WiC Watches: His Dark Materials
By Dan Selcke
Image: HBO/BBC/His Dark Materials
Episode 7: “The Fight to the Death”
At long last, it feels like this show is getting to some of that His Dark Materials magic. Outside of some doldrums at the very beginning, I enjoyed pretty much every part of this episode!
The roomful of talking bears helped. The first half the episode — the best half — involves Lyra tricking Iofur Raknison into thinking that she is Iorek Byrnison’s dæmon, artificially created by Mrs. Coulter and her team of scientists. She convinces Iofur that she can be his dæmon, if only he defeats Iorek in single combat. This is so Iorek won’t kill Iofur at the gate to the palace, giving Iorek an opportunity to kill Iofur and reclaim his rightful place as king.
And it works! This might be the first time this entire season when the show adapted something from the books pretty much verbatim, and it was beautiful. This is Lyra proving her worth as a protagonist, talking her way into the good graces of a terrifyingly powerful tyrant and turning the tide of the fight to come, saving herself and her friends in the process. Iofer, like Iorek, is rendered splendidly; it was easy to believe Lyra could be afraid of him, and impressed when she stood her ground anyway. She earned the name of Lyra Silvertongue.
And then the bear fight…last week I noted that the show cut a couple of visually complicated sections of the book, probably to save the budget for Svalbard. Well…this is where it went. Who doesn’t want to see two giant bears go at it, clawing and gnawing and fighting to the death? It was easily the most thrilling action scene the show has had so far, even though Iofur’s death was oddly bloodless. You gotta keep that family audience.
My only complaint about the Lyra-Iorek-Iofur stuff is that I forgot where Lyra learned about Iofur’s desire to have a dæmon, a weakness she wastes no time in exploiting. In the books, she overhears a scholar mention it at Jordan College when she’s hiding during Asriel’s speech, but that doesn’t happen on the show. Maybe they moved it, or maybe it’s one of those annoying little oversights the show really doesn’t have an excuse to make. But whatever, this episode was too fun to dwell on it.
Circling back to bloodless fights, Will killing the guy in his house was fairly tame too, but Amir Wilson sold it with his performance. He and Nina Sosanya continue their excellent chemistry — I feel a real family bond between them — and I’m happy to see the show dive into this plotline so early. I know I was salty in the beginning about the show’s decision to pull the curtain back on the part of the story that takes place in our world so quickly, but at least now I can see the method behind the madness. There’s not much left for Will to do before he stumbles through a gate and meets a certain silver-tongued someone…
The ending is solid, too, even if it shamelessly leaves us hanging on a cliff. Lyra, with Roger, finally get to Lord Asriel, but who’s to say her father has her best interests at heart any more than her mother did? There’s a reason they were together, after all. Iorek Byrnison’s a way better father figure for Lyra, anyway.
I should also mention that Ruth Wilson was once again captivating as the cooing, snake-like Mrs. Coulter, although that kind of seems like a given at this point. This was a good episode. Lin-Manuel Miranda still doesn’t have Lee Scoresby down, though. Pick an accent and commit, guy.