Speaker 1: Warning today's episode Today in spoilers for Foundation episode seven
Speaker 1: of season three. Hello, my name is Jason Getupsion and
Speaker 1: my name's a Boot and welcome back to x ray Vision,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies,
Speaker 1: comics of pop culture. Company from my Heart podcast where
Speaker 1: we're bring you episodes every Tuesday and Thursday and Friday,
Speaker 1: Most News on.
Speaker 2: Saturday, News on Saturday.
Speaker 3: You don't forget Today, Jason, we are continuing our journey
Speaker 3: into Foundation season three and talking all about episode seven.
Speaker 2: We're nearing the end.
Speaker 1: Oh man, and it's getting very hot. Let's immediately jump
Speaker 1: into it. Foundation episode seven of season three, Foundations ended.
Speaker 1: It really looks like it. We open years ago on
Speaker 1: the planet Rassam aka Big Spinach a Mother, where we
Speaker 1: meet a young mother with her newborn baby and her
Speaker 1: young son and they are walking this path between the
Speaker 1: spinach of Big Spinach, and we learned that they live
Speaker 1: on this kind of industrial agricultural planet where huge wheel
Speaker 1: shaped tractors pull up the crops and we watch that
Speaker 1: process happening. There's also a group called Assessors that will
Speaker 1: land and occasionally make sure that take inventory of everything.
Speaker 1: Apparently that these workers have and make sure that they
Speaker 1: don't have anything they shouldn't and they sense that this
Speaker 1: is about to occur, so they run back to their
Speaker 1: homestead and one of the assessor ship's lands, and the
Speaker 1: mother along with her husband, puts this newborn baby into
Speaker 1: a hiding place, and the assessors arrive and they ask
Speaker 1: a bunch of questions, and we learn immediately that these
Speaker 1: assessors work for foundations. So uhh, the good guys that
Speaker 1: you thought were good are kind of bad. Although I
Speaker 1: should say that we kind of knew, and Harry always
Speaker 1: kind of knew that Foundation one was going to go
Speaker 1: astray in certain ways. And so we're seeing that now
Speaker 1: the Foundation one rules this planet, and we should assume
Speaker 1: other such planets with a authoritarian grip. There is a
Speaker 1: one child policy. The assessors discover the second child, the
Speaker 1: newborn child, and so they tell this family, okay, well
Speaker 1: you live under a one child policy rule and we'll
Speaker 1: be back in thirty days and you'll have one child.
Speaker 1: See you later. Very alarming, very troubling.
Speaker 2: Very troubling, very Nazi codd.
Speaker 1: Yes, we go to the present. Is causing Foundation to
Speaker 1: tear itself apart, just as we saw at the end
Speaker 1: of the previous episode, the space defenses are shooting at
Speaker 1: it themselves. On the ground, soldiers are shooting at civilians. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: pritches down in a cell trying to warn Seth that
Speaker 1: this is all the Mule. The Mule is doing is
Speaker 1: let me out so I can deal with the Mule.
Speaker 1: It's all in all a very bad day for Foundation.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile Torren is trying to get Bita to safety
Speaker 1: and she's basically knocked unconscious. We go to Trantor. Various
Speaker 1: alarmed ministers are appealing to Dusk, who is currently the
Speaker 1: only cleon available. They're telling him it's bad. The Empire
Speaker 1: has lost much of its fleet around Kalgan. The Foundation
Speaker 1: is about to fall, which means the Mule will then
Speaker 1: have ships with which to attack the rest of Empire,
Speaker 1: including the Imperial planet. We've got to do something. Dusk
Speaker 1: then has a vision of a camel moving.
Speaker 2: Through the back of the well.
Speaker 1: Not the real camel, I mean, let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: Because he sees this, he then snaps too and orders
Speaker 1: He says, okay, send pro determined new terminus. Let's find
Speaker 1: out what's happening there. All the armies in the galaxy
Speaker 1: have them recalled to Trantor to defend the empire and
Speaker 1: do something about these camels that are loose in the hall,
Speaker 1: and then he'll just leaves. Yeah, what is this real
Speaker 1: camel vision? What?
Speaker 2: I think?
Speaker 3: The camel not real, but the ferret later or at
Speaker 3: least clearly real, because the ambassador also sees the ferret.
