November 20, 2024 • 60 mins
Jason and Rosie are joined by Abu to break down the first episode of HBO’s Dune: Prophecy. They discuss the question of timeline, the complex politics at play, and the clunky exposition of this episode. Then, Abu reveals the deep-cut lore references and easter eggs you might’ve missed.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning. Today's episode contains spoilers for the first episode of
Dune Prophecy on Max and HBO and the Wider Dune Cannon,
so be warned.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Wild Cannon guys, Wild Cannon.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello, my name is Jason Concepsiode.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I am Mersey Nights of the Benny Jesuit.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
They're not called that yet and welcome back to ext
revision of the podcast when we Dive dee Vinny your
favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture coming from my
art podcast. We're bringing you three episodes a week every
Tuesday Thursday, with an extra episode every Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
In today's episode, we are joined by super producer and
dune expert Aboo. How's it going.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
It's going super well.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I love to hear it.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm your local mentet. If you're our BENI Jess, that's right, and.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Jason is obviously are chosen one. In the airlock. We
will be deep diving into that recap of Doom Prophecy
episode one, and boy does a lot of has stuff happened.
I'm glad Aboo is here to help us through so much.
Law the kids love law and HBO delivered with the
Law in the omnibus Aboo's gonna take us through some
(01:22):
of the Toms Easter Eggs references that you may have
missed in this very dense, dense first episode of the
Dune Prophecy Program.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
In the words of the Great British Breaking Show, it's
quite stodgy this episode. Let's step out of the air
lock and talk about it. We open with narration in
the wake of the human victory over Ai and the
great but Lerian Jihad, when the humans have overthrown the
Thinking Machine.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Pretty crazy to see that according.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
To legend or history. Why don't we have any history?
Nobody wrote anything down. We're not here anyway. According to
the propaganda that it exists, it was in a tradese
who led human forces to victory in this wonderful grand
victory over the Thinking Machines Akaai. The Harconans, who we
(02:12):
have to admit are kind of scumbags and a lot
of the stories that we know from the Dune universe,
were somehow branded as cowards for their behavior during this
war and were exiled to a planet that sucks. Valia
harconin one of these spends these years in the wake
(02:33):
of the war helping to build an organization of women
who task themselves with guiding political events in the galaxy.
They are trained as soothsayers. Basically, they're human light detectors,
and through a marketing campaign, which we do not see,
get themselves assigned.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Let's see the marketing campaign, guy, we.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Need to see the marketing campaign of their early benage,
of their years of like, you got it. Have one
of these soothsayers. Wow, I just got a soothsayer, and
I know the truth you.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Need in your house.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, no one.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Will ever trick you again. That will be a cool
woman wearing a spooky uniform, and she will tell if
everybody is telling them, we.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Need that marketing cafe. Anyway. By the time that our
story commences, these women are already being placed with various
important houses throughout the galaxy. The word lands rat is
not used, but I think we can assume that this
collection of great houses probably exists. Yes, Mother Riquella is
(03:36):
the first mother superior of this organization, and it is
her mission. She creates the mission of this group to
curate the genetics of the various royal houses so that
they can put in force a kind of eugenics program.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, Messiah, eugenics program to.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Create future royal who are in obviously influential and powerful positions,
but are also pliable in some way I guess, genetically suggestible,
so that the Sisters can wield influence. Do I have
it write aboo so far?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, that's a pretty good summary of it. I think
the show itself really glosses over and rushes past a
lot of this Mother Raquella stuff because this is from
the book from Sisterhod of Dune, written by Brian Herbert
Kevin J. Anderson. And the important point that the show
doesn't hit on is that Mother Raquella is so important
and her legacy overshadows the Sisterhood so much because she
(04:36):
is the first ever Reverend Mother, as in, she has
taken Spice, just like Jessica does in the movie right,
and she has survived that ordeal, the Spice agony quote unquote,
and has come out the other side with abilities, with
access to her other memories, with all of those Reverend
mother abilities that we know, and she's the first to
(04:56):
ever achieve it. I the show never mentions that I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Like to spend it an hour with her an opening
episode about her and yeah and her journey.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So Abu does she not have. So she has genetic
memories from that extend beyond her own memories, but they're
probably not that extensive because this hasn't been going on
that long.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Right, that's correct? Yeah, I mean she presumably has genetic
memories down her female line, like every Reverend mother who
has gone through the agony.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Right, but not the collected memories.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Not the collective Benny jesret right, So that is like
Rickella is the start of that. She initiates that program
and spends most of the book. The show doesn't address
this at all and just assumes we're past it, but
spends most of the book trying to figure out how
the fuck do I make more Reverend Mothers because everyone
I keep giving spice to keeps dying.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Got to drink ato spice, right.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
And they keep dying. So they're trying to figure out
the right formula and dosage. And I see, by the
time we get to where this show picks up, Valia
herself has been only the second to ever survive it.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
I think, Oh, and we haven't learned that yet. That
might be a flashback.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
That might be a flashback.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So Mother Raquella as she is dying calls for Valia,
who appears to be her favorite of the sisters.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Over her own door.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
That's right, yes, tough, look the sister. Valia shares Mother
Superior's dedication to this genetic project. Raquella tells Valia that
tyran erfl It's coming end quote, and then she has
these various dying visions of like a huge sandworm swallowing
the city and glowing eyes in space that speak in
(06:32):
a kind of garbled language. She comes back to reality
and grips Valia's hand and asks her to grow the
sister its power and to protect it as it goes forward.
Apparently tyran erfl is some kind of prophecy of holy judgment,
a reckoning, and a tyrant who will rule the galaxy.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Can I just interject him? Because I think this is
one of the funniest things about making a show like this. Personally,
I liked this episode a lot, and I felt like
they do hold up the suspense, mostly due to density
and confusion. But I do think it's really funny that
they basically just tell you, like Pola Tredees is the
bad thing that's coming, so early on in the show.
It's like, we know where Dune is going, and if
(07:16):
you've read the books, you know, so basically we're just
going to be having the dramatic irony of watching them
create their own downfall, which I think is like an
interesting thing to lay out so early on.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I agree with you, and I will say that part
of my I think that there's a good show that
will emerge here, and I think this first episode is
a bit of a mess, but I did really enjoy
the vibes.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
It's a good vibe show, and I think the.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Vibes will grow. That said, I think there's a lot
of suspense building by like dropping these little clues and
it's like, oh, you can find out why this is
such a big deal. Yeah, And I think that is,
in my opinion, a mistake. I think they should have said,
here's what the big thing they're worried about is, so
you can share in that. Because there's a there's so
(08:01):
much download that you're like, does that matter? Does that matter?
What is that? There is a lot of vagary ching
around to try and understand what's important, what's not, what
are they freaking out about? And I think they needed
to set that stage early. And then there's also the
other thing of ladies. It's gonna be ten thousand years
from now. Don't don't worry about it, stress that far,
you know what I mean, Like, let's trump the break somebody.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Else in your order. She is gonna just take it
upon ourself to do it anyway, So don't worry about it.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Can you wait until tomorrow?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Probably?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Probably?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I do think that's gonna be the most interesting thing
is like how can they hook us into this world
when we already know where we're going, And that's the
cust of all prequels. I do think that the visual
world building and as you put it, Jason, the vibes,
which I think we are into a vibe show, and
that side of it really did suck me in, like
I want to spend time in this world, which I
(08:54):
think is really important.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
It's a lot like foundation where yes, just looking at
it great, I can just continue need to look at
it because I want to continue to just even beyond
the storytelling, like the visuals.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Or another immense law show.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yes. Valia orders a small group of sister collaborators to
begin a plot to raise an empress who will rule
over the imperium. Apparently Sister Dorotea is on the outside
of this plan. She's going to be a problem because
she disagrees with a lot of stuff, including the genetic project.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
She's like, we're meant to be just humble witches, guys,
we're not supposed to be becoming eugenesis doctors.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
She probably has why did you join this group? Then?
Like this is kind of what the group project is Dorotea.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I think her mom is Riquela. I don't know if
she had a law of choice.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yes, So there's a lot of clues and hanging mysteries
regarding her as well. At the funeral for Mother Raquela,
Dorotea and her acolytes make it clear that hey, mother
Superior's dying wishes, we're not down. We don't like that,
We're not going to do it. Conflict clearly shaping up.
Valia finds now Mother Dorotea, so she did she drink
(10:01):
the spice or no, she just took the mantle on,
but she hasn't done any of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Correct, which shows like her disrespect for the version of
the sisterhood that was before. Now she's like, I'll just
take it on, yeah and do something different.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, And again there's potential for more flashback that flashes
this out. But Dorotea is also the other Volley and
Dorotea are the two next sisters to do the stuff
and become the next reverend mothers in the books. In
the books, and then there's a power struggle. There's a
schism in the sisterhood and it's Dorotaea vers Valia.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Interesting again, skimm Dova in the last ten minutes of
this episode.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, so Dorotea is like, we should just be, in
Rosie's words, humble witches who guide the imperium. We don't
want to like ruling it from the shadows. That's overstepping.
And so in service of my vision for this organization,
I'm going to go into the genetic archive and I'm
going to destroy it. And Valia is like, no, you're not.
(10:57):
She used stops her from doing it.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
She's like, I don't know that.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I'm not gonna get her that something she invented.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, she invented the voice. She's the first person to
ever use it live.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Is that true to the Bookaboo?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
That is true to the book.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yes, Okay, so she's been developing the voice apparently, like
doing R and D in secret she's so, this is
the first live test of the voice and it's successful.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I want to know how have she been practicing it?
Because if she they get those prisoners from the imperium. Oh,
that's true, she's just been making them do horrible stuff. Yah,
she's a villain. They they if you felt like the
Penguin on HBO Max, that was real villain centric show.
I feel like this is following on in that in
great terms.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
So Valia's like, well, listen, the voice pretty cool? Right,
you were like this is pretty sick.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Wouldn't you want to do this?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Don't you want to learn how to do this? Right?
I will teach you how to do it? If you
just let us do the gen nick thing, can we
do it? Dorte is like no, I will never agree
to that. So Valias like ten stands us up of
the neck and she's dead, and she does go on
and the other sisters come running, not knowing Maybee the
(12:08):
voice has been used. They don't even know about the voice,
and they're just like, oh my god, dort kill herself.
This is crazy.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Guess we can just do our plan now. This is convenient.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, I'm fast forward thirty years.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, my read of it is those three women that
run along. I think they at least heard the voice,
or they have some suspicion that Valuo was involved. But
that plan is essentially like getting an empress to be
in charge of the imperium is the most important thing.
So we'll keep this between us, and like people in
a slasher movie, in thirty years, someone's gonna come up
(12:38):
and be like, bro, did you kill someone? And it's
going to be a problem. And now it's that years later.
That's a crazy time jump.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
So now it is thirty years later, one hundred and
sixteen years after the end of the Butlery and Gie
hot aka Machine War, and it's like ten thousand plus
years before Paul and Tree's again, not that big of
an emergency. Obviously, we don't want it to happen, but guys,
we had ten grand And also.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Guys, he was born early anyway, so it was supposed
to be that next generation. So he's like even then,
it's still a long time, guys, even though he came ali.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
So in the intervening years, Valya has taught the sisters
how to use the voice, and the Order has only
grown in power and influence. We now have sister soothsayers
very much in demand across the galaxy.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Everyone has on it.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Everyone has one. You gotta get.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
It's like a tamagotchi. Everyone wants on you.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Well, the Harkonans have not got one, and you think
they're probably thinking, well, hold on, Valia, you're one of us.
What the fuck can we get a soothsayer? And they've
asked numerous times and Valua is like, for the fourth time, no, no,
fuck yourself. Interesting interesting development. Yes, Imperial guards arrive, including
the prince Lord Constantine, who is he's hung the half
(13:52):
brother of the Princess Ynez who will soon be a
student here at the not yet ben a Jesuit order,
and he's here to just inspect the facilities and make
sure everything's fine for the arrival of his sister. Lord
Constantine is like, my sister's got to have her own quarters,
she's got to have her own cell phone, she's got
to have a prince, she's got to have.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
A she needs a special seat that's riped off so
no one else can sit in all.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Of that stuff. She needs a toilet seat that warms
up and all that stuff. And Valuys like spa days
and Volley's like, absolutely not. She's just gonna be a
normal sister like everybody else. And Lord Constant's like, okay,
well I tried.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, He's like I had to try it.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
He wasn't that.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
He's very chill guy. He tried, and he's like, yeah,
I tried. Later to lahar Conen, Valia's sister is teaching
the students how to strategically guide events in the Councils
of the Powerful by lying and understanding the difference between
lies and the truth, and understanding when to use each
(14:51):
and how to shade truth with lies and how to
shade lies with truth, et cetera. Her sister Valia comes
down and says, hey, the Emperor deal, we got it sealed.
