In episode 4 of Dune: Prophecy, “Twice Born,” palace intrigue reaches tense new heights as competing plots are hatched round a gathering of the Nice Homes—and spooky sandworm man Desmond Hart, propelled by Travis Fimmel’s scenery-devouring efficiency, continues to dazzle and/or horrify, relying on whose aspect you’re on.
In the meantime, again on Wallach IX, the Sisterhood is at a disaster level in Valya’s absence, with nightmares disrupting the sacred pursuit of truth-telling on a number of horrible ranges.
We start with a sound, a rhythmic thunk that Dune film followers will acknowledge as one thing one would possibly hear on Arrakis. Pious acolyte Sister Emeline gasps awake from a nasty dream, however we quickly notice she’s nonetheless within the dangerous dream. Happily, Jen rouses her earlier than Emeline’s capable of deliver a knife to her personal throat. “It was only a dream,” Jen says reassuringly, however we will inform there’s extra occurring right here than common previous night time terrors.
At Home Harkonnen, Valya’s household reunion goes as awkwardly as you’d count on. Her growing older Uncle Evgeny ridicules and distrusts her, however her formidable nephew Harrow is extra open to teamwork.
Uncle Evgeny brings up Prewet Richese’s demise—the rumor he was murdered is all everybody’s speaking about. Valya makes use of that to steer the dialog as she begins laying her new scheme: it’s time, she publicizes, for Home Harkonnen to lastly have their very own Truthsayer. After all there’s an ulterior motive right here, however Valya frames it as a means for Harrow to realize some respectability. (Whale fur will solely get you to date.) “Let me show your price by guaranteeing you a seat on the Excessive Council,” she says, dangling a carrot Harrow’s been dying to chomp into.
Whereas the younger man ponders this chance, we lower over to the royal household—now together with the scruffy Desmond Hart—sharing a sublime breakfast. Princess Ynez is none too thrilled to see him on the desk, and now that her organized marriage has been scuttled, she’s beginning to notice one thing may be very rotten in her father’s home… and by extension, the Imperium itself.
She brings up the rumor that Prewet was murdered—everyone actually is speaking about it!—and declares herself prepared to move to Wallach IX and get began on her Sisterhood coaching.
It’s a no from mother and pop, although: “We want you right here to indicate a united entrance,” the Emperor tells her. She replies that the household gained’t be united so long as Desmond (who absolutely admits to killing Prewet; the child was caught with a “pondering machine,” in any case!) is exerting a lot affect, and flounces off.
Talking of Wallach IX, there may be a lot emotional turmoil afoot as Emeline describes her dream to Tula and the aged Sister Avila. “There are tales about Mom Dorotea,” Emeline says, pushing Tula’s prickly boundaries. But it surely’s not simply Emeline who’s in misery; “the entire acolytes” had been having related nightmares, Jen tells Tula, although she herself didn’t have one.
Because the Landsraad—the assembly of all representatives of the Nice Homes—kicks off, elsewhere within the palace Emperor Carrino comes proper out and asks Desmond if he’s the one spreading the rumor that Prewet was murdered. “I’d by no means use the reality towards you,” Desmond replies. “Although I believe there are others that may.”
He means the Sisterhood, after all, and floats the concept that the Emperor ought to kick all of the Truthsayers out of the Landsraad. The Emperor factors out that if he did that, “I would as effectively announce I’ve one thing to cover.” He worries, although, that the rumor might be present ammunition for these on the Excessive Council who assume he’s a weak chief.
“Nobody can take your energy away from you until you allow them to. It is a time to be daring,” is Desmond’s recommendation. “Present them the person that you’re… use me.” The Emperor hesitates. He’s not prepared for that, at the least not but.
At this level in “Twice Born,” we have now three events who’re completely centered on the longer term consequence they need, and the Emperor, who is just too simply influenced and never half the chief he thinks he’s, isn’t certainly one of them.
As a substitute, the factors on the triangle are Desmond, Valya, and the rebels—whose numbers embody palace spy Keiran Atriedes.
The rebels are hoping to stage the steadiness of energy and let the spice stream past the clutches of the super-rich, and have an nearly adorably easy plan in thoughts: they’ll launch a drone outfitted with a bomb into the throne room, proper when the Emperor is addressing the Excessive Council.
Sure, it includes utilizing forbidden expertise, and sure, Keiran’s crush Princess Ynez would possibly turn into collateral injury. But it surely’ll wipe out loads of baddies and ship a commanding message, multi function swoop! What may presumably go fallacious?
