Did Dune: Prophecy Just Reveal Its Big Bad? EP, Stars Unpack the Premiere’s Incendiary Twist — Plus, Grade It!
The following contains spoilers from the Nov. 17 premiere of Dune: Prophecy on HBO.
Talk about stranger danger.
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Dune: Prophecy, a TV series set 10,148 years prior to the Dune movies starring Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson, premiered this Sunday night on HBO. A prologue recapped the Machine Wars, which led to the destruction and banishment of all thinking machines. The Atriedes were deemed heroes in that war, whereas the Harkonnens were een as fleeing cowards, and in turn banished. On Wallach IX, the homeworld of the sisterhood, we met sisters Valya and Tula Harkonnen, and learned that the first Reverend Mother, Raquella, had conceived of a covert plan to use breeding to foster “the right royal unions” and cultivate rulers they could control. On her deathbed, Raquella summoned Valya and tasked her to “grow us, safeguard our power,” using “every tool” available. Raquella warned of a reckoning ahead, at the hands of a tyrant, and with her dying breaths, she shared with Valya the prophecy, “You will be the one to see the burning truth and know.”
When Raquella’s granddaughter Dorotea balked at the continuance of the breeding scheme, Valya debuted The Voice, a new power she’d been harnessing. Dorotea refused to bend to Valya’s will, so Valya commanded her to take out her blade and slit her throat with it.
The action leaped forward 30 years, where Valya highly anticipated a royal union — between Princess Ynez Corrino, heir to the Golden Lion throne, and a much younger groom, Pruwet — that would mark a key step toward Ynez joining the sisterhood and, in success, becoming the first Sister on the throne. Ynez is game for all of it, including being schooled by the sisterhood, though her heart (or at least loins) seem to belong to Keiran Atreides, a Swordmaster for House Corrino.
Regardless, Ynez’s crucial union is not meant to be. Instead, it is cut short, horrifically, when late one night, Desmond Hart — a stranger in town who apparently survived being swallowed by a sandworm and has Emperor Javicco Corrino‘s ear — meets with Pruwet in private and tells the lad his sacrifice will not be in vain. Before Pruwet can say, “Say what?”, Desmond immolates the boy without so much as touching him. What’s more, he simultaneously immolates the Emperor’s truthsayer, Kasha, who is elsewhere! As Valya rushes to the clump of cinders that was once Kasha, she realizes the prophecy has proven true. You will be the one to see the burning truth and know.
Is Desmond Hart the Big Bad of Dune: Prophecy, or but the tip of the spear?
“He’s definitely the tip of the spear, for sure,” showrunner Alison Schapker tells TVLine,
“and a major antagonist for our sisterhood.”
He also is “a mystery for the show, for our sisters to try and unlock,” says Schapker. “Who is this person who comes with such tremendous force, and a mysterious ability?” The sisters themselves are no strangers to mysterious abilities that appear as superpowers — including truthsense and the Voice, the EP notes — “so has this person done that as well? Or is there more to his story?”
Maybe Desmond is not even bad per se?
“The beauty of Dune is there’s a lot of moral ambiguity,” says executive producer Jordan Goldberg. “He does present himself as a villain, but every villain comes from somewhere.”
What Desmond wants, says portrayer Travis Fimmel, “is revenge for things that happened to him, which will lay itself out. He definitely has a vendetta against some people, and no matter what he has to do, he’s going to make them pay. He feels very righteous in the bad stuff that he does.”
As for how groom-to-be Pruwet’s death affects Valya’s endgame, showrunner Schapker says, “Like any good plan, it explodes. But what Ynez does about that” moving forward “is definitely a story we want to tell. In our mind, she’s a modern princess with a great sense of direction that she wants to pursue, but there are people who would like to be shaping her decisions.”
One of those people who never was keen on Ynez’s arranged union and subsequent enrollment in the sisterhood was the princess’ own mother, Empress Natalya Corrino (played by Jodhi May). Is Natalya now privately breathing a sigh of relief over a bullet dodged?
Not so fast!
“What’s interesting about this series is that once you think an obstacle has been overcome, there’s a whole new seres of obstacles,” previews May. “Whilst one problem has been gotten out of the way, there’s a new challenge [ahead], and Natalya has got to find a way to assert control in an underhanded way.”
Want scoop on Dune: Prophecy, or for any other TV show? Shoot an email to [email protected], and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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