Dune: Prophecy’s Showrunner and Harkonnen Sisters Tease What’s Ahead for Season 2

Dune : Prophecyendedits first seasonwith an epic,80 - hour episodethat did n’t precisely tie up any of its storylines , including its key closed book about who or what is using proscribed technology to createbio - weapons on Arrakis . So it ’s dear that the HBO series , a prequel place 10,000 age before the Denis Villeneuve movie , will be render in the future tense .

At a press league timed to the season one finale , “ The High - Handed Enemy,”Dune : Prophecy ’s showrunner and executive producer Alison Schapker , along with star topology Emily Watson ( Valya Harkonnen ) and Olivia Williams ( Tula Harkonnen ) , mostly talked about season one — but they did tease a tiny bit about what ’s come up .

speak about how the series paced itself across six episode , count its scope and number of grapheme , Schapker said the squad stuck to one guiding rule : “ to give each episode its own identity element . ”

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Harkonnen family dynamics: little sister Tula (Olivia Williams) sits beneath her looming big sister Valya (Emily Watson). © HBO

But at the same prison term , she added , it was authoritative to “ feel like things had change and that the character had undergone something that had shifted the story going forward . And it was very authoritative to always understand Valya ’s through telephone circuit and Desmond ’s tale and Tula ’s story . I would say they were our master character . But it was then a matter of essay to introduce everyone — and it ’s a self-aggrandizing world and it ’s a dense world . So it was a bit of a balancing act . But I ’m really proud of with how the six episode work up and culminate in the finale . ”

As for where she wanted to leave things at the end of season one , Schapker said , “ I wanted to finger like the footing had really shift beneath their feet by the end of the time of year , but at the same time that we would have revelations that would make us infer these persona and their moral force other than , and that there would be a form of re - contextualizing of the story . So that by the time you had watched the whole story , you would sympathize , ‘ Oh , there was more going on than I first realize ’ , which I think is in keeping with kind of the style that the Sisterhood work — the common sense that there ’s plan within plan , that there ’s more to the story than you see the first meter around . By the closing of season one , I think you have a real sense of the history of [ the Harkonnen ] sisters , the history of the Sisterhood , and then a real revealing , a verity come out . And that was important to me , that fundamental shift in the dynamics . ”

Asked about the state of mind of their character at the ending of season one , both Watson and Williams were reflective .

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“ I think everything [ has change between them ] , ” Watson said . “ But I think Valya is still throw on to [ her idea that ] ‘ I am the opt one . I have a fortune . ’ [ That ’s still ] her usher through this . But I ’d be very curious to know what happens next . ”

Added Williams , “ I think the huge affair for Tula it ’s the bit when [ she says ] ‘ Please do n’t kill my son . Trust me , I ’ve got this . ’ And the fact that [ Valya ] does trust me and [ leaves her with Desmond ] , little know that shortly afterwards my son has me arrested—[it ’s ] that moment between the sisters where finally Tula is entrusted with something , when all these eld she ’s known that she is highly open and extremely effective and has been treated as the less sister . Sometimes people of that character like to stay in the phantom , and it will be interesting to see what happens if she is pushed further to the front and whether she can deal it . ”

Schapker built on that . “ I love that idea of what you ’re saying : in some room the baby exchange [ places ] in the sense of Valya does pull away to the shadows , and Tula is suddenly out front in the cap , and what that ’s going to mean to them going forward , ” she say . “ But I also remember like any secret that come out , the longer you keep it , the pain around it need to be metabolized … it makes you have to rethink your human relationship go back over the geezerhood of like , how did I lack something ? ”

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Watson added , “ I think it ’s also a humbling second because everything [ my fictitious character has ] done has been based on my leading , my sense of trueness . But in a direction , Valya does n’t do mortification . It ’s like ‘ I ’m not hold up to do the emotion and I ’m dauntless , so I ’m just going to extend on . ’ ”

Asked probably the biggest head remaining after time of year one — who was behind Desmond ’s transformation?—Schapker remained obscure on any potential season two spoilers . “ [ If you ] look back over time of year one , there are hint to Desmond ’s identicalness and his business leader and kind of where it all come from , ” she enunciate . “ As far as sort of shadowy figures [ seen controlling his destiny in his visual sense ] , I think that remains to be seen in the future . But , we seek to seed it in — I do n’t know if masses notice , but the material he ’s carry the first time we see him , when Desmond Hart appears and military greeting and walk up to the palace , he ’s get this black material . That is really his sort of item of his mother , and [ it reappear ] through the whole serial publication . He uses it in private here and now as a [ way to keep ] alive sort of his driveway and his connection . lastly he meets her and is cling to her actual dress , and realise kind of what once was a piece of his baby blanket that she swaddled him in [ is [ Sisterhood cloth that he ’s held on to . And now he ’s finally with his mother . I imply , we tried to do thing like that to kind of build in and foreshadow where the report was going . ”

Ok , but what about the secondly biggest question : what ’s going to happen now that Valya Harkonnen , Keiran Atreides , and Princess Ynez are on Arrakis ? Here ’s Schapker with , as expect , some hints but not many detail .

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© HBO

“ After a time of year of Arrakis kind of exert its puff from afar — whether that ’s in the economics of the spicery trade , or the psychological aspects of the visual sensation and nightmare that are sort of imagery of Arrakis and Desmond ’s track seep into everyone ’s consciousness—[it was our chance ] to actually go and put boots on the ground at this implausibly overdetermined and sort of almost mythicDunespace that we know very well but we sort of maintain it a aloofness the whole season . I consider it ’s very significant that Valya is back there , and she ’s back at the origin stop of Desmond , where he emerged from with a story and a myth : ‘ I ’m from Arrakis and I was swallowed by a insect aAnd I make it after my whole regiment was killed . ’ All I would say is I think Valya is go to detect out a tidy sum more cave in that she is where Desmond emerged as an adversary , and it ’ll be interesting to see what she finds out there . ”

Indeed it will ! you may watchDune : Prophecyseason one on HBO and Max ; season two is occur but does not yet have a exit date .

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