Properly… as we realized beforehand, Valya has a Sister on the within who retains her updated on what the rebels are planning. However as a substitute of intervening to cease the assault, Valya’s grand plan is to attend the Emperor’s speech in her newly asserted function as Home Harkonnen’s Truthsayer (tidily getting round that entire “banned from the palace” factor). That means, she will swoop in and save the Emperor from the rebels’ “pondering machine” bomb within the nick of time, in entrance of all of the bigwigs from all of the Nice Homes. That’ll be simply the factor to get her again in his good graces, she figures.
However Theodosia is pragmatic. “What good is that if Desmond Hart nonetheless lives?” she asks. Valya says she nonetheless doesn’t perceive sufficient about Desmond and his powers. With time, she says, she’ll know sufficient about his weaknesses to strike towards him.
After all, it’ll first take some maneuvering to get the second-string Home Harkonnen invited to the Excessive Council. Valya and Theodosia faucet into the whisper community of Sisters, getting them to persuade the heads of their respective homes that the rumor Prewet was murdered—maybe even by the power-abusing Emperor, maybe even involving a conspiracy and a cover-up!—has some benefit.
Sufficient males take the bait to determine an inquest is critical, however they want somebody on the Landsraad to agitate for a proper investigation. Somebody who’s so determined to be included they’ll comply with be the purpose individual for this unseemly job. Somebody like… Baron Harkonnen.
With Harrow (reluctantly) onboard, Valya’s as soon as once more bought what she thinks is an hermetic plan in movement. She’s sure she’s poised to drive a wedge between Desmond Hart and the Emperor, and can quickly see her standing restored. Sure of it!
Whereas we ponder all of the ways in which’s not going to occur, we return to Wallach IX to see what Tula goes to do concerning the nightmare outbreak. Her plan is to collect all of the acolytes, hypnotize them (with the assistance of spice), and do some guided meditation blended with a form of automated writing train.
All the younger girls start to feverishly sketch out their visions. At first the photographs are completely different, after which, an identical photographs emerge. “Maybe it’s not a dream,” Tula tells Avila, who disapproves of this experiment. “It’s a message!” Issues get much more horrifying when Tula has bother pulling the younger girls out of their trance-like states. And, actually, she will’t: they awaken out of worry, after all of them scrawl the identical darkish void punctuated by a pair of clean eyes. “The reckoning is right here!” Emeline declares.
Later, Tula and Avila look via the drawings, lingering on the ultimate one. “No matter that is, it calls forth a terror so crippling that the thoughts screams to avoid wasting itself,” Tula says of the haunting picture. “It may very well be the nightmare is an indication of what’s to come back!” They disagree over what to do subsequent; Tula’s POV is that they need to maintain this quiet. Finest to keep away from spreading worry
Again within the palace, the Empress is the subsequent to pay Desmond a go to. We’ve already realized she isn’t at all times working in live performance together with her husband, and he or she’s bought a bit current for Desmond: Imperial surveillance information, figuring out “machine sellers buying and selling in unlawful expertise.” Although Carrino informed Desmond to face down, his spouse is all about taking motion. Desmond figures out that she’s who began the rumor about Prewet’s homicide, and he takes it to coronary heart when she says generally all of the Emperor wants is “that little push.”
This rendezvous offers Desmond an enormous benefit over his foes. Whereas everybody prepares for his or her respective massive showdowns on the Excessive Council, we all know very effectively that Desmond now has the instruments to take down the rebels—and rip the rug out from Valya within the course of.
And, by the best way, there’s now a further would-be chaos-maker within the combine: Ynez, who’s determined her solely plan of action is to confront her father in public—in entrance of the Excessive Council, no much less—over Desmond’s sinister rise to energy. When she tells Keiran about her massive concept, he cautions her, cryptically, as they drool over one another: “Chaos can strike at any second.” (He additionally confirms one thing from final week: his father was the one survivor of Tula’s Atreides bloodbath.)
Then, a vital dialog between Valya and Theodosia; the latter is questioning precisely why the Mom Superior dragged her alongside on the journey to the Imperial homeworld, particularly since she’s now not wanted as Ynez’s new Sisterhood pal. “You know why,” Valya says, and Theodosia appears aghast. Appears the acolyte has a particular capability we haven’t seen her use but—a mysterious factor she swore she’d by no means use once more, although that apparently is about to alter.
However earlier than we study what which means, it’s time for the Excessive Council, and a tense ticking clock begins. There are loads of potential situations in play, together with one involving an amazing massive explosion.
Baron Harkonnen will get an opportunity to fumble via his demand for an inquest into Prewet’s demise—backed up by Ynez, who bursts into the room to boost accusations towards the Imperial home, and Desmond Hart specifically. However earlier than Keiran’s buddies can launch the bomb, Desmond takes management.
