'Dune: Prophecy' Episode 1 Deep-ish Dive | House of R
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This season on Naughty Yotta Island. When we were new, they spoiled me. They even gave me a phone. But then, it's like I didn't exist.

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in store and online. Human beings rely on lies to survive. We lie to our enemies. We lie to our friends. We lie to ourselves. Lying is among the most sophisticated tasks a brain can perform.

Welcome back to House of R. And I don't know about you, but I personally believe that podcasting is among the most sophisticated tasks a brain can perform. I'm Joya Robinson. We'll see if my brain is up to the task today. Joining me, how's your brain doing? It's Mallory Rubin. Jo, have we discussed the untapped value of whale seed, its medicinal benefits? Um...

Love to know that House Harkonnen is in the whale seed business. Genuinely a delight. And I hope it's a strong plot point for the rest of this season. We're here today to talk to you about Dune Prophecy. The first episode has dropped on HBO and Max and other places. It is a six-episode season, and our current plan...

Our current plan, plan's changed, but our current plan is we'll be here week to week covering that show with you. Yes. Usually, we are known for doing a deep dive. Would we call this a deep dive today? Not really. Here's the deal. With Dune Prophecy, it is a very, as you who are eagerly awaiting the Hall of Fame episode know, Dune is a mythologically dense-

She announced it. A mythologically dense property. Mm-hmm.

So today on the pod, we're doing some like table setting, some like world building check-in, some cast of characters check-in. We didn't have time to do a primer. So this is sort of like a primer first episode check-in combo. And then we will probably be doing more traditional deep dives in the weeks going forward. Who are we spending our time with this season? Yeah. What are they wearing out to the club? Who are they fucking? What are they huffing? You know, that's a lot of questions. I know. Same. Same.

Before we get into all of those questions, comments, concerns, facts, and figures, we have some programming reminders for you. And this is a very important one. I am here to tell you that we are mere days away from

From it being bang on thighs o'clock here at the house of our... Thighs o'clock, baby! It is Gladiator 2 week, which means you will get our Gladiator 2 deep dive, whatever that looks like, on Friday. I can't wait to find out. We've already had a request to talk about normal people, and Mel and I are like, sure. They're in a dream. Happy to do so. Where I first met Paul Meskel's thighs? Same. In his rugby shorts? Sure, happy to do that. Same. Okay.

And then also listen, the midnight boys pew pew also have their gladiator to instant reactions. Plus a leading men draft. I'm very excited to check in on that one. Great idea. Uh, the mint edition crew is continuing their coverage of arcane season two. I know that I know that the like arcane lore is dense and chewy and people are really going to want to check in on all of that.

We'll be back next week, of course, with Dune Prophecy Episode 2. Yes. As well as, in theory, a winter. Yeah.

meter. That's right. A seasonal tradition, a treat. What's hype? What do we mean by winter? Is this the next week Thanksgiving? Yeah, it is. And it feels like the perfect time to look ahead to Craven the Hunter. Doesn't it? It does. Um, I'm excited. Okay. So that's, that's a little, that's a little holiday Thanksgiving treat for you. We'll also have our ringer verse, uh, November recommendations happening. Um,

The Midnight Boys have something that is labeled the Midnight Grievances. And I always love it when they air their grievances over the Midnight Boys. So that's what's on the slate. Yes. Of the Ringiverse and House of R. Mallory Rubin, that is a lot of content. Yes. How can folks keep track of all of that? Thanks for asking. You're welcome. Here's what I would recommend. What would you do?

Follow the pods. Brilliant. Follow House of R and follow the ringer verse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Guess what? You can watch full video episodes of House of R and the Midnight Boys on Spotify. You can also watch full video episodes on the newish ringer verse YouTube channel. So subscribe there as well. And then follow the ringer verse on the social media platform of your choosing. The ringer verse is everywhere.

pick where you want to follow the ringer verse. Also, Hobbs and dragons and email.com is an email address. You're constantly monitoring. So please send your question, comments or concerns, or listen, I got a lot of, uh, these are, this is how the suits work on silo. You dummy emails from people who checked out the podcast that I did with Rob Ahoni last week on silo, uh, season two, episode one. Now I know, I know a lot about the silo suits now. Thank you all so much. Um,

Mal, we may or may not be back with some more silo coverage in the new year, but I am so delighted to have you. And thank you so much, Gerard Mahoney, for filling in last week. Legend I can't always. Thrilled to have you by my side as we explore the sisterhood of Dune. Sisterhood above all. Prophecy. Sisterhood above all in such close proximity to a throat slitting is one of my favorite moments of this episode.

Okay, so as we mentioned, this is a six-episode series. It was originally called Dune the Sisterhood. It had a long, long, complicated and battled road to finally debuting on HBO this week. The showrunner, the remaining showrunner on this show, is Alison Schapker, who you may know from her work on Alias, Fringe, or Westworld Season 4,

Oh no. Okay. The show draws on, but is set after the Great Schools of Dune novel trilogy by Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert's kiddo, and Kevin J. Anderson. The novels in question are Sisterhood of Dune, Mentats of Dune, and Navigators of Dune. This is a loose adaptation, drawing some characters from those books,

condensing timelines, all that sort of stuff like that. So I don't feel like you need to have read these books in order to understand what is going on here, though we will be dipping into some book lore here or there. In our notes today, Mallory, I've written the BBYs are thus, and we had somebody email us a while ago when I say, what do you mean by BBY? That is, of course, a Star Wars time designation, year designation before the Battle of Yavin, but

Mallory loves a timeline. So I just like to call them the BBYs no matter where we are. So what are the BBYs that we're dealing with on this particular show, Mallory?

Thanks for asking. In a very House of the Dragon season one, episode one moment, we had our opening prologue and then boom, here are some dates to connect this to the character in the story you already know. Correct. Instead of the dates connecting House of the Dragon to Daenerys Targaryen, these dates connected Dune Prophecy to Paul Atreides. We got 116 years after

after the end of the great machine wars, a lot of thinking machine action here in this premiere. And then this one's easy to remember, 10,148 years before the birth of Paul Atreides. Let's just agree right now in a contract with each other and all of the bad babies that we will be saying 10,000 and that will be fine.

Approximately 10,000 years. 10,000-ish. Here's my question. Yeah. Given that they're like condensing and fudging timelines, like why do you think they laid it on 10,148?

I actually like and admire that. Be a stickler for the actual timeline for those who know or want to know and care, and then just accept and take comfort in the fact that everybody else will say, all right, 10,000 years, that's a really long time ago. Is it perhaps so long ago that it defies belief that everything would look exactly the same?

That the shields, for example, would be unchanged 10,000 years later. That the outfits would be very similar. Face nets are still in style. I do like to think that the face net is eternal. That one I have no problem with. And I love that in every Dune tale we can count on one of our female characters coming to us from behind netting and or fencing. Would you? Yeah. Yeah.

Feel the same about face nets. If I fed you a chunk of pomegranate through a face net opening. Only one way to find out. My grubby little thingy. Only one way to find out. You're in LA again in a couple weeks. I say we make this an experiential podcast and give it a go. You know, I actually have been thinking recently that I'd like to try a pomegranate, like a whole pomegranate again. It's been a while since I've given that a go. Yeah.

Okay, I'll bring the pomegranates, you bring the face nets. Okay. And I will feed you. Does it have to be like a dune appropriate face net or can I just bring like a catcher's mask? No catcher's mask. Then we can go play an intramural softball game.

That sounds like... Actually, what about like a ringer versus wiffle ball game? That would be fun. That would be fun. Actually, I'd be game for that. But no, not a catcher's mask. Steve, get on it! Not a catcher's mask. The orifices are too wide on a catcher's mask. I need a tighter weave for Mac's uncomfortability as we shove the pomegranate seeds past the opening. You know? Folks, that's the first utterance of the word orifice, but not the last today. Shut up.

Okay, was that the opening snapshot? No, this is the opening snapshot. Let's go to the opening snapshot. It's Space Witch Stuff Go with Season 1, Episode 1, The Hidden Hand. Directed by Anna Forster, written by Diane Adamu-John, who was the original co-showrunner and stepped down in 2022, but is still posting about the show on social, so it's not like bridges were...

burnt to cinders but that is who wrote this episode here's the first and most important question which maybe we should have gotten to before we said things like whale seed and orifice but we didn't we also didn't issue our spoiler warning we'll be talking about whale seed today hi ruben

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Spoilers for season one of Doom Prophecy. What from the books is on the table here today?

Anything and everything? I feel like anything from the canon could in theory come up, but we'll use our discretion. This is a fairly loose adaptation. So there's characters like Raquel, the mother superior who dies in the beginning is taken from the books, but most of the other characters are sort of show invented. So there's not like a ton of one-to-ones, but there's like context we can extrapolate, but not a ton of like one-to-one plot beat spoilers that we can extract from the books. So,

Yes, the books are game. We won't be necessarily going to them constantly. And I do not have any major twist and turn spoilers for you that come from the books because it's sort of a different story they're telling. Thanks for reminding me about the spoiler warning. What did you like this show, Mallory Rubin?

Did any performances stand out? Did you have any thoughts on the set deck, the visual effects, anything else? What do you think? Yeah, we both wrote down Terminator? Like in our notes in terms of the just opening visual for the prologue, which I...

I think establishing the thinking machines as a presence that's looming over this part of the timeline made a lot of sense. I mean, when you read Dune, the thinking machines are a huge part of the early chapters in terms of just like cementing where the characters came from, how this world and this like order that drives the world came into place. I did find that to be a sort of disorienting visual opening note and then paired with the very quick mentions of

Atreides, Harkonnen. It was a fascinating mix of trying to give us something, I think, deliberately that felt distinct and new and also orient us in those familiar Dune keywords. Overall, I thought the premiere was...

Okay. I thought the premiere was good, but definitely not great. I'm intrigued and excited to see more, and I am glad to be in the Dune sandbox and to be expanding the world and the timeline on the screen because obviously the text, as you noted, is vast now in terms of how many different eras various spinoff trilogies or novels cover. And so it's fun to dabble in a different stretch of the story

I think that thematically, like the thrust of this series, at least what we understand the thrust of the series to be based on one episode.

