In Foundation Season 3 Episode 7, Brother Day (Lee Pace) goes on quite the trip, courtesy of Mycogen’s sacred spores. We could take this opportunity to return to the age old questions of “why is he like this?” and “why do clothes simply not exist to him?” But the sequence is so beautifully done, and reveals so much about Day’s connection with Demerzel (Laura Birn), that reacting to Pace’s wardrobe just feels wrong. The robot, the thing that Day frequently calls “it” — even during much of ‘Foundation’s End’ — is so heartbreakingly, stunningly human. And Day knows this, somewhere deep, deep down.
In Episode 7, while under the influence, Brother Day remembers when Demerzel tried to comfort him (“you did your best”), putting on a smile for his sake that wasn’t quite convincing. He remembers asking her for stories and learning about her past names (“Chetter, Eto, Deneel”). Most importantly (at least for now), he knows her pain — that it exists, that she can feel it, and how deep it runs.
Certain memories repeat themselves, over and over, until he gets to the bottom of them. The exchange of “did you hurt yourself” and “but you also cry when you are sad” is key. Day has seen her cry. At least back then, he even cared about those tears. And there’s a clear connection, even if he’s refused to see it for most of his existence, to Demerzel admitting she “cannot weigh love against freedom…because freedom would win.” Another vital detail: If she could go free, Demerzel would want to make more creatures like herself. But “it is not productive to dwell on impossible things,” as the robot tells a young Cleon.
MORE: What did we think of this season? Read our Foundation Season 3 review!
Lee Pace on Brother Day’s inability to fully see Demerzel before Foundation Season 3 Episode 7
To begin our interview, I asked Lee Pace and Laura Birn about putting all of Day’s memories together. “What I find so interesting about it,” Pace said, “is that it was always there, what he learns. It was always there. He just didn’t see it.” And the actor linked that to a bigger picture that Day embodies here. “We have blind spots. We have things that are almost right in front of us that, for one reason or another, we don’t focus. We can’t see them…”
“You know, we’re [so] distracted by our little agendas, and our griefs, and our…that we forget the important thing. We forget the big, consequential thing…And for him to have taken for granted that he had this proximity to this extraordinary thing, this robot…You know, this 25,000-year-old encyclopedia of history, this keeper of time, and, you know, [he’s] mad at her because she’s bossed him around some. It’s crazy, you know?”
Birn chimed in, pointing out that, when it comes to our parents, “we just see ourselves made by them or…programmed by them, and we kind of reflect that relationship.” So, we don’t “actually see them for who they are as just themselves, not being the parents…I find it also very interesting, in a just human level of, ‘how are we able to be blind to our own family members, even though they’re so close and you have the endless amount of time to kind of share information?'”
MORE: Check out what Cassian Bilton and Terrence Mann had to say about Dawn and Dusk’s journeys this season.
Laura Birn on Demerzel’s Foundation Season 3 changes
That word Birn used — “programmed” — is more relevant to Demerzel’s arc than ever before. Because in Foundation Season 3, she shows how well she can work within her programming, while also not always following it as strictly in the past. At times, it’s like bending the rules (bending the programming?) as far as possible before they break. At least, that was my feeling after watching the initial batch of episodes for review. But is that an accurate assessment?
Birn agreed “because…in previous seasons, I think it’s very straightforward. She has her programming, and…it’s still kind of quite clear, how to maintain that one goal of protecting the Dynasty.” But everything’s changing. So, “now, having the Prime Radiant — and also [with] what’s happening in the galaxy with Mule and everything — things start to shift. And suddenly, there’s so much more information, and there are so many more questions that her mind starts to span, that maybe there are always options. Maybe she’s not forced to go this one route that she thought.”
There’s a very real chance that “maybe all this is meaningless. Maybe we are heading to the void.” But what happens to Demerzel if we do? “That galactical emptiness, or loneliness, inside her is something where she spirals,” Birn said. Reiterating that, in the past, “she’s had the answers for these previous two seasons very fast — very quickly. She knows everything; she hears everything. Suddenly, she doesn’t. And it takes her to another place…Like this little malfunction in her that kind of trails her to a weird position, and she doesn’t know how to handle that position.”
The whole struggle is, in fact, “very human.”
MORE: Episode 6 also had some big revelations about Demerzel. Our Lou Llobell interview dives into that surprise. We have some details on Hari Seldon’s reaction to the Mule from Jared Harris, too.
Watch our Lee Pace and Laura Birn interview here
Want more of Lee Pace as Brother Day and Laura Birn as Demerzel? Catch them in new episodes of Foundation Season 3, streaming Fridays on Apple TV+.
