One of the major themes of Foundation, both the book and the TV adaptation, deals with determinism and the place of individuals in the grand scale of human history. Though Salvor Hardin, Gaal Dornick, and Hari Seldom are individuals with great skill and accomplishments, Seldon’s psychohistory and his grand plan for the future would tell us that they don’t really matter because individuals don’t move the needle when looking at humanity as a whole. And yet, the way the story we see plays out, they definitely have an impact on events; otherwise, how would the First Foundation have survived their First Crisis without Salvor? And why would the Vault call out a single individual in Hober Mallow?
That is the big question asked in this week’s episode, whether individual people matter when looking at things from a galactic perspective. It is easy to sympathize with Gaal being troubled by the visions she had of the future and her desperation in trying to avoid Salvor’s death 150 years from now, but as Hari points out, is it worth interrupting the grand plan and influencing the future for just one person? Likewise, is it worth the trouble to rescue Hari from peril now that he’s part of the plan ended in his death? Sure, he considers himself vital to the grand plan (because it’s his plan), but when zooming out far enough, he becomes insignificant. Meanwhile, the people on Terminus ponder the same question, wondering why the Vault would cast down divine justice on a Warden and then call out some random guy like Hober Mallow. We don’t have an answer yet — though the Mule did indicate that Mallow will eventually help bring down Empire — but we do meet Hober Mallow, and he is delightful.
Indeed, Mallow, like the other new character, brings something new to the show. While the book Mallow was a smart master tradesman and politician who mastered the art of the deal, TV Foundation Mallow is a scoundrel, a conman, and a cheat who is also delightful to watch. We meet him on the planet Korell where he is pulling a con on the king of the very futuristic European planet (the production design continues to be a highlight week by week). Mallow is selling a portable mini-teleporter in the shape of a bracelet, which he then uses to swap places with the king to try and steal a precious gem. When he gets caught, he is sentenced to be pierced by a massive metal stake until death. Thankfully, Mallow avoids certain death — no thanks to the two clerics of the Church of the Galactic Spirit, Constant and Poly — by once again swapping places with the king using the real teleporter, which was no bracelet but a small node Mallow hid in his mouth. It is a fun little adventure that sells us on Mallow being a cool space rogue that can outsmart his rivals while raising more questions as to why Seldon would call for him to solve the Second Crisis.
As for Hari, he continues to be yelling at Gaal for trapping him for over a century without so much as a crossword and also for messing up with his plan of building a Second Foundation simultaneously with the First. The dynamic between the two continues to be a highlight of Foundation, and getting the two of them and Salvor together is arguably the smartest change this season has made. Jared Harris is delightful as an angry and rather obstinate genius trapped inside a cube, and Lou Llobell matches his intensity and his goofiness. As Salvor says, the two are more alike than they want to admit, and as the more layperson of the three, Salvor’s exasperation at the science jargon and stubbornness of the two mathematicians leads to some effective comedy this week. Before the trio can head to the future home of the Second Foundation, they stop at a desert planet where Hari goes on a spiritual journey that … apparently gives him a real human body. That’s right, he has now, actually, completely defeated death and resurrected. Unless he’s a robot, of course.
Speaking of robots, everyone’s favorite enigmatic robot Demerzel introduces us to another big player in the story of Foundation: Bel Riose. We meet Riose, played by Ben Daniels, in a penal colony where he’s serving a long sentence for the crime of disobeying an order from Empire years back, which is seen as mockery by Brother Day.
Like Mallow, Riose is a new perspective that adds something fresh to Foundation. While last week we saw Queen Sareth be a defiant force in the court of Empire, she was still more of a hostage than anything else, someone to be discarded if Empire wants to. Riose, however, knows he’s needed, and he knows he’s the best there is at what he does, and he is not afraid to show Empire how much he hates them. Daniels is exquisite in the episode, never showing weakness despite his severely malnourished and beaten-down physique, openly mocking Cleon, calling him a bully and telling him to his face that he wants to break his neck. He is instantly one of the more likable characters of the show, even if his task is to assert whether the Foundation is a threat and to destroy it if it is.
But Daniels also shows incredible vulnerability and emotion, as Riose takes the job only when he learns his husband is alive after believing he was dead for six years. When the two meet again, all of Riose’s defenses drop, and Daniels delivers a spectacular performance full of heartbreak and the weight of six years of grieving.
So, are these individuals great enough to change the future? Or are they about as significant and capable of changing the flow of history as the Cleons have been of stopping the slow collapse of the Empire? Can the future change or is the math unmovable? We’ll find out either next week or 150 years from now.
The Prime Radiant
• While discussing Hober Mallow and Seldon’s plan, Poly mentions that the goal of the Foundation is to “be the ones to bring Empire down.†I don’t know about you, but between this and the increasingly bureaucratic look of the leadership on Terminus, the First Foundation is starting to give future Empire vibes.