Dune: Prophecy – Season 1 Episode 5 Recap & Review

In Blood, Truth

Episode 5 of Dune: Prophecy starts with Desmond getting dressed and presenting his army to the Emperor. The Emperor, in turn, speaks to them all about defending their values and deciding that this elite regiment, lead by Desmond himself, is to eradicate treason and serve his house.

Desmond happily obliges, with the first port of call being rooting out those opposing his house. However, one of the Truthsayers, Francesca, shows up to see Constantine. She’s here to see her son, and there’s obvious tensions between her and the Empress.

Constantine speaks to his mother and brings up how their former Truthsayer in the Imperium is dead. As they talk, Harrow arrives to see Desmond and apologizes for what went down in the throne room. Harrow tries to shrug it off as ill guidance from Valya and wants to try and make amends.

In order to do that, Desmond questions him about what he knows about the Sisterhood. He believes they’re meddling with the Spice trade, and Harrow bringing up the underground tunnels and rebels is enough for him to make his move against Valya.

Valya is on the backfoot and she speaks to Francesca in private. Turns out it wasn’t Constantine who brought her over to the planet but Valya herself. She admits she needs help to try and take out Desmond Hart. Given the Emperor is refusing a Truthsayer in the palace, Francesca can guide him “back to them”.

It doesn’t take long for Desmond to find Keiran and smirking, persuades him to come help root out insurgents. Whether he knows that Keiran is one of the rebels or not is unclear right now, but he’s in the clear for now.

Keiran is rattled though and immediately speaks to Mikaela, encouraging her to leave and get off-planet. She reprimands him and points out that she’s been doing this a lot longer than he has. In fact, she has a bag full of explosives, ready for Desmond’s arrival.

Meanwhile, the sisters are not happy about them all being shielded from the nightmares they’re plagued with. Tula roots out the main disruptive voice, Sister Jen, and asks her about the dream. Turns out she appears to be immune to it, so Tula wants her to help – and her discretion.

In the basement, she shows Jen the revived body of Lila, but she’s crazed and seems to be possessed by her forebearers. Jen is to stay with Lila and if need be, she’s to sedate her. Well, she doesn’t, and Raquela possesses the spirit of Lila and immediately gets to work. Tula is rattled but works with her all the same.

The thing is, while Tula is so wrapped up with her work, she’s missing out on the most important issue here. The students are fleeing in fear, and Sister Avila is not happy. However, she’s even more shocked when she discovers Lila is alive and possessed by Raquela’s spirit. Tula claims that she’s doing all of this to protect the Sisterhood, but it’s clear that things are tenuous at best between them.

Desmond launches his raid on the rebels in the underground tunnels. Keiran works with Mikaela to fight through the guards, and they manage to escape just as a massive explosion rocks the place. Keiran though notices the blade that Mikaela is carrying and realizes that she’s one of the Sisters and has been betraying him all this time. As a result, Keiran parts ways from Mikaela, deciding to go it alone.

Desmond survives the blast, managing to shield himself from the worst of the impact. However, he notices a robe that seems to hint at some part of his past. He’s not in the wreckage when Mikaela checks it over either, and she feeds back the bad news to Valya. Apparently there’s a contingency plan for Desmond though, and Mikaela was just a distraction while Francesca works her magic.

Mikaela is not happy when she’s given details to move over to the safehouse on Arrakis. She tells the Mother Superior she won’t betray her people, but she does leave all the same.

Meanwhile, Corrino finds evidence of Keiran’s betrayal and confronts him that night. Just like that, Keiran is arrested by the Imperium guards. With this, the Emperor brings up that Constantine has done their House a great duty at dinner that night. As a result, Constantine is going to be moved over to Arrakis with the Great Fleet. Of course, this is all political manoeuvring works to get a Truthsayer back in the Palace, and the look that the Empress and Ynez give each other at dinner seems to hint that they know.

In fact, off the back of this the Empress decides to work with Desmond again, and asks him exactly what happened in the past. While this is happening, Tula studies the blood sample for Desmond Hart. There’s a match in the archives and it turns out Desmond’s mother was a sister, who left him to fight for scraps. Sister Tula to be precise.

With this, we now know that Desmond is the son of Tula and Orry, leaving things on a crazy cliffhanger going into the finale.

The Episode Review

So the penultimate episode of Dune: Prophecy sees everything move ever-closer to an all-out war at the Imperium. Keiran and Mikaela make their moves but unfortunately their plan goes awry. It was perhaps always going to turn out this way, given what we know about where the story ends up, but it’s a valiant effort all the same.

The political manoeuvring is partly what makes this show so endearing and this is at least one of the better parts of Dune: Prophecy which, outside of the big set pieces and twists, has been pretty slow.

However, that slowness doesn’t necessarily mean bad, but it’s not an effectively pacey and compulsive thriller either, which doesn’t help matters. Either way, the ending leaves everything wide open for where this one may go next.