Blockbuster new series Dune: Prophecy premieres with chilling death scene
The first episode from the highly anticipated Dune: Prophecy TV spin-off has premiered – and it kicks off with a chilling scene.
Warning: Contains spoilers for Dune: Prophecy Episode 1
Is it the exact right time to be given a new world to obsess over – to escape into – with generational struggle, righteous zealotry, political gambits, and shocking twists in the halls of power? Couldn’t be us.
The universe of Dune: Prophecy arrived on BINGE fully-formed in “The Hidden Hand,” the first of six episodes that bounce the lore from all of the Dune movies back 10,000 years, to a time shortly after humanity overcame its thinking machine oppressors.
While the films of Denis Villeneuve and David Lynch were based on Frank Herbert’s original Dune novel, Prophecy draws from Sisterhood of Dune, part of the prequels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. And though it is still a time of emperors ruling over a planetary imperium, and of great houses with names you’ll recognise – Harkonnen, Atreides – it is the brokers of truthsaying in the Sisterhood who wield the realest influence in the galaxy.
“What holds more truth?” asks Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen (played by Emily Watson). “History? Or Prophecy?”
In the time before they became known as Bene Gesserit, Valya led the Sisterhood’s ongoing project to write the former in fulfilment of the latter.
Watson plays Valya in the present, as she leads the Sisterhood and its efforts to manage and manipulate the levers of galactic power. (Olivia Williams also stars as Valya’s sister, the Reverend Mother Tula.)
Stream Dune: Prophecy on BINGE, available on Hubbl.
But in the past, Jessica Barden plays Valya, where she is a headstrong acolyte and the favourite of Raquella Berto-Anirul (Cathy Tyson), the original Mother Superior.
Raquella brought Valya into the Sisterhood’s most sensitive initiative, which utilises forbidden thinking machine tech to cultivate a vast genetic library. DNA, groomed and selected by the Sisterhood, meant to breed more sensible leaders for humanity. And more pliable. Is that playing God? Maybe. But somebody’s gotta temper the inevitable greed of those in power.
Valya is a true believer. In Raquella, and the esteemed Sisterhood founder’s heightened powers of perception. But also in Raquella’s deathbed prophesying, which only fuels her fervour. Visions of Shai-Hulud, the great sandworms of Arrakis, and coveted red spice dust, dancing like embers of flame.
“It’s coming!” Raquella cries while dying. “Tiran-Arafel!”
These premonitions of an Imperium-scale reckoning inform Valya’s thinking about a more aggressive posture for the Sisterhood. They will use the breeding index and their regimen of rigorous mental and physical training to put one of their own on the throne.
And if Reverend Mother Dorotea (Camilla Beeput) wishes to impede that plan for the future, well, Valya Harkonnen will use The Voice to make Dorotea thrust a blade into her own throat.
The Voice, Arrakis, sandworms, and always with that axiom, “The spice must flow” – there are familiar signifiers in the Dune: Prophecy universe. But with this series, HBO also seems to be mining its own genetic archive. Because while it’s steeped in Herbertian lore, Prophecy is also structured pretty similarly to those legacy television heavy-hitters, Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon.
Like on Salusa Secundus, where Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong) and Empress Natalia (Jodhi May) are trying to navigate a politically beneficial arranged marriage, uniting their daughter Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) with a nine-year-old princeling from House Richese, a builder of warships required by the Emperor.
But Ynez will also study as acolyte with Valya and the Sisterhood on Wallach IX, building on the powers homeschooled within her by Reverend Mother Kasha (Jihae), the truthsayer of House Corrino.
And while Ynez’s half-brother Constantine – played by Aussie actor Josh Heuston – makes bastard son handsome guy mischief in the wings, Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel) also arrives on Salusa Secundus. An imperium soldier on Arrakis, Desmond brings a warning for the Emperor about rebellious forces that threaten his rule. And trouble. Lots of trouble.
Yeah, don’t get too attached to Pruwet (Charlie Hodson-Prior), Princess Nez’s betrothed, because Desmond uses what are apparently powers gifted to him by a sandworm to mind-burn the little Richese prince.
Not only that, Desmond reaches across an expanse of stars to also mind-murder Kasha, who was visiting the Sisterhood on Wallach IX. With a quavering gleam in his eye, he has pledged these violent acts in defence of the Imperium. In private, Javicco expressed doubt about the wedding, and according to Desmond, Kasha was a negative influence on the emperor. But they are also a means of gaining direct favour with the throne.
“There’s a war hidden in plain sight,” Desmond told Pruwet right before he set him on fire from the inside. “It has come here to do our thinking for us.”
In Dune: Prophecy, it is already evident that Desmond’s unstable, bloodthirsty zealotry will stand at odds with the secret genetic project and personal aims of Valya Harkonnen.
That doesn’t mean Valya is not afraid of Desmond Hart. She contains generations of Sisterhood power within her. We’re excited for Valya to do battle, because Emily Watson brings so much reserve and stature to the role. And Prophecy is full of people adding gravity to all of these proceedings, from the powerful reverend mothers, and the young women acolytes grasping at a changing world, to a royal family rife with division and worried for its own place in history.
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The universe of Dune: Prophecy manifests the worst impulses of our own society: craven greed, rank classism, jealousy, covetous urges, and the formidable ability of humanity to wield our ultimate weapon – the lie.
Dune: Prophecy is now available to stream on BINGE, with new episodes dropping every Monday.
This article originally appeared in Decider and was reproduced with permission
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