The first season of “Dune: Prophecy” came to a close on Sunday with a few gasp-inducing revelations and a lot more questions. HBO’s prequel series, set 10,000 years before the events of Denis Villeneuve’s films “Dune” and “Dune: Part Two,” wove a complex web of storylines over six episodes, culminating in a lengthy finale that reunited sisters Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson) and Tula Harkonnen (Olivia Williams).
In the tumultuous episode, flashbacks reveal that Tula gave birth to a secret son, who turns out to be literal fire-starter Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel). We also learn that Valya earned her leadership of the Sisterhood, the forebearers of the Bene Gesserit, through mass murder.
“You want to feel like there were enough answers given,” showrunner Alison Schapker explains of the goals of the finale. “That you’ve been on a journey in Season 1 and you learned things. Then, by the end, everything has changed and you understand who these characters are, what’s between them, what the stakes are and what the truth is in a new way.”
The finale concludes on Arrakis, where Valya has escaped with Princess Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) and Keiran Atreides (Chris Mason) after the death of Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong). It’s become clear that Desmond’s powers have not come from the sandworms, as he claimed, but from another mysterious force.
“It felt very fitting that after being haunted by Arrakis that Valya go back to where this started,” Schapker says. “It will be really interesting to see what she’s going to dig up now that she’s going after a hidden hand.”
Alison Schapker, showrunner of HBO’s “Dune: Prophecy.”
(Luke Fontana)
Schapker, who joined the prequel series in 2022, drew on her extensive career working on shows like “Alias,” “Fringe,” “The Flash” and “Westworld” as she and the writers sculpted the episodes. She admits to feeling some pressure in adapting and expanding the beloved material in Frank Herbert’s “Dune” novels but is proud of how the cast and crew have brought the universe to the small screen.
“It’s a big world to get out on its feet,” Schapker says. “People’s expectations for it were, rightly so, specific and engaged, and I’m so glad we got to tell this story.”
Here, in a conversation edited for clarity and length, Schapker discusses the specifics of the “Dune: Prophecy” finale, as well as her hopes for what’s to come after HBO announced on Thursday that it was renewing the show for another season.
What is your reaction to getting a second season and is there anything you can tease?
I am thrilled that “Dune: Prophecy” has gotten a pickup and that we can continue telling the story of Valya and Tula Harkonnen and the rise of the Bene Gesserit. The opportunity to delve deeper into these characters and their corner of the “Dune” universe is one that I treasure. I am grateful to everyone who watched and invested in our series and made this Season 2 happen. Our writers room is already up and running, and I could not be more excited for what’s coming next.
Did your team have access to the designs from the “Dune” films, for example, for the sandworm we get to see in the finale?
No. But Denis was very generous. One thing that we felt, and Legendary and HBO agreed, was that we wanted to be in the universe of the films. So with the worms, who are such old gods of Arrakis and these ancient creatures, we wanted to use the worm concept that we saw in the films. And Denis was very supportive of that decision. But it’s not that we took his files and used it. We had to make it ourselves. We really wanted to be ambitious in the look of the show, and that just took such tremendous effort. It’s hard on a TV budget and a TV schedule, no matter how generous and how supportive the studio is, to do that.
What was most important for you to do thematically in the finale?
We knew we wanted to bring Valya and Tula together. They’ve anchored the storyline on two separate planets for the season. But it was so important that we reunite them in an explosive way, and I knew the three-act structure we wanted to do that in.
Did you always plan for Desmond to be Tula’s child?
Yes, absolutely.
In the tumultuous season finale, flashbacks reveal that Tula gave birth to a secret son, who turns out to be fire-starter Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel).
(HBO)
How does Tula know where her son is and what his name is?
She knows he’s on Salusa Secundus. She lands in the space port and hears the whispers of her ancestors telling her Valya is near and that happens to be where he is. I don’t think she knew when she landed at the space port or thought, “I’ll meet him at the space port.” It was a bit of a collision course. She sees Valya with him and I think she understands.
Desmond isn’t in the books. What did you want to achieve with that storyline?
It’s very powerful in the “Dune” universe when a Harkonnen and an Atreides connect, and that’s really part of the longer story we want to tell. I don’t want to speak too much. But you see Valya is saying, “This child has so much potential. He could change worlds.” He has that charismatic potential that makes him a really powerful figure. Valya wants to harness it, and Tula starts to feel that nothing good is going to come of their shaping his life. The question becomes: If they’re not the only ones who understand that about him, who else saw that and how and why was he weaponized? That gives us more questions to guide us in the future.