Princesses common She's gonna be living here. It's gonna be great.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Okay, bo, can I ask you a quick question. Ye
are the women that we see in that sequence? Are
all of those women actual characters from the books?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
No, there's a lot of original characters.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
It felt to me like this was kind of a
adding kids to the Magic School section. It didn't necessarily
feel like they were coming directly from the book, So
thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
We go to Seleusis Secundas, which apparently is the Emperor's
throne world and will in the future, I believe, be
the place where they make his imperial guards. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
That's correct. The planet mysteriously gets nuked to oblivion and
becomes like the Healthscape prison planet.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Fun.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Okay, Swordmaster here into Tradees is sparring with Princess Ynez
and let me tell you, Oh they're sparring. He's using
more than just the sword.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Is dead Pool Wolverine levels of we're having a fight,
but really we're having sex.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Focus on my body, he says, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Focus on.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
The chemistry. Is that this is seems like she's having
a good time.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Constantine comes back and he's like, just came back from
the school. Were elsewhere. The Emperor is having a meeting
with the Duke of Riches.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
A space venus.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Hey, yah, you're gonna love the matter. You're gonna love him.
And if you are marrying princess to my charm, beautiful,
I give you the ships.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
You need the sheep negotiation.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
You need my ballist, the ships and knows that the
Cussi fall the iracas and you get the spies and
the spies are gonna flow, So apparently the emperor is
hard up for warships the emperor. So this is a
good point where we can ask a question. I think
because I think you hear emperor and you think unchecked power.
(17:00):
But the emperor in the world of Dune is hamstrung
by the power of his subordinates, the power of the
great houses. Could you explain to us exactly why this
emperor seems so weak and unable to provide his own armaments.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And machinations with other houses.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, yeah, couple of reasons. One, Jason, You're correct, there's
like this tenuous political tripod of this universe. You have
the Emperor and his forces, which is currently hous Carino
on one side. Then you have the lands Rod, which
is the collection of great houses, the trades, the Harconins,
there are jay Z's. And then you have a group
(17:44):
we haven't seen in this show, but is very present
in the books and we saw it in the Villna films,
the Spacing Guild, who have a monopoly on all travel.
And you have these three powers sort of precariously working
with and against each other at all times. And so
the Emperor isn't so powerful that he can just stomp
over the Guild or the Lancerod any day he chooses,
he has to work with them. His hands are tied.
(18:05):
The second reason we're seeing sort of a weaker house
Carino and a weaker Emperor at the moment is because
we've just come off the tales of a machine war
that SAPs the resources of all of humanity basically right, soldiers, money,
everything we came from, back from essentially the brink of
enslavement and destruction at the hands of machines and House
(18:25):
Karno was pivotal in doing that, but very likely sacrifice
the most in doing that as well. So they've obtained
power but at great cost. And now they may control
Aracus and Spice, but that doesn't mean they are objectively
the most powerful people out there right now.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
So they need the ships they need there cheesy ships.
While this is happening, we see that Kasha, the Emperor
soothsayer and Duke with Chesy's soothsayer like finger signaling to
each other and they're like, this fucking duke is a
real asshole listening, and she's like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
In case you didn't realize, the Duke of Richesi, you're
selling his child, and.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
The Duke's in sooth series like, you don't even know
the half of it. I work with this guy all
the time. He's a piece of shit, and Kasha has
to be like, well, listen, once the marriage is over
and we're clear of that, we can take care of
this guy. Whatever gom Jabar in the neck, we poison,
whatever the case might be, we get rid of him.
But we just got to get this wedding going. The
Emperor then consults with Kasha over the ballistas and whether
(19:24):
it's worth marrying his beloved daughter Ynez to the Duke
of Richesi's son, and they confer and he goes over
to the Duke of Riches. He's like, okay, let's do it,
my daughter for the ships. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And it's very clear now that he is fully under
the thrall of the Benajezra at this point, or at
least takes them pre be prey the Sisterhood. Let's call
him the Sisterhood.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
I wouldn't even say the thrall. I just think he is. Again,
he's a weak emperor vying with powerful political forces that
are ostensibly his subordinates but have agency on their own,
and he just doesn't know where to turn. And I
think Kasha has given him good advice to this point,
and he's got to get the spice to flow.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, and sort of living in the shoes of his predecessors,
like he didn't win the machine war his the Karnos
before him did, and he just inherited being emperor, so
he didn't like get here on his own savvy or
political and military might. He's just inherited it.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Back on Wallack nine, where the Sisters live, we see
that they are learning combat techniques and other subtle techniques
in order to influence people. Sister Jen, during a session
in which they take the Imperial prisoners and discover whether
lying or not, thinks that all this soothsaying shit is
too easy. It's way this way too easy. Come on,
(20:45):
when are we going to ramp it up? Vol was like, okay,
let's show us lie to us and tell us something.
And she's like, oh yeah, well you know why I'm here.
I'm here because I have fucking murdered my parents and
I murdered my I walk into a McDonald's, I killed
everybody blood and I put the blood in a super
sized cup and I drank the blood out of that
(21:05):
and I put ice it. And then I put the
blood on my chicken nugget and I put ice cream
on it.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, the bloody frosty.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
And all the sisters are like, I don't know, I
can't tell. I can't tell if that's true or not.
And she's like it's a lie.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Ah bitch, she's crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Later, Empress Natasha talks to the princess about the wedding.
She's like, I hate all of this. I hate the wedding.
I hate you going to the sisterhood school. This kid's nine.
He's nine. The Chesy boy is nine.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
And he's got name threw it, ri Chesy. That's just
a dumb es.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Are you fucking kidding asking me your husband.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
She's like, I am here in the world of Dune,
and guess what my name is, Natasha, just like Duncan. Yeah, Paul,
I'm one of the people with a normal name. Your
name's like kind of cool, Inns. It's not crazy, I
know if you Andezza's in real life. But she's like
through it, ri Chesy, like this is what you're doing.
And also I think this is really interesting because the
mom is basically like, you don't have to do this.
(22:00):
You can just marry whoever you want your royalty, like,
just live my life, don't live what your father wants.
And I think that's interesting because that sets up that
battle between the mom and then the influence of these witches.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
So the princess has a completely different point of view,
which is she loves it. She wants to marry the boy.
In fact, she wishes the boy was like three years
old instead of nine, so she could have six extra
years influencing him and molding him and.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Being in the bensnany jesuit at school.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, turning his heart and brains into servants for the Kreno.
Cause she's like, this is fucking awesome. Mom's like fine,
but also admit to me that you want to fuck
You're a Tread's swordmasters, right, I could see it. You
should do it. Yeah, I support it. And by the way,
everybody could see it. Kuran, the swordmaster, walks in and
he tells the Emperor that a guy just arrived from
(22:49):
Oracus and it's Jason Momoa. No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Like, look at this man, isn't he Jason Momo? From behind? No,
I knew it wasn't him.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
We have at home.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, exactly, that's right. This is Wish Jason Momo.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
This is t WU Jason Ravola. This is Houston Street
Jason Ravola. He is Desmond Hart. He is a twelve
tour veteran of the battlefields of Iracus, where he's been
fighting Fremen and just recently his entire squadron was totally
wiped out by a Fremen attack. And guess what, Desmond
Hart the only guy who fucking survived. He's a little
(23:32):
he's a little amped up, a little weird, but you're
gonna like him. Hart has a meeting with the Emperor
and he says, guess what, Emperor, it wasn't Fremen, it
was your own allies. It was other forces from the
great Houses who were secretly put on Iracus to undermine you.
(23:54):
And the Emperor is like what. He goes over and
talks to Kasha, is like, Kasha, is this true. She's like, well,
he's telling the truth and what he thinks is the truth,
so who knows? And she's like, why haven't I heard
a thing about this? And she's like, well, maybe it's
an isolated incident. Sounds is a weird.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Thing, very suck.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, I don't get that.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I just want to say I love Mark Strong. He's
one of my favorite actors. He's great in the Penguin.
Love to see him here. Love that he's getting to
plan an emper Good for him. But this emperor is dumb.
If this man walked in and was like, hey, so
everybody else who was a witness to this diede but
here's my version of it that no one else can support.
And then the Empress like, come to my wedding, Come
(24:32):
to my door's wedding.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I'm like, why is he invited? Don't I agree with you?
So yeah, heart is like, hey, do you want your
very own Jason Momoa in the palace? Give me a
job here, And the Emperor is like sure.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Sure, I'm too busy for this.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And in fact, you don't just get a job, you
get to show up to my fucking daughter's wedding to
a nine year old. This is gonna be an awesome time,
great food, great drink, incredible. Kasha has a dream that
includes a lot of really ominous symbols, including fruit filled
with worms and the princess being devoured by a sand worm,
(25:07):
and then those glowing eyes with a strange voice in space.
She goes to speak to the princesses like, I'm leaving
because there's weird signs and dreams importance and I gotta
go back. The vibes are off. I got to talk
to the sisterhood about it. I'll be back, but listen,
we hope you become empress. You're well on your way,
and I'll be back shortly. Okay. The Emperor is really
(25:31):
vexed that Kasha has left, but apparently she'll be back. Yeah,
he just she leaves her like a message, like on
a mini disc, and he's like, what this is fucked up,
But apparently she's only going to miss the engagement party,
not the actual wedding itself, so okay. The Emperor Empress.
They argue about this wedding. The Emperor is for it
(25:52):
because he needs the arichesy.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Shit he needs and the galaxy the best.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
And a cheesy ship and go to bring a rackets
to his knees uh, and the prisons against it because
the groom is nine.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
He's like, come on, and she's like, this is just
some dumb Betty jesureite plot. I'm not into this. She's like, well,
if I don't always happy, and he's like, she wants
to do it, We'll be happy with.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Cheesy and again, we'll talk about the various storytelling decisions later.
But I think part of the reason that particular conflict
doesn't land too much is because your daughter wants to
do it. Anyway, We go back to Wallack and Tula
and Valier strategizing for the princess's arrival. Who do we
pair her with? Who's your friend? Et cetera. You know this.
(26:40):
The acolyte program is apparently a very important program. Emmeline, No,
she's a bad influence. It's a bad apple. What about
Sister Jen. Sister Jen is a little too independent, but
obviously very very talented. What about Theodosia? Okay, hold on, now,
she owes us for some reason which we will clearly
(27:00):
find out about later. And she's apparently Vali's favorite, So
guess what It's probably gonna be Theodosia, although Tula's favorite
is Lila. Okay. Valia thinks that Lila is weak and afraid. Okay,
so there's gonna be a difference of a pity there,
and Tula says, well, she has a lot of promise,
but she just needs time. I don't know that we've
really landed on who the acolyte for the princess is
(27:23):
gonna be, but clearly we're in a horse race between
Lila and Theodosia. Rumbling then announces the arrival of the
ship that shouldn't be here. It's Kasha. She's like, I
had a really crazy dream. Let me tell you about it.
She's clearly very afraid. Kasha is concerned that the reckoning,
which is ten thousand years from now, if that's the
(27:43):
thing they're talking about, might be closer if they do
the thing that they're doing, which is putting an empress
on the throne in the genetic machinations. They think that
they're going to have a hard time getting the princess
on the throne, which is why it's crucial apparently that
the princess marry this nine year old that.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Kasha is like, don't do it. She's like beginning to
have her downs because of She's like, well, if a
kid just has bad vibes.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I had a crazy dream, and maybe we shouldn't do this.
One thing that we should do is toss to an
ad break. We're going to go to a word from
our sponsors back in a second, and we're back, and
(28:29):
the cheeses are back. The Chesy's a back, Baby Cheesy's arrive.
It's the engagement party, a wonderful event. We get her.
Look at Pruit, this young nine year old chesy boy.
The princess is there, she looks great. The Empress the
loving that dress, that red dress is about you're in
a Tread's all there, Tula back on Wallach. Tula and
(28:51):
Vala argue about the importance of Castia's dream. Tula is like,
we got to take them more seriously, don't we. Let's
pump the brakes and just really analyze what we're doing.
He says, all gas, no breaks. We go forward. The
princess is marrying that little boy, and she's the empress
we need and we got to do it. Tula is like, okay,
but can you just go and check the genetic archive
to just make sure that we're right. Yeah, yeah, I'll
(29:14):
go check here. The princess and Pruitt go through with
the engagement ritual. It is super awkward. It involves like
feeding pomegranate seaberries to each other something. Yeah. Yeah, it
doesn't go smoothly. Preuit in particular does not seem keen
to wed at this particular time, which I get it.
