Contains spoilers for “Foundation” Season 3, Episode 6 — “The Shape of Time”

“Foundation” Season 3 continues to pick up steam as yet another Seldon Crisis approaches. In Episode 6, “The Shape of Time,” Lady Demerzel (Laura Birn) and Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobel) join forces as the Foundation prepares to resist the Mule (Pilou Asbæk), who unleashes an all-out assault against the capital planet of Terminus. 

The episode also features a strange, confusing sequence in which the Mule’s happily kidnapped jester, Magnifico Giganticus (Tómas Lemarquis), plays a strange instrument that holds a captive audience in rapturous yet disconcerting delight. The scene plays coy, focusing on the purpose of the instrument and its power in the hands of the Mule, but it’s the musician who you don’t want to miss here. Magnifico Giganticus is (or at least could be) a much bigger deal in this story than you would ever guess at first glance.

The scene unfolds when Bayta Mallow (Synnøve Karlsen) encourages Mayor Inbur (Leo Bill) to “just listen to Magnifico play. That’ll do for a start.” After getting permission, Magnifico begins to play in front of a wide audience of Foundation top brass. As he performs, a curious dream-like sequence begins, and Gaal Dornick says in voiceover, “As Magnifico played his way into the [Foundation] leadership’s hearts […] for the first time, the competing factions within the Foundation were unified by the gravity of the moment. They finally understood deep in their bones how the Mule’s powers could be amplified with the visi-sonor in his possession.”

When Magnifico finishes playing, the focus of the scene stays on his instrument. The Foundation officials talk about how the admittedly sweet source of sound, called a visi-sonor, could be a dangerous weapon in the hands of the Mule and how he could use it. What they neglect to point out is that the person playing it right there and then used it with similar effect — without the Mule anywhere in sight.

Mayor Inbur says, “It strips you down,” reflecting on the emotional awareness and fragility the instrument evokes in those who hear it. In Isaac Asimov’s book, it’s Magnifico, not the Mule, who is capable of evoking that kind of response using the instrument because he actually is the Mule, masquerading as his own jester throughout most of the story. Eventually, he’s discovered by Bayta, but in the meantime, he uses the cover of the visi-sonor to hide the fact that he is exercising an emotionally focused form of mind control over people as he plays.

This is important in the books, as the Mule, under the guise of Magnifico, convinces Bayta and her friends and family to help him find the mysterious group known as the Second Foundation, which is hidden somewhere in the galaxy and operating under leaders called the First Speakers. While the Mule/Magnifico comes close to succeeding, Bayta discovers the plan in the end and ruins his search, leaving him no choice but to come out of the shadows and begin his hunt from scratch as an openly power-hungry warlord.

Since Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” books have long been called unadaptable, Apple TV+’s attempt to bring them to the screen has been admirable, all things considered. Still, it has come with a very hefty dose of artistic license, and it appears one area that got a liberal dose of rewriting was the Mule and Magnifico connection.

Rather than having the two be one and the same, creator David S. Goyer and company decided to split the two characters into completely different identities for the show. Rather than build to a single reveal, the show will have the Mule and Magnifico operate as distinct individuals with their own agency and impact on the plot. Magnifico fits the description of the character from the book, but as Asbæk himself told Slashfilm, “If you go back and you read Asimov’s books, the way he’s described The Mule in those books, they actually fit on Magnifico.” At the same time, Asbæk’s character has been spun off into a more traditional villainous persona.

What this means for the show remains to be seen. Perhaps this is a red herring to throw off those already spoiled by the book twist, and Magnifico will end up being the Mule after all. Maybe Magnifico will be the primary force of resistance against his erstwhile master. Or he might be a separate but still loyal Team Mule insider, infiltrating enemy lines and waiting for the right moment to join forces with his leader again. The only thing we do know right now is that the mentalic tension is only going to grow moving forward.