In episode four of Dune: Prophecy, “Twice Born,” palace intrigue reaches tense new heights as competing plots are hatched around a meeting of the Great Houses—and spooky sandworm guy Desmond Hart, propelled by Travis Fimmel’s scenery-devouring performance, continues to dazzle and/or horrify, depending on whose side you’re on.
Meanwhile, back on Wallach IX, the Sisterhood is at a crisis point in Valya’s absence, with nightmares disrupting the sacred pursuit of truth-telling on multiple terrible levels.
We begin with a sound, a rhythmic thunk that Dune movie fans will recognize as something one might hear on Arrakis. Pious acolyte Sister Emeline gasps awake from a bad dream, but we soon realize she’s still in the bad dream. Fortunately, Jen rouses her before Emeline’s able to bring a knife to her own throat. “It was just a dream,” Jen says reassuringly, but we can tell there’s more going on here than regular old night terrors.
At House Harkonnen, Valya’s family reunion is going as awkwardly as you’d expect. Her aging Uncle Evgeny ridicules and distrusts her, but her ambitious nephew Harrow is more open to teamwork.
Uncle Evgeny brings up Prewet Richese’s death—the rumor he was murdered is all everyone’s talking about. Valya uses that to steer the conversation as she starts laying her new scheme: it’s time, she announces, for House Harkonnen to finally have their own Truthsayer. Of course there’s an ulterior motive here, but Valya frames it as a way for Harrow to gain some respectability. (Whale fur will only get you so far.) “Let me prove your worth by ensuring you a seat at the High Council,” she says, dangling a carrot Harrow’s been dying to chomp into.
© Attila Szvacsek/HBOWhile the young man ponders this opportunity, we cut over to the royal family—now including the scruffy Desmond Hart—sharing an elegant breakfast. Princess Ynez is none too thrilled to see him at the table, and now that her arranged marriage has been scuttled, she’s starting to realize something is very rotten in her father’s house… and by extension, the Imperium itself.
She brings up the rumor that Prewet was murdered—everybody really is talking about it!—and declares herself ready to head to Wallach IX and get started on her Sisterhood training.
It’s a no from mom and dad, though: “We need you here to show a united front,” the Emperor tells her. She replies that the family won’t be united as long as Desmond (who fully admits to killing Prewet; the kid was caught with a “thinking machine,” after all!) is exerting so much influence, and flounces off.
Speaking of Wallach IX, there is much emotional turmoil afoot as Emeline describes her dream to Tula and the elderly Sister Avila. “There are stories about Mother Dorotea,” Emeline says, pushing Tula’s prickly boundaries. But it’s not just Emeline who’s in distress; “all of the acolytes” were having similar nightmares, Jen tells Tula, though she herself didn’t have one.
As the Landsraad—the meeting of all representatives of the Great Houses—kicks off, elsewhere in the palace Emperor Carrino comes right out and asks Desmond if he’s the one spreading the rumor that Prewet was murdered. “I would never use the truth against you,” Desmond replies. “Though I suspect there are others that would.”
He means the Sisterhood, of course, and floats the idea that the Emperor should kick all the Truthsayers out of the Landsraad. The Emperor points out that if he did that, “I might as well announce I have something to hide.” He worries, though, that the rumor will be provide ammunition for those on the High Council who think he’s a weak leader.
“No one can take your power away from you unless you let them. This is a time to be bold,” is Desmond’s advice. “Show them the man that you are… use me.” The Emperor hesitates. He’s not ready for that, at least not yet.
At this point in “Twice Born,” we have three parties who are absolutely focused on the future outcome they want, and the Emperor, who is too easily influenced and not half the leader he thinks he is, isn’t one of them.
© Attila Szvacsek/HBOInstead, the points on the triangle are Desmond, Valya, and the rebels—whose numbers include palace spy Keiran Atriedes.
The rebels are hoping to level the balance of power and let the spice flow beyond the clutches of the super-rich, and have an almost adorably straightforward plan in mind: they’ll launch a drone outfitted with a bomb into the throne room, right when the Emperor is addressing the High Council.
Yes, it involves using forbidden technology, and yes, Keiran’s crush Princess Ynez might become collateral damage. But it’ll wipe out a lot of baddies and send a commanding message, all in one swoop! What could possibly go wrong?