Prophecy. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Dunes. Prophecies. Dunes. Prophecies about dunes. Bringing about the thing that you are maybe seeking to avoid, et cetera. That's stuff that we love. So I am just genuinely very interested to see what the story does with that and to explore these themes. Like, what do you make of a character like Valia who talks about unity but is...

so quick to thwart anybody who challenges her. It's unity only by her terms and her definition, et cetera. Thematically, I'm incredibly intrigued by the opening note of the story. It felt a little bit clunky to me in terms of how those themes were unfurled for us. And often that would be just a character

actually just directly saying out loud the thing that we should maybe be soaking up or absorbing through subtext and inference. I think also just, you know, it's a lot of new characters who

feel familiar and fit some sort of dune archetype, but then are deliberately a degree removed. And so I think there's an acclimbation period. I'm really eager to... I haven't watched any beyond the first, so I'm eager to see if even as soon as the second episode, I sink into the rhythm of this particular slice of the world and these particular character dynamics a little bit more. Broadly though, the idea of focusing on the Bene Gesserit and...

on the palace intrigue. We talked about this a lot when we were covering the Villeneuve films, which we adore. Love. Love. Think are masterpieces, genuine masterpieces, both part one and part two. But we noted in both our part one and part two pod that the one thing that's missing a little bit from them that we love from the text is the palace intrigue. And so centering a series, a prestige series around the palace intrigue specifically is very compelling to me. So I would say the...

moderate success as an opening episode, but in terms of just the premise and the proposition of the series, I remain a captive audience. How about you? Yeah, I feel similarly. I feel quite mixed on it. There are some things... I think a really good sort of visual encapsulation of my mixed feelings are there are times when this looks like the most expensive television show that's ever existed, and there are times when it looks like it belongs on SyFy in like

2003. You know what I mean? Like, especially like much great television. Yeah.

That I loved. I'm not knocking sci-fi shows, but I'm just saying it's a very different visual palette. Especially when they go to the club and some of the costuming around that and the set deck around that just looked like a different show to me entirely. So there are times when I feel like, yes, I can see how this world is also... You were looking at something other than Nez grabbing Kieran's boner as they...

You had time for anything else in that sequence? Wow. I watched this episode a few times. So eventually I was able to un-blue my eyes. When we returned to the text on second viewing. I was able to let my eyes wander elsewhere. They really zoomed in on that. They really did. They really did. So, yeah, mixed. Quite mixed, I think, visually. But again, there's like some parts of this that are quite sumptuous.

And there's some performances they find quite compelling and some performances that are like kind of jangling out of tune for me. Like I am willing to stay tuned and see how it works. But so far, Travis Fimmel, uh, who, you know, a lot of people love from Vikings, et cetera, like as Desmond Hart, I understand what he's going for, which is absolute maniac. Yeah. Um,

It's not fully landing for me yet, but it's early doors. And then I have another note that I'm going to save for like this very next section we're about to do about sort of its success as a pilot for a TV show versus like a continuation of an IP that we're already familiar with.

A thing that I am very, very excited about, a piece of casting that I'm very excited about and a promise that I'm very excited about is Jessica Barton as young Valia. Jessica Barton, I know from, best from the TV series End of the Fucking World, which I think she's incredible in. And I've seen her pop up in a bunch of other stuff and she does a really good, like,

slightly unhinged and I that's like the energy she brings to young Val yeah yeah and um you know seeing that evolve into the restraint of Emily Watson another performer who I really love like I'm interested in connecting those dots between those two versions of the same woman um yeah

And I love Olivia Williams in general. You know, I thought she has, as Kasha was like very, very compelling to me. Yeah. Rust and crispy pieces. Tough way to go. But there's promises of flashbacks in this. So like, I'm hopeful that that's not the last we see of her. And then it's, I guess it's Mark strong season, you know, both on the penguin and here, like he's just taking the Zaslav bucks left and right. Um,

This next point I want to embed into this next section I have for you, which is like you already called out the sort of approximately 10,000 years before the birth of Paul Atreides and how much that reminded both of us about the before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen opening, how could it not, of House of the Dragon. How many thrones, comps,

Can you count aside from the fact that Mark Addy, who Bobby B himself is in the trailer. So he will be in this show. He just wasn't in this episode. And Jodi May, Maggie the Frog herself, who plays the Empress Natalia. What was making you think about Thrones when you were watching the show? Because it feels clear to me that.

Unlike the... The Penguin wasn't going for this, but it really feels like this show is sort of swinging for the throne fences in a few different ways. Yeah, for sure. So, a number of things. I have... I think that the Constantine, Jon Snow comp seems to be sweeping the internet. I will say I'm slightly... I mean, obviously, yes, in terms of the, like...

illegitimate child of the Lord. They have just such a different energy to me. It's the curls. It is the mop of curls, for sure. Is it that Jon Snow gave off the most I'm a virgin energy and Constantine definitely lost? It literally is that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like...

Yes. I'm sorry, but there's no world where we will ever be getting a scene where Constantine scrubbing a table at Castle Black describes Roz's perfect breasts to Samuel Tarly. That's not happening. He did wear a vest over a bare chest

to the nightclub division immediately hit the pipe and then probably fucked the entire room. Also, he played his musical instrument at the engagement ceremony. He's not shy. He's not reserved. He knows where to put it. He knows where to put it. He knows where to put it. So, I didn't know where to put it.

Great stuff. In general, obviously, this is more House of the Dragon, again, than Thrones, but the prequel nature. And then inside of it, this is a little bit of a distinction in terms of how House of the Dragon Season 1 versus Dune Prophecy are structured. But you mentioned the flashbacks. I guess there's a version of the series, though probably not in a six-episode season, where we just got all of the flashback stuff in an episode or two and then moved to the 30-year-later timeline. I am...

without the clarity of how the full season goes, very glad that's not what happened. I think dotting in the flashbacks sporadically throughout these six episodes will allow us to root ourselves in the timeline in which the bulk of the story is taking place. So that feels right. I already mentioned the palace intrigue. Obviously, that's just a very Thronesian approach for examining who has their hand on or near the lever of power. What do people do to try to

acquire that control and then hold on to it. Has anyone actually said when you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die? There is no in between? Not yet, but if they did, I wouldn't be surprised, right? When you play the game of the Golden Lion Throne. Yeah. We get so many shots of the throne. Oh.

Oh my God, quite a few. Prophecy, of course, and I think in a number of different ways, and we'll get into that a little bit more as we go, and obviously the series is called Dune Prophecy. We'll be talking about these prophecies throughout the season, certainly, and we talked a lot about prophecy when we covered the Dune films, and we'll talk about prophecy quite a bit one day in the future at an undetermined time when we do our Hall of Fame eventually, but... And our multi-part prophecy... Our multi-part prophecy course, all of which is definitely coming in the future. Yeah, absolutely. You know, how could you not...

Hold your breath and stay alive. Just don't hold your breath. Breathe freely and stay alive. How can we not think about a character like Rhaenyra when we're seeing just through one episode so far this aspect of I have been chosen. I have been ordained, right? The idea of prophecy gives me the right to make decisions that I believe.

in. How can we not think of a character like Cersei, not only because Mags is here, Maggie the Frog is here, but that idea of self-fulfilling prophecy throws us all over. And then we'll talk about this relationship in more detail later, and I think it's

clearly different, so I don't want to imply it's a one-to-one, but I did get some Cersei Robert vibes from the Empress and the Emperor in terms of like one of them seems a little bit more into what could have been maybe in terms of a true love emotional attachment, and one of them is not in that place, and then...

Mallory, if you ever wearily turn to me and say we remember things differently, I will cry for a week. And then the hand just slowly, slowly moves away. True scenes from marriage stuff. But yeah, this idea of like a political union that cemented stability in the realm and how that can simultaneously be an important thing for the realm. The realm. I'm sorry, I just have to have

to go into little finger mode anytime I say the realm, but also have a real bearing on the people who are inside of that marriage and how the people who are in that marriage, of course, see it differently and understand it differently than the people who only look at it from the outside. So the Thrones was inescapable. It was everywhere. What did I miss? What about a religious fanatic who burns people? Great one.

I think this idea of like dueling ideologies, you know, if Desmond Hart wants to fuck someone on a map table, we are open to this possibility. It just always seems so painful to me. I can like feel the spine bruises. Just clattering to the floor. Here's the structural thing.

issue that i have with the show and how it pertains to something like the game of thrones pilot which is held up as a as a really good example of the genre which is this is something you and i have talked about this is something that i got from um friend of the pod brian cogman talking about how they decide to structure the pilot of game of thrones and how the book game of thrones opens which is this is as well after the cold open this um

This is a story of an old friend coming to his old friend's house for dinner. We've talked about that phrase a lot. And so this idea of we're meeting these people on such a human level and you have to keep it really simple and human at first as you introduce all the Starks and like, here's Sansa and she has a crush on the Prince and here's the boys and they're getting a shave, you know, and here's Bran and he's running around and like all this sort of stuff like that, you know, and like Tyrion's in the brothel and like, what are we doing in the opening scene?

moments of Game of Thrones pilot. Are we giving thousands of years of historical context or laboriously telling you exposition after exposition after exposition? No, we are not. We are introducing you on a character human level to this world. And this episode brings

broadly failed to do that for me. It ends similarly. It ends with a shocking death or shocking harm to a young boy. Bran out the window and this kid getting crispy fried, like similar sort of like, what won't they do on this show, you know, sort of moment. So I understand that, but it really failed in that sort of like

inviting you into the hearth of this world. Yeah. And holding your hand and saying like, don't worry, don't worry about the white. We'll talk about it later. It's fine. Like, you know, Ben, Ben will mention it, but like, don't worry too much about it, you know? And like,

This, we are asked to hold a lot of information and a lot of mythology. There is a presumption going into this that didn't exist for Thrones of, you've probably seen Dune. You've probably seen the movie Dune. You know what Shia LaBeouf is. You've probably seen it. But I still think on a fundamental TV level,

to get us to care about they do it a little bit with the young acolyte women that we meet you know we meet we meet them sort of like gossiping in a library and stuff like that like

But for characters, especially characters like Valia and Tula, who are like these like sort of severe women. Yeah. Like I need to understand them on a human level before I understand them on an institutional level. So. Yeah. Again, with the younger generation over the palace as well, I think there's like slightly more success, but I still think that like.

This is a fundamental... This is a dazzling show. It has a lot on its mind, which, as you pointed out, it is sort of just overtly saying. But on a human... I'm compelled by the human drama here. Yeah. I'm struggling a bit to find it. So the heart of the show, you know? Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I really agree. I think...