Speaker 3: And I think, I mean, I think clearly we're supposed
Speaker 3: to assume that with only three days left until his ascension,
Speaker 3: Dusk is like deteriorating mentally, you know. And I think,
Speaker 3: like he keeps repeating, like I have, I'm on a timeline,
Speaker 3: the clock is ticking, and I think that might literally
Speaker 3: be like a physical taking time bomb, and like maybe
Speaker 3: dusks are just never meant to actually live longer than this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought that this was a I think it's
Speaker 1: a vision one and I think it's gotta be an
Speaker 1: allusion to the biblical metaphor about a camel moving through
Speaker 1: the like it's easier for a camel to go through
Speaker 1: the eye of a needle than it is for a
Speaker 1: rich man to enter heaven. And I think that's as
Speaker 1: he enters the literally the last three days of his life.
Speaker 1: I think Dusk is thinking, what happens to me after?
Speaker 1: And have I lived a good life? I think that's
Speaker 1: what's happening, but we will see. Maybe it's a real camel.
Speaker 1: Dusk then goes to see the ambassador from Foundation and
Speaker 1: she's a mess, of course, because she's watching like a
Speaker 1: nine to eleven planetary level event happened too to her society,
Speaker 1: and she just doesn't know what to do. Dusk comes
Speaker 1: in with a million questions, Hey, do you know any
Speaker 1: trantor is it falling yet? Or what's going on? She's like,
Speaker 1: is that the only.
Speaker 2: Reason you came to talk to me?
Speaker 1: I care?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: How are you? I'm sorry?
Speaker 1: How are you doing?
Speaker 2: Are you also? Baby?
Speaker 1: No? Sorry? Anyway, we go to New Trantor the Mule lands.
Speaker 1: He's got all his acolytes with him, Scarlett is with him,
Speaker 1: and Mayor Inbird goes to bend the knee foundation completely surrendering.
Speaker 1: Anybody who doesn't want to surrender is immediately dealt with,
Speaker 1: and the Mule is like, listen, you're gonna love serving me.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be great. You're gonna love it. And Mayor
Speaker 1: Inberg you're gonna have to learn to love blood because
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a lot of it. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of war, there be a lot of death.
Speaker 1: Scarlet then paints his cheeks, Mayor Inber's cheeks with blood,
Speaker 1: so he gets the picture, and we discover that it appears,
Speaker 1: whether by his own volition or due to the influence
Speaker 1: of the Mule, Inbur apparently sold out foundation and told
Speaker 1: the mule to come here or lower the defenses or something.
Speaker 1: And then as as I guess a price for their
Speaker 1: somewhat of their freedom or to not die, he offers
Speaker 1: a pritch, who the Mule clearly wants so he can
Speaker 1: locate Gail Dornick. This is shocking. Do you think do
Speaker 1: you think Mayor Inbert did this just on his own
Speaker 1: I think he did.
Speaker 2: I think he can. I think did.
Speaker 3: I think he's enough of a coward to sell out
Speaker 3: the planet for his own supposed safety. But I do
Speaker 3: think this is such a fun storytelling device because every
Speaker 3: time we cut back to Mule, you don't know whether
Speaker 3: any of these characters are acting under under their own volitions.
Speaker 3: Correct And obviously we say that see that play out
Speaker 3: quite explicitly between Randu and Tourin later in the episode.
Speaker 3: But I had a fun time in every scene on Foundation,
Speaker 3: asking myself is this the mule or is this their
Speaker 3: own choice?
Speaker 1: Same we go to Micagen where things are getting very
Speaker 1: very interesting. Now Day is apologizing to uh Song and
Speaker 1: to gamer tag girlfriend about basically he's like, listen, it's
Speaker 1: clearly like a misunderstand some of it. This was a
Speaker 1: vast misunderstanding me coming here. But like, let me make
Speaker 1: it up to you by telling you about the robot,
Speaker 1: which I know you really care about because of this
Speaker 1: religion you have. Look at this and he pulls out
Speaker 1: like a crochet needle and he's like, this is one
Speaker 1: of Demrzelle's tools. It comes from Earth. You can tell
Speaker 1: by the markings. And is that like, come on, that's
Speaker 1: a big deal. And they're like, you know what intriguing,
Speaker 1: but we need to know more, right, how do we
Speaker 1: figure out more? And Song and gamer tried girlfriend kind
Speaker 1: of argue a little bit about well, you could put
Speaker 1: the memory thing on and see if he said anything then,
Speaker 1: and she's like, I really don't want to put the
Speaker 1: memory thing on that will return the memories from the
Speaker 1: Pleasure Palace to me, And yeah, you know, there's got
Speaker 1: to be some other way that we can get him
Speaker 1: to talk more and sun Master. Maybe we bring in
Speaker 1: sun Master eighteen and we get his take on it.
