All through its first season, Dune: Prophecy has hit us with a potent mixture of area politicking and sci-fi strangeness, with all the things from prophetic visions to magnificent sandworms on the desk. In its Season 1 finale, Dune: Prophecy brings all this collectively for a revelatory conclusion, answering a few of our largest questions from the season, whereas elevating others that will probably be explored in Season 2.
From revelations in regards to the Omnius Plague to game-changing flashbacks, let’s break down Dune: Prophecy‘s Season 1 finale, “The Excessive-Handed Enemy.”
Flashbacks reveal that Tula is Demond Hart’s mom — and why she gave him away.
Olivia Williams in “Dune: Prophecy.”
Credit score: Attila Szvacsek/HBO
Episode 5 of Dune: Prophecy revealed the true cause behind Desmond Hart’s (Travis Fimmel) hatred of the Sisterhood. His mom was a Sister, but she gave him away. Seems, his mom was none apart from Tula Harkonenn (performed by Olivia Williams within the current and Emma Canning previously). Which means his father is the late Orry Atreides (Milo Callaghan), killed by Tula’s personal hand.
In a flashback, Tula discloses her being pregnant to her sister Valya (performed Emily Watson within the current and Jessica Barden previously), who’s supportive of her resolution to maintain the newborn. She turns into even extra supportive after a visit to Mom Superior Raquella’s (Cathy Tyson) breeding index, which reveals {that a} cross between the Atreides and Harkonnen strains would lead to a baby with extraordinary potential. (Paul Atreides says hello from 10,000 years sooner or later.)
Nonetheless, Tula has some misgivings about Valya’s want to mildew and form her son into a robust determine from beginning. With out Valya’s data, she swaps her new child child with the stillborn baby of a laborer on Wallach IX. She hopes that in getting her son away from the Sisterhood, he could make his personal path. However how might she have predicted that path would have led him proper again to the Sisterhood with vengeance in his coronary heart?
Extra flashbacks present Valya’s bloody rise to energy, resulting in chaos on present-day Wallach IX.
Jessica Barden in “Dune: Prophecy.”
Credit score: Attila Szvacsek/HBO
“The Excessive-Handed Enemy” stays previously for extra main reveals. Within the aftermath of Valya’s homicide of Sister Dorotea (Camilla Beeput), she, Tula, Kasha (Yerin Ha), and Francesca (Charithra Chandran) confront Dorotea’s disciples with a purpose to assume whole management of the Sisterhood. They provide them a alternative: Comply with Dorotea’s path into dying, or observe Valya into the way forward for the order. When the Sisters do not select instantly, Valya, Kasha, Francesca, and a hesitant Tula use the Voice to compel them. Most slit their very own throats. Solely Sister Avila (Barbara Marten) sides with Valya.
The incident would have been misplaced to historical past, if it wasn’t for Sister Lila (Chloe Lea) within the current. After present process the Agony in episode 2, Lila has grow to be unstable, together with her ancestors possessing her physique for hours at a time. In episode 5, that ancestor was Raquella. Because of her, Tula was in a position to perceive that the trigger for present-day Kasha’s (Jihae) dying was one thing comparable Omnius Plague, a bioweapon utilized by pondering machines within the Butlerian Jihad that was lengthy considered gone.
However in episode 6, a brand new ancestor grabs maintain of Lila. Sister Dorotea takes management and uncovers the mass grave of her outdated followers, proving to the present acolytes that your entire Sisterhood was constructed on blood. Dorotea-as-Lila then leads the acolytes to Raquella’s pondering machine Anirul. She destroys it, presumably taking the breeding index with it.
That is the place Dune: Prophecy leaves issues on Wallach IX, with the acolytes disillusioned and able to destroy all the things Valya and Tula have constructed. However since these two are off-planet, they will simply have wait till Season 2 to study in regards to the penalties of their actions.
Salusa Secundus falls into disarray.
Jodhi Might in “Dune: Prophecy.”
Credit score: Courtesy of HBO
Wallach IX is not the one planet within the Imperium the place all hell is breaking free. On Salusa Secundus, Empress Natalya (Jodhi Might) arrests her personal daughter Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) for making an attempt to interrupt Kieran Atreides (Chris Mason) out of his suspensor cell. Since Ynez is Valya’s strongest prospect for having a Sister on the throne, she decides to intervene, getting herself arrested on objective with a purpose to free Ynez. With the assistance of the Voice and Sister Theodosia’s (Jade Anouka) shapeshifting skills — which she obtained on account of genetic experimentation by the Tleilaxu — Valya, Ynez, and Kieran escape. Theodosia stays behind and disguises herself as a wounded soldier. She nearly kills Desmond with the component of shock, however he wounds her and plans to have her imprisoned. Subsequent season, count on to study extra about her position as a Face Dancer, and the mysterious Tleilaxu who made her this manner.
Issues proceed to collapse for Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Sturdy). He learns that the Sisterhood has been steering his life from the very starting, sending Sister Francesca (performed within the current by Tabu) to imprint on him in his youth and establishing his match with Natalya. Now that he’s not helpful to the Sisterhood, Valya sends Francesca to kill him with the poisoned gom jabbar needle. However Javicco chooses to seize maintain of what little company stays to him and dies by suicide as an alternative. As Francesca grieves, Natalya makes use of the gom jabbar to kill her.