That was on my mind a lot with Valia, who, you know, again, we'll talk about later, but it kept striking me throughout the episode, and I like thinking about this now through that Thrones comp you made with the pilot, the number of times that Valia will invoke Raquel, and Raquel not just choosing her, but specifically that this was what Raquel wanted. This was what she believed. And I'm sort of like, but I don't know her.

Yeah. And I don't know what she meant to you other than this idea of found family and escape from a family that you are ashamed of. And we have little kernels, you know, the refusal to give the Harkonnens a truth sayer on their fourth ask. Stop fucking asking. The venom in her voice when she denied them yet again was notable. But, you know, when Robert arrives at Winterfell,

And despite Cersei reminding him that they have been on the road for a month,

insists that he and Ned go down to the crypt immediately so that he can visit Lyanna. It will be in the real-time stretch of watching Thrones together nearly a decade before we have all the clarity that we need about the history with Lyanna and Rhaegar and Robert and Ned. But we understand everything that's important about the ghosts of the past that drive those characters and the history that cements their bond. Right.

or the rift in certain cases. So that's just absent here so far. And it doesn't mean that it can't be established in subsequent episodes, but it definitely made it harder to feel, um,

a deeper sense of understanding of what is motivating the characters, but beyond what is on the surface level, which is like some sort of quest for power. And we do have, you know, again, like little nuggets that point us toward other things. And maybe the fact that we can't understand for a character like Valia, oh, is there any sort of justification is part of the point, right? Because it is just for her another shield or sword that she can use to, uh, uh,

push her own agenda forward. That's entirely possible. But when it's propped up throughout the episode as, well, this is the thing that I'm telling other people or that's driving me, we don't have a touchpoint for that really resonating. I think the best example of how clumsily this is done in this episode, and again, there are things I really did like about this episode, but is the rolling out of the four acolytes via, like...

let's go through them like Pokemon cards. We have the visuals on the little like handheld device. We're talking about this acolyte and here's a two sentence recap of like her characteristics or there are this, that, and the other thing. And like, there's versions of that in Thrones where like talking about the imp or this, that, or the other things, like the things that people say about other characters, the hound, et cetera. But like you have moments in the Thrones pilot, like,

you know, Catlin and Maester Luwin talking about like getting extra candles for Tyrion because he likes to read. You know what I mean? It's not like, here's Tyrion. He likes to read. That's one way you could do it. Or we got to make sure we have extra candles for this guy because he loves, you know, it's just a different way into the same information. So, yes. All right. Well, let's go through sort of what I'm, this section I'm calling what's most important to know. Okay. Okay.

So as you noted, we both wrote Terminator in our notes about these. I wrote, what in the Terminator was that opening battle? AKA beginner's guide to the Butlerian Jihad. The Butlerian Jihad is what this sort of

uprising of humans against AI machines, uh, that Frank Herbert talks about in the, the dude novel. And it is part of a lot of the subsequent, uh, lore, um, per the shows, the quote, the show humans rose up against a thinking machines that enslaved them. Um,

in the Frank Herbert lore, the sort of commandment that comes out of this conflict is, quote, thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind. So while they're still using technology here, there, and elsewhere, they are, there are limits to that. I'm very, I'm very into AI in general. Every time Google tries to AI recap something for me, I'm like, no, take me to the article. I will click.

This journalist did work. Stop selling it up, AI. So, like, do that too, guys. Support journalism. But, like, the...

So the little lizard, obviously, is an AI lizard. And so that's a problem in the way that these little viewfinders or whatever else aren't. Anything else you want to say about the Butlerian Jihad? How Frank Herbert talks about it or its impact on the story here? No, I just, again, was interested in how prominent this was in the premiere. In a way that makes me wonder what role the thinking machines are going to play in the series. And that was part of what was...

I found simultaneously fun and slightly distracting about the premiere. And this is just about me as a viewer, not really about the show. But I do think what you said is right, that the show is counting on a lot of people having familiarity with Dune and bringing that to the story. So I was kind of constantly thinking about...

Paul, who he's at Tatarak, you know, the things that we know on the prophecy front, the subsequent jihad and the future of the timeline. And like, wait, how much of what we're hearing about or seeing in this pilot is heading toward an outcome we're familiar with that far in the future? How much of it is about

the show counting on us wondering that and then giving us a much nearer term outcome instead and what role then will the thinking machines have in that maybe nearer term uh conflict and that feels like likely to me at this point whether there's like a and desmond is on my mind in that respect just even the we'll talk more like later about what is going on with his

power and his ability and everything that happened with uh desmond and the sandworm on arrakis and what the emperor witnessed but you know you've got he's got like these eyes and the scar and the way he's touching the side of his head when he's burning pruitt alive and like he's doing this from a great distance to kasha we think or assume and it's like the look on his face when pruitt

invoked his father's belief that everybody's just like a touch too sensitive about the thinking machines making their way back into society. He's like, and obviously that set up in that scene, in that conversation, as it had elsewhere with Desmond, this comp that he's making between the thinking machines and the sisterhood. Like we moved, we went to war to yes, work this one element of control only to find ourselves under the, under the thrall of another body, like,

but is that why they're there as that point of comparison? Like, Oh, is the sisterhood any better actually than the machines that sought to control everyone or are the machines actually coming into play? That's just sort of a question in my mind after the episode, the fact that there's a toy at the engagement ceremony, it's like, Oh, this tech is back in people's hands. That has to matter. Or never left, you know, like, so, uh,

on just a broad note, I just want to say, uh, Duke Richese was like one of my favorite characters. I just love like a shitty old dude and he's shitty and great. And I love stuff from that entire family. Yeah. Their commitment to the color peach is extraordinary. And I just want to feel about it later. Um, the, I like the idea that like the, the dune that we meet in Frank Herbert's book and Milnev's, um,

films, um, is approximately 10,000 years in the future. So 10,000 years removed from, uh, this war, whereas we're only a hundred, we're fresh off this war. And so imagine in our world, if someone decided to ban AI, I support it. I know there's people listening who are going to be like, some AI is good, but I kind of like slippery slope. Let's get rid of AI. That's how I kind of feel. Um,

If you belong to the AI lobby, I don't care. But if someone outlawed it, do you think it would just go away? No, it wouldn't. And people would use it clandestinely to have an edge over people. And especially in a world where we are

for power where we have an emperor but we also have these we have an emperor who needs this other house because of their you know their their ships like yeah of course AI is like an advantage you would try to use just the same way you might try to use like you know a fire mage or whatever else you might have in your pocket so I just think

I think that's interesting. I love all the questions you're asking. We don't know the answer to how fundamentally it will play into it, but it makes so much sense that it wouldn't just be done. Right. And like that, the other thing about this very opening stretch of the prologue is like it, I think intentionally again, invokes the Villeneuve films with that

opening epigraph, right? The text epigraph and like a tonal sound. This one was more of like a whisper than a shriek or a shout. The baby jumped out of our seats in the movie theater, but we get that tone. That resonant is inside the prophet

Yes. There are some spooky sounds for sure, but like the victory is celebrated in the light, but it is won in the darkness. Obviously that's mostly there about to set the tone for what the sisterhood is doing and this idea of seeking to gain and then control power from the shadows, perhaps through ill deeds. But that also applies to what you're saying. Like what is happening in the darkness that other people can't

until it comes into the light because a little asshole rolls it out of his pocket at a party and then is burned alive mere hours later. Tough final day. Pruitt also, my favorite character. It's just great. Just honestly, House Richese. I'm interested in your shit in it. The Duke and Pruitt Richese. To me, this sounds like a group of Jets bloggers. Like, Pruitt Richese here. Some thoughts on Aaron Rodgers. I love it. All right, let's talk about the breeding program.

Welcome to the Genetic Archives. Eugenics. Eugenics. It's here. So this is a secret project to breed better leaders. And Raquel amassed a vast genetic archive. We who have spent time in the Dune world know that this will all one day result in Paul Atreides' death.

who was supposed to be a girl, Jessica, the Kwisatz Haderach, as you pointed out, that's something that's on our mind. But the fact, what I love, because when we talked about this in covering Doom Part 1 and 2, and one of my favorite things to say is, Jessica, 10,000 years in the making, approximately, 10,000 years in the making, this program, and you're just like,

my husband's hot and he wanted a boy. Fuck it. I made him a boy instead. It

It's nice to feel the distance of that history to be like all these moves, all these chess moves they're making here. And we'll talk about this a little bit more when we get to like prophecy and what it means to know the outcome of certain things when we're dealing with a realm of prophecy. But just to like watch them make all these moves here, which is thwarted before the end of this episode when Pruitt gets like crispy fried, right? But like to watch them make these moves here and know that like 10,000 years from now, Jessica's going to be like,

He looks like Oscar Isaac. I don't know what to tell you. He wanted a boy, so fuck your 10,000 years of chess moves. You know what I mean? Anything else you want to say about the breeding program? You wanted a sister on the throne. You got Chalamet. Hard to complain. No, yeah, I mean, you know, I thought this stretch felt like an effective tie to the stretches of the story that we're familiar with, you know, both in terms of establishing just what the

sisterhood was and was meant to be at this point in time. And, and also obviously as we build toward this, this sense of the reckoning and the role of prophecy, you know, together they would form a network of influence throughout the Imperium. Raquel would use it to govern the future. Like we're thinking of a, you know, the shortening of the way, preparing the way, all of the moments in the story in the future where we will see the priming of a people in a world for the

the great arrival of this moment. And, and I, I liked that part of the prequel that made me feel like at home in the universe. Yeah. Uh, in a way that I enjoyed, obviously in general, everything about the breeding program is horrific and they're playing God and it's dangerous hubris. And I thought that. I was like, but if I could create the perfect Orioles lineup, would I?