Speaker 1: This gang leader that we had heard some telling of
Speaker 1: in a previous episode. And all in all, Song and
Speaker 1: her partner are very excited about the potential that robots
Speaker 1: might actually exist. They decide to use shrooms, which are
Speaker 1: part of their religion. I guess makes sense that this
Speaker 1: place is called micagen, which is, you know, the more
Speaker 1: species correct plant name for well, they're not plants whatever,
Speaker 1: the scientific name for fungi. And so they start getting
Speaker 1: the mushroom mix.
Speaker 2: Ready.
Speaker 1: Back on Trantor, the Ambassador tells Dusk about the fall
Speaker 1: of New Terminus and she's like a total mess. Like
Speaker 1: they're having dinner like as if it's normal, and she's
Speaker 1: like it's so crazy, like everybody's dying. But here I
Speaker 1: am like eating this luxurious dinner like everything is normal,
Speaker 1: and Dusk is like, don't worry. They don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: I'll protect you, Like, don't worry. You stay with me.
Speaker 1: Leave the Foundation Mission, the chancery, the Foundation Embassy. You
Speaker 1: come live with me in the Palace. I will enfold
Speaker 1: you in the Imperial protections and everything's going to be
Speaker 1: absolutely fine. The Empire is on a strong footing. She's like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, where are day in Dawn Like, Joe, I'm
Speaker 1: not enough.
Speaker 2: Why are we bringing up my brothers?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's like, listen, okay, flat out, Dave fled
Speaker 1: the palace and Dawn well, yea too complicated to get
Speaker 1: into that one, but maybe one day we'll get into
Speaker 1: that one. The mood, yeah, let's not get into that.
Speaker 1: All of which is to say, I'm holding things together here, okay.
Speaker 1: And then Day's ferret runs onto the table and he's like,
Speaker 1: look at that, that's Day's ferret. He's kind of still around,
Speaker 1: I'll look at that. Isn't that cute? Song? And gamer
Speaker 1: tag girlfriend questioned Day As he's tripping, he's taken the
Speaker 1: shroom mixture, which seems like it comes out of a
Speaker 1: fancy espresso machine. He finds himself back in the palace.
Speaker 1: He's greased up and shirtless because this is Foundation after all,
Speaker 1: and he's running Wait til Jesus, god, guy, the chastic
Speaker 1: process of this show amazing. So they're running through He's
Speaker 1: running through the halls right seeing these visions. He sees
Speaker 1: his brothers sitting on the triple throne. His seat is
Speaker 1: empty than Demarselle. A massively size de Marcel approaches. She
Speaker 1: gives him this kind of short lecture about like their
Speaker 1: relationship that the Kleonic brothers have with Demarselle, and then
Speaker 1: he wakes up on the floor, but still under the
Speaker 1: influence of this stuff. Song is there. Day apparently, in
Speaker 1: his unconsciousness, has been talking about Demarzelle. He's arguing now
Speaker 1: with Demozelle, like about like, why do you hate me? Demrcel?
Speaker 1: Do you hate me? And Song is trying to quite
Speaker 1: you know, get more information about this Demarzel character, right,
Speaker 1: and it's like that's okay, So that's the robot. Can
Speaker 1: you free you? Can free the robot? Can't you? And
Speaker 1: like and days like can I free you? And Day
Speaker 1: eventually tells Song, no, I can't. I can't order the
Speaker 1: robot freed because she is programmed, like from before me Eden,
Speaker 1: to serve Empire. And this infuriates Song and her partner,
Speaker 1: of course, because it's like they have enslaved God. Apparently
Speaker 1: the trip continues days back in the palace, he's talking
Speaker 1: to Dusk now asking if Demarzelle, like is Demarzel heard,
Speaker 1: is she sad about this? The way that she has
Speaker 1: to serve empire? And then he sees an older Demarselle
Speaker 1: like sitting in the mirror to do maintenance on herself.
Speaker 1: And then he sees his the three brothers, the three
Speaker 1: Kleonic phases of dawn, day, and dusk, all doing the
Speaker 1: practicing being in sync thing at dinner right, and then
Speaker 1: Dawn messes up and you get the pick, you get
Speaker 1: the I got the impression at least that this Dawn
Speaker 1: that we're seeing in the vision is him, Like, he
Speaker 1: then progresses into the day that we are watching, Now,
Speaker 1: did you feel that?
Speaker 2: I felt exactly that too.
Speaker 3: I get the sense that we're learning that this day has,
Speaker 3: since his Dawn days been always a little out of
Speaker 3: saying a little bit. And I've certainly been dealing with
Speaker 3: like this complex that I'm not good enough.
Speaker 2: I've never been good enough to be a cleon.
