Surprised at Foundation season 3's surprise alliance? We spoke to its star and mastermind to find out more

One of the benefits of Foundation season 3 repeating the second season's century-plus time jump is that once again we get to see a massive change in characters: emperors have new clones, the Foundation has a new identity and some recurring faces get new roles.

Nowhere is this more clear than in time-hopping psychohistorian and psychic Gaal Dornick, played by Lou Llobell, who returns for season 3 in a transformed role.

Gaal inadvertently left the original Foundation en route to its home in season 1, and founded the Second Foundation in season 2, but in both she was playing second fiddle, a pawn in others' plans who didn't get much agency for herself.

Not in Foundation season 3, though. As of Foundation s3e3, Gaal gets to don the hat of psychic guide, master manipulator and spy, as the episode reveals an unlikely alliance which she has orchestrated. It's great to see this character, who's also acted as our narrator and the first person we met all the way back in Foundation's first episode, finally get a major role to play.

To catch us up on all these changes, What to Watch asked Llobell about these new roles at a round-table ahead of season 3's release.

The spy who came in from the old

In Foundation season 3's second episode, we followed as Gaal jumped in and out of cryosleep over 150 years in order to train up the Mentalic psychic order who make up the Second Foundation. And by the third episode we learn that she's formed an alliance with Empire's Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton). We asked Llobell what's going on in Gaal's head when this happens:

"I don't think she can believe she managed to do it to be honest! I mean, she's obviously planted things all over the galaxy in order to get people on her side, which is by their choice. Empire comes on board, and it's his choice, it's not anyone forcing him. And I just think that collaboration is really exciting, and I think audiences are gonna love it. It's quite shocking because she really has succeeded in infiltrating every single bit of the galaxy. "

By playing spymaster and secret-alliance-former, we see Gaal in a new light, and Llobell explained how: "she was under the radar up until now, and now she's not. It's amazing to see her not afraid to take that position, which I didn't really expect of her, and she does it in such a powerful way, she doesn't show that she's afraid. Whether it's a facade or not, she's showing power and I think that's really brilliant."

The change of pace brought some new facets to the performance too, with Llobell telling us about her new combat training: "I got to do a lot of combat stuff, like actually training, and that was really challenging, never done that. And Gaal stepping into that role, that was more Salvor's [Leah Harvey's Salvor Hardin] role, and she's taken that on a little bit this season. That was really exciting to do, because it's a new thing."

About the combat: "It's kind of like a dance: you do a lot of rehearsals, it's a memory thing, and also trying to get it right, trying to make it look real. You really get into it, you start feeling it, it's really exciting. I got to do some backflips and shoot some guns. Not real guns, obviously, but it just makes you feel, really empowered. I felt like Lara Croft, and it was great!"

New old faces

No spoilers for future episodes, but Gaal's story this season spends less time with Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) and Leah Harvey, and we asked what it was like working with this new set of actors:

"I've been so inspired by all these people's work, getting to it with Cassian [Bilton, playing Brother Dawn] was so wonderful when we found out, because we never get to see each other on set. So when we found out, we were like, buzzing that we get to do it. And it was just so odd to see it, because it's odd to see those two characters together. And we're great friends, and that was just really wonderful."

Empire isn't the only person Gaal meets, though, with Llobell also shouting out some other actors who we won't name for fear of spoiling future episodes!

But without spoilers, what does Gaal get to do this season? "She gets to show her softer side. She finds love again. She shares a really lovely dynamic with Hari, which is really sweet and tender, but also they challenge each other, which is great. You see her in a leadership role. You see her taking charge.

"You see people really looking up to her, and you see her becoming what Hari was, which is managing people and controlling things. And you see her in an action role too, which is really fun." Again, we've removed several of the moments Llobell specified as they'll spoil future plot points.

Foundation season 3 episode 3 aired on Friday, July 25, and its the third entry of ten for the new season. New episodes run until Friday, September 12, when the big finale comes out.