Foundation season 3's most explosive episode yet is just the start of 'the wheels coming off the wagon', star teases

• Foundation season 3 may have just killed off another major character
• This season's latest chapter sets the scene for five more incendiary episodes to come
• One of the sci-fi series' stars has teased what'll happen next

Foundation season 3 episode 5 is out now – and it's an explosive entry that might set up an incredibly tense and life-threatening second half of the Apple TV+ show's latest installment.

Titled 'Where Tyrants Spend Eternity', Foundation season 3's latest chapter is full of shocks aplenty, one of which appears to be the demise of another major character. Full spoilers immediately follow for this season up to and including episode 5, so turn back now if you haven't watched it yet.

Following Hari Seldon's supposed death in Foundation season 3 episode 2, the sci-fi epic appears to bump off another member of its primary cast – Brother Dawn – in 'Where Tyrants Spend Eternity'.

That might not come as a big surprise to some viewers. After all, a previous version of Dawn, i.e. one of three clones of Cleon I who tyrannically rule the Galactic Empire, was killed in Foundation's first season. The fate of season 3's iteration has been debated over the last couple of weeks, too, especially after Dawn formed a uneasy alliance with Gaal Dornick, who has ties to Empire's arch-rivals in the Foundation and the Second Foundation, in this season's third entry.

Unsurprisingly, Dawn was just a pawn in Gaal's all-consuming quest to try and defeat The Mule, aka this season's Big Bad. In episode 5, Gaal convinces Dawn to form an Imperial blockade around Kalgan, the independent world that The Mule took control of in Foundation season 3's premiere. Dawn does so by blackmailing Tarisk, one of the most influential members of Empire's Galactic Council, which is based on Clarion Station, and whom Kalgan's jurisdiction falls under, who helps to force the rest of his councillors to approve Dawn's request.

The aim of the blockade? Prevent food and medicine entering Kalgan due to the Imperial armada surrounding the planet, and effectively starve The Mule and his forces until they surrender. Okay, Kalgan's civilian population would also suffer, but Gaal insists it's a small price to pay to thwart this season's primary villain.

Predictably, things don't go according to plan. Once the armada is in position around Kalgan, The Mule reveals he foresaw what would happen and prepared to counter it. After taking control of the nearest jump gate to Kalgan in episode 3, his troops laced it with Blue Cobalt, an explosive substance that, when fired into a nearby star, causes a huge, powerful, and incredibly hot solar flare to erupt and incinerate anything in its path. Long story short: the armada is destroyed in the blast, and Kalgan and its populace are burned to a crisp.

Fleeing the scene and locating an airlock that'll allow him to reunite with Gaal with the aid of the latter's Foundation operative, Dawn soon learns Kalgan and the Imperial armada's destruction was also part of Gaal's own scheme. Indeed, Gaal tells him – via their telecom devices – that the Foundation needed Empire's fleet to be destroyed as that would accelerate its decline and allow the Foundation (plus the covert Second Foundation) to thrive.

Furious and understandably feeling betrayed, Dawn severs ties with Gaal. However, as he prepares to leave the aforementioned airlock, Dawn is confronted by a grief-stricken Tarisk, whose family was killed on Kalgan. Despite Dawn's pleas to put down his weapon, a vengeful Tarisk opens fire, causing the chamber to depressurize and sucking the pair of them out into space.

Now, Dawn managed to put on a full spacesuit before he was confronted by Tarisk, so it's highly likely he isn't dead. Nonetheless, Brother Dusk, the only one of Empire's three rulers who's still running the show – remember, Day has fled the coop to pursue his own quest in Mycogen – believes Dawn has perished. That much is made clear in the holographic message Dawn sends to Dusk before the council meeting, Kalgan's destruction, and everything that comes after.

So, what next for the ailing Empire as it tries to hold onto the dwindling amount of power it wields in the galaxy? Cassian Bilton, who plays Dawn, wouldn't be drawn on what happens next when I asked him for details ahead of this season's debut.

However, Terrance Mann, who portrays Dusk in one of the best Apple TV+ shows, was more forthcoming. And, with a Black Hole Gun – think of it like the planet-killing Death Star in Star Wars – at his disposal, the emotionally devastated Dusk might be so consumed by rage and sadness that said weapon is taken for a ride or two very soon.

"Dusk, and Demerzel and the other Cleons for that matter, are desperately clinging on, "Mann said. "And now things have occurred that force him to make really hard choices about who's going to live, who's going to die, and what's ultimately going to save Empire.

"This whole season is all about the wheels coming off the wagon, and he's left having to do something he never thought he'd have to do," Mann continued, "A large part of that has to do with thinking Dawn has died. At that point, he's completely lost and thinks 'I have nothing else to do but exert this power [the Black Hole Gun] that I have and eradicate everything except for Empire."

If that doesn't set the stage for five more unmissable chapters of this Apple TV Original, I don't know what will. New episodes of Foundation air every Friday, so we've got a wait on our hands to see where things go from here.

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