Foundation episode 5 is a major turning point in the series, answering key questions about Gaal Dornick, Raych Foss, the Anacreons, and Hari Seldon.
This article contains spoilers for Foundation episode 5.
Foundation episode 5 answered four major questions about Gaal Dornick, Raych Foss, the Anacreons, and even Hari Seldon himself. Foundation showrunner David Goyer has regularly compared his Apple TV+ show to a cosmic chess game, with psychohistorian Hari Seldon on the one side and the Emperor on the other. The Emperor's sole concern is maintenance of the status quo, whereas Hari Seldon has rightly recognized change as inevitable and seeks to control it in order to prevent the coming galactic Dark Ages.
But if this is a game of chess, it is between two grandmasters. Like all the best matches, it features a number of feints and deceptions, with each player carefully moving pieces into position while attempting to hide their true purpose. Hari Seldon, in particular, has chosen to make some early sacrifices, apparently orchestrating his own death in order to ensure his followers were truly committed to the Foundation project. Not everything has played out as Hari had intended - the discipline of psychohistory may be able to predict the great tides of history, but it fails when it comes to predicting individual actions. Still, the plan proceeds.
Foundation episode 5 is something of a turning point within the series, finally answering some key questions and setting up the show's future direction. Little by little, Hari Seldon's true purpose is becoming evident - and no doubt his plans will shake the Empire.
In Foundation episode 2, Gaal Dornick walked in on her lover Raych to find him standing over Hari Seldon's body, a bloody knife in his hands. It's always seemed clear Hari Seldon had arranged his own death, with Raych obeying orders to ensure the psychohistorian's predictions came to pass, but Hari hadn't factored on Gaal walking in at such an inopportune moment. Realizing Gaal would be implicated in the crime, Raych had no choice but to adapt; he abandoned his own escape attempt in order to ensure she survived in his place. Gaal was placed in a cryogenically sealed escape pod, and she was ejected from the Foundation ship.
Foundation episode 5 picks up decades later, with Gaal Dornick's pod collected by a computer-controlled vessel that has been programmed only to obey Raych. She eventually deduces the ship is taking her to Helicon, Hari Seldon's homeworld, in accordance with a mission it must have been programmed with decades before. It seems Hari intended Raych to escape the Foundation vessel and go into cryogenic suspension until the first Seldon Crisis that would shape the galaxy's fate; now Gaal has been sent in Raych's stead, without the benefit of Raych's foreknowledge, and she must figure out what her new role is.
Raych's heroic decision to save Gaal's life sadly doomed his own. It left him aboard the Foundation ship, where he was understandably placed on trial for the murder of Hari Seldon. He refused to give an accounting for his actions, presumably wary of revealing information the members of the Foundation weren't supposed to know, information that would potentially affect the psychohistorical calculations. It was only as he was about to be executed that Raych spoke up at last - not to his executors, but to the camera recording his death, aware the footage would one day be looked upon by his beloved Gaal Dornick. "I know it's hard," he said. "I know what I've done seems incomprehensible, but... you can't lose faith in the plan. Ever. You can still solve a puzzle, even with a piece missing."
Gaal had correctly realized there was a flaw of some kind in Hari Seldon's calculations, and Raych's words suggest this is deliberate - that there is a puzzle to be solved, and that he believes she alone can do it. If Raych is correct, then Gaal must learn how to become the grandmaster in Hari Seldon's place, in order to compensate for the errors in his predictions. The fate of the galaxy rests upon her ability to do so.
Meanwhile, the first Seldon Crisis is taking place on Terminus, out on the galactic rim. It seems the Anacreons have discovered an old Imperial warship, and they seek to restore it and use it to wage war against the Empire. The Foundation has the one precious resource they need, which is the skills and knowledge to get the warship working again. The Anacreons don't care that, if Hari Seldon's predictions are correct, they could be dooming the galaxy to Dark Ages that last 30,000 years or more; all they want is revenge.
But Hari Seldon's predictions seem to have taken this into account. It's worth remembering the Anacreon homeworld was bombed by the Empire in response to a major terrorist attack on the galactic capital of Trantor, but the perpetrators of this crime were never identified. It's entirely possible Hari Seldon was himself responsible for the destruction of the Spacebridge,with Hari controlling the Empire's fall to ensure it unfolded as predicted. Given that's the case, it's surely no coincidence he sent a group of experts out to the galactic rim, men and women who possessed all the knowledge the Anacreons would need. In Isaac Asimov's books, the Foundation was a bluff designed to conceal Seldon's true purposes and that is likely the case in David Goyer's Foundation as well.
At first glance, the chaos engulfing Terminus and the death of Raych Foss appear to suggest Hari Seldon's plans have failed. In reality, though, most of the pieces seem to be exactly where Hari intended them to be. The Vault on Terminus is presumably linked to Seldon, Salvor Hardin's mysterious connection with the Vault is ensuring she gains key knowledge she will need to navigate the first Seldon Crisis, and an agent is being sent to Hari's homeworld of Helicon. When she gets to Helicon, Gaal Dornick will need to figure out exactly what she needs to do in order to keep history on track. If she succeeds, then all of Hari Seldon's plans in Foundation can still come to pass.
