It’s the penultimate episode, and unsurprisingly it has the sacrifice of Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter (along with their daemons) as its centrepiece, though it also tries to dramatize some of the Final Battle that the entire show has been leading up to, with mixed results.
The problem is that in the books, Pullman himself had zero interest in exploring the physical outcome of this war. Lyra and Will ran across the battlefield in search of their daemons, and that’s all we ever see of it. The focus is instead on the defeat of Metatron and the (deliberately) anticlimactic death of the Authority.
But that doesn’t fly in a visual adaptation, especially since we’ve spent the better part of this season watching the multitude of soldiers in Asriel’s camp preparing for battle. The audience expects to see them actually fight.
So with the Clouded Mountain approaching in the sky above Asriel’s encampment, his forces get ready for the inevitable conflict. There’s lots of hustling and bustling, witches hover in the sky above, Ogunwe hugs his daughters (aww), and Xaphania lays out the stakes, which are glaringly obvious for anyone that’s been paying the slightest bit of attention thus far: “The Clouded Mountain draws closer. The way forward now depends on Lyra. If Eve survives the Fall once more, all worlds will be liberated. But if Metatron can control the children or their daemons, the future is his forever.”
Thanks for that.
Although no one is yet sure why Lyra is known as the second Eve or what that role might possibly involve, Asriel announces that he’s changing the plan on the basis of the witches’ prophecy. He’s no longer going to attack the Authority directly, but use his troops as a distraction so that Lyra and Will have enough time to be safely reunited with their daemons, who are somewhere in the vicinity. Sadly, Legolas is not on-hand to announce: “a diversion!”
This is more or less the plan as it was laid out in the book, although there the Gallivespians were ordered to search for the daemons, not just Serafina and Kaisa. Xaphania informs the war council that she’ll be able to sense when the subtle knife cuts through the worlds, a detail that will surely be relevant later.
And I have to admit that last week I was a little befuddled by Asriel’s excitement over the abyss opening so close to his encampment, in which he called it “a bloody gift” and tells Mrs Coutler that “we can use this.” Now it’s clear now he was forming a way to get rid of Metatron forever, with a bomb that can destabilize the Clouded Mountain and the abyss utilized as a permanent disposal unit for everything inside it. As has been made clear, the flesh of human beings is stronger than the spirit of angels, so his plan is to get inside the angelic stronghold and take down Metatron with his bare hands. Jacob wrestling the angel, anyone?
Marisa is skeptical, but at the very least, Asriel can buy their daughter some time by keeping Metatron’s attention on him. Marisa warns him that it’s not “just death” waiting for him, but “eternal oblivion”, which... not true? That may or may not be the fate awaiting the ghosts returning through the window to the living world (Pullman is a little vague – technically the Dust is consciousness, but it’s never totally clear whether the ghosts retain their self-identities once they merge with it) but anyone who falls in the abyss is falling forever – first in their physical form, and then as ghosts. Forever. It’s horrifying.
But Marisa seems truly moved by what Asriel is prepared to do for the sake of their daughter (and, not incidentally, the fate of his republic). To quote her book counterpart: “I can’t bear the thought of oblivion... sooner anything than that. I used to think pain would be worse – to be tortured forever – I thought that must be worse. But as long as you were conscious, it would be better, wouldn’t it? Better than feeling nothing, just going into the dark, everything going out forever and ever?”
Hello, existential panic! Back in my university days, I recall that poems were affixed to the end of each bookshelf in the library, and one of them was about this very specific fear. I can’t remember the poem’s title or author, but after describing the pain and horror one would endure in hell, the poet concedes that it’s better than oblivion, with the final line attesting all the suffering would be worth it: “as long as it is me.” Never forgot that.
I’ll stick with Asriel and Mrs Coulter’s storyline for now. In the midst of battle, Metatron brings the Clouded Mountain to the lookout of Asriel’s encampment and calls Mrs Coulter to him. Seeing her walk into the light, Asriel follows in his intention craft and the pair of them find themselves within the seat of the Authority’s power, albeit separated.
You’ll be unsurprised to hear that this plays out differently in the book: there it’s Mrs Coulter who drives the intention craft into the Mountain, pulls a Bavarian Fire Drill on the angelic guards, seduces Metatron and promises to lead him to Asriel, who is currently picking his way through the crevasses of the abyss, so deep that he sees the ghosts in the land of the dead steadily making their way to the window that Will cut into the world of the mulefa, where the couple hurriedly plan their ambush.
What they do here clearly works better for a visual medium, and draws out the interactions both have with what is essentially the story’s Big Bad. Why not indulge in a few mind games before the climactic sacrifice? Metatron appears to Marisa as a human, and kudos to the casting director for this one. Alex Hassell looks like the guy you’d chose to play the devil – physically imposing and handsome in a deeply unsettling sort of way, which makes Metatron’s transformation from his angelic form to someone Marisa can look upon very effective.
