Historian Roel Konijnendijk reviews ancient warfare scenes and battle tactics in movies and TV shows.

He looks at the naval battle and gladiator fights depicted in "Gladiator II," starring Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, and Denzel Washington. He talks about how armies would signal attacks in season two of "House of the Dragon," starring Matt Smith, Emma D'Arcy, and Olivia Cooke. He breaks down the many siege warfare methods in "Prince of Persia," starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, and Gemma Arterton; and season two of "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power." He discusses the purposes behind cavalry charges in "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, and Viggo Mortensen; and "Kingdom of Heaven," starring Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, and Edward Norton. He explains the ancient Greek shock tactics in "300: Rise of an Empire," starring Eva Green and Lena Headey. He points out how line formations operate in "Rome," starring Tobias Menzies and Kerry Condon. Finally, he examines the strengths and weaknesses of Kublai Khan's army in "Marco Polo," starring Benedict Wong.

Roel Konijnendijk is a historian of ancient warfare at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. He specializes in classical Greek warfare.

You can find Roel on social media here on Bluesky or X (formerly Twitter).

The HBO series inspired by the world of Stephen King's It brings back Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise and debuts later this year.

HBO released a new one-minute teaser for the second season of its post-apocalyptic drama The Last of Us during CES last night, along with a release date of April 2025. Based on developer Naughty Dog's hugely popular video game franchise, S2 is set five years after the events of the first season and finds the bond beginning to fray between plucky survivors Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) while introducing several new characters.

(Spoilers for S1 below.)

The series takes place in the 20-year aftermath of a deadly outbreak of mutant fungus (Cordyceps) that turns humans into monstrous zombie-like creatures (the Infected, or Clickers). The world has become a series of separate totalitarian quarantine zones and independent settlements, with a thriving black market and a rebel militia known as the Fireflies making life complicated for the survivors. Joel is a hardened smuggler tasked with escorting the teenage Ellie across the devastated US, battling hostile forces and hordes of zombies, to a Fireflies unit outside the quarantine zone. Ellie is special: She is immune to the deadly fungus, and the hope is that her immunity holds the key to beating the disease.

Read full article

Comments

© YouTube/HBO

• Warning: This post contains spoilers for the second "The Last of Us" game — and potentially season two.
• HBO released a season two teaser trailer that shows Kaitlyn Dever as Abby.
• It will cover at least some of 2020's sequel game and will air on HBO in 2025.

In 2023, HBO turned the narrative-driven video game "The Last of Us" into one of the year's biggest television hits.

Starring Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, the show primarily takes place 20 years after the cordyceps fungus evolves to infect humans, generating hordes of aggressive creatures. Joel (Pascal), a smuggler whose daughter died during the initial outbreak, is tasked with escorting Ellie (Ramsey), an orphan who's seemingly immune to the fungus, across the country in hopes of developing a cure.

The show earned both Pascal and Ramsey nominations at the Golden Globes and Emmy Awards and turned them into household names. It also featured an award-winning performance from Nick Offerman, who stars alongside Murray Bartlett in the season's acclaimed third episode "Long, Long Time."

A second season of the HBO hit is on the way, and it's set to adapt at least part of the game "The Last of Us Part II." Here's everything we know about the new season.

Kirsten Acuna contributed to a previous version of this article, which was first published in January 2024.

'The Last of Us' season 2 will premiere in April 2025

A sizzle reel released in December 2023 confirmed that season two would be released in 2025, and the CEO of HBO Casey Bloys confirmed at the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront presentation in May 2024 that the series would air on HBO and stream on Max.

On January 6, HBO released a minute-long teaser that announced season two will premiere in April 2025, although it did not confirm an exact airdate. The new footage gives fans a better look at Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) as she makes her way through a hospital.

It also includes shots of Ellie in distress, Joel looking troubled, and hordes of the infected.

There will likely be a time jump — and the game probably won't cover all of 'The Last of Us Part II'

In an interview with Josh Horowitz on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast in February 2023, Ramsey said that while they were playing a 14-year-old Ellie in the first season of "The Last of Us," Ellie would be closer to their own age in season two.

"I'll be 20, probably by the time we shoot that, and I'll be playing 19," Ramsey said. "So yeah, I will be closer to my age."

Showrunner Craig Mazin also spoke about the possibility of a time jump with Collider, and said that there won't be any recasting as a result.

"Obviously, the time jump is important, to some extent," Mazin said. "It reflects the changing nature of Ellie's relationship with Joel, as she gets older."

