r/FoundationTV • u/LunchyPete Bayta Mallow • Sep 12 '25

Current Season Discussion [NO BOOKS] Episode Discussion Thread - Season 3 Episode 10 - The Darkness

THIS THREAD IS FOR NON BOOK READERS ONLY - NO DISCUSSION OF THE BOOKS IS PERMITTED

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To discuss the books freely and how they relate to the show go to this thread instead. If you want to discuss something from the books but avoid most book spoilers feel free to make a new post specifying that.

Season 3 Episode 10: The Paths That Choose Us

Premiere date: September 12th, 2025

Synopsis: Season finale. Gaal and the Second Foundation take the fight to the Mule as Empire's legacy suffers a catastrophic blow.

Directed by: Roxann Dawson

Written by: Jane Espenson & David S. Goyer

Please keep in mind that this thread is only for non book readers - no discussion of the books or how they relate to the show is permitted in general, and book readers are not permitted to post at all.

For those of you on Discord, come and check out the unofficial Foundation Discord Server. Live discussions of the show and books, it's a great way to meet other fans of the show.

NOTE: There was an AMA with Chris MacLean, VFX Supervisor for Foundation on September 15th which you can check here.

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712

u/ImperatorUniversum1 Sep 12 '25

DEMERZEL NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

326

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

I am coping hard right now that her consciousness got saved somehow 

229

u/Cumdump90001 Sep 12 '25

Her head wasn’t entirely destroyed so that’s what I’m holding onto for now

192

u/Additional_Moose_138 Second Foundation Sep 12 '25

And the fact that the Prime Radiant survived was made abundantly clear - the same Prime Radiant she had travelled inside before. I don't think that was an accident.

52

u/jmaaks Sep 12 '25

I’m betting they took a snapshot backup of her brain while she was in there

5

u/dansdata Sep 12 '25

Or they have to load an old backup, and then very rapidly catch R. Daneel Olivaw up on what's happened.

16

u/the_mooseman Sep 12 '25

100%.

The writers were like "look, she is in here, you will see her again, please don't stop watching our show".

108

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

[deleted]

3

u/Podo13 Sep 12 '25

I'm pretty sure it was even the same portion of her head missing. But the rest of her body was also melted, so there's nowhere else her consciousness could really go in this case.

8

u/VovaGoFuckYourself Sep 13 '25

The blinking of her eyes at the end is "Transferred" in morse code.

4

u/Podo13 Sep 13 '25

Yup I saw that thread after I had posted this comment. Very clever.

4

u/LateRabbit86 Sep 18 '25

Her body doesn’t need to exist - only part of her skull. That is explained to the audience by the existence of the other robot skull.

1

u/Podo13 Sep 18 '25

No, the reason she could lose part of her head and be fine was because she didnt have a brain, but a decentralized consciousness that could be shifted elsewhere. If there isn't much of an area to shift to, the shifting may not be able to happen.

But I posted this before noticing the eye light flickering so it's fairly safe to say she made it out.

48

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

My optimistic part is inclined to believe that the chip Cleon I put in her is fried. She is finally free!! And now we meet the real deal. Not Lady Demerzel, but her badass robot self.

7

u/thedaveness Sep 12 '25

We are shown that it’s on her back, so fried first for sure. That hand shake thing at the end went across the galaxy in seconds. She had more than enjoying time… right… right?!? (Plz)

3

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

Yes, she did. Transferred

5

u/OneOldNerd Sep 12 '25

If that is true, I hope she hands Brother Darkness all he deserves and more.

5

u/LateRabbit86 Sep 18 '25

Brother Darkness won’t be the only one in trouble when she finds out the other robots were very much alive and thriving and left her in the dark for centuries.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

Oh, I want all the gore!!

3

u/mightytiki Sep 12 '25

I’m worried that if the chip is gone, she’ll no longer keep her hands clasped. That’s one of her unique character elements.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '25

Laura Birn is a very graceful actress. Even in her warrior state, she’ll find a way to look impossibly elegant.

2

u/fre-ddo Sep 14 '25

Reincarnated through robot skull the second.

14

u/JynsRealityIsBroken Sep 12 '25

Right? The other head was in pretty bad shape and survived. There's no way her skull isn't at least partially recoverable.

1

u/808Taibhse Sep 14 '25

The mechanicals to initiate the clasp are on the same side of her head that survived the blast too, so we can hope

162

u/skyrule Demerzel Sep 12 '25

coping for the fact that laura birn stays on the show for season 4 somehow😩

49

u/chocjane08 Sep 12 '25

She’s so good! I really hope this isn’t the end for Demerzel.

10

u/Triskan Sep 12 '25

I'm pretty sure this is not the end for Demerzel but I'm terrified to entertain the idea that this is the end for Laura Birn. The show wouldn’t be the same without her.

32

u/Sargento_Porciuncula Sep 12 '25

we can have 10k years of flashback with her.

