Discussion thread for Foundation season 2 episode 5: “The Sighted and the Seen”
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Allowed:
- Everything pertaining to this episode and prior episodes
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- Anything that pertains to episodes beyond the episode of this thread
I still don’t understand how Demerzel just glides through the eons without any gossip sticking among the populace. The ladies seemed way too surprised to discover she was a robot.
I mean they are ruled by 3 identical clones so it’s not unreasonable to assume she would be one too. Earlier in the season someone presumed she had a separate cloning facility of her own. Wasn’t she also referred to as the last intelligent robot or something last season, too?
I forgot about that cloning theory from earlier. And the “last intelligent robot” thing was a one-on-one exchange IIRC, not information divulged to the general population.
Another possibility, strongly hinted at in the episode … is memory erasure. No one in that palace has all their memories, not even Day, Dawn and Dusk. The only one, made perfectly clear in the episode is Demerzel. It seems pretty clear that she’s running the shop, and the implication from the conversation with the image of Cleon I is that this is by design from the beginning.
Honestly, I’m now kinda excited to see what do with the whole Demerzel and Empire thing. At first I was worried it was going to be a normal AI versus humanity thing. But there could easily be something more subtle going on. Maybe they’re pulling inspiration from some of the Asimov Robot stories (I’m actually not familiar with them, unfortunately).
I liked this episode. I’m kinda optimistic that this is the show turning a corner for me. It finally feels like it’s got that momentum Goyer was saying it would have after S1.
I like that they’ve found a novel story arc in the establishing of the second foundation and that’s how Gaal and Salvor fit in. And I’ve come to like the way mutants have always kinda been there and played a role from the beginning too, with Gaal kinda being the first “Mutant”.
I also appreciate the work they’ve done to establish what psychohistory is actually about.
