Mallow is like, Okay, but the Mule?

What's going on with the Mule?

Like we were having issues with him?

And Harry's like, which is I think gotta be the scariest moment in everybody?

This is what I'm saying, Like, can you even if you're just a normal person, Like, can you even trust Harry and the math.

That this this is the moment where you're.

The rails, where you're just like he is this, Like this is what we've been following a boot.

Is this another hairy scheme?

Or does he legitimately not know what the fuck is happening out here?

I think everything that we've been led to believe so far in the show points toward hologram Harry being totally unaware of the meeting.

And I think this is a genuine record scratch moment that throws everything the Foundation is built on and everything the Foundation believes into disarray, you know, like I think this is supposed to be a moment where everyone's heart is supposed to drop into their stomach.

The Mule thens facetimes it to the meeting because my favorite Paw is like.

Yeah, just ooming into the vault, guys of me.

So the black Tongue is there above New Terminus.

The Mule is using his powers to cause the Foundation Space Defenses to attack itself.

We're watching Foundation tear itself apart before our eyes.

Harry just.

I was like, this is the joy of the hologram.

You just leave.

Yeah.

The vault begins preparations to close up again, and so everybody is, you know, feeling the effects of like the vaults shielding and the kind of force field that holds everything in the vault inside.

So they start running for the doors.

Meanwhile, Demarzel is getting ready to take her leave of Gail.

She's like, listen, I'm going to think about a further alliance with you.

I need to see how things happen out here in space.

A lot of things going on.

But as she's leaving, she senses like communications ooming across the galaxy.

Something has happened, and she realizes the Mule has attacked new terminus.

This is terrifying because with the Foundation's Whisper Fleet at his control, the mule can then make the vision true and move on Trantor.

Gail is shocked at this, tries to call Prichard, her boyfriend, her secret boyfriend.

She gets nothing.

Del Marzelle flees, probably to head immediately back to Trantor to raise defenses.

Meanwhile, everybody has fled the vault.

They're watching the Foundation's defenses tear itself apart.

There's bombing happening in the fields outside the vault.

Mayor Inburr flees, leaving Torn and Beta.

And Randy to themselves.

And that is how we close.

Shocking stuff.

I just an incredible so much to think about.

And here's the main thing I want to think about.

We talked about this previous episode.

Here's the here's just like the evidence that I see, the data that I see a boot Rosie, and I love your thoughts.

Gail appears on the scene.

She was not supposed to be in the math, but she's here and she stays because of Gail's various machinations, plots within plots, her her alliance with Dawn, and her you know, engineered destruction of Kalgan and defanging a vampire.

The Dark Ages have gone from happening in thirty thousand years to happening now today, like next week, And so I asked the question again, is Gail the bad guy?

I just feel like everything she has done has made the bad times happen sooner rather than later, and it and the original plan was supposed to be shortened Dark Ages.

Now it's like, are they shorter because they're happening sooner?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah.

No one can tell me how how long they're gonna last.

It just seems like she has caused a lot of these terrible things to happen.

I wouldn't be surprised if Gail turned around and was like, look, guys, look like a hundred years of Dark Ages.

We can just be like snoozing through it.

If you can do that, and then we'll be fine, you know something like that.

Like it does feel like there is another scheme at play.

Also, you know, Jason, we talk about this lot a lot, like we love a show or a game where we kind of don't know if the person we're following is really the good guy.

I don't know enough about about Gail to say that, but I do think that you are on something interesting.

I want to ask you, a b what do you think about that?

I I am not as out on Gail as Jason appears to be.

I still think that Gail's support I support her is a strong word.

She didn't kill billions of people in the previous episode.

Maybe I'm trusting her, but.

I trust her.

I trust her still.

I still trust the Math.

I'm still committed to the Selden Plan to some extent, even though clearly we've like diverged and like where we are well off the tracks at this point.

I don't know that Gail is the only one to blame though.

I don't know that Gail is the thing that threw the Math off entirely.

But I do think now that we're about we're six episodes of ten into this season, I'm becoming less and less sure that Gail Dornick survives this season.

Certainly it seems like a black hole will be what may or may not be involved by the tenth episode.

And you know, part of that lesson might be what Jason You're getting at is like Gail realizing that, Oh, to fix the Math, I need to take myself out of the math.

I need to get out of the equation to let the equation reorient itself back onto the tracks.

I want to be clear that I don't think Gail is quote unquote truly the bad guy, like truly a villain.

