For an episode that promised heavy soldier action, much of
the His Dark Materials finale is surprisingly muted and contemplative, as Lyra
confronts her father and he tries to explain what he’s been doing.
It’s an explanation that rings a bit hollow once he gets to
the point of murdering his daughter’s best friend to achieve his goals. If
there’s been one defining theme of this season, it is perhaps a strong argument
for nurture versus nature in terms of raising children. Lyra is sweet and
good-hearted, and her parents are monsters. By the end of this episode, the
more reliable parent turns out to be the one who has previously murdered a
bunch of children, but has not done so in this episode. And Lyra’s father, who
has at least been present in her life up to this point, not only kills Roger,
but completely abandons his daughter. There is an unpleasant gendered nature to
the paths taken here—Lord Asriel is so committed to his quest that he leaves
his kid, whereas Mrs. Coulter has been so transformed by her brief exposure to
motherhood that she gives up on adventuring to stay behind with a child who
hates her.
She also acts in ways that are completely contrary to
everything we’ve seen from her so far. The brief scene with Thorold starts with
her seeming like she’s going to kill him, or at least hand him to the guards,
and the remainder of it is passed in uneasy tension about what she’s going to
do to him. It’s almost a bit of a letdown when she just gently tells him that
Asriel has always been reckless, and that she’s going to leave Thorold behind
with Father MacPhail. Then later she just lets Asriel go? She’s spent all
season maneuvering around the Magisterium based
on her hatred of him, only to have a brief check in with him on a mountaintop
and walk away. Of course, it’s totally possible that she’s been nursing this
affection for Asriel all this time, but there isn’t really a ton of character
work to suggest that this is who Mrs. Coulter has secretly been all this time
she’s been screaming into the void, abusing workers, and murdering intruders at
her home.
And the big fight sequence that was foreshadowed in the last
episode and then shown here is confusing. The reasons we’re given for why the Magisterium and the bears are fighting are pretty thin. It’s not
even clear the bears are defending Asriel in that moment. And if Mrs. Coulter is so
excited about motherhood, why does she tell her gunners to fire on the bears, a
group with whom she knows her daughter likes to associate? It’s like the
episode needed a battle sequence, so it had one. What is accomplished in this
battle sequence? What do the bears think they’re fighting for? How did Mrs.
Coulter end up alone on that mountaintop when she was traveling with a large
group of soldiers? It’s not like Asriel’s location was a secret.
Meanwhile, in our world, Will wanders aimlessly before
heading into a portal. That’s it. The entirety of the Will plotline is wrapped
up when he walks into a portal. We don’t even get the satisfaction of him
running into Lyra. If the suggestion is that these two are fated to interact in
some consequential way, as suggested by both the opening credits and Will’s
prominence all season, shouldn’t his storyline have involved a little more
story? He’s been so isolated that we don’t even really know much about him as a
person. Lyra’s natural chattiness and friendship with Roger meant that she was
perpetually bouncing ideas off of people, whereas Will has been so monosyllabic
that it’s hard to know what he’s thinking as he walks around avoiding police
officers.
Generally, this season has suffered from an inability to let
organic developments happen. We’re told who is important, like Serafina
Pekkala, far in advance of her actual appearance, which is then quite brief. It all seemed like a mad dash to get to the
big final scene on the mountaintop, but much of the lead up, in this episode was oddly laggy. For a man we’re supposed to believe feels some
degree of pain and regret about murdering a child, Asriel spends much of this
episode in a quiet, contemplative mood at odds with his all-consuming ambition and awareness of what he’s about to do.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t elements working in the finale—the somber, quiet mood was a nice break from the constant danger of earlier episodes. And in the season as a whole, Lyra has continued to be a determined, affecting protagonist, and it’s easy to get caught up in whatever adventures she finds herself on. She’s spent virtually the entire season taking some awful hits, from discovering who her parents are and that they still don’t really want her, to losing Roger, the one person she could trust to love her.
As she and Will presumably work their respective ways
towards each other going forward, it would be nice to see the show give them the
room to be human, instead of moving them from set piece to set piece. They’re clearly on a quest
together—maybe they could spend some time getting to know each other?
Stray observations
- “Are you crying? It’s unnecessary.” Father of the year, once
again. - Father MacPhail says there is “some sort of encampment
living area,” thus giving off strong “I have never interacted with a child” vibes. - Will being 15 seems a lot older than Lyra, who generally
acts like an actual child. I had assumed he was younger. - This show really wants its deeper philosophical points about organized religion to land hard, but it’s a little hard to care about Asriel’s politics after all the Roger killing.
