Foundation Season 3's Big Twist Just Changed Everything We Thought We Knew

Please respect and enjoy the peace. This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Foundation."

It was hiding in plain sight the whole time. "Foundation" season 3 might be the show's most audacious chapter yet, paying off the long-simmering tease of the villainous Mule (Pilou Asbæk) and rushing headlong into the final few months of the Cleonic Dynasty's reign over the galaxy. Those who don't pay attention to their psychohistory are doomed to fall victim to it, to paraphrase a certain scientist/doomsday prophet named Hari Seldon (Jared Harris), and we're finally witnessing the chickens coming home to roost after centuries of Empire pretending that nothing was wrong. All of these seeds were planted as early as the very first episode of the Apple TV+ series back in 2021 ... as was the individual secretly responsible for setting this grand plan into motion in the first place.

Say it with me, folks: It was Demerzel all along. The loyal robot played by Laura Birn throughout the show has always pledged her allegiance to Empire — or, at least, has done so ever since the end of her involvement in the Robot Wars and her subsequent reprogramming to serve the Cleons. This being a story based on prolific sci-fi genius Isaac Asimov's writings, of course, the character is bound by the Three Laws of Robotics that prioritize the safety of human beings (known as the Zeroth Law in the world of "Foundation"). That's what makes it all the more shocking early on in the fourth episode of this season, when Demerzel meets with Zephyr Vorellis (Rebecca Ineson) for her unburdening — essentially a therapy session for a character doomed to keep the worst secrets to herself for unimaginable lengths of time — and admits that she was responsible for the single deadliest act of terror we've seen in the entire show.

Remember that whole Sky Bridge bombing way back in the season 1 premiere? This mass-casualty attack was originally attributed to two bickering kingdoms of the Imperium, Anacreon and the neighboring planet Thespis, but the truth turns out to have been far more complicated than that. The big twist involves Demerzel taking responsibility for this heinous event and, in the process, rewriting everything we thought we knew about the narrative to this point.

As far as rude awakenings go, the climax of the season 1 premiere of "Foundation" certainly left an impression — quite literally, unfortunately, for the cityscape planet of Trantor. It's easy to see why the seat of power for the Galactic Empire would be considered impenetrable and immune to decline, no matter what Hari Seldon and his followers may think. Having lasted over 12,000 years, the regime of clones had fully bought into their own hype. And when Hari invites young prodigy Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) halfway across the galaxy to back up his dire warnings of the fall of Empire, well, it's hardly surprising when the authorities apprehend both scientists on charges of inciting revolution. For a dynasty at the absolute peak of its powers, even the slightest spark of dissent must be snuffed out before becoming a wildfire.

It all comes crashing down (again, very literally) when, right as Hari and Gaal are sentenced for execution, all hell breaks lose and the majestic Star Bridge connecting the surface of Trantor to the orbital platform is attacked. We see two agents of Anacreon and Thespis carrying out their tasks simultaneously, leading to the destruction of the space elevator, an unfathomably huge scar across the planet as the structure hurtles down, and the deaths of hundreds of millions of innocents. At the time, Brother Day (Lee Pace) cites the war cries yelled out right before the suicide bombers detonated as evidence of Anacreon and Thespis' conspiracy. The episode ends with delegates from both planets led away in chains and Demerzel announcing to both Hari and Gaal that they'll instead be allowed to create their Foundation in exile on the distant world of Terminus. All's well that ends well, right?

Now, however, Demerzel confessing herself as the party responsible for ordering and arming the bombers to do what they did 300 hundred years ago completely upends every one of our assumptions.

So much for robots being unable to go against their programming ... right? Well, maybe not. Demerzel's main mission in life since her servitude to the Cleonic Dynasty has always been to advance Empire's agenda and preserve their ironclad rule over the long centuries. So how does dealing a serious blow to her masters, saving the lives of Hari and Gaal, and ensuring the survival of Foundation remain consistent with that?

In the idyllic Trantor garden, Demerzel explains to Zephyr Vorellis that she judged Foundation's early success as crucial to Empire's reign. With more and more people believing in Hari's predictions of Empire's fall, making him a martyr would've galvanized the masses against the Cleons. What's more, this suggests Demerzel herself couldn't deny the mathematical precision of Hari's work in psychohistory. With the Foundation able to establish a foothold on Terminus and slowly begin to set things in motion to save humanity's legacy after the Empire's inevitable fall, well, even the horrific deaths of hundreds of millions could be seen as a necessary sacrifice from the point of view of a calculating robot. Her actions directly led to the show as we know it now, with both Hari and Gaal able to further the Foundation's goals over an incomprehensibly vast timescale and position itself in direct opposition of the Cleons all these centuries later with the Second Foundation.

Is Demerzel the most prolific mass-murdering robot in history, the inadvertent savior of humanity, or something else altogether? Something tells us her story isn't fully written in ink just yet, and she clearly has a significant part to play in the episodes to come. Whether all this talk about her wishes for "freedom" actually leads to something drastic or not remains to be seen. 

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