His Dark Materials: Theft

 It only took one and a half seasons, but for the first time this show managed to inject a sense of urgency into the proceedings. That is, the feeling that important things might be at stake, that characters might have to pick up the pace, and that there could (excepting Roger’s death) be actual consequences if the right things don’t happen at the right time.

Sorry to be so scathing, but this show still struggles with conveying the sheer momentousness of the themes and events that the book trilogy captured so effortlessly. Never underestimate the need for urgency in any given story.

This is an episode marked by the way its characters are all looking for something: people, artefacts, answers. For Lee Scoresby, it’s a straightforward quest to find Stanislaus Grumman (though only the most obtuse won’t have realized by this stage that Grumman and Will’s father are one and the same). For the likes of Lord Boreal, it’s the promise of a powerful weapon that was teased throughout the last season, and is here described for the first time. For Mary, it’s a basic understanding of the bizarre events that have converged in her office over the past couple of days.

And for Lyra and Will, it’s a double-whammy: Lyra wants to know more about Dust, Will wants to find his father, and – as is becoming increasingly clear – both those goals are interjoined. Interestingly enough, Lyra begins this episode with prioritizing her own situation for Roger’s sake, even though Pan (who let’s remember, is her deeper self) argues that they should follow the instructions of the alethiometer and assist Will in the search for his father.

It’s a “do this in order to get to that” situation, and with the power of hindsight (and with having the book at hand) you can see what’s at work here is the show setting up the thoroughfare between Lyra losing the alethiometer and Will gaining the Subtle Knife.

Perhaps the most interesting sequence of the episode was Lee Scoresby and Mrs Coulter coming face-to-face – not just because it’s a completely original scene (they never cross paths in the books) but because it’s an original scene that’s actually good. Other additions this show has made have so far felt completely redundant, which sucks because they should be fascinating.

I’ve already bemoaned that point, and that it’s a pity Pullman didn’t help co-write them, but for a number of reasons this one really crackled. Lin-Manuel Miranda is certainly hamming it up a little, but he’s also the only actor who feels truly present and enthusiastic about what he’s doing (apparently he’s a big fan of these books, and you can tell).

Some of this enthusiasm rubbed off on Ruth Wilson, and for the first time you see a crack in her façade when the subject of Lyra comes up. And I can’t tell you how great their conversation was: the way Lee recognized an abusive parent, how their daemons interacted violently, and that fantastic line about how just because Mrs Coulter loves Lyra, it doesn’t mean that Lyra is safe around her. Man, I could stand to have that fact pointed out more often.

Lee clearly got under her skin in a way that no one else has been able to do so far, and as such, her decision to let him go made perfect sense. She’s still going to search for Lyra, but her logic is that it won’t hurt if someone else who cares about her is in on the mission. I’m not sure it’s something that book!Mrs Coulter would have done at this point in time, but the show needs to foreshadow the decision she makes in The Amber Spyglass, and this certainly provides that.

It also helps make up for the silliness of the scene at the observatory, in which Lee is shot at through a curtain, sits there staring at said curtain for about half a minute before seeking cover, and then re-entering the building to find that he’s managed to kill the guy that was shooting at him.

Again I refer you to the book, in which Lee talks to a number of people about Grumman at the observatory, one of whom is an agent of the Church who pricks his ears up when Lee deliberately drops the word “Dust”, who then attacks him on his way back to the township. Lee’s bullet hits an artery, but the man refuses medical assistance and insists he’s dying a martyr. It’s quick, neat and gets the point across.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – though having come to this realization last week, the story’s choice of villain again feels impossibly dated. When the churchman calls Grumman “a heretic” it just doesn’t land with any sense of significance, because who cares about that these days? When was the last time you ever heard someone accuse another person of blasphemy?