He's nine, and it's very awkward, but there's lots of
(29:35):
applause because obviously a lot of right is writing on us. Later,
Constantine is playing the lute, and the ladies fucking love
that shit. When he gets the.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Loot out, Pruit sisters are really into it, and I think.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
He's a good looking kid. Lord he is.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
He's hunky and he's got a very strong jaw line.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
The Emperor is watching all of this closely. He's watching
the richeses very suspiciously. The Princess, who is sitting on
a little Dais couch with Pruet, notices that he's messing
around with his little pouch on his belt, Like, what
the fuck's that? I can tell that you're being untruthful
right now and trying to hide whatever is in your
(30:15):
little fucking belt pocket. And he's like, okay, it's this,
and he pulls out a little robot lizard that runs
around the room and runs around the floor. Mister Hart
Desmond Heart Timu Jason Momoa stabs it with a knife
and then shows it to everybody, and everybody is shocked
because this is apparently forbidden robot shit, you know, coming
off the Robot Wars, you're not supposed to have stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
It's actually like scared in as when she saw it,
She's like when the unfelt from the hand, she was
like terrified.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
These are the things that tried to enslave us. How
what the fuck? You can't have shit like this? And
House Karno, obviously because of their role in guiding the
galaxy to victory of the machines, takes this kind of
stuff very seriously. The Empress is like, this is forbidden.
This is forbidden. We're Chesy's we might have to throw
you in the dungeon. The Emperor is like, oh who
(31:04):
whoa wha who Let's talk about it after the marriage.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, okay to a child. Yeah, I'm married to this child.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
It's like, obviously it's a big deal. Yes, talk about
it later, but he is clearly concerned. Heart gives the
boy back his little robot. Here's a moment I didn't understand.
Prude is like, thanks Eniz for what.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
No, no, no, no no. She when the mom is
like talking about it being forbidden technology and trying to
set the gods on them, she puts him behind her
back and like protects him, but then she turns around
and says to him, if I see that thing again,
I'll kill you myself murder. So that was a bit
complex to me, But I think she's playing the political
game where she was protecting per It because it's like,
(31:47):
this is my guy that I'm gonna get married to,
and we have to have some kind of loyalty. But
also you're fucking with my ship, which is that I
want to go to the Hearken.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
And I just found it weird because obviously Ynes blew
up his spot. It's weird to thank her in that moment. Anyway.
Valia is like, hey, just check the archive, and I
just want you to know, like legit, like the princess
is the right one. We're good.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Oh and with zero evidence, like bay, yes please.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Tula wants Kasha back at the Emperor's side, like we
got to have her there. Valia says, yes, we'll obviously
we're gonna put her back when he place her back
with the Emperor, but we got to make sure that
everything is okay with her upstairs because these dreams, I
guess are a little concerning. Sister Emmeline and Jen are
complaining about the princess looming arrival on campus. So we
got to get the idea that this is a controversial
(32:37):
thing that's going to happen here at the school. Constantin
and Yinez head into town for a party. This is
wild raving. Yes, spare fucking. They snort some imperial booger sugars. So,
I guess what do we think this is? Like spice cocaine? Maybe, yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Some drugs caught with spice. Aboo is there anything like
this in the books.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
There are a lot of drugs in the books. Yeah,
Frank Kreber was not about drugs. This could be sumuta,
this could be a laca blah blah blah. Like there's
a lot of deep cut, lower drug things. But it
just looks like, okay.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Straight up, they're just doing good. So they go to
a club. The club is banging. Meanwhile, the Emperor is
like brooding by himself. He's so sad. He's like, Kash
is not here, Who do I trust?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Well?
Speaker 1 (33:23):
What about Desmond Heart? Dosnet Heart comes in?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
What about your wife? Sah, how about you have a
conversation with your wife?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Well, he says, there's apparently, yeah, there's apparently a problem
between those two. But Desmond Heart comes in and is like,
I can tell you're afraid, which is like a weird
thing to start with. The Emperor asks Heart, Okay, what
do we do about this insurgency on Aracus that you
say is not fremen. Heart doesn't answer, but he's like, well,
that's not your only problem. Here's what your actual problem is.
(33:53):
Your problem is that other great houses in the lands
rad are grumbling because you made them get rid of
their cell phones and their laptops and all that stuff.
And they are like, we like that stuff. We want
it back, we want all.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
That life is hard without.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, and I guess this is aboo. Is this pre
the Mentat system?
Speaker 3 (34:14):
This is around the Mentats. Yeah, everything sort of crops
up at once, the sisters, the Mentats that guild all
of these things that replace technology.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
So at this point they're doing like space calculations, like
on pad and paper, Like, how are they just like calculators?
I mean they're doing it, Longhand at this point.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
No, the Mentat should exist. But we haven't seen any
of the show. Okay, so I don't know what the
creative choice is there.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
We may see them okay later, So whatever the case,
there are various dissidents within the royal system who think
that getting rid of Ai was a bad idea, and
they think that the emperor having the monopoly on spice
is also a bad idea, and the Emperor is like,
I've never heard of this. This leads me to believe,
(34:58):
along with the Glowing Eyes boo, that the major antagonist
is going to be the Spacing Guild, like the Rise
of Space.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
That's a good I like that.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
That would be fun for them to introduce that.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah, yeah, the Emperor is now like, you know what,
Kasha is not here and I've completely changed my mind.
I'm out on the wedding.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Dude, this guy he has got like no fucking backbone,
Like he doesn't know what is going on. He's like,
Kasha has left me for five minutes and I'm sick
of it. I'm done. Actually now, fake Jason Hama. You
are now my new spiritual guide even though I've only
known you for.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
You're my new guy, and I'm out on the wedding
despite the fact that Kasha, who has never steered me wrong,
is for it. But here's the issue.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Needs those riches a ship the riches of ships.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
It's important. And here is like one of these moments
where I felt a producer saying we need to restate
the stakes because I don't understand what's at stake here.
And so he says again, we need the riches ships
because if I pull out of this marriage, we don't
get the ships. And then we need the ships to
secure ourragas and secure the spies. Because the Emperor can
underlived the Spice. I'm a dead I'm a dead man.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
I'm a dead man. You'll come to me on the
day of my daughter's engagement, but.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
I can't have the spice ad This is terrible. Desmond
Hart says, Emperor. I'm gonna tell you some weird shit
because I've been on a planet of spice for a
long time and now I'm just gonna get crazy. Here's
what's crazy. It's a miracle that I'm alive and then
I'm with you right now because I was almost dead.
(36:34):
I was reborn on Arakis. They almost killed me. I
was there for twelve different tours and somehow I died
a million times. And I'm back. He's back, and I
feel that it's the will of the gods that I
am here with you, Emperor Carino, and the Emperor says, well, listen,
I'm not a religious man, but if the gods can
get me out of this wedding to the a chesy child,
(36:57):
oh I will be literally the biggest religion guy in
the galaxy. Like I will be number one religion.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
My god, my, this fucking guy. This is like, this
is like when you're a little kid and you're in
trouble and you're like, oh please, I don't want anyone
to find out I'm gonna be in trouble. Like then
I will like be a good person. I'm like, how
old are you?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Brow?
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Are you like eight years old? You literally just gave
this guy a free pause to do whatever he wants
to stop the wedding, just so that you can be
like really into religion. Like, Mark strong, Emperor, you're doing
a bad job.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Mark strong Emperor, you are you are not a great emperor.
In the club where literally most of the people here
are off fam they are Kieran is there. He clearly
got the text from Yez is like going.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
To the club, I'm gad to see you there.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
And there's a vibe there is there is an extremely
strong vibe between them. Kieran's girlfriend question Mark is like
over his shoulder, being like, why are you flirting with
the princess? Like do I need to explain this to you?
So that was confusing because clearly the vibe I was hey,
boyfriend girlfriend, but there was no explanation to who this
woman behind Kieran was. Right, miss, I would say, it.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Is quite interesting to me that this is a show,
even after a couple of watches, where like they choose
to do a lot of exposition about some stuff but
be very vague about other stuff. And I guess that's
every show, but it felt like in this when it
was like we need the spice, the spice must flow,
and I'm like, bro, everyone who's ever watched Dune or
read even one bit of Dune knows the spice must flow,
(38:27):
even if you only know the memes. But I would
also like to like know some names, so like can
the names be flowing?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah? Like who is this woman who looks upset? Anyway,
Kieran if he is dating that woman, he's not particularly
attached to her, because he immediately goes to a private
room with Princess Ynez. He smokes some space crack and
then they start having sex crazy. They seize the moment.
(38:56):
She's like, I'm leaving forever probably in a days, go
into the Benny not yet. The Benny Jes are at
school and also marrying this nine year old, So if
we want to get it in, we kind of have
to get.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It in right now.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Let's do it now, and Kurtt is like, bet, let's go.
We go to Wallach nine, where it's nighttime. We meet Lila.
She can't sleep. Jen also up notices that Lila can't sleep.
He's like, what's your deal. Lila says, that story that
you told, which was a lie, there's a ring of
truth to it and I could tell. And then Lila
(39:30):
tells her story about how she got here. She doesn't
know who her parents are. She thinks that the sisters
know her family history but are keeping it from her.
Jen says, don't worry because if it's important enough, the
truth will find you, which is cold comfort. Valia is
staring at mother Raquela's statue or mummy and just thinking
(39:51):
about the future. Is it her mummy? Do we know?
Like it seems like a very lifelike statue in a
weird way. Yeah, I think it's just a statue, okay,
but I like your spooky v that it's a mummy.
The Emperor has a bad dream that involves a lot
of the imagery which we have seen previously in the
two previous bad dreams we've watched. He then goes wandering
(40:11):
on the palace and he finds a video from Desmond
Heart about how he survived on Oracus, and he watches
the video taken like from a drone, I guess, and
we see that there's a lot of dead bodies on
the field. We don't see what happened, but Desmond Heart's
walking around, he's the only guy. There's a spice loader
in the background. And then there's like a huge worm
(40:34):
that is clearly coming, and something happens. The worm seems
to pause, but then also seems to attack, and then
the video cuts out. Clearly Desmond is alive. So this
raises a lot more questions than answer.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Does this mean that he wrote to sand No, I
think all of this is up in the air.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
It's intentionally one of those you'll find out later, Okay, yeah, thanks.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yeah, So elsewhere in the palace proven it is playing
like in a hallway with his robot because apparently like
he can't do it in his room because people will
find out. So he's playing with his robot and Desmond
Heart comes up. Prewe It is like, hey, Desmond Hart,
I don't know you, but you're just like a weird,
strange man in the palace. Let me tell you about
my dad. Here's what's up. My dad thinks we should
(41:19):
never have gotten rid of computers and cell phones and
he wants them back.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Thinks that great, he would thinks everyone should have a
little airom.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Yeah, that stuff's got to come back. Heart says, you know,
it's interesting. I was a soldier on Oracus and prewe
It is like, well, why are you here and he's like, well,
because the palace is like a battleground also, and then
he says, young boy, prew it. I have an important
mission and sadly that mission requires you to be dead,
and then he like fries the kid with his mind.
(41:47):
It's really gross.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeah, And it goes on for a long time. They
are like making you watch and this is not like
a Jeoffrey who we know is evil. This is just
like a funny, little rude nine year old with a toy.
But alas he gets fried with The implication here to
me is this is to start some kind of war
or conflict or to stop the wedding, obviously, but also
(42:09):
I feel like now you're going to have like, oh,
there's someone in the palace who is a mole who
is killing people. But obviously we know it's hot, but
I don't think anyone else is going.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
To know that.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
I think that Desmond Hard is working on the orders
of the Nascent Spacing guildh in order to make sure
that the spice production remains chaotic and is up for grabs,
so that they can get some access to this shit.
That's what I think.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
I also wondered if it was like he's turned and
now he's on the side of the Fremen, so he's
actually there to stop spice being taken.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah, he doesn't look a Fremen vibe.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
He does look like he may have been doing some
kissing with a Fremen. Yeah, kissing a Fremen, marrying a Fremen,
killing children for a freemen. It could happen.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
This guy has smelled the water of life.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Oh baby, he's spiced himself, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Valiya wakes to screaming in the school. Tula is also
awoken by this. They run up. They find Kasha wandering
the halls in agony, and then she burns up just
like Pruett died.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
You know, I like Kasha. I was a big Kasha man.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
The only Asian character dies in episode one. I can't
do we've done it again anyway. Valyya then says, I
see mother twice and clearly she realizes the importance of
this event in a way that we don't understand yet,
and that brings us to the end of our episode.
We be right back after the word for our sponsors
(43:33):
to discuss this episode. We're back. Okay, there's a lot.
There's a lot here. Yeah, and while we discussed the episode,
(43:57):
let's also discuss some of the lore that we saw
so that we can all understand what we've seen. First
of all, just reactions. Aboo, you're the super fan. You've
been following this Yeah, guy for years, You've been following
the production news of this show for years. Your thoughts
Episode one, Dune Prophecy.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
I think I'm cautiously optimistic. I quite enjoyed this first episode,
and I want to come into it with an open mind.
Considering it is episode one. I'm trying to remember what
it felt like to watch Game of Thrones episode one,
and obviously.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I think this is very Game of Thrones episode one.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Yeah, and so I want to give it time to
tell its story and come into an open minded So
I'm gonna let it do that before I come down
too hard on it. Obviously I come in with a
lot of preconceived notions, just being a Dune person and
being a lifelong fan of the universe and the books.
So there's a lot there. There's a lot of easter eggs.
