Welcome to spacing out with BB and Jason this week covering Foundation season two, episode eight, The Last Empress.
Welcome to spacey Now.
I'm BB and I'm Jason, and we are discussing the Apple TV sci fi series Foundation, one episode at a time and spoiler free. This is our first watch through the series, so we have not seen anything after this episode. And in this episode, enjoiner Rue confides in Dusk about her distrust of demerzal cober Mallow pulls a daring move, and Day sets courts for Terminus and the Foundation. Man.
I made the choice to start going with these shorter plot descriptions, but like, I feel like way more happened to this episode.
Yeah, vibe check. Did we like the episode overall?
I liked it. Well, it's good. We should continue watching this.
Show, all right? In the podcast, No, I also thought it was really good and really engaging. Like there was times I was like in the episode, still going. I feel like there's already been so much talk about Chow.
I kept going.
But I'm glad that our tone on the show has kind of changed.
Yeah. Well, I think the structure of the show changed a lot and it made it more.
Enjoyable to watch yep. As we are cruising up on the ending, well, the end of the season.
Trivia time, What facts or news could we uncover for the Last Empress?
All right? This is Foundation season two, episode eight, The Last Empress. It's originally aired on September one, twenty twenty three, written by Liz Ping, Addie Mannis and Bob Ultra, and directed by Roxanne Dawson. Roxanne Dawson is an actress as well as a director, and she's best known for the role of Bailana Torres on Star Trek Voyager, a half cling on high human character.
Oooh, we need to watch that.
And she has directed over one hundred episodes of television, including several Star Trek episodes, Crossing Jordan, Cold Case Heroes, Agents of Shield, and four episodes of Foundation. And then our writers we have Liz Pang, who has done some work on Yellowjackets, Lock and Key and The Haunting of Hillhouse. And the other writers we have Addie Mannis, who's primarily worked in visual effects, and Bob Ultra, who doesn't have
any other writing credits but has several producer credits. So that is the team on this episode.
Deep Space dive. Let's break down some of our thoughts on the episode. You can share your thoughts with us through email or social media. We may use your comments on an upcoming episode.
So we start off with the cloud Handmaid and digging through the robots stuff. Yep, and I didn't realize she was using one of those quiet machines thing is, so no one could hear her dampener or whatever. What a cool device.
Yeah, and then she drops the information that she has all her memories this whole time he's just been playing.
Yeah, I think that's interesting to know for Dusk because
he recently discovered that he might not have all his memories. Yeah, so that's kind of leverage for her to keep, for her to But she doesn't know this, so I don't know, it's interesting like this development, right, she doesn't know that he's missing half his memories because he only had that conversation with brother Day when they were looking at how like how many memories are archived on the record compared to the original scene on or whatever his name is.
Oh right, yeah, I think I forgot that part. Yeah, so he knows he's missing some memories. And then as they start conversing conversing. Yeah, they start to realize that definitely has a gap when it comes to Demersal mmm, and.
That there's been some like I don't know how to like say it, other than like maybe some brainwashing, like some cult activation when it comes to when he talks about the Mersal, he's like, she's always been here, she'll always be here kind of shit.
Yeah, when they talk about it like it's programmed, like he can't help but say that when it comes up.
And then they're like basically saying, she's the one true Empress, She's the og, She's the one who will always be there and has always been there. It seems like she has a soft spot for the days of the emperor ers or whatever.
Right, maybe or he just has the most power at any time, So.
You think that's what she's attracted to. The power.
Well, it seems like she is the one with the power and wields it through him.
With a new girl. That new girl put to wrench in everything. Yeah, and she's going around fucking the little baby one.
Yeah, there's all sorts of collusion.
What else happens, Oh the execution.
Yep, I mean people really turned out to to watch the beheading.
I mean, what else are you going to do in an empire? Like in a It's it's like, uh, there's nothing else to do. They haven't showed us any way of entertainment either, Like I haven't seen any radios TV. I've seen some of those weird uh holograms that they're watching, but those are only usually look like it looks like they're only watching those in like a military grade warship. So how do they broadcast their message? How do they keep the empire running if they don't have a reach
to the common man. I don't know. It's just it'd be nice to know, you know what I mean. Are the people watching this like is it being broadcast? I would imagine and so, but like there's nothing to show that, oh we're being broadcasted other than whatever the war criminals are seeing. But I don't know. Well, yeah, we saw different groups watching it, Okay. I was confused about that. I didn't understand who was watching. They all look the
same to me. They're all like grab white men, you know what I mean?