It's tempting. You can say. No. I am not a eugenicist. No, I'm not. Thanks for that important point of clarity, partner. The positioning of Dorotea as like the opponent to our primary protagonist and the zealot, the idea of zealotry in the group of, from our perspective, the

clearly right and more measured and sensible characters, right? Like, don't disfigure the soul. Yeah, good note. Let's not do that. You know, the breeding program, this is wrong. This is, we're playing God, like, correct. And so the fact that Valia and others paint them as the zealots tells us everything we need to know about

It tells us a lot, but the thing that I'm really thinking about is the way in which we see this, like, zealotry. They say it again when they're talking about, like, one of the acolytes, Sister Emmeline, that she is, like, too pious, right? So these, like, kernels of zealotry still in the sisterhood, but how they...

maybe haven't yet, but will one day weaponize zealotry for their own cause. But right now, Valia is thinking of it only as a threat to her, but will eventually thinking about the power of zealotry and how she can, or the sisterhood will as a, as a, as an agency, think about how they can wield that sort of as a cudgel. Um, I think is really interesting. Um, how does prophecy work in the Dune universe? Hmm. Don't remember Mentats. Don't worry. We've got you. I don't,

I mean, they'll have cut a lot of the mentat stuff out of the movie. So perhaps we don't need to dwell too much. But mentats are the humans that replace computers and are so advanced and precise in their analytical skills and

Plus a little bit of spice that they seem to be able to predict the future. Really? There's making highly educated guesses. Spice confers a degree of prescience. That's just true of spice in general. And then Fremen have a natural ability. There's like a Paul and Shani sequence where she's talking. This feels like maybe a spoiler for the Villeneuve film. So I'm not going to like get into it too much, but like he says at the end of this thing, he says,

They meaning the Fremen, they have a little of the talent his mind told him, but they suppress it because it terrifies. So this idea that like the Fremen have this sort of like, maybe because of just their exposure to spice or whatever, this sort of natural affinity towards prescience. And then Raquel, once again, one of the few characters in the show who comes from the books in the books, her ability comes from having survived a plague and,

her own genetic material. It's like very complicated backstory that they didn't really get into it. But like this idea that it can be sort of trained into you. The truth speaking is like the main talent that this era of the sisterhood is interested in fostering. But this idea of prescience and prophecy and visions is,

spice related and independent to spice is something that is not like wholly concretely defined in the Herbert universe, but it's just sort of like here and there and everywhere. Does that dissatisfactorily answer that? Because I feel like Herbert doesn't really clearly crystal clearly define it, you know? Yeah. I think that's a good snapshot. And I thought in the premiere, because we get a multiple different visions, right? We, we have for Kellis, we have cautious, et cetera. Um,

It felt important when Kasha returned in shocking fashion, while you still can't believe it, to Wallach 9 to have her say what I saw was no ordinary nightmare. The fear I felt, I still feel. Like a group of people where prophecy, visions, truth saying, the water of life, et cetera, it's like all part of this Bene Gesserit school. This was a shocking thing to her.

Like, this was not common. And so to establish it as out of the ordinary in a character set where we would, like, expect more familiarity with something like this felt like a good way to kind of orient us. And this proto version of the sisterhood where their strongest...

capability is is lie detecting because we see volley essentially like discover the voice and so this idea of control the controlling the hidden hand the controlling they're doing from the shadows from behind the the various veils and mesh and stuff like that um

They've made themselves useful as lie detectors, but they are not yet at the point where they are massively directly controlling people the way that eventually they'll be able to. Right. Interesting. We're going to go through the major houses. Okay. Let's start with House Carino. Okay. The rulers of the Imperium, and they will, spoiler alert,

stay that way. Shaddam IV, Christopher Walken himself is House Torino. So this is like, they're on the golden lion throne for the foreseeable. Natalia and Havako. Havako. Havako. We're working through it. We're working through the pronunciation of the emperor's name. Havako. We believe that is.

It's interesting, in interviews with Jodi Mae, she has said that this is a love-based marriage. But I have no textual evidence in this first episode to back that up. So I'm wondering if that's like a one-sided...

Like she, similar to sort of that Cersei Robert, at least in the TV show vibes, this idea that like maybe she was in love and he never was or something like that. What do you think about that? We don't have enough information yet, but that was also my read after one episode. Yeah. You know, she is the one who remodeled

reminds him and thus tells us, like, I know exactly what our marriage did. I brokered it. She's obviously always had the clarity of the political value, but the reaching of the hand, you know, the emotion behind there was a time when you took my views seriously

Seriously, the Imperium was stronger for it. Like, the subtext of that is also our marriage was stronger for it when you trusted me and relied on me and you put more stock in my opinion than in your Bene Gesserit witch's opinion, right? She's not a fan of Kasha and the hold that Kasha has over the Emperor. Yeah. And he's just like, uh... You and I, we remember things very differently. Also...

He has a illegitimate kid and we don't know one episode in what's up with that. We don't know. She doesn't seem to be too Catlin about it. And like, we should note that in, at least in the Dune timeline that we're more familiar with this idea of like,

the air you have with your wife versus the, you know, the love match with like your concubine is a very commonplace thing. For sure. And less so than in the Thrones world where Catelyn's like, fuck this kid. Terrible. You know? Terrible. Yeah. So we, we don't, but like the thing we don't know yet is, is he in love with someone else? Right. Who's, who's Constantine's mom. And was that a love match of some kind? Okay. Yeah.

These are peacetime rulers after generations of war, right? That is a premise of sort of, which has to make us think of like Viserys and stuff like that. And then- He did great. Everything was fun. Everything was fine, right? Yeah. Remember how he built his little like model of Ovaliria? So nice. So nice. Love a Lego. Okay. Natalia-

Is someone I have my beady eye on. Okay. Inside of this episode. This isn't a theory show necessarily, but it is a show about like palace intrigue and hidden hands. And so I just want us to all like pay close attention to Natalia, right? Because, um,

She resents her dwindling influence on the emperor, is seemingly is not alive with the sisterhood, right? So to your point about that line where she says, I brokered our marriage. And she says, I'm telling you, they, meaning the Bettegesserit, chose that boy, R.I.P. Pruitt, knowing his age would give them, the sisters, years to make Nez one of their own.

So she resents the Bene Gesserit influence. And Kasha says that her role, Kasha, rest in peace, said her role was to actively deflect the Empress's interference. Right. Yes. So how this episode ends is the royal marriage is off because Pruitt is dead.

Brutal. Yeah. And the Bene Gesserit's main influence in the court, Kasha, is also dead. And the person who wanted both of those things to happen is Natalia. She's against the wedding before the emperor was, and then he just kind of decides... First he says he isn't, and then he just kind of decides that he's against the wedding, and then Desmond Hart makes it so, essentially. Yeah.

Kosh is off the board. This is convenient to Natalia. So like, I don't know if I'm reading too much into this because I love Jodi May, not just in Thrones, but less the Mohicans, like great actress, wonderful actress to cast. She is amazing.

Fourth build on the series. Yeah. That just seems like something to keep our eye on. Yep. And she's also the person who most lost her shit over that little AI toy. And that's just something I think we should keep an eye on. So how is Natalia sort of reading for you in all of this? I like everything you're...

You're putting out there. Yeah. So in terms of the Emperor's feeling on the marriage, I found it... That tells us a lot about his character because I think he, when he's telling Desmond...

you know, I think this marriage is a bad idea. It felt to me like less the dawning of that realization and more that he had finally found the courage to say it out loud or that like it mattered more to him then. Or it was different to like actually look at a nine-year-old versus thinking about the concept of a nine-year-old. Feeding your daughter pomegranate seeds through netting. But like he's being controlled, right? And part of the sisterhood's

manipulation here is, as we hear in the Kasha-Tula-Valia sequence, the way that they're, about how they're making life difficult for him on Arrakis, you know, take out the regiments, take out the spliceloads, make sure that he needs that fleet that the Rachesis are offering him so that he has to say yes to the marriage that we are invested in seeing through because it aligns with our breeding index and the bloodline that we're seeking to secure. So,

When he pulls Kasha aside and is like, uh, this guy's like trying to make a fool of me. She makes sure that he agrees to the plan, et cetera. And it felt like almost he couldn't, not that he didn't feel that way already when he was having the conversation with the Empress, but that he couldn't let her know it. And that was part of the power in their relationship, like not being able to concede to her that he wasn't in command of the decisions he was making. Yeah.

from the Natalia side of it, the scene that struck me most, I thought the scene with the emperor and empress was really good. I also found her reaction to the little toy quite notable and frankly, more appropriate than anybody else's reaction in the room. Agreed. And the emperor being like, well,

you know, we all make mistakes was so weird to me. And the fact that everyone was like, cool, let's just like keep partying. I found absolutely bizarre. Yeah. Um, the, the scene that told me the most about Natalia was the one with, with Ned. Yeah. Yeah. And in a, in a way that made me feel sick.

Like, this is... Putting the, like, cage on her. Yeah, yeah. Cloaking her and dressing her in... It's one more, like, method of control, ultimately, right? This is the thing that I want you to wear. But then she's just, again, saying it, like...

Nez kind of mocks the garb, right? Oh yeah, understated. And her mother says, it's a symbol of strength, something I wish you'd show a little more of. And that's just a fucked up thing to say to your kid. So, and especially because, I mean, it would be,

I think equally fucked up to be clear if that were actually true. But Nez is like, this is what I want. You know, I'm capable of making the decision that I think is best for me. Whether that's ultimately true or not, we have other textual evidence to assess inside of the episode. Seems like she has her reasons. She was groomed.

by Kasia, essentially, to want to join the group. Yes, and that's terrible. But she's like, from her mother... And her mother's bringing all of that to it, right? She's like, you are in the web of this group that I don't trust. And so, like, she's right to flag that. But the way that she's doing it is by telling her own child that she's, like, not being strong because she wants something. And that was...

there's a rigidity that all of the characters are bringing to their interpersonal dynamics that like makes you feel like, okay, this is a show where people are going to have a very hard time making progress with each other because they're also dug in. So when Nez says to the Empress, like every year before he comes of age is mine to do with what I will. I'd make him younger if I could. I thought that was a great line and a great moment. Cause we're like, this is a character who wants her independence. Valia is like,

here's the recruit we need. And you're like, no, no, no, right? This is actually not someone who's maybe primed to adhere the way that you need people to. There's a fascinating tension there. The fact that Nez wants to become her own person and forge her own path and not just do what her mom is saying, but also do that inside of a group that we know is seeking to control her is very interesting to me. So I liked that scene a lot and I thought it set up some interesting dynamics to come. I really agree. This idea of like,

Who is controlling who, who, who is the hidden hand behind all of this sort of stuff. And like this, this line we get later from the emperor, we're going to talk about the seat a bit more. But when he says, when, when Desmond is talking about like a power beyond man and machine, he's talking about God, he's talking about religion.

And the emperor says, religion, that's my wife's comfort. You know what I mean? It's just sort of this idea of religious zealotry or just, you know, basic religion, who knows, that belongs to Natalia in a way that like he references, but we haven't really seen yet. I don't know. Just got my beauty little ironer, Jodi May. What a great actor. So I'm excited. Yeah.

The legitimate heir in us. Wild child, drug taker, Atreides fucker. I mean, you know. Thought of caution. Tough to blame her. Yeah.

