Dune: Prophecy Season 1, Episode 1: Recap, review and spoilers

Ever since Game of Thrones ended in 2019 – and what an awful little ending it was – there has been a seemingly never-ending quest to find the “next Game of Thrones.” What that means is two-fold: a series that captivates Game of Thrones‘s elaborate, fantasy world-building and the drama of political succession, and a show that lands HBO’s prime Sunday night spot that will have everyone talking the morning after.

Dune: Prophecy feels more like that than any other show right now.

Loosely based on the 2012 novel Sisterhood of Dune, Prophecy hair GoT embellishments: political maneuvering among the universe’s rich families, backstabbing and surprise deaths, conniving villains and sweaty sex scenes. The struggle for power in the Duniverse is as difficult and deadly as it is in Westeros. And conveniently, it airs Sunday night on HBO.

But what has won me over Prophecy is that while it’s officially all of the aforementioned things, it’s mainly gossipy, ambitious space divas ambitiously diving into space. Granted, Prophecy is another chapter of Hollywood’s infatuation with IP, but it’s also spawned a lavish little soap opera in which Emily Watson is the superpowered head of an all-female finishing school for young intergalactic magicians.

Prophecy is about how dangerous women in STEM—that is, witchcraft, transmutation, eugenics, and motherhood—can be.

Dune: Prophecy is about who becomes powerful

Prophecy takes place at the very beginning – 10,148 years before Paul Atreides is born.

Played by Timothée Chalamet in Denis Villeneuve’s two Dune movie, Paul Atreides is the anchor for all casual fans. Both Dune film chronicles his journey – fleeing home after an assault nearly wipes out his entire family and those loyal to the Atreides clan, then becoming a refugee on Arrakis (aka the desert planet known as Dune), where he assimilates into Fremen, an indigenous people oppressed by the same empire that slaughtered his loved ones. Paul is, according to a premonition from a sisterhood of precognitive, super-powered women known as the Bene Gesserit, a messiah who will rule the universe.

Zooming in on 10,000 years BP (before Paul), Prophecy aims, as the title suggests, at the formation of the all-important Bene Gesserit revelation and the Bene Gesserit themselves.

How did these space divas become so powerful? Who are they? What do they believe in? What is their purpose? Are they always a little mean?

Their raison d’être, like so many other dubious organizations, is based somewhat on eugenics. Oh no. Mother Raquella (Cathy Tyson), their founder, has kept a vast archive of DNA from the most powerful families in the universe. Her belief is that humans are fallible, weak creatures who will always care about their own destruction. By matching families based on this archive, Raquella believes she and her sisters can breed leaders they can control and influence – the endpoint being Paul Atreides.

To ensure even more influence over humans and their future, Raquella has created a school for future space witches on the desolate planet called Wallach IX, where sorceresses in training learn powers such as being able to bell when someone is lying or blood magic that tells the truth. Raquella calls proteges truth tellers, and these skills make them very valuable. Soon every ruling family in the universe will have a truth teller by their side.

What these aristocrats don’t know is that while their truth-telling seems to integrate into their houses and customs, their actual loyalty is to the Bene Gesserit sisterhood.

There is also some political commentary here about who is allowed to rule the Great Houses of Dune, what roles women are restricted to, and how the Bene Gesserit turn the social limitations and undervaluing of women to their advantage.

Prophecy begins with Raquella’s death, where she finds a faction of her acolytes who think the eugenics thing is a little gross, while her most devoted follower, the ruthless Valya Harkonnen (played by Jessica Barden in her youth, but mainly by Emily), believes , that it actually prevails. But even though we know that Valya and her sisters succeeded in bending the future to bring us Paul, a lot can happen in 10,000 years.

Dune: Prophecy is about who really holds the power in the Duniverse

Prophecy‘s greatest achievement is how it manages to cut through the density of the Dune universe. Taking all the complexities of Frank Herbert’s vast world and making it accessible is no easy task. But Prophecy does so, primarily, by framing this vast community and all the relationships within as gossip. That makes Valya and her sisters the gossip girls of the universe.

If you wanted to make a comparison between this HBO fantasy show about politics, power and a throne and HBO’s previous, hugely popular fantasy show about politics, power and a throne, Prophecy is like if Game of Thrones was told through the eyes of Varys, Littlefinger or Olenna Tyrell – players without explicit power but who know how the game is played.

Prophecy is about how whispers can affect the world and about who powerful people listen to. And that the politics of Dune – and politics in general – can be much more engrossing when you realize that so much of it is about who’s talking about whom.

Heavy spoilers for the first episode of Dune: Prophecy follow.

Whether it’s half-princes with no right to the throne or the mess of House Corrino – the rulers of the empire – with their shaky grip on the production of spice (the most valuable resource in the Duniverse), every episode boils down to Valya and her girls talking about everyone else and how they intend to manipulate them.

At one point in the premiere, Valya and her sister Tula (Olivia Williams) have a private bitch session. Like evil sorority sisters, they coldly go up and down their list of acolytes, pointing out their strengths and flaws, usefulness and uselessness. Brows furrow, lips tighten and side eyes flick – delicious. Valya and Tula must figure out which sister to match with Ynez Corrino (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina), the princess they want to sway to the Bene Gesserit. In the process, they are more than happy to list all the hopefuls who will not make the cut.

Watson infuses Valya with the warmth of gazpacho and the charm of a cursed porcelain doll. Valya is adamant about Raquella’s mission and has the pieces in place to keep the whole system running. Thanks to her loyal truth teller Kasha (Jihae), she has a hold on House Corrino and has just signed a deal to bring Ynez to her school. She has also used her connections to broker a marriage between Ynez and a boy – a literal 9-year-old – from House Richese, a powerful family that promises Corrino the artillery they need to keep spice production intact. The Bene Gesserit family no doubt expects the future heir to be favorably malleable.

But Valya’s plan seems to go up in smoke with the arrival of Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel), a Corrino loyalist and survivor of what is believed to be a Fremen attack on Arrakis.

As Hart tells Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong), the reports from the region are not the whole truth. Since there aren’t many survivors like Hart, Corrino has to rely on second-hand stories that keep the victims on the Fremen. Hart tells the Emperor that no one—including Corrino’s loyal truth-teller Kasha, Valya, and their sisters—can be trusted. As Corrino decides whether to weigh Hart’s word against the loyalty Kasha and the Bene Gesserit have pledged to him, someone—the episode doesn’t tell us who—gives Corrino surveillance footage of Hart on Arrakis showing him surviving the attack, but also , and more excitingly, being swallowed by a sandworm. The episode ends with Hart murdering 9-year-old Pruwet Richese (Charlie Hodson-Prior) by burning him with mind powers. He also apparently burns Kasha to death.

Hart’s arrival and pyrokinesis appear to be what Raquella refers to (earlier in the episode) as Tiran-Arafel, a “holy judgment” that will destroy the sisterhood. However, at this point it is unclear if Hart represents the big bad Bene Gesserit destroyer that Raquella had visions of, or may be connected to the Bene Gesserit’s other enemies. As my colleague Patrick Reis explained when Dune: Second part was released, the Bene Gesserit have counterparts known as the Bene Tleilax, a patriarchal set of genetic splicers and cloners who are also itching to control the universe. It is not too far-fetched to think that they can also exist in this universe.

No doubt that for Valya and her sisterhood to thrive, Hart must be crushed. He’s clearly a threat. The closer he gets to Javicco, the worse things look for our space witches. We just need a little more time, some gossip, and maybe a few more episodes to find out if he’s the big bad Raquella dreamed of, or just another piece of the puzzle that leads us to it.