What do you think fur whale tastes like?
Recap
Valya and Theodosia exit the palace; Vayla tells the acolyte that this is not the first time an enemy sought to remove her and failed. We move into a flashback on Lankiveil where a younger Valya brings back the fur whale meat for a family meal. At dinner, her brother Griffin (Earl Cave) reveals that he’s going to the Landsraad to make a petition for a better trade deal. When Valya learns that Vorian Atreides will be there, she insists that Griffin confront him and get him to rescind the lies he told about their family and led to their exile. Her mother (Polly Walker) is mortified at Valya’s “entitlement and greed” leading Valya to storm off. Griffin follows Vayla and tells her that he doesn’t agree with their mother; Vayla saved his life once as a child when he was about to drown by using the voice on him to get him to swim against the frozen water. He will do as Vayla recommends, believing in his sister’s heart and guidance. But Griffin returns home murdered for following her advice. Vayla is being sent away to Wallach IX to study with the Sisterhood, and is furious that her family won’t avenge her brother’s death. She tells Tula (Emma Canning) to get out of this place.
In the present the sisters on Sesula Secudus meet and ask Mother Superior how to proceed. She tells them to shore up their support among the houses to prevent further mistrust, then gets word from Mikaela about what happened to Lila and what Raquella spoke through her. She is certain that the one “born once in blood, once in spice” is Desmond Hart, and decides it’s time to return “home.” On Wallach IX, Sister Avila confronts Tula about refusing to take Lila off life support. Tula insists that she will do what needs to be done in her own time and dismisses her. In flashback, we find Tula intertwined with an Orry Atreides (Milo Callaghan), who is gathering with the whole family for their yearly traditional hunt of the bull. Tula is afraid that his family will not accept her, but he isn’t worried. Tula shows his younger family member Albert (Archie Barnes) how to create an animal lure for the bull, noting the poisonous innards that must be handled with care. Orry’s horse is fatally injured and Tula rushes to retrieve that poison in order to put down the horse more humanely.
On Wallach IX, Valya and the acolytes are getting Truthsaying lessons from Dorotea, but Valya is questioning everything, insisting truth is a tool to be used. Dorotea insists that Valya is afraid because she belongs to no one and nothing and is totally alone. Valya learns that Dorotea became like this after being sent to the Butlerians to make inroads—she returned as a “true believer” and this change has led to rumors that Raquella no longer wants her to guide the Sisterhood once she’s gone. The acolytes are taken to a cliffside and Dorotea asks them if they are willing to put their loyalty to the Sisterhood above all, even their families. Once they have, they may go inside. Otherwise they must meditate on whether they truly belong there. The acolytes slowly leave one by one and it begins to storm. Soon, Vayla is the only one left, and Dorotea tells her that they both know she’ll always only be a Harkonnnen. She leaves Vayla alone on the cliff in the rain. Mother Raquella lands, finds Valya there and invites her inside.
As the Atreides celebrate their hunt, Tula talks to Orry inside their cabin. Orry asks her to marry him, and the two sleep together. In the morning, Tula finally admits to Orry who she truly is. Orry doesn’t care that she is a Harkonnen; he wants to move beyond their families’ hatred and create a new future for themselves. Tula tells him that some things cannot be changed, and Orry realizes how quiet it is outside. Tula has murdered the entire family with her poison and kills Orry last, in tears. She sees that Albert avoided the poisoning and tells him to go. On Wallach IX, as Dorotea evangelizes to her acolytes, Raquella brings Vayla underground to see the computers and breeding index. Raquella calls Dorotea and Valya together; she wants to end their rivalry to keep the Sisterhood strong. To help them “find a way forward,” she asks them to go through the Agony to become Reverend Mothers. Valya flees the test while Dorotea undergoes it. Raquella calls Valya to her office later with news from Tula, clearly written in code. Raquella knows that Valya has unfinished business with her family and tells her to settle it now; she gives her the poison and tells her to return a Reverend Mother or not at all.