Yeah, and Day is being a little sadistic and like wanting to make Queen Sarah like choose who to kill first and basically toys around enough that hober Malo was able to show.
Up, right. He didn't like Hoverer Malow's presence kind of saved her from looking like a cruel person. I wonder what she would have said. There's like that lingering thought of like maybe she would have been like, no, don't do it, spare the rod.
Yeah. Well, then after he asked her, he pretty much turned and made the decision to kill the woman. First, the woman, which is very like telling and thankfully he allows her to say your prayer for a long time.
Right, influencing what seems like thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people.
Yeah, I know we're going to kill you, but I'll let you get your your propaganda out there.
Yeah, let me martyr. You what an idiot. It's like his first execution or what supposed to put bags over their heads so they don't even have a face.
But ober Malo shows up, which I was happy about. I wasn't super surprised because I was I didn't think they were going to kill her off when it seemed like they had plans for her more plans. Yeah, but I guess they're saying that that act is kicking off a war now between Empire and a foundation.
I mean, that's what they were wanting that they've been preparing for. He went down to negotiate with the Spacers so they could join a side.
Yeah. So now brother Day wants to go to Terminus and talk to them, which is kind of what they can there to do. So I guess that works out.
Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, and it was exciting to see him kind of take down Empire in a way that was really needed. I think for them to see. Even the guys that are like on the fence about Empire were like he did it though.
Yeah. And he showed that the Empire is not in vulnerable.
Yeah. And you saw how scared he was when he saw Becky. Oh my god, that was great. Oh poor Becky. Poor Becky didn't deserve it. But man, she went out with a bang.
She almost got him too. I guess he was wearing like armor because you really like grabbed him by the shoulder like I thought he was going to be marred.
Yeah, me too, I was. I was a little upset that he wasn't more beat up.
Yeah. So ober Mallow and Constant get to escape and finally, you know, complete their sexual arc right.
She's very matter of fact. She's like, we can take advantage of this opportunity to do sex.
Yeah.
I thought that was really endearing almost, but then that's what kind of got them caught because they weren't vigilant. They literally caught him with his pants down. Yep, like many Republican senators in the bathroom.
So Salvar is still alive.
Yeah, they don't kill their own.
Which is good, Thank god.
I was worried me too. I was like really worried about that last episode and seeing her in the water.
But yeah, especially because we saw that happened that Harry Selden.
Yeah, but he's not one of them, Nope. So I'm ready for her to show up and rescue Gail. Though, God damn, they're fucking up Gail. But sal War remembers that the cube singing, I don't know what it's called exactly, not Tesseract. Yeah, anyway, she finan Radiant Prime Radiant Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a mass thing. She remembers that it's like a portal to other dimensions, and she uses it to talk to the other Harry, because God forbid, she make her
own thoughts and feelings known. Let a white man talk you through it. She knows how to drive a ship, and shit, she don't know numbers. I guess not. Numbers are hard. I'm just a girl, and Gail's dumbass.
I did think it was weird that, like there's almost like an intermission with the Harry Selden thing, because like she goes to talk to him, and then we get the scene of him out like comforting that guy outside the vault, and then we go back to her talking to him inside.
Yeah. Well, I think they're trying to establish a timeline or something.
Yeah, So that's that's what I was wondering. I was like, is this is the Salvor Gail stuff earlier and that's why he's able to call for hober Mallow after that whole interaction, yeah? Or is he just kind of living fourth dimensionally?
I don't think they can really put the fourth dimension in that way. I think they have to establish some sort of like timeline to ground these characters in reality. And so I think the stuff happening with the second Foundation is happening before this whole Warshit is happening, but it is confusing and it's a touch of like the old stuff and that's the thing I didn't really care for.
It would have been interesting if they were happening all at once, but it's weird that they're telling each other what to do, like it's it's like a cyclical thing where it's like the Foundation asked for Horbo mallow, but then they told the Foundation to ask for howor mellow. It's kind of like the chicken and eggs thing. What happened first?
Oh? Yeah? And then they've got Gale all strapped down and I don't know what they're about to do.
