Foundation season three will pick up 152 years after the end of season two, which means a new set of supporting characters is on the way. However, given Foundation’s fondness for clones (be they organic or digital) and robots—as well as people who endure extended cryosleep—all the main faces will also be back.
That time jump will advance the action to a time of great unrest, as predicted in season two by Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) using a combination of mathematics, the “prime radiant” quantum device created by Hari Seldon (Jared Harris), and her own powerful abilities. Throughout season two, she had glimpses of “the Mule” (to be played in season three by Pilou Asbæk), an equally powerful psychic hellbent on bringing the entire galaxy to heel.
This won’t sit well with Empire—the collective name given to the Cleons (played by Cassian Bilton, Lee Pace, and Terrence Mann at different ages), the trio of cloned galactic rulers who’ve held control for generations, though we saw cracks in the regime beginning to appear even back in season one.
As we learned in season two, Lady Demerzel (Laura Birn)—the last remaining intelligent android, she’s the only survivor of the Robot Wars—was programmed to ensure Empire’s reign by Cleon I, and there’s nothing she won’t do to follow that directive. That includes killing Cleons that get out of line, as well as altering their memories to virtually shape the version of reality that best serves the cause.
Elsewhere in the Galaxy, the Foundation—a breakaway civilization established by Seldon in season one, meant to ensure humanity’s survival after Seldon’s studies of “psychohistory” predicted a coming period of darkness—became a thriving alliance in season two, adding millions to its cause and reverse-engineering technology previously hoarded by Empire, including jump ships that revolutionized space travel.
What is Foundation about?
The Apple TV+ series is based on the Foundation short stories, novellas, and novels by Isaac Asimov; he penned the first works in the 1940s and ‘50s and then returned to its world at the end of his career in the 1980s.
It’s set in the very far future, when the galaxy has long been ruled by the Cleonic dynasty, a trio of clones of Emperor Cleon I at different ages: the young Dawn, the middle-aged Day, and the elderly Dusk. When Dusk gets too old, a new Dawn is decanted and Day becomes Dusk. (Empire also keeps replacement spares, in case a clone perishes before he’s aged out.)
Though Empire is ostensibly in charge, the real architect of the regime is Demerzel, working off programming implanted by Cleon I. She manipulates expertly and with the ability to stay several steps of most human minds, but she’s not infallible.
And despite Demerzel’s cunning, Empire’s stranglehold on the galaxy has begun to crumble. The clones have been slightly corrupted, meaning they’re no longer perfect copies of Cleon I; in Foundation season two, the reigning Brother Day toys with the notion of taking a wife and producing an heir the old-fashioned way, thereby ending the cloning tradition.
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