TV Review: "Dune: Prophecy--Sisterhood Above All" (S1, Ep. 3)
The third episode of the sprawling series takes us back in time to show important moments in the adolescence of Valya and Tula.
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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode ahead.
Rather unusually for a show with a run this short, most of the third episode of Dune: Prophecy is actually set in the past, as we get a firmer sense of both Valya and Tula as women and as individuals. We see the extent to which they are both committed to House Harkonnen and its ancestral hatreds–particularly against House Atreides–even as, in the present, they are both pursuing their own paths and their own desires.
Earlier in the season Tula remarked to Valya that she was no stranger when it comes to making hard decisions, and now we come to see what she means. Valya, no content with her family’s willingness to turn a blind eye to the perfidy of the Atreides and their ongoing attempts to slander and destroy the Harkonnens, forges her younger into her chosen weapon of vengeance and, in a truly heartbreaking scene, the latter murders her Atreides betrothed. It’s an action that’s shocking in its efficiency and its brutality, and it serves as something of a harbinger of later slaughters to come. I give a lot of credit to Emma Canning, who so capably portrays the young Tula in all of her heartbreak and agony. One can tell just how much the murder of the Atreides boy and so many of his retainers has cost her, at the same time as one can also see that her loyalties will always lay with her sister.
It was also a joy to see Valya in the past, seeing the way that her loyalty to House Harkonnen means more to her than almost anything else, except for perhaps her sister (though I would argue that’s debatable). Among other things, it’s clear that her loyalty to the House is stronger than that to the various members of her family, whom she views as weak and foolish for not doing more to clear their family name and gain revenge on the liar Vorian Atreides, who has done so much to turn the other Great Houses against them and ensured that they remain in exile on the icy and desolate Lankiveil. Moreover, Valya also has more than a little difficulty putting the interests of the Sisterhood above those of her House and, while she appears to finally accomplish this task, her actions in the present suggest that, when it comes down to it, House Harkonnen will always have her fiercest loyalty. Just as Canning does a great job capturing a young Tula, so Jessica Barden does the same for Valya, allowing us insight into how the older version of the character came to be.
This whole plotline is easy enough to follow even for lay viewers, though I daresay that it will be more rewarding for those who have read the various prequels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, particularly The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade, and The Battle of Corrin, all of which lay out in more detail the reasons behind the long-lasting and deadly feud between Houses Atreides and Harkonnen. I quite appreciate the ways in which this episode, and the series as a whole, inverts the usual moral dynamic of the Dune universe. While the original Dune very much aligns us with the Atreides and their ambitions and struggles, this series makes it clear that there are two sides to every story. While nothing will ever justify the horrible actions taken by later generations of Harkonnens, we know that Valya’s generation, at least, has a very good reason for hating their noble rivals.
In a less capable show than this one the decision to keep most of the action set in the past would have interrupted the forward momentum that the series has so far sought to establish. However, so compelling are the performances given by the younger versions of these characters that you can’t help but feel yourself caught up in the action. Fortunately we did get to spend a little bit of time in the present, as both Valya and Tula have to contend with the consequences of their actions. In both cases, the women show that they have truly absorbed the hard lessons of the past and that, no matter what confronts them in the present, they have the wherewithal to do what they think is best.
And then there’s the finale. I think we all knew that young Lila wasn’t dead–despite the horrors she experienced while experiencing the Agony–and that Tula was going to do whatever it took to keep her alive. It turns out that was true and then some, for not only does she stage the girl’s death, but she then hooks her up to an AI machine in an attempt to heal her. It’s hard to overstate just how big of a deal this is, particularly for someone who is a member of the Bene Gesserit. This is a world, remember, where creating a machine with any form of AI is a grievous offense; for this sort of thing to be hidden within the depths of the Bene Gesserit’s home is a sign of just how much they are willing to bend the rules when they think that the ends justify the means. It remains to be seen just how far this particular violation runs, and how many within the Sisterhood are aware that there is a thinking machine within the very heart of their order.
If I have one complaint about this episode, it’s that we don’t get to see more of Polly Walker. Longtime readers of this newsletter will recall that I adored her performance in Bridgerton, in which she brought a great deal of complexity to the character of Lady Featherington (and, of course, I also adored her in Rome, in which she played the scheming Atia). She really does excel at playing manipulative mother roles, and I think a little more time spent with her would have allowed us greater insight into why Valya and Tula ended up being the people that they were. Who knows, though? We might yet get to see more of her in the season ahead.
I still don’t quite see how this series hopes to wrap up the various storylines that it has going on in a mere three more episodes. I will keep beating this drum for as long as it takes, but I really do think it’s a mistake for networks like HBO to continue kneecapping their own epic shows by giving them far fewer episodes than they need to tell a fully-developed and coherent story. When you’re dealing with a canvas as that of Dune, one would think that the very least give it a 10-episode order so that the story would have some room to breathe.
In the end, though, I do think that “Sisterhood Above All” is a strong piece of space opera TV storytelling. It gives us insight into both the characters and the Bene Gesserit as a whole, and this context will prove to be all the more important as Valya enlists the surviving members of her family in her effort to re-establish her control and influence over the Padishah Emperor and, through him, the entirety of the Known Universe.