Mashable High Tales
With Javicco gone and any hint of the Sisterhood’s council faraway from the palace, the Imperium presumably falls to Natalya’s management. However keep in mind, Javicco made his and Francesca’s son Constantine (Josh Heuston) the commander of his fleet in episode 5, which means that Season 2 might see him combating Natalya for management.
The remedy for the Omnius Plague is mainly the Litany In opposition to Concern.
Olivia Williams in “Dune: Prophecy.”
Credit score: Attila Szvacsek/HBO
On the very begin of the “The Heavy-Handed Enemy,” Tula and Sister Nazir (Karima McAdams) analysis the mysterious bioweapon that killed Kasha, Pruwet Richese (Charlie Hodson-Prior), and members of the Landsraad. How might Kasha have withstood this virus for therefore lengthy, whereas Pruwet and people within the Landsraad died after little or no publicity to Desmond?
Seems, Kasha had a “distinctive capability to stay within the face of worry,” and that stored the virus at bay for a time. Nazir and Tula understand that the virus feeds on worry, explaining the nightmares of the sandworm and people glowing blue eyes that the Sisters have been having. Nazir makes an attempt to create an antiviral by transmuting the virus inside herself — equally to how Sisters alter poison once they bear the Agony — however fails.
Nonetheless, when Valya is uncovered to the virus in her confrontation with Desmond on the finish of the episode, she’s in a position to make it via thanks to assist from Tula. “You must let go of your fears,” Tula tells her as Valya fights via a imaginative and prescient of the dying of their brother Griffin.
She continues: “All of the worry. All of the ache. You’ll be able to’t run from it. You’ll be able to’t combat it. You must let it cross via you.”
Sound acquainted? The emphasis on withstanding worry right here calls to thoughts the Litany In opposition to Concern in Frank Herbert’s authentic Dune novels, which Girl Jessica and Paul each name upon to middle themselves in dire instances.
“I need to not worry,” the Litany goes. “Concern is the mind-killer. Concern is the little-death that brings whole obliteration. I’ll face my worry. I’ll allow it to cross over me and thru me. And when it has gone previous, I’ll flip the inside eye to see its path. The place the worry has gone there will probably be nothing. Solely I’ll stay.”
Tula’s phrases to Valya sound like a precursor to the Litany, one thing we’ll little question see take type in Season 2 of Dune: Prophecy. However in Season 1, they work simply as effectively. In her imaginative and prescient, Valya stands and permits the worry to cross via her. She witnesses the sandworm nightmare that has horrified so lots of her fellow Sisters, however she additionally sees past it, studying what these monstrous blue eyes have been all this time.
What have been the blue eyes in Dune: Prophecy?
Travis Fimmel in “Dune: Prophecy.”
Credit score: Attila Szvacsek/HBO
As Valya sees, the nightmare that is plagued her Sisters is not only a nightmare: It is what Desmond Hart skilled after the sandworm assault on Arrakis. When he awoke, he got here nose to nose with a big machine, the blue lights of that are the eyes from the nightmare.
In a gnarly sequence shot from Desmond’s standpoint, we watch because the machine pulls one among Desmond’s eyes from its socket and implants his optic nerve with what should be the nanobots that transmitted the virus. A mysterious determine watches the process from a close-by window flooded with golden mild, suggesting whoever carried out this operation was stationed on Arrakis.
With that data in thoughts, it is off to Arrakis for Valya, Ynez, and Kieran, who hope to seek out the reality behind their hidden enemy. In the meantime, Tula stays behind within the hopes of saving Desmond from the ache the machines have triggered him. However after a silent reunion, Desmond requires Tula’s arrest. At the least she’ll have Theodosia to maintain her firm.
So after that jam-packed finale, the largest query stays: Who’s the hidden enemy who mobilized Desmond in opposition to the Imperium and the Sisterhood?
Whoever it’s must have entry to pondering machines, and no qualms about utilizing them. There are a number of potentialities from the Dune novels we might have a look at. First up is the Richese household, who performed a outstanding half in Dune: Prophecy‘s first episodes. As longtime makers of pondering machines, they’re clearly extra lax about possessing and utilizing them, despite the fact that they’re outlawed. Nonetheless, why would the Richeses use Desmond to kill and maim members of their very own household? Might we be a splinter faction throughout the household?
One other extra seemingly risk is the Ixians, inhabitants of the planet Ix who continued to fabricate pondering machines. Dune’s “Terminology of the Imperium” part describes Ix as having “escaped the extra extreme results of the Butlerian Jihad” alongside Home Richese. Now, it is “supreme in machine tradition.” With that in thoughts, it is very seemingly that Dune: Prophecy could possibly be establishing Ix as the following huge enemy the Sisterhood and Imperium will face. In spite of everything, it is one other necessary faction from Herbert’s universe, so why not get it on the board for Season 2?
Season 1 of Dune: Prophecy is now streaming on Max.
