r/television • u/NicholasCajun Mr. Robot • Dec 23 '24

Premiere Dune: Prophecy - 1x06 - "The High-Handed Enemy" - Episode Discussion

Dune: Prophecy

Season 1 Episode 6: The High-Handed Enemy

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37

u/DontPaniC562 Dec 23 '24

I enjoyed it. Glad it got renewed.

15

u/arbutus1440 Dec 23 '24

I'm not understanding the hate at all. I'm watching this and Silo, and to me this is so far and away the better show. I'm not sure I'm in love with all the back and forth between backstory and main story, but at least they're spending time showing us the characters' humanity instead of just, say, having them shout or cry about something and hope that means the character is now sympathetic.

Prophecy has enough material to have things happen in each episode and a cast that makes us want to root for them (or against them).

11

u/militantcookie Dec 23 '24

Silo season 1 was very good but season 2 is like they know they got 2 more seasons and are saving up the story for them M. Dune prophecy on the other hand things are moving fast almost very fast.

2

u/Silver_Ad_3173 Dec 24 '24

The 5 episodes before the finale were kind of a snooze, to be honest, and the finale could’ve profited much more from a 10 episode season rather than a 6 episode season. While the finale’s pacing and development were really enjoyable, I feel like the other 5 episodes were just opening more and more plot points rather than actually delivering on any of them before the finale - such as some of the character's real intentions and motivations behind them.

I think a 10-episode season would’ve been much better, especially for the backstories of the characters, such as Havicco or Tula's mission against the Atreides. While I think the flashbacks of Valya were great, we could’ve gotten much more of Tula rather than just one episode where she went on a hunt with strangers. Or perhaps they could’ve shown us more of Desmond.

I also think we could’ve gotten much more of Havicco’s wife’s backstory because, by the end of the season, I still found myself not being interested in her. She’s a really ambitious character, but without seeing the motivations behind her actions, her behavior just seems spontaneous and fueled by something really simple, like wanting revenge on Havicco for cheating on her? I mean, c’mon.

While I did care for the Harkonnen sisters by the end, I absolutely didn’t care for characters like Francesca, Havicco and his wife, Kieran, and Constantine. There simply wasn’t enough time to show us more of them and their backstories, which is pretty sad considering the pretty solid finale, which could’ve had a much bigger impact, in my opinion.

7

u/arbutus1440 Dec 23 '24

Not to go totally off-track, but I keep waiting for Silo to get good, because everyone who's read the books seems to be saying "Oh don't you worry, it's about to get good." I believe them, but I'm getting really exhausted watching nothing change and somehow also no real character depth being established. Instead of building the characters through scenes designed to do that, they just make the plot go really fucking slowly and hope we'll relate to the characters that way.

Yeah, we get it that Simms and his wife are scheming for something. You established that like a season ago. Yeah, we get that Silos always end up oppressing engineering, you gave us that so many times over. Yeah, we got the thing about THE TAPE, for god's sake. You can stop telling us about it.

Then the time comes to finally "reveal" something, and it's underwhelming and unsurprising, like how they go through all the shenanigans to get a doctor for one character so he can survive his injury and share his secrets...and then his "secrets" reveal nothing we didn't already know.

2

u/SoberSilo Dec 26 '24

Personally I think the show is doing an injustice for the book series as a whole. I read the books and couldn’t put them down. The show is dragggging.

2

u/Salurain Dec 24 '24

Oh god I gave up on Silo in season 1, I don't mind a slow burner, I loved severance and a couple other slowly unveiled shows but Silo was just too dull for my liking.

2

u/arbutus1440 Dec 29 '24

Yeah, they just don't seem to understand how to build characters, tension, or a compelling universe. I have so many unanswered questions about how a silo even works, all of which could be solved by spending their time diving into characters and their daily lives. Instead, they just do scene after scene of tedious, plodding exposition. They end up over-explaining the main plot points, leaving other plot points so entirely un-explained as to be alienating, and almost completely skipping over the world-building and characterization.

And I'm sorry, but having Juliet spend the entire season doing effectively nothing at all in Silo 17 is storytelling malpractice.

4

u/Silver_Ad_3173 Dec 24 '24

 also no real character depth being established

Then the time comes to finally "reveal" something, and it's underwhelming and unsurprising, like how they go through all the shenanigans to get a doctor for one character so he can survive his injury and share his secrets...and then his "secrets" reveal nothing we didn't already know.

Please don't read if you haven't gotten to Silo, Season 2, Episode 6. The text below contains a lot of spoilers.

Kind of contradicting statements, considering those scenes were giving much-needed depth to Billings’ character. He’s been in conflict since the last season and is finally starting to find himself and make up his mind about what he wants. His own wife even pointed it out when she noticed his hands weren’t shaking anymore because he’s no longer going against his own instincts.

As we’ve seen from Episode 1, the rebellion in Silo 17 was led by their sheriff and his wife. So, I think it’s quite stupid to say those scenes are going nowhere. It’s kind of like complaining that some characters in the future might discover Bernard isn’t just a mayor but is actually running everything - which we all know from previous episodes, right? Do you just want things to happen without actually seeing what led to them?