The second-to-last episode of this season of Foundation, “The Paths That Choose Us,” sets up all the pieces we need to take on next week’s season finale. And I particularly liked the fact that it’s been nine episodes that they’ve circled each other, and still Gaal and the Mule haven’t officially met in real life, only in dreams and visions—which leads me to hope their actual confrontation will be generational, after all this incredible build-up.
In the meantime, Gaal has things to do on New Terminus, and they start with a bang, since the episode opens with a shoot-out in the woods. In the end, though, Gaal and her people prevail and get to interrogate the Warden, whose mind is, of course, completely controlled by the Mule. And who is killed by him in quite the gruesome way, with an eye detail that really made me twitch, when she tries to give out information to Gaal.
Can I just say, though, that I love this version of our main character—ruthless, dangerous, and proving once more that mental powers are the superior superpowers to have in any fictional universe.
After that, Gaal reunites with Pritchett, and together they go to the hideout where the last of the Foundation people who have not fallen under the control of the Mule are hiding—which includes Dr. Ebling and, of course, Toran. Magnifico is also there, even though Gaal finds out he’s been with the Mule too long, and a part of him is still controlled by him.
Still, they decide to keep him alive, considering they’ll be able to sense an eventual attack coming from him. And now that we have a textbook ragtag group of heroes, we need a mentor.
So of course, it’s back to the Vault for Gaal. And boy, I loved this reunion—even if the Hari Seldon in the Vault is not Gaal’s Hari, the one who went through the years with her in cycles of sleep and wake. And the version of Hari in the Vault knows this, which is why he asks Gaal that he’ll help her and do what she wants if she finds a way to get him an actual body, just like it happened for the other Hari Seldon. And Gaal promises, even though it’s clear she doesn’t have any idea how to do that, and it’s not like she can ask Hari himself, considering he passed away literal decades before. So we’ll have to see how that pans out.
Elsewhere in the galaxy, back on Trantor, Brother Dusk has truly embraced the mantel of “fair and just ruler” and simply obliterates three planet systems—specifically, the ones of the people who had suggested surrendering Trantor to the Mule—which correspond to billions and billions of people, with his black hole-powered weapon. And he feels very smug doing it, which is, of course, morally repugnant, but provides some truly great character moments.
He’s almost displeased with Ambassador Quent when he realizes she’s not on board with the whole destroying planets with a super weapon, which I have to say, is a very Anakin Skywalker-esque thing for him to do. But of course, Quent immediately sees right through him, saying that all of this simply stems from Dusk’s terrible fear of his fast-approaching death, which seems to still be happening even if he’s the only one currently occupying an imperial throne.
And it does, of course. He says he doesn’t want to try and convince Demerzel to postpone his passage to Brother Darkness, but of course, he would do anything to make that option a reality. His dialogue with Demerzel, though, gives us the option to dive once more into the conflicts that swirl in the mind. The image of her feeling compelled to “walk a maze of the marginally possible” is another truly great line, in a season where she’s already had plenty of them. Also, an incredibly accurate description of what it feels like to spiral, it has to be said.
Eventually, Demerzel resolves to solve her doubts by going to a mentor of sorts—in a beautiful montage with Gaal doing the same thing on New Terminus with Hari in the Vault. Demerzel enters the Prime Radiant and speaks with the piece of Kalle that is held inside it.
And of course, all of this reflection and terrible fighting against her own programming Demerzel has done the entire season is bound to culminate next episode, in which we will find out if she can indeed break free of her servitude to the Cleonic dynasty.
Brother Day’s quest in Mycogen is definitely going to help her do that, especially now that he has managed to escape the primordial soup he was thrown into—and that really triggered my sense of disgust for mushroom-y looking things, which has been brought to an all-time high thanks to The Last of Us.
Song helps him, now fully convinced that Demerzel is indeed Daneel, and Day leaves Mycogen after taking down Sunmaster and stealing the robot head from his staff, which he plans on bringing to Demerzel.
So I guess all that’s left to say is that we’ll see next week whether the season finale delivers on all the stakes that have been building up slowly but surely over the course of these nine episodes—and I would be inclined to say that it will.
Episode grade: B+