***

There’s not a huge amount to say about the rest of the episode; it was basically information-gathering and updates on the supporting cast (including a scene between Serafina’s daemon and Iorek Brynison, which was interesting since Iorek is completely absent from the second book). Lyra has the alethiometer stolen from her, Lee is set further on the path of Stanislaus Grumman, and Will is drawn ever closer to the Tower of Angels…

The thing I most admire about Pullman’s writing is that he doesn’t bother explaining anything that doesn’t need to be explained (the greatest example of this being a ring that the blurrily-rendered John Parry was holding this episode, though I’ll talk about its relevance – or lack thereof – in the post for the next episode). As such, there are so many questions that linger once you’ve finished the trilogy, including big questions about what exactly is happening and what it all means.

These days, in which big franchises are supplemented by literal encyclopaedias that contain auxiliary information and pages of exposition that didn’t make it into the actual story, Pullman’s blasé attitude when it comes to filling in every single detail is incredibly refreshing. And somehow he pulls it all off, not only through the strength of the story as it exists on its own terms, but because the lingering questions feel part and parcel of the deliberately mysterious nature of the worlds (both real and metaphysical) that he’s created.

Regarding this episode, I find myself wondering how the likes of Boreal and John Parry even know about the Subtle Knife in the first place, as the books certainly never bother to explain it. Because honestly, how on earth DID these two men find out about an artefact that belonged to a world neither of them ever visited, situated at the top of a tower in the middle of a city plagued with soul-sucking Spectres that attack any adult that might otherwise have passed along the relevant information?

The answer might be interesting, but it doesn’t really impact the flow of the story itself, and to find out would be to lose some of the inherent mystery of the piece. Perhaps it had something to do with the way the men of Torre degli Angeli had been travelling from world to world with the knife, though we never discover anything about how they made this world-cutting tool in the first place, or what they even planned to do with it. Mystery within mystery within mystery.

But a television show feels more obliged to provide some answers to what audiences might perceive as “plot holes”… though beyond another priest in season one telling Boreal about a powerful weapon (which only defers the question – how did he know about the knife?) Jack Thorpe and his co-writers have also shied away from giving context to this flow of information. For now at least, they’re sticking with the book.

Which is interesting, since Thorpe has already given wider context to the evil forces that are after Lyra and Will. In the book, there’s no real link between the cops (or “the tall man with the pale eyebrows”; technically we never know for certain if they are cops) searching for Will and the Magisterium searching for Lyra, beyond the fact that both are seemingly after the same thing. Lord Boreal doesn’t provide any sort of connective tissue between the two sects, as he does here, clearly interacting with both groups of people.

(In the book, John Parry’s letters also mention a man called Nelson who is up to something fishy during the expedition – but this means nothing beyond establishing that sense of conspiracy; that there are unknowable forces searching for answers alongside our heroes).

The enemy of the book is extremely vague, and purposely so, because that’s what makes it scarier – especially to the children.

And that’s not even getting to the wider bits of world building that Pullman casually throws into the mix. Did you know that while Lee Scoresby is gathering information on Grumman, the following events are going on: “the river Yenisei was free of ice, and at this time of year, too; part of the ocean had drained away, exposing strange regular formations of stone on the sea bed; a squid a hundred feet long had snatched three fishermen out of their boat and torn them apart…”

I mean, I don’t expect the show to dramatize all of this, but it would be nice if they could capture some of this natural and social upheaval. After all, Asriel did leave the equivalent of a giant door open into another world, one that’s playing havoc with everything from Lee’s compass to the weather conditions.

Miscellaneous Observations:

I’m truly astonished that they kept the detail about Grumman using Lee’s mother’s ring to draw him to his location. It’s something that probably could have been dropped, considering Lee was looking for him anyway, so it’ll be interesting to see how it’s explained in the coming episodes.

I checked to see if the man playing DI Walters (who questions Lyra at Mary’s office) was the same guy who was hunting Will in the first season, and yup – it’s him. As it happens, the show keeps that heart-stopping moment when Walters name-drops Will into the conversation and Lyra unthinkingly answers in the affirmative – but in the book, Lyra immediately blots for the door, the cops in quick pursuit. I remember reading the passage for the first time and gasping when she made her mistake. Here, it takes a few seconds before she makes her (relatively easy) escape. Honestly, the show’s ability to sap all the suspense and tension out of this story is truly remarkable.

