Warning: this REVIEW OF Foundation season two, episode one “In Seldon’s Shadow” contains spoilers.

After two years of being caught in the suspense of where the digital ghost of Hari Seldon will appear next, whether the Empire is going to crumble and what happens next now that Salvor has finally met her biological mother Gaal, season two of Foundation has landed. The revelations that begin to emerge in “In Seldon’s Shadow” are foretelling a dark future for both the Empire and possibly all of humanity. 

173 years since the Foundation touched down on Synnax, and 138 years since they were last awake, Gaal and Salvor pick up where they left off in their awkward reunion after Gaal rescued Salvor from her cryo pod at the end of season one. Finding out you’re facing your own biological daughter, who was just a frozen embryo aboard a spaceship over a century ago, is going to be shocking. The thing is, Salvor knew about Gaal before she went into cryosleep and launched herself from Terminus. She had something to expect before falling unconscious. After returning to her home planet of Synnax, Gaal had no idea that the mashup of her and Raych’s genes even survived. 

The visual interplay of light and shadow at the beginning of the episode, when Gaal and Salvor face each other for the first time, reflects just how little has come to the surface so far and the depths that lie beneath. Salvor and Gaal do reflect each other in some ways. Both are psychic, with Gaal capable of  precognition and Salvor having visions that show her past events that she would have never known otherwise. They are two halves of a whole who still have so much to discover about their genetic connection and the work of Hari Seldon that has inextricably linked them. Still, this relationship is going to need work if there is going to be some sort of dynamic between mother and daughter—even if the daughter is biologically older.

The Prime Radiant, which Salvor gave to Gaal before season one ended, is acting up in unexpected ways. It shows something that deviates from the crash-and-resurrection the citizens of the Foundation thought would happen. What Hari Seldon predicted multiplies like a virus. There won’t just be one crisis, or two, or three, but thousands to come in the future unless someone averts them, which would involve bringing the ship in which Salvor arrived to the surface. Their dreams could die at the bottom of the ocean. This is an undertaking that desperately needs an oxygen tank when they have none. Is the risk too great?

The Foundation that Salvor left behind on Terminus has gone from a desolate exile colony to a flourishing metropolis, but something is threatening it. In season one, what was supposed to be an exact digital copy of the consciousness of Hari Seldon walked right out of the vault to address his subjects. The current inhabitants of the Foundation are aware that Hari was trapped in the vault and look forward to his return almost as if Psychohistory is their religion and he is some sort of eccentric prophet. Of course, the powers of Trantor are not going to be thrilled about this. 

The Empire is shaken to its core with an assassination attempt on Brother Day while he is in the throes of pleasure with Demerzel, who once held him in her arms when he was an infant clone and has now become his android concubine. The breaching of his aura is a crack in the Dynasty’s power. This is no longer the glorious golden empire that has been unshakable for thousands of years. Its destruction is not so obvious as that of the Galactic Empire in Star Wars—though there are some vague analogs to Star Wars in Foundation—but much more insidious. It slithers like dark veins of poison infiltrating the living, breathing organism of a galactic civilization. Whether Day and his supporters want to believe there is a crisis or not, there is, and  Seldon’s predictions evolve into something even more warped. 

Day’s blood is a stain on Empire’s sovereignty. Would annihilating the genetic dynasty of Cleon clones really be such a horrible act, whether done through assassination or Day marrying the queen of another planet and having non-clone children? Paranoia continues to build as Day and Dusk debate the arranged marriage between him and Queen Sareth of Cloud Dominion. The underhanded sarcasm in her voice suggests the Empire that has been overhyped throughout the entire galaxy might not reach further than Trentor, but Sareth is not the only threat. A message from over a century ago could mean the demise of the Empire. Finding out that the Foundation survived, despite the hope that they would all perish in the punishing cold of Terminus, is another stab at three massive egos. 

Meanwhile, Hari’s digital ghost continues to struggle with his mathematical predictions. When he falls into the void in the opening scene, it grabs you by the throat. This is the point of no return if you were going to click out of this episode. He is trapped inside the four-dimensional space of the Prime Radiant. The line between hallucination and reality is blurred when he runs into someone he hasn’t seen in ages, except she is hardly who she seems to be, because this is no human being or even a computer-generated wraith. She is a personification of the Prime Radiant. The flashback to his childhood gives a glimpse of his origin story, and it is that very memory that tells him exactly what he is supposed to do next. 

While the first session of Foundation focused on a broader view of this dystopian future (and was closer to the books except for Hari suffering a violent death instead of expiring at his desk), season two gets more intimate with the individual characters. Relationships are explored. Fears are reckoned with. You even start to see traces of humanity in the imperial triad of clones who now know that their genes are adulterated, and therefore unique, versions of Cleon I. If the series continues with a character focus, the cracks beneath the skin of the Empire might show themselves. Maybe it will even travel to the deepest reaches of the mind of Hari Seldon.

Foundation season two, episode one is streaming now on Apple TV+

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