This problem has been present from the beginning of Dune: Prophecy. As much as the show wants to be about schemers in secret, it’s in fact about people declaring plot points to one another and pretending that it’s all quite sneaky. To be clear, the problem here isn’t necessarily that this is a talky show instead of an action show. The Frank Herbert novels (and, to a much lesser extent, the prequel novels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson) largely consist of ideological debates and philosophizing.

No, the problem with Dune: Prophecy is that the ideas characters discuss, much like Valya’s plan in “Twice Born,” written by Kevin Lau & Suzanne Wrubel, is thin and dumb. Dune and Game of Thrones, the latter being the true forerunner to Prophecy, already thoroughly explored the vagaries of power plays in much greater detail. Prophecy rarely has anything to say on the subject beyond “People do bad things to keep power!”

It’s not that Prophecy cannot do anything other than exposition. “Twice Born” begins with a powerful cold open that finds the Sisterhood acolytes all plagued by a nightmare in which they stand in near the well in their home and slice their own throats. The episode returns to the dream in a later sequence in which Tula (Olivia Williams) instructs the acolytes to enter a trance and draw what they see. Their drawings more or less recreate the show’s opening credits, but Lewis paces the scene well and Williams anchors the scene by playing Tula’s loss of control.

The acolytes end their drawing session with an image of two eyes peering out from a black space, which has reappeared throughout the series. “God is watching us,” declares Sister Emeline (Aoife Hinds). “The recokoning is here.”

Powerful as the moment is, “Twice Born” doesn’t let the audience or the actors sit in it. Worse, it feels the need to include a follow up scene in which Tula and Sister Avila (Barbara Marten) interpret the drawings. For all their discussion (and the actors’ screen presence), the conversation boils down to “There’s something scary out there we don’t understand.”

The conversation underscores the other major problem with Prophecy‘s plot-heavy approach. Instead of letting characters or themes drive the story, it relies upon the mystery of Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel). Who is he? How does he have these powers?