Diksha Sundriyal
The second season of Apple TV+’s ‘Foundation’ raises the stakes for the protagonists as the Foundation falls under threat with a second crisis lurking in the near future. As Hari Seldon returns into the fray, he discovers that his original plan has been diverted so much that the crisis he foresaw is much closer than expected. Apart from averting the crisis, he also needs to focus on the second Foundation, but that comes with its own complications. By the end of the episode, new information surfaces and forces the characters to change the perspective with which they’d been trying to tackle the problem. Here’s what happens in the second season and what it means for the protagonists trying to save the world as they know it. SPOILERS AHEAD
Foundation Season 2 Episode 2 Recap
Hari Seldon gets out of the Prime Radiant and confronts Gaal about what she did. But he doesn’t have the time to argue with her yet. Salvor Hardin points out that they are in the middle of a crisis. They need to get the ship working so that they can escape the planet and go to Terminus. For this, they need Hari, who is not a human anymore, to work his magic and help them figure a way out of this problem.
At Trantor, Day and Demerzel talk about the best course of action needed to handle the Foundation’s growing power on the galaxy’s outer edges. Demerzel mentions Bel Riose, a soldier best suited for the job. Day points out that Riose is in prison because he refused to follow orders the last time he was sent on a mission. Giving him his power back could fire back on the Empire. However, there is no other option, so he decides to go forth.
At Siwenna, we meet Poly Verisof, who has become a missionary for the Church of Seldon. He invites people to join the new faith, but it’s not as easy because the locals consider it an attack on their religion. He is called back to Terminus with the news of movement in the Vault, which might mean the return of Hari Seldon, one hundred and thirty-five years after he was seen the first time come out of there.
Foundation Season 2 Episode 2 Ending: Who is Hober Mallow?
The last time the Vault opened, Hari Seldon walked out of it and told the people of Terminus that they needed to create unlikely alliances to strengthen themselves against the Empire. He predicted a second crisis which would begin with the Empire coming at the Foundation with its full force. He said he would return the second time, but nobody expected him back so soon.
The Foundation back then is very different from the Foundation now. Back then, they were all scientists trying to preserve the things that could help rebuild civilization. Now, however, they are a full-fledged power that could rise to replace the Empire someday. This Foundation has politicians, soldiers, and priests, each with their own agenda. With the prospect of Hari’s return, Warden Foust decides that he’d be the best person to talk to him. Because Hari’s return signals the second crisis, which means war, Foust believes that he should be the one to talk to Hari and find out the best way to deal with it.
The people expected Hari to come back like he did the last time, but this time, the Vault reacts somewhat differently. It sends a message through Foust, who asks the people to find someone named Hober Mallow. Shortly after this, Foust is turned to ash. It is shocking for the people because this is the first time the Vault has acted out like this. Perhaps, this could be the sign that something much worse than the first crisis is about to happen. But what does that have to do with Hober Mallow?
This name was first mentioned by Gaal, who heard it in her vision about a hundred and fifty years in the future. Clearly, he is critical to the survival of the Foundation, but who is he? In the ‘Foundation’ books, Mallow is an intergalactic trader known for being a rather gray character. He is a cynic who believes in nothing but serving his own agenda. A lot of people know him as a con man and a thief, but there is much more to him at the core.
Mallow becomes an unlikely hero when he accepts the call to action and helps save the Foundation. However, he is also clear about what he thinks about the new Foundation and the Empire. The TV show is known to have made changes in the characters, so it remains to be seen what version of Mallow we receive, but we can confirm that he has a huge role to play in the events to come.
Will Salvor Hardin Die?
Once they are safe, Gaal, Hari, and Salvor discuss the Second Foundation. Gaal realizes how wrong she had been not to trust Hari’s plan and how the second Foundation could have been helpful during the second crisis. Hari also points out that they are too far from Terminus and cannot reach there in time, even if they want to avert the crisis. Instead, he wants them to focus on creating the second Foundation while they still have time.
In trying to figure out where to go, Gaal realizes that her and Salvor’s powers might be more similar than she imagined. Salvor can see into the past because she harnesses memories. What if Gaal also harnesses memories from her future versions? Hari asks her to look a hundred and fifty years into the future to see what the world will look like then, and this is where things get dark. Gaal discovers that she will be alive more than a century later. However, the world will be in the grips of terror. There is blood and war and mayhem everywhere, and in the midst of it, she comes across a man called the Mule.
He is terrifying, but what scares Gaal more is seeing Salvor dead. It is hard to say what Gaal saw because it was a brief visit, but she is sure the body was Salvor’s. Does this mean Salvor will die? Considering that this is a world where people have clones and can copy their consciousness into other things to be resurrected in different ways, there is no way to predict how one’s life or death might turn out. Perhaps, Salvor does die at that moment, but whether it is really Salvor, her clone, or something else remains to be seen.
Read More: Who is Seldon’s Wife, Yanna? What Happened to Her?
