'Dune: Prophecy' Episode 6 Winners and Losers
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There is something that we are not seeing. That is countering our every move. Open your eyes, your majesty. What is that witch have you so blind? You can't see the truth. We're the same, even though I have two wolves. And a feed. Hello and welcome to the penultimate episode of House of R for 2024. I'm Joanna Robinson.

Joining me today, I don't know, burning up inside with her desire to podcast with me. That's right. Because it's a nano-disease. It's Mallory Rubin. Hello, Mallory. Jo, we're the same. You and I, two wolves born to feed. No content for the cost. No.

Hi, hi, hi. We're here to talk to you about Dune Prophecy. We did not cover episode five. We're coming to you now, fresh off the heels of the finale, episode six of season one. And so we're here to give you...

Well, we're calling the winners and losers of Dune Prophecy. This is a show that we have grappled with a bit, have some thoughts and feelings about it that we do want to share, but we're not doing our usual deep dive on this show. And I think everyone will thank us for that, honestly, at the end of the day. So this is going to be a zippy little pod, but you have another pod coming from us before the end of the year, and it is our best moments of 2024. And I am so excited.

excited we're literally going to record that pod after we finish this pod so we are like this is the light at the end of what Mallory said earlier the end of the Sanborn ma is the fact that we get to do our best moments 2024 pod together this morning um so we're coming to you from the recent past when we recorded this before the holiday break um

So that's what's going on for us. We've got this, we've got our moments, and then we'll be back to cover Skeleton Crew episodes five and six in the new year. Yes. But we are taking episode five off because of the holiday. So that is the plan from House of R over the ringerverse.

Wow, they got a lot going on. There's Game of the Year draft from Button Mash. Love that. So excited to know if there is a game I should play. Steve often gives me a recommendation for a game I should play over the holidays. And literally, have I never actually done it? But someday I will. You will? Maybe this year is that year. You going for Helldivers 2? That doesn't sound like something I would enjoy. Astro Butt? Astro Butt?

All of Steve's recommendations are good and well-tailored towards me. But we'll see. But Game of the Year draft, that's Ben, Justin Charity, Steve, and Matt on Button Mash. And then the Midnight Boys are doing the Midnight Mulligans. Hell yeah. One of my favorite things they do every year. We will have another Ring of Earths recommends for you, sort of holiday edition. And then the Mint Edition crew is doing Things We Missed in 2024. Wonderful.

Incredible stuff. Mal, how can people, in a zippy fashion, how can folks make sure they get to watch us and listen to us? That embarrassment of riches over the holiday season, gifts aplenty. Here's what you need to do. You need to follow the pods. Follow House of R, follow Ringiverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch full video episodes of House of R and Midnight Boys Pew Pew.

on Spotify and the Ringerverse YouTube channel. While you're at it, follow the Ringerverse on the social media platform of your choosing. We are on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. And then if I could get through this sentence without coughing and or sneezing, I'm doing great. It's great. Send us your emails. The inbox is open.

hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. Keep the emails coming. What did you enjoy this holiday season? Have you finally caught up on Craven? Has your life forever changed? What are you looking forward to next year?

We'd love to hear from you. Joanna, back to you in the studio. Thanks for that field report, Mallory Rubin. Listen, shout out to our listener, Brett, who did try to crawl inside of the Nosferatu sarcophagus at Lincoln Center, only to find it does not actually open. So keep trying to breach those sarcophagi, but, you know, at your own safety and peril and arrest record. Okay. Spoilers today.

We're here to talk to you about all of Dune Prophecy, episodes one through six. So if you've not watched season one of Dune Prophecy, maybe you might want to do that or you might get spoiled. Also, Dune as a whole, as a universe, the Duneiverse on the table today. Yep. Well, that's it. That's all I got to say about that. Let's go to the opening snapshot. Welp.

That sure was a finale and a long one too. Me too. Like I said, we're going to do six winners and losers, three winners, three losers as we come out of, uh, covering this season of Dune Prophecy. But I just want to, uh, we're going to do like a sort of a brief check in on the characters just to make sure we all remember what happened in the finale. Um,

And then also some opening statements, some big picture sort of look at how we feel about the season. I will say this. I had a real tough hang with this season of television. There are some bright spots for sure. Yeah. But you and I love Dune as a property, and we're really hoping this would knock our socks off. And our socks, indeed, are still on here at the end of the season. And the finale, I found the finale...

I could not maybe tell you why, though I will try to over the next, I don't know, 45 minutes, personally agree with. I was very aggravated by this finale, personally. And, you know, we try not to sort of like kick something when it's down necessarily on this podcast, but we do also...

always want to be honest with you about how we feel about things. So that's why we're sort of trying to frame this as like winners and losers. So we will air our grievances, but also celebrate the things that we do feel like worked or some other larger winners in this narrative. I will say for me personally, the experience I had watching the 80 plus minutes of this finale, which again, Mallory had to tell me that there was a meal of Skeleton Crew waiting for me.

was akin, I had these sort of like physical PTSD flashbacks to covering the Westworld series finale, which has some crossover talent with this show, but a very similarly like baffling, needlessly complicated, yet also not profound in any kind of way. Bodies are piling up in a way that just

doesn't seem to have any sort of emotional heft or weight or impact that it's just sort of like for shock value, but it's not quite shocking. And then all feeling like it's setting up towards like really trying to pitch towards the next adventure, the next thing, the next chapter. Like it didn't feel like the end of,

of the story in any way. And whether or not you feel like you're getting a second season, it would be nice to feel like some sort of resolution of an arc of a particular season is wrapped up. And like with Westworld is particularly was particularly a grieving because there was no more Westworld after that. And that was it. And so we'll talk about the future of Dune Prophecy. But I just I just find it

I don't know. I find it bad faith almost to give us a finale that really doesn't feel like it has given us, you know, like something like the penguin certainly like set itself up to potentially have more story to tell, but we felt like, okay, here's the arc of this story that we've been watching fully realized. Yeah. Where will we go next? We're interested. We're intrigued, but we have sort of concocted,

this leg of the journey. I did not get that feeling from this finale. Molly Rubin, what sort of big picture thoughts do you want to share right here? When you said bodies were piling up, you did mean literally, right? Because we had multiple sequences that involved dead people on top of each other. Yeah. Yeah.

I do not have the final season of Westworld as a similar touchpoint and source of trauma. I left the Westworld experience midway through season three. Smart girl. But I felt similarly overall, though, certainly about the finale and the season of TV, which I was not a huge fan of. And that's a bummer because I was really looking forward to Dune Prophecy. I was looking forward to

more Dune storytelling. I was looking forward to a Dune television show, an HBO Sunday night prestige Dune show, continuing to explore the Dune-iverse in this moment of Dune jubilation and euphoria because the first two Denis Villeneuve films have been so widely celebrated. This was obviously something we were really hyped for. It was selected in the hype draft by you. Yeah.

