Foundation Season 1 Ending Explained: How is Salvor Hardin Gaal Dornicks Daughter?
The Foundation Season 1 finale on Apple TV+ did the unthinkable. It wrapped up the Foundation’s First Crisis, revealed something shocking about the Cleonic dynasty, and dropped a hell of a plot twist! It turns out two of Foundation‘s main characters are more closely connected than we previously realized. How is that possible? And what does the last scene of Foundation Season 1 mean for the future of the show? Let’s break down Foundation Season 1’s wild ending…
Foundation is Apple TV+’s ambitious adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s classic sci-fi saga. Spanning centuries and set galaxies away, the show has been dividing its story between three main narratives. First we see what happens when young mathematician Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) leaves her fundamentalist water world of Synnax to get caught up in Hari Seldon’s (Jared Harris) revolutionary plan to save the universe from an impending darkness. Then we follow the peculiar personal relationships of three cloned versions of the galactic emperor Cleon. Brother Day (Lee Pace) has his humanity challenged while “elder” Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann) uncovers a wild coup attempt targeting their flawed “younger” Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton). And about 35 years in the future, on the planet Terminus, the fruit of Hari Seldon’s schemes and sacrifices — the titular Foundation — finds itself in its first crisis. The good news is that the Foundation’s local hero Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) was able to eventually outwit invading Anachreon huntress Phara (Kubbra Sait) with the help of the Anacreons, themselves. The weird news is that a vault opened and an avatar of Hari Seldon has some kind of plan to reveal to all his little followers…
So what happens in the Foundation Season 1 finale? Hari Seldon lays out his plan to create a new civilization on the outer reaches of the galaxy, out of the purview of the empire. He needs the Foundation to partner with Anacreons and Thespins to create this new community that can withstand the darkness. And then he peaces out, leaving Salvor really confused because it turns out Hari was not sending her telepathic images all along. More on that in a sec…
Elsewhere, poor little Brother Dawn gets his neck snapped by the Cleons’ stalwart A.I. companion Demerzel (Laura Birn) when his faults are discovered (and Day and Dusk can’t agree on what to do). She explains her loyalty is above all to the Cleonic dynasty. Complicating things is the reveal that none of the clones are in fact pure copies of Cleon anymore, putting the whole concept of the dynasty in doubt. Does Demerzel know this? Probably not! But Lee Pace’s Brother Day does. That’s going to be awkward going forward…
But the biggest shocker comes mid-episode when Salvor figures out why she’s been having visions of ghosts, memories of the past, and psychic episodes. As it happens her mom Mari (Sasha Behar) and deceased dad Abbas (Clarke Peters) were not her biological parents. Or at least, Mari carried her, but the sperm and egg…sigh… let’s just break this down:
FOUNDATION SEASON 1 ON APPLE TV+ ENDING EXPLAINED: SALVOR HARDIN IS GAAL DORNICK’S DAUGHTER?!? AND RAYCH IS HER DAD?!?
Uh, yeah, so that happened.
Remember back in Foundation Episode 2 when Gaal Dornick had her eggs harvested? It turns out that Mari decided to impregnate herself with a baby that was made from Raych (Alfred Enoch) and Gaal Dornick’s DNA. She’s quick to point out that she carried Salvor, so technically she’s still her mother. But DNA-wise, Salvor is Raych and Gaal’s baby. That’s why she has similar psychic abilities to Gaal and why both mother and daughter are able to put a spanner in Hari Seldon’s proverbial works. Upon learning this information, Salvor decides to look for her long-lost mother.
In the final scene, we learn that Gaal’s cryo-goo space-coffin ship (you know what I’m talking about) has finally arrived on Synnax after over a century of travel. Synnax is not the home she remembers though. The rising tides have taken Gaal’s hometown away. All that’s left seems to be death. That is until she notices a blinking light under water. It turns out someone else took a cryo-goo space-coffin ship to Synnax. And what do you know? It’s Salvor. Looking much like we last left her.
Gaal is stunned when Salvor reveals in the last scene that she’s her daughter — because it’s weird, y’all — and that Salvor came to Synnax to find her.
So there you’ve got it. Gaal and Salvor will be back for more adventures. This time well over a century after the events of the first season of Foundation…
WILL THERE BE A FOUNDATION SEASON 2 ON APPLE TV+?
Yes, there will! Good news for those of you dying to see what intergalactic Gilmore Girls-like adventures impossibly close-in-age Mother/Daughter pair Gaal and Salvor will get up to in the future (of the future). Apple TV+ has already ordered Foundation Season 2. Lee Pace has also confirmed on social media that he’ll be back for the fun. No word yet on which Asimov characters or stories showrunner David S. Goyer will mine for Season 2, but he’s already namedropped folks like Hober Mallow and The Mule in Gaal’s narrations.
This post first appeared on Nypost.com
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