The Sisters rally. Javier grows a spine. Valya takes a trip and so does Lila, into the Agony.

A massive improvement in the second episode. That’s at least in part because we don’t need to introduce everyone but mostly because of the urgency that drives the story. The murders at the end of the previous episode dominate things, dragging everyone into their orbits.

For Valya that’s literal, traveling to the Imperial Court to investigate the death of the Emperor’s Truthseeker, Kasha (the excellent and under used Jihae) last episode. For Tula, it’s putting her protege Lila (Chloe Lea) into the Agony where her genetic memory lives.

Tula and Lila’s plot is the biggest idea, and one that’s smartly grounded inside very human consequences. It also connects that long prologue to the core show, as Lila is sent into the Agony to locate the genetic memory of the Sister Valya has kill herself in the first scene. It’s a smart choice, embodying the Bene Gesserit’s ability to strategize across centuries at the same time as reminding us that every woman in the order is an individual. Lea and Olivia Williams have exactly this episode to sell us on how close they are and they manage it utterly. Top marks too to director John Cameron’s terrifying, dusty vault of the Agony. Locking a camera onto Lea and having her be the point of stillness in a roiling world of cobwebbed phantoms is brilliantly done. As is the sudden return of Valya’s victim Dorotea, proving the Bene Gesserit don’t let a little thing like death get in the way. It also, crucially, reminds us that what they’re doing is a terrible, centuries line eugenics experiment that cares about absolutely no one but the eventual result.

Over in the other plot, Emily Watson is superb as Valya, a constantly moving cyclone of determination and resolve that sweeps the ineffectual Javier aside but can’t see that that’s what her enemies want. She closes the episode in a fantastic scene with Travis Fimmel, the other powerhouse of the show that feels epochal for the Bene Gesserit’s plans and ends with an incredible mic drop of a line that explains why this season is very short. Desmond almost certainly isn’t here for a long time, but he’s going to leave a mark on his way out.

It’s not all good news. There’s a raft of subplots, including a plot on the Emperor’s life, the origins of the attack on Desmond and the intrigue surrounding both the cancelled wedding last episode and the Noble Houses themselves. None of that quite has room to breathe yet, and this episode throwing in a deeply perfunctory sex scene doesn’t help matters. These plots are where the show feels most like Game of Thrones and the least interesting. I’m confident that will change but for now it’s very obvious every time we cut away from the two main plots.

Verdict: That being said, this is a great second episode and a great step up in pace. Definitely worth catching up on this one. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart