‘Dune: Prophecy’ finale: Showrunner Alison Schapker on Valya’s secret

The first season of “Dune: Prophecy” ended Sunday with a few gasp-inducing revelations and many more questions. HBO’s prequel series, set 10,000 years before the events of Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” and “Dune: Part Two,” wove a complex web of storylines over six episodes, culminating in a lengthy finale that reunited sisters Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson) and Tula Harkonnen (Olivia Williams).

In the tumultuous episode, flashbacks reveal that Tula gave birth to a secret son, who turns out to be literal firestarter Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel). We also learn that Valya gained her leadership of the Sisterhood, ancestors of the Bene Gesserit, through mass murder.

“You want to feel like enough answers were given,” explains showrunner Alison Schapker of the goals in the finale. “That you’ve been on a journey in Season 1 and you’ve learned things. Then by the end everything has changed and you understand who these characters are, what’s between them, what’s at stake and what the truth is in a new way.”

The finale concludes on Arrakis, where Valya has fled with Princess Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) and Keiran Atreides (Chris Mason) after the death of Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong). It has become clear that Desmond’s powers did not come from the sandworms as he claimed, but from another mysterious force.

“It felt very fitting that Valya, after being haunted by Arrakis, returned to where it all started,” says Schapker. “It’s going to be really interesting to see what she’ll dig up now that she’s going after a hidden hand.”

Schapker, who joined the prequel series in 2022, drew on her extensive career working on shows like “Alias,” “Fringe,” “The Flash” and “Westworld” as she and the writers sculpted the episodes. She admits she felt some pressure adapting and expanding on the beloved material of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” novels, but is proud of how the cast and crew have brought the universe to the small screen.

“It’s a big world to get into,” says Schapker. “People’s expectations for it were, rightly, specific and engaged, and I’m so glad we got to tell this story.”

Here, in a conversation edited for clarity and length, Schapker discusses the details of the “Dune: Prophecy” finale as well as her hopes for what’s to come after HBO announced Thursday it was renewing the show for another season.

What’s your reaction to getting a second season and is there anything you can tease?

I’m thrilled that “Dune: Prophecy” has gotten a pickup and that we can continue to tell the story of Valya and Tula Harkonnen and the rise of the Bene Gesserit. The opportunity to delve deeper into these characters and their corner of the “Dune” universe is one I treasure. I am grateful to everyone who watched and invested in our series and made this Season 2 happen. Our writers room is already up and running and I couldn’t be more excited for what’s coming next.

Did your team have access to designs from the “Dune” movies, such as the sandworm we see in the finale?

No. But Denis was very generous. One thing we felt, and Legendary and HBO agreed on, was that we wanted to be in the universe of the movies. So with the worms, which are such old gods in Arrakis and these ancient creatures, we wanted to use the worm concept that we saw in the movies. And Denis was very supportive of that decision. But it’s not because we took his files and used them. We had to do it ourselves. We really wanted to be ambitious in the look of the show, and it just took a huge amount of effort. It’s hard for a TV budget and TV schedule, no matter how generous and how supportive the studio, to do that.

What was the most important thing for you to do thematically in the finale?

We knew we wanted to bring Valya and Tula together. They anchored the story on two separate planets for the season. But it was so important that we reunite them in an explosive way, and I knew the three-act structure in which we wanted to do it.

Did you always plan for Desmond to be Tula’s child?

Yes, absolutely.

How does Tula know where her son is and what his name is?

She knows he is on Salusa Secundus. Landing in the spaceport, she hears the whispers of her ancestors telling her that Valya is close and that happens to be where he is. I don’t think she knew when she landed in the spaceport or thought, “I’ll meet him at the spaceport.” It was a bit of a crash course. She sees Valya with him and I think she understands.

Desmond is not in the books. What did you want to achieve with that story?

It’s very powerful in the “Dune” universe when a Harkonnen and an Atreides connect, and it’s really part of the longer story we want to tell. I don’t want to talk too much. But you can see Valya saying, “This kid has so much potential. He could change worlds.” He has the charismatic potential that makes him a really strong figure. Valya wants to use it, and Tula begins to feel that nothing good will come of their shaping of his life. The question becomes: If they are not the only ones who understand that about him, who else saw it, and how and why did he become a weapon? It gives us more questions to guide us in the future.

