Ambassador Quent (The Handmaid’s Tale‘s Cherry Jones) is one of Foundation season three’s most intriguing new characters. As the Foundation’s ambassador on Trantor, she’s spent decades living alongside Empire—who are technically her enemy, but she’s grown quite close with the Cleons, especially Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann).
In last week’s episode, “Foundation’s End,” Quent—her first name is Felice, we learn from Dusk—watched in horror as the Foundation’s home planet, New Terminus, fell to the villainous Mule. Feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable watching the destruction from a distance, she gave in to her long-held feelings for Dusk. First she agreed to move into the palace to be under his protection… then things took an intimate turn.
If you thought that was maybe not the most politically astute move for her to make, well, the Tony- and Emmy-winning actor who plays Quent agrees.
“I have my issues as an actor with her ever having left the Foundation after the explosion of New Terminus,” Jones told io9 in a recent interview. “I had a little trouble with justifying her leaving her flock to go into the palace. I was not particularly comfortable with that as Quent, or as the actor playing Quent.”
Quent is introduced in season three, which picks up 152 years after the end of season two, so several generations have passed and the relationship between Foundation and Empire has become more diplomatic. In any earlier season, the idea of Foundation having an ambassador on Trantor, regularly meeting with the Cleons—much less having leisurely dinners with them—would have been difficult to imagine.
“I think she probably started out in politics as a 24-year-old and [became the] assistant to the ambassador to Trantor,” Jones said, contextualizing her character’s backstory. “And she was just incredibly adept. She grew up with Dusk, as he grew from Day to Dusk she was growing in her career. It’s fascinating—those people who work for the government leave their home countries and never really return, and yet remain true to their own country’s policies. There’s no question that she is a true believer and follower of [Foundation creator Hari] Seldon and this glorious attempt to save the world from 30,000 years of darkness, shortening it to a mere thousand years.”
As for Quent and Dusk’s bond, Jones approached it as something that was forged long ago. “I think she probably has always had a bit of a crush, probably to her chagrin, on Brother Day, now Dusk,” she said. “She was probably such a fantastic ambassador and such a good schmoozer that Dusk enjoyed her company, and I think Quent is very astute and knowledgeable about the other billion planets in the galaxy, and so they just had fun with each other.”
She continued. “There are probably not that many ambassadors that he was ever that close to. And it’s just the familiarity of having grown old together, having been through so much together, even though we were on opposite sides. But she has got to be one wily woman to have survived that long on Trantor with that bunch of boys.”
Despite everything—her feelings for Dusk, the chaos within the Foundation even before New Terminus is taken over—we do indeed get a sense that Quent is still extremely loyal to the Seldon Plan.
“She’s just one of those human beings [committed] to making her life count for something greater than herself. I mean, she has no family. She has left everyone behind. And I’m sure she’s like all old politicians who believe no one can do it better than they can because she’s been on Trantor her entire adult life,” she said. “She must be so furious about what’s going on back home, but she knows what her mission is.”
Quent may be unwilling to realize it, but the viewer knows Dusk isn’t the tender guy he’s pretending to be. He will stomp a small animal to death for no reason, in an awful moment only the viewer gets to see. Anxiety over his imminent death, or “ascension,” surely plays a part in his actions, since his end is just days away by the time we get to episode seven.
“More than her own grief—whatever level that is for her with him, which must be tremendous because she’s known him forever and obviously has had feelings for him forever—I think her concern is how he’s dealing with it, because he’s the one who’s got to walk into the center of that large circle and go poof,” she said. “The world will go on; he’s going to be out of it, but Quinn’s still gonna be in it, trying to figure out what in the world to do about the Mule. So she’s got a lot on her plate.”
Jones is a formidable presence, but her scene partner throughout Foundation is up to the task.
“For me, working with people is just the bottom line. It’s about the camaraderie. And Terry and I have a very similar background,” Jones said. “He’s been in musical theater all of his life, and I’ve been in theater most of my life, both in New York. So we had a similar vocabulary and knew a lot of people in common. To get to play those scenes was just—because they’re so outrageous, you know, I never thought in my life I was going to have to say some of the lines I have to say to him when things get really hot towards the end of the season. But those scenes were just heaven to play with him. And he’s so commanding and that voice… but to watch him become so evil was just horrible.”
Foundation returns this Friday with a new episode on Apple TV+.
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