The Showrunner of Prophecy and Harkonnen Sisters tease what to expect for season 2

Dune: Prophecy finished its first season with epic, 80 minute episode that didn’t exactly tie any of its stories together, including its central mystery about who or what uses forbidden technology to create bio-weapons on Arrakis. So it’s good that the HBO series, a prequel set 10,000 years before Denis Villeneuve’s films, will return in the future.

In a press conference timed to the finale of the first season, “The high-handed enemy”, Dune: ProphecyShowrunner and executive producer Alison Schapker, along with stars Emily Watson (Valya Harkonnen) and Olivia Williams (Tula Harkonnen), talked mostly about the first season, but teased a bit of what’s to come.

Speaking about how the series took place in six episodes, considering its scope and number of characters, Schapker said that the team is committed to one guiding rule: “to give each episode its own identity.”

But at the same time, he added, it was important “to feel that things had changed and that the characters had undergone something that had changed the story going forward. And it was very important to always understand the line of Valya and the story of Desmond and Tula’s story. I’d say it was about introducing them all. So it was a bit of a balancing act. But I’m really happy with how they built the six episodes and culminate in the final.”

As for where she wanted to leave things at the end of the first season, Schapker said, “I wanted to feel like the ground had really shifted under her feet at the end of the season, but at the same time time we had revelations that would make us understand these characters and their dynamics in a different way, and that there would be a kind of re-contextualization of the story. So, when you looked at the whole story, you understood: “Oh, there was more going on than I realized before,” which I think is in keeping with the way the Sisterhood works – the sense that there are plans within the plans, that there is more to the story than meets the eye first time. At the end of the first season, I think you get a real sense of the sisters’ story, the story of the Sisterhood, and then a real revelation, a truth that comes out. And that was important for me, that fundamental change in dynamics.”

Asked about the state of mind of their characters at the end of the first season, Watson and Williams reflected.

“I think everything (has changed between them),” Watson said. “But I think Valya still sticks to (his idea that)” I am the chosen one. I have a destiny. (He is still) his guide through this. But I would be very curious to know what happens next.”

Added Williams, “I think the huge thing for Tula is the moment when (she says) ‘Please don’t kill my son. Trust me, I’ve had this. And the fact that (Valya) trusts me and (leaves her with Desmond), little knowing that shortly after my son arrested me – (it’s) that moment between the sisters where finally Tula is entrusted with something, when everyone these years she is. known that she is very capable and very efficient and was treated like the younger sister. Sometimes people of that character like to stay in the shadows, and it will be interesting to see what happens if it is pushed more to the front and if it can handle it.

Schapker built on it. “I like the idea of ​​what you say: in some ways the sisters exchange (places) in the sense of Valya withdrawing into the shadows, and Tula is suddenly in front of the capital, and what it will mean for them. forward “, he said. “But I also think like any secret that comes out, the longer you keep it, the pain around it has to be metabolized… it makes you have to rethink your relationship going back over the years, how did I miss something?”

Watson added: “I think it’s also a humbling moment because everything she (my character) has done is based on my leadership, my sense of truth. But in a way, Valya doesn’t do humiliation. It’s like, “I’m not going to be emotional and I’m not afraid, so I’m going to keep going.”

It asked probably the biggest question that remained after the first season – who was behind Desmond’s transformation? – Schapker remained vague about any potential season two spoilers. “(If) you look back at the first season, there are hints of Desmond’s identity and his power and kind of where it all comes from,” he said. “As for the sort of shadow figures (seen controlling their destiny in their visions), I think that remains to be seen in the future. But, we try to sow in – I don’t know if people notice, but the cloth who wears the first time we see him, when Desmond Hart appears and walks up to the palace, he has this black cloth. This is really his symbol of his mother, and it (reappears) throughout the series use in moments private as a (way of keeping) alive his unity and his connection. child who called him in (it’s (a cloth of the sister to whom he clings. And now he is finally with his mother. I mean). , we tried to do things like that to make a kind of build and foreshadow where the story went.”

Ok, but what about the second biggest question: what happens now that Valya Harkonnen, Keiran Atreides and Princess Ynez are on Arrakis? Here is Schapker with, as expected, some hints but not many details.

“After a season of Arrakis exerting its attraction from afar – both in the economy of the spice trade, and in the psychological aspect of the visions and nightmares that are a kind of image of the path of Arrakis and Desmond that infiltrates everyone’s consciousness – (it was our chance) to actually go and put boots on the ground to this incredibly overdetermined and almost mythical. dune area that we know very well but we sort of keep it at a distance throughout the season. I think it is very significant that Valya came back here, and she returned to the point of origin of Desmond, where he emerged with a story and a myth: “I am from Arrakis and I was swallowed by a worm and I survived after my whole regiment was killed. All I’ll say is that I think Valya is going to find out a lot more given that that’s where Desmond emerges as an adversary, and it’s going to be interesting to see what she finds out. here.”

It really will! You can watch it Dune: Prophecy the first season on HBO and Max; The second season is coming, but it doesn’t have a release date yet.

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