Travis Fimmel and his Dune: Prophecy costars break down last night's climactic scene

The latest episode of Dune: Prophecy, "Twice Born," climaxes with an exciting scene during a meeting of the Landsraad, the group of great houses who together control the direction of the Imperium. It does not go how we expect. Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel), the new attack dog of Emperor Corrino (Mark Strong) makes a public show of using his powers of immolation to execute several people who have broken the sacred prohibition against thinking machines. It's a grisly display of power that will have the great houses thinking twice before they cross the emperor.

Desmond also foils a plot to blow up the whole meeting hatched by a group of rebels, including House Corrino's own swordmaster Kieran Atreides (Chris Mason). And on top of that, the emperor's own daughter Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) calls out her dad in public for being complicit in the death of her fiancée Pruitt Richese back in the premiere episode. She expected to get an assist from her half-brother Constantine (Josh Heuston), but he chickened out.

It all added up to a really entertaining sequence. Before the series began airing, we got to talk to the cast of Dune: Prophecy alongside other journalists, and of course we had to ask about this scene. We started with Travis Fimmel, who relished the opportunity to have a big speech. "It's his moment where he's got the floor and he's gotta sell," Fimmel told us. "So he's gotta take advantage of his audience right there and then he's gotta have a lot of conviction. And you want people to enjoy his presence or be intimidated by him or scared of him. It was his moment to really sell his idea and what he believes in, and a lot of truth-saying in front of people that have been lying. The whole scene to me is a lot about calling out the lies in front of everybody. It has to be very honest room after he does his little speech."

Executive producer Jordan Goldberg also weighed in on the scene: "As someone who was there who watched it, behind the monitors — I mean, that was two or three days we shot that — that were some of the best," he said. "Travis had to do that monologue multiple times. Spot on, it was brilliant, it really kind of set the tone for the room there. It was a fun scene."

We interview the Dune: Prophecy cast about the climactic events of Episode 4

We also got to talk to Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Josh Heuston, Chris Mason about where Ynez, Constantine and Kieran Atreides are at mentally as they approached this big turning point. "Well, going into it, Princess Ynez is expecting a quite different outcome than what eventually happens," Boussnina said. "You know, it starts off, [she's] expecting her brother to show up and support her in waking up their father. This is the last chance to do it and the best way is to do it in front of all the great houses so that they can get Desmond Hart out of the way. But then Constantine doesn't show up, and that's a really big deal because it's the first time that he lets her down. But she believes so much in her conviction, so she's like, 'Okay, I've lost my whole family now. I need to go in and do what I believe is right.' Which is very much Ynez. So she walks in there feeling pretty sure that, 'I got him. He admitted that he killed these people. I'm gonna tell in front of all the houses.' And then she does it and there's this part of the scene where Desmond walks down the steps and crosses Ynez on his way down and there's this [moment] where their eyes meet and she's like, 'gotcha.'

"But then he flips it and reveals the rebellion [plot] that he has found and just flips the whole plan around, and that shocks Ynez so much. Because she knows that, 'Okay, I'm not in a good position right now. I have called my family out in front of all the great houses and I have nothing now because he flipped it. You know, it's kind of like a point of no return for her, I think...I also think Ynez...keeps hoping that her dad will tell Desmond to stop, and [him] using his powers to kill all these people is a huge defeat for her and their relationship."

As for Constantine, Heuston thinks he's going to have to do some "soul-searching" after this experience. "I believe he was paralyzed by it. I guess [he let] his own fear and insecurities kind of get the better of him and [he] let down the one person who he usually backs up for everything. I guess at the end of Episode 4 he's definitely going off to figure out something."

And then there's Kieran, the rebel who is having second thoughts. "Kieran goes in there with his convictions set, believing in what he does, and what he's about to do, and when everything does turn against him and everything kind of goes wrong, he leaves there with the idea that the walls are closing in. I think he's panicked," Mason said. "Obviously they don't know about his involvement yet, so he has hope that he might still be able to get away with it and also maybe do something for the cause. But he's definitely on high alert now. If he wasn't before, he's definitely watching over his shoulders as he goes forward."

New episodes of Dune: Prophecy air Sunday nights on HBO and Max.

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