His Dark Materials lets Mrs. Coulter shine in one of its strongest episodes yet (newbies)
TV Reviews Recap
And like clockwork, His Dark Materials improves when Mrs.
Coulter reappears. This episode was a real high water mark for the character,
because so many of the actions she’s taken suddenly have an additional degree
of nuance, from her bizarre relationship with her daemon to her stunted efforts
to connect with Lyra.
It’s also an interesting twist on the show that the
character who best makes clear what daemons represent to people is the one who
loathes them. How much was Mrs. Coulter traumatized by her youthful affair
with Lord Asriel? Irreparably, it turns out, such that she thinks passion and
sex are what ruin people. After all, those things ruined her life. That her
romance with Asriel is also what gave her Lyra does not seem to have fully
sunken in yet, but there’s so much that works really effectively in this
episode about her learning who her own daughter is, and how extraordinary
Lyra’s passion and empathy make her.
Lyra mainly spends the episode wreaking havoc and sowing
chaos, which she suggests is what she’s good at. But it’s not her chaos
abilities that are the point here—it’s her commitment to breaking the other
children out of the prison. She could make a run for it the first time she and
Roger manage to get away from the other kids, but she doesn’t. Not only does
she re-imprison herself on their behalf, but she takes the time to destroy the
machine that’s been severing daemons. The show is making a compelling argument for
the way one single person taking a conscientious stand is life-changing for a
whole series of other people, but its demonstration of this concept doesn’t work equally well each time. For instance, it sounds silly when Lee suggests
he loves Lyra after knowing her a few days, but with only a few shots of
Mrs. Coulter’s face, there’s such a sense of torment over who her daughter is
communicated. It’s a very literal demonstration of why showing can work so much
better than telling.
The rest of the Bolvangar sequence is the oddest mix of
truly horrifying villainy and overwrought dialogue. Did we really need someone
to say “I was just obeying orders”? The bad guys on this show are doing
something at a pretty far extreme of villainy. It’s so vile that it’s
almost…too evil? And yet, inevitably, there’s the guy who feels kind of bad but
is doing it anyway. It’s so extreme that it’s hard to imagine how the dialogue
could have been written in a way that was less pointed and over the top. It’s
like the show has to fall back on tropes to get through it, so we end up with
the true believer leader, the ambivalent nice guy, and of course, the utterly
faceless violent guys who are defending the camp. We’re told they’re tartars,
but we never see what any of them looks like, nor do we understand what they’re
doing in this particular conflict.
The eventual fight scene mostly proves that turning the
tartars into more specific bad guys would have made it even cooler. The action
sequences are on their way to being suspenseful and exciting, given the narrow
hallways and near-misses, but it’s all over surprisingly quickly for a battle
we’ve been told the gyptians have no chance of winning. They’re actually doing
pretty well, with the very brief exception of one scene, and then Serafina
Pekkala, this show’s deus ex machina, zips in for a hot 30 seconds to kill
everyone. Was she unavailable earlier? How is she a hero if she’s only inspired
to help those kids when Lyra is in danger? Awfully Mrs. Coulter-y of her. Why aren’t
the witches in charge of everything if they’re this powerful? That was just one
of them!
We’re just going to have to hope she stuck around a bit
longer, since Lee lasts just a few hours as a surrogate father before
accidentally dropping Lyra out of his aircraft. Some balloon driver he is.
Stray observations
- I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show so driven by one single
performance, and one that isn’t even the lead. It’s partially Ruth Wilson’s
choices, but also the writing is just better for her. She’s given so much more
complexity to play than anyone else. Everyone else is kind of trapped in very
traditional hero or villain paths. - But speaking of her, having her come back into the girls’
room just to pointlessly say “well done” and freak everyone out was one of the
episode’s hammier moments. What did Mrs. Coulter think she was doing in that
moment? - I honestly almost forgot that we spent any time at all with
Will this episode. Can something happen with him already to justify taking time
away from Mrs. Coulter learning about motherhood? - Only Ruth Wilson could make “Billy Costa is dead.” “Well.
That is unfortunate” work. - Not to put too fine a point on it, but did Dafne Keen grow
about six inches between when she filmed the first episode with Lewin Lloyd
(Roger) and now? - I appreciate the show taking the time to show us that the
gyptians went back and rescued the daemons. I got worried when Lyra only
told Roger to rescue the kids. - And on the subject of daemons, why doesn’t Pantalaimon run
when Lyra does? Every other time she’s made a run for it, he has, too. - Back to Mrs. C—I ended up not working it into my review,
because it was already going on and on about her, but the ways the word
“mother” was used/said in this episode were so fascinating. Lyra screams it for
the first time only when she’s near death (and it seems likely that was to
provoke Mrs. Coulter into reacting), and Mrs. Coulter could barely make herself
say it out loud when the two of them were talking later. - Those fight scenes were VERY stingy with the Iorek fighting
moments. We’ll hope for better for the future.
26 Comments
I guess ignorance is bliss? I found this episode genuinely suspenseful. The portrayal of the children with their shaved heads and visible shock……..I almost hate to say this comparing to real world atrocities, but it was not unlike footage of children in concentration camps in WWII (or more to the present, migrant kids separated at the Southern border from their parents.) It about killed me to see that and the decision to have them draped in the red blankets at the end was brilliantly unsettling and upped the palpable horror of separation from their daemons. Honestly I thought it was so well done. It brought to the fore and certainly resonated the consequences at the heart of this make believe world I say ignorance is bliss (and possibly this is unfair) but I read Myles McNutt’s review first which is two-thirds complaining the lack of visible daemons pretty much ignoring what this episode, at least for me got so very, very right. Most especially the performance of Ruth Wilson’s complete crisis of conscience as a mother so poisoned by her life choices. Every agony and conflict registered in her face. As for the one staffer who said he was only following orders, isn’t that exactly what history has shown the perpetrators of human degradation, torture and brutality have stated time and again?