Guards drag in a trio of rebels, Keiran’s cohorts within the terror plot, and Desmond delivers a theatrical monologue through which he swaggers round in entrance of the assembled nobles, talking of the perils he confronted on Arrakis… together with the wondrous Shai-Hulud. He admits to killing Prewet, nevertheless it declares it wasn’t homicide. It was an execution, justified as a result of the child had a toy that used “forbidden machine expertise.”
Then, oh expensive, he pulls the rebels’ personal pondering machine—the bomb-carrying drone—from his pocket, and tells everybody within the room how shut they got here to being executed themselves. (He stomps on the drone for good measure, and even behind her thick veil, we will see Valya is disgusted by as soon as once more being bested by this shifty soldier.)
Oh, however he’s not even near completed. Desmond likens the Emperor to Shai-Hulud—a frontrunner who can thrust back the predators of their midst—and says there’ll be no mercy for anybody caught utilizing machine expertise.
“In your order, your majesty,” he asks, and Carrino nods. Within the subsequent second, the captured rebels, plus a Nice Home chief who confirmed off his personal pocket-sized machine in an earlier scene, start to writhe and scream as they burn internally, identical to Prewet did. (Keiran is spared for no matter cause.)
As Desmond is casting his spell, his thoughts’s eye shifts to Arrakis and we hear that thunk-thunk sound from the start of the episode; yep, it’s a thumper, summoning a sandworm, which roars throughout the horizon. Precisely just like the acolytes’ shared nightmare, his imaginative and prescient ends with a black display screen and two glowing eyes, backed by a mechanical-sounding collection of low-pitched beeps.
The act takes a bodily toll on him. We will see he’s bleeding via his coat, and he leaves a smear of blood on the railing when he pauses to glare at Valya on his means out.
Once they’re alone later, the Emperor tells Desmond he can’t “try this once more”—at first it appears he means “kill a bunch of individuals utilizing magic in public,” however he’s referring to the ache that Desmond himself is now feeling after utilizing his powers.
Again at Home Harkonnen, Uncle Evgeny cackles with delight at Harrow’s renewed frustration. “I informed you, boy, you’d discover nothing however distress following her. She cares nothing for this home, solely herself.” Valya offers Theodosia the rundown of what occurred, and he or she’s already formulating her subsequent plan. Now that they’ve a pattern of Desmond’s blood, they will poke into his genetics and, hopefully, study extra about the place he got here from.
On Wallach IX, Emeline gathers in secret with a gaggle of different acolytes. She speaks of Mom Dorotea, and reads from her textual content: “There aren’t any truths hid that won’t be disclosed, or lies hidden that won’t be made recognized.”
Deep within the secret laptop room, Tula sits subsequent to Lila’s spice coffin and begs her to get up. “I imagine you’re the key to this reckoning. You should be the one twice-born.”
Emeline all of the sudden enters, stuffed with accusations towards “you,” however from the context we will assume she means each Harkonnen sisters. She calls out the murders of Mom Dorotea, and Orry and the opposite Atreides. It’s these sins which have introduced the Reckoning upon them, she says—after which she threatens “to talk the reality to the entire of the Imperium. You gained’t be capable of silence me such as you silenced Dorotea.”
However can’t she? Tula jumps up, chases after Emeline, and coldly slashes her throat, evoking Dorotea’s demise and placing a twist on the woman’s personal nightmare. At that on the spot, Lila snaps again to life. She’s confused… however she’s again, with spice-enhanced blue eyes.
At Home Harkonnen, Valya and Evgeny have it out one final time. They argue over who’s extra necessary to the household, and he accuses her of inflicting Griffin’s demise and twisting Tula into doing her bidding. “You’re a black gap on this household,” he wheezes, earlier than falling out of his hoverchair and greedy for the inhaler that Valya holds simply out of his attain.
As Evgeny lies immobile on the ground, in all probability lifeless, the digicam lingers on Griffin’s portrait earlier than Griffin… wanting precisely as he does within the portray… enters. How can this be? However as he speaks, we begin to notice all is just not what it appears.
That is Theo’s particular capability. “I’ll do no matter it’s you want me to do,” the acolyte guarantees. “Everybody makes their very own decisions, together with me.” As Theo begins to remodel again into herself, we will hear the ache the method causes—not in contrast to what occurs to Desmond when he makes use of his personal energy.
How will this shape-shifting issue into Valya’s subsequent plan? There are simply two extra episodes of Dune: Prophecy to go… and no person’s even mentioned the phrases “Bene Gesserit” but.
New episodes of Dune: Prophecy arrive Sundays on HBO and Max.
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