Foundation (1×05) Upon Awakening Review

For our review of the last episode of Foundation, click here.

Upon Awakening primarily focuses on Dornick and her journey to becoming an extraordinary mathematician. It is also finally revealed how she is connected to Hari Seldon and his fate. This episode is an excellent example of how the series moves forward and backward through the timeline and how it can become confusing. For viewers who like to follow one particular character, they will surely see some struggles here.

Dornick’s beginnings are humble, and she comes from a place where her people have outlawed education and science. Her people are galvanized by faith which she secretly despises. Her people treat anyone that chooses science over religion with extreme hostility. This pushes Dornick farther and farther away from the connection to her parents and her people. She is exposed to her people’s brutality towards a teacher trying to salvage books from the defunct university. After this event, Gaal learns a secret which would eventually seal her fate and connection to Seldon.

On Terminus, things are becoming extremely difficult for Salvor and her people. With the threat of a woman named Phara (Kubbra Sait) and her Anacreon army looming, Hardin is forced to make a bold decision to counteract the Anacreon threat. But Phara seems to be one step ahead of her and finally reveals her plans for Terminus and Salvor. The Empire, however, is not blind to the plight of their people on Terminus and dispatch a warship, the Aegis, captained by Commander Dorwin (Christian Contreras) to assist with the Anacreon threat.

At this point, it is becoming increasingly clear who the main players are as far as this season sis concerned and why Foundation is so important to the story as a whole. Relationships that transcend time when time travel is a thing. In order to follow this story you need to expand the timeline to a much broader scope.

The next episode takes us back to the Empire and the young child that was simply a boy in previous episodes has now become a young man. With secrets of his own and a struggle to survive his own legacy, we follow his story which isn’t at all what we expected.

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