Foundation star Jared Harris drops exciting details about the upcoming Season 3

Foundation is returning, but not from where it left off. Apple TV+’s sci-fi epic jumps 152 years ahead in its timeline, skipping over any immediate aftermath and landing straight into a changed political and philosophical landscape. This shift was revealed by Jared Harris, who plays the many-layered Hari Seldon, during a recent interview with Collider.

The time jump feels like a reset — not a reboot, but a chance to break free from expectations and change the pace. The story shifts from prediction and control to uncertainty and chaos. It’s less about guiding humanity and more about surviving what can’t be seen coming.

A new threat, a different kind of danger

Seldon’s grand plan, designed to shape the future of civilization through calculated interventions, might not be enough anymore. The rise of a new enemy, known simply as the Mule, threatens everything. At first glance, the name doesn’t sound like much, but Harris described the character as something entirely different — not brute force, not political maneuvering, but mental manipulation. Control from within.

The Mule is a mutant — a powerful one — with the ability to bend will and thought. And that changes the game. What happens when the plan’s foundation — the belief that large groups behave predictably — is challenged by an outsider?

The empire shows cracks from within

Lee Pace, who plays Brother Day, offered a glimpse into the emotional state of his character — not in speeches or dramatic shifts, but in quiet moments. Brother Day, once firm and ruthless, now appears disconnected. A little slower. More aware of his role as a symbol than ever before. No rebellion, just a slow drift toward fragility.

This version of Brother Day seems to live among gardens and silence. Detached from conflict but not at peace. The idea of power that fades without being taken — that kind of erosion is harder to notice. However, it’s already happening, and in Foundation, erosion like this tends to mean something bigger is about to break.

Pace described this new phase bluntly:

“The character we built this season is someone who doesn’t care about power, doesn’t want to be the Emperor, hates all the jerks in the palace, resents that they think they can control things.”

That resentment bubbles quietly — in his words, in his delays, in a new weariness. The empire isn’t falling from attacks — it’s slowly collapsing from within. Foundation has always carried this tension: between spectacle and quiet breakdowns, between calculated logic and unexpected feelings. This season seems to lean into that imbalance.

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Old characters, new faces

Alongside returning cast members like Harris and Pace, Season 3 brings in new names: Cherry Jones, Troy Kotsur, Alexander Siddig, and Pilou Asbæk, now playing the Mule in full form. Each new character seems carefully chosen to shift the tone — less idealism, more urgency.

The focus is moving — from empire vs. rebellion to something more unstable. A force that ignores tradition, history, and structure. The Mule isn’t just a villain; he represents unpredictability in a world that thought it had moved past chaos. And in Foundation, chaos rarely arrives without consequence — it usually means the rules are about to change.

Foundation and the limits of control

Isaac Asimov’s original work was full of ambition — a plan to map out human destiny like a science. But Foundation, the series, takes that concept and adds emotion, doubt, and failure. It doesn’t try to copy Asimov’s tone exactly. Instead, it stretches his ideas — makes them messier, harder to manage.

That’s where the show finds space to grow. It accepts that perfect systems crack — that people don’t always move like equations. Especially not when manipulated by forces that were never part of the plan.

Hari Seldon, in digital form or physical presence, is still trying to keep the structure intact. But even he might be starting to see the flaws. The plan wasn’t designed for this version of the future.

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Release schedule and where it all begins again

Season 3 of Foundation premieres on July 11, 2025, with weekly episodes airing until September 12 — ten episodes total. A format that gives the story time to breathe. To let things unravel in slow motion.

For those who have followed the series this far, it feels like a different phase is beginning — not necessarily bigger or louder, just more uncertain. The kind of shift that changes what the show is even about.

Looking ahead: when the plan loses its grip

What Jared Harris and Lee Pace revealed isn’t just teaser material. It’s a signal. The series may be reaching the point where its own system fails — where the Foundation no longer predicts but reacts. And where characters built around control begin to slip.

As Harris put it:

“The stakes get higher, the jeopardy is greater, the empire is less secure.”

That kind of escalation doesn’t just raise tension. It changes the meaning of every decision made so far. What was once guided by logic is now driven by urgency.

This is no longer a story of smooth transitions or heroic certainty — it’s a story of doubt and lost faith in what once defined the world. And that, in a way, might be where the real story begins.