Still, I liked that she finally utilized Pan’s shapeshifting abilities in getting away, by having him turn into a bird and find an escape route from the sky.

Will reads his father’s letters, but the scene failed to convey the most important bit of information they contained: that John Parry was looking for an anomaly in the Arctic; something easily identifiable to the reader as another window between words.

It’s hard to say whether Boreal was working with Walters in this episode, or whether he simply saw an opportunity (Lyra on the side of the road) and took it. But I liked that he gave himself away when he tells Lyra how to use the seatbelt. He knows that she doesn’t know how it works, and of course Lyra herself is so new to this world that she wouldn’t question the comment.

They removed the creep-factor in how Boreal manages to nab the alethiometer: in the book Lyra is made to awkwardly climb over him in order to exit the car, and he pick-pockets the compass from her rucksack while she’s distracted. Here she simply forgets to take her bag with her, and once again Boreal seizes his chance.

I can definitely understand the change, though it makes Lyra look a bit stupid for leaving her bag behind, and – let’s be brutally honest here – it misses an opportunity to allude to the most recent evils of the organization that Pullman has chosen as his antagonist. Book!Boreal is clearly a sleazebag, whereas this one is more of a cold intellectual.

Bella Ramsay as Angelica delivers another nice scene, largely to provide exposition for the Tower, but also conveying her sadness beneath the tough exterior.

According to this show, you can knock out a man by attacking his daemon. That’s… convenient.

Last week we met Will’s paternal grandparents and I mentioned that this wasn’t featured in the books – but as I’ve been reading the chapters concurrently to each episode, I was struck by this passage: “he remembered an occasion when he was very young – his mother had taken him to a house… they’d dressed in their best clothes and he’d had to be on his best behaviour, and an old man and woman had made his mother cry…” I’ve never paid much attention to this detail before, but it’s clearly an allusion to John Parry’s parents.

On a similar note, it turns out that Mary Malone has a sister and nephew/niece! That’s definitely not something from the book (at least as far as I recall), but it certainly doesn’t contradict anything either, and works well for me. She mentions having family in The Amber Spyglass, and if nothing else it explains how she was able to talk so easily to Lyra – she’s had practice with kids.

I also like that they’re seeding the idea of Mary as the serpent, what with the image that appeared on the monitor after she left the room, and the ravings of the man at the observatory (which is also quoted directly from the book: “ye shall see the serpent gnawing at their heart”).

I loved that Will and Lyra went to see Paddington, though (correct me if I’m wrong) they spliced together scenes from the first and second movie. The stuff with Hugh Bonneville came from the first movie, but the scene in which Paddington passes through the wall (in his imagination) to the Peruvian jungle was surely from Paddington 2, right? When he’s in prison?

Another titbit from the book, having talked about the time period of the book in previous blogposts: the trilogy does in fact date itself. John Parry’s letters are dated 1984, which (considering Will is twelve) originally put all this in 1996. The update to our current times makes sense though, and I liked the detail of Will using his phone to find Boreal’s house.

It’s odd though, they that didn’t have Will spot the snake daemon emerging from Boreal’s sleeve. The audience already knows full-well where he comes from, but in the book this was a massive reveal, tipping Will and Lyra off as to who they’re really dealing with. Perhaps Thorpe didn’t think it was that relevant…?

For anyone else reading along, we’ve officially reached the halfway mark of the book. So far this season has been reasonably faithful to the chronology of the book’s events, with only one big omission: Serafina and the witches flying into the new world and witnessing a Spectre attack upon a convoy of travellers. It’s a fairly intense action sequence, so I can understand why they’re saving it for later.

Whatever happens next, I seriously hope they do the Subtle Knife sequence (in which Will and Lyra use it to break into Boreal’s house) justice. Also, find a good actor for Giacomo – he’s a quintessential One Scene Wonder. And dare I hope for a glimpse of angels next week…?