As a non book reader, agreed, this episode was fantastic. The other review is always a drag, we get it, you read the books and aren’t happy, and the lack of background daemons bothers you, I can care less the vast majority of the time.
The lack of background daemons didn’t bother me because I haven’t read the books. My roommate has and was shocked when I asked her why all the humans didn’t have daemons. “They do.”she says. “So where are they?” said I… That’s the only bit that bothers me about it.
I know everyone should have one, it just doesn’t bother me in the slightest. If I don’t see them I write it off as they are small, and hard to see anyway. Not everyone can have a wolf or something large, head canon really.
The only reason I find it annoying is that whenever I remember the reason everyone’s daemons aren’t on show very often is that it’s be a nightmare to have to do with CGI in terms of costs & time it takes me right out of everything because then I’m thinking about the TV show budget which sorta ruins the fantasy of it all.
It’s obviously a CGI cost issue. As a book reader it doesn’t bother me that the daemons aren’t always visible. They could conceivably be small or out of frame. The only problem is that it is not immediately obvious to viewers that the adult nurses/attendants don’t have daemons at all which would be shocking to any new arrivals.
I was trying to understand why the bolvangar scenes were getting to my feelings so much and I think you nailed it! whether or not it’s intentional, scenes of ‘kids in cages’ are hitting too close to home these days.
Yeah, but all those snippets of dialogue during the battle were pretty awful. “What took you so long?”, “Is that all you’ve got?”, “I was only following orders!”. C’mon, what’s this, “TV Tropes: The Series”?
This show is like watching a period piece in which you constantly see Starbucks cups and smartphones left in the shots, except it’s about the absence of something (daemons) rather than presence. It’s a constant irritiation, but one you get used to. Ignoring the absence of daemons, I think this was a pretty good episode.
I think I fall somewhere in between this review and the Expert review in terms of ranking this one (So I guess a B or B-). It was a momentous episode but at the same time the pacing felt off. With how much happened, was resolved, and was pushed forward in terms of plot I honestly double checked whether this was a midseason finale and was very surprised to find it was not only not that but the third to last episode of the season. Yet, for all the was revealed, and some actual good tension at times, it still felt like the episode itself went on forever.I also agree that Lee’s feelings, and guardianship (as brief as it is), for Lyra made little sense with what we had been shown of the interactions between the two of them. Having her grow on him, sure, but not this level of devotion so quickly.
Shout out mention to the creepy sociopath nurse who, it turned out, was made mad by being severed from her daemon. Lyra put it together right at about the same time the viewer does. Great little scene in very action/creepy/setting specific episode. Favorite overall episode so far.
Ruth Wilson is clearly digging into her character here and I’m loving it. I hope the show runners do better by her than “The Affair”
Did any one explain who was attacking the gyptians in the last episode? Was it the tartars? It seems weird they attacked (for some reason) and it wasn’t ever resolved.
First my thought. Coulter is a witch. I’m thinking this because the only people that we have seen that can survive more than a dozen feet from their Daemons are the witches.
Second, my thoughts on the series. I’m not a book reader. My roommate is so we started watching the show. She is giddy half the time it’s on so I know it is really doing well with following the books or at least the story line.
Third, here is where you hate me. I could do without Lin-Manuel Miranda’s over the top acting. His apperance episode kept me thinking he was going to burst into song. He acts to the back of the room the entire episode. It’s great stage acting but doesn’t translate to the screen all that well.
Those fight scenes were VERY stingy with the Iorek fighting moments. We’ll hope for better for the future.Looks like that will be rectified next week, based on the teaser.
Lots of Wilson plus some decent tension and action made this one of the show’s best episodes. Which isn’t to say I was blown away. The dialogue is still clanky, and I am getting bored of being told how special Lyra is supposed to be.
Why the discrepancy with the expert review? don’t wanna get spoiled by reading it
Nothing spoilery:The main complaint of the expert review is that the human/daemon relationship is not as deep and pervasive in the show. Due to CGI costs daemons aren’t as involved in scenes as in the books and only a select number of daemons are actually shown. You saw it briefly with Pan and Roger’s daemons but, generally, daemons have their own conversations with other daemons. A human and their daemon are really one person and what one knows the other does. A human would not be any more or less intelligent than their daemon and vice versa. In fact, actual animals recognize that daemons are not real animals and treat them as humans. So the shock and horror of seeing someone without a daemon is like a gut-punch. If I recall, there’s a scene in the book where the severed children are reunited with their daemons but they’re in despair because, even though they’re physically together again the spiritual/psychic connection is gone.
Did we really need someone to say “I was just following orders.” REALLY?! The Magesterium are clearly FASCIST NAZIS and someone had to say it to wake up half of the viewing public who are totally following this for the polar bear or Lin Manuel Miranda.
The thing that’s not coming across in the series is that they’re not fascist nazis. They’re the church. It’s a theocracy.
Ah, yes … this actually makes more sense. Thank you.
That’s why when Oxford was raided in the first episode, the members of the Magisterium were shouting “HERESY!” all over the place.
I also understand now why this series of books/the film pissed off the Catholic church so much, they can clearly see a lot of themselves in the magisterium and have enough awareness to realise it is not a good look…
Came here to start the Iorek stan thread. Who’s better than Iorek? No one.
For those asking about missing Daemons, they’re always there. Below ankle height, in a pocket, perched in a rafter.
Always just offscreen, like Vera Peterson, Mrs. Fish, or Carl the Doorman.