The first season of Dune: Prophecy wrapped up last night with "The High-Handed Enemy," an eventful episode that left many of our characters in new and unexpected places. On Wallach IX, Dorotea — a Bene Gesserit sister killed decades ago — took over the body of her granddaughter Lila (Chloe Lea) and is now trying to steer the Sisterhood in a whole new direction. Tula Harkonnen (Olivia Williams) is now a prisoner of her son Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel) on the planet Salusa Secundus, and Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson) has traveled with Princess Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) and swordmaster Kieran Atredies (Chris Mason) to the desert world of Arrakis to find out who's been manipulating Desmond from behind the scenes, and why.
Those are a lot of threads to leave dangling ahead. Happily, we now know the show will continue with a second season. Unhappily, it probably won't happen for a couple of years. In the meantime, Dune: Prophecy showrunner Alison Schapker fielded questions from WinterIsComing and other outlets during a roundtable interview. What can she reveal about what's coming?
What will happen on Wallach IX?
Dorotea, who is fanatical about her anti-thinking machine beliefs, smashed the thinking machines that Valya and her confidantes use to administer the Bene Gesserit breeding program, which is how they steer the course of the Imperium. The breeding program is back up and running by the time of the original Dune books, which are set thousands of years after the events of Dune: Prophecy, so we assume the breeding program will be reestablished eventually. But for now, the Sisterhood has kind of fallen apart. Where does that leave things?
"I mean, that's a really good question," Alison Schapker said. "That's exactly the question you should be asking, and I think that's something that remains to be seen. Like, that too has changed and sort of to what degree. Is that irrevocable for Valya or not? Is it something and what role is Tula going to play going forward and how is the sisterhood going to survive is very much a question of season two."
Emily Watson and Olivia Williams were also part of this roundtable interview. "It's sort of we started out, we had everything just how we wanted it at the beginning," Watson said. "And it's been sort of descent from there."
Valya, Tula and Desmond Hart
The revelation that Desmond Hart was actually Tula's son came as a shock to everyone, including Tula; we learned that she gave up Desmond not long after Valya took over the Sisterhood, afraid that her sister would manipulate her son into a life that wasn't his own. Knowing Valya, she was probably right.
Tula never told Valya about what she did, but everything comes out in the finale. "It’s blown everything up, but I think Valya is probably still holding 'I am the chosen one, I have the destiny' is still her guide," Watson said. "That's her guide through this. Very curious to know what happens next."
The sisters separate very soon after this revelation, with Valya heading to Arrakis and Tula remaining on Salusa Secundus as Desmond's prisoner. Tula seems like she's at a low point, but Olivia Williams sees opportunity in this crisis. "I think a huge thing for Tula is the moment when says, 'please don't kill my son, trust me, I've got this.' And the fact that does trust and go - little known that shortly afterwards my son has me arrested," Williams said. "That moment between the sisters where finally Tula is entrusted with something. When all these years she's known that she is highly capable and highly effective and has been treated as the lesser sister. It's an interesting thing though because sometimes people of that character like to stay in the shadows and it will be interesting to see what happens if she is pushed further to the front and whether she can handle it."
As for Desmond Hart himself, we learn that was manipulated by some shadowy group that used a thinking machine to turn him into a kind of bioweapon. We don't know who that group is, and Schapker wasn't willing to give out many clues about Desmond's past.
"I don't know if people noticed, but the cloth he's carrying the first time we see him, when Desmond Hart appears in Salusa and walks up to the palace, he's got this black cloth, and that is really his token of his mother," Schapker said, giving us a few crumbs. "And it's through the whole series he uses it in private moments his drive and his connection, until finally he meets her and is clutching her actual dress. Realizing that what once was a piece of his baby blanket that she swaddled him in sisterhood cloth is what he's held onto. Now he's finally with his mother. We tried to do things like that to build in and foreshadow where the story was going."
What will Valya do on Arrakis?
Finally, Schapker was asked what Valya hopes to accomplish now that she's on Arrakis. Olivia Williams was all of us when she chimed in: "I'm dying to hear the answer to this one."
Schapker laughed at that, and then teased what she could: "After a season of Arrakis kind of exerting its pull from afar, and whether that's in the economics of spice, trade or the psychological aspects of these visions and nightmares that are sort of imagery of Arrakis and Desmond's past seeping into everyone's consciousness. To actually go and put boots on the ground at this incredibly overdetermined and sort of almost mythic Dune space that we know very well, but we sort of kept it at distance the whole season. So, I think it's very significant that Valya's back there, and I also think she's back kind of at the origin point of Desmond, where he emerged from. Like, he emerged with a story and a myth, and it was I'm from Arrakis, and I was swallowed by a worm and I survived after my whole regiment was killed. All I would say is, I think Valya is there. I think Valya is going to find out a lot more, given that she is sort of back where Desmond sort of emerged as an adversary. And be interesting to see what she finds out there."
All that is to say, we'll likely have to tune in to Dune: Prophecy season 2 to get the answers to a lot of these questions. We'll be on the lookout for a release date, but I wouldn't expect new episodes anytime before late 2026 on the early end.
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