While "TLOU" season one covered the events of the 2013 game, the second season will not cover all of its 2020 sequel.

Series co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, who also created the game series, told GQ in March 2023 that the events of the second game will take place over "more than one season."

There are new cast members in season 2

In January 2024, HBO announced three major season two castings.

Dever will play Abby, the second protagonist of "The Last of Us Part II" and a playable character in the game. She's a member of the Fireflies and driven by her desire for revenge.

Isabela Merced was cast as Dina, Ellie's love interest and eventual traveling companion who she gets to know in the Jackson settlement.

And Young Mazino, a breakout star of the Netflix limited series "Beef," will play Jesse, Dina's ex and a community leader in Jackson.

In March 2024, Max announced four more additions to the cast. Danny Ramirez will play Manny, Ariela Barer will play Mel, Tati Gabrielle will play Nora, and Spencer Lord will play Owen. The four characters are friends of Abby's from the Seattle settlement. Catherine O'Hara of "Schitt's Creek" is also set to appear in the new season in an undisclosed guest role.

HBO also announced in May 2024 that Jeffrey Wright ("American Fiction") would reprise his role from the games and play Isaac, the leader of the Washington Liberation Front, in season two. Per Entertainment Weekly, HBO describes Isaac as "the quietly powerful leader of a large militia group who sought liberty but instead has become mired in an endless war against a surprisingly resourceful enemy."

Another major character in the sequel game is Lev, a transgender teen who escapes a cult.

In February 2023, Ian Alexander, who voiced and performed the character through motion capture, told Business Insider they would love to reprise their role on the live-action series.

At the time, Alexander hadn't had any conversations about the role.

HBO hasn't announced casting for the character and it's not yet known if Lev will appear in season two. After the game's initial release in 2020, the game's developer Naughty Dog received some backlash for its handling of Lev's story.

HBO released a season 2 teaser that shows Joel and Ellie going through it

On "The Last of Us" day in 2024— September 26, the date of the cordyceps outbreak in the original video game — HBO released a teaser trailer for season two.

The trailer gave the first look at some of the new additions to season two, including Dever as Abby, Merced as Dina, Mazino as Jesse, and Wright as Isaac.

In the teaser, Joel and Ellie appear to be living a somewhat peaceful life in Jackson, hinting at Ellie's relationship with Dina. But things obviously take a turn for the worse: There are plenty of infected, glimpses of likely antagonists, and a few shots of both Joel and Ellie in distress.

Which leads us to…

Fans are concerned Joel could die in season 2

"The Last of Us Part II" video game is controversial among fans because Joel is unexpectedly and brutally murdered by Abby toward the start of the sequel when his past catches up with him.

In addition to playing as Ellie, gamers are forced to play as Joel's killer leading up to and after his death in the sequel. As a result, some players harassed and threatened the developers, Druckmann, and voice actors for its story.

Will Joel die in 'The Last of Us' season two? It's likely

Joel's fate is the question on every fan's mind, since it's the major jumping-off point of the sequel game. Even Pascal has said his character's death is a possibility in season two.

"It wouldn't make sense to follow the first game so faithfully only to stray severely from the path," Pascal told Esquire in April 2023.

"If that does take place in the show, I don't know that I'm emotionally ready for it," he added.

However, Mazin told Entertainment Weekly in 2023 that fans can expect some changes from the sequel game in season two, saying, "It's going to be different, and it will be its own thing. It won't be exactly like the game."

Maybe that means there's a chance Joel could live, or at least make it to the end of season two, due to Pascal's immense popularity.

Since the second game became controversial, it's likely the show may flesh out Abby's character more before killing Joel off, if the show decides to go that route. But it would be difficult to envision season two straying from Joel's death since it's the key motivation for Ellie's path in the sequel game.

There will be more infected

In the game, players are constantly outmaneuvering and killing a large number of the people who have been infected and taken over by the cordyceps virus. Though the infected showed up in a few key scenes, they weren't a main fixture of season one, which placed a large emphasis on character relationships and world-building.

"It's quite possible that there will be a lot more infected later. And perhaps different kinds," Mazin said during a press conference for the finale in 2023.

On HBO's "The Last of Us" podcast in 2023, Mazin added that season two will likely further explore the idea of the Cordyceps hive mind and how they can be a major threat together.

"I think this next season, the interconnectivity of them, and the risk of stepping on the wrong thing, that stuff is going to be brought forward more for sure," Mazin said.

Joel and Ellie are going through it in a major way and it's not just clickers that are tearing them apart.