29 Comments
So I just binged this whole thing today since it was storming out and I didn’t feel like doing anything I needed to get done anyway. I’d never even heard of the books before this but was interested because of Ruth and Dafne. Does this play a lot better if you’ve already read the books? Because this was very pretty but a narrative mess. I’m not even entirely sure what anyone’s motivations were or what Dust is supposed to be. It seemed like an assemblage of a lot of fantasy clichés all thrown in a blender and set up as sort of an adventure with an anti-Narnia-themed bent to it. I didn’t hate it. It just didn’t seem like anything happened really. I can’t imagine waiting week to week for these, and I think in the future I’d probably just wait for the series to be done with before diving in again. The acting, music, and production itself were all pretty good, but it seems like it needs someone with more of a vision writing and running it.
Dust is the fantasy energy that Dæmons (Souls) are made of. It’s a very vague concept in the books as well. The gist is that it’s the aspect that lets human have emotions and thought. In this world it gives everyone a Jiminy Cricket that voices their inner thoughts. The magisterium thinks dust is literal Sin and wants to remove it. Coulter thinks getting rid of her violent monkey Dæmon will absolve her crimes and let her be a decent mother. This is mostly shown to be false.
Asriel is interested in finding and destroying the source of dust which they believe to be God. He’s insane but he’s correct. Lyra’s action are largely plot-driven as she gets to know her parents.
Thanks. I definitely did not pick up on Coulter wanting to get rid of her monkey. Her character was all over the place.
Does this play a lot better if you’ve already read the books?No? For me, at least, it makes it more frustrating. The books certainly have plot holes and confusing moments, but instead of making things clearer the show seems to make choices that result in more in confusion. My general problem with the show is that it actually feels a bit soulless, like they are jumping through big scenes and not really creating a journey.This spoils some of the last book in the series, but Dust is supposed to be elementary particles that are responsible for consciousness.
The show really did gloss over a lot of stuff that should have been more clearly laid out. After nearly every episode I had to explain things to my girlfriend so she’d feel more sure of what she saw/what was happening. That’s not her fault at all, but the show’s. I don’t mind that they introduced Will early, but it was seemingly pointless without knowing what’s coming next. Trying to make this point to someone without ruining shit for them down the road isn’t easy. That shouldn’t even be an issue if they’d been more clear with some things.
I don’t mind the Will introduction, I just feel like it didn’t help us understand why he would be willing to run away to another world. I think the tweaks they did to Will’s story have really made it difficult to understand him. He is younger in the books, and Elaine is either schizophrenic or she at least comes off as very mentally ill and unstable (while in the show she just seems to have anxiety and some OCD behavior) and I think that sort of explains Will’s own anxiety and fear of having to deal with the system. I feel like an eleven year-old reporting a break-in and talking to the police would be a red flag in a way that maybe a fifteen year-old doing it wouldn’t be, but maybe I’m wrong.
Soulless is a good description of it. It definitely felt like it was being adapted in a perfunctory fashion for financial reasons and hoping for another GoT or Harry Potter rather than because someone was really passionate about the story.
Oh god, Pie. Please please please read the books. This adaptation has done a terrible job with them. If you have a kindle email, I’ll even buy the damned things for you.
Someone at another place AlienJesus and I hang out suggested the same. I probably will before I watch any more of this
I’d just lend you my omnibus if Amazon wasn’t being so assish about it and turned off kindle lending for all HDM books once the series started showing. I’ve another friend who’s been saying pretty much what you did.
My library has the audio versions available for download so I’ll probably go that way and listen while walking the dog
I can highly recommend the audio versions! Pullman narrates beautifully, his reading voice the perfect vehicle for his precise and rich prose, and it has a full cast who are great. The performance of the final scene really does make me well up in a way this episode entirely failed to!
Did kind of feel like work didn’t it? And the “tragedy” at the end of this season finale was so poorly directed draining it of any emotional heft was a disservice to dead Rogers everywhere. This entire series feels like it just unspools, so bereft of any talent in sustaining a narrative drive in spite of some amazing visuals and a few decent performances.It was CliffsNotes filmmaking.
An unfortunate glorious scenic nicely staged mess that requires cliff notes or a intimate knowledge of the books to decipher. I so hoped this would replace GOT I faithfully fought my way through the first season. And they cancelled season 2 of Lodge 49? Really? Not sure if this wouldn’t be better watched with the sound turned off. So much promise, such a muddled dense product… Shame..shame…shame…shame!
Some of the issues may have stemmed from the decision to move up Will’s story and track it alongside Lyra’s. Originally, Will didn’t show up until the second book and we got his story all at once. Before that, the reader didn’t know that Lyra’s world existed parallel to “our” world. I understand the reason but I think Will’s backstory could have been condensed leaving more screentime for the main story.
