Review: Foundation – The Missing Piece s01e08

In many ways episode 8 of Foundation, The Missing Piece, is a tale of people going round in circles.  This is partly positive and, in another case, very much not.  *Warning! Spoilers Ahead!*

With the interesting version, Brother Day (Lee Pace) takes on Zephyr Halima (T’Nia Miller) in an almost hail Mary plan.  He pledges to walk the holy pilgrimage around ‘The Spiral’ and hopes to use the three goddesses of Luminism to his advantage.  Unfortunately for him, he has to undertake this challenge without any of his advantages like his nanobots or his protective shield.  This adds a significant amount of danger to this gambit, which could easily backfire.

To his credit this works, but he suffers during the walk, potentially learning something about himself.  This isn’t definitely going to stick though due to his narcissism and arrogance.  One of the most interesting aspects is Brother Day’s discussion with Demerzel (Laura Birn) about the ‘vision’ he has supposedly had.  Having walked ‘The Spiral’ and had a vision herself, she is happy that he says he had a vision as she would pity anyone who didn’t.  She clearly knows he has faked it though and just invented a vision that he can use to manoeuvre things to his advantage.  His look in the mirror immediately afterwards is the most vulnerable we’ve ever seen him.

On the Raven, Gaal (Lou Llobell) is going round in circles in her own way and the character is continuing to fail to live up to her potential.  Essentially what they’ve done with her is thaw her out for a couple of episodes so she can argue with Hari and get an update, before they put her back in suspended animation again.  It’s a bit tedious and seems like they lost any impetus they had built up.  There must have been a better way to thread her story in amongst all the Cleon stuff, and something interesting is indeed The Missing Piece!

At least there is a much more interesting story happening with Salvor (Leah Harvey) on the Invictus as she makes it to the bridge, to balance out the Gaal dullness.  Finally, we get to learn some real details about the ship and the cost that the previous crew had to endure to make it work.  Salvor is prepared to take that hit in order to try to prevent the Anacreons fulfilling their mission.  Its intriguing seeing the contrast between the newer tech and this more clunky version, and it adds some great colour and depth to the show’s environment.

Sadly, for all involved, Phara (Kubbra Sait) breaks into the bridge and a fight ensues, which means that Salvor and Lewis (Elliot Cowan) don’t get to finish their preparations for the jump.  The Invictus thus jumps away to who knows where, while they continue to fight.  How this will affect them is anyone’s guess, but it probably won’t be good!

Ultimately, The Missing Piece ended up being an interesting episode, but the flaws with the series are there for all to see.  The different storylines hold varying amounts of attention, and some are just becoming exceedingly boring.  Similarly, some characters just don’t seem to be doing anything worthwhile, except for being conduits for some exposition. So, a mixed bag, but there is still a lot of great stuff happening.