Thought of Kasha as a mother eager to join the Meta Desert. She hints at a traumatic backstory, right? Yes. Kasha says, remember the day my sisters and I found you. We had no way of knowing that what we would discover, a child held captive for years. The moment I saw you, I knew that one day you would lead our Imperium to a better future. So what?

the hell do you mean held captive for years? The legitimate daughter of the emperor. What is that story? You know, that's fascinating. Yeah. There's, there's, this is interview based. So it doesn't feel like a spoiler, but like there's an implication that Constantine, uh,

But their bond is a bond of some sort of traumatic event that they experienced together. So like, what, what was it? That's like a, that's an interesting little nugget to chew on. Yeah. I, I, I clocked that as well. I, the three possibilities in real time that occurred to me were like, okay, an actual captive. Right. Something horrible happened. She was kidnapped or something. The sisterhood rescued her from that peril and thus her, her,

is actually rooted in devotion and gratitude, and that would be a harder thing for somebody else, even her own mother, to break and challenge. The idea of almost more of a political, like a ward at some point or something, you know, like was there that kind of a... Yeah. Yeah. And that seems hard to understand why that would be the case when they're the ruling power, but anyway, or like almost more of a...

Like ideological? Yeah. Like we broke you out of the prison of your mind in this like life where you had not been enlightened. Yeah. That certainly wouldn't align with the idea of like a traumatic bond, but I guess it's possible that Kasha's referring to any number of those things.

Wonder when we'll find out. So that makes me think also that we're going to get, well, actually I was going to say flashbacks for all the characters. I guess still that if the sisterhood are always the point of view for the flashbacks, then Kasha could still be our way into that. Like, do you think we're going to get flashbacks for every character? I don't know. Let's see who's playing younger. There's a younger Kasha. We see Kasha in the earlier timeline. So there is room for a younger Kasha sort of in the story there. Um,

Constantine, we've already talked about a bit. I have no notes. Genuinely zero. When he walked into the library... First of all, great library. Gorgeous library. When they say about the lights... Idle hands. Yes. A man with no purpose devises only mischief. Exactly. Nothing I like more than a man with great wealth and idle hands. It's like, I don't know. Let's put those hands to work, actually. Hell yes. The sisterhood are not a celibate order. We should note. Okay. So...

The thing about Constantine is, yes, he's illegitimate, but other than he's not going to inherit the throne, there's no indication that he's treated as much lesser than. He's given an important diplomatic errand to Wallach IX to lay the groundwork for his sister. Playboy, drug taker, pimp.

I think that's a ballast that he's playing. There's nine strings on it. I believe, I mean, it's like a little taller than the one we see Gurney playing, but like, I think it's just a fancier ballast set. And, um, actually be loyal to and protective of Inez. Anything else we want to say about his curls?

Fantastic stuff. Just wonderful. Okay, great. Absolutely wonderful. I enjoyed the very charming, you know, I had to try smirk when he was trying to negotiate for private quarters for Nunez with Valia and just immediately gave up and clearly was just like, this is just a fun afternoon out in the political theater for me. I really enjoyed him. I thought it was also interesting too when he got back to

the palace and saw his sister and Kirim,

at a lesson. Training. Training. Clearly about to fuck. Yeah. And, you know, seemed really happy for them. He's like supportive. Yeah. Yeah. So. That brings us to House Atreides. Yes. High on the list because they're Atreides, but not so much because of their importance in history at this moment. Because, so Kieran Atreides, he's a sword master. Duncan Idaho and Gertie Halleck were sword masters to House Atreides in Dune. Princess fucker.

He slightly hesitates before he has sex with her. Does that make him one of the more moralistic characters or am I just a tradies projecting? He definitely gave it a beat to make sure she was like, this is what I, I want to do. You know, there was enough time for her to say like in two days, I'm out of here to a whole nother life. Let's go for it. So that was nice. Uh,

He looks so much like, do you know who, do you know who Max Verstappen is? No. He is, Max Verstappen is the F1 champion. Until Lando Norris unseats him, let's go papaya hive. And this actor. It's all a little too much for little Lando Norris. Exactly. Yeah. You know who Lando is thanks to the meme and chicken shop dates. Uh,

Kieran is like Max Verstappen's doppelganger. It was like, I couldn't believe it. I had to like Google if they were related. I think he looks like an Ashmore, like, like Sean Ashmore, very strong of jaw, very stubbly. Yeah. Great casting, honestly, I think. Yeah. Fantastic. Looks upright and true. Gave us a little Obi-Wan energy, right? We got a little bit of the, your eyes can deceive you. Don't trust them from him with the lesson. Yeah.

Focus on the body, not the blade. The eyes, they can lie, but this. Here. Oh, God. This will tell you where your opponent's heading even before they know. Any excuse.

So your point about the fact that the technology on the shields has not changed in approximately thereabouts 10,000 years is so I also wrote that down is very true. But also it just does look great. It's a great visual. It's the best. It's always one of my favorite things to see on the screen. I'll never complain. Okay.

Valia says in her opening, history says it was an Atreides that led them to victory and the Harkonnens were villains and cowards when speaking about the butlerian jihad. That seems to me like a convenient way to, I mean, it's true. According to lore, there is an Atreides hero that, that leads the full Elrond according to lore, but like, don't burn those scrolls. We need them. Um,

But that seemed to be like a convenient way to mention the Atreides and the Harkonnen in the opening minutes of the show. And all in all, the Atreides are fairly tangential in the story we're telling here. Yeah. It was also nice that, you know, he is referred to as Ciaran multiple times, actually, but also he is referred to, hopefully, as Atreides multiple times just to remind us that there is an Atreides in the story. It's sort of like we're like, oh my god, a Stark is here. And you're like, yeah, way up there. Don't worry. They're not... Okay. Um...

House Harkonnen. So that was House Atreides. House Harkonnen. Boy. Disgraced and banished to the frigid outposts. Lankaville, I think is how you pronounce it, in the galaxy. Valia. Our main POV character, at least at first. Hero or villain?

Or both is the question here. She says she's talking in girly pop language that we have learned to code it as, as a heroic. I broke free from the past and chose a new family made up of women, unafraid of their power. Uh, or when she says to her sister, when was I ever tame? Never. If you ask our mother and we're like, yes, girl, yes. Ascend the ranks. And at the same time, scary. Uh,

murderous for the greater good. All this sort of stuff like that. So yeah, it implies the backstory of a powerful young woman made to hide and feel ashamed of her power back at home with the Harkonnens. And she hates them so much she will not send them a Bene Gesserit representative. She's like, fuck them, let them rot. I don't care. Eat shit or whale seed. Whale seed. Choke on the whale fur. Okay? But...

How much is she motivated by personal grievance and vengeance? How much is he a true believer in the greater good? These are the questions assembled before the jury today. Yeah. What do you want to say about Valia that we haven't already said? Fascinating character. I'm excited to spend more time with her. I...

The moment when young Valia uses the voice on Dorotea was so... Jessica Barnard. Like, I gasped. The icon. Yeah. Incredible and obviously very deeply harrowing. And it made me think of something like

I always like to think about if you were actually, you're not just a wielder of power, but you are in some way an inventor. What do you choose to do with that? Right. Like what does it mean if like the spell you create a sectumsempra, right. And it's like meant to cut people apart. Like the voice is about control. And this was a, another example in the premiere of,

of how I liked taking a tether to something we're very familiar with and contextualizing it with these characters. Like when we see the voice used in Dune films or reading the books, there are plenty of times where we're disturbed and unsettled because it is about control, but also like we want Jessica and Paul to use it to escape a perilous circumstance, right? And you really have to like stare plainly in the face here what this is. You can use the voice or you can make somebody stab their head

themselves in the throat and die. The question to me, that opening note that you're citing that we're like, yeah, let's fucking go, right? Girl power, let's do it. I also had that response to it. It felt like a rallying cry. And I think for the sisterhood and the idea of the sisterhood in general, I feel that.

But for me in the premiere of Valia as a character who, even if the absence of that initially and, and the, the finding of it, the discovering of it gave her peace and like a desperation to preserve that at all costs. She's a, she's,

almost like exclusively villain coded to me in the, in the premiere, because everything that she's saying and doing ultimately, at least so far, and maybe she will go on a journey in this respect. Like, I feel like we have now sympathetic notes for her, how she became a villain rather than like heroic notes because, you know, and especially I found that the, the,

The moments I felt that most keenly were actually watching her own sister interact with her. The way that Tula... There are plenty of moments where we hear her say, anybody who's going to challenge me or challenge our order, it's a no, right? But that exchange with Tula...

and this is after Kasha comes to them and is afraid and needs help. And this is like one member of their childhood quartet and sort of made this declaration, this vow to do this thing together. And then, you know, Tula says, so it's blind obedience you want? And Valia just says, yes. You know, like that actually is all she wants. Consistence. Consistency. Yeah. Yeah. And that's bad. It's interesting to me

It's interesting to me watching... I have just, like, these other things that I've been watching roiling around in my brain. Mainly because I said yes to being on too many podcasts last week. But, like...

Like, Say Nothing, excellent FX TV show that people across the board are loving at their ear, but like, is fundamentally a story of two sisters who become these like, you know, essentially freedom fighters or terrorists, however you prefer to categorize it. And this question of like, what is the greater good here? And these two women are so coded similarly to those real life women, the Price sisters, in Say Nothing, where you've got this like,

leader figure and then this like her sort of shadow by her side, which is Tula. And Tula, Olivia Williams, I love in anything she's ever done. So I'm really excited to learn more about Tula. I feel like we are kept intentionally very much in the dark of

about who she is inside of this episode, other than like someone that Valia can be a bit more of a human around and a bit more of herself around or someone who has had to like encrust herself in layers of hardness that maybe didn't come naturally to her in order to sort of rise at the ranks with Bali by Bali aside. Uh, it seems like, I don't know the, the quote unquote, slightly nicer version of her sister. The other thing I'm thinking about,

I want to save this for another day, my full takes on this, but having just seen Wicked, thinking about, you know, this, well, this, you know, this great tendency to, you know, whether it's Wicked or Maleficent or something like that, where it's just sort of like, okay, this is a person you think of as a villain.

how did they get there or, um, you know, what justifications are they telling themselves or what actually, what actual greater good are they striving for that they feel like? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Love you, Steve. Gets me every time. What actual greater good are they striving for that they are justifying all these like, yes, I require complete obedience because of this prophecy that tells me and our leader who told me I am right and I am the chosen one and I will protect us against annihilation and against this abysmal future, this reckoning, this red dust, this, you know, all of this sort of stuff. Yeah, and like that's...