Well… as we learned previously, Valya has a Sister on the inside who keeps her up to date on what the rebels are planning. But instead of intervening to stop the attack, Valya’s grand plan is to attend the Emperor’s speech in her newly asserted role as House Harkonnen’s Truthsayer (tidily getting around that whole “banned from the palace” thing). That way, she can swoop in and save the Emperor from the rebels’ “thinking machine” bomb in the nick of time, in front of all the bigwigs from all the Great Houses. That’ll be just the thing to get her back in his good graces, she figures.
But Theodosia is pragmatic. “What good is that if Desmond Hart still lives?” she asks. Valya says she still doesn’t understand enough about Desmond and his powers. With time, she says, she’ll know enough about his weaknesses to strike against him.
Of course, it’ll first take some maneuvering to get the second-string House Harkonnen invited to the High Council. Valya and Theodosia tap into the whisper network of Sisters, getting them to convince the heads of their respective houses that the rumor Prewet was murdered—perhaps even by the power-abusing Emperor, perhaps even involving a conspiracy and a cover-up!—has some merit.
Enough men take the bait to decide an inquest is necessary, but they need someone at the Landsraad to agitate for a formal investigation. Someone who’s so desperate to be included they’ll agree to be the point person for this unseemly task. Someone like… Baron Harkonnen.
With Harrow (reluctantly) onboard, Valya’s once again got what she thinks is an airtight plan in motion. She’s certain she’s poised to drive a wedge between Desmond Hart and the Emperor, and will soon see her status restored. Certain of it!
© Attila Szvacsek/HBOWhile we ponder all the ways that’s not going to happen, we return to Wallach IX to see what Tula is going to do about the nightmare outbreak. Her plan is to gather all the afflicted acolytes, hypnotize them (with the help of spice), and do a little guided meditation blended with a sort of automatic writing exercise.
All of the young women begin to feverishly sketch out their visions. At first the pictures are different, and then, identical images emerge. “Perhaps it’s not a dream,” Tula tells Avila, who disapproves of this experiment. “It’s a message!” Things get even more frightening when Tula has trouble pulling the young women out of their trance-like states. And, in fact, she can’t: they awaken out of fear, after they all scrawl the same dark void punctuated by a pair of blank eyes. “The reckoning is here!” Emeline declares.
Later, Tula and Avila look through the drawings, lingering on the final one. “Whatever this is, it calls forth a terror so crippling that the mind screams to save itself,” Tula says of the haunting image. “It could be the nightmare is a sign of what’s to come!” They disagree over what to do next; Tula’s POV is that they should keep this quiet. Best to avoid spreading fear
Back in the palace, the Empress is the next to pay Desmond a visit. We’ve already realized she isn’t always working in concert with her husband, and she’s got a little present for Desmond: Imperial surveillance files, identifying “machine dealers trading in illegal technology.” Though Carrino told Desmond to stand down, his wife is all about taking action. Desmond figures out that she’s who started the rumor about Prewet’s murder, and he takes it to heart when she says sometimes all the Emperor needs is “that little push.”
This rendezvous gives Desmond a huge advantage over his foes. While everyone prepares for their respective big showdowns at the High Council, we know very well that Desmond now has the tools to take down the rebels—and rip the rug out from Valya in the process.
And, by the way, there’s now an additional would-be chaos-maker in the mix: Ynez, who’s decided her only course of action is to confront her father in public—in front of the High Council, no less—over Desmond’s sinister rise to power. When she tells Keiran about her big idea, he cautions her, cryptically, as they drool over each other: “Chaos can strike at any moment.” (He also confirms something from last week: his father was the only survivor of Tula’s Atreides massacre.)
© Attila Szvacsek/HBOThen, a crucial conversation between Valya and Theodosia; the latter is wondering exactly why the Mother Superior dragged her along on the journey to the Imperial homeworld, especially since she’s no longer needed as Ynez’s new Sisterhood pal. “You know why,” Valya says, and Theodosia looks aghast. Seems the acolyte has a special ability we haven’t seen her use yet—a mysterious thing she swore she’d never use again, though that apparently is about to change.
But before we learn what that means, it’s time for the High Council, and a tense ticking clock begins. There are a lot of potential scenarios in play, including one involving a great big explosion.
Baron Harkonnen gets a chance to fumble through his demand for an inquest into Prewet’s death—backed up by Ynez, who bursts into the room to raise accusations against the Imperial house, and Desmond Hart in particular. But before Keiran’s pals can launch the bomb, Desmond takes control.