But again, the hype draft is not about... The hype draft has really become a time capsule. I just really feel like you slid a crisp knife between my ribs and twisted. That's more... I'm trying to remind us of a simpler time when all we had ahead of us was hope. You know, the promise of a rich... What's the most embarrassing thing on... Mind-opening load of spice. What's the most embarrassing thing on your hype draft this year?

I had a few doozies as well. I agree. That's okay. I had – let's see. What were my picks? I took Rings of Power, which I feel great about. Gladiator, which, you know, made a big stink about it. And then we wound up where we were. But I feel okay about that. I believe my third pick was Acolyte. So –

Not ideal. And then I think I took X-Men 97, which I feel obviously wonderful about. Absolutely. And then Avatar. Mixed. Okay. Yeah. And let me see if I remember yours. Oh. The Dune film. I mean. Killer. Wonderful. Wonderful. Dune Prophecy, not great. Rohirrim? Eh. Eh.

What were your other two picks? I couldn't tell you. I had all the time in the world I couldn't possibly remember. That was so long ago. Oh, wait, here. Okay. I found the graphic. I've got, oh, Kung Fu Panda. What on earth? Oh, yeah. I really, I loved the spirit behind that pick.

I really do. Okay. I really did. I genuinely did. Doom Part 2. Great. Crushed it. Kung Fu Panda 4? I love that. Oh. This is my worst type of action. Did you pick Joker? I picked Joker. Fully I do. Yeah. War of the Rook Hero and Dune Prophecy. You started strong. I think I...

I think I have the best thing on here. Yeah, for sure. And the rest is absolute shambles. Oh, man. You know what? Plenty of championship rosters are built that way. A stars and scrubs approach, who minds it? Not me. I don't think any of us have a great lineup, actually. Yeah. Maybe. Oh, no. Okay, cool. 2025 hype draft. Tune in in a few weeks. We can't wait.

What a time capsule the hype draft always is. Anyway, was not a huge fan of the finale, was not a huge fan of the season of television. I said when we talked about episode four that I had a worrying, sneaking suspicion that in missing the episode three pod, I had missed the opportunity to talk about the highlight of the season with you, which did prove to be true. Correct. But we will chat a little bit about what...

made that episode successful as we look at our winners and losers today. And yeah, I just, I really agree with everything you said. You know, the point you made last pod we did was really, really, really on my mind watching episodes five and six about

When do we tip from, okay, of course, in a way, prequels are kind of always about understanding how we got to a thing we've already spent time with no understand and probably love. But that this was really feeling like a series of... Mini origin stories. Mini origin stories. Here's how Thing X came into the Dune universe. And that felt inescapable toward the end. And it was really also not just taking up the oxygen, but at the expense of...

Character development, allowing us to emotionally attach to people who we would then be invested in. You know, like we talked in the episode four pod about how in the big throne room sequence, it was really notable to us that we felt

Very little concern for the people who were in peril in those moments. And I think that continued then, you know, throughout the next couple episodes. So that's worrying. Six episodes is not 10, but...

six plus hours to make us care about a world that we were already invested in. And yeah. This episode really delivered on that plus, right? Putting the plus in six plus, an 80 minute finale. Okay. We're going to do a brief check in on some of the characters, main characters before we get into our winners and losers. Emperor Haviko, sister Francesca, who imprinted on him

As they do in Twilight. In Twilight. I was really, really thinking about Twilight more than I anticipated watching the last two episodes of Dune. Emperor Havok, Renesmee, what's the difference really at the end of the day? It's true. I have said to you before, though, in various planning meetings, strategy sessions, the imprint won't let you hurt me. Yeah.

Okay, so this is our first pile of bodies. R.I.P. to Javiko and Francesca. I'm sorry, but the actual literal piling of the dead here made me laugh. It was so weird. It was so bad. Our would-be beloved Natalia, who we had such hopes for at the beginning of the season, faux shrieking. Obviously, it's a show. Yeah. Has been killed!

platitudes it was platitudes time real platitudes so yeah my goodness Empress Natalia thinks she's in charge now and that she has Desmond Hart on a leash uh and I don't think that's like a sex thing you think that's part of their new uh oh you better romantic life better believe it you better believe a leash play is involved

Okay, you have my attention again heading into season two. Great, love that for you. Valia, Princess Inez, and Kieran Atreides, they're on a ruckus, bitch. They sure are. Spice time, baby. They sure are. Is this the place to ask you quickly, this was one of the things about the finale that drove me to the brink of mania and just actual despair. They escape thanks to a...

Plan, a deliberate, intentional, explained-to-us plan to have Theo impersonate Nez and

And then that just doesn't happen when Desmond and co. come in? I think the reason why is that the plan was just to take Inez and leave Kieran. And since Inez is like, I won't leave without Kieran. They're like, well, no matter what, we can't pretend there was no jailbreak. But then why didn't Theo go with them? Oh, because her job was...

was to kill Desmond and she made the shittiest attempt at it and then just got captured. Yeah, we've got to do either just leave and go or actually see it through a feeble. She's like, I know, I know my duty. I know what I have to do. I will do this. And then it was just like the lamest thing I've ever seen. She's like, I've been watching Dune Prophecy all season and every single scene has involved this specific knife. Yeah.

leading to instant death. Usually it's on the throat though. Not a rib shot. Go for the throat. She's like, this is what I've been bored to do. And I'm like, this is the setup. I mean, like, no, I mean, what's true is that we're setting this up for season two, but I was like, you establish this whole mystery about a shape-shifting person. It was like, what's up with you? What's up with you? And then we see what she can do. And then this is what you do with that.

is this like dumb get help guard boy on the ground we're not doing get help we're not doing get help great stuff it was terrible the captors of art know like they know about this so it can't even be used interestingly well they might use it somehow I guess but I was it just all felt like the first time I watched it through when I was like

in the in the depths of despair having a bad time with it i thought like i wasn't paying full attention then i watched it back through but like i wasn't paying full attention and i was like did she just die is that the end of that character then i was like oh no they put her in restraints they're putting her on ice for season two but i was just like this is the shittiest payoff for a mystery that wasn't even that fun and exciting to begin with okay moving on uh

I guess I'll take that takes care of my Theodosia bullet point. We'll just erase that. We already did it. Okay, done. Tula arrested and devastated. Oh, man. The thing I will say about Tula, who might be my favorite character at the end of the day. Easily. The thing I will say about Tula is what I like about her. Mm-hmm.