Speaker 1: I've never been good enough. And also Demarzel hates this
Speaker 1: and hates me, and how can I make it up
Speaker 1: to her? So he then asks de Marzelle, like, are
Speaker 1: we the worst? Are we the worst cleons? I feel
Speaker 1: like we're the worst ever cleons. And he and he's like,
Speaker 1: can you tell me a story, like any story? And
Speaker 1: she's like, well, listen, I've had so many stories. I've
Speaker 1: got so many like I've been alive for so long.
Speaker 1: I've been a soldier, I've been a prisoner, I've been
Speaker 1: all these different things. Currently I am a prisoner. And
Speaker 1: can I order you to free yourself? He asks? And
Speaker 1: she's like, no, you can't do that. But what would
Speaker 1: you do if you were free? He asks her. She's like, why,
Speaker 1: I would make more of me. I would make more robots.
Speaker 1: And okay, if you could choose, would you choose to
Speaker 1: love us the cleons? And she gives really no clear answer.
Speaker 1: She's which he realizes is the answer like the answer
Speaker 1: is no yes. And he realizes then, in that moment
Speaker 1: and that hesitation of her to answer, and the kind
Speaker 1: of ambiguousness of her answer in general, that she really
Speaker 1: wants to be free at the core of her, like
Speaker 1: any living thing wants to be free. And then the
Speaker 1: trip kind of ends or tails off, and he has
Speaker 1: clearly come to a decision and has clearly come to
Speaker 1: a place where emotionally something has happened, like something big
Speaker 1: has happened. This is an incredible sequence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think also visually an incredible scene, yes, just
Speaker 3: the way we're transitioning from scene to scene. This whole
Speaker 3: episode actually had some really fun transitions all throughout, but
Speaker 3: this true Trip sequence was a visual treat for sure.
Speaker 3: I also loved that we ended on this like really
Speaker 3: poignant freedom versus love, because I think same there are
Speaker 3: different versions of that decision. You know, there are stories
Speaker 3: about people choosing love over their freedom and prioritizing love.
Speaker 3: Here we're seeing the opposite of that. Deverzel Again, I
Speaker 3: think I said those a few episodes ago, but I
Speaker 3: believe that she, in some weird robot way, truly loves
Speaker 3: the Cleons, and we see her emotional outbursts. We saw
Speaker 3: that last week. I believe with Gail when she's talking
Speaker 3: about raising them, and so I do think she loves them.
Speaker 3: But I think after what a thousand years of enslavement,
Speaker 3: freedom is worth more to her than any amounts of love.
Speaker 3: Love is not enough for her.
Speaker 1: I agree, and it makes me wonder should Harry have
Speaker 1: just taken shrooms in my cons and then he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have needed to do the whole psychohistory. You would have
Speaker 1: just been like Oh, the robot wants to be free. Yep,
Speaker 1: that is the hinge point upon which the entire galaxy moves,
Speaker 1: Like I've figured that out.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: I also there's a very small I don't know whether
Speaker 3: this is an easter egg. I don't know whether this
Speaker 3: is hinting at future seasons to come, because it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel like a thing that will make sense this season.
Speaker 3: But I'll say this in sort of a vague, non
Speaker 3: spoilery way, but Demriseel mentions that she has been known
Speaker 3: as Daniel, she uses this other name, which hints at
Speaker 3: a very very important robot character within the Foundation and
Speaker 3: asim Off universe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna get it.
Speaker 3: I think that that's all that's really safe to say.
Speaker 1: I feel like robots are coming. We go back to Trantor,
Speaker 1: where the Ambassador finally asks about ascension, like, okay, so
Speaker 1: you're gonna protect me, that's great, but you are getting
Speaker 1: vaporized in three days now, Like that's happening or is that?
Speaker 1: Like she's like, clearly they can't do that now, like
Speaker 1: everything's so crazy, and Dusk is like, listen, I will
Speaker 1: take care of it and make sure that whatever happens
Speaker 1: after me, like I've made my peace with this life. No,
Speaker 1: he hasn't. He's flat out lying in this part where
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm fine, I'm ready to close this chapter
Speaker 1: of my life and I'll make sure you're taking care
Speaker 1: of after the fact. And we know that that's not
Speaker 1: the case. He's been freaking out. They then kiss. We
Speaker 1: go back to New Terminus where Pritch bites through his
Speaker 1: wrist in order to get the guards to come to
Speaker 1: his cell. This is fucking crazy, crazy nuts Inber then
Speaker 1: brings the mule to his cell to find Pritchard is
Speaker 1: bled out and dead. Only no, it's the guard. Pridge
Speaker 1: then like peeks in like ha ha and tries to
Speaker 1: shoot the mule sneak style, like.
Speaker 2: I better bridge to be clear, master spy by ass Are.