The show biz satire set behind the scenes of a superhero movie ended after one season.

The Dune prequel just wrapped up its first season, with a second now on the way from HBO.

Director Denis Villeneuve's stunning two-part film adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune has received many well-deserved accolades—with Dune: Part 2 being crowned Ars Technica's top movie of 2024. The films also spawned a lavish HBO spinoff TV series, Dune: Prophecy, just renewed for a second season right before a momentous season finale.

(Some spoilers below for S1 of Dune: Prophecy, but no major plot reveals.)

Dune: Prophecy is a prequel series inspired by the novel Sisterhood of Dune, written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, exploring the origins of the Bene Gesserit. It's set 10,000 years before the ascension of Paul Atreides and follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind, establishing the fabled sect that will become the Bene Gesserit in the process.

Read full article

Comments

© Attila Szvacsek/HBO

The super-sized episode 'The High-Handed Enemy' also leaves a lot of questions unanswered as it carves a path ahead for season two.

• 'Dune: Prophecy' star Jessica Barden filmed one of her most intense scenes at the edge of a real cliff.
• Barden plays the younger version of Valya Harkonnen, leader of the Sisterhood, on the prequel series.
• In episode three, Barden stood in the freezing rain for hours to film her big scenes.

Jessica Barden may play one of the most inscrutable characters on "Dune: Prophecy," but in real life, she's more than happy to share whatever's on her mind. And when it came time to film one of her most intense scenes, that was: Why am I doing this?

Barden plays young Valya Harkonnen, the vengeful and ambitious young woman who becomes the leader of the Sisterhood (a group that would eventually become the superhuman-powered Bene Gesserit by the time of the Denis Villeneuve "Dune" films).

She shares the role with Emily Watson, who plays an older Valya secure in her position of leadership over the group. In the flashbacks that center on Barden, though, Valya is still doggedly climbing that ladder to achieve more power, which, at one point involves standing in the freezing rain for hours.

"It was our second day of filming as well," Barden told Business Insider of the tough scene. "It was also December in Hungary."

The scene in question takes place during "Dune: Prophecy" season one, episode three. It delves into Valya and her sister Tula Harkonnen's backstories, and it's Barden's biggest episode yet. At one point, Valya and the other acolytes are standing out in the rain as a trial.

Barden said that camaraderie was the key to braving the cold during filming. "The crew was amazing. They make a hot tent, and they bring you tea, and a towel, and stuff. And when you're together it's fun, and you're just laughing like, 'Why are we doing this? This is crazy,'" Barden told BI. "But then, when you're by yourself, you're just like, 'Why am I doing this? This is crazy.'"

Once Barden was on her own, she asked episode director Richard J. Lewis not to cut filming short if he felt bad for her standing out in the cold — if she was going to do this, she wanted it to look good. Lewis agreed and even gave her the feedback that she looked "too cold" at some points and needed to tone it down.

"I'd be like, 'I'm going to kill you. I'm literally going to kill this man,'" Barden joked. "But I was really proud of myself when I did it, when it was over."

Later in the episode, Valya experiences the Spice Agony, a potentially fatal rite of passage required of all Reverend Mothers, at the edge of a cliff on the Harkonnens' home planet. Turns out, none of that landscape was CGI — they were filming on location at a real cliff at 5 a.m.

"It was a sheer drop," Barden said. "And my eyes would close, and act in this agony, and Richard would be like, 'Okay. Imagine it's going through your veins.' And the whole time I was like, 'Oh my God. I'm going to fall off the cliff.'"

The "Dune: Prophecy" season finale airs Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and streams on Max.

Episode five, “In Blood, Truth,” drops some huge clues about the show's biggest mysteries.

• HBO's "Dune: Prophecy" explores the origins of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood.
• The show is loosely based on a "Dune" prequel novel but expands past its scope.
• Showrunner Alison Schapker spoke with BI about bringing the franchise to the small screen.

"Dune: Prophecy" goes way back, thousands of years into the history of the powerful women who shaped the history of the entire "Dune" universe.

"Any 'Dune' fan knows it's just so endlessly deep in its lore, and its worldbuilding, and its specificity," showrunner Alison Schapker told Business Insider. "But for new fans who are coming in, I feel like the best way to discover a world is always through your characters."

The HBO prequel series focuses on the origins of the Bene Gesserit, the shadowy organization responsible for a breeding program meant to bring about a messiah known as the Kwisatz Haderach. In Frank Herbert's original novel and Denis Villeneuve's film adaptations, that messiah is Paul Atreides (played by Timothée Chalamet in the Villeneuve movies), a young man who shapes the history of the Imperium.