They're about to invade her mind with a second consciousness from this ancient being. It sounds like she's done it multiple times for centuries, where she lives in one body and then she inhabits another until it starts to age and her powers dwindle away and she needs to find a new host. And it sounds very scary to be
the host because you don't have a voice. Sounds like you're in a well kind of like the sunken place or the you know, like in a get out yeah, where you're just kind of existing in your mind and you see you doing things, but you don't have any control over what your body is doing. And as she moves from body to body, it sounds like she gains that person's powers and gets to move them to the next body. The interesting thing to me is that she
would pick somebody as old as Gail. Gail is kind of old compared to the young girl that we saw at the beginning of her introduction, And so why pick Gail? I mean, other than her powers?
Yeah, I was gonna say it might be her powers. And she also implies that.
She always wanted to be a black woman.
She implies that she's the one that inspired Gail to want to leave home, and she planted the city. Basically, she orchestrated all this.
I don't know. Being a girl from a small town, it's hard to believe that somebody needed to implant me with something like that.
Okay, it was actually me the whole time. I made you want to leave you.
Like, come to Eastern Kansas. No, I don't think so. I think Gail has more autonomy than that, even though she was basically a puppet on a string during that whole interaction with that white woman. And wow, that was hard to watch. She was in the cove where Harry died, then all of a sudden, she was in the well and now she's strapped to a rock, but there's no physical restraints. They're all mental. They're all in her mind. That's how powerful this woman is over Gail.
Yeah, and it felt like in the previous couple episodes that Gail was really starting to like drink the kool aid of this place. It was kind of surprising that it turned to like, oh, we're actually going to like use force to carry out our mission.
Well, she found out. I mean, she felt Harry dye, which is horrifying to feel somebody drown in your own body without without saying anything. That's very I want to say, it's kind of malicious of her, Like, it's not cool that she didn't even share that with salf War. That's weird. That's really weird. And I don't know, I'm a little wary of Gail now with that action like that. That feels it's either selfish or maybe she's scared. I don't know.
I don't know why you wouldn't tell somebody like, hey, this is what I felt like, Because her feelings are more than just feelings. Their feelings and reaction to real life events that are happening. Because she's got this power and to not say anything that's creepy, that's that's kind of weird. I don't know. It makes me do a side eye on her, like are you are you as good as you say you are? Because isn't Harry her friend?
I mean she's also her manipulator and got you know, how freeing would it be that your main manipulator is well not your main one now. It's like she just goes from manipulator to manipulator pretty much. She doesn't ever get an opportunity to be her own person or act in her own way. The only time she was doing that was when she was on the ship with Harry and she kind of outsmarted the ship to figure out where she was going and where she was like what
was happening? Yeah, but even then it was all manipulation to get her somewhere. I don't know. It's just hard to gauge a characters that's not honest, Like, how do you trust her now? She's supposed to be one of your main protagonists, but now you don't trust her. Okay, that sucks. You're still rooting for her, but there's that little lie at the back of your neck like a head like nagging at you.
Yeah, I'm trying to remember if we saw we saw her experience anything when Harry died.
I don't think we did.
We keep having like more than a week between our recordings, so it's hard to remember. But I know like she definitely talked the Salvar after that, and then Salvar.
Went off looking for Harry alone.
Yeah, then she got captured and then as far as we know, Gil's like right on our heels, like, hey, what happened to Salbar Or was she guess that whole scene wasn't real?
Yeah, it was all in her mind. I don't know. This place is hard to tell what's real and what's not. Like the manipulation is so deep that like your whole body leaves that you're somewhere else. And if it wasn't for the main homegirl like saying like, actually you're in this, well, she would have never known. Yeah, it's interesting that she kind.
Of did the like the evil villain, like telling their plan to the to the victim. Yeah, and there's that little boy that was able to explain things as Salvar two so that she could come up with a plan.
Yeah. I like that little kid. Though it seems like he has some sort of moral compass compared to the rest of the flock. Yeah, it's usually children who see the reality of their situation, you know, who questioned authority.
So we started asking a lot of questions about the Marzo in this and I really liked how it played out at the very end of the episode where both Don Don and Sarah and Dusk and Rue I think is their name, like both came to the same kind of conclusion at the same time. And I also I liked Dusk and RW like kind of on their own little adventure.
And going down the secret farewell.
Doing a little like Indiana Joe and stuff, you know, Biden secret passages.
I'd be shipping my pants. I don't like going places I've never seen before. I always have to google them and look up like information about the place I'm going, So just kind of blindly going down into a dark stairwell freaks me the fuck out.
At least it was clean. If it was like full of dust and cobwebs, i'd be like rats and snakes.
No, yeah, you're right, I don't. It was very clean, right. It was like spotless, which is meaning that it's been used. It's a use interesting. Interesting.
