The 6 Biggest Moments in the Shocking ‘Foundation’ Season 3 Finale

Foundation season three has come to an end, but it still feels like there’s so much story left to tell. Thank goodness Apple TV+ confirmed just yesterday that season four is on the way! But before we ponder what’s next, we must discuss the season finale.

“The Darkness” was… well, a lot sure did happen, didn’t it?

Here are the six most important takeaways from the Foundation season three finale. The first two are admittedly not too outrageous, but buckle up for the rest.

The Foundation Finally Met the Second Foundation

After hundreds of years spent operating in completely different spheres—and with the Foundation not even knowing that Hari Seldon had incorporated a Second Foundation as a backup to his original plan—the two groups finally came face-to-face. The Foundation’s home of New Terminus is under siege by the Mule, and its ambassador on Trantor, Ambassador Quent, isn’t sure what to do now that Empire has begun to implode.

With a nudge from Demerzel and carrying Kalle’s Ninth Proof of Folding in her arms, Quent hurries to the Imperial Library, where the secret-keeping librarian brings her to meet… the Second Foundation’s First Speaker, Preem Palver.

He’s holding the Prime Radiant, and you can feel instant feelings of relief and warmth pass between them. This was one of few flashes of hope in “The Darkness.” Quent finds her new purpose, Palver finds an important new ally—and the two halves of Foundation finally come together.

Gaal’s Escape

After her long-awaited confrontation with the Mule didn’t quite go as planned (more on that below), Gaal Dornick, the only one in her landing party to escape “conversion,” busted out of the space station above New Terminus and surfed her way through the planet’s orbit to be scooped up by the Beggar’s Lament.

It was a daring move born out of desperation, but once she’s safely aboard, there’s no time to relax. Foundation’s ships are in hot pursuit, and Hari Seldon—having taken up residence in the Beggar’s network—is extremely miffed to learn Gaal has lied to him in order to secure his help.

Hologram Hari wants a body and to be freed from eternal boredom in the Vault, and chances of that aren’t looking great. Nobody knows how the other digital version of Hari got his bonus body back in season two, including Gaal, probably the smartest person in the post-Hari galaxy.

As Gaal jumps to places unknown, we have no idea what lies ahead for her. Does Hari get to travel with her as part of the ship, as he has done in the past? Where are they going: to the Second Foundation’s home on Ignis, to Trantor, or some other location? How’s Gaal feeling after the Mule confrontation went so sideways—something she’s been imagining, planning for, and worrying about for most of her 300-plus years of existence?

Dusk Became Darkness

There were inklings all season that Brother Dusk wasn’t going to gracefully face his predestined demise; as the aging Cleon counted down the remaining hours in his life, he revealed his truly monstrous capabilities. In last week’s “The Paths That Choose Us,” he used his black hole bomb to disintegrate a massive space station and two planets because their representatives on Trantor ticked him off. In “The Darkness,” he turned that vindictive spirit on Empire itself.

The finale’s title is aptly chosen. The next stage after Brother Dusk is Brother Darkness, and “darkness” is what Seldon predicted would come after the fall of Empire. Brother Dusk, who becomes the longest-living Brother Darkness after he sneaks past the euthanasia room and its blasting beam of death, could indeed live for many more years thanks to the self-repairing nanites implanted in his body.

He literally triggers the fall of Empire when he systematically destroys all the clones except the most freshly hatched infant (more on that below), blowing up all the Cleons floating around on standby. They’re stacked in glass chambers to the top of the palace, and as each vessel cracks open, the bodies rain down, forming a gruesome, bloody pile of flesh.

Brother Darkness also kills Brother Day, who had his nanites removed earlier this season for his own reasons, telling him, “I will not have my world continue without me.”

As he sits on the throne holding Empire’s Prime Radiant, he merrily contemplates what he’s done, and perhaps his future as a solo ruler. What he doesn’t know, of course, is that Brother Dawn is still alive—battered and without his own nanites, but alive—on that space station above New Terminus.

