Fill a glass of spiked eggnog as we streak toward the finish line of “Dune: Prophecy!”
The cold stone walls of the Harkonnen brood’s gothic apartment on Salusa Secundus are a bit more accommodating than the smell of furry leviathan flesh inside their bleak hovel on the chilly planet of Lankiveil many decades earlier, and here is where two of the more unsettling events of the hit “Dune” prequel series occur in this week’s episode titled “Twice Born.”
It is something to behold to see the Harkonnens begin to rise from their humiliating banished state and creep quietly into some better station in life 10,000 years before they became the true monsters of the known universe on the cruel industrial world of Giedi Prime, but it takes time to unfold.
Mark Addy’s Uncle Evgeny Harkonnen is a tough old buzzard living with Harrow Harkonnen, an ineffectual young Baron of the family portrayed by British actor Edward Davis. His restrictive black leather tunic and coat seem to suffocate his ability to move freely or even make instinctive decisions.
But first we begin with a series of frightening dreams manifested by students at the Sisterhood on Wallach IX. These dreams are similar in nature to Raquella’s deathbed visions and Kasha’s fiery demise in that they both see a pair of blue machine eyes that mirror the azure glow of the Anirul thinking machine deep down in the catacombs of the Sisterhood’s fortress home. A weird drawing exercise led by Tula also brings about blackened images each sporting two blue eyes.
Meanwhile, Valya’s manipulative brain is desperate to regain her grip of influence over the Emperor and House Corrino by any means necessary and destroy Desmond Hart. Her latest plan is to act as the Harkonnen’s new truthsayer and convince another House to back Harrow’s placement in the High Council. She would then use him to introduce an inquest into the death of Pruwet Richese by accusing the Emperor, and sacrificing Kieran Atreides’ terrorist splinter cell that she’s secretly orchestrating for the Sisterhood’s benefit in the process. Whew! We’re not exactly sure how Valya sleeps soundly at night but it must include a pinch of the old spice Melange.
This ruse includes stopping a drone bomb in the High Council chambers during a gathering of the Landsraad, then taking a victory lap for saving everyone’s life. But as is often the case, these insidious machinations often go astray, thanks to the intervention of Desmond Hart who ferrets out the tech-dealing culprits with Empress Natalya’s aid, dragging them onto the chamber floor to incinerate them. Valya has again been bested by this demonic super soldier from Arrakis.
One good thing that comes out of that failed power plot is that Valya has obtained a sample of Desmond Hart’s blood, which she intends to run through the Sisterhood’s vast storehouse of genetic information to glean exactly who he is.
Let’s face it, life as a Harkonnen in HBO’s compelling “Dune: Prophecy” spinoff is no Sunday picnic in the park, with the stench of purported cowardice and disrespect still clinging to their resentful kin like rancid whale meat. Bitterness and animosity remain at a boiling point all these years, as Evgeny still grieves the death of his hopeful nephew Griffin, Valya and Tula’s brother, at the supposed hands of Vorian Atreiedes, the man they blame for their family’s disgrace and exile after the Battle of Corrin during the war against the thinking machines.
Back in the Harkonnen clan’s austere enclave, Valya and Harrow return from the High Council debacle with their tails between their legs to hear the grizzled old Uncle Evgeny cackle at them, knowing what the likely fate of their appearance at that pompous parade of nobility was.
It’s tough to argue against Evgeny’s insistence that Valya is a corrupting menace to the family after we saw her cause, or at least put into motion, Sister Dorothea’s murder, Griffin’s death, Tula’s Atreides massacre on Caladan, Lila’s tragedy during The Agony, and now Harrow’s humiliation at the Landsraad as her intricate plan shatters around her.
In an incendiary scene near the end of “Twice Born,” Valya and Evgeny attack each other verbally with all the savage vitriol and pent-up anger that’s been percolating for decades. Spitting venom and malice, Evgeny declares his hatred of her with his gasping breath as he reaches for his oxygen inhaler that Valya denies him, causing him to fall from his levitating chair, crawl across the polished floor, and die.
At the episode’s shocking conclusion, we see that Tula’s spice cure paired with the thinking machine’s tech has brought a blue-eyed Lila back to life, fulfilling perhaps an aspect of Mother Superior Raquella’s doomsday prophecy called The Reckoning.
One puzzling scene to close it all out was when Sister Theodosia appeared to Valya in her shapeshifting Face Dancer form as Valya’s deceased brother Griffin to offer comfort for her heinous actions of killing Evgeny, urging her to go after Vorian Atreides as the root cause of the Harkonnen’s sullied reputation as cowards.
So is Desmond Hart the true nemesis mentioned in the prophecy, or is it Lila being employed as an agent of opposition to The Reckoning? Is Lila actually a resurrection of Dorotea? It’s surely a lot to ponder. Life in the “Dune” universe is never crystal clear and rife with contradictions so it’s probably best to go refill your egg nog mug and reflect as there’s now just one more episode before the sci-fi series’ finale!