The visions, witchy powers and imperial intrigue continue in Dune: Prophecy episode 4. But what does it all amount to? Our review:
NB: In line with Film Stories policy, the following review is certified spoiler-free for Dune: Prophecy episode 4.
We’re four episodes in, and we haven’t talked about Dune: Prophecy’s opening title sequence. As made-for-TV introductions go, it’s a good one: a teasing montage of the imagery and themes that we’ll see throughout the series. There’s the frozen carcass of a hairy space whale, the gaping maw of a sandworm, subtle knives and baroque thrones. It’s atmospheric stuff, and could be described as a more sedate version of the stunning, Saul Bass-from-hell title sequence that opened David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
I bring up those opening titles because they do the same thing the show’s often done so far: tease dark, dramatic events that we’re constantly waiting to see actually play out. Much of episode 4 is given over to nightmarish visions and hushed conversations about what they might mean. There’s much plotting and manoeuvring, scheming and planning. But does any of it generate much suspense? The jury’s out, though it has to be said that episode 4 lacks the icy frisson that made the last installment so watchable.
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After the previous week’s flashback episode, which related the experiences of a younger Valya and Tula, we’re now returned to the present, and the drama which surrounds Mark Strong’s Emperor Javicco Corrino. His grip over the Imperium is being eroded by rumours about the fate of Pruwitt Richese, the little boy who perished under highly unpleasant circumstances in episode one. Word has gotten out that ex-solder Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel, who still hasn’t blinked in the episodes aired to date) was behind the death, and that Emperor Corrino has attempted to hush the whole thing up.
With a High Council meeting due, Valya (Emily Watson) plans to use the event to install her nephew, Baron Harrow Harkonnen (Edward Davis) in the chamber, and offers to serve as his Truthsayer to help burnish his image among the other great houses. Meanwhile, a group of freedom fighters has something nasty planned for the Emperor at the same meeting; Valya, wily operator that she is, knows all about it, but hopes she can also use this bit of intrigue to her advantage.
A recurring word in episode 4 is “disrespect” or variations on it – a sure sign that the show’s writers had this scrawled across a white board as this week’s central theme. And sure enough, much of this week’s hour-long installment compares and contrasts Baron Harkonnen and Emperor Corrino, both somewhat ineffectual men who’ve come to rely on their advisors for guidance. Valya evidently wants to use her nephew as a vehicle for repairing her family’s damaged reputation; Corrino seems to be under some kind of spell woven by the Rasputin-like Desmond, whose ultimate goal appears to be to rid the Imperium of Truthsayers altogether.
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The problem with the Emperor’s side of the plot lies in Mark Strong’s casting. He’s a superb actor, but if anything, he’s too robust and charismatic a presence to really convince as a monarch weak enough to be swayed by someone as obviously diabolical as Desmond. It’s ironic, really, that in a series studied with unfeasibly good-looking yet somewhat bland 20-something actors, one of its main players sticks out for having too much presence, but here we are.
The Harkonnens, by contrast, are all top-notch casting. Emily Watson continues to be enjoyable to watch as Valya, while Olivia Williams gets into some supernatural stuff on Wallach XI that wouldn’t look out of place in a Blumhouse movie. You know that horror staple where kids start drawing creepy pictures? There’s plenty of that this week. Once again, we’re told that something horrendous is afoot, though presumably we won’t know what that something is until the final episode.
A minor highlight, though, is Edward Davis’ growing role as the foppish Harrow Harkonnen. He really does convince as a young man whose ambitions exceed his talents as a public speaker, and would need someone like Valya to serve as his crutch. It’ll be intriguing to see where the rest of the series takes the pair.
Here lies the Dune: Prophecy problem, though: we’re four episodes down and there are only two more to go. It’s taken four hours to get us to the point where we’ve at least begun to grasp who all these characters are and what it is they’re after. If the show follows the conventions of a three-act structure, then we’re about to enter the final stretch – yet in terms of dramatic tension, the needle’s only just began to move across the dial.
The build-up to Dune: Prophecy’s release was joined by various reports of departing personnel behind the scenes. In fact, a glance at its Wikipedia page reveals more line-up changes than Black Sabbath went through in the 80s and 90s. This might go some way to explain why, despite some terrific acting and production design, the show can also feel more disjointed and hard to follow than it needs to.
It could also explain why this week’s episode, amid some decent writing elsewhere, also throws out the line, “Our Mentats calculate the odds of immolation by toy malfunction at one in 2.5 million,” which for some reason made this writer laugh so hard that he nearly dropped a mug of coffee in his lap. It’s less like something Dune author Frank Herbert would have written and closer to a line from The Pirates Of Penzance.
Dune: Prophecy airs each Monday on Now TV and Sky in the UK.
