With Dune: Prophecy officially picked up for a second season, we've got some ideas about where it's going from here. Plus: Travis Fimmel, aka Desmond Hart, talks sandworms, S&M, and Erin Brockovich.
After six weeks of Dune: Prophecy, we got a season finale that tied up several loose ends while making everything more complicated. Centered around a mess of a jailbreak, episode 6 flipped all the power dynamics in the show -- everyone who started out on top is dead or exiled, and everyone's moral position and goals seem to be teetering. With season 2 officially confirmed this week, it looks like things may get even more complicated. We caught up with Travis Fimmel, the actor who plays Desmond Hart, and did a deep dive on the lore to give you the context you need.
Let's recap as quickly as possible: Near the start of the episode, Tula leaves the Truthsayer planet Wallach IX to track down Desmond Hart, revealed to be her son in the last episode. But ditching school opens up the Sisterhood to regime change. Dorotea, the Sister who Valya murdered in the pilot, takes over Sister Lila's body and reveals literal skeletons in the closet: Valya, Tula, and their followers killed all the dissident Truthsayers during their rise to power. It's safe to say that if the Harkonnen sisters return to the Order, they won't be in charge.
Over on the Imperial planet Salusa Secunda, the intergalactic game of thrones is thrown into chaos when the Princess Ynez attempts to spring her situationship Keiran Atreides out of floaty-jail. Her mother the Empress Natalya catches her red-handed and tosses her right into floaty-jail with him.
This puts everyone in a tough spot, but none more than Valya. By this point in the series, you may have forgotten that the Princess is actually the prize the Sisterhood wants above all -- a Truthsayer-trained woman on the throne. That means getting Ynez out suddenly becomes priority number one for the Mother Superior. To save her, Valya plots to get thrown into prison, rescue Ynez, assassinate the Emperor, and somehow stop or escape Desmond Hart. She gets all the outcomes she wants, but none of them according to plan.
In the closest thing he's ever had to a moment of clarity, Mark Strong's Emperor Corrino realizes that he's been hustled nearly every waking moment of his life and kills himself. Natalya seizes on this moment to consolidate power, allying with Hart, killing Sister Francesa, and refusing to save her husband. She's the new top dog in the galaxy.