His Dark Materials: The Idea of North

The second episode of His Dark Materials covers a lot less ground than the first one, basically covering just one chapter of the book (whereas the last episode managed four). Yet for all of that, it makes the most of the power plays between Lyra and Mrs Coulter in the latter's opulent apartment, and adds strands of its own in subplots concerning Magisterium agents and the gyptians.

But though it was nice to slow down and delve into the complexities of Mrs Coulter, I'm a little unsure about the original scenes that fill in a few gaps which Philip Pullman had no interest in exploring. I recall an interview from him years ago in which he said "only tell the reader what they need to know", which accounts for great swathes of material throughout the trilogy that goes entirely unexplained.

In this current clime of over-explaining everything, in which every character has a backstory, every plot-hole must be plugged, and everything eventually ends up in a comprehensive encyclopedia published by the author, it's quite astonishing to read Pullman's trilogy and only get the bare essentials of what you need to know. If it's not essential to the story, it remains a tantalizing mystery.

How he managed to pull this off without seeming lazy or slapdash is a feat in itself, but it's part of where the trilogy gets its power: knowing that there are things forever beyond our ken.

So here, the dramatization of Lord Boreal crossing into Oxford (the Oxford of our world) through a window and meeting with a contact there is... a choice. We've already been given more information on this man than the book ever deigned to, and I'm wondering if this portal will be the same one that Will uses when we head into The Subtle Knife.

I'm worried that this early reveal will take something away from the climax of the season, since it's a pretty big deal that Asriel and Lyra go through the Northern Lights in order to reach Cittàgazze, not least because requires the sacrifice of Roger to do so.

But now we've not only seen a minor character move through realities effortlessly, but from a location in Oxford itself (and again, none of this was explained in the book, leaving it suitably opaque and sinister).

On the other hand, there is a chance this may end up linking events more closely with the white-haired man that pursues Will (whose identity and motivations also remained largely unexplained) and I'm wondering whether the priest played by Will Keen will end up being the church assassin that hunts Will and Lyra in the third book. They're already trying to draw things together by having Boreal explicitly trying to identify/track down Grumman - and we all know who that turns out to be...

***

The greater part of the episode was given over to Lyra's experiences in Mrs Coulter's apartment, and there was some great character work here. Lyra's tendency to tell tall tales is seeded (though sadly the scene where she cons the dodgy man in the top hat is gone), as is the theme of lying, which covers everything from her true parentage to the near-homophone of her name.

Mrs Coulter is easily the entire trilogy's most beguiling (and monstrous) character, and there are plenty of great beats here, from the way she's initially charmed by Lyra in the way a person might enjoy a new toy, to the way she's becomes quickly agitated if not obeyed immediately, to the frightening scene when her daemon attacks Lyra's. It's one of the most shocking and unpleasant moments in the book, and I'm glad the screenwriter realized its potency.

Among the additions made to this adaptation, it was a solid choice to have Lyra investigate Mrs Coulter's study the way she did. In the book her realization about the Gobblers, the General Oblation Board and Coulter's involvement simply comes about by listening in on conversations at the cocktail party.

Doing it this way makes her much more proactive, especially in uncovering the blueprints of the terrible machine awaiting her at the Station. She doesn't know what it is, but that it was intercut with scenes of Mrs Coulter interacting with the kidnapped children tells us it ain't good.

What didn't work quite as well was Lyra's discovery that Mrs Coulter can move far away from her daemon. This is little more than a throwaway line in the book, designed to disconcert. It's never brought up again; never comes into play at any point, and we're simply left to infer how Coulter may have come about this strange ability (after all, Lyra herself has it by the end of the trilogy, as do all of the witches).

Yet here it's given an unusual amount of weight, with Pan first hearing strange noises coming from another room, which Lyra investigates on a later night to find the monkey... doing something? It was unclear why exactly it was separated from Mrs Coulter at that precise moment, and I'm not sure Mrs Coulter's slow approach from down the hall would have had the same effect on non-book readers, since the show hasn't really established the horror of what an individual without their daemon means to people who live in this world. I mean, Lyra should have been screaming her head off.

And since there's no pay-off for this in the book, I'm not entirely sure why the show decided to make a big deal out of it. Even this early, it felt odd that the monkey didn't take the opportunity to chase after Lyra when she escaped out the window.

***

Elsewhere the gyptians are continuing their search for the missing children, who also get some focus when Roger is brought into their midst and recognizes Billy Costa. This was another good addition, especially in delaying the scene in which Mrs Coulter joins them and offers to help them write letters to their families.

This scene more than anything else (perhaps throughout the entire trilogy) demonstrates the true extent of her evil, and it was another ingenious touch to have her recognize Roger, have him dictate a letter to Lyra, throw all the letters into a furnace, and then continue her bald-face lies to Lyra. Yeesh. I'd say Satan is impressed, but in this story, she's much, much worse.

Miscellaneous Observations:

There are plenty of other great Mrs Coulter moments, from her quiet confession that heights give her the urge to jump (FORESHADOWING, I SEE YOU) to the characterization of her monkey: voiceless, nameless, vicious. That hard, expressionless face is beautifully rendered, telling us that her soul is essentially soulless.

Of course, he does in fact have a name and a voice, we just never hear either one, but that moment when she slaps it around the head spoke volumes about her own self-image.

Just as important as her daemon in getting a sense of who Mrs Coulter is was her apartment, all luxury and hard surfaces, both of which totally smother Lyra and her wild side. The dress, the hair - she was certainly being molded in Mrs Coulter's image.

They've brought the reveal of Lord Asriel as Lyra's father forward, which... makes sense, though not much difference. We certainly got a stronger reaction here from Lyra than we did from the book, when she says: "all a lie - he's a liar." Oh honey, everyone's a liar, including you.

On the subject of Asriel, he didn't appear in this episode, and I'm still a little on the fence as to his portrayal. Lyra already seems to think of him as "the good parent", and I'm not sure that McAvoy has the cruel streak that's so essential to what he'll eventually do.

Very sweet that Roger would write to Lyra on account of having no family of his own, and that he's already declaring his utter faith in her. It'll take a while, but this faith will eventually pay off.

Adèle Starminster had a small role, but she was so perfectly played by Georgina Campbell, and exactly how I pictured her from the books: pert and curious and hopelessly in over her head. I was sad her part was over with so quickly, and I'm not entirely sure how things played out with her and Lord Boreal in the car. Did he crush her daemon? And did that kill her? Because there are a thousand things wrong with that scenario.

I remember from my university days that the scene in which Mrs Coulter's monkey attacks Pantalaimon was inspired by an experience Philip Pullman had at the zoo, in which a monkey managed to grab a sparrow out of the air and start pulling it apart. It was the dreadful "innocence" of the monkey, totally oblivious to the pain of the sparrow, that stayed with him, and no doubt led to his definition of innocence as heartless, cruel, and something to be grown out of.

Argh, I love this story.