Speaker 1: You kidding me? I love I loved it. I mean
Speaker 1: he doesn't have the safety off. The safety is on.
Speaker 1: He can't shoot the god and now is running away
Speaker 1: as the as the guards of New Terminus and the
Speaker 1: mules people are shooting at him in the butt. Torn
Speaker 1: gets Beta on the ship, I mean crazy stuff from Bridge.
Speaker 1: Torn gets Beta on the ship. Randy breaks in. He
Speaker 1: made it as well. They don't know where Magnifico is,
Speaker 1: so the ship Ai is like, hey, while you were taught,
Speaker 1: while nephew and and uncle are talking it out, bad
Speaker 1: guys are coming to the ship. Okay, so there's that
Speaker 1: to can clock. Randy then says, listen, what if it's
Speaker 1: what if? The mule is like, what if it's gonna
Speaker 1: be all good? Like what if? What if the opportunities there? Right, listen,
Speaker 1: we've been fighting as foundation Empire has always kind of
Speaker 1: been a problem. Everything's shaken up. Now maybe we can
Speaker 1: all profit from this. So Torren now is like, hold
Speaker 1: on a second, did the mule get to you? And
Speaker 1: Randy's like no, no, no, no, no, the mule didn't get to me.
Speaker 1: But I just want to tell you the mule is
Speaker 1: you love. The mule is pure love, like he doesn't hate,
Speaker 1: he doesn't hate us, In fact, he loves us. So
Speaker 1: now Torn is like okay, yeah, whatever, the mule got
Speaker 1: to you, and he jumps into an escape pod. The
Speaker 1: escape pod has like some sort of booby trap in
Speaker 1: it that shoots the bolts that are attached to the
Speaker 1: escape pod cell. Yeah, these bolts kill Randu and Torren
Speaker 1: doesn't want to, but he has to leave Beita behind,
Speaker 1: She's can prepare and he escapes to we.
Speaker 3: Don't know where, right This was my favorite scene of
Speaker 3: this episode. I think so because I loved the insight
Speaker 3: that we got into more mentalic slash mule abilities here,
Speaker 3: because it's not like, it's not mind control, it's not
Speaker 3: generic I'm wiping your mind. You're now just like, although
Speaker 3: it seems like he can do it, that I he
Speaker 3: can do I think there are varying degrees to his powers.
Speaker 3: For sure, you're right, But I think what's like almost
Speaker 3: mornefarious is what we see here is that the Mule
Speaker 3: has tampered just enough, but has played with Randw's motivations.
Speaker 3: Randw already wants to subvert the foundation, so why not
Speaker 3: do that together? But he like there's just enough to
Speaker 3: nudge someone along. And so I have found it interesting
Speaker 3: over the course of the season watching the ways in
Speaker 3: which the Mule conserves gas. I guess in the table
Speaker 3: that's he's not pedaled to the metal, just mind control
Speaker 3: everybody around him all the time.
Speaker 1: I think that to me is also the kind of
Speaker 1: the most fascinating thing about the Mule is it's it's
Speaker 1: it benefits him to not let anybody know just how
Speaker 1: much gas he has or just what the limits of
Speaker 1: his power are. So the sense I get, especially with
Speaker 1: how freaked out he is about Gail, is that he's
Speaker 1: much more vulnerable than anybody knows. And I think Magnifico
Speaker 1: is going to be the key to that. In fact,
Speaker 1: he's probably weaker now without Magnifico than maybe ever. And
Speaker 1: but at the same time he's he's covering that up.
Speaker 1: He's being very very cagey about that part of it. Naturally,
Speaker 1: back on Trantor, Dusk and the Ambassador have made love
Speaker 1: and Dusk. This is so funny because Dusk like kisses
Speaker 1: her and has this fucking look on his face like, yeah,
Speaker 1: still got it, still doing it three days from ascension
Speaker 1: day and I'm still doing it.
Speaker 3: Incredible.
Speaker 1: It was like an incredible vibe from him. He then
Speaker 1: goes to I guess take like a post coital stroll
Speaker 1: around the palace when he sees Day's ferret and then
Speaker 1: he feeds it some wine and meat and then he
Speaker 1: stomps it to death. This I think, Listen, we still
Speaker 1: don't know what Dusk is going to do with his
Speaker 1: gravity bomb, but.
Speaker 2: I suspect I keep forgetting.
Speaker 1: About Yeah, we keep forgetting about that, but like I suspect,
Speaker 1: I think Dusk is positioning himself to just be like, hey,
Speaker 1: forget the cloning thing. What if I just keep going,
Speaker 1: Like I think that's where this is headed. It's just
Speaker 1: like I'll just keep going. As the guy.
