‘Foundation’ Season 2 Episode 7 Recap: Psychohistory Repeats Itself

Those magnificent bastards did it again!

Or did they? That’s the big question surrounding the shocking climax of this week’s episode of Foundation, the Little Epic That Could. Not content with bringing the Foundation’s founder Hari Seldon back to physical life only to kill him off almost immediately, writers Eric Carrasco and David Kob add another body to the pile courtesy of psychic cult leader Tellem Bond, who drowns our heroine Salvor Hardin when she finds out what really happened to Hari.

Or maybe not. There’s no painstaking process of drowning here, no getting staked out and left for the tide to claim; Tellem just knocks Salvor out with a twist of her fingers and allows the adventurer to float face-down next to her idol’s bobbing corpse. Call me old fashioned, but I’ve seen enough prestige TV to know that no one’s really dead until you see them decapitated, dismembered, or staring upwards with wide-open, unseeing eyes. In other words, Salvor may yet live to gripe another day.

If I had to guess, I’d say what we have here is a case of the ol’ George R.R. Martin double-tap fake-out. Spoiler alert for the Red Wedding (a cultural event a decade in the rearview mirror, based on stuff from a 23-year-old book, but whatever): After the chapter in the book A Storm of Swords in which Robb and Catelyn Stark are brutally massacred along with their forces, the very next chapter ends with the heavy implication that young Arya Stark has also been murdered, by her erstwhile guardian the Hound. Due to the structure of Martin’s novels, however, you have to make your way through multiple unrelated chapters before you finally find out that Arya was just out cold, not dead.

So yeah, I would not be surprised if the second blow in this particular one-two punch of death was ultimately pulled. That’s even before you weigh the fact that the show has finally succeeded in making Salvor an interesting character; one would think they’d be reluctant to toss away that hard work. 

But still, the fact that it’s even up for debate is exciting stuff! It’s like watching a so-called “near fall” in a professional wrestling match, in which one of the combatants clobbers their opponent and pins their shoulders to the mat, the ref drops and slams their hand down for a “one…two…thrOHHHHHHH!” The crowd roars with shock as the battered grappler kicks out of the pin at the last possible second! 

Of course, no one in the crowd is really shocked — we all know how wrestling works, we know that it uses fakeouts to build excitement and suspense. But we’ve decided to go along for the ride, because we’ve decided that the ride is a fun one. 

And boy, is it ever! I’ve spent so much time talking about this one aspect of the episode — important to the plot, but relatively minor in terms of viewing pleasure — that I’ve neglected all the other frankly awesome shit that goes down during genre television’s most electrifying hour. 

One element worth singling out: The deft, origami-like folding of Constant and Poly, General Bel Riose and his husband Glawen Curr, and Hober Mallow and the Spacer hive into one single elegant construction. In a sort of cascading series of scenes, Hober makes Hari Seldon’s big offer to the Spacers: an unlimited supply of a synthetic version of the compound that keeps them alive, heretofore controlled by Empire, in exchange for their support. The spacer queen, She-Is-Center (Brucella Neman-Persaud), decides the risk isn’t worth it and rats him out to her daughter, She-Bends-Light (Judi Shekoni), who serves with Bel and Glawen. Hober is handed over to their custody, but escapes thanks to his sentient navigator beast Beki and makes a jump right there within Bel’s ship’s hangar, thus proving the existence of Foundation’s advanced faster-than-light travel technology. As a result, Poly and Constant are brought before the Cleons and Demerzel, taunted, tortured, and returned to prison. It’s almost elegant, the way the pieces are put together.

And there’s more, driven almost entirely by the powerful performances of Lee Pace, Cassian Bilton, Ella-Rae Smith, and Laura Birn as Day, Dawn, Sareth, and Demerzel. I’m selling all the nuances of the scenes involved in this waaaay short, but in brief, Sareth’s suspicion that Day and Demerzel wiped out her family is confirmed, and Sareth and Dawn’s love affair begins — with the goal of getting her pregnant by his version of Cleon, not his monstrous older brother’s. “It’s a bloodless fucking coup,” Sareth says, and she’s right in every sense of the phrase.

I say this stuff is driven by the performances because, well, it is. I can’t even tell you how many closeups we have on Demerzel, looking alternately jealous and murderous; Day, simultaneously out of his depth and in total command, a uniquely awful arrangement; Sareth, sometimes flirting her heart out, sometimes barely bothering to suppress her rage, always an inscrutable combination of performance and honesty; and Dawn, seemingly aroused equally by the gorgeous Sareth’s unabashed come-ons and their secret rebellion against his older bro. The fact that we get a throwaway explanation of why Isaac Asimov’s legendary Three Laws of Robotics no longer apply to Demerzel is just gravy. In the main, you’re looking at sexy, scary acting, baby, and it’s glorious.

Honestly, the whole thing is almost effervescent with ideas and images. A haul of tiny sea creatures psychically screaming as they’re boiled alive. The exterior of the Spacers’ Home-Swarm ship occupying nearly the entire screen. A subsequent shot of it emerging from hyperspace directly in front of Bel Riose’s viewscreen. Rachel House’s outstanding work as the L. Ron Hubbard-as-Earth Mother figure Tellem Bond. Ella-Rae Smith turning Sareth into the sexiest power player this side of Denise Gough’s Dedra Meero on Andor. Kulvinder Ghir and Isabella Laughland walking into every scene like they own the place. Jared Harris getting another scene with Lee Pace, thank the gods. Off-handedly funny dialogue like “You three, on the other hand, are a civilized man” and “Hari Seldon, you sneaky little bastard.” The fact that every conceivable faction on the show is now led by genuinely enjoyable characters, whether or not you actually like them as people. And on and on and on it goes.

One thing’s for sure: I am fully on board with Foundation now. I’m recommending this show with confidence. To follow up last week’s lunacy with an episode almost equally crazy and equal to or exceeding in quality? That’s a show that has figured itself out is what that is. Long live Cleon and Hari Seldon and Demerzel and David S. Goyer and every other immortal bringing us this inspired madness on a weekly basis.

(This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.)

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.