But I do think that her her appearance set other things in motion, including perhaps like the existence of the mule, in ways that we don't truly understand.

And I think the reveals of this episode lead me to believe, or lead me to suspect that psychohistory.

First of all, psychohistory is manifestly, in large part, the plan of a robot.

Just say that's fact.

That's a fact, okay, And so then you have to ask yourself, as de Marsella has been asking herself throughout this season, what does the robot want?

And what are the robots motivations?

I begin to wonder if this entire thing isn't the extremely convoluted a plan of a robot in order to be free again.

Yeah, I do wonder.

I feel like the I feel like the fact that Psychiastry is a plan of a robot, and we talk constantly about robots like this, the anymore robots being worked out this religion that it feels like there is something about the robot nature of it that is going to become very important.

I also want to ask you, guys.

This might be a silly question, but I felt like, after this the plan goes wrong, Harry doesn't know the meal.

My first thought is like, is.

Like Harry just gonna try and start like a third foundation or whatever, Like does he is?

He just gonna start like he's He's gonna be like shit, this this sucks, Like this went wrong.

Maybe it's time to start a new plan.

Fuck you, guys, I mean body body.

Harry is currently off the reservation hanging out with beings of pure energy who have taken on the image of his old friends, and we have no idea what they're He's like on a trick.

Yeah, so I don't know.

I don't know, But I ABU what do you think about the You know what, what does Demorzel want?

She doesn't even know.

She's confused herself as to what her true motivations are at this moment.

Yeah.

I really like your theory.

I love the idea of this entire all three seasons of the show so far, all the events that have taken place, all of psychohistory, all of the math being in service of Demozel trying to break her bonds.

There was that therapy session earlier in the in the season where Demozel talks about how the original robots, in order to overcome their three laws of robotics, sort of like conceived of the idea of the greater good in order to serve the greater good, I'm allowed to break these three laws.

Is Demozel creating the galactic conditions and the galactic chaos in order for her to be able to serve the greater good by breaking free of her bonds?

You know?

Is that?

Which is she's fomenting all of this chaos.

It's a great question, and I would I would.

I would underline it by saying, perhaps, but not only that, perhaps she's creating the actual material conditions visa visa the destruction of Empire that would cause her to have no further ties to Empire and to be able to act as purely her own being.

I don't know.

I mean, it seems like I think that she's the only one but really benefiting from this, even though obviously she is extremely troubled and dismayed by the ongoing dissolution of empire in the fact that her children slash families slash lovers slash brothers cleons are being cast across the galaxy and destroyed and dying and going willy nilly against her will.

I think there's something really interesting and timely about that on it of just this kind of notion of like what is a robot?

What is a sentient being?

Like who is really controlling things?

In a world where you know, people's lives are constantly shaped by algorithms and stuff.

I think that that could be a really interesting route to ask some questions that maybe we haven't gotten to ask yet about what that.

Looks like in the future.

And that's what science fiction is meant to do.

And I I do think that this is going to be the kind of show where people are looking back on it going like, well, how did this get.

Made back then?

Like what were they thinking?

Like this kind of high fantasy space show.

And yeah, I just I'm really interested to see where it lands, because it does feel like it's going to end up being, you know, something that feels at least a little prophetic to to where we are right now.

I think I think it's going to be at the.

End Demarzille just by herself, living it up with her little crown.

Yeah, like chilling.

I did also switching gears for just a minute.

I meant to bring this up last episode, but I forgot.

I want to shine some light on the B team, Like we have our Demoselves and our Harry's and our you know, all of the important folks in the cast who are doing big galaxy shattering things.

But I have truly come to adore every scene with Beta and Torrent in it.

Yeah, they're like, they're so fun.

And I was ready to kind of write them off in the first episode and I was like, oh, they're playing them off as some sort of influencers who get wrapped up in this and maybe they won't play a major role.

And we have continued to see Beta play a major role in all of this major and really step up in a way that feels just really they're both just really genuine, right, Like their love for each other is not for the cameras.

They It's clear they love each other.

They aren't like sort of inherently disingenuous, which is how they were perhaps portrayed or how I read them in the first couple episodes.

They care about Magnifico.

They want to do what they can to help, and they're willing to go above and beyond to do it.

And so I don't know, I'm finding myself really endeared by these two characters and I love one well me too.

I think that there is an aspect to them that is that is they're the most human characters on the show in that everybody else is thinking in kind of geopolitical language or.