Agreed about Will’s story needing to be condensed. I liked him and his mother together, but it could’ve been halved at least and had more of an impact. 90% of the spying on them could have been cut too
Thats how I felt. Same background. Like I saw stuff happen on screen. I understood what was happening, I followed along. But there was not pretext to why any character took an action, why we jumped locations twice an episode, why people arrived spouted exposition and left intra episode…Then it ended. Cool beans but like for a non book reader it’s like watching live action cliffnotes
It was crazy how many exposition dumps there were that still somehow never really explained much.
Idk man it’s just not an intellectually interesting concept on film…in a textual medium, where emotions and perceptions are described or an environment flushed out… There’s probably concepts the reader can but into…. Here it’s like 2 bears fight without the armor that was important 5 min ago…oops now we’re off again bye bears!..etc etc..orange monkey, black kid from a different show they keep splicing in… Wait whose daemon is that again??
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Although Lyra comes off as younger Keen, at 14, is only a year below Will and his actor. I assume part of it is supposed to be chalked up to her sheltered upbringing.
she’s playing a 12 year old though. in the books, will is also about 12-13, and lyra (iirc) starts at about 11. i’m not sure why they made the choice to age up will, it was an odd one.
I enjoyed the season a whole lot. Ruth Wilson delivered one of the best performances I’ve seen in 2019. Apparently, they’ve already finished or are about to finish filming for S2. I think my only major criticism of the first season was how quickly we went through certain storylines, as you mentioned, which doesn’t seem right given the show’s runtime. Perhaps they’ve already considered that three seasons will be all they’ll get. Hope they reconsider given the ratings have been quite good.
This series gets so overrated on Twitter. It was an alright debut season. B sounds fair.
Overall the first season was alright, just good enough to make me want to see more, but not so great as to get me actually excited about the prospect.
I found this season entirely underwhelming. I didn’t read the books but had high expectations for what HBO would do with them. I will probably watch S2 when it returns for the same reason though I’m not the slightest bit invested in any of it. It’s slow and doesn’t handle exposition well at all. If this wasn’t on HBO where I kept bumping into it each week, I would’ve abandoned it midway. I appreciate them investing in at least a couple of seasons of a genre show like this at the outset but, if they hadn’t, I don’t think it would’ve warranted a second based on the execution thus far.
Jamie Childs does not know the difference between creating tension and destroying any finally decent momentum and pacing with tedium and pointless frustration. Hey there’s some things happening huh, starting to get involved are you? Let me just halt…… that…….. right………. now, how about a 5 minute hackneyed cross the narrow bridge and slip routine? jesus. Remind me again why we care at all about lyra or her messed up family, or the magesterium or any of it? I watch the show and i have been asking myself why. Well It is pretty…. I am a cinematographer and that goes a long way. I have turned good looking shows off for less though. I genuinely liked the books, and was necessarily curious about an adaptation. One of the key things to create though is interest in the characters’ fates. What’s compelling about lyra’s character? What if anything is riveting about keen’s performance? Is it the rascally charm? oh yeah there isn’t any. There is no youthful vitality, why not just get Judy Dench to do the role? the compassion, weelll, she does care about the now dead and un-saved kid, so some humanity there. Do y’all honestly give a tinkers damn about these guys, or is it just, “i wonder what happens next?” or “I read the books.” I liked the dead kid, now…dead, the supporting characters are the only ones with any depth and humanity. I applaud anyone attempting creativity, it is easy to criticize and much harder to do the job, harder still to do it well. This show is just well enough executed that it leaves a terrible sense of what it might have been in more thoughtful hands.This episodes directing sucked on a few levels. I was fast forwarding it was so frustrating. Only my opinion, and as such only as valuable as that is, but i think I might not be alone in my disappointment.
I really just watched because Lin-Manuel Miranda is in the show. (A lot of other people I like are, too — Andrew Scott, James MacAvoy, etc.). I’m definitely underwhelmed, but I’ll probably watch season 2 as long as we get more Andrew Scott and LMM. Show-related: I bet Lyra wishes she hadn’t saved Asriel from the poisoned wine now!
I read the books a long time ago, so I know where Will’s story is going, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear how fucking slow his storyline has been. It has been SO SLOW. And the bad guy is so uninteresting.Why did Lyra have to go up the mountain across an ice bridge and up rocks instead of the way Asriel went? Did you notice that the daemons rarely do anything important except whine and say they’re scared in this version?Lee Scoresby. Witch: You are the only one who can take care of her. (Lyra falls from a hot air balloon and LIVES for some reason). Witch: Now she needs you more than ever! Lee: I love her! (we never see him again)And yes a lot of the rest of this was just an absolute mess. They made Lyra’s development so much of a straight line, she just gets smarter, is right all the time, immediately reads the alethiometer. The moment of Roger convincing Lyra not to look at the alethiometer was brutal.