There's a lot of deep cuts for folks who do
(44:52):
know you know, Like you mentioned Tiaran RFL earlier, Jason,
that is a deep, deep cut from the fourth and
fifth book that Frank Herbert wrote, of the six that
Frank wrote, and so like most people aren't making it
that far and aren't recognizing the word RFL, you know,
And that to me inspires a little bit of confidence
(45:13):
that the folks behind the show have done their own
work and are throwing in those deep cuts for the
super fans and doing their best to also make it accessible.
I agree with many of the criticisms we've talked about,
heavy on the exposition a bit of clunky storytelling, a
lot of things that are like we'll tell you about
this later, but just keep this in mind. Let's put
a pin in it. There's a lot of putting pin
(45:34):
in things for now. But again, episode one of a series,
it's got to establish a lot of things before we
get to the meat of it, so I'm willing to
give it a bit of grace. TLDR. I liked it.
I'm impressed by what I saw. It's very beautiful visually,
very beautiful, and I look forward to seeing how the
rest of it goes.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Rosie your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
I agree with the Boo. Also like Doune for me
in general, whether it's the Lynch Dune or the Denny
June or this or even the books when I'm brave
enough to try and dive into them, it's a vibe
property for me. I think it's all about the world
building and the vibe of it and whether you want
to spend time in that world. And I think Denny
(46:17):
made me want to spend time in it a lot,
so I got a lot more into done in the
books and this first episode. It does a lot of
things that I really enjoy. I love like a school story,
in a genre space, So I think it's very interesting
that we're getting this kind of Bena Jesuit training ground
that's very ya, very divergent. I was very into that.
(46:38):
I also thought that it looked great, very cool stuff
to see, and also I like the weird lore of
the Benny Jesre, so I'm interested to kind of see
that happen. Also, I did think, even though you know,
opening with a narration and a kind of flashback is
often a shortcut for doing a deeper storytelling, it was
(47:00):
interesting to see the visualization of what the Machine War
looked like because I think often Doune feels very archaic
and very star wars y and very like Sandy Planet's retrofuturism.
So it's really interesting to get to see that high
tech segment. So I would be interested to go back
and look at that. And obviously the AI stuff feels
(47:21):
very timely right now, Jason, what about you.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Agree with everything that was said. I'm cautiously in In fact,
I think very optimistic. I think that a really good
show I think could emerge here, and could emerge I
think pretty early on in this season, once we set
a baseline of understanding of where we are in the world.
I do think that there are I have small notes,
like I think the exposition could have been handled better.
(47:46):
I think that there was too much.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
A lot of characters introduced as well, Like a lot of.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Characters, I think we could have narrowed the focus considerably,
like who I couldn't tell you who the main character
of this episode was, whereas in Game of Thrones episode one,
it was very clear and Ned was going to be
the main character of that story, and I think that
that was a little bit of an issue. I do
think that there was too much, Like with so much
information coming at you, I disagree with, Hey, table this
(48:16):
for later, but it's going to be important. We're going
to come back to it. I think you need to
explain more right away and set the stakes right away.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Yeah, or do more, like more distinct hooks rather than
put a pin in it. You want to feel hooked?
Do you want to it?
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Like the wedding is a good example of like why
is everybody so anxious about this? And then you find
out it's a nine year old? Just tell us that,
like off the back, just give us that off the jump.
There are other weird things, like it was only when
we started talking in our pre recording powow that I
realized that it's very possible, if not likely, that Volia
(48:50):
lies to her sister Tula, that she actually checked the Bai.
The princess is the right person, because otherwise I was like,
why does this scene exist? Why is there a scene
in which Tula and Valia discuss whether or not to
check the archives and then Folly's like, Okay, I'll check them,
and then we get a scene later where she's leaving
the archives, She's like, I checked it. That's really clunky
(49:12):
to me, And the possibility that she's lying just kind
of slips by because of all this information that you
don't know of varying importance, and it's hard to understand,
like what's important what's not. I think they could have
set stuff up like that better by just letting you
see that she didn't actually do it, and and there's
like various things like that. Oh and one more, I
(49:34):
think that the Sisterhood is too far along. I would
have liked it if they were further back in their evolution,
because yes, they're not the Benny Jesuit yet, right, and
they've just only developed the voice, and they may not
have other technologies like the Gomjabar and different.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Already in these spaces.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
But they're already there are They already have someone with
the emperor who's advising the emperor. They already have sisters
who are placed with very great houses throughout the lands
right including the Chess, and so they've already grown to
this incredible extent where they're doing essentially the core functions
of what the Benijeres are going to do ten thousand
years now, and I think that's too similar. I would
(50:15):
have liked to see them having to make the case
about why it's important to have one of these sisters
to in your hall of power, like why do you
want someone like this next to a duke, next to
the emperor, next to a various other lords? And that's
my only one note that said. I do I think
this is I think this is really promising. I think
(50:36):
obviously it looks great, and I think that there is
potential for a really really fun show. And I love
the kind of political machinations that direction they've taken it,
which is so core I think to the experience of
reading Dune, and so I can't wait to see where
this goes. Now that we've talked about our reactions. I
think we're all on the same page. Let's mine the mind,
(50:58):
yes of super producer Boo, to try and understand this
world a little better and get some of that exposition
that that show dumped on us to set in our
minds a little bit more. Let's start. You mentioned RFL,
the term we heard. Let's go further into some of
those easter eggs. What are some of those deep cuts
(51:18):
those easter eggs that the show dropped on us.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
Sure, so there's a couple of things that I found.
And this is all super fun for me personally because
I love world building. And again, I'm picking apart some
of these because I think it shows us the confidence
with which the creators are coming into this story. They've
done their homework, and that inspires confidence in someone like me.
I mentioned RFL, so we already talked about how in
(51:43):
the show it's defined as this great yet vague sort
of existential threat for the Sisterhood, some sort of reckoning,
perhaps a tyrant. It's not very well defined what exactly
this RFL threat is, but we know that Raquela has
foreseen it and Vally is working toward preventing it. And
what's funny is like in the fourth and fifth do
(52:04):
in books. That's basically how it's used in the books
as well, this vague existential threat that's very loosely defined
that folks are foreseeing and worried about and trying to prevent.
I did a little bit of history. What's fun is
Frank is obviously borrowing a lot of his world building
from real world religions and traditions and cultures. And so RFL,
(52:26):
for folks who may not know, is actually the Hebrew
word for fog. And within a religious context you see
RFL come up in the Bible a lot. For example,
it's usually used to refer to the apocalypse. So clearly
there's a line here between the way Frank is using
it and the real world use of that word. Something
else I wanted to call out quickly was at Raquella's funeral,
(52:48):
we hear Dorotea and some of the other sisters say
the words the mind of man is holy. And that's
important because that's sort of like the rallying cry of
the but Larians, the Butleryan gihad. Is is this turning
against the machines, right, this war against the machines. Here
in the show, it's a literal war. I would argue,
(53:08):
in Frank Herbert's original interpretation of it, it was more
of a religious Zelot turning against technology as something that
harms us as humans, takes away our humanity, and so
we turned against it. In the show it's a literal war.
But regardless, the mind of man is holy is sort
of the rallying cry of that man is holy and
(53:29):
relying too much on technology takes away from man's holiness.
And Jason, before our recording, you had asked, like, where's
the line? You know, what are we saying is a
thinking machine and must be banned? And where are we
saying it's okay? And I think the easiest way to
think about it is a thinking machine is something that
can compute on its own, and any sort of mechanical
(53:54):
machine that requires human input and human control to operate
is fine. Maybe it toes the line a little bit,
and certainly many technologies in the books toe the line.
A lot of cultures are pushing how far they can
mess with the Butlerians, But I think it's that so
like a computer that does, like advanced computations, not kosher,
(54:15):
but like a I don't know, like a claw machine,
a ship, a ship, something that moves because like people
push buttons. That's okay, So that's interesting. Two super quick
things I wanted to call out as well. We see
the blue within blue eyes in this episode, which is
fun because we've seen that Timothy Shallowy himself gets blue
eyes in the movies. Here it's Kieran's girlfriend, question Mark friend.
(54:43):
She has blue eyes, And if you've only seen the movies,
you might think is that a Fremen because I've only
ever seen Fremen with blue eyes. But the reality is
these eyes, which are called the eyes of a bad
are just the result of spice addiction. So we're getting
some hints here that maybe a lot of this clobe ub,
a lot of what's being consumed is spice or spice adjacent,
(55:04):
and perhaps this person in particular is addicted and has
the blue eyes.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
Question regarding spice addiction, because I think we've seen from
Dune and from the later lore that continue to suspice
you basically become immortal, but it also mutates you use
of the fucking like a crazy huge cadpole. Much of
the Space and Guild. That said, it seems to me
like how expensive would like a crippling spice addiction be
(55:30):
because this is like the rarest, the most hard to get,
the most important substance in the universe, and it is
a little crazy to me that it would even be
possible to use it recreationally.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
Yes, you are correct. I think we are seeing a
club for the one percenters. Hence the princess is going
to this club in particular, and I think the patrons
are also fellow one percenters. The economics, of course, like
frankdon lay out the economics of spice, and if you
try to pick apart the hints throughout the books and
do the math, which I have tried to do, it
(56:04):
makes absolutely no sense. So I think just the simple
answer to that is like spice is available to the
wealthy enough people and they are able to consume it
in enough quantities, which is not a lot. You only
need a little bit of spice to get addicted.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
You mentioned the earlier in our conversation, like the kind
of like the three legged tripod the Emperor.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
That's why I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, tell us
about how why is spice important in a post computer
world and what does it allow humanity to do.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
That's a great question. First of all, it's economically important. Spice,
very analogous to oil, is the oil of this universe.
It operates a lot of things. So the Guild operates
giant ships. But since it can't travel through space and
through void space using advanced computers that do the computations
(56:56):
for them, they use these tadpole fish people that you're
alluding to, Jason, which we won't see until future books
and movies. These navigators consume tons and tons of spice.
They live in these giant vats of spice, and then
they basically they trip balls and vision their way through
safely navigating this ship. So spice is the engine that
(57:18):
is powering transportation within the Empire. That's one value of it.
The Sisterhood needs spice in order to create reverend Mothers,
in order to create truth sayers, So there's another political
and economic aspect of it. The Sisterhood needs it, so
it's necessary for a lot of the groups that pop
up host Machine War to fill in the gaps of technology.
(57:42):
Spice powers a lot of these groups and their abilities
and thus becomes this very essential commodity that many groups
need for various reasons. And then are fighting over because
of politics and power.
Speaker 1 (57:54):
Anything else that we should know that will help us
understand the world of Doom Prophecy as we head into
the rest of the season.
Speaker 3 (58:03):
The final thing, this is a deep, deep cut one
last thing I wanted to kind of shout out for,
in particular my Dune heads out there. The Empress has
this very quick throwaway line about the traders of Harmon
THEP when she's talking about her wedding dress with Yez,
and that perked my ears up because Harmon THEP is
a planet that shows up in many of the Brian
(58:25):
Herbert Kevin J. Anderson prequel books. It's also in the
Dune Encyclopedia, which is this expanded lore book that was
created and then decanonized many years ago. But Harmit THEP
is fun that it got a name drop because it's
a planet that's located in the same Solar system as Kaladin.
It has a pretty interesting history the precursors to the
Fremen people known as the Zensuni Wanderers. It was one
(58:47):
of the planets that they wandered to. These people were
basically persecuted and forcibly migrated from planet to planet before
settling on Oracus. Harmon Dep was one of those planets.
What's fun is we are so far back in the
history again, ten thousand years back in the.
Speaker 1 (59:02):
History that's twice recorded human history.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
Yeah, yeah, so we are so far before any of this.
These Zansuni wanderers are not on Harmon Dep right now
in the show. None of that matters really, Like Harma
Dep gets blown up. It gets nuked and blown up
six thousand years after this show takes place. But what's
fun is, by the time we're in Paul's universe, Harmit
Dep is like a rumor. It's a lost world. There's
a lost language. Nobody knows what happened to Harmon thep
(59:28):
And it's fun to get again these really deep cuts
in a show that clearly knows that the super fans
like me are going to be out here listening for
that sort of thing. So I wanted to call that
out too. I think that's fun that they're picking tiny,
tiny details and like throwaway planets to include in the writ.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
That's the kind of stuff that makes us excited to
watch these shows and kind of agree into them. And yeah, yeah,
this was really fun. I'm glad to be learning more
about the wild world of Dune.
Speaker 3 (59:57):
Yeah, truly wild.
Speaker 1 (59:59):
On tomorrow's episode of X ray Vision, we're diving into
our favorite films in the world of sword and Sandals,
movies and television shows, and then our Friday we're sharing
our reactions to Gladdie in a tube. That's it for
the episode. Thanks for listening, Bye bye. X ray Vision
(01:00:23):
is hosted by Jason Nsumsion and Rosie Knight and is
a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle
Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar.
