![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/b46a88c8e939bc952f1e80bf2753b5bc1a-foundation-ep9.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
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Foundation<\/a><\/p>\n The Paths That Choose Us<\/p>\n \n Season 3<\/p>\n Episode 9\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 5 stars<\/p>\n *****\n <\/p>\n \n Photo: Apple TV+\n <\/p>\n This season of Foundation truly feels like the end of Empire as we know it, just as Seldon predicted it, but much, much faster. We have already seen just how different this Brother Day is from his predecessors, and Dawn\u2019s personal rebellion (albeit unsuccessful) also shows him to be seemingly acting against the Empire\u2019s interests. Now it\u2019s Dusk\u2019s turn to do something no Dusk has done before and kill billions with his shiny new Death Star just to prove a point.<\/p>\n The whole thing goes down when the representatives of the Galactic Council, Cloud Dominion, and the Luminism church arrive at the palace to inform Demerzel (in Dusk\u2019s absence) that they are about to hand over Trantor to the Mule as they had told in last week\u2019s episode. But Demerzel is not about to gift the Empire to a warlord, and as soon as the three representatives open communications with the Mule, Demerzel does the same and presents a hologram of Dusk. Immediately, the elderly, mere-hours-away-from-dying emperor starts boasting. He is not a defeated man seeing his home taken away, but rather an old man pretending to be frail right before shooting lightning from his fingertips and shouting \u201cUnlimited power!\u201d at Mace Windu. He tells the Mule that the offer to give up Trantor in exchange for peace has expired. \u201cIn my last hours, I will not bow to a usurper named after a farm animal,\u201d Dusk says as he activates his Death Star, his Novacula, which he calls a bomb powered by a black hole. Only he is not about to destroy the Mule and Foundation with him, but rather make an example of the people he sees as traitors, and their entire peoples too.<\/p>\n In a swift move, we see the horrific images of the Novacula firing a giant beam of energy right at Clarion Station, then to the entire collection of worlds that form Cloud Dominion, and finally the moon of Surah, where we see people in the middle of their Luminism pilgrimage all decimated immediately. There are no lingering shots of suffering bodies or buildings collapsing, but rather entire worlds gone in a flash, replaced by what seem to be shining newborn novas. To think that Foundation, which so inspired Star Wars, would one day pull off a better Death Star sequence than The Force Awakens. This is, without a doubt, the bleakest and most horrifying thing the show has done (and it technically already blew up Terminus last season and scorched Kalgan this season). Still, even if it got the Mule visibly scared, this is effectively the dying breath of the Galactic Empire.<\/p>\n Dusk has just destroyed the political center of the Empire in the Galactic Council, the seat of the largest religion in the Empire, and also the entirety of Cloud Dominion, which had a massive armada and significant political influence. What happens now? The Foundation needs only to reclaim their own planet and half the galaxy will come running at their door after what Dusk did to his own subjects. The only thing stopping all this is, of course, the Mule. Dusk, bragging, tells the warlord not to fuck with Empire. (Side note: Lucasfilm and Disney should take note that the world won\u2019t implode from having a character say \u201cfuck\u201d in a sentence relating to an empire in your show. Release the \u201cfuck the Empire!\u201d cut of Andor<\/a> season one!)<\/p>\n Leaving the three representatives, Quent, and even Demerzel absolutely shaken to their core, Dusk visits the hall of holographic busts of Cleons\u2019 past. When he runs into Demerzel, he asks to change his title, \u201cThe Conciliator,\u201d for something more fitting for his latest actions \u2014 \u201cThe Consequential.\u201d The still distraught Demerzel says she isn\u2019t sure if what they did preserved the dynasty or doomed it. She is now experiencing yet another personal crisis, as she views her mind as a maze with multiple paths ahead, rather than a single path to follow \u2014 welcome back, Dolores Abernathy. This poor robot is discovering free will and decision paralysis.