Dune Prophecy - Ep.4 Review Twice Born"

Guys, welcome back to the channel, and today we're going to be reviewing Doom Prophecy episode 4, Twice Born. So, Twice Born, um, and we're looking at here Mr. Richard Donnelly, the cinematographer for episodes 3 and 4 Why does Richard Donnelly sound so familiar, right? What has he worked on? I haven't done my research, but I thought we should give him some credit because the show looks so amazing. Dune: Prophecy looks awesome. It looks like the Denis Villeneuve Dune high-production films. Remember, this is HBO, so HBO has a great deal of money. Uh, they could be spending $200, $300 million on this season. Who knows? It looks fantastic. Um, so this is episode 4, Twice Born. No doubt has to be my favorite episode so far. Some people have been saying last week's episode, uh, was their favorite. I think it was a great deal more character-driven. Because, uh, you got to, uh, you know, know these characters a little bit more, specifically Tula. And, um, no, well, you know, I mean, Valya, the Harkonnen family, uh, so in that respect, I, I, I can see where they're coming from. Um, but it just, you know, because I, I'm not fully there, pulled in with the Harkonnens. They just aren't the family I'm rooting for. I guess it, it didn't really matter as much to me, but I understand why some people, from a character-driven perspective— and that's not being really introduced to, you know, anybody in these, in this series yet, and really getting a deep dive into who they are— I can see why people would feel that way. So, Doom Prophecy Episode 4, we're back in the entry of the palace, back where I want to be, back with what's going on with, um, Desmond Hart, right? And, uh, right away, uh, without much delay, we get the Princess Inez, right, just, uh, very, uh find it very distasteful how, uh, her father the Emperor is treating Desmond Hart. He has now come into a place, uh, in the Imperium, and, uh, she doesn't like it because she knows he's responsible for killing, uh, the Riccesi's boy, um, and, um, you know, that he's behind, uh, the dismissal of the Bene Gesserit or the Sisterhood and so on. And remember, she wanted to be a part of the uh, Bene Gesserit, the Sisterhood. And now because of the rift between the Sisterhood and the palace, that's not going to happen. They need a united front. They need her to stay on Salutius Secundus, uh, and support the family. Uh, the princess, of course, as we got to see, she's trying to create subterfuge within the family. She wants to bring Desmond Hart down, and if it means exposing her family as part of the plot, so be it. So she's enlisting the help of her brother Constantine, who has never stood up to the Emperor, and putting them in this situation. Now, I really liked, um, this episode, uh, it was with the— how Desmond Hart handles his accusation by the princess, right? He doesn't run from it. This is something that is interesting with the Desmond Hart character. When you catch him, he's caught. Like, it's not like Game of Thrones Littlefinger type stuff trying to wiggle out. You're— he's pretty— but he's caught. But then he, he has a, uh, uh, reasonings behind why he, uh, why he does what he does. He just relays back to the, uh, the Orange Catholic Bible, I think it's called. And if you don't know what that is, that's from the Dune books, and it details everything about the thinking machines and what shouldn't be allowed in humanity going forward with all of the problems that happens or could happen with artificial intelligence as we kind of in our own world think about these dangers. It happens here in the Dune series, and I don't know if they, uh, refer to the Orange Catholic Bible. I think they do. I think they can't do it on one episode. I could be wrong, but, um, you know, basically, uh, it says that, uh, right, you know, it's punishable by death to, to, uh, have these thinking machines around. And, uh, the Riccesi's boy, he had that. And so, uh, on a technicality, Desmond Hart is able to, um, you know, avoid, uh, the persecution of the, of the courts, of the, of the Landsraad, their Landsraad meeting, right? But in addition to that, he's able to foil the plot that Kieran Atreides was part of, in which they were going to use these thinking machines to kill members of the Landsraad, right? Remember, these are these noblemen living off the fat of the land, consuming all the spice at the expense of the common people, right? And so Kieran Atreides, uh, with the, with the newfound power Desmond Harkonnen wields from the Imperium, he's able to stomp out all of these would-be, uh, plotters to, to, uh, to get rid of the members of the Landsraad. Now, uh, of course, we had a kind of— was left with Valya going back to her Harkonnen family to get their help after she had been kicked out of the palace. And we learned that she had this elaborate plot where she was going to allow the, uh, Kira and the Atreides to go on with the plot And what was going to happen was she was going to kill— she was going to kill him upon releasing the robot, right, the thinking machine, to kill the members of the Landsraad. And in doing so, be held as a hero by the Imperium, right, for saving the Emperor's life. So Desmond Hart, he beats Valya to the punch. And her plan goes out the window. Now, of course, she— what she had done was she had, uh, basically was basically becoming a truce-sayer of the, um, uh, of the Harkonnen Baron, right? Um, Howland, I believe his name is. Am I saying it right? Howland? I'm trying to get better with these names. It's, I believe it's Howland or something like that. But, um, she kind of is using him, as we got to see. It was kind of strange how she gets him, you know, thinking he can, uh, you know, be, uh, represent the family at the Landsraad with her now, the power of the Reverend Mother as his Truthsayer. But it's all a plan for Valya to kind of get him cased up What she's doing is she wants him to accuse the Emperor of killing the Riccesi's boy, right? And so put him on the hot seat, right? And she kind of blindsides him with it in a very clever way. But he's too far in now. He has to go all the way with it. I thought that was funny. And so, but his uncle was right. Robert Baratheon was right. The uncle, uh, who's head of the family, so to speak, is, is basically letting, you know, his nephew know, hey, you know, she's gonna use you and nothing's good gonna come of it, right? She doesn't care. She, uh, only wants to, uh, basically get revenge, right, and bring the Harkonnens to power no matter what the cost, even at your expense or even at this family's expense, all right? So, uh, um, so, you know, of course, as we got to see, uh, the part I— you know, what can you say? What