She's like, you go. I'll take care of this. And then they have this really protracted embrace, not embrace moment. And then he's like, arrest her. And what I like about Tula is I'm not convinced that this part also wasn't always part of her plan. Tula always seems like she's going to figure out what to do next. And so she's arrested. She's devastated in like a...

I don't know. I meant to save my son from a terrible fate, and he has become, oh, I don't know, a really disappointingly bad character on a bad TV show instead. He's become a remote control for a nanovirus from the thinking machines. Yeah, Tulo's my favorite character on both timelines, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so. Okay, Desmond Hart.

As it turns out, a product of Atreides Harkonnen breeding. I have so many thoughts and questions. A proto, potentially, Quetzalcoatl with an implanted nano disease.

Um, that we see, uh, Valia sort of work her way through some of the things that Tula says to her about the nature of this virus is you cannot fight this with strength. The harder you fight, the faster you burn all the fear, all the pain, you have to let it pass through you. And then on the other side of this, Bali is like,

I don't fear anymore. She doesn't literally say fear is the mind killer, but like, you know. But that's what this is. That's what this is. She might not know. They don't literally say fear is the mind killer, but they literally made fear the mind killer. That's what happened here. Brain lesions? Because you're afraid. Fear is the mind killer is what this was. And I hate it. And that was really tough. And I hate it. Okay. Really, really tough. Hot Constantine.

abruptly fucked off to the fleet. Just really just sort of stepped out of the... We felt maybe we were building towards some sort of moment of something for Constantine. Drunkenly fumbled into discovering Kieran's frankly astonishingly recklessly left...

hollow map of the palace. Let's call him Slapdash Atreides. What the fuck is that about? Just leaving. I mean, I understand that he was like, he had to leave in a hurry. He was like about to secure it in his unlocked little box that he keeps in his locker or whatever, which is just simply not what I would do with all my incriminating evidence. But he, he, he was interrupted mid contemplation of, of this incriminating evidence, uh, to go, to go off and, and, and, uh,

you know, rescue someone. But like... He did exactly what we were just talking about on our Skeleton Crew pod. You know, you can't leave your idol or your advantage in your bag and then go off looking for firewood on Survivor. Like, you can't do it, Joe. Especially after he's like admonished Constantine. Like, he has like slapped him in the face essentially and is just like, you're a piece of shit. Right. Here's my locker. It's wide open with all this stuff. Just really...

A sad end for the Atreides undercover mission. Yep. And a not very impressive win for Constantine at the end of the day. You know what, though? His father, quite easily impressed, was waiting for his son to do something. And also, Francesca, very helpfully, was like...

What if Constantine had a hobby? What if he had an activity to occupy his hands other than fucking people who he's then going to spill secrets to? Don't you feel like... Doesn't he feel kind of deleted from the story, though? Like, abruptly? Well, no, because...

We have now a number of characters who have made their way to Arrakis. So, like, the fleet is, you know, about ensuring the control of Spice. Yeah. And now Valia, Ciaran, and Nez have made their way to Arrakis, and so I assume that he will be interacting with those characters in season two. And Arrakising. Isn't the...

Is the explanation that Valia gives for them going to Arrakis, she's like, if they will fight from the shadows, I will fight from the shadows. So we'll go where the shadows are. Arrakis. Yeah. It also was like, okay, so this Desmond, you know, let's poke the little eye, put the implant of the nanotech into the eye stem.

Imagine having to watch your own eye stem get poked full of stuff. I guess you repressed that knowledge. With your other remaining eye. With your other eye, yeah. And then, you know, we pan up to this mystery figure, right? Valya's like, ah, boy, I didn't see the face, guys. We got to save that for season two. But there was an RNG glow.

There was a spice hue. A spicy hue. Behind that looming specter of doom. The hidden hand, the hand remains hidden, and yet the color palette is unmistakably. Sepia. Dune. Dune by Arrakis. Listen, the eye patch, or the one eye thing reminded me that we did get an email from our listener, Rick, after our Skeleton Crew episode this week.

who suggested Mad-Eye Mal. Give you an eye patch and call you Mad-Eye Mal. Or I would... Constance! I would yes and and say Mal-Eye Moody. Maybe Mal-Eye Moody. Either one or the other. Just think about it. Okay. The quest continues. Last but not least, the Sisterhood is seemingly under the sway of Lila, who is actually possessed by her grandmother, Dorotea. Who among us? It happens. Mondays. What are you going to do? All right. The breeding program AI...

RIP for now. Took a crowbar hit. Didn't seem great for that particular tech. Yeah. And that was very, just very silly to me that something this powerful could be taken out by a small child hitting it twice. But we did get the cover earlier of like,

And a rule won't hurt us because it's like cut off from other programs and machines, right? So, because my first assumption when the hardware is broken is, well, okay, but doesn't this solve, are we not backed up on the cloud? Yeah. But I think that was what they were implying is that the answer is no. And that was part of how they were hoping to like control the power of the thinking machine. Though then Tolo was like, you can never control it.

Control of mind for long. Okay, great. Tool impression. What is also obnoxious to me as a dun-dun-dun moment is that we know that the breeding program continues. So what are we accomplishing here? Okay, so this was like a big problem I have with the show. Not just that the breeding program continues, but this is where the 10,000 years thing just becomes an issue. Like...

If the explanation for why it ends up taking so long to get to Paul is like, well, they lost the tech, then they have to do it in a human fashion. Or whatever happens on Arrakis kind of gets back to what we were theorizing about as early as episode one. This is like a near-term reckoning, a thing that they think they're contending with, and it's going to lead to a repositioning of like, well, let's make our own. Let's make – let's – let's – let's –

Let's bring our own chosen one. Fine. I'll do it myself sort of thing. Exactly. Desmond is the product of the first, we hear from Valia, mixing of the Atreides and Harkonnen bloodlines. Yeah. And one go was all it took to get somebody with immense potential that more than one hidden hand is seeking to use. One go of mixing the bloodline. Yeah.

It doesn't make sense whether or not the thinking machines are involved, whether or not Anna rolls back online, that it takes 10,000 years to get to Paul then. It just doesn't. And so this is the risk of a bad prequel is undermining your core story. Yeah. Or –

is Paul Atreides just that much more powerful? And folks, here it is. Time for the Paul. No, I'm just kidding. It's not the Paul fame episode, but we're getting close to the one year anniversary of Doom Part 2. Hope Springs Eternal for 2025. Last but not least, I'll just say on the sisterhood front, I'll just say we leave with at least Sister Jen looking unsure of this new path. You know, Sister Jen dislocated her own thumbs to get out of restraints. So sick. That was dope. Really cool. Yeah.