Vayla goes home to Lankiveil to congratulate her sister on avenging Griffin. The rest of the family is mortified by what they believe Valya manipulated her sister into doing. Valya uses the Voice on her mother and nearly gets her to take her own life. Her uncle Evgeny (Mark Addy) calls her a sorceress and Valya walks out into the snow, taking the poison. Tula finds her unconscious and asks her to come back; Valya hears her voice and wakes. Tula tells her that she’s accompanying her to Wallach IX, unwilling to lose her sister after Griffin, but asking for her promise that this will be a fresh start. Valya tells her that they have a new purpose. In the present, Tula gathers the acolytes to say goodbye to Lila. Sisters Emeline and Jen argue over whether this should have happened, but Avila tells them that being part of the Sisterhood means sacrifice. They say goodbye to Lila and leave Tula alone. On Salusa Secundus, Valya takes Theodosia to the Harkonnen family home to meet her nephew Harrow (Edward Davis) and uncle, who are both shocked at her presence. Tula goes underground into the Sisterhood’s computers where she is secretly holding Lila’s body, keeping her alive with spice.
Commentary
So we’ve moved from an entire episode of setup to an entire episode of flashback. Sure. Why not.
We need to go over the bananas choice to have Tula kill… all? …the Atreides? Except for one? In the book she only kills Orry, which makes sense in terms of revenge, but killing an entire family with a blood feud against your family and only keeping one (now traumatized) kid alive seems a very obvious, very bad move. Again, extremely Hollywood choice. And of course it had to take place during the Atreides family bull hunt, because what else could the Atreides family possibly be doing but the thing that killed Leto’s father. Because everything needs to be shown and, again, the family traditions have barely changed at all in ten thousand years.
There’s a lot of that going on, including this weird dramatic choice to have Valya’s brother die because she insists on his confronting Vorian Atreides, and him going along with it because… the first time she ever used the Voice was to rescue him from drowning? And that means he trusts her opinion over everyone else’s implicitly. Uh-huh.
It’s also a wild choice to have Valya talk about the schism between Vorian Atreides and Abulurd Harkonnen—the fact that their family’s exile is due to Vorian inaccurately depicting Abulurd’s actions during the Battle of Corbin as cowardly when he was working to prevent a genocide—but never confirm if it’s true within the show. (It is, by the way.) Refusing to iterate the history in these fights Valya has with her family prevents the viewer from fully comprehending her rage. It’s also difficult to believe her when the only person fully on her side is her brother Griffin… but his loyalty is entirely down to her magically saving his life (again, this is a tacky Hollywood choice) and said loyalty immediately gets him killed.
Valya’s family isn’t just dismissive of her or disappointed in her—they are actively abhorrent of her demeanor, beliefs, and emotions. And there’s nothing in these scenes to indicate that their feelings are unreasonable. We don’t know enough about the Harkonnens at this point in time to know if we should trust their vantage point, particularly when Valya’s desires, out of context, indicate nothing but blind ambition and hatred for anyone who won’t adhere to her dogma. This would be fine as a character construct if the history was rendered clearer; moral ambiguity is great in central characters, but textual and factual ambiguity are not. They are selling both Valya and Tula short in refusing to build this background more carefully.
Tula’s actions further that issue: We have no idea how she came to be with Orry, how long it’s been since Griffin’s death, or why Valya assigned her this task of revenge. We’re just dropped into this scenario with a new boyfriend and big family reunion without preface. And we need that context to help us comprehend the sacrifice Tula is making for her family and her sister in that moment, to connect with her grief. It should be grief that communicates across the episode’s timeline shifts with her grief for Lila, but we’re only getting the emotion from one side.
Which is unfortunate because if those connections had been better served, there would be more to feel at the realization that Tula is refusing to let Lila die. But one can assume that the bit they want us more focused on is the idea that if Lila survives (and she surely must, or they wouldn’t bother with all this), she will have been reborn… in spice. Right. Right?
On the positive end, getting more depth on the fight between Dorotea and Valya is one of the episode’s better written parts. And the reason is because Dorotea is so accurately rendered in her religious fervor and righteousness. What Dorotea wants on paper are good things—a Sisterhood built on humility and service to all humankind. But she’s so grotesquely smug about it. You can feel the superiority radiating off her, and the inherent cruelty that breeds deep within. Morally, Valya is not the better person here, but it’s hard not to root for her when you listen to Dorotea’s evangelism.
