In season two, 'Foundation' continues to evolve with story, characters

In the second season of “Foundation,” more than a century has passed since the first season finale and tension continues to mount throughout the galaxy.

As the Cleons unravel, a vengeful queen plots to destroy Empire from within.

This is where Lee Pace’s Brother Day and Laura Birn’s Demerzel find themselves in an action-packed opening sequence.

Demerzel ends up getting her head spliced.

“It happened in season one too,” Birn says with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘Really, not again.’ Here is Demerzel watching the galaxy with one eye.”

Pace chimes in, “It was a fun scene to shoot. I think that scene perfectly sets the tone for the season ahead.”

The second season of “Foundation” begins streaming on Apple TV+ on Friday, July 14.

The series is based on the award-winning novels by Isaac Asimov, which chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire.

The second season finds Hari, Gaal and Salvor as they discover a colony of Mentalics with psionic abilities that threaten to alter psychohistory itself.

The Foundation has entered its religious phase, promulgating the Church of Seldon throughout the Outer Reach and inciting the Second Crisis: war with Empire.

The TV adaptation chronicles the stories of four crucial individuals transcending space and time as they overcome deadly crises, shifting loyalties and complicated relationships that will ultimately determine the fate of humanity.

Pace reprises his role as Brother Day, who is the leader of the Empire. Meanwhile, Birn is back as Demerzel, who is a robot that’s been around for centuries.

Birn says it was exciting to continue the story in season two.

“I think in season one we established a base of understanding the rules of the Empire or the Galaxy and what this family is about,” Birn says. “In season two, we get to explore the character of Demerzel. She has so many secrets and plans that we don’t know. We’ve seen a glimpse of what she knows. We get to know that she’s actually the powerful one, now because the whole empire is kind of in a chaotic place and there are threats from outside the Empire and inside the Empire. So we also see a harder version of Demerzel who needs to really use extreme ways to control the Empire, to protect the genetic Dynasty, which is her mission.”

Pace says Brother Day sees Demerzel as one of the only women he can trust.

“It’s an absurd tangle of a relationship …,” Pace says. “A 25,000-year-old robot emperor of the galaxy and a cloned emperor of the galaxy. We find ourselves talking about marriage and what marriage is.”

Pace says there were challenges in picking up with Brother Day in season two, and he looked forward to seeing the character’s growth.

“The character I played last season is a distant ancestor of the character I played this season,” he says. “What I enjoy so much about him is that he is fully embracing his individuality. He doesn’t want to be just another one of the clones. He is stronger than that. He’s determined to write his own destiny, and doing that he’s going to marry the queen of the Cloud Dominion, have a child and be done with clones. Which is exciting. I think that the size of his ego makes me laugh.”

Pace says there was also something fun about Brother Day.

“This is a man who solves every problem with violence, who doesn’t need intelligence, because he has inherited a 25,000-year-old supremely intelligent robot to think for him,” Pace says. “I think it forms him into a very primitive man. But in that primitiveness, he’s incredibly durable. Incredibly, there’s a lifeforce to him that I haven’t quite even after two seasons of filming him put my finger on it, but I feel like, in the composition of the story is an interesting answer to the logic and mathematical precision. That over in Cleons’ corner, there’s the messy, chaotic, random, lucky humanity that has a force in it. I haven’t quite put my finger on it yet. It’s a thing that I’m investigating with the character that there’s something about him that isn’t evil. It’s messy, yes. It’s violent, yes. But there’s a resilience to it that I find compelling.”