Foundation S1E2 "Preparing to Live" Review: Same Slow Pace, Built Out World, And Climactic Conclusion

Release date: September 24, 2021
Running time: 103 minutes

Based on the award-winning novels by Isaac Asimov, “Foundation” chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire.

Where the first episode of Foundation laid the groundwork for the whole galactic organization, this episode really lets you see the stakes that are involved.  The episode starts with an action packed introduction and concludes with a big conclusion, but the middle is all about fleshing out the world and setting up the intrigue.  You learn some of the consequences and pressures facing the Empire, as well as some of the danger facing Gaal and the newly exiled settlers.  You don't have a lot of major revelations, but overall this is a fleshing out episode, giving you more comfort with the major player's situations.  And you also start to see different players that we met earlier start to assert their power, allowing us to see where disagreements lie.  

And the conclusion, wow, what a conclusion.  If you aren't hooked after that then maybe this isn't for you, but I was floored by what happened.  But because this epsiode is more about building out the world, it was pretty slow.  There were important events and revelations, but overall there wasn't a lot going on.  It still kept my attention and helped to show some of the additional rifts that were not highlighted in the first episode.   And there are still some moments of fire that occur, it's just a more slowly paced episode than I was expecting after the conclusion to Episode 1.  Additionally, some time has passed since the first episode and although wounds are still fresh, there seems to be a large chunk that the series just does not explore.  Perhaps this is just due to time constraints given the limited nature of the series but there were some character interactions that seemed to jump out of nowhere.  However, the second episode of Foundation has the same slower pace as the first one, and the same type of climactic conclusion.  And I am very excited to see where this goes from here!

Watch it.

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Foundation is available to stream on Apple TV+ with Season 1 Episode 2 "Preparing to Live" available on September 24, 2021.