All right. Well, that's sort of like our sort of slapdash little recap of what happened. Let's go down to our six winners and losers of Dune Prophecy. Streaming now on Peacock, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie are back. That's hot. Loves it. For a show-stopping reunion that will prove putting on an opera is anything but simple. We're really good at this. One thing's for sure, they won't be upstaged.

Good to have you back. Come on, we've got a show to do. Paris and Nicole, the Encore, a three-part reunion special. Streaming now, only on Peacock.

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We're starting with the losers just so that we can end on a winner. It just seemed like a positive trajectory to take. Love that. So we're going to bounce back and forth between losers and winners. Loser number one. People who wanted this chapter of the story to be one and done. HBO has already renewed the show for a second season. Were you surprised by this? It does not seem like this show is generating any conversation or that people are watching it or enjoying it. I was surprised by this. I think...

But perhaps we should consider that this is the era of Warner Brothers that we're in. I don't know. I need to think about it a little bit more because we're in the era of proliferation and not cutthroat elimination, I think. Right. But I need to think about it a little bit more. It surprised me.

The timing does not surprise me. It does not surprise me that they announced it before the finale so that people watching the finale could know there will be more of this show. You don't have to be as annoyed as Mallory and Joanna were when they watched it before this news and were like, what if we don't get another season? Is this where we leave it? Anyway, on the one hand, it's a relief given that the episode felt like one long set up to season two, which, as I said before, deeply aggravated me.

On the other hand, this story could go on for 10,000 years. Calamity. Disaster. Fun fact. That's a joke my sister made last night. I made my sister help me with this assignment. And she was like, this show could go for 10,000 years. I was like, Morgan Robinson, come on, House of Art. That's a great joke. Morgan loves Dune. My sister loves Dune. I got my Dune love from her. Okay. And we've been talking about this all series long.

By the way, also, I just want to say, I believe most of the bad babies are with us because on the email front, initially we were getting some people saying like, you know, and we were trying to like, hope springs eternal, like see if the show could go in a direction we liked. But people were saying like,

You're being a little hard on it, blah, blah, blah. Most of those people have since sent us another email saying, never mind, you were right. Everyone was trying to give this show the benefit of the doubt, and I think most people have found it was not nourishing them the way that they wanted it to. But this 10,000 years prequel notion feels both way too expansive and

And too claustrophobically contained. And this is a point that you made sort of when we were going back and forth on this idea last night. It was like, we're talking about the Harkonnen and the Atreides bloodline crossing. Yeah. So it's the same story told 10,000 years ago. So it's just the Skywalkers and Palpatine rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat again and again. That Star Wars claustrophobic feeling that we've been having over in that franchise. Yeah.

Yeah, I just think this is a real bummer because, okay, again, to be clear, like when we get the Star Wars prequels and they are about explaining how Anakin Skywalker, spoiler, became Darth Vader. Yeah. I'm in. You know that I unironically love Revenge of the Sith. I feel like here's what I think is true. In just the scant years that I've been podcasting with you, I've

The thing has gone from like to love. I feel like your passion has been building. I've always loved Revenge of the Sith. Always. I don't know. I feel like this is revisionist, but okay. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, no. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. We could go back to the Binge Mode Star Wars power rankings. I want to say, I can't remember exactly how high I had it, but I had it high. High? Oh, God. Okay. Carry on with your...

Unhinged takes. Prickle kid. I saw that movie in theaters. I think I've told you this more than any other. I saw that movie in theaters more than I've seen any movie in theaters. That's right. Maybe other than Titanic. I saw that a lot in theaters. Anyway, back to the pod. So that's not the issue. The issue is then when everything else in Star Wars is always about the Skywalkers and always about Palpatine and a galaxy that should be huge, like we always talk about, starts to feel small. And...

It makes sense to me that a Dune origin story about the Bene Gesserit called Dune Prophecy would connect to how we eventually get to the shortening of the way. That makes sense, to be clear. It's the fact that we don't seem to have a lot else going on. We have really narrowed the scope around key players who will remain key players and

And key questions and ideas that will remain key questions and ideas. And so it not only, I think, sapped the effectiveness of season one as a proposition, it really dampens my confidence that there will be an improvement moving forward. That's going to just be a diminishing return, potentially. I mean, like, I...

obviously hope that season two is stronger than this and that it can the series can improve and start to operate at like a different level but you've got to introduce families and character sets and slices of the canon that we haven't gotten to spend as much time with on screen I think that's part of why I want

when the face dancer thing happened, everyone was... Like, dude nerds were excited, right? Yeah, and then it just absolutely fizzled. That's why I personally was excited by, like, House Richese, who, like, show up very briefly in the beginning, but they're just gone. But, like, that's what I mean. Like, when we talk about, let's say, House of the Dragon, like, are there ways in which we're like, okay, we're still doing Targ stuff. We did Targ stuff with Game of Thrones. We're doing Targ stuff with House of the Dragon. But, like, it's not...

The Starks and the Lannisters are there in the periphery, but they are not where they are in Thrones yet. And so we are exploring different players at the table. And Dunk and Egg will be sort of like another, even another slice of the kingdom and the canon. And that's what we're talking about in terms of like,

yeah give us give us more to play with what what would the Richases be like if they had a bigger role in this show I would be quite excited by that instead we get the same imperial family the Harkonnens and the Atreides and like on the one hand I understand that like

the promise you make to Warner Brothers when you say we want to make a Dune show is we're going to fill it with names that they recognize and that they can get excited about. But I feel like there's a way to do both to like, if you need to give us two Harkonnen sisters at the center of the bed of Jezreel, that's fine. But I think there still should be room for other families, other, other stories, other names rather than like, like when Kieran Atreides shows up in the palace, you're like, okay, there's Anna Atreides here.

Similar to the way that you're like, oh, there's like a Stark we need to kind of track over here. Versus how much it becomes just, which was the promise of the opening, like the voiceover at the beginning of the first episode. But the fact that that just remains what it is, which is Atreides v. Harkonnen. Yeah. I was thinking back to like our coverage of the premiere and what sweet summer children we were on that episode.