Did you always plan to thread flashbacks through the entire season?
Yeah, and it’s tough with six [episodes]. The prologue was a flashback, and I wanted to almost come full circle. I was excited to start the finale in the way the prologue started but then add a new layer to it and continue the story so you really understood the past. It felt important to understand the circumstances of Desmond’s conception and what he was born out of, so Episode 3 was a deep dive with the younger time period to set that table so the finale would hopefully land. You also needed to understand that there has been a secret between the Sisterhood this whole time.
It’s very shocking to find out that young Valya and her followers killed so many members of the Sisterhood to get into power.
There is blood on her hands. The things Desmond said to Valya all season turn out to be very true. She rose to power in a violent way. Valya would explain why that was necessary and I have empathy for her decisions. The heart of the show is debating what lengths we would go to in the present if we really believed we were protecting the future. I don’t think Valya killed them for pleasure. I think she felt pushed to against the wall by Dorotea and her followers.
Valya (Emily Watson) “rose to power in a violent way,” says Schapker.
(HBO)
Why do you think the acolytes are so quick to follow Dorotea as she reemerges in Lila?
It’s a horrifying revelation that there’s a mass grave at the heart of the Sisterhood, and they have no context to understand it right now other than what Dorotea is telling them. You see Jen wrestling a bit [with] how to process this. I don’t think it’s all over, by any means, but Dorotea picks up where she left off. And she was a zealot. “Dune” is a really big world. It has a lot of players and there are characters that I feel like I have big plans for who just got a table set in Season 1. Like all of those acolytes. We’re focusing on them for a reason, right? The journey they’re on is very essential to the story.
Overall, how much did you end up pulling from the books and how much did you invent?
The characters and scenarios are in the books, so we were definitely inspired by the books and in places we adapted and extrapolated differently, but tried to keep in the spirit of what was laid out in the books. A lot of the Tula and Desmond and Valya stuff in the present is stuff we’ve been developing along with the Herbert estate. I’m really proud of the story between Valya and Tula and where it goes. I was really moved by where we got to with them, and I think there’s a lot of possibility to continue.
How was the Herbert estate involved?
They read the scripts. We could ask them questions. They could ask us questions. They were dialed in to what we were doing. We always appreciated their input. It was a supportive working relationship. What I loved about it was it didn’t preclude us from creating. I felt like we were able to do the work of adaptation and to translate the story to a medium in a way that we were excited about doing, but always from a place of deep respect. The most daunting, but also the most thrilling part of the gig, was getting to be in the “Dune” sandbox, so to speak.
Has Denis seen the show?
I don’t know. I think Denis is very much focused on what he is doing for the movies. But I know he intends to, and I hope to have a conversation about it at some point.
You’ve worked on a lot of shows in the sci-fi and fantasy world. What do you like about that kind of storytelling?
I love the imagination of it. I love the world building of it. I love having to think about all those details. There’s so much room for creativity and wonder and scope if you can get the human story working, which is the most important thing to me.
Before “Dune: Prophecy,” you worked on the final season of “Westworld.” Were there plans for more episodes had it not been canceled?
I definitely feel like Jonathan [Nolan] and Lisa [Joy] have an end to the story that has yet to be told. The world works in mysterious ways and if someday I ever got to see that end, I would be so thrilled. Working on “Westworld,” to me, was another formative experience and a story that I think only is becoming more and more understandable and present.
You also worked on “Alias,” another show with strong women at the forefront and huge scope.
What a gift that was early in my career. I’m always grateful to have come up in the network age because you got to really live in shows for a protracted period of time. I did three years on “Alias.” It was so much fun. I loved the story, too. J.J. [Abrams] had a very dynamic and creative room. It was a show that was reaching to do more with the small screen than had been done, and J.J. really didn’t limit us.
Do you see a commonality through all of the shows you’ve worked on?
Something I absolutely strive for is to find a way to ground things in character so that emotionally you feel like you’ve watched something that makes sense to you on a human level, but at the same time, I like to go to work and think about things that are complex and interesting. I find that working in science fiction has allowed me to not just think about people, which I absolutely love doing, but also think about some of these more abstract ideas, like what is the creation of artificial intelligence going to do? That’s been really gratifying in a lot of the projects that I’ve done.