can you do? Uh, Robert Baratheon, uh, meets his end, right? He's trying to, uh, basically, uh, get to his inhaler, and, uh, she's not allowing him to get it, right? And was there a similar scene to that, uh, earlier? I thought there was a— I thought there was a similar scene with a character trying to get to them here. I might be having some kind of déjà vu, but anyway, uh, he does end up dying in this episode. And I can say this, as much as I like Mark Addy, he used to play the Uncle Harkonnen there As much as I like him, he was very much like Robert Baratheon in that, right? It was like Robert Baratheon made it to the dude world. I don't know if that was a conscious effort or if that's just— because I've seen Mark Addy in other things, and so he doesn't have to sound like Robert Baratheon. I've seen him act in other roles where he doesn't. You know, he has quite a bit of range. And so I'm trying to figure out why did this— why was this character so much like Robert Baratheon? Was that kind of a callback? I don't— was he trying to do that? I don't know. But I was kind of thinking like, it's probably going to take me out if he's in several more episodes, uh, you know, with that kind of Robert Baratheon, uh, persona. So they go ahead and kill them, get them off the show. Uh, I still thought he did a great job. I liked his character and I liked him being in it, uh, you know, but they had to get rid of them. They get rid of them, you know, they got rid of them in, in, in this episode. They Sean Bean'd them, you know, they Ned Stark'd them. And, uh, so he won't be coming back. Uh, of course, with Valya too, what was very interesting, we got to see Uh, uh, her acolyte, her, her, her acolyte, uh, who as part of doing novels is actually a face dancer, I believe they're called. Now I'm not, um, I'm not, uh, sure, uh, if she was— yeah, I was always wondering, I was like, okay, what's going on with her, right? Why does Valya favor her so much. And especially at the beginning of the episode when she was saying, I won't do this anymore. She said, I said that I would never do that again. So she's talking about face dancing, right? The face, the changing her form. And so she's part of that, the species in the Dune novels. I don't think it's the Tleilaxu, right? The Tleilaxu is who the people we got to see on the dock who gave Karen Atreides the thinker machine. This might be another species of aliens in the Dune universe, but apparently she's one of these face dancers, right, who joined the sisterhood. So I don't quite understand what that's all about. I think in the novels there is some of that going on, right? These people Uh, there are what you call face dancers, and I haven't read all the novels, so I'm not that familiar with them, but they, uh, I believe some try to assassinate Paul Atreides in the Dune novels and so on, because of course they could change their form and disguise themselves and whatnot. So, uh, they're going forward to do something for value, right, that they can change their form, right? So of course they're going to be able to do a lot with that ability. And so we find out that's why Valya is holding on to this acolyte, uh, in need of her services, uh, as it were. Of course, we also got, uh, Lila awakening, right? We got Lila waking up. She wasn't dead. And this weird thing happens where, uh, this, uh, it appears to be an acolyte being killed Uh, looks like by Tula. Looks like Tula tries to— I'm assuming— is that real? Did that really happen? But in the midst of that, of her discovering, uh, Lila, uh, you know, awakening, awakening, and that Tula's doing all this illegal stuff with the machines down there, it looks like Tula kills her and it appeared— I thought it was a vision. There was visions at the beginning, but apparently I think this may have been real. And so Lila wakes up, and, uh, Lila can now has more clearer visions on, uh, what is this being that, uh, they keep seeing as they have their— they're doing the chants and sketching into the future. And some people are believing this to be a character from the Dune novels, the, uh, the Leto, the God Emperor, right? This is Paul Atreides' son who actually becomes a sandworm, right, with like infinite godlike powers if he continues the path, right? I think they call it the Golden Path or something like that. It is the path that even Paul Atreides didn't want to take because he didn't want to become a sandworm. But, uh, They're able to, to, to, to see this figure looking back at them. And where some people believe it is, uh, the God Emperor because of the machine-like, uh, noise that's being made any time they open their blue eyes, they think it might be a thinking machine, uh, by the name of Omnibus, right? And he's from the Butlerian Jihad. I believe he's some kind of ancient machine-human hybrid thing. And I don't know a whole lot about that, but some believe that's a misdirect. That is not the God Emperor Leto, but it is Omnibus. So it's— again, this is my favorite episode, uh, so far in the series. There's only 2 more, so they did step it up. And interesting enough, I did, uh, say earlier that, uh, some people were saying By episode 4, it gets good. And I see why they said that, because episode 4 to me was the best, uh, episode so far. Two more, uh, I hope they're as good as this one. If they keep the pace with this, I think they'll do fine. Um, and so, uh, that's what we're, uh, we're looking at this week, Twice Born, right? So Desmond Hart escapes, uh, you know, all of his accusations Uh, he kills the Landsrat with this ability he has, but you can tell it's taking a toll on him. I think, uh, some people believe he's a, he's a Gola, right? And we talked a little bit about that last week, this kind of bioengineered cloned human, right? Or rather like a clone human, right? Um, that he really died at the hands of the sandworms. Nobody can And then once you're a ghola, uh, it would appear they can add technology to you. They could do various things. So he could— he's probably— he's definitely not a human. He's definitely been altered in some way. So that's going to be interesting as they, uh, get into, uh, exactly what he is. As Valya Harkonnen said, it is best that they don't do anything until they learn more about who he is and his abilities, right? But anyway, I think that's going to be the review this week. Uh, again, a good episode, um, the best so far. Uh, I'm looking forward to what episode 5 is going to be like as we get ready to wrap this up, Dune Prophecy. Anyway, tell me, guys, tell me what you all thought. Uh, what's been your favorite episode? Uh, do you like the Dune Prophecy series? Um, until next time, as always, remember to take care of yourselves and each other.