On that front in particular. Yeah. Like, literally, we were like, yeah, it makes sense to open with familiar beats and names to sort of welcome you. It's a warm bath. Sink in. This Kieran guy, like –

How big of a factor is he going to be really? Oh, we have an Atreides to have an Atreides, but it's not going to be a story about the Atreides. And then that just ended up not being true. So it's not just that we have the same figures in a kind of dearth of other houses, aspects of just the Imperium that are playing a consequential role. It's like not just the same people, but they're doing the same things, right? The Bene Gesserit is here to –

mixed bloodlines and engineer an outcome and puppeteer. The Imperium is incompetent and we're just waiting to see it toppled. Like the beats, the story beats are similar. We're just accessing them from a different perspective and a different moment in time. And so it just doesn't feel like a widening of the world and a way to bring us even deeper into a mythology that we are so genuinely and sincerely invested in and interested in.

It's a shame. A winner we have is visuals. We want to shout out some of the costuming production design visual effects. The show didn't always look perfect. There were times when it looked actually kind of astoundingly cheap. This is the winner category. That's true. But more often than not, I would say.

It looked stunningly rich and beautiful. There's a tremendous visual effects work. I'm not sure if all the Shia LaBeouf stuff is sort of like ported over from Dune itself, or if they rendered that visual themselves. It seems like that was just sort of like taken from the film and translated over. Looked great. Looked wonderful. I want to shout out, and particularly in the finale, when we're inside the...

the fear lesion induced strain. What an unpleasant sentence. On Valia's mind and we're inside our mind palace and we get young Valia, Jessica Barden, who we'll come back to, on the ice essentially. There's like stuff with Griffin. But there's a lot of just like her prostrate on the ice being battered by the frosty winds. This looked awesome. It looked amazing.

It looked wonderful. And so I was just like, there are technical, sort of what they call in the awards race, below the line things happening on this show that are just absolutely stunning. So we wanted to make sure that we recognize it. Anything else in particular you wanted to shout out? I agree that the Griffin Ice, Valia Griffin Ice sequence was just stunning. I also thought it was stunning.

super fucking cool to see space folding. Yes. Like, that was... Whoa! That was just really cool and fun. I thought, too, that the palace... I really liked the palace design. You know, this is something, like, we had a really fun time talking about on both of our Dune film pods, the various, like, murals and sketches. You know, you shared some of the, like, posters and the art that you have that's, like, inspired by some of these visuals. Yeah. I, like, loved the...

Okay, here, I know, again, we're in the winner category. I'm about to compliment something, but I will critique something in the process of doing it. When Havako, and if only it had been Constantine, I'm about to say something that would have made it seem like I think Constantine should have fucked his mom, which is not what I mean or what I want. Listen. What's happening? Oh, my God. Okay, well.

Aviko and Francesca in bed. I was so much more invested in the headboard design than I was in the wall behind them. And the linen. Yes, and the silky sheets. Beautiful. Very silky. A lot of great bathrobe action as well for both of them in that stretch.

So that was beautiful. I wanted to ask you if you had noticed and what you thought about the very vaginal design of the ceiling in Havako's chambers. You know, there's that, like, nice bronze. I feel like there's a lot of sort of convex Georgia O'Keeffe-esque shapes inside of the emperor's, like... I loved it. I like everything. I think a lot of the emperor's, the imperial palace...

except for their like banquet hall breakfast nook on the like

out on the lip of the edge of the water feature thing. In the whale ribs? You don't take that? That's the one thing that I'm like, that I don't love. But there's a lot of other subtle, weird little water feature stuff in people's rooms. They did a lot of fountain work throughout that I thought was really effective, especially in contrast to desert planet stuff that we're so used to. So it's not quite the...

you know, tell me if your home world Oussel, we've got water everywhere situation, but it is like, um,

I thought that was like a really cool. And then also the, the look of the, of the eye, uh, eye water feature at the, at the Ben and Jez are at, uh, school was also very cool. I thought, um, if you were going to hide a ton of corpses that would become skeletons. Great question. Would you do it? Yeah. This is like a, a even worse version of Kieran just leaving evidence in his office. Yeah. Like, is that where you would,

Don't. No, no. Great question. It also, you only had to crowbar open one crate and move one thing on a pipe to reveal them. It was right nearby. So.

So, you know, it's just... Convenient. It's four young women trying to move a bunch of bodies. So I sort of... And as far as I know, they don't have levitation ability. But if it were me, simply if it were me and if I had maybe a little bit of time, I would remember that we're right by the cliffs where there's like a stormy sea going at all times. And I maybe would have tried to toss them that away personally. This is how I can tell that everybody, you know, 10,000 years ago in the Dune-iverse has not watched...

Yellowstone? You got to take him to the train station. If you have a body, you got to take him to the train station. Why? You'll find out when you watch Yellowstone. I simply never will. Okay.

Loser. Another loser. Loser number two is the space sex. This is the Mallory Rubin category. The space sex slash space romance slash palace intrigue. Real inert sex stuff going on here and not even some swoony, chonny, and Paul-style romance love themes to keep us going. So sorry to the horny spice heads, including Mallory Rubin. We heard you wanted more sex, but not like this. Yeah.

I think to go back, you know, not to bang the drum forever on the peach silk loving Richez family, but like that really was sort of like an early promise of the palace intrigue stuff that we said we really wanted from this show. And other than...

The Whisper Network moment that I said I liked and you said you didn't. We did not get much palace intrigue the way that we wanted to. So was it all downhill for you after we watched Pruitt-

shove the pomegranate seed into Nez's mouth. That's where the success ended for you. That was highlight for you. That's where we really peaked, I want to say. I can't find the email now. I'm so sorry, but we got maybe an email or maybe someone tweeted at me. I can't find it. Guys, I have like nine different email accounts at The Ringer. I don't know where it was sent, but...

It was related to the way Rob and I on the Prestige TV feed talking about the best TV moments of the year. I picked something, spoiler alert for that pod, I picked something from Fargo, which features Sam Spruill, who is in Dune Prophecy, only wouldn't know it because he's barely here. Horus, yeah. Such an interesting performer, always. He's going to be in Dunkin' Egg. We're really excited about that. Sam Spruill is always fascinating to watch. He's so fascinating in Fargo. Yeah.

And this is what you do. Like, this is what you cast me to do. The insurgency plot, which could have been so interesting, is just here and gone in a really just sloppy, shallow way. A real disappointment for me.

for me. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and this is then the, the, on the palace intrigue front, obviously a lot of that would, would center around, um, uh, the Carinos or Chases, et cetera. But obviously the, the, based on the nature of the story and the nature of the Bene Gesserit, the puppeteering, pulling strings, seeking to control and guide and determine, uh, Imperial affairs. I think obviously all of that is connected. Like, so something like Michaela, uh,

Like, the parting of the ways between Valia and Michaela, and Michaela, like, basically telling the Mother Superior to fuck off in response to the crumbling of the rebellion, this acknowledgement from Valia that...