"Prophecy" is loosely based on "Sisterhood of Dune," a novel with the same premise co-authored by Herbert's son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson. It follows Valya and Tula Harkonnen, sisters from a then-disgraced family — not the powerhouse the Harkonnens are in Villeneuve's films — who shape the development of the Sisterhood 10,000 years before Paul's birth.

The prequel novel served as a jumping-off point, but the creative team had free rein to build on the story, creating new characters and twists along the way. It was a challenge that Schapker, a sci-fi veteran known for her previous work on "Westworld" and "Altered Carbon," enthusiastically approached.

Schapker spoke with BI about adapting the vastness of "Dune" for the small screen, which involved juggling interpersonal drama, science fiction scope, and multiple timelines to tell the Sisterhood's story.

You were brought onto "Dune: Prophecy" after it had already been in development. How did you approach it?

This was a corner of the "Dune" universe that I really dove into. I was much more familiar with Frank Herbert's vision of "Dune." Over the years I've always been on the lookout for "Dune." But then obviously, Denis' films come along, and I think unlocked it in a new way for fans and new people, and just is so elegant, so immersive, so artistically rich.

I approach every project the same way. I want to look at everything that's there, everything I inherit, and build upon it, and deepen it, and prune it, and just continue the process of crafting story. We're only six episodes — I would say these are very robust, full hours of television, and there's a lot of discovery that goes on as you're doing it, which is really just the best.

This show has to do a lot of exposition for "Dune" in a very short timeframe, especially for newcomers. What was top of mind for you when it came to setting things up in the first episode?

Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson in their novels were not just looking at the origins of the Bene Gesserit, but they put two Harkonnen sisters right in the middle of it all. I felt like that was so exciting as a "Dune" fan, as a writer to explore, "Okay, what does it mean that this organization that's going to have such influence had a Harkonnen shepherding it? What does that tell us about the Harkonnens, and what does that tell us about the sisterhood?"

It was really fun to have this familial sisterhood between Valya Harkonnen and Tula Harkonnen at the center of a larger sisterhood with all the women at the school. That baked-in choice I thought was so strong, and the premise unfolded from there.

Telling the sisters' story requires two different timelines in the show, with younger and older versions of both Valya and Tula. How did you manage that, and craft the throughline of their relationship in both eras?

I feel like we're all a product of our past selves, and our history over time. The Bene Gesserit and the sisterhood, at this time period, they're big on long-term plans, and eventually, they're going to put into motion a plan that would last many thousands of years.

Part of it begins when Valya Harkonnen comes into control of the sisterhood, when she's a young woman played by Jessica Barden. That is very much the time period of the books. So when we were doing a direct adaptation, a lot of that is this younger Valya Harkonnen and her rise to power in the sisterhood.

But we also wanted to have room to create a rich television series, and see an older Valya, played by Emily Watson, a little more in control — where she took the sisterhood, and then how she was tested as part of a larger exploration of how it went from the Sisterhood to the Bene Gesserit. We wanted to look at the organization over time.

That's the new stuff we were extrapolating. We were doing it in conjunction with the Herbert Estate, but it allowed us some room to create and bring in some new events and characters.

In this show, you have that grounded familial relationship, but also the space opera scope of a "Dune" property. How do you balance that?

That is my joy. That's everything I want.

Obviously, we're never going to have an IMAX screen — but I do think "Dune" warrants an epic, but intimate juxtaposition, because it is asking you to think about time and worlds and politics and the impact of things like war, and power, and nature.

I think the epicness really helps those themes come through. It puts you in your place almost as a small piece of something larger. I feel like the humanity of it is woven into this bigger tapestry of the universe, and so I think some of the epicness really helps that feeling.

Early on in the development of this series, there was a push to bring in a female showrunner. I'm curious about how you've reckoned with that side of the discourse, and how any of it plays into this being a show functionally driven by women on the page and behind the camera.

It's incredibly rewarding. First of all, I think we have to start with "Dune" and the fact that women are players in such a pivotal and real way. Right in the narrative, you're brought on board as an equal in terms of who's pulling the strings, and the Imperium. That's just exciting. As a creator, of course I want my women characters to be having an impact on story as much as anyone else.

But yes, there's nothing better than feeling all your characters have a specificity and a voice. It was really fun to center the Bene Gesserit, and the sisterhood, and the Harkonnen sisters.