Our producers are Carmen Lawn and Mia Taylor. Our theme
song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
and Heidi a Discoord moderata
Warning. Today's episode contains spoilers for the first episode of
Dune Prophecy on Max and HBO and the Wider Dune Cannon,
so be warned.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Wild Cannon guys, Wild Cannon.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello, my name is Jason Concepsiode.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I am Mersey Nights of the Benny Jesuit.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
They're not called that yet and welcome back to ext
revision of the podcast when we Dive dee Vinny your
favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture coming from my
art podcast. We're bringing you three episodes a week every
Tuesday Thursday, with an extra episode every Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
In today's episode, we are joined by super producer and
dune expert Aboo. How's it going.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
It's going super well.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I love to hear it.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm your local mentet. If you're our BENI Jess, that's right, and.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Jason is obviously are chosen one. In the airlock. We
will be deep diving into that recap of Doom Prophecy
episode one, and boy does a lot of has stuff happened.
I'm glad Aboo is here to help us through so much.
Law the kids love law and HBO delivered with the
Law in the omnibus Aboo's gonna take us through some
(01:22):
of the Toms Easter Eggs references that you may have
missed in this very dense, dense first episode of the
Dune Prophecy Program.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
In the words of the Great British Breaking Show, it's
quite stodgy this episode. Let's step out of the air
lock and talk about it. We open with narration in
the wake of the human victory over Ai and the
great but Lerian Jihad, when the humans have overthrown the
Thinking Machine.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Pretty crazy to see that according.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
To legend or history. Why don't we have any history?
Nobody wrote anything down. We're not here anyway. According to
the propaganda that it exists, it was in a tradese
who led human forces to victory in this wonderful grand
victory over the Thinking Machines Akaai. The Harconans, who we
(02:12):
have to admit are kind of scumbags and a lot
of the stories that we know from the Dune universe,
were somehow branded as cowards for their behavior during this
war and were exiled to a planet that sucks. Valia
harconin one of these spends these years in the wake
(02:33):
of the war helping to build an organization of women
who task themselves with guiding political events in the galaxy.
They are trained as soothsayers. Basically, they're human light detectors,
and through a marketing campaign, which we do not see,
get themselves assigned.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Let's see the marketing campaign, guy, we.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Need to see the marketing campaign of their early benage,
of their years of like, you got it. Have one
of these soothsayers. Wow, I just got a soothsayer, and
I know the truth you.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Need in your house.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, no one.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Will ever trick you again. That will be a cool
woman wearing a spooky uniform, and she will tell if
everybody is telling them, we.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Need that marketing cafe. Anyway. By the time that our
story commences, these women are already being placed with various
important houses throughout the galaxy. The word lands rat is
not used, but I think we can assume that this
collection of great houses probably exists. Yes, Mother Riquella is
(03:36):
the first mother superior of this organization, and it is
her mission. She creates the mission of this group to
curate the genetics of the various royal houses so that
they can put in force a kind of eugenics program.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, Messiah, eugenics program to.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Create future royal who are in obviously influential and powerful positions,
but are also pliable in some way I guess, genetically suggestible,
so that the Sisters can wield influence. Do I have
it write aboo so far?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, that's a pretty good summary of it. I think
the show itself really glosses over and rushes past a
lot of this Mother Raquella stuff because this is from
the book from Sisterhod of Dune, written by Brian Herbert
Kevin J. Anderson. And the important point that the show
doesn't hit on is that Mother Raquella is so important
and her legacy overshadows the Sisterhood so much because she
(04:36):
is the first ever Reverend Mother, as in, she has
taken Spice, just like Jessica does in the movie right,
and she has survived that ordeal, the Spice agony quote unquote,
and has come out the other side with abilities, with
access to her other memories, with all of those Reverend
mother abilities that we know, and she's the first to
(04:56):
ever achieve it. I the show never mentions that I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Like to spend it an hour with her an opening
episode about her and yeah and her journey.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So Abu does she not have. So she has genetic
memories from that extend beyond her own memories, but they're
probably not that extensive because this hasn't been going on
that long.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Right, that's correct? Yeah, I mean she presumably has genetic
memories down her female line, like every Reverend mother who
has gone through the agony.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Right, but not the collected memories.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Not the collective Benny jesret right, So that is like
Rickella is the start of that. She initiates that program
and spends most of the book. The show doesn't address
this at all and just assumes we're past it, but
spends most of the book trying to figure out how
the fuck do I make more Reverend Mothers because everyone
I keep giving spice to keeps dying.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Got to drink ato spice, right.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
And they keep dying. So they're trying to figure out
the right formula and dosage. And I see, by the
time we get to where this show picks up, Valia
herself has been only the second to ever survive it.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
I think, Oh, and we haven't learned that yet. That
might be a flashback.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
That might be a flashback.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So Mother Raquella as she is dying calls for Valia,
who appears to be her favorite of the sisters.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Over her own door.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
That's right, yes, tough, look the sister. Valia shares Mother
Superior's dedication to this genetic project. Raquella tells Valia that
tyran erfl It's coming end quote, and then she has
these various dying visions of like a huge sandworm swallowing
the city and glowing eyes in space that speak in
(06:32):
a kind of garbled language. She comes back to reality
and grips Valia's hand and asks her to grow the
sister its power and to protect it as it goes forward.
Apparently tyran erfl is some kind of prophecy of holy judgment,
a reckoning, and a tyrant who will rule the galaxy.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Can I just interject him? Because I think this is
one of the funniest things about making a show like this. Personally,
I liked this episode a lot, and I felt like
they do hold up the suspense, mostly due to density
and confusion. But I do think it's really funny that
they basically just tell you, like Pola Tredees is the
bad thing that's coming, so early on in the show.
It's like, we know where Dune is going, and if
(07:16):
you've read the books, you know, so basically we're just
going to be having the dramatic irony of watching them
create their own downfall, which I think is like an
interesting thing to lay out so early on.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I agree with you, and I will say that part
of my I think that there's a good show that
will emerge here, and I think this first episode is
a bit of a mess, but I did really enjoy
the vibes.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
It's a good vibe show, and I think the.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Vibes will grow. That said, I think there's a lot
of suspense building by like dropping these little clues and
it's like, oh, you can find out why this is
such a big deal. Yeah, And I think that is,
in my opinion, a mistake. I think they should have said,
here's what the big thing they're worried about is, so
you can share in that. Because there's a there's so
(08:01):
much download that you're like, does that matter? Does that matter?
What is that? There is a lot of vagary ching
around to try and understand what's important, what's not, what
are they freaking out about? And I think they needed
to set that stage early. And then there's also the
other thing of ladies. It's gonna be ten thousand years
from now. Don't don't worry about it, stress that far,
you know what I mean, Like, let's trump the break somebody.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Else in your order. She is gonna just take it
upon ourself to do it anyway, So don't worry about it.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Can you wait until tomorrow?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Probably?
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Probably?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I do think that's gonna be the most interesting thing
is like how can they hook us into this world
when we already know where we're going, And that's the
cust of all prequels. I do think that the visual
world building and as you put it, Jason, the vibes,
which I think we are into a vibe show, and
that side of it really did suck me in, like
I want to spend time in this world, which I
(08:54):
think is really important.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
It's a lot like foundation where yes, just looking at
it great, I can just continue need to look at
it because I want to continue to just even beyond
the storytelling, like the visuals.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Or another immense law show.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yes. Valia orders a small group of sister collaborators to
begin a plot to raise an empress who will rule
over the imperium. Apparently Sister Dorotea is on the outside
of this plan. She's going to be a problem because
she disagrees with a lot of stuff, including the genetic project.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
She's like, we're meant to be just humble witches, guys,
we're not supposed to be becoming eugenesis doctors.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
She probably has why did you join this group? Then?
Like this is kind of what the group project is Dorotea.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I think her mom is Riquela. I don't know if
she had a law of choice.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yes, So there's a lot of clues and hanging mysteries
regarding her as well. At the funeral for Mother Raquela,
Dorotea and her acolytes make it clear that hey, mother
Superior's dying wishes, we're not down. We don't like that,
We're not going to do it. Conflict clearly shaping up.
Valia finds now Mother Dorotea, so she did she drink
(10:01):
the spice or no, she just took the mantle on,
but she hasn't done any of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Correct, which shows like her disrespect for the version of
the sisterhood that was before. Now she's like, I'll just
take it on, yeah and do something different.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, And again there's potential for more flashback that flashes
this out. But Dorotea is also the other Volley and
Dorotea are the two next sisters to do the stuff
and become the next reverend mothers in the books. In
the books, and then there's a power struggle. There's a
schism in the sisterhood and it's Dorotaea vers Valia.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Interesting again, skimm Dova in the last ten minutes of
this episode.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, so Dorotea is like, we should just be, in
Rosie's words, humble witches who guide the imperium. We don't
want to like ruling it from the shadows. That's overstepping.
And so in service of my vision for this organization,
I'm going to go into the genetic archive and I'm
going to destroy it. And Valia is like, no, you're not.
(10:57):
She used stops her from doing it.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
She's like, I don't know that.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I'm not gonna get her that something she invented.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, she invented the voice. She's the first person to
ever use it live.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Is that true to the Bookaboo?
Speaker 3 (11:12):
That is true to the book.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yes, Okay, so she's been developing the voice apparently, like
doing R and D in secret she's so, this is
the first live test of the voice and it's successful.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I want to know how have she been practicing it?
Because if she they get those prisoners from the imperium. Oh,
that's true, she's just been making them do horrible stuff. Yah,
she's a villain. They they if you felt like the
Penguin on HBO Max, that was real villain centric show.
I feel like this is following on in that in
great terms.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
So Valia's like, well, listen, the voice pretty cool? Right,
you were like this is pretty sick.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Wouldn't you want to do this?
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Don't you want to learn how to do this? Right?
I will teach you how to do it? If you
just let us do the gen nick thing, can we
do it? Dorte is like no, I will never agree
to that. So Valias like ten stands us up of
the neck and she's dead, and she does go on
and the other sisters come running, not knowing Maybee the
(12:08):
voice has been used. They don't even know about the voice,
and they're just like, oh my god, dort kill herself.
This is crazy.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Guess we can just do our plan now. This is convenient.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, I'm fast forward thirty years.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, my read of it is those three women that
run along. I think they at least heard the voice,
or they have some suspicion that Valuo was involved. But
that plan is essentially like getting an empress to be
in charge of the imperium is the most important thing.
So we'll keep this between us, and like people in
a slasher movie, in thirty years, someone's gonna come up
(12:38):
and be like, bro, did you kill someone? And it's
going to be a problem. And now it's that years later.
That's a crazy time jump.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
So now it is thirty years later, one hundred and
sixteen years after the end of the Butlery and Gie
hot aka Machine War, and it's like ten thousand plus
years before Paul and Tree's again, not that big of
an emergency. Obviously, we don't want it to happen, but guys,
we had ten grand And also.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Guys, he was born early anyway, so it was supposed
to be that next generation. So he's like even then,
it's still a long time, guys, even though he came ali.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
So in the intervening years, Valya has taught the sisters
how to use the voice, and the Order has only
grown in power and influence. We now have sister soothsayers
very much in demand across the galaxy.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Everyone has on it.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Everyone has one. You gotta get.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
It's like a tamagotchi. Everyone wants on you.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Well, the Harkonans have not got one, and you think
they're probably thinking, well, hold on, Valia, you're one of us.
What the fuck can we get a soothsayer? And they've
asked numerous times and Valua is like, for the fourth time, no, no,
fuck yourself. Interesting interesting development. Yes, Imperial guards arrive, including
the prince Lord Constantine, who is he's hung the half
(13:52):
brother of the Princess Ynez who will soon be a
student here at the not yet ben a Jesuit order,
and he's here to just inspect the facilities and make
sure everything's fine for the arrival of his sister. Lord
Constantine is like, my sister's got to have her own quarters,
she's got to have her own cell phone, she's got
to have a prince, she's got to have.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
A she needs a special seat that's riped off so
no one else can sit in all.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Of that stuff. She needs a toilet seat that warms
up and all that stuff. And Valuys like spa days
and Volley's like, absolutely not. She's just gonna be a
normal sister like everybody else. And Lord Constant's like, okay,
well I tried.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, He's like I had to try it.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
He wasn't that.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
He's very chill guy. He tried, and he's like, yeah,
I tried. Later to lahar Conen, Valia's sister is teaching
the students how to strategically guide events in the Councils
of the Powerful by lying and understanding the difference between
lies and the truth, and understanding when to use each
(14:51):
and how to shade truth with lies and how to
shade lies with truth, et cetera. Her sister Valia comes
down and says, hey, the Emperor deal, we got it sealed.