Nothing anybody else puts any of their time or effort into is anything other than a pawn on her board, right? And she will decide when it is time to move that pawn, including maybe moving it off of it by putting it in the path of your opponent's piece. That's, like, interesting. But then that character's just gone, and we had barely spent any time with her before then. So you have, again, I think that's emblematic of the promise, right?

That isn't fully realized and explored. We talked about this, I mean, we've talked about this various times. We talked about it in our Dune movie pods. We talked about it in our run-up to looking forward to this show in the early episodes. The palace intrigue was one of the things that I was most looking forward to about not just the particular framing of this story, but a

television show, a Dune television show. Like, this is where the OK, we're trying to do – and yes, again, we know that George R. R. Martin was influenced by Frank Herbert, to be clear. But from the HBO in 2024 perspective, we're trying to do Thrones on Dune and TV. It was exciting. Like, a lot of the palace intrigue stretches of the text are –

And because of the nature of this current run of film adaptations, which again, we adore and we think are brilliant.

Those, like, sort of don't fit into the cinematic universe that Villeneuve has made. And he's talked about it, like, overtly. He's like, I understand this. I also cherish this about the book. Yes. We just couldn't have space for it, unfortunately. Yeah. So that was exciting to consider that that could be present here, but then it's just not done definitely. Something I hope and anticipate.

I mean, it has to be part of Dude Messiah. Like, it has to be. Like, that is so Palisade Cheek heavy. So my hope is that we'll see it there. It was a real misfire here. But yeah, I want to see more like

Like almost, I don't know why this is the comp that keeps coming to my head, like House of Cards-esque, like, you know, shuffling the deck of your allies and your enemies as we sort of try to whip votes or whatever it is that we need to do to move various plots forward. Absolutely. And I felt like a moment at the end between Tula and Valia.

gets at that potential, right? Because these are characters who are among the more successful characters in the story. We both said Tula is our favorite. Their relationship gives you the macro and the micro. It's intimate. It's personal. They have direct, deep history. They have driven each other to do terrible things. They have found comfort and safety and refuge in each other, and they are part of this larger machination and plot. So like a moment when Tula reveals that Desmond is her son,

Vali is like, wait, what? Oh, you think I'm a monster? And because Tula says, like, I want to protect you, everything that I couldn't, I couldn't give them to you. And Tula's response to that was so interesting. It was like, yes, absolutely.

but also I'm one too. I could have stopped you at any point. I love that part. Actually, I really love that. Yeah, I love that. Great. And so like, that was the kind of thing that worked inside of season one and still gives me hope that there is something rich to mine here, but we need more of the moments like that. Havako-

watching Duke Rechese manipulate him into like getting personal quarters at the palace in the first episode was really compelling. And like you said, that just vanishes. And then he's just a sad loser who is in a series of conversations where everybody is telling him that he's not in control of his own life. Thematically, there's something interesting and sad about that, of course, but he didn't give us anything to make us feel like,

Boy, I hope he finds a way through this, right? And then on the sex front, like, none of those relationships were interesting. I guess Kieran is a great fuck because Inez destroyed her own family after having sex with him once while high in the basement of a club. Listen, Mallory. I mean, again, it's been there. It's...

Maybe I do understand that part of it. The Francesca-Javico relationship played such a seismic role in the final two episodes. Yeah, there are parts of that that worked for me, actually. I would have loved for it to be there for all six episodes. She was great.

Yeah. And, like, her... Their final moments before their dumb death, um, I thought was really, really good. Like, she's been tasked to kill him and she... And he's, like, has no reason to trust her. But also... Yes. She has, uh...

Renée's made him and he in imprinted on, you know, he's been imprinted on. I thought she was great. She was fantastic. It was exciting because we as the audience didn't know whether to believe her for a few minutes. I thought that was great. And I thought they're like the yearning was palpable, like put a pin in in sad, sad.

We'll come back. We'll come back to that on this list. Yeah. Sad, sad Emperor Haviko we'll come back to. But yeah, I really agree. I think they didn't know what they had there because if that has, and especially because we have the like Natalia Haviko, what exactly is going on here at the beginning is,

If the thing that is actually drawing him is clear and present to us from the beginning, we have just more context for understanding that. The Natalia – for me, the Natalia arcs is one of the great failures of the season. Like, there was just so much intrigue and potential at the beginning there that completely fizzled out. What are we supposed to feel when we see Natalia kiss Desmond? Like –

What are we supposed to think and make of her arresting her own daughter? I felt nothing. I felt empty and dead inside is how I felt. Like, I have never cared about anything in my life and never will care about anything in my life again. Here's a question I have for you. If you...

Actually, the most romantic and sexiest thing that happens on the show is in episode three, the episode that we didn't get to cover. Can I use that as a transition into our next winners? Please. Our next winners are...

the young cast and we'll actually we're specifically singling out the women the young female cast on the whole was quite promising we were big fans of young Tula Emma Canning and young Valia Jessica Barden as well as sister Lila Chloe Leah who is my favorite and then sister Jen who has a very Irish name what do you how do you think you pronounce this

I do not know. I'm not going to try it. Her last name is Cunningham. Her first name is a beautiful Irish name. I'm sure it is gorgeous. And I'm sure it is not at all pronounced how it looks on the page. I've been fooled by you too many times, Irish names to be drawn into this trap. Anyway, I thought Jen was great.

I loved Young Tula and Bali. We've talked about them. I will give you a chance to talk about them in a second. I want to talk about Lila for a second. So Chloe Lea is now, right now, at this very moment, 19, which means she was like maybe 17 or 18 when they were making this. She has to play three different characters. She plays Lila, she plays Raquel, and she plays Dorotea. I would argue that Raquel and Dorotea have like

I wouldn't say this is like the most chameleonic performance I've ever seen in my life. Oh my God, she's three completely distinct people. Because I think both Raquel and Dorothea have this sort of like

zeal and fervor to them, but I think that's right for who they are. I do think her physicality for Raquel, this sort of like slightly shuffling older physicality inside of this like very young woman's body, I thought was really effective. And I just thought, and I just think, I mean, she's got these gorgeous eyes and just sort of like is quite,

we feel quite empathetic towards her, uh, in her sort of most young and innocent, uh, guys. And then like genuinely terrified of her as Dorotea. Um, I didn't like how all of this worked with the sisters though. Then again, they're all infected with the, with the nano virus. So who's to say, you know, how easy it is to shepherd a flock, uh, who is, who's riddled with nightmares. But, um,

All that felt a bit hasty to me. I would have loved to have seen, not to Monday Morning Quarterback, this show, but I would have loved to...