<\/p>\n To find a solution, she goes to the Imperial Library, where she enters the Prime Radiant, meeting an apparition of Kalle. Adding to the mystery of just what the hell Kalle is, she tells Demerzel that Seldon used to call her the Prime Radiant, but that she knows Demerzel wants her to be something else, a fellow robot to confide in. Though she doesn\u2019t say whether or not she is one, could it be possible Kalle is the robot skull on a stick that Sunmaster-18 is holding in Mycogen? Regardless, Demerzel tells Kalle that she recognized the sight of the Imperial Library in Gaal\u2019s vision of the future, and that the library once served as a haven for the last survivors of the Robot Wars, with survivors folding themselves into shelves and cabinets. This fact was buried deeper and deeper as the city grew from the ashes of the robots that helped build it. Gaal\u2019s vision, Demerzel says, means that in the future she will have offered the library as a refuge to Seldon\u2019s followers, as it once was for the robots. The problem is that the situation is a nightmare for computers, because Demerzel knows she can help the Second Foundation because she already will have, in the vision. This creates a paradox wherein the output is now the input, and Demerzel doesn\u2019t know what her motive is in all this \u2014 if the Mule eventually finds Gaal and the others, does it mean Demerzel will offer them up willingly?<\/p>\n Even if the future looks bleak, hope is not entirely lost for the Foundation, at least not while Gaal Dornick still breathes. Guided by Han, Gaal and her suicide squad meet up with survivors of the New Terminus battle, including Ebling, Toran, and Magnifico. Would you look at that, all the remaining important Foundation people in the same place and Magnifico among them. After checking their minds for influence from the Mule, Gaal clears them all \u2014 except Magnifico, of course. It seems, at least in Gaal\u2019s mind, that Magnifico is definitely a victim of the warlord Mule\u2019s powers, rather than something else, which makes the group trust the musician.<\/p>\n Seeking help in how to beat the Mule, the group heads back to the Vault and Gaal talks to Seldon. She confronts the psychohistorian\u2019s AI about abandoning New Terminus and giving Demerzel the Radiant, which he defends as essentially giving her a paradox bomb that would capitalize on the fault in her programming to continue aiding them to try and preserve the dynasty. But there\u2019s more. He was not doing this to help Foundation, but because he knew Demerzel and the Empire having the Radiant would force his attention. He did it to make noise, like a man screaming for help after falling into a well. He did all this so senpai Seldon (the one with an actual body) would notice this Seldon (the bodyless AI). He\u2019s been angry ever since he discovered he was being used by the other Seldon and the Second Foundation without knowledge of the full plan.<\/p>\n AI Seldon agrees to help Gaal in using the Vault to sneak into the Mule\u2019s station unnoticed, but with one condition: He wants a body, just like the other Seldon. Gaal, of course, agrees, but she\u2019s bluffing, as she has no idea how Hari got a body, and given that he disappeared\/died, she can\u2019t ask him. Still, Gaal and the others now have a trick against the Mule. The final battle is upon us.<\/p>\n \u2022 Cherry Jones\u2019s Quent calling Dusk out for committing genocide was phenomenal, as she essentially just calls the emperor a small and petty man, screaming in fear as he\u2019s being taken out to die.<\/p>\n \u2022 We finally learn exactly how Seldon got the entire population of Terminus inside the Vault, which is a 4-D object we only see as 3-D, one that Seldon can project more of into 3-D space and essentially absorb a planet\u2019s population. The question still remains, how the hell did he build this?<\/p>\n \u2022 Given that Seldon\u2019s office inside the Vault is a replica of his office in the Imperial Library on Trantor, the fight with the Mule is going to take place entirely within the Vault, right?<\/p>\n \u2022 Gaal tells Ebling, Toran, and also Magnifico of the existence of a Second Foundation, which shocks Ebling. This is likely to cause some strife among the first Foundation people later on.<\/p>\n \u2022 This week on Brother Dude\u2019s epic journey of self-discovery, he is saved from a swampy death by Song and Oceanglass, who believe his story about Demerzel and even bring him her tool. He could run, but won\u2019t. He decides to bet his life on the robot skull being able to free Demerzel, and he will give his life to do one good thing for her. And so he punches a whole lot of cultists, stabs Sunmaster with his own staff, and walks out of Mycogen with the robot skull.<\/p>\n \u2022 Before parting, Seldon tells Gaal to be careful about the Mule, and says his story doesn\u2019t add up. Between that and Brother Dude\u2019s quest, this is shaping up to be one hell of a finale.<\/p>\n VULTURE NEWSLETTER<\/p>\n Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n