Very rich to me, like the idea that a character like Valia would do all of these things and justify her behavior and justify, not only justify exerting control over other people, but actively demand it, insist upon it, say it out loud to somebody standing right there with her because she thinks she's fending off a horror. Something worse. That's motivation that we can like latch our talons onto. Yeah.

The part that I think the show will have a trickier time convincing us to find heroic is the... And so a sister has to be the one on the throne. But there's time. There are five episodes left to convince us that that's the case. But...

Do we right now, and based on, again, this connects to what we were talking about earlier with what we know or don't know about Raquel, what we know or don't know about Valia's history and relationship to the sisterhood, why do we believe that that would be good?

Why do we believe that that would be better or right? I think it's a really interesting through line of the stories that we've been following of late. Yeah. Agatha or Penguin, where we're like looking at characters like Agatha Harkness or Oz Cobb and, and wondering if we're watching the,

knowing we're not, but also being tempted to believe we're watching some sort of redemption arc or heroic arc or something like that, only to be reminded of the actual villainy of these characters. And so, like, this is very much on the mind of IP creators or creators in general right now is this idea of, like, not...

not redemption, but empathy or understanding or just sort of like a look inside the mind of the people who do these gnarly things that feel incomprehensible to us. Yeah. But when we watch what happens at the end of Agatha, what happens at the end of Penguin, and we're just sort of like, I understand how you got here. I don't agree with how you got here, but I have had these hours to spend with you to understand how you've got here. So with Balia, um,

Again, knowing that we're going to have some flashbacks. Or like with Rhaenyra, when Rhaenyra is making choices on House of the Dragon or Alicent, like, you know, history, some history would paint them as

Evil Queens and what the show is telling us is like, here are the many little moments. Now, am I convinced inside of like a six hour embattled show that we're going to get all the nuance that this character might deserve? Maybe not. But I think that that's.

Hopefully it was on their mind with something like this. Yeah. And not to jump ahead, because I know we were going to talk about the lying and the way the show is interested with lying elsewhere. But what you're saying makes me think of that here because...

I loved that. First of all, just idea and examination of that idea in terms of like you're saying, what is the show interested in exploring? Like, what does it mean to lie? You know, you chose the opening clip for a reason, right? I loved the lesson that Tula was giving to the Acolytes. And that's the moment where Valia like interrupts this lesson. It's time for application. You understand theory, but it's time for application. But yeah,

What were we hearing and seeing in that scene? Like humanity's greatest weapon is a lie. Human beings rely on lies to survive. We lie to our enemies. We lie to our friends. We lie to ourselves. Okay, these are all very interesting things to consider. I thought that the idea of like

the lie as a source or the truth as a source of the sisterhood's power was so affirming because like you don't need necessarily wealth or strength of arms or any of these other, uh, more typical, like aspects of hard power, concrete power to exert control. The idea that ultimately like understanding human nature, uh,

or understanding information and information as currency could be the source of power is so fascinating and it compels me toward the sisterhood. But then when you see them weaponize it, you're like repelled. But then you hear a character like Jen identify correctly. I love the like, what is, you know, who is this man? What is the man based on the white matter in the brain from all the lying? A survivor, right?

Like, that was a... When you talk about empathy... That is a character I'm really compelled by. Me too. Yeah, everything with Jen and Lila and, like, what Jen was saying and doing and then how Lila was clocking it in a way that other characters weren't was not only very on the throne's front, like, game of faces to me, but just very compelling in terms of what we might learn about both of them. So I loved that scene. To round out the Harkonnens, we've got...

Baron Harrow Harkonnen. Hall of Fame, instant Hall of Fame television moment. This was incredible and I'm not sure it'll be topped all season. This was unbelievable. A low-level courtier who's got Wilfer and Wailcome on his mind. The prophets!

in the known universe, Joanna. Has anyone let Baron Harrow Harkonnen read Moby Dick chapter 94 called A Squeeze of the Hand? I think about this all the time. If you've never read Moby Dick and you think it's just a boring...

story about whale chasing it is but it is also a story about harvesting whale cum and the sailors in common cause squeezing the spermatoa together and then like their hands are brushing as they're squeezing the whale sperm it's a whole chapter in this american classic and i really hope

that harrow harkonnen has read it because i think he would love it i think he would just love it i think you're not going to treat us to a dramatic reading this oh my god i can't hold on i will do it lethal there's a there's a there's a part that is like iconic okay are you ready because like i am yeah sorry okay

Bear with? All right. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze all the morning long. I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it. I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me. I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding affectionate

friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget that at last it was continually squeezing their hands and looking up into their eyes sentimentally as much as to say, oh,

My dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities or know the slightest ill humor or envy? Come, let us squeeze hands all around. Nay, let us squeeze ourselves into each other. Let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. So Herman Melville.

American classic. That was the script for the Nez Kiran sex scene. When are you going to read Moby Dick? Squeeze into our smile. I hope you enjoyed that. Chapter 94, Moby Dick. Steve, it's always nice when you can select the social breakout before we're finished recording. Oh, no, God. Oh, my God. With love and respect to my American lit professor. Okay.

Oh, man. Last but not least, Evgeny Harkonnen, who we don't meet in this episode, but I just need to reiterate, is played by Mark Addy. His volume tool is on the wall. So exciting. They did the, like, you know, next up on this season, kind of like rest of the season trailer at the end of the episode. And there he was, Bobby B. Bobby B. In flashbacks and seemingly in aged prosthetics. And I'm excited to spend all of this time with him. Great stuff.

House Richese, I don't know what else I want to say that I haven't already said. A fleet that will no, no equal. Dust storms won't hinder it.

They love the color peach. There's the Duke, the Duchess, a bored girl named Shan who seems to fancy Constantine who can blame her. The Duke says shit like, may the Richese seed find purchase in royal wombs. Do you think he also would enjoy that chapter of Moby Dick? Probably. Squeeze. Squeeze. This declaration, this was a no for me. This is the moment the Emperor was like, maybe not.

The future of your royal line. Yeah. Maybe not. May the riches they see find purchase in royal wombs. So Duke, Duchess, and Shannon, and then a crispy fried little heir named Pruitt. I loved and hated this kid. I hated this kid, and I thought the actor who played him was wonderful. Great little piece of shit this kid was. When Inez was trying to be nice to him, and he's like,

Who fucking gives a shit? Eat this pomegranate and let's call it a day, shall we? My father says we don't need to speak. Brutal. But then the way he ran after her to thank her. And she's like, I'll gut you like a fish, you little shit. Yeah. Not going to get a chance because he burned alive from the inside. Terrible. Okay.

The Acolytes, I don't know if we need to spend too much time on them. They are, again, introduces Pokemon cards. We've got Lila, Theodosia, Jen, and Emmeline. Emmeline, I do want to note, is played by the actress who plays Helen in Normal People. And anytime she shows up in things, I think about her in Normal People. Fun fact. Wonderful show. Eve Hines. Her name's Eve Hines. I think I'm pronouncing it correctly. It's a delightfully Irish name. Her dad's Kieran Hines. Just a fun fact about her. Okay. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Wow. Of the Kieran Hines is Sister Emmeline. So, yeah. Anything you want to say about these Echolites that we haven't already said? Jen, Theodosia, Lila. They all have their little log lines or little elevator pitches about their personalities. They do. I guess just the... Bum, bum, bum.

speculate about the parentage stuff with Lila. That felt like really our attention was being drawn to this question of who her family is. Like in a couple different moments, because we have the, I love that you're calling it the Pokemon cards. In that stretch, you know, it's established that Lila is

Tula's favorite and Valia's very dismissive, right? Like a lamb lost in the woods and to the point where Tula like gets up and walks away and says, you know, in time she'll grow all those hard layers that you measure worth by as I did and seems so despondent about like her own circumstance and the person that she allowed herself to become in her sister's image and seemed like setting up maybe wanting to

Lila from that outcome, even though she's saying out loud something different. And then, of course, we have the very, like, even, like, it becomes a voiceover as we're visually taken to another scene. You know, Jen's like, Jen and Lila talking. It's like, our past song!

catch up with us we will find out who your who your family is so what do you think my my assumption was that she is maybe dorothea's daughter that's what i would say and dorothea is rakella's granddaughter yeah rakella grandma so like there's the kind of like legitimacy from other members of the sisterhood's perspective we would assume of that line right if she rises as like a

to Valia's rule. If that's why they've kept her lineage secret because like they don't want her to be a challenge to their power. So yeah, given her lineage, like she would be a true empath because she's directly descended from Raquel via Dorotea, who as you may recall was made to cut her own throat open. Um,

Not ideal. Not great stuff. But yeah, that's my assumption. I was raised here in the sisterhood, the Reverend Mothers. They don't always know who our parents are. You know, and that's real. Jessica is descended from the Harkonnen code. For sure. Like I was reading through, I was doing our favorite game, which is word searching Bene Gesserit in Dune, in my digital copy of Dune to just be like,

Like, did Frank F. Herbert, like, when did he sort of say who the Bene Gesserit were? And it's interesting because, like, he does it because he's a better writer than the people who wrote the show. But he's just sort of, like, he's, like, presenting the Bene Gesserit as existing and you are meant to use context clues to understand who they are and what they do. But this idea of they don't always know where they came from is underlined when it comes to Jessica very early on.

Last but not least, a one of one. Desmond Hart. My goodness. Um...

I believe, so Travis Amell, again, a fan favorite of people who love Vikings, meant to invoke Duncan Idaho and Gurney sort of in the reports of my death were greatly exaggerated kind of way. I also think he's styled intentionally to look a bit like Jason Momoa. Was that your takeaway? Oh, definitely. Like the color and just the nature of his garb and like the color palette, the hair pulled back, everything.

all of that, the weathered face. But I thought it was like visual Duncan Idaho coding, but his voice, his mannerisms, the score accompaniment was so radically distinct.

that it felt to me like it was meant to, like, we see him, it pings Duncan, and then immediately we're on board by that. Like, he's kind of oily and steaming and maybe outright evil. Maybe we're supposed to think he's evil and he's not actually, and he clocks something that needs to be challenged in the sisterhood. Maybe...