Princesses common She's gonna be living here. It's gonna be great.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Okay, bo, can I ask you a quick question. Ye
are the women that we see in that sequence? Are
all of those women actual characters from the books?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
No, there's a lot of original characters.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
It felt to me like this was kind of a
adding kids to the Magic School section. It didn't necessarily
feel like they were coming directly from the book, So
thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
We go to Seleusis Secundas, which apparently is the Emperor's
throne world and will in the future, I believe, be
the place where they make his imperial guards. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
That's correct. The planet mysteriously gets nuked to oblivion and
becomes like the Healthscape prison planet.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Fun.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Okay, Swordmaster here into Tradees is sparring with Princess Ynez
and let me tell you, Oh they're sparring. He's using
more than just the sword.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Is dead Pool Wolverine levels of we're having a fight,
but really we're having sex.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Focus on my body, he says, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Focus on.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
The chemistry. Is that this is seems like she's having
a good time.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Constantine comes back and he's like, just came back from
the school. Were elsewhere. The Emperor is having a meeting
with the Duke of Riches.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
A space venus.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Hey, yah, you're gonna love the matter. You're gonna love him.
And if you are marrying princess to my charm, beautiful,
I give you the ships.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
You need the sheep negotiation.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
You need my ballist, the ships and knows that the
Cussi fall the iracas and you get the spies and
the spies are gonna flow, So apparently the emperor is
hard up for warships the emperor. So this is a
good point where we can ask a question. I think
because I think you hear emperor and you think unchecked power.
(17:00):
But the emperor in the world of Dune is hamstrung
by the power of his subordinates, the power of the
great houses. Could you explain to us exactly why this
emperor seems so weak and unable to provide his own armaments.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
And machinations with other houses.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Yeah, yeah, couple of reasons. One, Jason, You're correct, there's
like this tenuous political tripod of this universe. You have
the Emperor and his forces, which is currently hous Carino
on one side. Then you have the lands Rod, which
is the collection of great houses, the trades, the Harconins,
there are jay Z's. And then you have a group
(17:44):
we haven't seen in this show, but is very present
in the books and we saw it in the Villna films,
the Spacing Guild, who have a monopoly on all travel.
And you have these three powers sort of precariously working
with and against each other at all times. And so
the Emperor isn't so powerful that he can just stomp
over the Guild or the Lancerod any day he chooses,
he has to work with them. His hands are tied.
(18:05):
The second reason we're seeing sort of a weaker house
Carino and a weaker Emperor at the moment is because
we've just come off the tales of a machine war
that SAPs the resources of all of humanity basically right, soldiers, money,
everything we came from, back from essentially the brink of
enslavement and destruction at the hands of machines and House
(18:25):
Karno was pivotal in doing that, but very likely sacrifice
the most in doing that as well. So they've obtained
power but at great cost. And now they may control
Aracus and Spice, but that doesn't mean they are objectively
the most powerful people out there right now.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
So they need the ships they need there cheesy ships.
While this is happening, we see that Kasha, the Emperor
soothsayer and Duke with Chesy's soothsayer like finger signaling to
each other and they're like, this fucking duke is a
real asshole listening, and she's like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
In case you didn't realize, the Duke of Richesi, you're
selling his child, and.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
The Duke's in sooth series like, you don't even know
the half of it. I work with this guy all
the time. He's a piece of shit, and Kasha has
to be like, well, listen, once the marriage is over
and we're clear of that, we can take care of
this guy. Whatever gom Jabar in the neck, we poison,
whatever the case might be, we get rid of him.
But we just got to get this wedding going. The
Emperor then consults with Kasha over the ballistas and whether
(19:24):
it's worth marrying his beloved daughter Ynez to the Duke
of Richesi's son, and they confer and he goes over
to the Duke of Riches. He's like, okay, let's do it,
my daughter for the ships. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And it's very clear now that he is fully under
the thrall of the Benajezra at this point, or at
least takes them pre be prey the Sisterhood. Let's call
him the Sisterhood.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
I wouldn't even say the thrall. I just think he is. Again,
he's a weak emperor vying with powerful political forces that
are ostensibly his subordinates but have agency on their own,
and he just doesn't know where to turn. And I
think Kasha has given him good advice to this point,
and he's got to get the spice to flow.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, and sort of living in the shoes of his predecessors,
like he didn't win the machine war his the Karnos
before him did, and he just inherited being emperor, so
he didn't like get here on his own savvy or
political and military might. He's just inherited it.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Back on Wallack nine, where the Sisters live, we see
that they are learning combat techniques and other subtle techniques
in order to influence people. Sister Jen, during a session
in which they take the Imperial prisoners and discover whether
lying or not, thinks that all this soothsaying shit is
too easy. It's way this way too easy. Come on,
(20:45):
when are we going to ramp it up? Vol was like, okay,
let's show us lie to us and tell us something.
And she's like, oh yeah, well you know why I'm here.
I'm here because I have fucking murdered my parents and
I murdered my I walk into a McDonald's, I killed
everybody blood and I put the blood in a super
sized cup and I drank the blood out of that
(21:05):
and I put ice it. And then I put the
blood on my chicken nugget and I put ice cream
on it.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, the bloody frosty.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
And all the sisters are like, I don't know, I
can't tell. I can't tell if that's true or not.
And she's like it's a lie.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Ah bitch, she's crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Later, Empress Natasha talks to the princess about the wedding.
She's like, I hate all of this. I hate the wedding.
I hate you going to the sisterhood school. This kid's nine.
He's nine. The Chesy boy is nine.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
And he's got name threw it, ri Chesy. That's just
a dumb es.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Are you fucking kidding asking me your husband.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
She's like, I am here in the world of Dune,
and guess what my name is, Natasha, just like Duncan. Yeah, Paul,
I'm one of the people with a normal name. Your
name's like kind of cool, Inns. It's not crazy, I
know if you Andezza's in real life. But she's like
through it, ri Chesy, like this is what you're doing.
And also I think this is really interesting because the
mom is basically like, you don't have to do this.
(22:00):
You can just marry whoever you want your royalty, like,
just live my life, don't live what your father wants.
And I think that's interesting because that sets up that
battle between the mom and then the influence of these witches.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
So the princess has a completely different point of view,
which is she loves it. She wants to marry the boy.
In fact, she wishes the boy was like three years
old instead of nine, so she could have six extra
years influencing him and molding him and.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Being in the bensnany jesuit at school.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, turning his heart and brains into servants for the Kreno.
Cause she's like, this is fucking awesome. Mom's like fine,
but also admit to me that you want to fuck
You're a Tread's swordmasters, right, I could see it. You
should do it. Yeah, I support it. And by the way,
everybody could see it. Kuran, the swordmaster, walks in and
he tells the Emperor that a guy just arrived from
(22:49):
Oracus and it's Jason Momoa. No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Like, look at this man, isn't he Jason Momo? From behind? No,
I knew it wasn't him.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
We have at home.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, exactly, that's right. This is Wish Jason Momo.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
This is t WU Jason Ravola. This is Houston Street
Jason Ravola. He is Desmond Hart. He is a twelve
tour veteran of the battlefields of Iracus, where he's been
fighting Fremen and just recently his entire squadron was totally
wiped out by a Fremen attack. And guess what, Desmond
Hart the only guy who fucking survived. He's a little
(23:32):
he's a little amped up, a little weird, but you're
gonna like him. Hart has a meeting with the Emperor
and he says, guess what, Emperor, it wasn't Fremen, it
was your own allies. It was other forces from the
great Houses who were secretly put on Iracus to undermine you.
(23:54):
And the Emperor is like what. He goes over and
talks to Kasha, is like, Kasha, is this true. She's like, well,
he's telling the truth and what he thinks is the truth,
so who knows? And she's like, why haven't I heard
a thing about this? And she's like, well, maybe it's
an isolated incident. Sounds is a weird.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Thing, very suck.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, I don't get that.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I just want to say I love Mark Strong. He's
one of my favorite actors. He's great in the Penguin.
Love to see him here. Love that he's getting to
plan an emper Good for him. But this emperor is dumb.
If this man walked in and was like, hey, so
everybody else who was a witness to this diede but
here's my version of it that no one else can support.
And then the Empress like, come to my wedding, Come
(24:32):
to my door's wedding.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I'm like, why is he invited? Don't I agree with you?
So yeah, heart is like, hey, do you want your
very own Jason Momoa in the palace? Give me a
job here, And the Emperor is like sure.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Sure, I'm too busy for this.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And in fact, you don't just get a job, you
get to show up to my fucking daughter's wedding to
a nine year old. This is gonna be an awesome time,
great food, great drink, incredible. Kasha has a dream that
includes a lot of really ominous symbols, including fruit filled
with worms and the princess being devoured by a sand worm,
(25:07):
and then those glowing eyes with a strange voice in space.
She goes to speak to the princesses like, I'm leaving
because there's weird signs and dreams importance and I gotta
go back. The vibes are off. I got to talk
to the sisterhood about it. I'll be back, but listen,
we hope you become empress. You're well on your way,
and I'll be back shortly. Okay. The Emperor is really
(25:31):
vexed that Kasha has left, but apparently she'll be back. Yeah,
he just she leaves her like a message, like on
a mini disc, and he's like, what this is fucked up,
But apparently she's only going to miss the engagement party,
not the actual wedding itself, so okay. The Emperor Empress.
They argue about this wedding. The Emperor is for it
(25:52):
because he needs the arichesy.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Shit he needs and the galaxy the best.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
And a cheesy ship and go to bring a rackets
to his knees uh, and the prisons against it because
the groom is nine.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
He's like, come on, and she's like, this is just
some dumb Betty jesureite plot. I'm not into this. She's like, well,
if I don't always happy, and he's like, she wants
to do it, We'll be happy with.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Cheesy and again, we'll talk about the various storytelling decisions later.
But I think part of the reason that particular conflict
doesn't land too much is because your daughter wants to
do it. Anyway, We go back to Wallack and Tula
and Valier strategizing for the princess's arrival. Who do we
pair her with? Who's your friend? Et cetera. You know this.
(26:40):
The acolyte program is apparently a very important program. Emmeline, No,
she's a bad influence. It's a bad apple. What about
Sister Jen. Sister Jen is a little too independent, but
obviously very very talented. What about Theodosia? Okay, hold on, now,
she owes us for some reason which we will clearly
(27:00):
find out about later. And she's apparently Vali's favorite, So
guess what It's probably gonna be Theodosia, although Tula's favorite
is Lila. Okay. Valia thinks that Lila is weak and afraid. Okay,
so there's gonna be a difference of a pity there,
and Tula says, well, she has a lot of promise,
but she just needs time. I don't know that we've
really landed on who the acolyte for the princess is
(27:23):
gonna be, but clearly we're in a horse race between
Lila and Theodosia. Rumbling then announces the arrival of the
ship that shouldn't be here. It's Kasha. She's like, I
had a really crazy dream. Let me tell you about it.
She's clearly very afraid. Kasha is concerned that the reckoning,
which is ten thousand years from now, if that's the
(27:43):
thing they're talking about, might be closer if they do
the thing that they're doing, which is putting an empress
on the throne in the genetic machinations. They think that
they're going to have a hard time getting the princess
on the throne, which is why it's crucial apparently that
the princess marry this nine year old that.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Kasha is like, don't do it. She's like beginning to
have her downs because of She's like, well, if a
kid just has bad vibes.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I had a crazy dream, and maybe we shouldn't do this.
One thing that we should do is toss to an
ad break. We're going to go to a word from
our sponsors back in a second, and we're back, and
(28:29):
the cheeses are back. The Chesy's a back, Baby Cheesy's arrive.
It's the engagement party, a wonderful event. We get her.
Look at Pruit, this young nine year old chesy boy.
The princess is there, she looks great. The Empress the
loving that dress, that red dress is about you're in
a Tread's all there, Tula back on Wallach. Tula and
(28:51):
Vala argue about the importance of Castia's dream. Tula is like,
we got to take them more seriously, don't we. Let's
pump the brakes and just really analyze what we're doing.
He says, all gas, no breaks. We go forward. The
princess is marrying that little boy, and she's the empress
we need and we got to do it. Tula is like, okay,
but can you just go and check the genetic archive
to just make sure that we're right. Yeah, yeah, I'll
(29:14):
go check here. The princess and Pruitt go through with
the engagement ritual. It is super awkward. It involves like
feeding pomegranate seaberries to each other something. Yeah. Yeah, it
doesn't go smoothly. Preuit in particular does not seem keen
to wed at this particular time, which I get it.
He's nine, and it's very awkward, but there's lots of
(29:35):
applause because obviously a lot of right is writing on us. Later,
Constantine is playing the lute, and the ladies fucking love
that shit. When he gets the.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Loot out, Pruit sisters are really into it, and I think.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
He's a good looking kid. Lord he is.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
He's hunky and he's got a very strong jaw line.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
The Emperor is watching all of this closely. He's watching
the richeses very suspiciously. The Princess, who is sitting on
a little Dais couch with Pruet, notices that he's messing
around with his little pouch on his belt, Like, what
the fuck's that? I can tell that you're being untruthful
right now and trying to hide whatever is in your
(30:15):
little fucking belt pocket. And he's like, okay, it's this,
and he pulls out a little robot lizard that runs
around the room and runs around the floor. Mister Hart
Desmond Heart Timu Jason Momoa stabs it with a knife
and then shows it to everybody, and everybody is shocked
because this is apparently forbidden robot shit, you know, coming
off the Robot Wars, you're not supposed to have stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
It's actually like scared in as when she saw it,
She's like when the unfelt from the hand, she was
like terrified.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
These are the things that tried to enslave us. How
what the fuck? You can't have shit like this? And
House Karno, obviously because of their role in guiding the
galaxy to victory of the machines, takes this kind of
stuff very seriously. The Empress is like, this is forbidden.