And now poor Valya has to do the thing she never believed she would have to do… return home for a Harkonnen reunion. Next week should be interesting for sure.
Truthsaying and Visions
- Absolutely loved the bit where Valya used the Voice on her buddies to have one slap the other, and they were both immediately like “that was so cool when can we learn it,” the most realistic young woman behavior, 5000% accurate.
- I’m really glad we don’t get more details on the bull hunt because Tula’s insistence that they’re shy creatures makes me very concerned over what the actual rite is, and I’m sure I wouldn’t like it. The bull getting spared that year was definitely the best thing to come out of that whole affair.
- The idea that the Sisterhood learns you might bring someone back from the brink of death during the Agony ceremony by letting someone they love speak to them all because Tula and Valya did it first… that’s gorgeous.
Next week: presumably we’ll be back in the present!
First off, I’m really enjoying this. But. They keep mentioning stuff without… Like, if one doesn’t know what happened at the Battle of Corin, how does Vayla’s speech hit? Especially if all one knows of the Atriedes is from the movies. Yeah, I feel like you miss out a lot by not having some additional context.
The acting and character focus carries this episode through though, and I don’t think the full context is really needed for the story they’re telling and where the focus is. But it keeps happening and makes me wish we had gotten a School trilogy show. Like I’m enjoying this, but it keeps pointing off screen to a twisted tale that’s right over there. And I want it too.
I feel like the creators of this show are trying to thread a needle; they want to create new Dune content, but they have to have approval from the Herbert estate, which means including the lore Brian and KJA came up with. Problem is, most fans hate what their books, so the showrunners have to play around appeasing both parties, which results in this sorta-half adaptation.
Like, you might think it’s kinda weird that they just cut to Griffin Harkonnen being dead with no explanation of how, until you learn that in the book he gets killed on Arrakis by a pair of bio-mechanical twins who are the siblings of Vorian Atreides created by his Thinking Machine father……… Yeah. I don’t blame the showrunners for skipping that part.
I’ve enjoyed many of the BH and KJA books. I’m behind a couple, but the Jihad and School trilogies I remember fondly.
On Griffin, I don’t think we needed any of that. He died, and everyone thinks Vor did it. We don’t need to go down the Agamemnon rabbit hole at all. This story is so much about the sisters, so it might have helped if the opening of the first episode had given a little time to what affected them too. It touched on the Jihad, but we could have used a little on the Battle of Corrin. Abulurd’s actions. Vor’s accusation. What they lost. All leading to her being forced to the Sisterhood.
If most fans hate their books, who keeps buying them?
I’ve no idea how the majority/minority/plurality of Dune fans breaks down, but I think it’s definitely fair to say that Dune fans are polarized by them.
I said after the first episode that I was hoping this show would give me someone to root for soon, but this episode makes it clear, if it wasn’t already, that this isn’t going to be that kind of show, and I already think the story would probably have worked better if it played out in chronological order. However, it’s all very well performed. The young actors playing Valya and Tula were terrific, and it’s not like they didn’t have a lot to live up to, given who’s playing the older versions of the characters.
Emmet Asher-Perren, I’d assume that Fur whale tastes pretty darned hairy (Give or take a bit of blubber).
On an equally-serious note, ‘Earl Cave’ sounds so much like a title from the actual peerage that I had to resist the impulse to look it up (There was – and there may still be, for all I know – an ‘Earl of Stair’ at one point).
Thoughts:-
– As somebody who doesn’t know anything about the books (Beyond the ‘Borgias but Science Fiction’ basics) I didn’t find it at all confusing when the root of the Atreides/Harkonnen feud was mentioned at that family meal: it’s clearly a hot-button issue, but it’s equally-clearly History and not Current Events to everyone except Valya, right up unto her brother honours his Life Debt and the Vicious Cycle really gets rolling,
Honestly, I think that leaving it ambiguous as to whether the Atreides or the Harkonnen were originally in the right is the better choice, because how many Blood Feuds are ultimately based on a clear and unambiguous understanding of historical truths?
How many have a clear-cut ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ side?
– One point that I feel you should have noted is that while we’re told that Vorian Atreides killed Griffins Harkonnen, we never actually see whether this is what actually happened: we receive this as a report from the seethingly-angry Valya (Never the most objective opinion where the Atreides are concerned) and not as an objective truth.
