At the end of Foundation Season 3 Episode 6, Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) — the one in the Vault, not that other one — responds to a desperate plea for help from Ebling in a way that comes across as anything but helpful. At a critical moment, when everyone witnesses Foundation’s own ships firing on each other, Dr. Seldon makes like that one gif of Homer Simpson in the hedges, or like Elliot Stabler after the SVU Season 12 finale, and just…disappears. And that’s not all. Hari doesn’t just abandon his people in their time of need. He also basically kicks everyone else out onto the battlefield by putting the Vault’s null field back up.
So, why would he do that? Is it just another case of Hari not acting in the most transparent way possible, or of the “good” guy yet again kinda being a baddie? As part of my pre-season interview with Jared Harris, I asked him about that choice. Admitting his character “leaves them all high and dry,” the actor told me “he sees that it’s best for himself to step back, figure out what he’s dealing with, and then come forward and confront the Mule.”
If all those people are put in immediate danger for some later greater good, so be it. “There’s that sort of suggestion that, on some level, Hari sees people, to a greater or lesser extent, as pawns which he’s willing to sacrifice to achieve his goals. And the version of Hari that exists in the Vault hasn’t made those steps that the other version of Hari has made where he started to see things differently.”
See also: Before he started to grow as a person, the other version of the character didn’t even share the whole story with himself. So, Vault Hari learns this season that “he is a puppet rather than the puppet master — and that’s kind of created an existential crisis in the character.” (We previously included this quote from Jared Harris in our Foundation Season 3 preview.)
Asked what he might be able to tease about any future confrontations between Hari and the Mule, Harris didn’t spoil too much. But, he did tease that Dr. Seldon comes to a place where he “understands enough…it doesn’t seem like the Mule is able to affect technology. So, in that sense, [Hari’s] most likely immune to what the Mule’s power is, but he doesn’t know that for sure. He doesn’t know that for sure.” So, look forward to what the actor called “one of those, sort of, classic chess games moments” at some point.
MORE: Foundation Season 3 Episode 6 was also a pivotal hour for Gaal and Demerzel. For more on that, don’t miss our Lou Llobell interview. Interested in Brother Dawn and/or Brother Dusk? Check out our Cassian Bilton and Terrence Mann interview.
Watch our full interview with Jared Harris here.
Don’t miss Jared Harris as Hari Seldon in Foundation Season 3. New episodes stream Fridays on Apple TV+.
