‘Foundation’ Season 2 Episode 6’s Wild Ending Explained: Is [Spoiler] Dead?

When I saw that this week’s all-new episode of Foundation on Apple TV+ was written by sci-fi great Jane Espenson off of a story written by showrunner David S. Goyer, I got excited. And when the credits began to roll on the jaw-dropping Foundation Season 2 Episode 6 “Why the Gods Made Wine,” I realize that Espensen and Goyer had vastly surpassed my lofty expectations. Foundation Season 2 Episode 6 is a blend of rip-roaring genre storytelling, dazzling visuals, and contains one of the most shocking and impactful deaths since Game of Thrones was in the habit of killing off Starks left and right.

**Spoilers for Foundation Season 2 Episode 6 “Why the Gods Made Wine,” now streaming on Apple TV+**

After all the hullabaloo about Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) coming back from the dead to help Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) and Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) create the Second Foundation, Foundation just kills Hari off?!? Sure, Jared Harris still has a gig with Foundation. After all there’s the Vault version of Hari and the mentalics’ false projection of him flying away from Ignis. Jared Harris is fine, but the resurrected Hari Seldon just watched his darkest chapter flash before his eyes as he was drowned in the ocean by Tellem Bond (Rachel House) and her mentalics. Hari Seldon is back to being dead!

At least, that’s how it seems… Could it be possible that Hari Seldon survived that grisly execution? Could his death be yet another of Tellem Bond’s super complicated mental projections? Or did Foundation just pull its own version of the Red Wedding, brutally offing a main character to ratchet up the stakes for the survivors? More importantly, what does Hari’s flashback mean for our greater understanding of the great Hari Seldon? Let’s dig into what the shocking ending of Foundation Season 2 Episode 6 “Why the Gods Made Wine” means for the Apple TV+ series…

Foundation Season 2 Episode 6 Ending Explained: Does Hari Seldon Die?

Well, well, well… that is the question! Did Foundation kill off Hari Seldon (again)? The ending of Foundation Season 2 Episode 6 “Why the Gods Made Wine” certainly seems to confirm that Hari is dead.

Frustrated with the Foundation creator’s plans for the mentalics, Tellem Bond uses her mind control abilities to force a wedge between Hari and the mother/daughter team of Gaal and Salvor. Tellem and her followers use their abilities to convince Gaal and Salvor that Hari has flown off Ignis, abandoning them. In fact, he has been captured has been chained to posts in the ocean as part of a medieval-looking death trap. As the tide comes in, the water will rise until he is completely submerged when he will undoubtedly drown. (Perhaps even more chilling is the realization that Tellem Bond thinks so little of humans that she doesn’t consider killing one a crime!) The last shot of the episode is of Hari drowning underwater before the camera pans up to show his lifeless body beneath the churning waves.

For now, let’s assume Hari is dead. However, because he’s already come back from the dead once, there is obviously the possibility that Foundation could resurrect the professor again. Then again, this could be an elaborate mindfuck conceived by Tellem Bond. We’ll have to wait to see next week’s episode to find out!

Strangely, what might be more important is the revelation that Hari Seldon stone cold murdered a person in the past. Through flashbacks we learn how Hari and his wife Yanna (Nimrat Kaur) fell in love over their shared passion in psychohistory. A supervising scientist named Dr. Tadj (Fiona O’Shaughnessy) kills Yanna and the couple’s unborn child in an attempt to steal the prototype of the Prime Radiant for Empire. Hari takes revenge on Dr. Tadj by throwing her into a moonshrike stampede. (We’re shown that a young Hari figured out the exact pattern the moonshrikes run in as a child, so he’s safe.)

What this reveals is that Hari is very capable of violence — you know, if incinerating Holt McCallany’s Warden on Terminus wasn’t already a clue. Does this mean Tellem Bond was right not to trust him? If Hari is indeed dead, does that leave Gaal and Salvor vulnerable? Or does it set them up to take greater leadership roles in the Second Foundation? We’ll just have to tune into next week’s episode of Foundation, aptly named “A Necessary Death,” on Apple TV+ to find out…