It’s possible Griffith was murdered by the Atreides, but it’s equally possible that he was assassinated by a third party using the Harkonnen/Atreides grudge to cover their tracks (and possibly strike two rivals with one blow).
That this would make Tula’s mass murder of at least one branch of the Atreides (Including a man for whom she seems to have had at least some genuine feeling) all the more tragic makes it a plausible option.
– I’m not going to lie, one was surprised & deighted to see Mr Mark Addy in the cast list for this episode, just plain delighted to recognise that the Atreides who lived was played by the same young fellow who made Oscar Tully ‘Kingfish’ on HOUSE OF THE DRAGON (Tula may live to regret that act of charity if the littlest Atreides has big brass ones quite so hefty), but outright ecstatic to see POLLY WALKER as the mother of our Harkonnen leading ladies.
No, really, I actually noted down POLLY WALKER! (All Caps) even in my own notebook: I’m not going to lie, I made one or two jokes about Valya getting her … everything … from Great Granny Atia when it turned out her parents were quite, quite sensible about this whole ‘vendetta’ business and their eldest daughter was not.
– Also, Holy Moley Tula really vaulted from ‘supporting player’ to ‘Star’ with this episode: Valya is even more entertainingly wicked than ever after episode three (I’m deeply sad that they didn’t use prosthetics to give Ms. Emily Mortimer that snaggled front tooth the actress cast as the younger Valya has, because it suits the character perfectly: honestly, Mortimer is good but the younger Valya is so much more vivid), but Tula is just scary and heartbreaking and practically perfect in every way.
– Also, not going to lie, the design for that bull was just perfect: pure aurochs with just a bit of something alien and virile as a father of ten with the next little one on the way.
– Also, that poor poor horse!
– Really liked the way that we only get confirmation that, yes, little Tula has infiltrated an Atreides gathering AND she knows her poisons when the Hunting Party starts chanting their family name: oof, that one hit me in the belly.
– While the scene where Valya gets one of her pals to slap the other was obviously Peak Hilarity, the bit where she can face anything except more Family Drama and the bit where holdouts finally proclaim “The Sisterhood is everything” just as the rain comes on also deserve recognition as quite, quite funny (Oh, also the bit where the would-be Lord High Inquisitor is just hilariously petty).
– One last note: it was interesting to see Lord Harkonnen refer to the Reverend Mother as “Aunt Valya” – is he a clone or the child of a younger full sibling to the Harkonnen sisters or is he just a much younger cousin trying to be familial?
In any case this was the best episode of the show so far: hopefully this steady improvement from a shaky first episode will continue into episode four et al!
I am now thinking that Desmond Hart is Vorian…
“What do you think fur whale tastes like?”
One of the weird things for me while watching the episode was realizing that the phrase “whale fur” was more interesting than the visual of furry whales actually was.
Which is one of the big problems prequels have, one that Prophecy keeps running into headlong: lots of stuff in SF/F is more interesting when it’s simply there and the audience is left to imagine what it is/how it came to be, and explaining it demystifies it, especially when the explanation fails to live up to one’s own imagination.
I didn’t know whale fur was like that until I saw those furry carcasses on the shore being flensed, and all I could think was, “Oh my gods, that is so stupid.”
The Voice in Prophecy is a more significant example of this. One might’ve imagined from simply reading Dune that The Voice was a technique developed over generations by a patient Sisterhood studying and applying psychology, sociology, psychoacoustics, etc. and refining through practice. But no. Apparently it’s simply One Weird Trick a single Very Special Person stumbled into–perhaps she was born with it (maybe it’s Maybelline)–and started teaching to her best friends because it’s just a thing that works Because Reasons.
It was better when it was in my head.
I didn’t read the prequels, but there looks as if there is a book that deals with the war against the machines. Has anyone explained why we jumped into the Sisterhood story without first understanding the war that these two families participated in? I am missing a sense of moral ambiguity. Tula is the closest that we get. Her sister is so driven and no one but Tula is allowed to question her actions. And Tula doesn’t really stand up to her big sister. I am still watching, but the world and relationships feel too much like every other family dynastic drama from the past few years.