In Dune: Prophecy‘s second episode, “Two Wolves,” we see two sides making risky choices to get what they want… and a third point of view emerging from the shadows.
Has Valya Harkonnen—inventor of “the Voice,” still being used by the Bene Gesserit 10,000 years later, and a woman who’s spent nearly her entire life plotting to get a member of the Sisterhood onto the Imperial throne—met her match? If anyone’s gonna step to Valya, it’s going to be sandworm survivor Desmond Hart, a man with his own weird powers of persuasion. But don’t discount the mysterious figures scuttling around the edges of this grand face-off; as the show outright tells us, just about everyone in this swirling storm is working their own agenda.
After last week’s premiere closed out with a double murder involving… let’s just call it freaky internal spontaneous combustion, it’s no surprise “Two Wolves” starts off by checking in with those loyal to the two victims (the Emperor’s longtime Truthsayer, Kasha; the young, about-to-be-married noble Pruwet Richese), all of whom are seeking answers.
Grey and gloomy Wallach IX heralds a gloomy return, as a long-absent member of the Sisterhood, now in residence at the Suk Medical School, returns to do Kasha’s autopsy. “She had a nightmare … she knew something was coming,” Tula tells the doctor, trying to be helpful while also feeling tremendous guilt about allowing Valya to disregard Kasha’s prophecy. For now, at least, whatever caused Kasha’s horrible demise is still a medical mystery.
In the library, the acolytes are understandably worried as they discuss Kasha’s death. Was it an assassination? “I’d keep my guard up,” Sister Theodosia (who, as we learned last week, is both excellent in a fight and happens to be the Mother Superior’s favorite pupil) advises the group, which includes deeply religious Emeline, tough and skeptical Jen, and naive Lila.
Speaking of the Mother Superior, now that Valya’s carefully arranged (if age-lopsided) marriage plan between Pruwet and Princess Ynez Corrino, heir to the Golden Lion Throne, has gone sideways, she’s headed to Salusa Secundus, the Corrino homeworld, to see what can be done to pick up the pieces.
© Attila Szvacsek/HBO“I have to secure the princess,” she tells Tula. “With Kasha gone, someone has to fill the void and protect our plans.” She leaves Tula in charge, but warns her “hard choices” are soon needed—hard choices involving Lila, who happens to be Tula’s favorite pupil.
“She needs to connect with her ancestors,” Valya tells her sister. Lila is the great-great-granddaughter of the Sisterhood’s founder and first Mother Superior, Raquella—whose prophecy 30 years prior set her successor, Valya, on the quest to put a Sisterhood-controlled ruler on the Imperial throne. Ynez’s wedding may be off now that her betrothed is dead, but Valya’s not giving up hope that the powerful young woman will still join the Sisterhood as planned.
So what’s the big deal about Lila connecting with her ancestors? Well, Raquella’s wise guidance would sure be useful right about now. But there’s a catch: it involves a process so dangerous and painful it’s called “the Agony.” Almost as distressing: if Lila gets to talk to her deceased ancestors, there’s a good chance she’ll learn Valya’s deepest secret. As we learned last week, 30 years ago she used “the Voice” to make Dorotea, Raquella’s granddaughter and Valya’s biggest rival for Sisterhood power, slit her own throat. Valya thinks the risk is worth it; Tula, who’s very protective of Lila, isn’t so sure.
© Attila Szvacsek/HBOWith Theodosia in tow—she’ll be Ynez’s new Sisterhood buddy now that Kasha is gone—Valya heads to see the Emperor. As you might expect, the mood on Salusa Secundus is tense as hell. To be fair, things were already rocky even before Pruwet’s murder, as the Emperor contemplated the fact that he was marrying off his daughter mostly so he could get his mitts on the fleet of ships promised by the boy’s father, Duke Richese, as a wedding present.
Corrino needs those ships if he wants to keep the valuable planet of Arrakis under his control; with relations now frosty between the two Great Houses that were almost united in marriage, things are looking bleak. With mysterious Arrakis soldier Desmond Hart—who we know killed Pruwet, and somehow engineered Kasha’s long-distance death too—lurking around, Corrino is figuring out his own next move, and he’s not quite sure how Desmond fits in.
