Dune: Prophecy series review: Tabu-powered mini-series is as overwrought as it is addictive 

Tabu in ‘Dune: Prophecy’ 

So Tabu made her appearance in Episode 5 of Dune: Prophecy as Sister Francesca, Emperor Corrino’s (Mark Strong) former lover. She is also callow Constantine’s (Josh Heuston) mum. Francesca’s arrival at the palace upsets the balance a great deal what with Empress Natalya (Jodhi May) staring daggers at the other woman in her husband’s life and Francesca insisting Constantine be given more responsibility to prove himself to his father, the emperor.

Through the episodes, we learn the backstory of the Harkonnen sisters, Valya (Emily Watson) and Tula (Olivia Williams), what made them the kind of women they became — Valya, with her burning desire to elevate her house among the rich and the powerful, and Tula’s secret sorrow.

We learn of the girls’ (Jessica Barden, Emma Canning) journey from a tough life in the icy wastes of Lankiveil, the death of a beloved brother at hands of an Atreides, and the different routes the two take for revenge to becoming mother superiors at the sisterhood.

Valya is for the long haul, while Tula’s path leads her to the terrible beauty of the bull hunt and its catastrophic climax. We are also given a glimpse of the beached furry whales — just their rib cage, from which strips of meat are being carved and sold, and their tails. A long shot showing the whole animal would have been nice, considering how long we have waited. The furry whales are destined to be like the sandworms, which we have only yet seen piecemeal — the many razor sharp teeth and plumes of sand as the creature ploughs through the desert.

The sword master, Keiran Atreides (Chris Mason), is planning to bring down the empire which grows fat on the spice from the desert planet of Arrakis with Mikaela (Shalom Brune-Franklin), the Fremen who runs a groovy nightclub, where all the rich and powerful like to hang and get high.

Valya has arranged all the pieces on her chessboard to get Princess Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) on the throne, including having her train with the sisterhood. The sisterhood (they are not called the Bene Gesserit yet) is a group of women with a power to distinguish truth from lies, after intense physical and mental training. They advise the noble houses on the way forward.

The joker in the pack is Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel), a soldier from Arrakis, who gains the emperor’s trust and seems hell bent on bringing down the whole house of cards. Harrow Harkonnen (Edward Davis) follows in his aunt Valya’s footsteps with double and triple crosses, while asking for better rates of whale fur.

Set in Frank Herbert’s Dune universe, this prequel to Denis Villeneuve’s two Dune movies, just about stands on its own. By the finale, some threats are neutralized while others grow, a shadowy presence is hinted at, and three principals land on Arrakis. There is going to be a Season 2, where we might learn more about the prophecy that the Bene Gesserit used to subjugate the Fremen till the coming of Paul Atreides 10,148 years later.

The production design continues to be excellent — colourful gowns contrast with the rich blacks, sweeping vistas jostle with coldly clinical labs and eye trauma (ugh), and burnt orange skies bump against icy, starlit skies. Watson and Williams continue to keep us riveted to this tale of sisters doing the wrong deeds for the somewhat right reasons while Tabu does what she can with her thinly written character moving along shadowy corridors of power in 50 shades of black.

There are just too many shots of cloaked figures sweeping up majestic stairs or swishing down winding passages not to think of the gliding ladies in Mel Brooks’ Dracula: Dead and Loving It, and Leslie Nielsen as the bloodthirsty count telling them to walk properly! And once that image is “imprinted”, it is difficult to take the happenings on screen seriously. 

Dune: Prophecy streams on JioCinema