At the same time, it's certainly not out to be a treatise on gender. I had a lot of discussions with the Herbert estate. Just that idea that he's always thinking about how social structures and social forces might change, but be familiar even while utterly different.

"Dune: Prophecy" airs on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and streams on Max.

• Are you still paying for cable TV?
• If so, consider that the people who own cable TV networks seem increasingly uninterested in hanging on to them.
• That's the real story behind WBD's corporate maneuvering Thursday — to make a cable TV spinoff or sale much more likely.

Comcast is ditching its cable TV networks. Now Warner Bros. Discovery may do the same.

That's the takeaway from Thursday's news that WBD is splitting up its cable TV business from its streaming and studio operations.

To be clear: WBD is not saying that it intends to ditch its cable networks, like TNT and Food Network.

Instead, it's using hand-wavy language like "a new corporate structure designed to enhance its strategic flexibility and create potential opportunities to unlock additional shareholder value" to describe what it's doing.

But to be super clear: The reason WBD is doing this now is so it can get rid of its cable operations in the future, perhaps by merging them with the cable TV spinoff that Comcast has planned for next year. And, just as important, because it wants to tell Wall Street that a breakup is on the table.

Not coincidentally, WBD shares are up 13% on the news.

Reminder: WBD has floated this idea before, though less formally. Earlier this summer, WBD execs said (quietly) they were looking at the same kind of corporate restructuring, and then decided to back off the idea.

What has changed since then?

On the one hand, not a lot. The structural challenges around a split still remain: Namely, the fact that while cable TV networks are declining assets, they're still profitable ones, and those profits help keep their owners' other assets afloat.

On the other hand: Now that Comcast has announced it is absolutely going to split off its declining cable TV assets, it helps make other splits more likely. That's because Comcast's spun-off cable TV operation will want to find other cable TV networks to add to its collection so it can increase negotiating power. Which (potentially) solves the "who wants to buy a declining asset?" problem WBD was looking at before.

Also of note: Donald Trump's second term in office may be much, much friendlier to consolidation, as WBD CEO David Zaslav noted the morning after Trump's election. (Reminder: The Trump 2.0 merger mania many people expect may not extend across the board. Trump's incoming team continues to make noise about reining in Big Tech, and that scrutiny may also apply to (at least some parts of) Big Media.)

All of which is worth remembering if you still pay for a package of cable TV networks, which means you are continually being asked to pay more for them. (Just Thursday, Google said it was hiking the price of its YouTube TV cable bundle by 14%.) You, the consumer, are being told cable TV is worth paying more for. But cable TV owners want to get these things off their books.

The star of DC's upcoming HBO series is a fan of the Justice League cartoons, especially Justice League Unlimited.

HBO's Dune prequel has given us characters we love to hate in Valya and Tula Harkonnen.

• HBO is expanding the "Game of Thrones" universe with another prequel.
• "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" takes place between the main series and "House of the Dragon."
• It's based on George R. R. Martin's novellas and follows a knight and his squire.

"House of the Dragon" season three probably won't air until 2026, but "Game of Thrones" fans have another prequel to look forward to in the meantime: "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms."

Although the "Game of Thrones" ending disappointed many fans in 2019, HBO recognized that the world of Westeros is a lucrative property. And there's plenty of material to use considering all the spinoff stories and novellas that George R. R. Martin has written.

The network is also working on other "GOT" prequel shows, including "Nine Voyages," "Ten Thousand Voyages," and "The Golden Empire."

"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" is set about 70 years after "House of the Dragon" and 100 years before "Game of Thrones," as the network fills in the huge timeline of the fantasy franchise.

The story follows Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg. Here's what you need to know about "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms."

'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' is about Dunk and Egg

The first season is based on Martin's first novella in the "Tales of Dunk and Egg" series, which is called "The Hedge Knight."

It introduces Ser Duncan the Tall, a knight who roams the country offering his services. At a tournament to prove his knightly skill, Duncan meets a boy with a shaved head called Egg.

Egg's real name is Aegon Targaryen, a distant member of the feared rulers of Westeros.

The series depicts his youth away from the centers of power — but later in his life, he bypasses many in the line of succession to be crowned Aegon V and take the Iron Throne.

After "The Hedge Knight," the unlikely duo's adventures continue in "The Sworn Sword" and "The Mystery Knight."

In May 2023, HBO executive Francesca Orsi told Deadline that the network plans to adapt each of the three novellas into a six-episode season.