Speaker 3: We go to Mikegens, are you are you saying that
Speaker 3: the death Star is his?
Speaker 2: Like gun, He's like, let me keep going? Or I shoot.
Speaker 1: I think I think he's good. I think he understands
Speaker 1: that everybody's coming to trantor I think he is going
Speaker 1: to when everybody's in one place, set the bomb off,
Speaker 1: and somehow in his mind he's going to set himself
Speaker 1: up as the emperor of whatever's left.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, all right, interesting theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sun Master comes through in Loki cosplay sun Master
Speaker 1: eighteen dresses like Loki. Let's just put that.
Speaker 2: Out there, like this is just another variant, a.
Speaker 1: Variant the LOGI with the stab and everything and the
Speaker 1: fucking gauntlets and everything, but with I mean the abs
Speaker 1: we had We mentioned it at the time, but I
Speaker 1: think the casting part of the casting for this season
Speaker 1: was how exactly washboard are your abs and true?
Speaker 3: Where do we get these slowly just pans across his ads,
Speaker 3: and I'm like.
Speaker 1: So, sun Master Loki questions Day, who is still clearly
Speaker 1: like grappling with the emotional revelations of his trip, like.
Speaker 2: He's still kind of in like a fetal position, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah he is. It's it's as if a very heavy
Speaker 1: truth has has descended on him and he's grappling with this.
Speaker 1: And Sunmaster then says, like some truly Loki like stuff
Speaker 1: with the staff about how the skull and the staff
Speaker 1: will do this and that and we get it.
Speaker 2: A new tran tour.
Speaker 1: The Mule and Scarlet are going for tour of the
Speaker 1: Mayor's offices and the very the complexes around there. The
Speaker 1: mayor is like, yeah, of course, Hey, my whatever's mine
Speaker 1: is yours, Like, let's go for it. They go into
Speaker 1: the bathroom and the mule is like, hey, you want
Speaker 1: to serve me? I love it. Why don't you drown
Speaker 1: yourself in this sink? And Seth is horrified by this.
Speaker 1: The mayor does his asked, drowns dies, and the Mule
Speaker 1: then asks Seth, hey, you're very close with Pritchard. I
Speaker 1: can feel that coming off of you. Where do you
Speaker 1: think he's going and she's like, well, knowing him, he's
Speaker 1: probably planning to go off and start a rebellion against you.
Speaker 1: We go back to Big Spinach and just as we thought,
Speaker 1: I think this is the Mule's flashback. Yes, and we'll
Speaker 1: pause here. Does this throw into disarray your Magnifico is
Speaker 1: the mule theory, seeing as how they cast this young
Speaker 1: man to look very much like Palau.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: I also was getting a little bit worried about my
Speaker 3: theory in this episode because I think there's a we
Speaker 3: we didn't here. Here's how my theory still stands. We
Speaker 3: didn't see Magnifico. Where the fuck is he?
Speaker 2: What is he?
Speaker 1: He might be around and you see them round, We
Speaker 1: see them youle doing mind control ship on the in
Speaker 1: the same general area that Magnifico is running around in.
Speaker 1: So it from that perspective it might.
Speaker 3: Still legal, I agree, but but definitely uh yeah, my
Speaker 3: theory is getting a little shaky because of this flashback sequence.
Speaker 3: At one point I thought, is the baby Magnifico?
Speaker 2: Are they brothers? And is that what's happening here?
Speaker 1: But I might just kind of wait, hold on, I
Speaker 1: kind of love that one.
Speaker 3: Also, I like that too, Yeah, but I have nothing
Speaker 3: to back that up except that the baby is bald,
Speaker 3: which is not not a connection.
Speaker 2: But I don't know are they brothers. It's not entirely
Speaker 2: clear to me if the baby is magnifico. But I
Speaker 2: thought it was there the entire time, even though we
Speaker 2: kind of see him leave the baby.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean he doesn't go back and get
Speaker 3: the baby, get the baby right, or reconnect with his
Speaker 3: brother once they're both older or something. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: not so sure about my theory anymore. Is where I'm like.
Speaker 3: I was very pro my theory. I was like, this
Speaker 3: is like eighty twenty now more like sixty forty.
Speaker 1: I was very pro it. I do feel like this
Speaker 1: casting of this young actor throws it into serious Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, that said, so we're we're watching now the parents,
Speaker 1: this small family discuss that they're now going to get
Speaker 1: rid of one of their kids. The whole family's together,
Speaker 1: they're near this looks like an entrance to some kind
Speaker 1: of waterway, right, and the plan is to drown the child.