This goes double when he realizes his frustrated grumblings about Ynez’s wedding were taken as an order by Desmond, who admits he killed on Corrino’s behalf, “and I can do it again.” Desmond, who is bemused at all times, seems especially delighted when he’s arrested. He’s taken to a sci-fi prison where inmates are suspended in thin air.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Desmond is tied into an enigmatic force the Sisterhood is both well aware of and deathly afraid of. We don’t know exactly how, but “a new energy has emerged to undermine our power,” Tula tells Lila when she’s trying to (gently) pressure her into undergoing the Agony. “We need you to talk to Mother Raquella. We think she will know how to fight it.”
It’s a lot for Lila to take in—for one thing, she had no idea until now that she was related to the founder of the Sisterhood—and she’s frightened by the idea of the ritual. “It must be your choice,” Tula tells her, having just informed the girl the future of the Sisterhood may be in grave danger if she doesn’t make that choice.
A sex scene between Pruwet’s vapid older sister and Ynez’s slightly less vapid half-brother fills this week’s Dune: Prophecy spicy quotient, while also adding some of that other kind of spice in their exposition-laden post-coital chat. Forget the throne, they agree, “the real power is whoever controls the desert planet.”
In the next scene, we get a re-iteration that Desmond’s magic comes from having been swallowed by a sandworm (something we got a hint of last week), as the Emperor blusters around exclaiming “This is a DISASTER!” to his far more cool-headed wife, Empress Natalya. Taking this information in—he survived being eaten by a sandworm, you say?—she advises her husband to go easy on Desmond. He’s a killer, but he’s fiercely loyal to the Corrinos, and that could certainly prove useful: “Let’s not rush to execute our friends to please our enemies.”
© Attila Szvacsek/HBOOn Wallach IX, Tula gathers supplies for the ceremony while Lila seeks guidance from Emeline, who is pro-martyr all the way. To her, there’s no greater honor than giving your life for the cause. Jen, listening in, clearly disagrees; we’ll get her take a bit later in the episode.
Meanwhile, Valya and Theodosia are arriving at the palace. “You’re about to meet the most powerful people in the Imperium,” the Mother Superior tells her student. “Every single one has their own agenda.” Valya barges into the throne room as Duke Richese and Emperor Corrino are arguing over what to do with Desmond, who’s now officially a murder suspect. Valya takes control of the situation, smoothly using hand signals to order Richese’s own Truthsayer to get the Duke out of the room, then focuses her manipulations on the Emperor.
She gives the Emperor and Empress the bad news about Kasha (they take it surprisingly well), then demands to speak to Desmond. Ynez, on the other hand, is emotionally wrecked when she hears of Kasha’s death. She begs for Valya to take her with her when she returns to Wallach IX, saying she still wants to join the Sisterhood. We know Valya has every intention of that still happening, but she tells the princess she’ll have to run it by the Emperor first. Then she introduces Ynez to her new BFF: Sister Theodosia.
© Attila Szvacsek/HBOHalfway though “Two Wolves,” we get the meeting we’ve been waiting for: Valya vs. Desmond, both calculating, both smugly certain that they have the upper hand over the other. “I would advise against playing games with me. I will win,” she informs him. “I have nothing to hide,” he responds. “Can you and your Sisters say the same?”
He admits outright to killing Pruwet; of Kasha, he says, “She was unworthy to stand beside the Emperor. I saw the corruption in her heart… the same way I see blood trailing your every step.” (The Emperor and Empress overhear him say this, and their reaction is stoic.)
Quite obviously, Desmond is no ordinary adversary. Things get more dire when Valya realizes the Emperor and Empress are no longer putty in her hands. In fact, they seem to be bending to Desmond’s guidance, even though he is—as previously noted—being held in space jail.
On Wallach IX, Jen and Lila talk about what’s to come, and Jen tries to level with her young fellow acolyte. “They’re using you,” she said. “It’s what they tell us: Sisterhood above all, not Sisters. They don’t care about you. Not like they care about the Order as a whole.”
Back in the palace, we get a third storyline going: Keiran Atreides, royal sword master, is revealed to be the man on the inside for a group of rebels aiming to topple the Great Houses’ stranglehold over the spice trade. In the red-hued nightclub where he hooked up with Princess Ynez in last week’s episode, we meet others fighting for “the cause.” We don’t learn the specifics of their plan, but it will involve a violent strike against Emperor Corrino, something Atreides swears he’s 100% down for, despite being just a tiny bit sweet on Princess Ynez.