Demerzel’s Death

I had some theories about what might happen in “The Darkness,” but this took me completely by surprise. Demerzel, the ancient robot whose existential journey anchored season three’s most emotional moments, is no more.

After realizing Brother Darkness had destroyed almost every Empire clone-in-waiting, Demerzel—whose programming requires her to serve Empire, no matter the cost, a directive going all the way back to the very first Cleon—races through the palace trying to save the infant Brother Dawn. A very smug Darkness places the baby directly below the death ray used to exterminate Cleons who’re past their use-by date, brandishing the controller as Demerzel realizes what’s at stake.

“He played it perfectly,” she realizes, and she’s powerless to stop herself from stepping into the beam and shielding the baby. “Mother” and “child” both perish—I rewound it a few times to see if maybe she could have jumped in there, grabbed the kid, and jumped back out? Guess not—but Demerzel’s screaming, fiery, dripping-gold-robot-blood breakdown is so much more agonizing.

The Mule Reveal

Perceptive viewers may have started to pick up on the fact that there was something off about the villainous Mule, even before Hari Seldon pointed out his story didn’t quite add up. Early in the season, the Mule makes an offhand mention of sometimes feeling like his life isn’t his own, and we finally get the reason in “The Darkness.” The pirate isn’t the Mule at all. The pirate also isn’t Magnifico Giganticus, the cosmic balladeer, as he is in the books.

The Mule is… Bayta Mallow, also a character pulled from the original Asimov Foundation stories that gets quite the makeover for the TV series.

Bayta was introduced early in season three as a rich newlywed gleefully enjoying her life as a famous influencer. It didn’t take long for Foundation to hint at a much deeper intelligence lurking below all the glamour—but most probably didn’t guess she was secretly the Mule, the psychic powerhouse hellbent on forcing the entire galaxy to love her by any means necessary.

You can add Gaal to that list of people shocked by the truth; after she slashed the pirate’s throat, she realized, “I can still feel someone in my head.” It’s Bayta! Freaking Bayta!

And though Bayta tells her horrified husband, “I’m going to explain all of it, I promise,” the audience doesn’t get to hear that conversation, because we flee the scene with Gaal after Gaal manages to rip her mind out of the Mule’s searching grasp.

The Brazen Head Did What?

Demerzel long believed she was the last robot standing, but Brother Day discovered a robot skull with life still in it. Demerzel and Day don’t live to see it, but the skull—the Brazen Head, as it’s called by people on Trantor who worship it in secret—awakens in the final moments of “The Darkness.”

It sends out a handshake signal, then initiates a “clasp”—the term used when robots communicate with each other. Who’s it talking to? The scene cuts to the mysterious character we’ve known as Kalle, the legendary mathematician whose Ninth Proof of Folding has been so important to the Foundation and psychohistory. She, or someone who takes on her form, met with Demerzel inside the Prime Radiant; she also appeared to Hologram Hari Seldon inside his Vault. In the real world, she helped the second Hologram Hari get a new human body, and earlier this season, she reappeared to escort him off this mortal coil.

We’ve never been certain who she really is, but now we have an idea. “Interesting,” she remarks as the signals appear. “One of us is seeking a clasp, and from Trantor, no less.”

There’s another robot in the room; it resembles Brother Day in some ways, but it’s not Brother Day. The clasp isn’t coming from Demerzel, they agree; Demerzel wasn’t able to clasp, as it turns out. The conversation continues:

“Perhaps someone is seeking to embroil us in the struggle.” “Someone must have succeeded.” “Then all of the pieces are in place.”

While we’re pondering what the hell they’re talking about, the shot pulls out and shows us where these robots are gathered. They’re on the moon. Earth’s moon. You can see Earth very clearly in the background.

What does it all mean, and what’s going to happen next? Season four has yet to be announced, but the fact that season three feels so unresolved seems like it could be a good sign? Let us know your thoughts about “The Darkness”—and your season four hopes—below.

You can watch all of Foundation season three on Apple TV+ now.

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