This is forbidden. We're Chesy's we might have to throw
you in the dungeon. The Emperor is like, oh who
(31:04):
whoa wha who Let's talk about it after the marriage.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, okay to a child. Yeah, I'm married to this child.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
It's like, obviously it's a big deal. Yes, talk about
it later, but he is clearly concerned. Heart gives the
boy back his little robot. Here's a moment I didn't understand.
Prude is like, thanks Eniz for what.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
No, no, no, no no. She when the mom is
like talking about it being forbidden technology and trying to
set the gods on them, she puts him behind her
back and like protects him, but then she turns around
and says to him, if I see that thing again,
I'll kill you myself murder. So that was a bit
complex to me, But I think she's playing the political
game where she was protecting per It because it's like,
(31:47):
this is my guy that I'm gonna get married to,
and we have to have some kind of loyalty. But
also you're fucking with my ship, which is that I
want to go to the Hearken.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
And I just found it weird because obviously Ynes blew
up his spot. It's weird to thank her in that moment. Anyway.
Valia is like, hey, just check the archive, and I
just want you to know, like legit, like the princess
is the right one. We're good.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Oh and with zero evidence, like bay, yes please.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Tula wants Kasha back at the Emperor's side, like we
got to have her there. Valia says, yes, we'll obviously
we're gonna put her back when he place her back
with the Emperor, but we got to make sure that
everything is okay with her upstairs because these dreams, I
guess are a little concerning. Sister Emmeline and Jen are
complaining about the princess looming arrival on campus. So we
got to get the idea that this is a controversial
(32:37):
thing that's going to happen here at the school. Constantin
and Yinez head into town for a party. This is
wild raving. Yes, spare fucking. They snort some imperial booger sugars. So,
I guess what do we think this is? Like spice cocaine? Maybe, yeah, like.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Some drugs caught with spice. Aboo is there anything like
this in the books.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
There are a lot of drugs in the books. Yeah,
Frank Kreber was not about drugs. This could be sumuta,
this could be a laca blah blah blah. Like there's
a lot of deep cut, lower drug things. But it
just looks like, okay.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Straight up, they're just doing good. So they go to
a club. The club is banging. Meanwhile, the Emperor is
like brooding by himself. He's so sad. He's like, Kash
is not here, Who do I trust?
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Well?
Speaker 1 (33:23):
What about Desmond Heart? Dosnet Heart comes in?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
What about your wife? Sah, how about you have a
conversation with your wife?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Well, he says, there's apparently, yeah, there's apparently a problem
between those two. But Desmond Heart comes in and is like,
I can tell you're afraid, which is like a weird
thing to start with. The Emperor asks Heart, Okay, what
do we do about this insurgency on Aracus that you
say is not fremen. Heart doesn't answer, but he's like, well,
that's not your only problem. Here's what your actual problem is.
(33:53):
Your problem is that other great houses in the lands
rad are grumbling because you made them get rid of
their cell phones and their laptops and all that stuff.
And they are like, we like that stuff. We want
it back, we want all.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
That life is hard without.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, and I guess this is aboo. Is this pre
the Mentat system?
Speaker 3 (34:14):
This is around the Mentats. Yeah, everything sort of crops
up at once, the sisters, the Mentats that guild all
of these things that replace technology.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
So at this point they're doing like space calculations, like
on pad and paper, Like, how are they just like calculators?
I mean they're doing it, Longhand at this point.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
No, the Mentat should exist. But we haven't seen any
of the show. Okay, so I don't know what the
creative choice is there.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
We may see them okay later, So whatever the case,
there are various dissidents within the royal system who think
that getting rid of Ai was a bad idea, and
they think that the emperor having the monopoly on spice
is also a bad idea, and the Emperor is like,
I've never heard of this. This leads me to believe,
(34:58):
along with the Glowing Eyes boo, that the major antagonist
is going to be the Spacing Guild, like the Rise
of Space.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
That's a good I like that.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
That would be fun for them to introduce that.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah, yeah, the Emperor is now like, you know what,
Kasha is not here and I've completely changed my mind.
I'm out on the wedding.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Dude, this guy he has got like no fucking backbone,
Like he doesn't know what is going on. He's like,
Kasha has left me for five minutes and I'm sick
of it. I'm done. Actually now, fake Jason Hama. You
are now my new spiritual guide even though I've only
known you for.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
You're my new guy, and I'm out on the wedding
despite the fact that Kasha, who has never steered me wrong,
is for it. But here's the issue.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Needs those riches a ship the riches of ships.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
It's important. And here is like one of these moments
where I felt a producer saying we need to restate
the stakes because I don't understand what's at stake here.
And so he says again, we need the riches ships
because if I pull out of this marriage, we don't
get the ships. And then we need the ships to
secure ourragas and secure the spies. Because the Emperor can
underlived the Spice. I'm a dead I'm a dead man.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
I'm a dead man. You'll come to me on the
day of my daughter's engagement, but.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
I can't have the spice ad This is terrible. Desmond
Hart says, Emperor. I'm gonna tell you some weird shit
because I've been on a planet of spice for a
long time and now I'm just gonna get crazy. Here's
what's crazy. It's a miracle that I'm alive and then
I'm with you right now because I was almost dead.
(36:34):
I was reborn on Arakis. They almost killed me. I
was there for twelve different tours and somehow I died
a million times. And I'm back. He's back, and I
feel that it's the will of the gods that I
am here with you, Emperor Carino, and the Emperor says, well, listen,
I'm not a religious man, but if the gods can
get me out of this wedding to the a chesy child,
(36:57):
oh I will be literally the biggest religion guy in
the galaxy. Like I will be number one religion.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
My god, my, this fucking guy. This is like, this
is like when you're a little kid and you're in
trouble and you're like, oh please, I don't want anyone
to find out I'm gonna be in trouble. Like then
I will like be a good person. I'm like, how
old are you?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Brow?
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Are you like eight years old? You literally just gave
this guy a free pause to do whatever he wants
to stop the wedding, just so that you can be
like really into religion. Like, Mark strong, Emperor, you're doing
a bad job.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Mark strong Emperor, you are you are not a great emperor.
In the club where literally most of the people here
are off fam they are Kieran is there. He clearly
got the text from Yez is like going.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
To the club, I'm gad to see you there.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
And there's a vibe there is there is an extremely
strong vibe between them. Kieran's girlfriend question Mark is like
over his shoulder, being like, why are you flirting with
the princess? Like do I need to explain this to you?
So that was confusing because clearly the vibe I was hey,
boyfriend girlfriend, but there was no explanation to who this
woman behind Kieran was. Right, miss, I would say, it.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Is quite interesting to me that this is a show,
even after a couple of watches, where like they choose
to do a lot of exposition about some stuff but
be very vague about other stuff. And I guess that's
every show, but it felt like in this when it
was like we need the spice, the spice must flow,
and I'm like, bro, everyone who's ever watched Dune or
read even one bit of Dune knows the spice must flow,
(38:27):
even if you only know the memes. But I would
also like to like know some names, so like can
the names be flowing?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah? Like who is this woman who looks upset? Anyway,
Kieran if he is dating that woman, he's not particularly
attached to her, because he immediately goes to a private
room with Princess Ynez. He smokes some space crack and
then they start having sex crazy. They seize the moment.
(38:56):
She's like, I'm leaving forever probably in a days, go
into the Benny not yet. The Benny Jes are at
school and also marrying this nine year old, So if
we want to get it in, we kind of have
to get.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It in right now.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Let's do it now, and Kurtt is like, bet, let's go.
We go to Wallach nine, where it's nighttime. We meet Lila.
She can't sleep. Jen also up notices that Lila can't sleep.
He's like, what's your deal. Lila says, that story that
you told, which was a lie, there's a ring of
truth to it and I could tell. And then Lila
(39:30):
tells her story about how she got here. She doesn't
know who her parents are. She thinks that the sisters
know her family history but are keeping it from her.
Jen says, don't worry because if it's important enough, the
truth will find you, which is cold comfort. Valia is
staring at mother Raquela's statue or mummy and just thinking
(39:51):
about the future. Is it her mummy? Do we know?
Like it seems like a very lifelike statue in a
weird way. Yeah, I think it's just a statue, okay,
but I like your spooky v that it's a mummy.
The Emperor has a bad dream that involves a lot
of the imagery which we have seen previously in the
two previous bad dreams we've watched. He then goes wandering
(40:11):
on the palace and he finds a video from Desmond
Heart about how he survived on Oracus, and he watches
the video taken like from a drone, I guess, and
we see that there's a lot of dead bodies on
the field. We don't see what happened, but Desmond Heart's
walking around, he's the only guy. There's a spice loader
in the background. And then there's like a huge worm
(40:34):
that is clearly coming, and something happens. The worm seems
to pause, but then also seems to attack, and then
the video cuts out. Clearly Desmond is alive. So this
raises a lot more questions than answer.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Does this mean that he wrote to sand No, I
think all of this is up in the air.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
It's intentionally one of those you'll find out later, Okay, yeah, thanks.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yeah, So elsewhere in the palace proven it is playing
like in a hallway with his robot because apparently like
he can't do it in his room because people will
find out. So he's playing with his robot and Desmond
Heart comes up. Prewe It is like, hey, Desmond Hart,
I don't know you, but you're just like a weird,
strange man in the palace. Let me tell you about
my dad. Here's what's up. My dad thinks we should
(41:19):
never have gotten rid of computers and cell phones and
he wants them back.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Thinks that great, he would thinks everyone should have a
little airom.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Yeah, that stuff's got to come back. Heart says, you know,
it's interesting. I was a soldier on Oracus and prewe
It is like, well, why are you here and he's like, well,
because the palace is like a battleground also, and then
he says, young boy, prew it. I have an important
mission and sadly that mission requires you to be dead,
and then he like fries the kid with his mind.
(41:47):
It's really gross.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yeah, And it goes on for a long time. They
are like making you watch and this is not like
a Jeoffrey who we know is evil. This is just
like a funny, little rude nine year old with a toy.
But alas he gets fried with The implication here to
me is this is to start some kind of war
or conflict or to stop the wedding, obviously, but also
(42:09):
I feel like now you're going to have like, oh,
there's someone in the palace who is a mole who
is killing people. But obviously we know it's hot, but
I don't think anyone else is going.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
To know that.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
I think that Desmond Hard is working on the orders
of the Nascent Spacing guildh in order to make sure
that the spice production remains chaotic and is up for grabs,
so that they can get some access to this shit.
That's what I think.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
I also wondered if it was like he's turned and
now he's on the side of the Fremen, so he's
actually there to stop spice being taken.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Yeah, he doesn't look a Fremen vibe.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
He does look like he may have been doing some
kissing with a Fremen. Yeah, kissing a Fremen, marrying a Fremen,
killing children for a freemen. It could happen.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
This guy has smelled the water of life.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Oh baby, he's spiced himself, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Valiya wakes to screaming in the school. Tula is also
awoken by this. They run up. They find Kasha wandering
the halls in agony, and then she burns up just
like Pruett died.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
You know, I like Kasha. I was a big Kasha man.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
The only Asian character dies in episode one. I can't
do we've done it again anyway. Valyya then says, I
see mother twice and clearly she realizes the importance of
this event in a way that we don't understand yet,
and that brings us to the end of our episode.
We be right back after the word for our sponsors
(43:33):
to discuss this episode. We're back. Okay, there's a lot.
There's a lot here. Yeah, and while we discussed the episode,
(43:57):
let's also discuss some of the lore that we saw
so that we can all understand what we've seen. First
of all, just reactions. Aboo, you're the super fan. You've
been following this Yeah, guy for years, You've been following
the production news of this show for years. Your thoughts
Episode one, Dune Prophecy.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
I think I'm cautiously optimistic. I quite enjoyed this first episode,
and I want to come into it with an open mind.
Considering it is episode one. I'm trying to remember what
it felt like to watch Game of Thrones episode one,
and obviously.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I think this is very Game of Thrones episode one.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Yeah, and so I want to give it time to
tell its story and come into an open minded So
I'm gonna let it do that before I come down
too hard on it. Obviously I come in with a
lot of preconceived notions, just being a Dune person and
being a lifelong fan of the universe and the books.
So there's a lot there. There's a lot of easter eggs.
