‘No-one’s safe’ unpacking that Foundation season 3 finale betrayal and plot twist with its lead actor

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By the end of Foundation season 3, we’ve seen some massive plot twists and character deaths that fans of the show or book wouldn’t have expected (no spoilers… yet). The finale, entitled ‘The Darkness’, hit Apple TV Plus on Friday, September 12, and with no certain future for the series we’ve got a lot of time to sit and think about what happened.

More on Foundation season 3

Episode 1 recap
How to watch
Should you read the books?
Jared Harris interview
Lou Llobell interview
Lee Pace & Laura Birn interview
Cherry Jones interview

One of the many characters involved in Foundation s3e10 is Han Pritcher, played by Brandon P. Bell, those role as an intelligence operative for Foundation is just one of the many masks we find him wearing throughout the series (I promised, no spoilers, for now!).

Ahead of the release of the final episode, What to Watch spoke to Bell about how he embodied Pritcher, found the role and saw the changes in the figure. While press hadn’t been sent the final episode to view by time of the interview, lots of what Bell said about Pritcher rang especially true about the actions and fate of his character when I finally did get around to seeing ‘The Darkness’.

So to help guide you through the character, here’s what Bell had to say about Pritcher… and we’ll start with some relatively spoiler-free discussion, so fans of the show who aren’t caught up can read a little (and here’s how to watch Foundation season 3 if you still need to see it!).

Building Han Pritcher

While many characters in the Foundation TV show are fabricated for the series, or maintain the names but not the roles or characterizations of their text counterparts, Pritcher comes from the original stories in a relatively untampered way.

However Bell made the decision not to read the novels: “I wanted this world that David and the writers had built to be what led me on this journey, because most adaptations are different to an extent. So that was great, to embrace and live as Pritcher truthfully as he exists in this story.

“But of course afterwards I had to read it, I had to make sure I was doing the character justice, just curious to find out all of these intricate details. First of all, I read the first two of the trilogy, and in the novel it’s odd; some of the characters prominent in the show are not as prominent in the novels and vice versa.”

In fact, Bell recounted how the show’s writers gave him three sources of inspiration that were outside the novels: “It was, like, 1. James Bond, 2. Prince Charming and I think 3. Han Solo. When I heard that I was like ‘okay, no pressure, I’m glad we’ve started production and I’ve heard that now!‘ because that would have rattled my brain and taken me on such a stressful trip.”

“There are all of these elements. There’s the romantic side, there’s the action side, there’s the reconnaissance side, the spy. So it made sense when the writer Tyler mentioned it to me, it just made all the sense in the world.”

Later in our conversation, Bell also mentioned another way he’d get information from showrunner David S. Goyer: “I would email David all of my questions because he is the wizard who knows all!”.

Massive spoilers for Foundation season 3 episode 10, ‘The Darkness’, follow. You’ve been warned!

Deconstructing Han Pritcher

Hopefully by now you’ve seen the Foundation season 3 finale, and so you know that The Mule turns out to not be The Mule at all, as Bayta Mallow is, and she uses her powers to influence Pritcher to turn against Gaal. Though Gaal seems to get the upper hand against Bayta, in a subsequent scene we see her running away, presumably with Pritcher and her other abandoned companions left for Bayta.

“I feel it’s like a Greek tragedy,” Bell said of Pritcher’s final actions, also saying “what was really cool about Pritcher was this tragic fate that we come to know him by, that’s legendary in the world of sci-fi.”

“No-one’s safe, and it doesn’t really end well for anyone”.

As mentioned, Bell hadn’t read the books, and so wasn’t aware of how this compares to the source material until afterwards, but reading it afterwards he realized. “This character, who is really just focused on discovering the truth about The Mule, and trying to preserve humanity, to do the right thing… of course he gets converted.”

In Foundation, The Mule and Mentalics don’t explicitly control minds, but tweak emotions to convince the subject of what they want, and Bell and I talked about the character of Pritcher. I asked him where the character’s true loyalties lay: “I think it’s something really personal; he’s loyal to his background as a Second Foundationer, but the relationship with Hari and Gaal is so personal.

“Hari is a father figure and mentor who raised him while Gaal was asleep. And then obviously there’s the intimate romantic relationship with Gaal, but also his relationship with Preem. It’s really personal for Pritcher: making them proud, not screwing up, not revealing who he is to Foundation 1.”

Bell highlighted one prop in particular which he used to ground his character: “The necklace: a risk [was taken] in not taking that off. But that being a symbol of home for him. His loyalties lie with the ones he loves the most.”

Of the relationship with Gaal: “I think what’s so great is that they have two different ideological views of the world. Gaal is like ‘I have to defeat The Mule, my daughter sacrificed herself for me to do this’. Pritcher is like ‘I know you have this vision a century and a half ago, but things can change. If we focused right now on the present, who’s to say that that won’t throw the math off’. Gaal sees one way forward, very narrow focused, which obviously is understandable for her. But Pritcher is a bit more open-minded, he’s been out there in the field more than Gaal has, he’s seen how humanity is complex and is willing to take the risk of being present to potentially not have to see the love of his life die.”

The consequences of Pritcher’s betrayal have yet to be properly felt, as it was the character’s final scene in the season. No fourth season of Foundation has been confirmed at the time of writing but if one does happen, it’ll almost definitely build on that curveball to Bell’s character.