© Attila Szvacsek/HBOOn Wallach IX, Lila and Tula have a tender conversation in which Tula reveals she knew Lila’s mother—and that Lila’s mother died in childbirth. (It feels like a half-truth, but wouldn’t Lila be able to tell if it was?) Lila asks if that means she’ll get to see her mother in “my other memory,” and Tula tells her it’s possible, but also there’s no way to predict who she’ll get to meet if she goes through with the Agony.
Meanwhile, Valya is meeting with an old friend: Mikaela, a Fremen member of the Sisterhood. Though she was sorry to hear of Kasha’s death, Mikaela reflects that she learned to get over her envy of how much power Kasha wielded out in the open. In the shadows, “we empower the Great Houses to maintain order and allow rebellion to keep that power in check,” she says, and Valya calls “the rebel attack on the harvester”—referring to recent events on Arrakis—“a beautiful manipulation.”
Then, rather abruptly, she orders Mikaela to give her the names of all the rebels involved in Arrakis raids. It’s a move to get the Sisterhood back on the Emperor’s good side. The first Mikaela reveals is the rebel’s own palace spy, Keiran Atreides, and Valya’s eyes flicker at the famous name. We cut to Ynez working out her grief over Kasha by practicing her combat moves; when Keiran walks in, they train for a moment and then Ynez tells him about a time she was kidnapped by rebels as a young girl. He’s taken aback, but she tells him, “It was just politics. We are all just pieces on the board to be played in pursuit of power… spice.” Things get briefly steamy. But they both step back. They can’t, not now! Especially not you, secret palace spy Keiran Atreides!
The Empress pays Desmond a visit in jail, and asks him if he’s a prophet. He says he doesn’t know. “There are things that I can do. Beautiful, terrible things,” he tells her. When she asks why she shouldn’t just turn him over to Duke Richese, who’s threatening to take his fleet and go home, he has another suggestion: “Why not let me show you how I would humble those who tried to take from you, or sway you with corrupt council?”
© Attila Szvacsek/HBOAs the episode winds down, we have three important scenes, starting with Lila’s descent into the Agony. Tula tries to prep her for what amounts to dying then finding her way back to the land of the living (if all goes well)—but how do you prepare someone for that? Lila’s fellow acolytes watch from the balcony, worried about what’s to come.
And they’re right to worry; as we see when Lila goes under, the “other memory” is a horrifying place, gloomier than even Wallach IX, and full of aggressive spirits. When great-great-grandmother Raquella appears, she passes this message through Lila: “The key to the reckoning is one born twice. Once in blood, once in spice … a revenant full of scars. A weapon born of war on a path too short.”
Tula pushes for more details, but Lila begins to have a seizure, and Emeline says a prayer as Jen grabs her hand in fear. In Lila’s vision, things have gone very wrong. Instead of meeting her mother, she meets her grandmother, Dorotea, who tells Lila her mother is not there—and then shows her Valya’s awful crime. Lila sits straight up, tells Tula in Dorotea’s voice, “Harkonnen, you stole my future. Now I’m taking your hope!” … and then Lila dies.
As Tula sobs over the girl she loved like a daughter, the audio gives us the Emperor telling the Duke and his family “I know how it feels to lose a child.” But there’s no sympathy in the throne room. Desmond (who is clearly the “one born twice,” in case you didn’t figure that out) silently steps forth to apply his signature burn-from-within torture to the Duke—but stops short of killing him. The Emperor is keeping his new fleet, thank you very much, and the Duke is to return home and stop his whining, or else.
Desmond’s next movie is to block Valya from meeting with the Emperor (so much for her plan to burn that rebel cell)—like, ever again. With sarcastic yet menacing politeness, he informs her that House Carrino no longer requires the Sisterhood’s assistance.
“I want what’s best for the Imperium, and that is to wipe out every trace of you and your Sisters from our worlds,” he says.
She tries to use the Voice on him, to force him into taking his own life—just as she did to Dorotea all those years ago. But the Voice doesn’t work on him. And for the first time, we see Valya looking uncertain and maybe even showing a bit of fear.
It doesn’t pass Desmond by. “Your greatest fear … is not that no one will hear you,” he smirks. “It’s that they’ll hear you and just won’t care.”
New episodes of Dune: Prophecy arrive Sundays on HBO and Max.
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