All of that is true. He clocks something that needs to be challenged and he's evil. Is he the tyrant that is alluded to in one of the prophecies in the episode, et cetera? But yeah, it felt ultimately like less he is this story's Duncan and more, oh, we wanted you to briefly think that and actually something very different is going on. I think all of the associations were meant to make

Like if we're thinking about Jessica and Leto, if we're thinking about this and the other thing, it's all like a twist on that. It's all sort of like a bizarro upside down version of that. Like, I mean, let's think about what we assume about an Atreides and whether or not that's an assumption we should make about Kieran Atreides, you know, like we don't know.

I did think in terms of the visuals in this episode, the introduction of him with his coat swirling behind him is an all-timer visual. I thought it was incredible. It made me think of... Great one. Holding the cloth package in his hand. Mysterious. Um...

very Jamie Lannister season one coat my favorite TV coat of all time but I love a coat but like that like full skirted sort of cream color swirling behind him sort of again meant to invoke similarly with Jamie meant to invoke dashing heroism but there's something else entirely going on which I just really love yeah um he's

He's also, speaking of associations, he's talking a lot about fear, right? Like, fear can be debilitating. I don't know. Is it the mind killer or not? Um...

Jodi May in an interview referred to Kasia as sort of the Rasputin, the Rasputin inside of her sort of royal marriage. But if anyone is a mad monk in this scenario, it seemingly would be this guy, Desmond Hart. What do you make of this backstory he has where he was seemingly like,

eaten by a sandworm covered in scars, lived to tell the tale, came out the other side radicalized and with these powers that have no like in the books. We've never seen anything like this in the book. This sort of like burn you from the inside sort of idea. Which is fun. Like a true mystery what is going on here. Yeah.

How upset are you that this bears a close resemblance to the Book of Boba Fett origin? Sorry for our guy. I don't mind it, though. I know it. I know it dismays you. So what was interesting to me about this is that Desmond presents himself to the emperor, to the court, to us as Desmond.

the source of truth, right? Oh, I thought the witches were supposed to know everything. They didn't tell you about this? Like, the Emperor has such a narrow view of what is happening. He is being handled and controlled. We know that that actually is, that's a fact. But then Desmond is like, okay, actually, this is an insurgency in your allied houses. There's a huge problem going on here. I will be the one to bring this to light for you.

What's fascinating about that to me is that it maybe this won't end up proving true, but it seemed to me like then we saw he lied about something because the story that he's telling about getting eaten by Shai Halud. Here's what he says.

Well, then believe this. I should not be here. The attack should have killed me. The fear I felt staring down in that abyss. You know what I prayed for then? The strength to feel nothing.

I'm not 100% convinced that that doesn't align with what we see, but it felt like, it felt different. That is like, oh my God, we were attacked and I was eaten and I thought I was going to die and I was terrified. What we see is him standing in a sea of thumpers, actively calling a war, and then down on his knees, hands out wide in reverence, welcoming that moment. What's your interpretation of where that recording came from?

So I went back to see if the color of the cloth in his hand was the same as the color of the cloth there. And it's not. It was like a dark one, a dark cloth, like a black cloth in his hand. And that was like a creamier kind of thing. So that was my first thought was like, oh, he put the patch there, but no. And also why would he do that? Because it seems like someone else wants the emperor to see this. But then I guess also, especially given the emphasis on the thinking machines, we should ask, can we trust what we see here?

Can we trust what we see? Can we trust what he says? Can we trust? I mean, I think we should be thinking, but like he's coming to the court in a swirl of legend of myth making. And like, especially when we think of something like the path, the way that leads us to Paul Atreides, like this myth making is so dangerous. I think, I think we should question everything I think is a point, but, but my, but I am very curious about,

It's not clear to me who put that recording there. And I don't have a great answer for it, even in Theory Corner. Yeah, because in theory, that would be someone who's trying to undermine Gensmink, but maybe not. But I don't know of anyone who has registered him as a

a threat yet. Right. You know? Right. It could be the opposite. It could be it's someone who's trying to prop him up in the Emperor's esteem. Like, look what he did. I think either way, when we're going to talk about the visions in a minute, we have multiple shots. Like, we have camera angles that seem to be his perspective looking up out of the mouth of Shia LaBeouf, right? Yes.

And the like little embers of fire are in there with him. And then there's this power. So like, is that what he says, right? I felt reborn different. I was no longer afraid. The gods are listening. So did he ingest the water of life? Did he marinate it? Did he just like stew in the goop? Did it pickle him? No.

Oh my God. Did he come out in the water of life? Dilled. A little delicious. I love a gherkin. I love a gherkin. I don't. Okay. You don't love a gherkin? Desmond gherkin. Oh boy. Here's, here's the question I have about him.

I want to say this in a way that is not going to spoil the upcoming Denis Villeneuve movie. I will just say in, in doom lore. Yes. Yeah. Sometimes people appear to return from the dead and they are not actually the person who died in the first place. That is a thing in the Herbert verse. Yep. So that's on my mind. Okay. Yeah.

Let's listen. We don't have a ton of clips today, but I did think this exchange was especially fascinating between Desmond and the Emperor. Do you believe in forces that extend beyond man and machine? I don't know what I believe anymore. Well, then believe this. I should not be here. That attack should have killed me. The fear I felt staring down in that abyss. You know what I prayed for then? The strength to feel nothing.

Just something to bookmark for the future to think about. Also, I just thought I would take us briefly to Accent Corner. Yeah.

I'm a little unclear what's happening here. I actually haven't gone the extra step and found interviews with Travis. He's Australian. He did play a Viking for a long time. This feels like some sort of Charlie Hunnam sort of melange, if you will, of accents. It feels like a little Nicolae Coster-Waldau, but without the excuse of being from a Nordic country. So I don't really understand...

the choice that's being made here, hobbitsanddragons.gmail.com if you can diagnose what's happening in this exact accent corner. Okay. Slap on your fanciest face net. It's time for a shallow dive. Let's flash around in one of the many water features of Dune colon prophecy. This is just like a roundup of some remaining questions. Now we've been through sort of the major players and the events.

Did House Atreides just enter the genetic archive? Yeah. Curia Atreides just fucked a princess. Is she pregnant? I hate asking that question, but it's, I don't know.

How are the Atreides entering the archive in one way or another? And then did that Fremen babe, who we didn't talk about because we barely get to meet her in this episode, but there is a woman tending bar and she is, you know, in the recurring cast. So she is a character, not just a random Fremen babe in the background. Did she seem to have a little crush on him? I hated her costume. She deserves better. She's a beautiful woman. She deserves a better costume. If a Fremen babe has a crush on,

on an atreides who is consorting with a princess is that a little too chonicoated how do you feel about that uh you know i it maybe yeah maybe though also i would would we believe if those characters didn't have crushes on each other i don't know i'm fair point

And it's a rebellion on Arrakis. We've already kind of touched on this in a few other places. Is there anything you want to say about this? Sort of this idea that like the sisterhood are fomenting this, that the house is pretending that it's the Fremen attacking the Imperial, you know, machines. Any thoughts or feelings about this? I think we covered this from the sisterhood perspective. I guess we should observe, we should note that when,

Duke Ruchesi and the emperor were negotiating for final terms of the marriage pact, and Kasha was there, but also House Ruchesi's truth-sayer was there, and the sisters were communicating in secret that House Ruchesi's truth-sayer said, my duke aims for Arrakis. So...

Pruitt might be gone, but I don't think House Richese is in terms of the havoc that they might bring to the Emperor's pursuits this season. How do you think Peach holds up on a sandy planet? Do you think the dust of Arrakis will sort of like, you know, dim the vibrance of their Peach aesthetic? Presumably so. But also maybe you have like a lot of nice natural camouflage? Hmm.

Though camouflage doesn't help you in Shia Lude. Here's your foot thumping. Here's the thumps. All right. Lying is surviving is a theme in Dune. As you mentioned, we sort of were going to come back to this. But I don't know. I think we covered this quite well. And I like this idea that the origin of the Bene Gesserit is in truth saying. And that which then becomes whisper campaigns and manipulations and lying and propaganda. It's an interesting evolution of...

of these particular ladies. Yeah. If you are the one who is able to tell when other people are lying, then of course you are the one who is best able to weaponize information and deploy it in the way that you see fit. That's like so compelling to watch. And I'm curious to see too how much of that Valia-

Like, when people... Especially because we have a character like Lila who's like, you know, I grew up here, right? I don't... And then we have a character like Inez who's like, this is what I want. Yeah. Whether that's the right decision or not. Again, we've already litigated and will continue to. But...

We have the true believers and then we have the people who maybe had no choice, who just found themselves in this circumstance. And what do they think about this? And like, is there an effort to challenge that? And again, we didn't really have enough time with Dorothea and her quote unquote zealots to understand Dorothea.

their relationship to this, but we do know that they rejected the idea of use every tool. So truth saying is central, right? That's like a core pillar, a core strand of DNA, but the way that it then guides the sisterhood, that's where it seems like there will be division and there will continue to be division between members of this group. So yeah, it's interesting to me because like the idea that you have to insist on unity, it's like, then you can't have it. Right. So yeah,

I'm so curious to see which characters, and again, with Toola most of all, like, I feel hopeful that she will more actively challenge her sister and not just, like,

kind of subtly say or imply that she has some notes but I think I think an active switch to the other side or effort to thwart her would be interesting to watch there and an emergence of sides which is not something we like really have a clear grasp of right now in the Bene Gesserit ranks because there's other survivors of of the time when Dorotea was alive you know there are other aged ladies inside of the Bene Gesserit so it'll be interesting to see but

All right. The last few questions I have have to do with the nature of prophecy because this is what this show is called. It's not called Dune, colon, The Sisterhood. It's called Dune, colon, Prophecy. So let's talk about it. What

What does it do to a story about prophecy when we know the nature of the outcome of certain things? We know the Harkonnens will rise to power. We know the Carinos will stay in power on the throne. We know the Bene Gesserit will only become more influential than they currently are. And we know what's coming on Arrakis. We know House Atreides will rise. We know all these things. And so, like, in a show...

it's similar to a question we asked a lot about house of the dragon we know where all of this is heading we know how long the targaryens will stay on the throne or not um we know this that or the other thing we know what what the song of ice and fire refers to all that sort of stuff like that so knowing whether or not a prophecy is true no we're gonna we're gonna

run through the images of the prophecy in a second. And they are my favorite kind, which is just sort of like roll obscure images that we get to puzzle over. So that's really fun. Just some agony. Yeah. So the, so is the answer, keep the symbols vague enough or is the answer to something you posited a little earlier, which I was on my mind as well, which is, are we going to be fooled into thinking this is prophecy pertaining to Paul and Jessica and, and,

the fire imagery of the jihad that Paul talks about in the book, when in fact it's actually referring to a much closer event. And we'll be like, oh, we know what a song of ice and fire is. We know what fire spreading across the galaxy means. We've heard Paul talk about it. Instead, it's actually something that's happening approximately 10,000 years before Paul Atreides. What do you think? In general, in terms of

How well can the show work if we know a lot of the outcomes? Like, I, as you know, don't mind that. I mean, more directly as it pertains to prophecy, though. Because, like, when you know if a prophecy is true or not, does it, you know, like, we talked about this at House of the Dragons.

