Foundation Review: Death and the Maiden (Season 1 Episode 6)

Foundation Season 1 Episode 6, “Death and the Maiden,” brings the Empire back into the fold, as Day reaches his destination and Dusk tries to bond with Dawn.

I have mixed feelings about the Empire storylines. They aren’t as entertaining as what is happening with Gaal or Salvor, and so you find yourself wishing that we were spending time with either of them instead.

Day’s trip to the planet electing their next Proxima is sometimes a little hard to follow simply because this is a whole new religion with players and politics we haven’t had enough time with to fully understand. There’s a brief explanation, which helps some, but not enough.

And with all the other complex storylines happening on Foundation, you’d rather spend your time focusing on making sure you’re able to follow Gaal and Salvor’s storylines. Theirs seem more important than the election of the next Proxima.

In general, the Empire’s storylines seem to be our way to see the beginning of the crisis. Dawn’s storyline is only remotely salvageable because we get more concrete proof that he is different than his brothers/clones, which again suggests that the crisis is beginning.

So, their storylines do affect the larger world by showing Hari’s predictions are coming true, but that appears to be all they are really meant to do. There’s not any real action or suspense like there is with Gaal and Salvor’s storylines, so in comparison, Empire’s storylines are a bit of a bore.

Meanwhile, on Terminus, Phara’s plans are partially revealed. An off-world mission with a ragtag group that doesn’t get along at all? Sign me up.

Seriously, this sounds like a ton of fun, and I’m particularly excited to see how everyone gets along (or doesn’t) in such tight quarters. There are a lot of people in the foundation, and this mission will allow us to get to know more of them a bit better while throwing in the threat of death to them and their loved ones if they disobey Phara.

The vault and its connection to Salvor continue to be a nice dose of mystery. It doesn’t pop up all the time, and it shouldn’t, but when it does, it is intriguing to try to figure out the why and the how of it all.

In addition to seeing more of how the vault affects Salvor, we also learn more about what led up to Hari’s death.

The vault puts Salvor in Gaal’s body on the Deliverance, but Salvor hears more of Hari and Raych’s conversation, which Gaal didn’t hear, where Hari encourages Raych to stab him. The math is clearly violent if this is how it revealed the solution to the Raych and Gaal problem.

We’ve seen the vault show Salvor a memory that appeared to be Hari’s on Foundation Season 1 Episode 4, “Barbarians at the Gate,” but now she’s shown something that is a bit more than one person’s memory.

Perhaps this means it somehow is tapped into multiple people’s memories and able to recreate moments from multiple memories and then transport Salvor there.

It’ll be interesting to see if anything happens between Salvor and the vault now that Salvor is off-world. The vault continues to be an exciting mystery in the show, and if you have any theories on it, I’d love to hear them.

Stray Thoughts

• Hugo is one crafty motherfucker, and I love that about him.
• Demerzel finally has an outfit change!!
• Dawn should’ve escorted his companion to the memory wiper to ensure that she didn’t share what she heard.

What did you think of this episode of Foundation? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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New episodes of Foundation premiere Fridays on Apple TV+.

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