Guards drag in a trio of rebels, Keiran’s cohorts in the terror plot, and Desmond delivers a theatrical monologue in which he swaggers around in front of the assembled nobles, speaking of the perils he faced on Arrakis… including the wondrous Shai-Hulud. He admits to killing Prewet, but it declares it wasn’t murder. It was an execution, justified because the kid had a toy that used “forbidden machine technology.”
Then, oh dear, he pulls the rebels’ own thinking machine—the bomb-carrying drone—from his pocket, and tells everyone in the room how close they came to being executed themselves. (He stomps on the drone for good measure, and even behind her thick veil, we can see Valya is disgusted by once again being bested by this shifty soldier.)
Oh, but he’s not even close to finished. Desmond likens the Emperor to Shai-Hulud—a leader who can chase away the predators in their midst—and says there’ll be no mercy for anyone caught using machine technology.
© Attila Szvacsek/HBO“On your order, your majesty,” he asks, and Carrino nods. In the next moment, the captured rebels, plus a Great House leader who showed off his own pocket-sized machine in an earlier scene, begin to writhe and scream as they burn internally, just like Prewet did. (Keiran is spared for whatever reason.)
As Desmond is casting his spell, his mind’s eye shifts to Arrakis and we hear that thunk-thunk sound from the beginning of the episode; yep, it’s a thumper, summoning a sandworm, which roars across the horizon. Exactly like the acolytes’ shared nightmare, his vision ends with a black screen and two glowing eyes, backed by a mechanical-sounding series of low-pitched beeps.
The act takes a physical toll on him. We can see he’s bleeding through his coat, and he leaves a smear of blood on the railing when he pauses to glare at Valya on his way out.
When they’re alone later, the Emperor tells Desmond he can’t “do that again”—at first it seems he means “kill a bunch of people using magic in public,” but he’s referring to the pain that Desmond himself is now feeling after using his powers.
Back at House Harkonnen, Uncle Evgeny cackles with delight at Harrow’s renewed frustration. “I told you, boy, you’d find nothing but misery following her. She cares nothing for this house, only herself.” Valya gives Theodosia the rundown of what happened, and she’s already formulating her next plan. Now that they have a sample of Desmond’s blood, they can poke into his genetics and, hopefully, learn more about where he came from.
On Wallach IX, Emeline gathers in secret with a group of other acolytes. She speaks of Mother Dorotea, and reads from her text: “There are no truths concealed that will not be disclosed, or lies hidden that will not be made known.”
© Attila Szvacsek/HBODeep in the secret computer room, Tula sits next to Lila’s spice coffin and begs her to wake up. “I believe you are the key to this reckoning. You must be the one twice-born.”
Emeline suddenly enters, full of accusations against “you,” but from the context we can assume she means both Harkonnen sisters. She calls out the murders of Mother Dorotea, and Orry and the other Atreides. It’s these sins that have brought the Reckoning upon them, she says—and then she threatens “to speak the truth to the whole of the Imperium. You won’t be able to silence me like you silenced Dorotea.”
But can’t she? Tula jumps up, chases after Emeline, and coldly slashes her throat, evoking Dorotea’s death and putting a twist on the girl’s own nightmare. At that instant, Lila snaps back to life. She’s confused… but she’s back, with spice-enhanced blue eyes.
At House Harkonnen, Valya and Evgeny have it out one last time. They argue over who’s more important to the family, and he accuses her of causing Griffin’s death and twisting Tula into doing her bidding. “You are a black hole in this family,” he wheezes, before falling out of his hoverchair and grasping for the inhaler that Valya holds just out of his reach.
© Attila Szvacsek/HBOAs Evgeny lies motionless on the floor, probably dead, the camera lingers on Griffin’s portrait before Griffin… looking exactly as he does in the painting… enters. How can this be? But as he speaks, we start to realize all is not what it seems.
This is Theo’s special ability. “I’ll do whatever it is you need me to do,” the acolyte promises. “Everyone makes their own choices, including me.” As Theo begins to transform back into herself, we can hear the pain the process causes—not unlike what happens to Desmond when he uses his own power.
How will this shape-shifting factor into Valya’s next plan? There are just two more episodes of Dune: Prophecy to go… and nobody’s even said the words “Bene Gesserit” yet.
New episodes of Dune: Prophecy arrive Sundays on HBO and Max.
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