Dune: Prophecy, Episode 3 Review

Oh my goodness, another amazing episode! And I thought last week's episode was good! I particularly enjoyed seeing all the Game of Thrones cast in this show. However, my mind is still reeling from the events that transpired in this episode, so let's start from the beginning.

I was SO excited to see a depiction of the whale fur trade on Lankiveil, the homeworld of House Harkonnen. From the moment that I read about whale fur being a lucrative trade in Dune, I was curious about what the heck whale fur was. In my mind, whale fur had to come from shaggy whales, right? I imagined that they were shaggy in the same way that mammoths were, and that's exactly how they were depicted in episode 3!

Valya

I was very intrigued and a little scared at how the young Valya was portrayed. In the little glimpse of the Harkonnen household, we meet Valya and Tula's uncle, Evgeny Harkonnen (Hey Robert Baratheon!), and their mother, Sonya Harkonnen (Lady Featherington!) Valya is misunderstood, to say the least. It seems like the writers really want to portray Valya as almost evil... We see that young Valya is dead set on restoring the Harkonnen name by bringing the Atreides to justice and exposing the lie that branded the Harkonnens as cowards. Valya's family is largely unsupportive of her passion for justice. This causes a lot of tension between her and her mother, who even goes so far as to say to Valya's brother that "(Valya) is a wolf. And if you're not careful, she will devour you". Valya's brother, Griffin Harkonnen, seems to be the only one who shares Valya's sense of ambition for a better life. However, Griffin dies shortly after his introduction, believed to be murdered by Vorian Atreides. This murder sets the stage for the most shocking revelation in this episode: Tula's justice.

Tula's Revenge

A good portion of this episode follows Tula. After Griffin's death, Valya is sent to Wallach IX to begin training with the Bene Gesserit, but her parting words advise Tula to get off of Lankiveil as "all that's left here is death and rot." Tula seemingly heeds Valya's words, as the next scene we see of young Tula is her amidst a lush forest, riding on horseback with a rather handsome young man. It seems to be a family gathering of some sort, and we see Tula interact with the various members of her boyfriend Orry's family. One of the younger cousins, Albert (Lord Grover Tully!), who seemingly walks with some type of brace on his left leg, helps Tula gut some creatures that have a poisonous sack in them. I suspected something was up with these poisonous sacks when she emphasized how to carefully place them in a separate bowl from the other guts. Tula later utilizes the poison from the sacks to humanely euthanize Orry's horse, who broke its leg. Upon watching the episode for a third time, one of the older men consoles her about the dying horse, saying, "We do what we must, Tula." This will come back later.

Once night falls, the festivities begin, and Tula brings a pot of what seems to be stew to the bonfire. Tula goes back to her and Orry's shared cabin and encourages him to join the festivities. Watching this for a third time, there are a lot of subtle dialogue choices that hint at the coming situation. As the festivities kick off, Orry proposes to Tula, calling her Tula Veil instead of Tula Harkonnen, it seems that Tula has lied to him about her family name. As the couple celebrates their engagement, the voices outside grow louder as they chant, "Atreides! Atreides! Atreides!" Uh oh, it's suddenly clear now why Tula lied about her name. Come the morning after, the couple wakes, and Tula asserts that they can never be together, saying, "We do what we must." Suddenly, Orry asks, "Why is it so quiet?" At this point in the episode, my stomach dropped. What happened next shocked me to my core.

After walking outside, Orry sees that his entire family has been massacred and is lying around the bonfire. Tula follows him out and injects him in the neck with the same solution she euthanized his horse with. However, she didn't get all the Atreides. Out of nowhere comes Albert, who witnesses his entire fallen family and Orry dying in Tula's arms. Tula tells him, "Go," and he runs off.
Now, after getting over the initial shock of the scene, I realize that Albert is probably Keiran Atreides' father, as the timing seems about right. I know that without a doubt, Tula's decision to spare Albert will probably result in Keiran seeking revenge in some way because you know what they say, "Leave one wolf alive and the sheep are never safe." ;)

Lila and Forbidden Technology

Another shocking revelation occurred later in this episode. After Lila's failed attempt at the Spice Agony, Tula is hesitant to take her off of life support and instead decides to take her body into the Breeding Index room, where it is revealed that the Bene Gesserit is utilizing some sort of AI technology. It finally makes sense as to why Dorotea was so relentless in trying to put a stop to Raquella's work. Tula places Lila's body into a sort of incubation box and tells the AI, whose name is Anirul, to keep Lila alive. Anirul begins life-supporting procedures and, following Tula's suggestion administers Spice to Lila in an attempt to revive her.

This is major. If you recall Raquella's prophecy, "The key to the reckoning is one born twice, once in blood, and once in Spice. A revenant full of scars. A weapon born of war, on a path too short." I had previously thought the prophecy was about Desmond Hart, who was seemingly revived from his sandworm attack and given the ability to burn people with his mind. However, now this prophecy seems to be very obviously about Lila, who, if revived by Anirul with the Spice, will literally be reborn. The only part of the prophecy that doesn't seem to fit is the "revenant full of scars" part. This was pretty accurate for Desmond, but Lila appears to be pretty unscarred right now. The last part of the prophecy, "on a path too short," does have me very concerned for Lila's life though...

Conclusion

It's been a while since a TV show made my jaw drop the way it did with this episode. I stayed up all night thinking about how brutal Tula's revenge was. Partly because, wow, she is way stronger than me, that man was handsome! Also, it was so shocking to see this killer side of Tula, who, up until now, was portrayed as the more gentle sister, and I'm very curious about what her explanation will be in case Lila does wake up. It's only now, as I'm writing this blog that I realize how clever the writers were in this episode, portraying Tula as both a heartless assassin who murdered her boyfriend and his entire family and also a loving mentor who refuses to give up on Lila and does everything she can to keep her alive. Part of me wonders if joining the Bene Gesserit gives you some kind of amnesty for any crimes committed beforehand. Because the way I see it, Tula's massacre of almost the entire Atreides family is... kind of a big deal, so I wonder if it will ever come back to haunt her.

With this being the third episode, we are now halfway through the series! It feels like there's a lot of plot left to wrap up in three episodes, so I hope the writers don't leave us on a major cliffhanger. See you next week for the fourth episode!

Dutifully yours,
Mother Superior