But, as with the source material for "Game of Thrones," Martin has not finished Dunk and Egg's story. In a 2015 blog post, the writer said he plans to write more Dunk and Egg stories, with tentative titles including: "The She-Wolves of Winterfell," "The Village Hero," "The Sellsword," "The Champion," "The Kingsguard," and "The Lord Commander."

Should Martin release these in the future, HBO could easily turn "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" into a longer-running series.

'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' will premiere in late 2025

In March 2024, Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav confirmed to investors that "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" would start streaming on Max in "late 2025," IGN reported.

Warner Bros. Discovery's head of global streaming and games, JB Perrette, said that the "late 2025" launch was still a go, Variety reported in December. The publication indicated that, according to its sources, the series would likely premiere in the fourth quarter of 2025 — i.e. sometime in October, November, or December.

The 'Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' cast is led by Peter Claffey and Dexter Sol Ansell

"A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" stars Peter Claffey ("Bad Sisters") as Ser Duncan the Tall, and Dexter Sol Ansell ("The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes") as Egg, his young squire.

In June 2024, HBO announced that five other actors had joined the cast, per Deadline. "True Detective: Night Country" star Finn Bennett will play Prince Aerion Targaryen, "The Gentlemen" actor Daniel Ings will play Ser Lyonel Baratheon," and "Fargo" season five star Sam Spruell will play Aerion's father, Maekar Targaryen.

Additionally, "The Crown" alum Bertie Cavel will play Maekar's brother, Baelor Targaryen, and Tanzyn Crawford will play Dunk's love interest, Tanselle.

In August, Entertainment Weekly reported several more actors had joined the cast of the prequel, including "A Good Girl's Guide to Murder" star Henry Ashton as Daeron Targaryen.

He isn't the same Daeron who gets mentioned in "House of the Dragon," because "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" is set 100 years later — the Targaryens often reuse names.

Ashton will be joined by Edward Ashley as Ser Steffon Fossoway, Daniel Monks as Ser Manfred Dondarrion, Youssef Kerkour as Steely Pate, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Plummer, Shaun Thomas as Raymun Fossoway, and Danny Webb as Ser Arlan of Pennytree

The first trailer for 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms' showcased Dunk and Egg

HBO released the first teaser for "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" as part of a 2024-2025 preview trailer in August 2024, alongside footage from other highly anticipated shows including "The Penguin," "IT: Welcome to Derry," and "The Last of Us" season two.

The footage sees Dunk introduce himself as Ser Duncan the Tall while also giving a brief look at Egg. There are a few quick shots of Dunk training with his sword and a moment where he punches someone during a fight.

The soldier from Arrakis notches yet another another gruesome win on HBO's Dune prequel series.

• Emma Canning plays young Tula Harkonnen in "Dune: Prophecy."
• The third episode dives into the Harkonnen sisters' backstory and the pivotal choices they've made.
• In an interview with BI, Canning broke down the major reveal about Tula's past with the Atreides.

Warning: Major spoilers ahead for "Dune: Prophecy" season 1, episode 3.

After a fatal series premiere, "Dune: Prophecy" has claimed more lives — but rather than burning up from the inside, these victims died quietly.

Episode three, "Sisterhood Above All," dives back into the Harkonnen sisters' childhood. Before they were Reverend Mothers, Valya and Tula grew up on the cold-weather planet Lankiveil when House Harkonnen was scraping by. Their brother, Griffin, is killed, and Valya, who believes Vorian Atreides to be responsible, swears vengeance against the family that engineered the Harkonnen family's fall from grace.

It's not Valya who exacts that price, however. It's her younger sister Tula, played by Emma Canning as a young woman and Olivia Williams as an adult. To carry out her and Valya's revenge, Tula seduces (and falls in love with) Orry Atreides. In turn, she poisons him and almost his entire family on a hunting trip the night that he proposes to her.

Williams broke down the Atreides massacre with Business Insider, including Tula's decision to kill her fiancé — and her choice to let the youngest Atreides live.

Tula seems to be wrestling with how to address Orry after she's already set the Atreides massacre in motion. How did you approach that tension and her motivation after he proposes to her?

In that sequence, from the moment she hands over that bucket of poison at the fire, it really was about having a plan, being faced with an obstacle, and having to change your plan. I think she walks up to the house — he should go down, join them, smear himself with poison, they'll go to bed, and so he'll be with them.

He's had a really tough day, he had to put down the horse, and that wasn't something she predicted. So then it becomes a thing of, "Okay, well, he's not going to leave the hut. What can I do to keep him in the hut? How can I stop him from going outside?"

