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2 • July 3 - 9, 2016 • Brainerd Dispatch By Jacqueline Spendlove TV Media W ho doesn't love a good cliff- hanger? In true finale fash- ion, "Tyrant" ended its sophomore season with some gasp-worthy drama and unanswered questions, not the least of which surround the maybe-death of a key charac- ter. With decent yet quiet ratings, the Middle East-set drama left many doubting that it would score a third-season renewal, but it was announced back in October that the series would indeed live to see another day. The season 3 pre- miere of "Tyrant" airs Wednesday, July 6, on FX. There's no denying that the con- troversial "Tyrant" has had its ups and downs. The product of Emmy- winning "Homeland" creator Gideon Raff, the series lost a good chunk of its viewers after a re- spectable premiere. The numbers started to creep back up as season 2 progressed, however, averaging 2.47 million viewers and pulling in some of its best numbers in its fi- nal weeks. The series follows Bassam "Bar- ry" Al-Fayeed (Adam Rayner, "Hawthorne"), the Americanized younger son of a Middle Eastern dictator — a tyrant, if you will — who has spent the last 20 years avoiding his past. Far from follow- ing in his father's footsteps, Barry has built a life for himself as a mild-mannered pediatrician living in Pasadena with his American wife, Molly (Jennifer Finnigan, "The Bold and the Beautiful"), and their teenaged children, Sammy (Noah Silver, "The Borgias") and Emma (Anne Winters, "Wicked City"). In the pilot, with his family in tow, Barry reluctantly returns to his war-torn homeland, the fiction- al nation of Abuddin, for his neph- ew's wedding, and soon witnesses the brutality of his father's rule and of his heir-apparent older brother, Jamal (Ashraf Barhom, "The Kingdom," 2007). When their father is killed in the midst of a growing revolution against the ruling family, the ruth- less and unstable Jamal takes his place as president of Abuddin, with his formidable wife, Leila (Moran Atias, "Crash") — who's also an old flame of Barry's — at his side. Realizing that his temper- amental brother lacks any sense of justice or morality, Barry, harbor- ing dreams of improving life in his homeland, plots with members of the U.S. government to overthrow Jamal and nip his tyrannical reign in the bud. At the end of season 1, Barry's imprisoned for treason, with his brother put in the difficult position of just what to do with him. The complicated relationship between the two brothers — two wildly different people who still have affection for each other de- spite it all — is a major focus of the series. "It's deeply complex. It's Cain and Abel stuff," Rayner said in a Collider interview. "They love each other. They hate each other. They rely on each other. They are rivals to each other, politically and sexu- ally. ... They could form an unstop- pable alliance or they could tear each other apart." This leaves that much more up in the air with last season's cliff- hanger: Jamal is blasted in a shoo- tout assassination attempt, his fate left uncertain. His death would make the far more benevo- lent Barry the new president of Abuddin, but it would be foolish to think that such an eventuality would be met with smooth sailing. If anything, it might just spell more hard times for Barry. "[The show] puts all of the characters in a position of making devastating choices," Atias said during a visit to "Good Day L.A." "That's what, really, it means to be leaders of a country in the Middle East." Of course, if Jamal doesn't pull through — and popular opinion is that he won't — a new chief vil- lain will make his or her rise in season 3, as it's foolish to assume that Barry will turn the country around and live out the rest of his days benignly ruling Abuddin un- challenged. Leila, for one, remains a force to be reckoned with, and while the naive might say that her power dies with her hus- band, no one who knows the character would as- sume she would simply step meekly off her pedes- tal. And can we talk about Sammy? Many of us are wondering just what the future holds for Barry's rather bratty son. Unlike his sister (whom, it should be noted, we haven't been seeing enough of lately), Sammy is all about his fami- ly's position in Abuddin, and far more so af- ter learning of own his gar- gantuan in- heritance. Not only does he admire Jamal's arrogance and sense of privilege, but we all know how well entitled teenage boys with daddy issues behave when they've got millions of dollars to their name. One season 3 spoiler sug- gests that Sammy may start to go the way of his iron-fisted uncle, us- ing his father to further his own aims, political and otherwise. Whatever season 3 has in store, it appears that "Tyrant" has over- come much of its earlier contro- versy. People don't seem to care much anymore that Barry is played by a decidedly white Brit — or if they do, they're not as loud about it — and arguments about wheth- er the show negatively stereotypes Arabs are far less rampant than they were when the show started. See how it all plays out when "Tyrant" kicks off its third season Wednesday, July 6, on FX. 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