The Big Picture
- Showrunner David S. Goyer successfully controlled the pace of Foundation‘s second season, balancing multiple storylines and building anticipation for a new villain.
- The Mule, a mentally unstable telepath, will be a major threat to Dr. Hari Seldon and Gaal Dornick as they try to establish a second Foundation.
- The Mule’s limited screen time in Season 2 hinted at his barbaric nature and unpredictability, promising a more violent and raw antagonist for Season 3.
One of the best things that showrunner David S. Goyer did with the second season of Foundation, is control the pace of an extremely cerebral science fiction show that has a bevy of different storylines developing at once. In the first season, it was clearly Brothers Day (Lee Pace) and Dusk (Terrence Mann) who were the villains ruling over the galaxy with a detached, iron fist. Now that Demerzel (Laura Birn) has essentially dismantled the Cleonic dynasty with her attempted coup in the season finale entitled, “Creation Myths”, we are definitely going to need a new bad guy to be the yin to our protagonist yang. With Salvor Hardin dying, we lost our one true hero, and are left without a clear-cut good guy (or girl). Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) is probably the closest thing we have to a main character that we really want to see succeed because if Dr. Hari Seldon has proven anything over the first two seasons of the series based on the seminal series of novels by Isaac Asimov’s it’s that he is a morally ambiguous character who is generally concerned with himself and with the science behind all the events that are unfolding. So we welcome a new villain to Season 3 in The Mule (Mikael Persbrandt) who only appeared in two very brief scenes this season but made his eerie and ominous presence felt in his limited screen time.
What is the Backstory of The Mule on ‘Foundation’
There is certainly not much of a sample size of our new villain in Season 2 of Foundation. What little we see of him in Gaal’s visions portrays him as a goggled and physically intimidating man who appears to have some screws loose upstairs. So we have to refer to the source material from Asimov (which has been loosely adapted at times) to paint a better picture of The Mule. And, in fact, of all the prescient author’s characters, there is very little known about The Mule as far as why he is as malevolent as he is. What we know for certain is that he is a powerful mentalic who uses his abilities to manipulate people’s emotions.
Much like Tellem Bond (Rachel House) who the audience saw a lot of in Season 2 with Hari, Gaal, and Salvor on the planet of Ignis. Tellem used her powers of the mind in a destructive and selfish way but had a purpose or a “method to her madness” in that she cultivated a relatively innocuous culture of followers who sought eternal life by using younger human minds and bodies to inhabit. The Mule is only interested in pillaging and plundering. He is a conqueror of kingdoms and is a master of deception. In the process of conquering empires in the past, The Mule has disguised himself as a court jester in order to infiltrate the leadership and ruin it from within.
What Kind of Threat Is The Mule to Dr. Hari Seldon’s Plans on ‘Foundation’?
Clearly, The Mule will be the greatest threat to Hari Seldon and Gaal Dornick as they try to establish a second Foundation in the wake of the planned destruction of Terminus in the Season 2 finale. From what we see in that 10th episode, Goyer is placing a good deal of importance on establishing him as the new adversary of the good guys moving forward. By giving The Mule the final scene in the episode, it is clear that the show is shifting away from the Cleonic dynasty and Empire (which is now on the brink of extinction because of the efforts of Demerzel, Hari, Gaal, and the rest of the Foundation members) to this singular madman. In that final look, we see an emotionally disturbed, gravelly-voiced man who has a clear message for the viewer, “I must kill Gaal Dornick! I must kill her before she kills me!” So his intentions are crystal clear and a reinforcement of Gaal’s earlier vision way back in Episode 2 of the season entitled, “A Glimpse of Darkness”. In it, she finds herself in a fiery post-apocalyptic area that is in some form of post-war ruin with bombs exploding all around her.
What Can We Make of The Mule in His Two Appearances?
With literally only about 90 seconds of screen time, there are a couple of things that are very apparent about the show’s new villain. He is a mentally unstable telepath who is both calculating and barbaric. In the scene in Episode 2 when Gaal has her horrific vision, she sees a man wearing goggles (presumably because he is visually sensitive to the environment – a notion that is somewhat reinforced in the final scene as his eyes seem to flicker with light almost like the Furion Riddick in the Vin Diesel Pitch Black franchise. When she is transported into the future world, she is disoriented and describes to Hari seeing, “death and destruction”. Before she snaps out of her vision presentation, The Mule is presented in grand fashion with a huge mass of fire and rubble in the backdrop as shouts out “Gaal!!” and slowly approaches her. He has some form of electronically charged weapon within an armored glove and fires a charged power burst at Gaal narrowly missing her before striking her with a second shot. Gaal retaliates with a knife, but he disarms her easily, grabs her by the throat, and lifts her several feet in the air demonstrating superhuman strength. He asks Gaal, “Where are your mentalics? Where is the Second Foundation?” Salvor snaps Gaal out of the vision before she can respond.
It’s obvious that The Mule will bring a different level of violence to Season 3. There is a hard George Miller Mad Max feel about the rugged and ruthless way he is portrayed in what little screen time he has. So expect something far more raw and less elegant than the pretentiousness and elegant cruelty of the Cleons. Perhaps the most notable aspect of The Mule is that he seems to exist outside of Hari’s theory and work in psychohistory. He is a threat that was never accounted for by the brilliant academic. We can’t wait to see how Goyer presents Asimov’s creation in Season 3 and whether he will be the ruin of Hari and Gaal as they seek to establish a new world order.
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