The big torsion of season 3 changed everything we thought we knew

Please respect and enjoy peace. This article contains spoilers For the last episode of “Foundation”.

He was hiding at sight all the time. Season 3 of “Foundation” could be the most daring chapter of the show, repaying the long -standing tease of the nasty mule (Pilou Asbæk) and rushing headlong in the last months of the reign of the Cleonic dynasty on the galaxy. Those who do not pay attention to their psychohistory are condemned to be victims, to paraphrase a certain scientist / prophet of the day of the day named Hari Seldon (Jared Harris), and we are finally witnessing the chickens return home to perch after centuries of Empire, pretending that nothing was bad. All these seeds were planted from the very first episode of the Apple TV + series in 2021 … just like the individual responsible for setting in motion this great plan in the first place.

Say it with me, people: it was Demerzel from the start. The faithful robot played by Laura Birn throughout the show has always promised his allegiance to the Empire – or, at least, has done so since the end of his involvement in the wars of robot and his subsequent reprogramming to serve the Cléons. This being a story based on the writings of prolific science fiction Isaac Asimov, of course, the character is bound by the three laws of robotics which prioritize the security of human beings (known as the Zeroth law in the world of “foundation”). This is what makes him all the more shocking at the beginning of the fourth episode of this season, when Demerzel meets Zephyr Vorellis (Rebecca Ineson) for his disorganization – essentially a therapy session for a character devoted to the taking of the worst secrets for herself for an unimaginable terrorist time.

Remember that Whole Sky Bridge bombed in the first of season 1? This Casualty mass attack was initially attributed to two kingdoms of Imperium, Anacreon and the neighboring planet Thespis, but the truth turns out to have been much more complicated than that. The great torsion implies that Demerzel takes responsibility for this odious event and, in doing so, the rewriting of everything we thought about the story at this point.

Regarding coarse awakenings, the highest point of the first of season 1 of “Foundation” certainly left an impression – literally, unfortunately, for the urban landscape planet of Trantor. It is easy to see why the siege of power for the Galactic Empire would be considered impenetrable and immune to refuse, no matter what Hari Seldon and his supporters could think. Having lasted more than 12,000 years, the clone regime had entirely adhered to their own media threw. And when Hari invites the young prodigy Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) halfway through the galaxy to support his desire for the fall of the Empire, well, it is hardly surprising that the authorities apprehend the two scientists for incentive to the revolution. For a dynasty at the absolute summit of its powers, even the slightest spark of dissent must be stifled before becoming a forest fire.

Everything collapses (once again, very literally) when, as Hari and Gaal are condemned for execution, all the breaks of hell lose and the majestic star bridge connecting the trantor surface to the orbital platform is attacked. We see two agents of Anacreon and Thespis performing their tasks simultaneously, leading to the destruction of the space elevator, an unfathomable scar through the planet while the structure takes place and the death of hundreds of millions of innocent people. At the time, the Brother Day (Lee Pace) quoted the war cried just before the suicide bomber has exploded as proof of a conspiracy of Anacreon and Thespis. The episode ends with delegates from the two planets led in channels and Demerzel announcing in Hari and Gaal that they will rather be allowed to create their foundation in exile on the distant world of terminus. Everything is fine that ends well, right?

Now, however, Demerzel confessing himself as the party responsible for the command and armament of the bombers to do what they did 300 hundred years ago, each of our hypotheses.

So much for robots unable to go against their programming … right? Well, maybe not. Demerzel’s main mission in life since its servitude for the Cleonic dynasty has always been to advance the agenda of the Empire and to preserve their rule to all slam in the long centuries. So how can we bring a serious blow to his masters, save the life of Hari and Gaal, and guarantee that the survival of the foundation remains consistent with this?

In the idyllic garden of Trantor, Demerzel explains to Zephyr Vorellis that she judged the first successes of the foundation as crucial for the reign of Empire. With more and more people believing in the predictions of Hari on the fall of the Empire, making him a martyr would have galvanized the masses against the Cléons. In addition, this suggests that Demerzel herself could not deny the mathematical precision of Hari’s work in psychohistory. With the bases capable of establishing itself on terminus and slowly starting to set things in motion to save the heritage of humanity after the inevitable fall of the Empire, well, even the horrible death of hundreds of millions could be considered as a necessary sacrifice from the point of view of a calculating robot. His actions have directly led to the show as we know him now, Hari and Gaal capable of pursuing the objectives of the Foundation on an incomprehensibly large time scale and positioning himself in the direct opposition of the Cléons all these centuries later with the second foundation.

Is Demerzel the most prolific murder robot in history, the inadvert Savior of humanity, or something else? Something tells us that her story is not entirely written in Ink for the moment, and it clearly has an important role to play in the episodes to come. Whether all these speeches on his wishes of “freedom” actually lead to something radical or not.

New episodes of season 3 of season 3 on Apple TV + every Friday.