It seems that almost all of the six-episode first season of HBO’s Dune: Prophecy has been arrange for future tales to inform on this world created by Frank Herbert. That’s an issue. One of many issues individuals beloved about The Penguin was how a lot it stood by itself. It was a drama that labored even when one hadn’t seen Matt Reeves’s The Batman and was price watching even when there wasn’t one other season. The deadly flaw of Dune: Prophecy is how a lot it’s tied to the previous and the long run, relying closely on the love of this world by the books and films and utilizing a lot of its last episode to set the stage for future ones. Nonetheless, the inherent stakes of a season finale lastly permit for some emotional heft within the performances from this sturdy ensemble, even when it’s getting more durable and more durable to care about what occurs to the characters they play.
“The Excessive-Handed Enemy” consists largely of placing in movement a plan that Valya Harkonnen has been enacting for generations, utilizing Emperor Corrino as a puppet to get a sister in energy. Whereas Valya has been transferring the items on her facet of the chessboard, an insurgency is rising again on the Sisterhood, led by the reincarnated soul of Dorotea, the sister that Valya murdered so a few years in the past. The episode ends with Tula Harkonnen connecting with the vicious Desmond Hart after realizing that he’s the son she gave up so a few years in the past.
At a function size of 81 minutes, the pacing of “The Excessive-Handed Enemy” might be inconsistent. At occasions, it appears like a truncated season led to an excessive amount of being crammed into this finale, nevertheless it’s additionally bloated and repetitive somewhere else, as if the writers have been tasked with stretching out issues to make the final episode really feel extra necessary. It’s a largely dissatisfying installment, even when it accommodates some series-best work from Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Chloe Lea, and Travis Fimmel.
It begins with the revelation that younger Valya wasn’t alone when she used the Voice on Dorotea. Younger Tula, Kasha, and Francesca all noticed the crime and witnessed the fallout, which included the identical violent act being inflicted on all of the sisters who would have sided with Dorotea, leaving solely Sister Avila and the core 4 standing. All of them put a plan in movement utilizing Anirul—the gadget that enables them to plan bloodlines that may put them in energy—to get Javicco and Natalya collectively. It’s an attention-grabbing concept that’s solely thinly-explored: the idea that politicians are manipulated in methods they’ll’t even think about, influenced and formed by forces past their management. Even Javicco’s love Francesca and truthsayer Kasha have been part of this multi-year plan. He has executed nothing in his complete, pathetic life that wasn’t influenced by the Sisterhood.
After all, the episode additionally reveals what all of us anticipated after the tip of the final one: Desmond Hart is the son of Tula Harkonnen and Orry Atreides, despatched off to be adopted so a few years in the past however now carrying these two important bloodlines right into a violent future. It’s additionally revealed that Desmond was altered by a “considering machine” on Arrakis, given the facility he has now in a process that somebody was overseeing. However who? That’s one of many fundamental questions for season two.
The thrust of “The Excessive-Handed Enemy” revolves round eliminating Javicco Corrino from energy, nevertheless it seems that Valya isn’t his solely enemy. Empress Natalya has additionally determined that she now not wants her husband, particularly now that he’s making an attempt to restart his relationship with Francesca. It’s virtually a race to kill Corrino as Valya brings a drug-laced needle to Salusa, able to take out her puppet now that he’s served his objective. Arguably the most effective scene of the season comes when Valya drops the curtain on poor Javicco. “You have been solely ever an task,” she tells him, revealing that each side of his life has been orchestrated by the Sisterhood and that it’s time for Ynez to guide. And that is after the poor man has been advised by his spouse that she plans to make use of him as a puppet herself, operating the universe from behind the scenes with Desmond.
Javicco tries to reclaim an oz of management by kicking out Francesca, however even that doesn’t get him wherever. He realizes that the one means he can take any company is to take his life, stabbing himself within the intestine in a very unhappy scene. As Francesca strikes to save lots of the daddy of her youngster, the Empress pokes her within the neck with a needle, killing her immediately and stopping any resuscitation efforts on her husband. She watches her actually pathetic husband die. Dune: Prophecy goes to overlook the gravity given to the present by Mark Robust and Tabu. In season two, let’s hope they discover actors of equal caliber to exchange them.
Earlier than I get to the climactic scenes, I want to speak about Lila/Dorotea. It begins when she convinces Emeline to loosen her restraints and medicines her for the favor. She involves the remainder of the sisters, in search of Valya and her allies, solely to study that everybody on her facet was killed shortly after her. Because the episode progresses, Lila/Dorotea appears to get extra highly effective, bringing within the sisters as allies to her trigger. “I’ll return us to our righteous path,” she says. Valya and Tula are going to have a brutal homecoming.
The season has constructed to the ultimate scenes of “The Excessive-Handed Enemy.” After escaping Salusa, Valya, Nez, and Keiran land on one other planet, chased by Desmond and his troopers. She makes use of the Voice to dispatch them shortly, establishing a showdown. “You say you’ve seen my finish,” she says. “Present me.” After which issues get bizarre. There are gasps, large eyes, and photographs of Arrakis. They each cross out, and instantly Valya is on a snowy, icy panorama, reducing between the Watson and Jessica Barden variations of the character. She hears Griffin yelling for assist. In actuality, Tula tries to save lots of Valya from no matter psychological jail has her, and the present lastly will get slightly artistic in its visible language, incorporating pure parts like wind, snow, sand, and ice right into a threatening montage. Dreamscape Valya stands to face what’s coming, and the scene shifts to one in all its most Dune-esque photographs: a sandworm coming instantly on the digital camera.
After recovering, it’s revealed that Valya and her allies will go into the shadows, presumably to attempt to reclaim energy from Natalya/Desmond in season two. Tula hugs Desmond, giving each performers a superb little bit of dialogue-free, emotional appearing, however Hart does have his males arrest his mother. After which the trio of Valya, Nez, and Keiran lands on Arrakis. “The trail to our enemy begins right here,” she says. It’s all the time nervy to finish a season with the phrases “begins right here.” Let’s hope the creators know the place they’re going subsequent.
Stray observations
• It’s price noting that this episode was written by two girls and directed by a 3rd. Regardless of its many weaknesses, it’s a present with a robust feminine POV. Take into consideration the worthlessness of Javicco and the way even Keiran appears like a passenger on this journey. The strongest characters—Valya, Tula, Lila/Dorotea, Nez, and even Natalya on this episode—are given added resonance by turning duties which might be nonetheless too male-dominated on this business over to feminine creators.
• Give Emeline extra to do in season two. Watching her break her palms to get out of Lila’s restraints is an episode spotlight. She’s type of a badass.
• Can we ever want 81-minute episodes of tv? Simply throwing that on the market.
• So who’s the season-one MVP? Most likely Watson or Fimmel, though I used to be extra intrigued by the unfamiliar performers, particularly Chloe Lea as Lila and Sarah-Sofie Boussnina as Ynez. If the present will get higher, they’re those to look at for breakout potential.
• Thanks for studying this season! See you subsequent time.
