Recap of Episode 6 of ‘Dune: Prophecy’: “Encounter with a Powerful Foe”

The season finale of Dune: Prophecy promises epic deaths and revelations. Emperor Javicco Corrino takes true initiative in his final act, while Lila serves as a vessel for multiple Foremothers. Chloe Lea’s portrayal of Lila is carefully nuanced, showcasing different other memory visitors within her. This time, Reverend Mother Dorotea speaks through Lila, sharing past Harkonnen truths with the present-day Sisters.

Max’s announcement of a second season for Dune: Prophecy is reassuring in the current uncertainty of show continuations. Episode 6, “The High-Handed Enemy,” delivers a sci-fi cliffhanger with religious order conflicts, character deaths, and upcoming planet-hopping battles.

As Dorotea inhabits Lila in the present, revelations about the past on Wallach IX unfold. Young Valya’s use of The Voice led to a power struggle that extended beyond her suicide. Valya, Young Tula, Young Francesca, and Young Kasha voiced out Dorotea’s Butlerian followers, leading to tragic deaths. The Sisters’ differing beliefs on forbidden thinking machine tech versus their main Butlerian mantra create division within the Order, with Dorotea exposing the remains of the slain followers through Lila’s perspective. With the support of Emiline and Avila, Mother Dorotea initiates ideological changes within the Sisterhood.

Where was Tula during this revolt? Traveling alone to Salusa Secundus to confront Desmond Hart, her long-lost son. With Anirul’s assistance, Tula determined that Desmond’s power derives from a micro-sized thinking machine. Technology inserted into human beings at a molecular level, designed to be awoken through fear. And for Desmond, this wasn’t a miraculous transition. We see how he was targeted, then physically operated upon – the blue “eyes” of his victims’ shared dream, revealed as the tracking beam of a robotic surgeon – but we also learn that Tula still has love for her child, despite his trail of destruction. “My son was not born a weapon – he was made into one!” The question of who or what did the making? Still undetermined. See you on Arrakis, Dune: Prophecy season 2! In the meantime, on Salusa, Desmond Hart has Tula Harkonnen arrested.

Javicco Corrino, you flew too close to real power on wings of uncertainty. The emperor learns about Natalya and Desmond’s new alliance when the empress has her own daughter put in chains for trying to free Keiran Atreides. “You foolish, lovesick girl,” Natalya says to Princess Ynez. “I wanted to teach you about power. Let this be a lesson.” And the empress furthers her palace coup by murdering Sister Francesa with a cyanide-laced needle, the same one Valya meant for Emperor Corrino. Francesca fell onto the chest of her dying lover, who had already stabbed himself. It was a real blow, learning he was just a Sisterhood project, groomed from birth to represent the Mother Superior’s preferred ruling bloodline. He drove his blade into his abdomen because it was the only act he could personally control. Now, the ambition of Natalya has won the throne. And her seduction of Desmond secures access to his mind-burn app.

Is that Princess Ynez, or is it Sister Theodosia? With all this chaos in the halls of power, Valya has her shapeshifting, Tlulaxan genetics-bred acolyte assume the form of the heir to the throne. This gives Valya and the real princess some cover – along with Keiran Atreides; Nez refuses to leave her boyfriend behind, despite his wishes for rebellion – which they use to escape Salusa Secundus on a cargo ship bound for Arrakis. 

It’s a pitched battle en route to the spaceport, with Ynez and Keiran cutting down palace guards as they fight back to back, and Valya briefly reuniting with Tula before another Desmond disruption. A vision reveals to her the source of his power. How his optic nerve was upgraded and weaponized by mysterious mechanical beings, beings who have apparently been observing Valya and Tula Harkonnen since their youth, and who are now linked with the spice-producing desert planet. “If the shadows are where they want to fight, then that’s where I’ll go,” Valya says. And once their ship arrives on the windswept crust of Arrakis, it’s with a determination that Valya sees as the best-possible resolution of her grand plan for Imperium control. Sure, there were major hiccups along the way. But she has saved the one true heir, the royal daughter the Sisterhood’s genetic library declared as most suited to rule. Ynez, Keiran, and Valya look across the expanse of desert. “The path to our enemy begins here.”

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.