What follows is (as ever) fairly rote. Metatron tests the two of them in their separate locations, forcing Asriel to fight his doppelganger and accusing him of resenting the importance of his own daughter, while Mrs Coulter is tempted with the possibility of becoming an angel herself, with all the power and immortality that comes with it. Both are pretty good ideas: forcing Asriel to confront his demons while Mrs Coulter is presented with a Final Temptation, but it doesn’t amount to much.
The pair rally themselves, remember why they’re there, and once Metatron’s overconfidence puts them both in the same location, they turn on him. It’s... fine. Like so much of this adaptation, it’s just fine. The golden monkey (who Marisa left behind with the words: “you know what to do”) detonates the bomb and destabilizes the Clouded Mountain, and the couple grapple with the angel for a bit in slow motion before Stelmaria rushes out of nowhere and pushes them all over the edge.
So it would be a case of Redemption Equals Death for Lyra’s parents were it not for the fact that they’re actually going to spend the rest of eternity falling through the abyss, fully conscious in perpetuity.
I suppose I did like the fact that Mrs Coulter, through the eyes of her daemon, is able to see Lyra one last time. The show contrives that Lyra and Will make it to Asriel’s camp and the bomb just before it’s set off, so daemon and daughter can stare into each other’s eyes as the monkey knowingly goes to its death. And yet, as ever, the book is a thousand times more effective, in which the monkey is present during the struggle with Metatron, and it’s Mrs Coulter and not Stelmaria who makes the final, decisive push over the brink:
“The cry was torn from Lord Asriel, and with the snow leopard beside her, with a roaring in her ears, Lyra’s mother stood and found her footing and leapt with all her heart, to hurl herself against the angel and her daemon and her dying lover, and seize those beating wings, and bear them all down together into the abyss.”
This is after a prolonged and desperate battle, involving cracked skulls and bared teeth and broken wings and desperate screams... but hey, this show has always been a bit half-assed so why start capturing the visceral rawness of the text now?
Ah well. I’d say rest in peace Asriel and Mrs Coulter, but – they won’t.
***
Their deaths are the lynchpin of this episode, but not the most important narrative objective: that would be the attempt to reunite Will and Lyra with their daemons, which have somehow found their way from the land of the dead into Asriel’s world (don’t ask how, even the book remains schtum on that mystery).
The book pulls out all the stops in this particular chapter: the children are running half-blind through the battlefield around Asriel’s fortress, with explosions and gunshots going off all around them, witches and angels fighting in the sky, flamethrowers and arrows and bullets and cliff-ghasts and wolf-daemons – it’s absolute chaos. At one point Will and Lyra are pursued by naked men on horseback with tridents and scimitars (seriously, it’s like Pullman is just pulling random nouns out of a hat at this point) and are saved by the Gallivespians on their fleet of dragonflies. The Spectres are attacking on all sides, held off by the ghosts of Lee Scoresby and John Parry, and even Iorek turns up in order to carry the not-quite-children-anymore to where their daemons are waiting for them.
(It's at this point the whole encounter with the Authority occurs, but I’ll get to that later).
Ironically, it feels like every major supporting character is involved with the mission to reunite Will and Lyra with their daemons except Serafina and Ogunwe – who are the very characters who are most instrumental in doing so in the show. The action sequence as described above would obviously have been much too expensive for a television budget, not to mention too impractical to shoot with Covid requirements in place, but I don’t mind what they did here.
Serafina is very ill-served in Pullman’s text, appearing only at the very beginning and very end of The Amber Spyglass (and having no effect on the plot at all) and so giving her the task of finding and protecting Pantalaimon and Kirjava is a sensible way of integrating her into the story at this point. In fact, it’s so obvious I wonder if Pullman regrets not coming up with it himself. She could have very easily been the character to bring the daemons to the children, in the same way as Iorek, the Gallivespians and the ghosts of Scoresby and Parry concurrently escort the children to the daemons.
Here that role goes to Ogunwe, who finds the children and reiterates Xaphania’s warning not to use the knife in case the angels sense its power, advocates for Asriel to Lyra, and then protects them from some cliff-ghasts. Remember them? The show has cut out the whole sequence when it’s these creatures who bring down the crystal sarcophagus of the Authority, so I’m not sure why they felt a cameo appearance was necessary, but oh well.
It's at this point the two strands of plot intersect, with Will and Lyra arriving at Asriel’s encampment and finding their daemons. After all that talk about how the angels would feel the cut of the subtle knife, I’m glad it came into play when Metatron is distracted by Will using it to cut the daemons an escape route, which in turn gives Asriel and Mrs Coulter their opportunity to ambush him. That show-addition certainly led to a more logical payoff than all that worrying about Asriel’s “war crime” in torturing an angel.
Unfortunately, the children’s reunion with their daemons is so awkwardly staged. Pan is still pissy about Lyra abandoning him, and rather than all of them darting as quickly as possible through the open window to get away from the warzone, the children very slowly watch their daemons leap through, and then close it behind them when they’re distracted by the golden monkey.