Again, it sort of feels like a missed opportunity as with the faceless man. What if she were actually Dorotea but pretending to be Lila for longer? You know what I mean? A longer con than what we got here. I think that would have been a really fun twist and said it was just immediately apparent to Jen and us what was going on, etc. Yeah.

So anyway, yeah, these actresses were wonderful and I'm really excited to see what they do next after literally what they're doing next, which is Dune Prophecy Season 2. But whatever else they want to do.

Jessica Barton in particular, I've talked about as someone that I've enjoyed before, but Emma Canning, I think is maybe our MVP. And I think her episode, episode three, and that romance leading into that sex scene, I think had the most like juice to it of anything we saw this season. I just started say nothing and, uh, she's in that too. So that was really exciting to see her there. She's wonderful in that. And like, uh,

Oh, I'm so excited you're watching Say Nothing. Oh my God. Oh my God. Okay. Yeah. I'm only two episodes in. I started it last weekend, but I'm going to catch up over the holiday. Yeah, I really agree. I thought that the young cast was excellent and very compelling. I agree with everything that you said about Lila. You know, the opening episodes were...

We were so intrigued by the character and felt very immediately, like, very tenderly toward her is the kind of thing that we're, like, longing for with a lot of the other characters, right? That kind of, like, simultaneously almost innate and reflexive investment that also feels earned.

Because you have the mystery around her parentage and, okay, what are we going to learn and when? And then the Tula relationship and this question of how active or necessary was that manipulation from a person who really does love her? What does it mean that Valia is asking her sister to do this to a person she knows she cares about, et cetera? That just was all really effective. Yeah. And then to –

To watch the dawn of the abomination here was just fun and interesting and cool. And I agree the performance was really captivating.

Young Tula and young Valia were easily the highlights of the series. To me, it's not really close. And I think like the thing that I kept thinking about, it'll shock you to hear was Game of Thrones because we spent, oh boy, more hours than I was going to say that we can count, but that's not true. We could go back and count them quite a few hours when we potted about season one, which I would like to be clear.

Lest there be any misinterpretation or confusion. Season one of House of the Dragon is way better than this season of TV. I want to be clear about that. Way better. But there was so much conversation around House of the Dragon, the first five episodes being the young cast, and then moving into the new cast, and whether that was the right decision to structure it that way. Now, I think we both...

really loved those episodes and those performers and also really loved the new cast and the new performers and didn't struggle with that quite as much as some people. But I think undeniably it was a barrier to entry and investment for some viewers, no question. So it was on my mind just because you could have actually done something similar here. You could have had the first one, I'm thinking maybe total runtime, one episode, maybe two, but probably like one or two episodes, that's it. Be the younger cast and then you move into the older cast.

And I'm glad that wasn't what happened here. And I just wanted to kind of give the show a nod for stitching the flashbacks throughout the series, though I will acknowledge I can't really tell if that's a –

product of smart structure or the fact that the other stuff wasn't as good. And so I was glad to have an excuse to keep returning to those other moments that I was enjoying more. I think it was partially that, but also I think the reason they did it that way was part of the whole like, dun, dun, dun, it's her son sort of reveal. Like they can't show us all of that at the beginning because they are holding it back for a reveal. And I did like

Yeah, anyway, we agree. It's a winner. Nice loser. I can't wait for this. Go for it. Don't overhype it. Don't overhype it. Dune fans who wanted this to be great is sort of one thing, but also a sub-bullet point here is

And maybe also Mark Strong, who has gone out like a chump in two of HBO's big franchise Sunday shows this fall slash winter. This just made me laugh so much when I saw that in the outline. I don't know if it's fair to say his character in The Penguin goes out like a chump because he went out in a movie that was different and blah, blah, blah. But I still think he's like kind of a

as portrayed in both these movies. And Mark Strong, I've enjoyed you in many things. And so it's not really your fault. But Habiko, it's just not it at all. It's much more interesting to see a...

like strong, smart leader fall than it is to watch a guy who's been like, who's being like puppeted and duped and controlled from all sides. And then has this fall at the end of the season. Like it's much more interesting for us to see like Ned Stark,

Spoiler for season one of Game of Thrones. I'm not saying he has to be virtuous in the way that, or honorable in the way that Ned Stark was, but like capable. You know, Ned was naive in his own way and that was his downfall, but there were many ways in which he was much more capable than Havok winds up being. The way that Havok is like

pushed one way by Desmond and then another way by the Bene Gesserit and this, that, and the other thing. And it's like, on the one hand, we do want to watch the Bene Gesserit puppeteer people that is part of this whole prospect. But I just think Javiko was kind of a failure of a character in general and, you know, Mark Strong. I agree. I mean, I think like conceptually, there's something interesting to me about

He's chosen, right? As Valia outlines, like, we put your forebearers on the throne to get to you so we could control you, et cetera, right? You're a point on our map. It's interesting, like, to have the character have to hear that and confront that in theory. I think the problem is, in addition to everything you outlined, he doesn't really confront it.

He hears it, and then it's compounded by the devastation he feels in realizing that the defining love of his life was also engineered. And then he just stabs himself in the stomach. I think if you compare him to someone like –

I mean, how could you ever, but like to, to Lato Atreides and it's like, yeah, like Duke Lato is also manipulated, like by the Bene Gesserit has also found let's hope true love with Lady Jessica, but also she was put there for a purpose to breed with him. And, uh, you know, so there's ways in which to give it, you know, and we love Lato Atreides. Love. Um,

Based off so little, but the opening conversation that he has with Paul in the first Dune film, that is so important to establishing Leto. So could there have been comparable conversations between Constantine and Javico or Inez and Javico, but there just simply wasn't? And the one thing I want to give this show

In terms of like a second season. Yeah. Is we know that this first... The production behind this first season was like quite embattled. Yes. Long, long road to the finished product. Yeah.

showrunner turnover in the course of making this. And so perhaps the argument to be made for a second season is, well, we haven't given the current showrunner the opportunity to, from the start, really shape the season. This is sort of, this is like perhaps the best they could do

with a really troubled production. And maybe they will have a smoother road to a finished product next time. So that's the benefit of the doubt that I can give this decision. But I have not seen much of anything in this season that gives me hope of like, oh, if only these hands could steer this ship right

we will certainly have a better time of it in season two, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the distinction between building blocks and like cornerstones. Like, does it feel like there's enough of a real genuine foundation here to, to build something sturdy and lasting on that, on that Havoc point? Yeah.

