In the Flesh: Dune: Prophecy s1e03 'Sisterhood Above All'

Anchored by bravura performances by Jessica Barden as a young Valya and Emma Canning as a young Tula, ‘Sisterhood Above All’ is the series’s nastiest and most engaging episode to date. The centerpiece here is Tula (Olivia Williams) reflecting on her adolescent attempt to exact revenge against the Atreides for her brother’s alleged murder at their hands. Her romance with Orry (Milo Callaghan) and her gentle big-sistering of his brother, Albert (Archie Barnes) are so warm and genuine, her desire to be loved and accepted by the family so palpable, that when their surname is revealed it feels like a blow to the gut. She’s broken herself for her elder sister’s sake, very nearly razed her own gentle nature to the ground, and it’s this crippling memory that leads her to take such a wild, radical risk by keeping her protege Lila (Chloe Lea) alive with the aid of the Sisterhood’s hidden thinking machine. 

The revelation that the Bene Gesserit order is built around this gravely heretical and illegal artifact is a big step for adaptations of Frank Herbert’s work, which have never really depicted the computers destroyed during the religious wars backgrounding the original novels’ events. It’s fascinating, but like Desmond Hart’s (Travis Fimmel) psychokinetic powers it’s really a matter of whether or not the series finds something interesting to do with the pieces it’s putting into play. At this point we’ve got a double handful of moving parts, a clear fix on our two lead characters, some proof of tonal command, and not a whole hell of a lot else. There’s some lovely set design in this one, including a sort of Derek Jarman-esque courtyard at the Bene Gesserit chapterhouse on Wallach IX and a frontal shot of the imperial palace on Kaitan that looks like a colossal gold and umber Rohrshach blot. The stuff on Lankiveil, too, is nice to look at, with enormous fields of blinding white snow interrupted by the mean little buildings and carcasses of the Harkonnen whale fur operation.

The biggest and most important ball in the air right now is what exactly Valya (Emily Watson) is going to do to get back in the emperor’s good graces. We’ve seen her spend other people’s lives readily enough, but until now she’s been operating behind the scenes, using her sister, her inferiors, her carefully manipulated resistance cells. What’s she willing to put on the line now that she herself is out in the open, barred from the palace, her entire order’s legitimacy suddenly on the ropes? Her past willingness to endure the Spice Agony in order to seize control of the sisterhood suggests there isn’t much from which she’d shrink, which promises an interesting back half to the season. Let’s see if the show can pull it off.