'Dune: Prophecy' Episode 4 Recap & Ending Explained: What Happens At The Landsraad?

After remaining completely absent from the previous episode, the main antagonist in HBO’s fantasy drama series, Dune: Prophecy, Desmond Hart, finally returns in episode 4 and ultimately goes on to create quite a stir during the meeting at the Landsraad. The episode presents Valya Harkonnen’s exact plans for the near future, as she visits her uncle, Evgeny, and a brother, Harrow, for the first time after her departure from Lankiveil. Along with all this, the episode also sees Tula Harkonnen having to deal with another strange situation on Wallach IX, as some real danger is steadily headed towards the Sisterhood.

Spoiler Alert

What does Tula find out about the impending danger?

Dune: Prophecy begins in the acolytes’ chamber inside the compound of the Sisterhood on Wallach IX, as Sister Emeline washes her face before going to bed, when she hears someone whisper her name, as if calling out to her. Emeline is a bit perplexed by the sudden call, especially when she sees another Sister walk unnaturally towards the courtyard, almost as if sleepwalking. As she follows the Sister to the courtyard, she sees her pull out a knife and attempt to slit her own throat. Emeline calls out to the woman, making her turn, and then shockingly realizes that the woman is herself, with her eyes sewn shut. As Emeline screams out loudly, another acolyte, Sister Jen, wakes up from her sleep and spots someone in the courtyard and decides to check what the matter is. She walks down the bedchamber to find every acolyte struggling and groaning in their sleep, as if being tormented or hurt in their nightmares, and then finds Emeline standing in the courtyard. 

Unlike in the earlier scene, which was actually Emeline’s nightmare, this Sister Emeline is standing in the courtyard by herself, while something is making her hold a knife to her own throat and almost kill herself while in a daze. Jen quickly intervenes and protects Emeline’s life by pulling her out of the daze, and the incident is reported to Reverend Mother Tula the next morning. What is extremely strange about the situation is that all the acolytes in the chamber, except for Jen, had apparently had the same nightmare, in which they were terribly frightened by some enormous monster. Tula feels that this might be a prophecy, or a premonition of some kind as well, and it feels like Jen had been kept out of the elaborate nightmare vision only so that she could save Emeline from trouble and ensure that the Sisterhood gets concerned about the matter.

Tula decides to investigate the incident further by making use of the supernatural powers at the disposal of the Sisterhood, even though Sister Avila advises her not to go chasing the meanings of nightmares. Gathering all the acolytes at one of the chambers used as classrooms, Tula gives them a dose of hallucinatory spice and then orders them to draw whatever they had seen in their nightmares. The students follow the order, in a trance-like state, and start to draw on the pads provided in front of them, and the contents of these drawings are initially all unique. This means that each of the Sisters had started dreaming about different things before a collective nightmare took over their individual consciousnesses, in which they all saw scenes from a vast desert and then were terrorized by what seemed to be gigantic sandworms. 

While this unnatural investigation is ongoing, Avila comes to the chamber and immediately asks Tula to stop it, since it could cause harm to the acolytes. Although Tula does not want to take Avila seriously, she realizes that she has figured out the contents of the nightmare, more or less, and so she orders the acolytes to stop, but quickly realizes that they are no longer under the control of her orders. She repeats the order to stop a number of times, but to no avail, as the acolytes keep drawing and scribbling, while it is evident from their faces that they are absolutely terrified of something. The very last image that all the acolytes make before finally waking up is one of pitch darkness, with two bright blue eyes in the middle. Based on this image and the experience they just had, the young acolytes believe that there is some God-like figure always keeping an eye on them, not in a protective sense, but seemingly to prove that it is more powerful than the Sisterhood. The fact that the acolytes can wake up only when they are allowed to by the same entity that gives them the nightmare truly suggests that a lot of trouble is headed the Sisterhood’s way.

Interestingly, the image of the blue eyes peering out from darkness is exactly the same as a vision that Raquella Berto-Anirul had seen on her deathbed, and is going to be a crucial part of Dune: Prophecy. For now, Tula tries to understand the nightmare some more, and she goes to the genetic archive inside the compound to spend some time by herself. Here, she herself seems to have a nightmarish vision, as she sees Jen following her to the archive and questioning her motives with regards to having preserved Lila’s dead body. Taking a villainous turn, Tula kills Jen by slitting her throat, but then wakes up and realizes that the murder was part of the vision as well. 

She then realizes that the machine inside which Lila had been kept is now empty, and as she walks up to the front of the archive, it is revealed that Lila has indeed recovered and is walking around like a normal human being. Dune: Prophecy episode 4 also reveals that the reason Tula had revived Lila instead of letting her die is because she believes the young acolyte to be the individual mentioned in the prophecy as ‘twice-born.’ This means that Tula believes Lila to be the one who can save the Sisterhood from the horrific danger. 

Why does Valya reunite with her family?

At the end of Dune: Prophecy episode 3, Valya Harkonnen had traveled to some corner of the universe to reunite with her uncle Evgeny and her cousin brother, Harrow. Considering Valya’s shrewd nature and her dislike of her family members, it was quite clear that she had returned only because there was some plan in the works, and her intentions are now revealed in episode 4. The Mother Superior’s last interaction with Desmond Hart had ensured that she was now barred from Emperor Corrino’s castle and seemingly from the Imperium as well. But Valya believes it to be crucial for her to be at the meeting of the Great Houses at the Landsraad, and doing so would be difficult unless she attends as the serving Truthsayer of a participating house. 