I think then that's what the game plan becomes. She opens up to him, she says yes to his proposal. All of those things, I think the undercurrent is, "I can't have you leave right now."

As a viewer, there's a sense of resolve but also reluctance on Tula's part. How did you approach those more difficult, almost contradictory emotional beats?

Contradiction is really helpful as an actor. Richard Lewis, our director, and Alison Schapker, our showrunner, had given me this huge contradiction in really being very clear that this is a love story: She's in love with Orry, and she is falling deeper and deeper in love with him. So I have this major pull between my love for family and my loyalty, and then my growing love for him and my growing loyalty to him. So the complexity of the push and pull is line by line.

It really is dependent on how Milo Callaghan, who was playing Orry, would deliver certain lines. We were really lucky in prep that we got to know each other. We had to do horseback riding. We had about two weeks of that, so we were good pals by then, which was really lovely.

We shot this sequence very isolated from the rest of the scenes that I played, so Milo and I kept being like, 'Are we doing a short film with Richard?' It felt so intimate. It felt so small. I think we had to keep reminding ourselves, "No, this is 'Dune.'" But that was really lovely in that it really took the pressure off. They're just really good scenes and really high stakes.

Tula eventually does kill Orry, but she decides to let Albert, Archie Barnes' character, live. How did you rationalize her decision at that moment?

We had done this scene where she gets to kind of see herself in him. He is the youngest member of the Atreides. He is passed over, brushed into the corner, and develops a relationship with Tula that I think echoes her relationship with Lila later on, in Tula being the older sister that she always wanted and didn't get. I think by the end of the massacre, when Albert appears, she's forgotten that he's there.

To be honest, I think that the decision to inject Orry is one of self-protection and survival. I think she's very fearful of her own safety once he sees what she's done. And I think Albert doesn't pose a threat. It's kind of, "So long as I survive, you don't hurt me, you can go."

When Tula goes back to the Harkonnens after this, they won't even let her take accountability for it because they blame Valya. How did that sort of impulse for them to frame Tula as the "good" sister affect how you approached her?

I do think the sisters are constantly being contrasted. I think they are very different, I think they both like their differences. I think they are both proud of their differences and also really envy the other's differences.

Tula being the good sister — I heard a phrase when I was prepping of like, "The youngest child raises themselves," and that's kind of what I brought through. I didn't see her so much as being good, but I just thought she was never causing any friction. She did her own thing, glided through.

Something I held onto was when Valya and Tula are discussing the acolytes earlier in the season, and Valya describes Lila as a little lamb lost in the woods, Tula really resonates with it. She's like, "I was like that." And that was an image that I knew was important. I knew I had to try and embody that, because Tula needs to be able to recognize that in herself later. I also had in mind "a wolf in sheep's clothing," so I wanted to braid that through.

I know that you and Olivia Williams didn't film together at all — what did preparing to play a younger Tula look like on your end?

I had about two months' prep before stepping on set. I'm Irish, so I'm not speaking in my own accent, whereas Olivia is, so I started there in terms of just specifying intonation and really listening to her podcast, being kind of sneaky and sly. I didn't tell her that I'd done that, though.

Then I got to Budapest, and Olivia really kindly carved time out of her crazy schedule, and we met and talked about Tula. She'd already begun work at that stage. I think once you begin playing a character, the sense of knowing them becomes much stronger. It feels a bit more innate because you're living within them.

But even still, she was incredibly generous having already been working on this character. She didn't stake a claim on Tula in a way that I am just really thankful for.

When we were talking, it was almost like Tula was sitting on the table in front of us and we were both chipping in. She obviously had to do such a huge amount of imaginative work. She doesn't play the younger Tula scenes, whereas I get to live through them and react within them. She has to also track what that does to a person, and how to they process that.

"Dune: Prophecy" airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on HBO, and is streaming on Max.

A flashback-heavy episode gives insight into Valya’s actions—and Tula’s, too.

• Comic book writer Tom King became a CIA counterterrorism officer after 9/11.
• He used his knowledge of comics to go undercover as a comic book writer while traveling.
• Now, he's balancing writing comics with working on the "Lanterns" TV series for HBO.

To say that Tom King has had a varied career is an understatement.

As a little boy growing up in Los Angeles, King wanted to be a comic book writer. After honing his writing skills as a young man, his dream came true when he interned for Marvel in New York.