And the Lato comp. It's a really great point. And I just can't think of a single moment where anyone in the story, I guess, other than Francesca at the end, who is like, I love you. I actually am going to choose you over not just the sisterhood and my friend, but someone I've been so devoted to that I, along with my fellow youngins, went into a full-on murder spree with. Dumped a lot of bodies. We did bodies.

Nobody likes this guy. Nobody believes in him. It's not just that he's actually genuinely not capable. It's that nobody thinks he's worth fighting for other than the one character we met last week. That's not enough, right? That's just not enough of a counterweight. So,

It not only makes him less of an effective character and it saps the potential tragedy, the real damning thing to me is that it makes what the Bene Gesserit are doing less impressive. Way less impressive. That's what I mean. Like, the fall of something like that is like, look what you've accomplished. If Valia... Everybody's controlling him. Desmond is controlling him, right? Exactly. I said that. But if Valia decides, actually, this is not who we want anymore. Yeah. And...

Let's knock him off the board. I need that to be a much more impressive thing, to your point, than it winds up being. This is just like a stiff breeze. A gentle breeze is going to knock this guy over. And it's just uninteresting to watch. Okay, last but not least on our list today is the winner, the last winner. Here it is. The crown of this podcast about a television show. We're going to talk about...

Denis Villeneuve. They said for decades that Dune was unadaptable. Stronger men have tried, not stronger men. Many men have tried. Many women, I'm sure, have tried as well. And yet, Denis smashed it out of the park. We love these films. We think they're amazing. So like maybe they're all wrong. Dune is

definitely adaptable. Denis did it. And then here comes HBO to prove that perhaps Denis and only Denis is the person who can do this and no one else can do this. Again, hope springs eternal for season two. Perhaps this is going to be our just favorite show of 2026 or whenever this comes back around. Who's to say? Anything is possible. And that happens all the time that there's like tough season ones of things and then they have a better time going forward. But it just makes what Denis accomplished

to what we were just saying, knowing how hard it is. Now we know how incredible it is that Denis pulled it off. Thinking about Dune Part 2 in the award season races I have been, as I've been filling in over on Big Pick, it's fascinating how much this movie is going to get, Dune 2 is going to get kind of like overlooked by

It's weird to triangulate across several pods because over on Trial by Content, I won the movie bet of the year because I put all my chips on Doom Part 2. Yep. And per the algorithm we cooked up on that podcast, Doom Part 2 is the movie of the year. Like, that's what we've decided. And then over on The Big Pick, it's like Doom Part 2...

I mean, it's going to be nominated for Best Picture. It's going to be nominated for a bunch of technical awards. But it's not going to be honored for the crowning achievement of the year that it is. And part of that is like it's part two, three. And part of that is like when it came out in the year and all this sort of stuff like that. But I just like... I wonder... On the one hand, I wonder if this show were a gangbuster, if everyone had loved the show, if it had become a phenomenon...

Would that have improved Doom Part II's chances at the Oscars? I think it might have. But honestly, I actually think it failing makes Doom Part II look all that more impressive. And if it were me, I would be more eager to award that film based on what I consider a failure over here on the TV side. I agree. Yeah.

It's like, you know, those films were both wonderful. We loved them. We loved them at the time. I think when we revisit them ahead of the not yet dated but definitely happening at some point, Paul of Fame, we'll find them even more impressive than we already did. And that's actually...

Kind of cool. We're lucky to have them. We really are. Like, just genuinely great movies made with a confidence and a very assured sense of purpose and intent by a person who understands and loves the world. And the scale and spectacle, the...

focus on themes, the kind of confidence to bring forward a lot of the themes that he knew he wanted to focus on and tease out and build around, the quality of the performances, like...

Those movies are beautiful. I have not seen a lot of the Oscar contenders yet. I usually catch up on them this next week over the holidays. So to be fair and clear, I don't have the context of the full slate of contenders that you and Sean do. But where I am right now, Dune is...

Definitely one of my three favorite movies of the year, without question. And I don't see that changing. What are your other two right now? Wild Robot? Dune. A Complete Unknown. So Timmy is really my performer of the year. Like, no doubt. That's what Sean and I said on Big Big Yesterday. He's the movie star of the year. And probably Flow, which I just thought was unbelievable. Like, absolutely unbelievable. I'm so glad you saw that. A Complete Unknown...

I'm so excited that I got to watch that with you. I can't stop thinking about it. I have not stopped thinking about it since I saw it. That's so good. Yeah, but like as Sean and I were just talking about the big pick, like, um, Denise probably not going to get nominated for Best Picture for Director. I don't understand that. There's going to be five other directors nominated this year and not Denise. And that's just like... I just don't, I don't understand it. It's baffling to me. And again... How? I mean, I think, yeah, this is what we've been saying for...

all year is that, you know, they're going to like do the sort of return of the King thing, but I'm just worried because Dune Messiah is so weird that that's just not going to be the moment. Maybe now's the moment. You remember when Paul wrote Shia Lude? You remember Gaty Prime? Like those happened in this movie. You remember Gaty Prime? Yeah.

You remember Fade licking that blade? And on the note of Fade Routha being a true sicko boy that we all know and love, we're on our way out of here. We did it. We talked about Dune. We stuck it out. I guess here's the question for me to you at the end of the year. You and I are not always, but more so I think than some other people like completionists. Is there ever a version of this in the future where we're like,

We're just not going to finish Dune Prophecy. I mean, we have done it. We've done it with shows before. Sure. I'll probably, like, I think I would watch it no matter what just because... Well, I think two things. One, my investment in the universe, I think it would be difficult for me to, like, know a Dune story was airing and not watch it. Also, you know, certainly at the top of next season, wanting to see if it had improved. But then also part of what was on my mind with just the decision to renew, not that I think it seems likely that...

Villeneuve is going to be influenced in any way by what happens on this show. But just from the WB perspective of these things happening on a parallel track and in a similar time frame, I would...

I would worry that something was happening in the show that had some connection to the movie that like I would be missing otherwise. Um, even if that seems very unlikely, I would worry about that. So this is what agents of shield wanted to be until Kevin Feige's like, guess what? Yeah. Shield side right now. Okay. We did it. We did it. Thanks to Molly Rubin. Thanks to a beautiful shy. Hello for being with us always. Um,

Um, thanks to Steven Allman and John Richter who came in right and early to help us with this pod, uh, today, uh, right at the end of the week here. And, uh, thank you to Joe me a dinner on, on the social and we will see you all for our best moments of 2024. Just the things that absolutely slayed for us. We're so excited to talk about it. It's my favorite part of the do every year. Um, can't wait to laugh and cry with you over that. And we will see you all soon. Bye.