Well, but yeah, we were setting up the Merzl to be.
Maybe the bad guy.
Yeah, like the real the all power of the empire.
At least, she's the one consistent thing that's been with them since the beginning of the empire.
Yeah. And her task is than to you know, maintain the genetic dynasty, but she's seems like she's maintaining it to serve her. And I believe that's where we get the title the Last Impress, which I was, I mean understandably was concerned that that was about.
The Cloud girl.
Yeah, like what, No, she's not even married yet, and she is manipulating Brother Day or at least pushing him to war. Yeah. I mean, I guess he already wanted to go on this trip, but she's just really her support was like kind of like what solidified the argument. But then with.
Brother Dawn, I think she's falling for him.
What was the injection thing that.
Was that's to get his semen or something paralyzed him something like that. Just it's to milk.
Him because she wants to have his child and not days And you.
Say potato, I say potato, Right, She's more age appropriate for this one anyway.
Right, and then you know they're the same person. I liked how she he was arguing with ru about like who's fucking.
Who You're fucking done, well, you're fucking dusk. But the difference is that one of them is like the leader of a whole planet and the other one's just like a handmaiden. Yeah, and I think that was a point that was made.
And she's also not like, you know, cheating on the empire. Yeah, because a know if you notice, but he has a little bit of an aggression.
He has a bit of a temper.
Yeah. Well, this is an exciting episode. I just kept like cutting from seeing the scene. There were some slower ones, but a lot of it was like giving me on edge, what's going to happen?
I'm excited for the next episode.
Sorry, oh my god, you sounds so excited. You're young. Yeah. Two more episodes a season, so it does feel like we're ramping up here.
Yeah, astroal Queen, who was the standout character in the episode.
We got a lot of characters to choose from.
Giving it to Becky. Okay, sorry, I know you had something planned there, but I'm giving it to Becky that she took a bite out of crime.
We hardly knew her. They really focused on brother day, like just like staring at Becky as she felt like he was shocked to see such a creature.
One and two that could have been him. I think that's part of it, like realizing his own mortality.
Yeah, because again that whole scene. We didn't really say much about that action scene, but it was good. It was you know, it's confusing with all the smoke and stuff and figuring out who's where and who's injured and who to shoot at. Yeah, and we talked about it like he was he was vulnerable and that his h whatever his shield thing was damage and them was trying to like say his top of a backpack or something.
She was really rude. I think he was like, get the fuck off me, grandma, because he doesn't want to be seen as like a weak man, like getting protected by this little skinny white girl. And also down went straight to the cloud princess. Yep, nobody noticed that except her handmaiden.
Yeah, that's why she's like, if you're not fucking m yet, you're about to be.
And it's crazy that all of this drama, all of this confusion, all of this like destabilizing happened with one man. You didn't even have like a group. Yeah, it was just one guy and Becky and Becky that was his backup.
Yeah. The second time Becky is you know, saved them.
Yeah, that's it. They used up the Becky card. Man.
I got to make a decision. Here. We have a lot of characters doing a lot of things. I liked how I liked how the queen was manipulating things. I liked how her uh how Rue was also like playing the old man. Yeah, well at first it's like she was playing him. By the end it seemed like they were just working together. And then, uh, it's not gonna be Gael. But Salvor did some problem solving in this, and then we have Constant who managed to get laid and nearly beheaded. Who do I pick in all that?
I noticed you only said the women's names. What about Hobo.
Mellow That's true, he is a good candidate. Like there's not a lot of I mean the men. It's it's all the Empire men, basically.
Harry Selden and Hobo Mellon. Wait, that's not his name.
I mean, he never really get his name right. I'm gonna pick either I'm picking.
A Rue and Join Yeah, I like it. That's my choice.
I like it.
Rue and Becky, please retrieve your Astral Queen Awards. All right, I think that covers episode eight, The Last Empress. We'll be back for the next episode, which is titled long Ago Not Far Away.
Sounds very star trek y yeah or Star Wars or yeah no, that's what I want to say. Whoops, I get them confused. Star something.
Yeah. Oh. Thank you for spacing out with us. And remember, if the left hand doesn't get to put a thumb on the scale, what's the point of having a thumb.
Thank you for spacing out with Bob and Jason. You can help us out by subscribing and leaving a positive rating or review. Remember you can contact us through email or social media. Next time, we will cover Foundation season two, episode nine, Long Ago Not Far Away.