Did you always plan on running flashbacks throughout the season?

Yes, and it is difficult with six (episodes). The prologue was a flashback and I almost wanted to come full circle. I was excited to start the finale the way the prologue started, but then add a new layer to it and continue the story so you really understood the past. It felt important to understand the circumstances of Desmond’s conception and what he was born out of, so episode 3 was a deep dive with the younger time period to cover that table so the finale would hopefully land. You should also understand that there has been a secret between the Sisterhood all along.

It is very shocking to find out that young Valya and her followers killed so many members of the Sisterhood to rise to power.

There is blood on her hands. The things Desmond said to Valya all season turn out to be very true. She came to power in a violent way. Valya would explain why it was necessary and I empathize with her decisions. The heart of the show is to discuss the lengths we would go to in the present if we truly believed we were protecting the future. I don’t think Valya killed them for pleasure. I think she felt pushed up the wall by Dorotea and her followers.

Why do you think the acolytes are so quick to follow Dorotea when she resurrects in Lila?

It’s a horrifying revelation that there’s a mass grave at the heart of the Sisterhood, and they have no context to understand it right now, other than what Dorotea tells them. You see Jen struggling a little bit (with) how to process this. I don’t think it’s all over by any means, but Dorotea picks up where she left off. And she was a firebrand. “Dune” is a really big world. It has a lot of players and there are characters that I feel like I have big plans for that just got a table set in season 1. Like all those acolytes. We focus on them for a reason, right? The journey they are on is very important to the story.

Overall, how much did you end up drawing from the books and how much did you make up?

The characters and the scenarios are in the books, so we were definitely inspired by the books and some places where we adapted and extrapolated differently, but tried to stay in the spirit of what was put in the books. A lot of the Tula and Desmond and Valya stuff nowadays is stuff we developed together with the Herbert estate. I’m really proud of the story between Valya and Tula and where it’s going. I was really touched by where we got to with them and I think there is a lot of opportunity to continue.

How was the Herbert estate involved?

They read the scripts. We could ask them questions. They could ask us questions. They were called up to what we were doing. We always appreciated their input. It was a supportive collaboration. What I loved about it was that it didn’t stop us from creating. I felt that we were able to do the work of adaptation and to translate the story into a medium in a way that we were excited to do, but always from a place of deep respect. The scariest, but also the most exciting part of the concert was getting into the “Dune” sandbox, so to speak.

Has Denis seen the show?

I don’t know. I think Denis is very focused on what he is doing for the films. But I know he has intended it and I hope to have a talk about it at some point.

You’ve worked on a lot of shows in the sci-fi and fantasy world. What do you like about this kind of storytelling?

I love the fantasy of it. I love the world building of it. I love having to think about all those details. There’s so much room for creativity and wonder and scope if you can make the human story work, which is the most important thing to me.

Before “Dune: Prophecy” you worked on last season of “Westworld”. Were there plans for more episodes if it hadn’t been cancelled?

I definitely feel that Jonathan (Nolan) and Lisa (Joy) have an end to the story that has yet to be told. The world works in mysterious ways and if one day I got to see that end I would be so excited. Working on “Westworld” was for me another formative experience and a story that I think will only become more and more understandable and present.

You also worked on “Alias,” another show with strong female leads and huge scope.

What a gift that was early in my career. I’m always grateful to have come up in the network age because you really lived in shows for a long period of time. I did three years on “Alias”. It was so much fun. I loved the story too. JJ (Abrams) had a very dynamic and creative room. It was a show that managed to do more with the small screen than had been done, and JJ really didn’t limit us.

Do you see a commonality between all the shows you’ve worked on?

Something I definitely strive for is finding a way to ground things in character so that you emotionally feel like you’ve seen something that makes sense to you on a human level, but at the same time I like to go to work and think about things that are complex and interesting. I find that working in science fiction has allowed me to not only think about people, which I absolutely love to do, but also think about some of these more abstract ideas, like what will the creation of artificial intelligence do? It has been really gratifying in many of the projects I have done.