WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Foundation Season 1, Episode 9, “The First Crisis,” streaming now on AppleTV+.
There are many villains in Foundation to consider, especially Lee Pace as various versions of Brother Day, one of the clone rulers of the Empire’s leader, Cleon. There’s also his older self in Terrence Mann’s Brother Dusk, not to mention their army that’s quite controlling. However, as Season 1 of Foundation unfolds, the sense of rebellion they indirectly give way to creates a monster in the form of Kubbra Sait’s Phara Keaen, who can easily be seen as TV’s most merciless villain.
Phara’s journey is very tragic and evokes sympathy, admittedly, but the way she goes about things in an extremist, unforgiving manner is something that sends chills down viewers’ spines. As the Grand Huntress and top military officer of Anacreon, she’s driven by revenge, invading Terminus and killing many people — kids included — so she can staff a ship for a hunt.
Phara knows she’ll have the expertise to then find and commandeer the Invictus, a war vessel which has been missing for some time. Phara’s plan is to use its ability to space-jump, and plunge it into the heart of Trantor. At first glance, you do want to root for her as this is where the Empire and the clones reside, especially given what they did to her home.
The Empire bombed her planet, as well as Thespis years ago, for a combined terrorist attack on their Space Bridge, but Phara doesn’t even care about reprisal. Salvor, a Terminus warden, warns her that whatever remains of the Empire will then kill off the rest of Thespis, but seeing as Phara lost her family in the war, this suicide mission is all Phara has left. It’s her new purpose, but she really comes off as a psychopath in enacting it.
The way she first breaches the shields on Terminus, getting captured, a la Joker in The Dark Knight, only to use a weapon in her eye to take over the tower and get her army inside shows that she’s every bit as cerebral as she is physical. And in the scraps thereafter, trying to wrest control of the Invictus away from Salvor as she holds them hostage, Phara proves to be a general the galaxy can’t have free, or else other planets will pay for her sins. She’s a true liability, shooting people point blank and getting her followers to do the same, basically turning them into a cult.
Sadly, Phara doesn’t care about collateral damage as she hates Salvor’s home and the Foundation that Terminus hosts. She thinks Hari Seldon’s predictions early on about the Empire falling in the centuries to come instigated the terrorists, which then saw the strikes against Thespis and Anacreon, so she just wants to kill two birds with one stone. Foundation may represent the future to many, but that promise of a better tomorrow is something Phara was robbed of when her loved ones died.
Thus, both sides — the Empire and the people it oppresses — are the enemy, and that’s why, with no empathy or compassion in her, Phara wants the Invictus for vengeance. Luckily, Salvor stops her when they get back to Terminus, disappointed they couldn’t form an alliance, but it’s for the best. That’s because even Phara’s troops realize she’s insane and not the liberator or martyr they thought she’d be as she’d slaughter the entire cosmos for the smallest chance at retribution.
To see Phara’s brutal mission unfold, nine episodes of Foundation are available on Apple TV+.
About The Author