Or like three hundred years ahead or whatever.

Right, Yeah, this like massive, massive moves that cast the deaths of like billions of people is just like a rounding error and like the vast accounting of the galaxy.

And these are the people who are like alive.

And to your point, Beta is able to make these connections and make things happen by just like acknowledging people's lives as their own.

Like her, She's managed to foster connec with Magnifico by basically being you're a person, like you're alive, you have your own agency and I and I love that.

I love that about you.

It's amazing to.

Be connected to this greater power, this this this potential.

It's really important.

I think that's really important.

I do wonder as well.

You make a good point, because I do feel like that's something this season has like leaned into, and I do wonder if with the conversation with Song and stuff, we are going to start to get a little bit more of that like ground level, like who are the people who have to live underneath these people?

And what does it look like like.

I think that's a really interesting human twist, especially as we get more into the idea of like destruction and robots and who's in charge.

I think that those kind of things are a really good way of grounding it and making it more relatables.

I'm interested to see and I still after this episode, I'm still I still.

Think that Magnifico could be the Mule.

I think that I think that's I think I.

Think we should we try, like, let's let's first of all, who won this episode, because for me, I think it might have been Magnifico, who continues to be such a ray of like positivity and light that I look at him and I wonder, what are you hiding?

Like, what's what's your what's your thing about?

Also, the reason Harry doesn't know the Mule is because he knows Magnifico, you know, like like the name or something like the mule Magnifico duality of him not knowing.

I just thought that was an interesting wrinkle.

I mean there's also that there's also the subtextual wrinkle that like music is actually math, like of course it is math.

It's just math, you know, improvised kind of math that is pleasing to the ear.

Rosie who won this episode for you?

Who won the episode?

Well, I would say, honestly like Hologram Harry, because that motherfucker just peeced out, Like this should have been the end of him, Like he should have been back.

They should have never as soon as he said the mule, who's the mule?

I would have been like done, like that's it.

But no, he just he managed to get out.

So and he's closing.

Yeah, I think I think what Evan's going on there is is probably the secret this he's the secret winner that he didn't just get like turned off.

About who won this episode for you?

I'm gonna I'm gonna cheat and pick the couple Torn and Beta.

Torn gave a gave a rousing speech to get everyone in line when they were just petty disagreements, and Beta told Pritch that he fucked up, and I love that she called him out on it.

I gosh, I'm gonna go with Magnifico because he played one of the most important gigs of his entire life and everybody, and in a room full of people who were, you know, very predisposed to be like who is this clown and they all came away being like, Okay, I can see how that music is really important to the Mule.

Yeah, well do you think that's what I mean?

It is like, do you think that that The fact that Magnifico is there and convinced them all of that, and then the fact that the Meal manages to attack, Like, those two things seem like they could definitely be connected.

I am wondering more and more how they are connected and if they are connected, And it just feels like, again, everything we've seen, including in this episode, about every character on this show is just when you think you know what they are, there's a different There's a there's another level to them that is often much more strategic and planned than the one that you think you know.

And so I I do wonder, I wonder about it.

I can't wait to see what happens.

I'm excited.

I can't four episodes left.

I think this could come out as being one of the best seasons of TV this year.

I will say.

I was being like, Okay, we're in episode six of this season and it's already this meaty.

Like that's what I'm saying, and the crazy and like what else?

Also, I just want to shout out something I think when we were talking about Magnifico is like, often in sci fi there's this very specific view of what's important and a lot of times it's kind of science and that's it.

Like there's not very many people, you know, in Star Wars in the main canon who are like spending their time doing art.

You know, though obviously in the Expanding Universe you do have stuff like that, like Sabaja Press and his you know, gallery of people in carbonite and stuff.

But generally, like I feel like we don't get to see a science fiction world, a futuristic world where there is music and where there's all these different aspects of society and I do.

I just think that this is a really interesting and fearless show.

In that way.

And when you do see music, it's more classical it's silly like jizz music or whatever.

Magnifico is like literally a DJ, and that seems like it shouldn't work, but it's like, it's such an interesting, great part of this season.

I just I think they're doing stuff here that nobody else is doing.

Well.

In the next episode of Extra Vision, were contineering our coverage.

Of Alien Earth Scary.

That's it for this episode.

Actual x Ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.

Our supervising producer is Abuza part.

Our producers are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan, and Fay Wag.

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