There's a lot of deep cuts for folks who do
(44:52):
know you know, Like you mentioned Tiaran RFL earlier, Jason,
that is a deep, deep cut from the fourth and
fifth book that Frank Herbert wrote, of the six that
Frank wrote, and so like most people aren't making it
that far and aren't recognizing the word RFL, you know,
And that to me inspires a little bit of confidence
(45:13):
that the folks behind the show have done their own
work and are throwing in those deep cuts for the
super fans and doing their best to also make it accessible.
I agree with many of the criticisms we've talked about,
heavy on the exposition a bit of clunky storytelling, a
lot of things that are like we'll tell you about
this later, but just keep this in mind. Let's put
a pin in it. There's a lot of putting pin
(45:34):
in things for now. But again, episode one of a series,
it's got to establish a lot of things before we
get to the meat of it, so I'm willing to
give it a bit of grace. TLDR. I liked it.
I'm impressed by what I saw. It's very beautiful visually,
very beautiful, and I look forward to seeing how the
rest of it goes.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Rosie your thoughts.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
I agree with the Boo. Also like Doune for me
in general, whether it's the Lynch Dune or the Denny
June or this or even the books when I'm brave
enough to try and dive into them, it's a vibe
property for me. I think it's all about the world
building and the vibe of it and whether you want
to spend time in that world. And I think Denny
(46:17):
made me want to spend time in it a lot,
so I got a lot more into done in the
books and this first episode. It does a lot of
things that I really enjoy. I love like a school story,
in a genre space, So I think it's very interesting
that we're getting this kind of Bena Jesuit training ground
that's very ya, very divergent. I was very into that.
(46:38):
I also thought that it looked great, very cool stuff
to see, and also I like the weird lore of
the Benny Jesre, so I'm interested to kind of see
that happen. Also, I did think, even though you know,
opening with a narration and a kind of flashback is
often a shortcut for doing a deeper storytelling, it was
(47:00):
interesting to see the visualization of what the Machine War
looked like because I think often Doune feels very archaic
and very star wars y and very like Sandy Planet's retrofuturism.
So it's really interesting to get to see that high
tech segment. So I would be interested to go back
and look at that. And obviously the AI stuff feels
(47:21):
very timely right now, Jason, what about you.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Agree with everything that was said. I'm cautiously in In fact,
I think very optimistic. I think that a really good
show I think could emerge here, and could emerge I
think pretty early on in this season, once we set
a baseline of understanding of where we are in the world.
I do think that there are I have small notes,
like I think the exposition could have been handled better.
(47:46):
I think that there was too much.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
A lot of characters introduced as well, Like a lot of.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
Characters, I think we could have narrowed the focus considerably,
like who I couldn't tell you who the main character
of this episode was, whereas in Game of Thrones episode one,
it was very clear and Ned was going to be
the main character of that story, and I think that
that was a little bit of an issue. I do
think that there was too much, Like with so much
information coming at you, I disagree with, Hey, table this
(48:16):
for later, but it's going to be important. We're going
to come back to it. I think you need to
explain more right away and set the stakes right away.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Yeah, or do more, like more distinct hooks rather than
put a pin in it. You want to feel hooked?
Do you want to it?
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Like the wedding is a good example of like why
is everybody so anxious about this? And then you find
out it's a nine year old? Just tell us that,
like off the back, just give us that off the jump.
There are other weird things, like it was only when
we started talking in our pre recording powow that I
realized that it's very possible, if not likely, that Volia
(48:50):
lies to her sister Tula, that she actually checked the Bai.
The princess is the right person, because otherwise I was like,
why does this scene exist? Why is there a scene
in which Tula and Valia discuss whether or not to
check the archives and then Folly's like, Okay, I'll check them,
and then we get a scene later where she's leaving
the archives, She's like, I checked it. That's really clunky
(49:12):
to me, And the possibility that she's lying just kind
of slips by because of all this information that you
don't know of varying importance, and it's hard to understand,
like what's important what's not. I think they could have
set stuff up like that better by just letting you
see that she didn't actually do it, and and there's
like various things like that. Oh and one more, I
(49:34):
think that the Sisterhood is too far along. I would
have liked it if they were further back in their evolution,
because yes, they're not the Benny Jesuit yet, right, and
they've just only developed the voice, and they may not
have other technologies like the Gomjabar and different.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Already in these spaces.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
But they're already there are They already have someone with
the emperor who's advising the emperor. They already have sisters
who are placed with very great houses throughout the lands
right including the Chess, and so they've already grown to
this incredible extent where they're doing essentially the core functions
of what the Benijeres are going to do ten thousand
years now, and I think that's too similar. I would
(50:15):
have liked to see them having to make the case
about why it's important to have one of these sisters
to in your hall of power, like why do you
want someone like this next to a duke, next to
the emperor, next to a various other lords? And that's
my only one note that said. I do I think
this is I think this is really promising. I think
(50:36):
obviously it looks great, and I think that there is
potential for a really really fun show. And I love
the kind of political machinations that direction they've taken it,
which is so core I think to the experience of
reading Dune, and so I can't wait to see where
this goes. Now that we've talked about our reactions. I
think we're all on the same page. Let's mine the mind,
(50:58):
yes of super producer Boo, to try and understand this
world a little better and get some of that exposition
that that show dumped on us to set in our
minds a little bit more. Let's start. You mentioned RFL,
the term we heard. Let's go further into some of
those easter eggs. What are some of those deep cuts
(51:18):
those easter eggs that the show dropped on us.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
Sure, so there's a couple of things that I found.
And this is all super fun for me personally because
I love world building. And again, I'm picking apart some
of these because I think it shows us the confidence
with which the creators are coming into this story. They've
done their homework, and that inspires confidence in someone like me.
I mentioned RFL, so we already talked about how in
(51:43):
the show it's defined as this great yet vague sort
of existential threat for the Sisterhood, some sort of reckoning,
perhaps a tyrant. It's not very well defined what exactly
this RFL threat is, but we know that Raquela has
foreseen it and Vally is working toward preventing it. And
what's funny is like in the fourth and fifth do
(52:04):
in books. That's basically how it's used in the books
as well, this vague existential threat that's very loosely defined
that folks are foreseeing and worried about and trying to prevent.
I did a little bit of history. What's fun is
Frank is obviously borrowing a lot of his world building
from real world religions and traditions and cultures. And so RFL,
(52:26):
for folks who may not know, is actually the Hebrew
word for fog. And within a religious context you see
RFL come up in the Bible a lot. For example,
it's usually used to refer to the apocalypse. So clearly
there's a line here between the way Frank is using
it and the real world use of that word. Something
else I wanted to call out quickly was at Raquella's funeral,
(52:48):
we hear Dorotea and some of the other sisters say
the words the mind of man is holy. And that's
important because that's sort of like the rallying cry of
the but Larians, the Butleryan gihad. Is is this turning
against the machines, right, this war against the machines. Here
in the show, it's a literal war. I would argue,
(53:08):
in Frank Herbert's original interpretation of it, it was more
of a religious Zelot turning against technology as something that
harms us as humans, takes away our humanity, and so
we turned against it. In the show it's a literal war.
But regardless, the mind of man is holy is sort
of the rallying cry of that man is holy and
(53:29):
relying too much on technology takes away from man's holiness.
And Jason, before our recording, you had asked, like, where's
the line? You know, what are we saying is a
thinking machine and must be banned? And where are we
saying it's okay? And I think the easiest way to
think about it is a thinking machine is something that
can compute on its own, and any sort of mechanical
(53:54):
machine that requires human input and human control to operate
is fine. Maybe it toes the line a little bit,
and certainly many technologies in the books toe the line.
A lot of cultures are pushing how far they can
mess with the Butlerians, But I think it's that so
like a computer that does, like advanced computations, not kosher,
(54:15):
but like a I don't know, like a claw machine,
a ship, a ship, something that moves because like people
push buttons. That's okay, So that's interesting. Two super quick
things I wanted to call out as well. We see
the blue within blue eyes in this episode, which is
fun because we've seen that Timothy Shallowy himself gets blue
eyes in the movies. Here it's Kieran's girlfriend, question Mark friend.
(54:43):
She has blue eyes, And if you've only seen the movies,
you might think is that a Fremen because I've only
ever seen Fremen with blue eyes. But the reality is
these eyes, which are called the eyes of a bad
are just the result of spice addiction. So we're getting
some hints here that maybe a lot of this clobe ub,
a lot of what's being consumed is spice or spice adjacent,
(55:04):
and perhaps this person in particular is addicted and has
the blue eyes.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
Question regarding spice addiction, because I think we've seen from
Dune and from the later lore that continue to suspice
you basically become immortal, but it also mutates you use
of the fucking like a crazy huge cadpole. Much of
the Space and Guild. That said, it seems to me
like how expensive would like a crippling spice addiction be
(55:30):
because this is like the rarest, the most hard to get,
the most important substance in the universe, and it is
a little crazy to me that it would even be
possible to use it recreationally.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
Yes, you are correct. I think we are seeing a
club for the one percenters. Hence the princess is going
to this club in particular, and I think the patrons
are also fellow one percenters. The economics, of course, like
frankdon lay out the economics of spice, and if you
try to pick apart the hints throughout the books and
do the math, which I have tried to do, it
(56:04):
makes absolutely no sense. So I think just the simple
answer to that is like spice is available to the
wealthy enough people and they are able to consume it
in enough quantities, which is not a lot. You only
need a little bit of spice to get addicted.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
You mentioned the earlier in our conversation, like the kind
of like the three legged tripod the Emperor.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
That's why I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, tell us
about how why is spice important in a post computer
world and what does it allow humanity to do.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
That's a great question. First of all, it's economically important. Spice,
very analogous to oil, is the oil of this universe.
It operates a lot of things. So the Guild operates
giant ships. But since it can't travel through space and
through void space using advanced computers that do the computations
(56:56):
for them, they use these tadpole fish people that you're
alluding to, Jason, which we won't see until future books
and movies. These navigators consume tons and tons of spice.
They live in these giant vats of spice, and then
they basically they trip balls and vision their way through
safely navigating this ship. So spice is the engine that
(57:18):
is powering transportation within the Empire. That's one value of it.
The Sisterhood needs spice in order to create reverend Mothers,
in order to create truth sayers, So there's another political
and economic aspect of it. The Sisterhood needs it, so
it's necessary for a lot of the groups that pop
up host Machine War to fill in the gaps of technology.
(57:42):
Spice powers a lot of these groups and their abilities
and thus becomes this very essential commodity that many groups
need for various reasons. And then are fighting over because
of politics and power.
Speaker 1 (57:54):
Anything else that we should know that will help us
understand the world of Doom Prophecy as we head into
the rest of the season.
Speaker 3 (58:03):
The final thing, this is a deep, deep cut one
last thing I wanted to kind of shout out for,
in particular my Dune heads out there. The Empress has
this very quick throwaway line about the traders of Harmon
THEP when she's talking about her wedding dress with Yez,
and that perked my ears up because Harmon THEP is
a planet that shows up in many of the Brian
(58:25):
Herbert Kevin J. Anderson prequel books. It's also in the
Dune Encyclopedia, which is this expanded lore book that was
created and then decanonized many years ago. But Harmit THEP
is fun that it got a name drop because it's
a planet that's located in the same Solar system as Kaladin.
It has a pretty interesting history the precursors to the
Fremen people known as the Zensuni Wanderers. It was one
(58:47):
of the planets that they wandered to. These people were
basically persecuted and forcibly migrated from planet to planet before
settling on Oracus. Harmon Dep was one of those planets.
What's fun is we are so far back in the
history again, ten thousand years back in the.
Speaker 1 (59:02):
History that's twice recorded human history.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
Yeah, yeah, so we are so far before any of this.
These Zansuni wanderers are not on Harmon Dep right now
in the show. None of that matters really, Like Harma
Dep gets blown up. It gets nuked and blown up
six thousand years after this show takes place. But what's
fun is, by the time we're in Paul's universe, Harmit
Dep is like a rumor. It's a lost world. There's
a lost language. Nobody knows what happened to Harmon thep
(59:28):
And it's fun to get again these really deep cuts
in a show that clearly knows that the super fans
like me are going to be out here listening for
that sort of thing. So I wanted to call that
out too. I think that's fun that they're picking tiny,
tiny details and like throwaway planets to include in the writ.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
That's the kind of stuff that makes us excited to
watch these shows and kind of agree into them. And yeah, yeah,
this was really fun. I'm glad to be learning more
about the wild world of Dune.
Speaker 3 (59:57):
Yeah, truly wild.
Speaker 1 (59:59):
On tomorrow's episode of X ray Vision, we're diving into
our favorite films in the world of sword and Sandals,
movies and television shows, and then our Friday we're sharing
our reactions to Gladdie in a tube. That's it for
the episode. Thanks for listening, Bye bye. X ray Vision
(01:00:23):
is hosted by Jason Nsumsion and Rosie Knight and is
a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle
Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar.
Our producers are Carmen Lawn and Mia Taylor. Our theme
song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
and Heidi a Discoord moderata
Hosts And Creators
Jason Concepcion
Rosie Knight
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