Mrs. Coulter is “a lot more dangerous” in His Dark Materials season 2

It’s time to get hyped for the second season of HBO’s His Dark Materials, and look forward to the “weird and complicated” third and final season.

The second season of His Dark Materials is right around the corner, which means fans of Philip Pullman’s books are finally going to get an adaptation of The Subtle Knife. Last we checked in with Lyra Belacqua, she had just lost her best friend and was stepping through a doorway into another world where untold dangers could await, but one of her biggest threats will remain in this one…for now: Lyra’s mother Mrs Coulter is going to have to deal with the fallout of all that happened during season 1, and according to star Ruth Wilson, this will only make her more formidable.

At the end of season one, Mrs Coulter’s plans were upended, meaning she’ll have to answer to the powerful Magisterium when she returns from the North. Not only did she lose control over the armored bears and let Lord Asriel escape, but her efforts with the General Oblation Board failed when the witches and the Gyptians showed up to save all the kids she’d captured.

Speaking with RadioTimes, Wilson talked about Mrs. Coulter’s new, more desperate situation. “Mrs Coulter is much more alone without the support network that she had at the Magisterium and is taking risks and burning bridges,” she said. “She’s much more vulnerable, and for that reason, becomes quite a lot more dangerous.”

According to Wilson, the second season may explore her character more than the book does. Although the book certainly touches on the failures of Lyra’s mother — and gives her an ending that suggests she’ll play a bigger role again in the third and final installment — she’s not present for most of the narrative.

“After season one, we wanted to maintain Mrs C as the antagonist to Lyra’s protagonist,” Wilson explained. “In the book she kind of disappears, but Philip gave us license to dig deeper and explore who she really is — who she may have been before, how she became so powerful in a male-dominated world, and what compromises she made. Her ambition has been at the expense of her relationship with her child. Coming into contact with her daughter is a huge reckoning.”

And although the HBO series hasn’t been officially greenlit for a third season, it seems to be the natural step forward for the show. After all, Pullman wrote a trilogy, and the creatives behind the show seem to already be thinking about how they’ll bring The Amber Spyglass to life.

Production designer Joel Collins told RadioTimes that season 3 is already in the early stages of development, and that bringing the final book to the screen is going to be quite the undertaking. “The world of season 3 is exceedingly weird and complicated,” Collins said. “The complexity is stepped up in terms of the story, the visuals and the narrative.”

Those who have already read the series know that the final installment takes Lyra and Will to even more unimaginable places, so the team will need to be ready for those obstacles. If they can handle armored bears and world-hopping in the first two seasons, though, it’s probably safe to say they’ve got this!

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