Although House Harkonnen has not been a member of the Landsraad for more than a century now, she believes that the opportune moment to help her family regain their lost glory has arrived. By this time, a certain rumor had been doing the rounds on the streets of Salusa Secundus, about the death of Pruwet Richese actually being a premeditated murder and not the act of some robot toy as officially stated. Although the Sisterhood had not actually started this rumor, despite Valya knowing that it was the truth, she decides to have her network of Truthsayers spread the rumor even further. Thus, every Truthsayer at the Landsraad passes the rumor on to their respective House masters, leading to all of them deeming it appropriate to launch an official inquiry into the death of Pruwet Richese. But simply raising this question during the meeting, in front of the Emperor, would make the concerned family a target and a marked enemy of the Corrinos, and so nobody wants to do it themselves.

This is where Valya steps in and cuts a deal with the rest of the Great Houses, through her Truthsayers, to ensure that House Harkonnen is reintroduced to the Landsraad by making the promise that their leader, Harrow Harkonnen, will ask for the inquiry during the meeting. Therefore, Valya actually wants to use her cousin and her family as mere pawns at the moment so that she can attend the meeting while being the official Truthsayer of the Harkonnens. The second part of her plan is linked to the rebellion that is soon about to kick off with a planned bomb attack at the Landsraad. Valya knows of this planned attack through Mikaela, who is part of the rebel group, and she intends to save the Emperor just as Keiran Atreides plants the bomb. This would not only ensure that she would win back the trust of Javicco Corinno but would also publicly mark an Atreides as a traitor to the Imperium and would avenge the Harkonnens’ century-long humiliation as well.

What happens at the Landsraad?

Some shocking incidents take place at the Landsraad when Emperor Javicco Corrino finally appears in front of the gathered members of the Great Houses, along with his wife, Empress Natalya, accompanied by Desmond Hart as well. As the proceedings of the meeting begin, Harrow steps up to request an official inquiry into the suspicious death of Pruwet Richese on behalf of all the other members of the High Council. Harrow is clearly made a scapegoat, which he had already realized when he was told that he had to make this demand during the meeting, but his ambition to lead his family back to greatness outweighs any hesitations. Harrow’s demand is technically against the Emperor and his family directly, which is a very bold move, to say the least, but his situation is slightly eased by a different development, as Princess Ynez now appears and heroically blames her own parents and her family for having young Pruwet murdered.

At the beginning of the episode, Ynez was shocked at her father’s decision to make Desmond Hart a close aide, especially since the man was rumored to have killed the young boy she had been betrothed to. While she did not yet believe the rumors, Ynez was confused about why this soldier, seemingly a nobody, was being housed by her parents. But with time, she does realize that her father himself had ordered the murder of Pruwet, and that he has clear political plans with regards to the friendship with Desmond, and so Ynez decides to take matters into her own hands. She had also requested her brother, Constantine, to follow suit, but while the young man stays away from court, Ynez marches onto the scene and supports Harrow’s demand for an official investigation.

The arrival of Ynez halts Keiran Atreides, who was supposed to plant an explosive on the wall of the main chamber as part of the rebel attack that had been planned by his close associate, Horace. Although Keiran temporarily halts the plan when Ynez shows up, the entire plan is completely quelled when Horace and a few other rebels are suddenly dragged into the Landsraad by the Imperium soldiers. As it turns out, Empress Natalya had put into motion a brilliant plan of her own on the previous night in order to make her husband and their family appear even stronger and in control. It was she who had started the rumor about Pruwet’s death and wanted to basically spread the news that the boy was indeed killed on the Emperor’s orders, only because the Corrinos have no tolerance for the banned thinking machines. She had also deployed Desmond to go and arrest all the people who were known to be using banned technology on Salusa Secundus, and as the dens were raided, Horace was found and captured as well. Therefore, during the gathering at the Landsraad, Emperor Corrino and Desmond first announce that Pruwet had been executed because he had a toy robot with him and then make a show of the arrested defaulters. Desmond shows the crowd the explosives that these men had arranged and turns the narrative around before killing them in his signature style, making them burn from within, proving to the Great Houses and to everyone in the Imperium that no association with machines will be tolerated in this new regime.

How does Valya react to the events at the Landsraad?

Desmond Hart’s show of power at the Landsraad means that the rebel attack cannot be carried out, which further means that Valya is not able to save Javicco from Keiran Atreides and regain the support of the Emperor. Her elaborate plan ultimately fails, and she returns to Harkonnen Castle with Harrow. Here, the old and sickly Evgeny still tries to humiliate and ridicule Valya for having returned to her family home and also for trying to restore their glory. Understandably frustrated and angry at all the trouble coming her way in recent times, Valya seems to have had enough, and she now speaks up against her uncle. The woman has been shamed and called an evil sorceress many times by her family members, who never possessed her ambitions or her courage, and she now realizes that there is no point in keeping Evgeny around. Thus, Valya takes Evgeny’s inhaler away from the man and makes him die a slow and painful death.

Noticeably, Valya had been asking her companion, Sister Theodosia, to use some dangerous power that she had at her disposal, but the latter had kept refusing the request. Valya even made it clear that she had brought Theodosia on this trip with the hopes that she would use her supernatural powers, but the young acolyte refuses to comply. Theodosia states that she had used her power only once, in her childhood, and she does not want to use it again, either because she has moral hesitations against it, or the use of it hurts and tires her a lot. Either way, she keeps refusing until at the very end of Dune: Prophecy episode 4, when she overhears the conversation between Valya and Evgeny. 

Theodosia realizes how the Mother Superior was always looked down upon by her family members and treated as the root of all their problems, and she grows sympathetic towards her. Thus, she decides to help Valya regain her influence and uses her supernatural power to be helpful to her and the Sisterhood. As Theodosia physically takes the appearance of the dead Griffin, her power is revealed to be that of physical transformation, and this ability will obviously be of much use to Valya, as she will continue to ensure that Desmond Hart cannot do anything significant against the Sisterhood in the upcoming episodes of Dune: Prophecy.

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