Knowing as we know that the prophecy is mostly true, what Viserys believes, changes the story. If we're watching it and it's unclear whether or not the thing he believed in was actually true, there's further twists of the knife in that regard. Yeah, I think that this one so far at least is in an interesting kind of middle space where because we don't know definitively if this is referring to...

events to come in the primary Dune timeline or something a little bit closer to home in this timeline, it's harder to say. And I think also then if the answer is it's closer to this point in the timeline and then the cycles repeat but with little evolutions and twists, that's actually really interesting to me. I think ultimately the success is going to be in execution and whether the...

When outcomes are known, whether the character arcs and the journeys they take and the motivations is interesting enough to watch. Yeah, when the plot is maybe then less of a driver, you have to land the other stuff even more. I think ultimately that could be more interesting, at least in terms of how we like to watch stories sometimes. But it also is, I think without question, harder to pull off. It's interesting too, trying to figure out

what this might all be building toward or leading toward. And is it some combination like, um, Tyrion, Arafel, this idea of this reckoning, I think we'll theorize here in a second about the, some of the possibilities in this show, but like, that's also like Arafel. That's like, that's,

That's in God Emperor of Doom. So that's like even later in the timeline than Paul. So that really opens up the question of cycles and repetitions and what are we talking about and when. And, you know, the idea of a reckoning in what form, I think the in what form is maybe more specific, but the idea of a reckoning for mankind doesn't feel like something that only happens once or has an expiration date. So that's a big thing. It's like this is complex. It's a big thing to wrap up.

your arms around in six episodes, but I think it could be interesting if we pull it off. I was going to say, we have five more hours to figure it all out. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's not very much. I know. We cannot talk about prophecy without using the phrase self-fulfilling, one of our favorite kinds of prophecies. And we were, of course, probably both thinking about

our pal Galadriel and our pal Gilgal in a rings of power. When we got this sentence from Kasha and what if this plan of yours causes the very thing we seek to prevent? What if we brought on the reckoning Raquel spoke of for the same wind? I just love this shit. This is my favorite. Yeah, me too. I, and, and I think, yes, the interesting answer is always yes. Um, yeah. All right.

What are the prophecies and visions that we see? We're just going to run through this imagery really quickly. We get Raquel, like the sort of Raquel Valia prophecy first. So she sees a dust storm, Shai Halud consuming castles in the sand. I meant to check, are those castles like, is it the Bene Gesserit?

Yeah. Palace and then... Okay, that's what I thought. There's a shot at the 35-minute mark of the episode where you can clearly see on Wallach 9 the shape of their fortress, and it's a match for that. But there's not only the presence of a sandworm, but also all the sands that obviously are not from Wallach 9. Right. So it sort of feels like this mash-up, right? It will swallow... The Erechene imagery and the... Swallow the institution of the Bene Gesserit. It was sort of my interpretation of that. Okay. Burning Flesh. Burning Flesh.

which I think is cautious, a bloodied hand dripping into water, question mark, bloodied steps down some stairs, a long red cloak slash dress train, which we later, of course, see a dramatic crimson dress on Inez. Yeah. But worth noting that we also see a rusty blood colored dress on Ramiro.

her mother, Natalia. The golden lion throne. We will see the shot several times. The intestine eye view of the closing mouth of Shia Lude as if perhaps we're in Desmond's perspective as he gets swallowed by the worm. Sparks in a star field. Two glowing points which are like lights or eyes and then a robotic voice that sounds very similar to the opening scene

resonance of the two Dune films. Yes. Yes. The blue eyes made me think of Desmond and also made me think of the thinking machines, which we got a lot of blue eyed imagery there. Yeah, I agree. You mentioned the reckoning, Tara and RFL. Is the tyrant, you know, this, a holy judgment brought on by a tyrant. Is that tyrant Desmond Hart?

Is it Paul Atreides? Is it something beyond Paul? Like, you know, what are we dealing with here? That is, these are the questions of the day. And then we have Kasha's vision. After being perturbed as hell by Desmond's eyes, same Kasha. Yeah.

She hears so many spooky whispers, like all time high for spooky whisper on the soundtrack. And then this is what she sees. She sees her feet or let's say a sister's like booted foot, uh,

flashing back and forth with bare feet in a red skirt, which again could be Inez, could be her mother. Yep. Flashing back and forth on a sandy surface. The red train we saw in Raquel's vision, but this time it's seemingly trailing blood. So much blood. Not great. Uh-huh. Another Raquel vision repeat with the golden lion throne, a maggoty pomegranate, something rotten in the Pruitt Inez marriage contract with the person in red on the throne in soft focus in the background. And again,

This could be Inez or it could be Natalia. Yeah. If you look at this soft focus behind the pomegranate image, a black and white shot of Valia on the throne, cautious hand out in a stream of pouring sand. Looking up, we see Inez in that red gown in a watery pool that looks like an eye. It's a, it's a, it's a thing that exists at the Bene Gesserit HQ, but also looks like the mouth of Shia LaBeouf. Yep.

She's screaming. Not great. Kasha reaches up to Inez as sand pours down. Inez accuses you did this as she is swallowed into the sandworm orifice, which then drops down on Kasha. The robotic voice and flashing blue lights of Raquel's vision returns. So...

I mean, it doesn't bode well. It doesn't seem great. A lot of blood, maggots, not what you want in a vision. Kasha is shaken and stays shaken to see shook until she burns to a crisp. Yeah. Boy, another Viserys association. That guy loved a maggot. I'll just stick his rotting flesh into a maggot bowl. That's true. Any interpretations you're willing to make on these images here?

Well, it just seems like everything is terrible and a lot of bad stuff is going to happen. The main thing I think is like, you did this. Yeah. What did Kasha do or the Bene Gesserit do to bring about whatever it is that is about to devour the princess, you know? So this is like part of where the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy feels very germane, right? Tula begs her sister, right?

Just check. Yeah. Just confirm the match. But she does. She does, but like, are we sure? That we believe her? Well, I believe her. Also, does she know what she is meant to interpret from this? That's the part. Is she misinterpreting it? I believe she checked, but she's like, yeah. I mean, it's supposed to be. Right. So then there are a couple interesting possibilities. Does she know that there's already perhaps not whale seed, but a tradie seed inside of? Even more potent.

You could do a pomegranate seed, you could do a whale seed, but you've got a tradies seed and the seed is strong with a tradies. The seed is strong. That's interesting because presumably they're not just assessing whatever progeny awaits. It's like, what is the bloodline that got there? That's what we understand to be happening here. So if the insistence that the Richese, that the Pruitt-Inez match had to happen...

Yeah. And now it can't. So maybe that's the undoing. Well, you see, please say it the correct way, which is may the Richese seed find purchase in royal wombs. I refuse. Well. I refuse. That's the way I'll be honoring this nine-year-old child.

by never saying that as his father did in front of so many, so many people. But like, yeah, so that marriage, that obviously that union cannot happen now. But also what did seeking that union bring about? And some of that is maybe what happened with Kieran and Inez. Some of that is,

Desmond arriving when he did because of the connection between what's happening on Arrakis and this particular marriage pact. It's all entwined right now. We don't totally understand how, but seeking this union has set into motion a series of events that is going to lead not only to terrible outcomes for these people, two of whom have already been

burned alive in front of our eyes in just one episode. It looked great. I thought it was really spooky. It did look great. Yeah. The way that also there was like the glean of sweat before the crackling of the flesh. Great touch. The way they talked about in the post episode thing of like making them all damp. They're sweating as they die. Yeah. Yeah. What's on your mind here? Yeah. I really like that idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. And

I don't know the, the, the, I'm just enamored of a theory. You know me, like the fact that I clocked on the second time around that Natalia was also wearing a red gown was like, that's interesting to me. And like, for sure, this, this feeds into my final question, this idea of like,

and I sort of touched on this earlier, but like, is this seemingly powerful religious fanaticism preached by Desmond Hart and inspiration for the better, for the better desert to get into the Messiah making business. Right. He is like arriving in the swirl of myth and fire and brimstone and all this sort of stuff like that. And like, while he has this disdain for zealotry, but will she learn how to weaponize it? And if that's the case, you know, Paul, in many ways, uh,

becomes his own man but is in many ways a puppet or the idea of the Quintet Harash is to have like the ultimate puppet who is puppeteering Desmond Hart that's not her who is puppeteering Desmond Hart is the question yes like Natalia you're my number one suspect this idea of like a woman especially like inside of a

It's kind of a story about women orchestrating from the shadows, orchestrating power from the shadows in a way that they're often not allowed to do overtly. And if we think of someone like Natalia, someone who feels like her influence and power has dwindled over time and she's frustrated at her lack of power, does it make sense to puppeteer in some way or another a woman

blonde strapping man brought back from the dead here with a story to tell and he's executing on things that she wants to have happen but her hands are clean of it uh because she's operating from the shadows that's sort of like my victory is celebrated in the light but it is one in the darkness that's my opening note that's my thought

But as you know, I love a theory corner. If you have an opposing theory or if you hate theory, well, if you hate theory corner, I don't know what you're doing here, but if you have an opposing theory, Hobbits and Dragons is gmail.com. Any like text stuff that we might've missed. I'm always curious to know if you guys have like poured over this trilogy. That is sort of the loose source material for this show. I certainly can't claim to be an expert in those particular books. Hobbits and Dragons is gmail.com. Thank you to Mallory Rubin.

Thank you. My beautiful sister. Sisterhood above all. Thank you to Steve Allman. Johnny on the spot on the soundboard today. Just the best. Truly. Thank you as well to Arjuna Rangapal for his production work here, there, and everywhere. For Jomie and Dinner on the social, Jomie, I'm so sorry if you have to clip me talking about whale sperm this week.

And last but not least, Alea Zanaris on production video work as we bring the visuals as well as the audio to you on this podcast. We'll be back later this week when it is five o'clock somewhere here on this feed. We'll see you then.