Summary
Dune: Prophecy delivers a finale full of twists and turns that really raise the stakes for a now-confirmed second season.
There’s a lot going on in the ending of Dune: Prophecy. Not that it’s an ending per se, of course. With Season 2 already confirmed, everything that happens in Season 1, Episode 6, “The High-Handed Enemy”, is in service to the kind of big-picture multi-season storytelling that HBO was doubtlessly looking for in a Duniverse project. It was touch and go for a while, and some of the episodes that led us here have been less than stellar, but with a bit of security about the show’s future, it’s easier to consider the lack of resolution in many subplots as a tease rather than a flaw.
I do think the finale works on its own terms, though. It feels – and I appreciate this is a bit vague – like the kind of show I expected this to be from the beginning, with a lot more happening. All of that patient, talky worldbuilding pays off here in a parade of twists and turns that, when I looked back at my notes, I realized were surprisingly, perhaps even admirably layered.
Difficult to recap, though. With that in mind, I’ve formatted this breakdown as best as I can into related subplots and characters, since if you squint a bit you can divide everything up into two interrelated but distinct strands (Salusa Secundus and Wallach IX). There’s much more to it than that, obviously, but work with me.
An Unlikely Alliance – Valya, Keiran, and Ynez
One of the key turns in “The High-Handed Enemy” is Valya breaking Keiran and Ynez out of captivity and leaving Selusa Secundus with them for Arrakis. You’d never have guessed from how much focus she has had throughout the first season, but Ynez is integral to the Sisterhood’s ploy for galactic domination. It’s revealed in this episode that her birth – including the union between Javicco and Natalya, and the imprinting of Sister Francesca – was planned way in advance using the Sisterhood’s Thinking Machine-powered genetic archive.
With this, we know why Valya would be keen to protect Ynez. But why Arrakis? Well, that relates to Desmond Hart. There’s plenty to do with him in this finale which I’ll get to in a moment, but a lot of it carries on from the revelations about his parentage (Tula and Orry Atreides) and Raquella’s discoveries about the Omnius Plague. Whatever happened to Desmond – after being swallowed by the sandworm his body was retrieved and he was implanted with a Thinking Machine, a procedure which is quite strikingly shown in first-person – happened on Arrakis, so that’s the best place to start an investigation into whose ends he’s really serving.
Keiran doesn’t trust Valya, obviously, but he dislikes the Harkonnens less than he dislikes Desmond, who spends a chunk of the episode torturing him, so he’s willing to play ball for now to protect Ynez. I don’t expect this alliance to hold for long, but it should create an intriguing dynamic in Season 2.
Mommy Issues
There are several flashbacks in Dune: Prophecy Episode 6 exploring Valya’s forcible takeover of the Sisterhood, around which time Tula was pregnant with Desmond. This reveal has come just a little late in the season to have the emotional impact it should probably warrant, and I suspect this is why Desmond has Tula arrested in the finale. They’re going to need to spend some time together to hash things out.
Of course, Valya had plans for Desmond – given his unique blend of Harkonnen and Atreides DNA – since he was in utero, so you can understand why Tula wouldn’t be inclined to offer up her son as essentially a guinea pig for her sister. But Desmond doesn’t see it that way. To him, he was simply banished by an unfeeling mother and condemned to a very difficult life alone, ultimately – and ironically – becoming a tool anyway, albeit for someone as yet unknown.
Olivia Williams and Travis Fimmel in Dune: Prophecy | Image via WarnerMedia
Power Vacuum
The ending of Dune: Prophecy Season 1 leaves an intriguing power vacuum in the middle of the Imperium. Javicco is torn between Desmond (and Natalya) and Francesca (and the Sisterhood), but he ends up choosing the one angle that nobody expected – he kills himself. This is Javicco seizing some agency after realizing that he has spent a lifetime as the plaything of the Sisterhood, and because of Francesca’s imprint, there’s nothing else he can really do.
But this makes things politically weird. Natalya kills Francesca immediately afterward, so she has a degree of interim power, but Ynez is with Valya on Arrakis and Constantine is Francesca’s kid. The fact his promotion put him in command of the Imperial fleet means he’s pretty firmly entrenched in the setup, which is going to be problematic for Natalya if she wants to consolidate power for herself.
And then there’s Desmond, obviously. It’s all a bit of a mess.
Mutiny of the Sisters
While all this is going on, Wallach IX is left unattended, and that gives Mother Dorotea, through the body of Lila, an opportunity to seize control of the Sisterhood and turn the remaining acolytes against Valya and Tula (though especially Valya.)
Because of her death during the Agony and resurrection via Thinking Machines and spice – imagine someone who doesn’t watch the show reading that sentence – Lila is now a vessel for her ancestors, virtually all of whom have a serious beef with Valya. Raquella was at least more useful, though, allowing some serious breakthroughs in understanding the Omnius Plague, this specific version of which operates through fear and can be spread by Desmond’s Thinking Machine implant. Dorotea is much more annoyed.
And understandably so, to be fair. Dorotea reveals to the acolytes that Valya basically murdered her way into the Mother Superior position using the Voice and has been manipulating them all ever since. Now Dorotea has control of the Sisterhood and has destroyed the secret Thinking Machine tech, so Valya and Tula, if they can get out of their own predicaments, are going to have a hard time regaining access to their own order. But that’s for Season 2.
