Is Desmond Hart consolidating his influence over the Imperium? You Bashar ass he is. “Now more than ever,” Emperor Corrino says at a ceremony to bestow the highfalutin military rank, “we need to defend our values with ferocity and pride.” By which he means power obtained through fear, and enabled by the mind-burning threat of his personal Rasputin. The Bashar’s official charge is to eradicate treason, and with the Corrino mandate, a new black uniform, and his own regiment of dedicated swordsmen – anointed soldier-fanatics, just like him – Desmond now looks like the leader of the Sardaukar in its infancy. 

OK, but what else is Desmond? Who else? Because in Episode 5 of Dune: Prophecy, when Tula analyzes the blood sample obtained by Valya, it reveals a stunning genetic truth: Desmond Hart represents the union of two Great Houses, Atreides and Harkonnen. You mean like what was represented in the sex yurt union between Olly Atreides and Young Tula Harkonnen? Is this dude Tula’s unacknowledged, long-hidden son? On Salusa Secundus, right before he makes out with Empress Natalya – more on that development in a second – Desmond tells her that his  biological mother was a Sister, and that she abandoned him to survive on his own in a harsh environment. The dangerous desert climes of Arrakis would count. And Desmond Hart, emboldened as the Bashar, is determined to destroy Sisterhood influence forever.

Natalya was already chafing against her husband’s style of rule. Remember, it was the empress who expanded Desmond’s list of mind-burn targets. But with the arrival in the capital of Sister Francesca (Tabu) – Natalya’s enemy, Javicco’s former lover, and Constantine’s mother – the empress’s alliance with Desmond is itself bordering on being treasonous. As Javicco, once Francesca appears, Mark Strong might as well have little Cupids and birds fluttering around his head. The emperor keeps it classy in public, but it’s clear he is utterly smitten with Francesca, which is the whole reason why Valya arranged for her arrival. She is a Sister, but also an Imprinter, trained in the arts of seduction and sex to make an impression so strong, “it alters the course of someone’s life.” Valya wants Francesca to “guide” the emperor back to Truthsayer influence. She wants her to reset the scuttled plan for Princess Ynez to study with the Sisterhood. And she wants her to promote Constantine as the hot pick to command the emperor’s Arrakis-deployed space fleet. Francesca could very well make all of this happen. While Natalya is making her moves with Desmond, and complaining of the Sisterhood “wresting her power away,” Javicco is absolutely melting in his ex’s presence.

Where does this friction at the top leave Ynez? She’s still in open opposition to the elevation of Desmond. But when Constantine discovers the palace schematics in Keiran’s chambers and has the Swordmaster arrested, she draws on her Truthsaying skills to determine where Keiran Atrides’ love for her ends and his ideals of rebellion begin. Can both still be true? With what’s going on between her parents, it seems like Ynez, heir to the throne, is going to have to pick a side.

Before his arrest, Keiran was not happy to discover that Mikaela, his partner in rebellion, was secretly in league with Valya and the Sisterhood. But they still planted chain detonators in her spice lounge with the intention of obliterating the Bashar and his regiment. The bombs detonate, but whether he was protected by Shai-Hulud or his Holtzman shield, Desmond Hart survives the blast. Valya’s latest scheme to eliminate him is foiled. And she does not yet know about what crazy DNA links Tula’s testing of his blood discovered.

On Wallach IX, while Tula is shocked at the blood test’s result, she’s also convinced that keeping Lila in stasis was the right play. In the presence of Sister Jen, Lila gets up, walks around, and conducts lab experiments as she channels the spirit of Mother Superior Raquella Berto-Anirul. The acolytes’ collective nightmare in Prophecy episode 4, the murder of Sister Kasha – apparently this was all caused by an airborne retrovirus, the properties of which Raquella recognizes from humanity’s ancient war with Omnius and the thinking machines. In its current form, as the mysterious source of Desmond Hart’s mind-burning power, the pathogen is expressly designed to target the fear centers of the human brain.

“The revelation of Shai-Hulud wasn’t a nightmare,” Lila also says as Raquella. “It was prescience.” Among the Foremothers of the Sisterhood, the reckoning we’ve been hearing about since the beginning of Dune: Prophecy is the event that will drive the Imperium to tyranny – and this is important, her stress – “if he succeeds.” It can only be Desmond Hart, the new Bashar, the revealed scion of Atreides and Harkonnen bloodlines, and the guy who has made it a project to fulfill his personal vendetta against Sisterhood influence. 

With only one episode remaining, it seems like the reckoning is drawing everyone to Arrakis. Whether that means physically, as in battles on the surface like in the Dune movies, politically – “the real power is whoever controls the Desert Planet” – or spiritually, as shared dreams and genetic histories and all of Valya’s careful schemes are contained within the giant maw of the great worm, is to be determined in the season finale. Because no matter how this season of Prophecy ends, wherever the Dune universe goes, everybody knows that the spice of Arrakis must flow. 

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.