Flashback episodes can be something of a thorny issue if not deployed absolutely perfectly into a show’s run. Time it right and you reveal previously withheld information that not only inform us better of a character’s motivations, but it can invert the storytelling process into making the plot more gripping by cluing the audience in on twist as they happen out of order.
Maybe it’s fitting that a show as obsessed with gaining information from the past such as Dune Prophecy would turn to an episode that turns back the clock for the majority of its running time, but here we are, delving back through the years to see a little more of the events that shaped Valya and Tula into the damaged and obsessive people they are in the present. However, does dropping a flashback episode into such a dense show so early manage to give us fascinating new insights, or does it simply slow things down to a worm’s pace? A normal sized one, that is.
Returning to the days before the sisters joined the Sisterhood, we find Valya bitter about the wartime lie that has disgraced the name of the House Harkonnen and has her bending her brother’s ear to try and find ways to stick it to House Atreides after he joins the Landsraad to better their fortunes. However, when Griffin Harkonnen ends up getting murdered, presumably by Vorian Atreides, it just forces Valya to up her game and while she joins the Sisterhood, her somewhat easily led sister, Tula, changes her name, moves to Caladan and infiltrates the Atreides while getting up close and personal with Orry Atreides.
It doesn’t take long for Valya’s willfull attitude to piss off her teachers as she constantly butts against the laws of the Sisterhood and stubbornly refuses to put it ahead of her own family, however, her rock solid attitude and her ability to use the will sapping Voice catches the eye of the Mother Superior, Raquella, who takes her under her wing and reveals all the forbidden technogy she has had squirreled away. After a while she reveals that she’d like Valya to take over from her when the time comes, but her loyalty to her House causes her to balk when she’s asked to endure the Agony abd she returns home.
Meanwhile, Tula has been busy as her genuine romance with Orry allows her to poison the entirety of his hunting party and then kill him despite him asking for her hand in marriage only hours before. However, while both her and Valya’s plan to avenge Griffin worked, it horrifies her family and Valya, now realising that her kin are just too weak, endures the Agony and survives.
Upon returning to the Sisterhood with Tula in tow, Valya and Dorotea are both announced as joint successors to the Mother Superior (and we all know how that turns out) – but in the present, Tula makes a fateful decision and instead of euthanizing a comatose Lila, spirits her away on secret to utilise forbidden technology to keep her on life support.
What we seem to have right here is an overabundance of story that the writers seemed so unwilling to trim, they chose to uproot their complicated, Game Of Thrones style plot and stop it dead in its tracks simply to give us an hours worth of back story that me mostly didn’t need. Now, before I go any further, I totally understand that accusing anything set in the Dune universe of having too much plot is a statement so laced with irony, it’s positively ludicrous, but my point is how much of this episode was already covered in the flashbacks we saw in the first episode?
Take Valya’s plot thread for example; yes, it’s great to get more screen time for Jessica Barden who casting as a young Emily Watson is so spot on it could be worthy of brain melting German time travel show, Dark, but there’s nothing that truly happens here that we didn’t already know from before. We knew that House Harkonnens had been moved to an utter shithole after their disgrace, we knew that a willfull Valya hungered for vengeance against the Atreides and we knew that at some point her determination got her noticed by the Mother Superior, thus setting up her eventual rise to power. It’s weird that such economical storytelling suddenly had to switch to a show, don’t tell scenario and while I understand it expands the universe by seeing the Harkonnen’s at their lowest point, it actually adds nothing new to Valya character aside from the fact that it builds her distain for her immediate family who are horrified at her actions. Barden is admittedly magnificent, but it’s strange that the Valya thread is so uninvolving – even when she seemingly takes the Agony in a typical act of defiance rather accepting it willingly.
On the other hand, the thread that follows Emma Canning’s young Tula is absolutely jam packed with revelations and insights into her character that we now feel that beneath her quiet, almost timid exterior is a person we’ve never actually met before. While Valya rants and raves about the injustice of the Harkonnen banishment and the murder of their brother, Tula keeps characteristically silent, only pitching in half heartly to back her up. However, when it comes to doing the dirty work, it turns out that the modest young girl is something of a soldier, willing to carry out her sisters desires whatever the cost may be to anyone – including herself. In fact, the fact that she ensconces herself so deeply in the Atreides camp on Caladan, that she not only falls in love with Olly and has sex with, but agrees to marry him the night before it’s revealed that she’s poisoned everyone, may be, hands down, the most shocking moment of the show so far. There’s always been a sense of tragedy about Olivia Williams’ portrayal of Tula and Canning (in another top-notch spot of perfect casting) manages to evoke it as she leaves her lover alive just long enough to see what she’s done before she poisons him too. It’s an act that’s terrible and weirdly merciful all at the same time and it shows that when it comes to determination and sacrifice, Tula is every inch the equal of her sister – she just doesn’t show it.
It adds on nicely to the end of the show, where we bounce back to the present and find out that instead of euthanizing a comatose Lila, she breaks all the rules and keeps her breathing on the thinking machine. It seems that even though her talents of subterfuge are still alive and well, Tula isn’t willing to sacrifice any more and it leads me to think that her lovemaking with Olly before his demise may have born some tragic fruit.
While it’s well acted and lushly shot, the main issue with Sisterhood Above All is that it pumps the brakes on its vast, conspiracy plot at an extremely delicate time in order to painstakingly lay out backstory that’s only 50% useful. In turn it continues to slow the momentum the show desperately needs and not even the Game Of Thrones invoking presence of Mark Addy can change it.
To be deliberately complex doesn’t necessarily make something smarter and if the Dune: Prophecy isn’t careful, it’s desire to sprawl might make it stumble instead.
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