In this week’s episode of Foundation, we get yet another fall of the Foundation, some reveals about The Mule (or are they?), Dusk finds time for romance before kicking the bucket, and Brother Dude goes through a Homer Simpson-like mysterious voyage (sadly not including hot chili peppers), which gives him the first proper epiphany a Cleon has had in centuries. Let’s start with the younger Cleon. Having now realized that the life he had with Song was a fantasy created by power dynamics, Brother Dude genuinely apologizes to her for not knowing she had a partner. He seems to have fully given up on his love story, but he can at least help Song and her religion by presenting them with a genuine, bona fide, electrifying miracle in the form of proof that there is still a robot around. The emperor shows the golden tool he stole from Demerzel (the one Cleon I stole for Demerzel from Mycogen) as a gift. Though Oceanglass is skeptical, Song can’t ignore what it would mean if Brother Dude is right about there being a robot, which would be the most significant event for their religion in 5,000 years. To find out the truth, they decide to do a ceremony, essentially giving the emperor a ton of drugs that will make him tell the truth.

There are some rather cool visuals in Lebowski Cleon’s trip, which starts with him seemingly trapped inside the flash of the drugged drink he took, then seeing himself in front of the painted mural in the palace that tells the history of the Cleons. The mural starts to move, and suddenly Demerzel bursts out of it. Cleon is resentful of Demerzel, his midwife, his martinet, nanny, mother, his lover, the one who is waiting for him to mess up and then kill him.

We see a memory from when Brother Dude was a kid, and how much he’d fail at trying to act the same as the other Cleons. They are no longer three parts of one whole, and the dynasty is crumbling. That night, young Dude asks Demerzel what she’d do if she were able to leave the palace, and if she could still love the Cleons if she were free. Demerzel says she’d probably make more robots like her, and can’t weigh love against the possibility of freedom. Recalling that memory, Brother Dude has an epiphany. Freedom would always win. Being trapped, both in Mycogen and in his role as emperor, he realizes how Demerzel has also been trapped for centuries. They are both victims of this cycle that started with the very first Cleon, and he is now able to feel empathy towards the creature he’s blamed for everything bad about his existence. When, now free from the hallucinations, Song asks Day if there’s any chance of freeing Demerzel, he initially says no, but that’s not entirely true. There is a way, by ending the Genetic Dynasty.

Unfortunately, before he can fully convince Song that his intentions are pure, the leader of the cult arrives on Oceanglass’s request. He calls himself Sunmaster-18, and he carries a staff with what looks like a robot skull on top. Most importantly, he says judgment will fall on the emperor.

While this is happening, Dusk is left as the one Cleon in charge, with only three days to live, just as Empire faces the imminent threat of The Mule conquering New Terminus and taking the Foundation’s whisper-ships, which would allow him to reach Trantor immediately. Dusk orders the Empire to prepare for an attack while sending probes to New Terminus to investigate, then spends the episode having a little romance with Ambassador Quent, with the two bonding over what they’ve lost — Dusk his brothers, Quent her entire world.

Lastly, we have the fall of New Terminus. After a rather cool dogfight scene, we get a total war zone on the surface with civilians dying left and right. The Mule lands on the planet, and Indbur the weasel immediately kneels before the pirate, completely surrendering. It does seem like Indbur wasn’t really controlled by either Magnifico or The Mule, but genuinely sold them all out before the pirate arrived, seeking only to save his own ass. That’s because The Mule says Indbur chose to arrange their meeting at this place, and had promised him Han Pritcher without even knowing that The Mule was looking for him. What’s the need for mind control when you can just appeal to greed and cowardice?

Meanwhile, Toran manages to carry the unconscious Bayta back to their ship, but not before Randu arrives and tries to convince his nephew to surrender. The Mule is not as bad as they think, and the fall of the Foundation will be good for business, he says, but Toran doesn’t buy it. He immediately realizes his uncle is under The Mule’s control and fights him back. Sadly, Toran can’t prevent a group of soldiers from coming in and taking Bayta away so she can find Magnifico, but he does manage to get in an escape pod and leave — not before the release mechanism for the pod shoots out a bolt straight at Randu’s face, killing him.

In orbit, Pritcher manages to escape his confinement. He tries to take a shot at The Mule but fails, running toward a ship and heading toward the New Terminus surface. Seeing no further use for Indbur, The Mule orders him to drown himself, which he does, smiling. He has now conquered the Foundation, and the Empire is next.

The Prime Radiant

• As a bedtime story, Demerzel tells Day of her past names, like Chetter, Daneel, and Eto. Here it is, a final, undeniable, official confirmation that Foundation is also bringing in the Robot series to its canon. Sure, there’ve been plenty of allusions to it, but it is nice to hear the names of the robot’s previous personas.

• We get a backstory for The Mule this season, showing him as a child on a farm planet controlled by the Foundation. It turns out that a one-child policy has been imposed on the farmers, and The Mule’s parents have a new baby. When they are discovered, the parents are forced to get rid of one of the kids, and they choose to drown The Mule, but then the kid awakens his metallic powers and forces both his parents to drown themselves. The sleeper has awakened. He then leaves the baby with the neighbors and escapes the planet with pirates. All of this is a story he’s telling Hari Seldon at his Vault, but when Seldon appears, he questions how much of the story was true. It’s a sad story, for sure, but did any of it even happen?

 Like anyone in search of the truth, the emperor goes on a drug-induced psychedelic trip for the ages.