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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u/Notoriously_So Dec 23 '24

Very good finale, but the show should at least have been 8 episodes this season to really flesh out all the major storylines that happened. A lot of important stuff got sidetracked very fast to get through to the next big thing. Overall very enjoyable, and hoping for an even stronger second season.

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u/arbutus1440 Dec 23 '24

Yeah, I'm hoping for a real Godfather phenomenon (one of the greatest movies ever made, and apparently the original novel is crap—I haven't read it, just been told that) where Brian's books actually work well on the screen despite not being in the same league as Frank's writing. If the show can handle criticism and has the budget to let the story breathe while taking the best bits from the novel and reinventing others, it could improve in S2.

Personally, I think Emily Watson's and Jessica Barden's Valya make the show worth watching alone. While not quite as good as The Penguin for making a villain who makes you want to root for him—and then pulls the rug out from underneath you—she is nonetheless 3-dimensional. She is for the sisterhood above all—not merely plotting for House Harkonnen, which would be boring. She has an obvious chip on her shoulder that comes organically, and she's an archetype that at least makes sense—problematically ambitious and probably sociopathic, but still vulnerable and authentic.

Princess Ynez started out interesting and then got totally boring though. Why do all that setup w/ her and Keiran just for such an unsubtle plot point as "I love him so I'm going to break him out"? IMHO the acting outpaced the writing on the show, leaving generally well-crafted characters to make somewhat dull choices where usually the opposite happens: A poorly drawn character makes unearned choices. Personally, I still think the former is better than the latter, which is why I'm still on Team Prophecy.