Speaker 1: Only plot twist, they're going to drown the older son
Speaker 1: and start anew with this baby. And the young boy
Speaker 1: real and he's begging for his life, and as he
Speaker 1: does so, kind of X Men style, his his superpower
Speaker 1: emerges in this moment of intense emotional distress, and both parents,
Speaker 1: one by one, first the father than the mother, fall
Speaker 1: into the water in some kind of delusion, believing that
Speaker 1: like they are now living their lives with their one
Speaker 1: child happily, but in reality they are drowning and they
Speaker 1: have no idea that this is happening. The Young Mule
Speaker 1: then takes the baby and leaves it with the neighbors,
Speaker 1: who we've we get the name of the neighbors, the Bartons.
Speaker 1: Does that Is that gonna be important because it's weird
Speaker 1: that they name the neighbors a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, multiple times, and then it's on the note that
Speaker 3: doesn't ring a bell for me, but that might just
Speaker 3: be beyond my Asimov universe foundation knowledge.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's gonna come back. And then the
Speaker 1: young Mule leaves to become the Mule that we see
Speaker 1: today and in the present, the Mule goes to Hologram
Speaker 1: Harry's vault yells for Harry to come out. It's like,
Speaker 1: I know you're in there. Hologram Harry comes out and
Speaker 1: just asks basically so how much of how much of
Speaker 1: what you know about your life is true? Basically he
Speaker 1: says it, and then we end, which is, yeah, fascinating
Speaker 1: because we didn't until this moment know that hologram Harry
Speaker 1: knew anything about the Mule and apparently is aware of
Speaker 1: the Mule to the point of knowing about his childhood
Speaker 1: or perhaps the mule shared that, but can he share
Speaker 1: that with a hologram? Many questions. Your thoughts on that ending.
Speaker 2: I loved the ending.
Speaker 1: I same.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is finally we're seeing the unstoppable force
Speaker 3: meet the immovable object, and I can't wait, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: next next week's episode. I was very tempted to just
Speaker 3: click next and watch the next one, but I'm gonna
Speaker 3: restrain myself.
Speaker 2: Very good ending.
Speaker 3: I thought, you know, overall this episode, I think we've
Speaker 3: come off like a tor dy fors of like bombshell
Speaker 3: episode bomb Shall upside bombs episode. This one felt, you know,
Speaker 3: not as good, but like definitely.
Speaker 1: Had an action an action episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and so I was hoping.
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, I mean, maybe it's too much
Speaker 3: to hope for a fourth episode in a row with
Speaker 3: a great bombshell moment or something. I think in a
Speaker 3: small way, we got it in the end here with
Speaker 3: the flashback to the Great Mule, and we got it
Speaker 3: with Mule Harry showdown coming up. You know, like this
Speaker 3: is very wwe coded. It's gonna get real in the
Speaker 3: ring next episode.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this. Here's the thought I
Speaker 1: had body Harry has Gail, that's his mentallic, right, is
Speaker 1: the Mule hologram Harry's Gail? Like is if he knows
Speaker 1: about the mules upbringing? Did he know that the Mule
Speaker 1: would emerge? And has he did he get that ball rolling?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: See, I don't know that Holograham Harry knows a lot
Speaker 3: about the Mule.
Speaker 1: I don't think he does, but he seemed to in
Speaker 1: this moment.
Speaker 2: He seemed to.
Speaker 3: But knowing Harry over the course of this show, my
Speaker 3: first instinct was, Oh, he's bluffing. He's just like puffing
Speaker 3: his feathers in the face of this like unknown danger
Speaker 3: to try and get more out of him. And I
Speaker 3: think it also for the audience, it serves as like
Speaker 3: this flashback.
Speaker 2: That we just showed you this episode, how much of
Speaker 2: that is true?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Are you sure that this young boy was the Mule
Speaker 3: and that's or is this the story the Mule has
Speaker 3: crafted for him or.
Speaker 1: Is that the story that Magnifico put into his mind.
Speaker 2: Or put into his mind? Right? Is Magnifico the other
Speaker 2: child or something?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: Like, I think intentionally we are supposed to question basically
Speaker 3: everything with the Mule in this episode.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're now moving on to like basically the
Speaker 3: final third of the season, and I think we're in
Speaker 3: for some huge twists and reveals with the Mule, I
Speaker 3: continusing it all season long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk quickly about Micajen. What do you think
Speaker 1: is what role will the Robot Worshippers play going forward?
Speaker 1: Because I think we are meant because of some of
Speaker 1: the foreshadow and we got in earlier episodes to suspect
Speaker 1: that Trantor is maybe going to be completely destroyed, and
Speaker 1: certainly it's gonna be the fight the site of a
Speaker 1: major battle. Yeah, so what happens to the Robot Worshippers
Speaker 1: and what role do they plan the story going forward?
