One should not judge a book by its cover or a TV show episode by its title, but I simply have to preface this review by saying that “Where Tyrants Spend Eternity” is an incredibly evocative title. 10 out of 10, absolutely no notes—especially considering how it only comes into fruition at the very end of the episode, a sort of narrative circle that connects together all the events we saw happen on Foundation.
As Demerzel herself says towards the beginning of the episode, “her Cleons are scattered.” The focus of this particular week is undoubtedly Brother Dawn, even though we do begin with a glimpse of what Brother Day is doing as he descends into the bowels of Trantor after having escaped the palace—namely, tricking people with zero to no remorse to get just what he wants.
Still, Demerzel is a centuries-old robot who has commanded troops, essentially ruled the Empire ever since its establishment, and raised all the Cleons after the very first one, so she has a pretty good idea of where he’s heading, meaning we’ll almost definitely see a showdown between the two before the season ends.
In the meantime, though, Brother Dawn has escaped with Gaal, and she has a plan for him—because that’s what Gaal does. She explains to Dawn that they need to force an Enclosure on Kalgan, meaning surrounding the planet with Empire’s battleships, something that has been outlawed for years and that Brother Dawn only has the power to propose.
Before it’s put in place, a measure like this actually has to be approved by the Galactic Council. And the only way to sway the Council towards Brother Dawn’s proposal is by blackmailing one of its members, which Gaal and Dawn promptly do by planting fake evidence of him aiding the Mule into his personal files.
The blackmail works, and the Council agrees to the Enclosure—voting in a very cool way, I have to say, with those little lights on their hands. The entire might of the imperial fleet arrives at Kalgan via a jump gate and surrounds the planet, and that’s when the Mule reveals that he’s not just a bad guy. He’s a bad guy with more tricks up his sleeve than a trickster god and absolutely no moral compass, the kind of terrible combination that leads to Kalgan blowing up, the imperial fleet destroyed, and Brother Dawn’s political reputation down the drain.
Not that it matters much, since he might not need it soon anymore—the episode ends with him being sucked out of an airlock into the vastness of space as he was preparing to spacewalk back to Gaal’s ship.
The airlock is blown open by the same councillor Dawn had blackmailed into supporting the Enclosure, whose wife and children were on Kalgan and have tragically lost their lives there. It’s a tense moment, right at the closing of the episode, since Dawn had also just discovered that the Enclosure was all a plan-within-the-plan on Gaal’s part—who never really wanted to save Kalgan but who needed the Mule to destroy the imperial fleet so that he could attack a weakened Empire.
She explains that Empire needs to fall for everyone to survive the Third Crisis, something that, of course, puts some cracks into her budding alliance with Brother Dawn. The arrival of Demerzel on Gaal’s ship, right as the episode ends, is surely not going to help smooth the situation down. Or maybe she and Gaal will find some common ground in a way, both aware of what the Prime Radiant says and both willing to make all the sacrifices necessary to make sure their faction survives.
I really liked the active role Brother Dawn takes in this episode, the sneaking around and infiltration work, even the ruthlessness he shows when he’s blackmailing his councillor, which felt very Brother Day-esque to me. Sure, he does get swindled by Gaal in the end, but that’s just what happens when you have been raised in an incredibly controlled environment with a hyper-intelligent robot who is a master manipulator, and you find yourself dealing with a woman who has lived through centuries and whose considerable intelligence has been sharpened even more by Hari Seldon.
Most of all, though, I especially loved Dawn’s little message to Brother Dusk, who is undoubtedly the brother he cares for the most and who has raised him into the young man he is.
It’s in this speech that he says the line that becomes the title of the episode, hoping that he and Dusk will meet again wherever tyrants like them spend eternity—and it colors the entire episode, even though it’s the very last line spoken. It’s about being a tyrant, in whatever way one intends the word. The Cleons are tyrants, of course, of the most textbook variety.
But in a way, so is Demerzel, so is the Mule, so is Gaal, even, who is willing to do anything to save the Foundation and get the galaxy to where it needs to be to survive the Third Crisis.
The other main focus of the episode is Toran and Bayta, who crash land onto Haven, the planet that houses the Traders and so Toran’s home, where the uncle who raised him still lives. It’s immediately clear their relationship is not a happy one, filled with resentment and misunderstandings from both sides. It’s a good thing Bayta is there.
Bayta, who is revealing herself more and more like the type of character that I absolutely love—the one that only seems shallow and vapid but who is actually whip-smart, incredibly dangerous, and turns out to be the one that solves problems for everyone around them.
We see glimpses of it in this episode as she speaks with Toran’s uncle, while in the meantime, Toran himself is off with Magnifico after an outfit change that makes him look very much like he’s in his Han Solo era, as the fandom would say.
Bayta says that she believes Magnifico’s music is more than just amusement to the Mule—it’s what helps him control the people around him, amplifying his own mind powers. And without Magnifico, he’s weakened. Not only that, but the fact that the Traders are the ones who are now in possession of Magnifico, whose importance no one else knows, puts them at an incredible advantage over all the other factions on this incredibly complicated chessboard that is galactic politics.
I really, really can’t wait to see how she develops further, now that she, Toran and his uncle, and Magnifico are off to negotiate with the Foundation. I hope her role grows more significant as the episodes continue. I would love that immensely.
Episode grade: B
Foundation releases new episodes every Friday on Apple TV+.
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