If Foundation had a motto, it might be: “Go big or go extinct.” The season 3 premiere, “A Song for the End of Everything,” delivers a sprawling reset button 152 years in the making — and it’s glorious.
We’re no strangers to time jumps in this series, but this one feels the most profound. Terminus is gone, replaced by New Terminus, and the Foundation has matured from religious cult into capitalist megachurch. Meanwhile, the Empire is clinging to relevance, scrambling for power, and reeling from the chaos of a now-wobbly Cleon cloning process. (Yes, the genetic dynasty’s existential dread is back, and it’s more fragile than ever.)
The real standout, though? Brother Day (Lee Pace) in his cosmic retirement era. Think The Big Lebowski, but in space, and with a cloned camel. He’s gone from high-strung tyrant to laid-back poet, and I kind of love this version of him. It’s camp, it’s clever, and it totally works.
We also get introduced to the Third Crisis and a brand-new threat: the Mule. Pilou Asbæk brings an unhinged, Euron Greyjoy-esque energy to the role, and he steals his first scene with mind control, manipulation, and a horrifyingly peaceful conquest. The threat feels personal, universal, and terrifyingly inevitable, everything a great sci-fi villain should be.
This episode is jam-packed with exposition, but it never drags. The spectacle (sun-chasing speeder scenes!) keeps it moving, and the character work, especially from Demerzel, who’s undergoing her own spiritual-crisis-meets-robot-apocalypse, deepens the world without slowing it down.
This is peak prestige sci-fi with an operatic heart. A wild start to what’s shaping up to be Foundation’s best season yet.
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