Prophecy season 1 finale review

The following review contains spoilers for Dune Prophecy’s fifth episode, “The High-Handed Enemy.”

Like everything else in Dune: Prophecy, there are a lot of good ideas in the season one finale, “The High-Handed Enemy.” From Tula’s confrontation with her son Desmond and Valya’s revelation of their relationship to everything that led to Javvico’s downfall, there’s a good framework of drama there. But with every step forward, Prophecy always seems to take two steps back. As a fan of the books and films, it’s almost more frustrating when they do succeed and in the end the whole is less than the sum of its parts. The story being told just never manages to balance the pace of the series with all that needs to be explained and laid out. And what’s more, The High-Handed Enemy on Prophecy leaves almost every plot thread hanging in limbo, waiting for the recently announced second season to find any sort of resolution; This leads to the promise of the premiere not being fulfilled, which laid out the various mysteries of the series.

In many ways, Prophecy makes the most of the time he has. The entire first season lurched back and forth, feeling alternately too slow and too fast for its own good. “The High-Handed Enemy” falls into the latter camp and feels rushed to squeeze everything out, despite having about 20 minutes more on top of the regular hour-long running time. And it manages to do a good job with Tula’s confrontation with Desmond Hart, Valya’s realization of their relationship, and the end of the Emperor, but there’s just an overwhelming feeling that things were cut short for time’s sake. Constantine (Josh Heuston) doesn’t even appear in the finale, and although the story gives relatively good reasons why he shouldn’t be there, it feels like he was unceremoniously pushed out of the story to make room for the others to accomplish. Just when he was getting interesting too.

There simply wasn’t enough time to fully lay out Prophecy’s ideas in six episodes. In the end, many of the younger sisters feel underwhelmed, and as their world is rocked by Mother Dorothea’s revelations, we don’t really get to see how they react to the information. We just get stuck. Even some of the main cast, from Desmond Hart to Javvico and Natalya, don’t feel as inclusive as they need to be to understand their motivations or connect with them in any meaningful way. This is one of the many reasons why the royal storyline often feels flat and unexciting.

What makes it worse is that much of the episode is set up for the next season. I’m not shaming cliffhangers here – every season finale, when the writers know they’re going to get another season, or at least are confident they will, will give a taste of something in the future that leaves us wanting more. But there’s usually still a meaningful resolution to the main storylines and character arcs that were the focus The Season 1 (Ned Stark’s story in Season 1 of Game of Thrones is the classic example) and The High-Handed Enemy offer very little in this regard. The return of Mother Dorotea and her influence on the young sisters as she reveals to them the literal skeletons in the sisterhood’s closet – reserved for next season. The fate of Tula and Desmond as power over the Empire shifts due to Javvico’s death – will be postponed for next season. And while it makes sense to leave Valya’s quest to rescue Ynez and bring her to Arrakis open, Valya, Ynez and Keiran’s storylines are all unresolved, so they continue to apply to next season. Everything comes together to form an episode – and therefore an entire season – that feels unfinished.

Dune Prophecy Episode 6 Gallery