Speaker 1: If any?
Speaker 3: It's still unclear to me where emotionally Day has ended
Speaker 3: up at the end of this episode, Like, are these
Speaker 3: revelations about Demerzel that he's had, is that freeing for him,
Speaker 3: is able to let go of the Cleon baggage and
Speaker 3: now maybe like forge a different life in Micagen or
Speaker 3: has that solidified his loyalty to Empire to Demozelle in
Speaker 3: some way and is he going to now actively work
Speaker 3: against these robot worshippers? You know, I think that's intentionally
Speaker 3: left unclear at the end of this episode, and we'll
Speaker 3: see what happens, but I'm not sure. Like I'm getting
Speaker 3: like sort of cult vibes, religious vibes from this group,
Speaker 3: but whether or not they're going to play a huge role.
Speaker 3: I think Demrizel has to come in contact with this group, yes,
Speaker 3: a big role, yeah, but I can't Demrizel also missing
Speaker 3: a lot of key players missing in this episode, no Gale,
Speaker 3: no Demozelle, and so I don't know how that happens.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but I think it has to happen
Speaker 3: before this group becomes a player on the battlefields.
Speaker 1: I agree. I I was left wondering. My feeling at
Speaker 1: the end of Mikajen is that the days always felt
Speaker 1: like the Weirdo, has always felt like something's wrong, and
Speaker 1: has clearly always felt coming from Demarzelle this anger, passive, aggressive,
Speaker 1: even hatred, and he's clearly had it gnawing at his
Speaker 1: conscious this whole time. Why do you not like me?
Speaker 1: Why do you hate us? While he's only wanted to,
Speaker 1: in a way please her, And I think you could
Speaker 1: kind of read into the choices he's made in his
Speaker 1: life as this attempt and failure to please this mother
Speaker 1: figure who he feels like hates him but won't ever
Speaker 1: talk about why. And so I feel like the revelation
Speaker 1: of the true nature of her relationship to Empire, which
Speaker 1: is she was programmed to support and nurture them and
Speaker 1: doesn't actually want to be doing it and is again
Speaker 1: essentially a prisoner of this structure. I think that was
Speaker 1: I think it was heartbreaking for him. I think it
Speaker 1: was shattering to discover his role in the enslavement of
Speaker 1: someone he truly cares about. And I think I was
Speaker 1: left feeling like, there's a chance he becomes like this
Speaker 1: Patty Hurst like figure working with these religious rebels to
Speaker 1: air quotes free Demarzell, I mean truly, not even air quotes,
Speaker 1: like really actually free her, whatever that means. And you know,
Speaker 1: I guess potentially be Demarzelle's army going forward if it
Speaker 1: does go that way. But the one thing I agree
Speaker 1: with you with I think they have to all meet,
Speaker 1: like that must happen, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: I mean I really liked in this episode that the
Speaker 3: like thematic through line was two children abandoned by their parents.
Speaker 3: We got Cleon and we got young Mule, and we
Speaker 3: see how that plays out for the Mule presumably, and
Speaker 3: I think it'll be interesting to see how it plays
Speaker 3: off for Kleon now, whether he'll go down as similarly
Speaker 3: destructive route.
Speaker 2: Or if it'll go a different way for him.
Speaker 1: Torn and Pritch, I would assume that they're heading towards
Speaker 1: Gail and Second Foundation, who we have did not see
Speaker 1: this episode, but it feels like that's the only place
Speaker 1: left that they could possibly go. I mean, Pritch, who
Speaker 1: is is lucky to be alive?
Speaker 3: That guy, I mean, he's a metallic right. Have we
Speaker 3: seen him use his bowers once in an effective way?
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe he's just resisting more effectively and it's
Speaker 1: taking all his exertions to like keep his walls up.
Speaker 1: I think is maybe what we're what we're seeing. But
Speaker 1: you know what, again, I would imagine they'll go to Gail,
Speaker 1: who has this kind of bursioning alliance with Demarzelle, maybe
Speaker 1: to face down the mute rule. Although we are again
Speaker 1: are left also with the feeling that demarzl maybe kind
Speaker 1: of wants the Mule to blow it all up.
Speaker 2: It's kind of behind all the chaos.
Speaker 1: Maybe behind yes, maybe behind this entire thing.
Speaker 2: I suppose we'll see.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. On the next episode of xtra Vision,
Speaker 1: We're continuing our coverage of Alien Earth. It's the biggest
Speaker 1: episode nex you're listening. X ray Vision is hosted by
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Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Abuzafar. Our producers are Common Laurent
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