But the bubble burst when Robert Harras, the editor in chief of Marvel at the time, told him that "comics are dead" and he should find a real job. So, he studied philosophy and history at Columbia University, and worked at the Department of Justice for over a year after he graduated in 2000.

Then, 9/11 happened. King told Business Insider he felt a call to action, which led to another career move: joining the CIA.

Growing up, King's grandmother would tell him stories of how his grandfather volunteered to help the US after Pearl Harbor.

"That just got under my skin. So I did like a million other people did. And I just tried to find some way to get into the fight," he said.

King thought he would have a desk job because he "was good with information." But after a year of psychological testing, in 2002 he became a counterterrorism officer, working for seven years in countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

Things came full circle when he was given a cover for when he traveled abroad. He dismissed his boss' suggestion and instead told border security interrogators that he was a comic book writer.

He said: "I thought it was such bullshit. 'Tom, you're a pretend chemistry businessman.' I was like, 'I don't know shit about the chemistry business!' So I threw that away and I'd be like, 'Oh, I'm a comic writer.'

"If I ever got interrogated, they'd be like, 'Let me talk to you about comics.' I'd be like, 'Let's go!'"

After the birth of his first son, King left the CIA — partly because he didn't want to give him "a fatherless life" — and returned to his first passion: comics. Pretending to be a comic writer in the CIA meant he was already in the right mindset.

In 2013, he wrote for the Vertigo imprint, before his first work at DC Comics, "Nightwing" — about Batman's former sidekick — was published in 2014. Since rejoining the industry, he has earned many accolades, including winning the best writer Eisner Award, considered the Oscars of comic books, in 2018 and 2019 for "Batman," "Mister Miracle," and "Swamp Thing."

"I love writing. I really liked the CIA, I very much enjoyed the work. But I thought 'I like this even more.' This feels so natural to me," he said.

To King's surprise he was able to draw on his skills as a writer when trying to recruit suspected terrorists to spy for him.

"The most important thing about being a CIA officer is not the gunplay and all that stuff — the most important part is empathy. I was what they call a case officer, which means you're trying to get people to spy on other people," he said.

"I had to find what was in common with them, and I had to get inside their head and immediately understand what they wanted, how to make their lives better, what their motivations were."

Similarly, writing is about inspiring empathy for characters, he said. His work at DC usually involves deconstructing a beloved character and presenting them from an unconventional angle.

His latest series, "Black Canary: Best of the Best" is a story about motherhood through the lens of an MMA fight between the titular hero and the DC Universe's strongest fighter, Lady Shiva.

King said: "It's a story about not giving up. It's a story about an underdog who should lose, who everyone predicts should lose, and how they're beaten to the ground and beaten just to the edge of everything until nothing's left of them but their soul, and how they have to cling to that and get back up from the mat and keep fighting."

Writing a story about a hero fighting a villain is harder than fans might think. At its heart, King said, it's "about a mother and a daughter and about the greatest theme in all of DC lore, which is legacy."

He added: "The idea of what your parents give to you, what you take from them, how they shape you, how you rebel against them."

King said that his father was "out of the picture" from a young age, and he gives the impression that using his dream job to provide for his family is his way of rebelling against his upbringing.

"I'm working with the characters I had in my head as a kid, but I always see it every day as a job I need to do," he said. "I have a responsibility both to my family to sort of get my work done, and to my audience to make it as good as I can and to myself to create art I'm proud of."

It's this balancing act that has shaped his approach to writing for HBO's upcoming "Lanterns" series, which is expected to arrive in 2026, alongside co-creators Damon Lindelof and Chris Mundy.

It follows Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), two members of the intergalactic Green Lantern Corps, as they tackle a dark, Earth-based mystery.

King said that he felt "responsibility" to the comic characters that the fans have been reading for over 60 years: "I was friends with Neal Adams, the co-creator of John Stewart, and every time I was in the room, I felt Neal yelling at me: 'Don't forget where you come from kid.'

And although the series features cosmic characters, it aims to engage with the audience on a real-world level.

He said: "Damon, Chris, and I came with a lot of love for the material and we wanted to do what I've always done in comics, which is take these original creations and show why they're still relevant today, and why they can speak to both the audience and the issues of everything we're dealing with."

He added: "It feels like a DC renaissance. We're at the beginning of creating an entirely brilliant world."

The next turn in his rollercoaster ride of a career? Movies: King is a member of the team developing the "Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow" movie based on his comic series of the same name.

He ends our call on a characteristically ambitious note: "I have to go pitch a movie in 15 minutes!"