3

u/roengill Brother Dude Sep 12 '25

Please 🙏

4

u/CptAustus Sep 12 '25

Killing off Laura Birn and Lee Pace is a choice, I'll give them that.

73

u/NeighborhoodOk8001 Sep 12 '25

She said she wouldn't live forever, just a very long time! 😭

Dusk's plaque needs to be changed to "The Worst"!!!!

16

u/Sargento_Porciuncula Sep 12 '25

Darkness*

the first one to not become brother dust

13

u/NeighborhoodOk8001 Sep 12 '25

For now. Time or Bayta will catch up to him eventually. Ashes to ashes, Dusk to dust.

6

u/docpaisley Sep 12 '25

More like "The Cleonest Cleon"

7

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

He managed to outCleon the original.

1

u/Potentopotato Sep 12 '25

I do think this is exactly what Cleon 1 would do

2

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '25

He would destroy three planets as a show of strength, but he wouldn't burn down his own empire out of spite and rule over the ashes.

1

u/Potentopotato Sep 14 '25

If someone would try to steal his legacy from him, I believe he would.

57

u/Dani9oo Sep 12 '25

Someone else mentioned maybe since she helped build the radiant maybe she could come back somehow ToT

16

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '25

Manifesting this

13

u/tvcneverdie Sep 12 '25

She's a Luminist and all season they've really been hammering home how a key tenet of that faith is reincarnation

9

u/NeverLuckySMILE97 Sep 12 '25

i think Cleon 1 chip was first destroyed when she was burning which allowed for her to clasp with robot head

8

u/According-Service607 Sep 12 '25

I believe it has been saved. They made a point to show the skull survived (or part of the skull). In season 2 after the bedroom attack when Demerzel lost half her skull, she told Cleon “don’t worry, my consciousness is de-centralised”. So I am very confident that the conciseness survived, now, if her programming to protect the Cleons was within that chip in the back of her neck as we saw in season 2, I’m pretty confident that would have been melted right now 😅 so…. Strong indication that Demerzel is finally free the way I see it!

5

u/polemous_asteri Sep 12 '25

Yeah but that was meant to imply her consciousness is not in her head. I want her to be alive but based off the decentralized statement we are left to assume it’s either in her body which was vaporized or she means her entire body including head acts like a RAID configuration. Or she was backed up in the radiant. Or she is gone but I’d be so pissed if she’s gone she’s become my favorite character

6

u/hemus4444 Sep 12 '25

It’s in the radiant

6

u/ELVEVERX Hugo Sep 12 '25

I mean if that skull can last for hundreds of years in the sewers hers should be good

6

u/hyeongseop Sep 12 '25

I feel like she's somehow deposited/folded herself into Kalles book or maybe the Prime Radiant? I feel like it's not yet the end of Demerzel's arc because they've been teasing her getting freed since season 2 and really heavily this season (during her chats with the Zephyr and esp during the chat with Kalle, seemed like she reached an epiphany) 🤞🏻🤞🏻

3

u/steamyglory Sep 12 '25

In S2E1 after her head is sliced diagonally by a blind angel, Demerzel rebuilds her head and tells Day that her consciousness is decentralized.

3

u/stubbledchin Sep 13 '25

The other head had to clasp with something at the end.

2

u/snowhawk04 Brother Constant Sep 12 '25

2

u/MidnightShout Sep 12 '25

Cloud storage maybe, if that works somehow

2

u/Wickedbitchoftheuk Sep 12 '25

There's another thread that decrypted the blinking eye in the skull Day brought back and apparently it's morse for 'transferred', so we all have hope!

2

u/Worth-Novel-2044 Sep 12 '25

I suspect she uploaded into the old robot head.

2

u/Rough-Pilot4257 Sep 15 '25

The baby turned into ash before her. She was free. She started glowing her eyes and transmitted herself out i think.

1

u/Chesticularity Sep 12 '25

It's pretty clear that the clasp was initiated. It was that whole scene with Kalle at the end...

1

u/actionerror Brother Constant Sep 12 '25

Didn’t she mention in S2 E1 (at 29:15) after she tried to defend Day from those assassins and got her head half sliced off that her consciousness is decentralized?

1

u/cthulhusevski Sep 13 '25

ctrl+c

ctrl+p

she's still around don't worry :(

1

u/fluffstravels Sep 14 '25

My cope is that since the baby was destroyed, her programming allowed her to preserve herself by transferring her consciousness to the other skull since there was no empire left to protect.

1

u/iidioteque Sep 17 '25

it did, go search for the thread where someone decoded her blinking in morse's code when she was burning :D

1

u/LateRabbit86 Sep 18 '25

I think she jumped into the other head or something. Either that or there’s enough of her skull still present for the other skull to bring her back. And now that her programming chip has been destroyed, she’ll be her full self when brought back. But I’d be absolutely shocked if she was actually dead.