Dune: Prophecy tackles horror in strong second episode, "Two Wolves"

After an uneven season premiere that had a bit too much heavy lifting to do in the lore department, Dune: Prophecy finds its sea legs in "Two Wolves."

We start with the aftermath of Revenand Mother Kasha's (Jihae) death. Somehow, she was burned from the inside out from several planets away by the mysterious Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel), who's thrown the royal family for a loop over on Salusa Secundus. The show is playing isn't yet revealing how Desmond is able to do this, but his ability ability to burn people alive recalls "the burning truth" that Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson) was warned about by Mother Raquella (Cathy Tyson) all those years ago. She decides she must travel to Salusa Secundus to protect the Sisterhood's interests.

Valya's sister Tula (Olivia Williams) remains on the Bene Gesserit homeworld of Wallach IX, where she has another mission: put the young acolyte Lila (Chloe Lea) through the spice agony, which will turn her into a Revenend Mother capable of communicating with her female ancestors. Because Lila is a descendant of Raquella herself, she's be able to ask the long-dead Mother Superior about the nature of the burning truth and what the Sisterhood can do to fight it.

Once again, I find myself describing a lot of lore, but it all comes together pretty smoothly in the moment, helped along by carefully measured performances from Watson and Williams. This episode also represents the show splitting into two storylines, with Tula holding down the fort on Wallach IX while Valya goes to interface with the royal family. The structure seems sturdier this time around.

The Walking Dune

Let's start on Wallach IX, where Lila faces a difficult choice: endure the spice agony — which basically means taking a poison that will either expand your mind or kill you — and become a Reverend Mother so she can help her chosen family in the Sisterhood, or refuse, which means the Sisterhood will ahve to find another way to combat this new threat. Valya would like Tula to force Lila to undergo the agony, but Tula insists Lila be able to choose for herself. The two have a surrogate mother-daughter relationship, and this isn't easy for either of them.

I like that the show doesn't make the morality of the situation clear. Would Lila choosing to undergo the spice agony be a of noble self-sacrifice, or are Valya and Tula using her? Tula's affection for Lila is genuine, but does that matter when she's essentially asking this young girl to drink poison for the cause?

Ultimately, Lila decides to go through with it, which is when things get really interesting. We're seen the spice agony depicted in Dune movies before, but never like this. We're with Lila as she descends into the depths of her genetic memory. You'd think reuniting with your grandma or whatever could be a sweet experience, but Lila's foremothers awaken "wild and hungry," eager to use their descendant as a means to live again. They're like zombies with dance training, their faces flattened like pieces of cloth.

Lila does ultimately find Raquella, who gives her some more prophetic mumbo-jumbo I'm sure will pay off down the line. More intriguingly, she also finds Dorotea (Camilla Beeput), the woman Valya killed many years ago in order to become the Mother Superior of the Sisterhood. It ends up that Lila's is Dorotea's grandmother. Dorotea takes possession of Lila and speaks directly to Tula, one of the women who orchestrated her demise, speaking through Lila, using her own granddaughter's mouth. She wants revenge, so she's taking Tula's hope. Lila goes quiet, dead for everyone in that weird medical bay area to see.

The whole sequence is a really effective blend of sci-fi nonsense and Dune lore with good old-fashioned horror. I really enjoyed it, and felt terrible for Lila and Tula both.

Moves within moves

Meanwhile, Valya tries to piece together what's happening with the royal family on Salusa Secundus. There are a lot of overlapping plots and schemes in these scenes, or as Dune author Frank Herbert might put it, "moves within moves." A good example is when we discover that royal swordsmaster Kieran Atreides (Chris Mason) is actually working with a rebellion outside the palace designed to bring down the Corrino family. But just a couple scenes later, we find out that one of Kieran's co-conspirators — a blue-eyed woman named Mikaela (Shalom Brune Franklin) — is actually a Bene Gesserit sister who reports directly to Valya. The Bene Gesserit are exerting influence on the emperor with one agent and influence on the rebellion against the emperor on the other, playing both sides against each other as needed with the goal of shoring up their own position.

It's fun to feel back these layers. It also raises questions about whether we should be rooting for the Bene Gesserit in the first place. Does Desmond Hart have a point that the sisters have too much influence on the great houses? We like Valya and Tula so we're willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that their intentions are good, but the show doesn't let them off the hook. They are absolutely manipulating matters, and reasonable people can disagree on whether that's something that should continue.

At least in this episode, Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong) comes around to seeing things his wife's way and turns against the Bene Gesserit, barring Valya from the palace on the advice of Desmond Hart, who wins the emperor's favor by using his powers of mental immolation to subdue Javicco's enemies.

The emperor is an interesting character. Is he a weak ruler for being so easily swayed from one position to another, a strong one for embracing Hart's help, or is his flexibility a strength? You get the idea that his wife Empress Natalya (Jodhi May) wishes she were in charge. Meanwhile, his daughter Inez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) still ardently wants to join the Bene Gesserit. There are a lot of swirling currents and eddies in that family, and you figure something has to give sooner or later.

In any case, Valya's enemy is clear: Desmond Hart. The episode ends with a tense confrontation where she tries to use the voice on him, commanding him to take out his blade and drive it into his throat...but he doesn't. She walks away confounded but, I suspect, determined, and we have liftoff.

I thought this was a strong episode, and an improvement on the premiere. Dune: Prophecy is very well-made and well-acted, so you can at least trust that the performances are going to pull you from scene to scene. But we got a better handle on the characters and conflicts at hand here. Plus that spice agony sequence was wicked. Bring on Episode 3.

Dune: Bullet Points

• Using sci-fi magic to suspend Desmond Hart high in the air is a creative take on a prison.
• The powerful Richese family is still reelng following the death of young Pruitt Richese (Charlie Hodson-Prior), Inez's fiancee. The incident has thrown the Corrino-Richese reliance into question. Inez's brother Constantine (Josh Heuston) tries to get information on the situation out of Pruitt's older sister using the timeless art of seduction. I've seen my fair share of HBO shows, but their sex scene bordered on outright pornography. That was surprising even by this network's standards...although I haven't seen Euphoria, so maybe I'm just not caught up.

Episode Grade: B+

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