But I suppose I had to admit feeling a little verklempt at Will seeing Kirjava for the first time – and that she took the form of a cat.
***
Squeezed in between all this was the actual battle between Asriel and the Authority’s forces: those fighting for free will and those fighting for religious dogma. To put it generally. There were some great visuals here, such as the witches hanging in the sky and the smaller cloud of silver angels gathering against the much larger wave of golden ones, all so far away that they look like little more than insects – which I’m sure was very much on purpose.
But this conflict wasn’t something Pullman was particularly interested in writing about, and so the scenes come across as pretty rote here. We see Asriel’s foot soldiers get attacked by Spectres, and a scene in which a disembodied voice (Metatron?) gets inside their heads by demanding they repent their sins and obey their Creator. It... doesn’t really go anywhere. By the time Asriel and Mrs Coulter have taken out Metatron, the physical battle has been won off-screen.
I suppose it was a ballsy move from both Pullman and the show to keep the big battle on the sidelines, though I wonder how first-time viewers took it. We obviously had to see some action after all that setup with the soldiers preparing for battle, but all the emotional levity and narrative heft is entirely elsewhere.
And in the aftermath, Will and Lyra happen upon a strange glowing cube, with something writhing about inside (it was also glimpsed very briefly when the Clouded Mountain collapsed). Will uses the knife to cut it open and the children see an angel inside: ancient, frail, weeping, terrified. Before their eyes it dissipates into the ether.
In case it wasn’t clear, that was the Authority, the ancient of days – as the book describes it: “a mystery dissolving in mystery.” It was Pullman’s clear intention to make this a deliberate anticlimax, that the Greater Scope Villain was just a helpless entity, and that “God’s” ultimate defeat is born out of pity and kindness, with the children attempting to assist the angel in its final moments. Although it happens a bit later than in the book, it has the same narrative beats here.
Which is what can be said about this episode in its entirety.All the major plot-points are covered: Asriel and Mrs Coulter’s sacrifice, the end of the Authority, Will and Lyra’s reunion with their daemons and subsequent escape into the mulefa world. These scenes were all in the book, just heavily restructured here. It worked in the sense that everything happened for the right narrative reasons, but as ever, I found it devoid of any suspense or urgency. Pullman’s text is filled with so much conviction and passion, and it’s all just entirely missing here.
Okay, one more episode to go.
Miscellaneous Observations:
Asriel gives a rousing speech to his audience, which hilariously includes the line: “yes, today some of you will die” (he doesn’t pull a Lord Farquaad and continue with: “but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make,” but it was a close one). He then goes on to tell them that thanks to Lyra, death is nothing to fear – but what the heck do all these people know about it? You’re going to need some context to that statement, dude.
The inside of the Clouded Mountain was nicely rendered. Sharp lines, obscuring mist, geometric planes and shapes – but if you looked closely, those pillars were writhing with (what I assume was) Dust, and in a way that was oddly reminiscent of snakes.
I know that Metatron is a Biblical name (I’m pretty sure the character turned up on Supernatural as well) but deep down I’ll always wish Pullman had gone with something that didn’t sound like a transformer.
This episode brings the Spectres back into play, though once again we see Mrs Coulter not only controlling them, but destroying them as well. They set up the former (however nebulously, and to be fair, it’s not like the book gave it much justification – Mrs Coulter just states that she offered them more of what they wanted) but not the latter. How is she blowing them up with her mind, exactly?
In another “justice for Serafina” scene, she gets a pretty nifty action sequence in which she goes into free fall to shake an angelic pursuer, flanked by her own daemon and the others in bird-form. You can actually feel the wind pressure in this moment, and nice to finally see a witch cast a successful spell.
In the aftermath of battle, we see Ogunwe embrace his daughters, one of whom has apparently been cured of her Spectre-driven affliction. Um, I’m not sure it works like that.
And apparently Xaphania just meditated through the entire final battle. Big help, she’s been.
I think postponing the death of the Authority until after the battle was probably the right call, as doing it in the midst of the skirmish while the more pressing matter of the kids finding their daemons would have been a weird distraction. It actually added to the scene’s air of mystery and anticlimactic revelation: that this was the being they were all so afraid of.
So the subtle knife, a.k.a. Æsahættr, “the God-Destroyer”, fulfils its destiny by... opening up the protective crystal sarcophagus around the Authority, thereby causing his death. I guess that’s a fair enough Prophecy Twist, though for some reason its anticlimactic quirkiness bothers me more than the Authority being so utterly non-threatening. Perhaps if they’d established this casket was impenetrable to everything but the blade of the knife? Or something?
I have to admit that I’d forgotten how a lot of this played out in the books – namely that a rupture to the abyss did open up close to Asriel’s citadel, and that the children found their daemons in Asriel’s world before going through to the mulefa one. For some reason, I had recalled that they went straight to Mary and the mulefa, rather than braving the battlefield and then cutting their escape route. It just goes to show you can read something hundreds of times and still find surprises.
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