Review: His Dark Materials Episode 203, “Theft”

This week on His Dark Materials, Lord Boreal steals the alethiometer, Lyra and Will strike a deal to get it back, and Lin-Manuel Miranda is still miscast.

Why can’t I get more into this show? It seems to have everything I like: it’s based on an enjoyable, well-respected fantasy series; HBO has spent real money making sure the actors and sets and special effects are up to snuff; and it looks like it’s going to go the distance and adapt the whole story. But there’s not enough passion. There’s something workmanlike about this show, like they’re checking off the boxes of His Dark Materials without digging into what they mean. This episode was actually decent; it just doesn’t feel particularly special.

For me, Simone Kirby as Dr. Mary Malone is once again the highlight. As promised, Lyra shows up at her lab to find out more about Dust, but there’s someone waiting for her: a police officer who’s on Will’s trail. Lyra is smooth with the lies as always, but the officer still tricks her into revealing that she knows Will. Then Mary, being the stand-up gal that she is, asks to talk to the officer alone, discreetly waves Lyra out of the room, and “accidentally” blocks the police officer when he tries to chase after her.

Go, werk, serve, etc. Mary is the plucky, good-hearted surrogate mom Lyra deserves. I didn’t even scoff when the show adds in a subplot where her sister and niece and nephew come over to her house, because Kirby gives off such a warm, curious energy that she’s just fun to watch. It can be hard to make a physics experiment look exciting, but it’s easy to sell Mary Malone getting frustrated that she can’t use the Cave to get Dust to respond to her with words, as Lyra suggested. If there’s one character I wouldn’t mind some extra material from, it’s this one.

I feel a little differently about Lee Scoresby. I need to say something I suspected during the first season but can’t ignore now: Lin-Manuel Miranda is not good in this role. His Texan accent still comes and goes with the breeze, and he’s not bringing nearly enough hard-bitten grit to it.

And sometimes his performance is just…like, early on in the episode, he tracks Stanislaus Grumman to an observatory, which happens in the books. Unlike in the books, he finds one lone, unhinged scientist manning the place. In the books, there’s a team of scientists there, plus one representative from the Magisterium to make sure they don’t discover anything too heretical, which is customary in this world. Dr. Crazy tries to kill Lee for wanting to look for Grumman, and Lee kills him back.

Why the change? It seems to be to set up the worst (or at least worst performed) line in the episode: “Is there any place the Magisterium…HASN’T INFILTRATED?”

It’s just bad. I laughed when I saw it. And then the show concocts a new storyline where Lee is arrested by local authorities, thrown into prison, and eventually set free by Mrs. Coulter, who feels sympathy for him after he opens up about his rough upbringing, something she apparently shared.

I admire the ambition here to deepen both of these characters, but it mostly feels like padding and doesn’t really work because Miranda can’t quite hold up his end of it. Although granted, it’s hard to sell awkward lines like, “I know what it’s like to feel hurt like yours.” (I did like Hester, his hare dæmon, comforting him after he dredges up his painful memories.) The best moments from this new storyline belong to Mrs. Coulter: there’s a great bit where she goes from laughing at Lee’s sass to telling him his life depends on their conversation, and the moment where her monkey dæmon held her hand was strangely touching.

The dæmons, by the way, are getting a lot more play this season — we see people with spider dæmons, lizard dæmons, dog dæmons; Pantalaimon seems to have more lines…although the random conversation between Serafina Pekkala’s bird dæmon and Iorek Byrnison (making his season 2 debut) is weird, mainly because Sarafina’s dæmon sounds really wooden and monotone. Maybe they should avoid animal-on-animal conversations; the dæmons seem to work best when they’re interacting with their humans.

Back in Lyra’s part of the story, there’s a fun chase sequence where she runs away from the police officer with Pan turning into a bird to give her directions; that was cool and clever (and taken directly from the books, FYI). Lord Boreal drives by in his fancy future car and offers her a lift, which she takes because she’s being tailed, and quietly her alethiometer before he drops her off. By the time she finds out what happened, it’s too late.

Lyra tells Will about what happened, and the show blows past a bit where Will is angry with her for giving him away. They decide to visit Lord Boreal (remember he gave Lyra his card last episode, complete with his address), and decide to hide out in a movie theater until it’s dark enough to safely walk around outside.

This is another weird scene. In the books, Lyra is bowled over by the movies, since she has nothing like them in her world — she loves it so much she goes back and sees another one. On the show, she kinda gets there, but only after an extended bit where she steals Will’s popcorn (funny), and then delivers exposition about Roger and her tragic backstory. Then she’s entranced, but not nearly to the delightful extent she is in the books.

The tone of this little sequence is all over the place, and Dafne Keen’s Lyra just doesn’t seem as alive and unpredictable as Lyra from the books. Clearly, that’s something I’m going to have to live with.

I also think Lord Boreal is a curiously charisma-free baddie. In the books, he’s sort of a representation of the worst of upper-crust British excess, a jovial socialite with a driver and little care for who he hurts with his selfishness. Actor Ariyon Bakare plays him more like a humorless businessman who goes serial killing on the weekend. Between his cockiness, Will’s survivalist desperation, and Lyra’s unpredictability, their stand-off should have layers to it, but it all settles on “grim.” Plus, because we already know that Boreal jumps between worlds, we can’t have the “No way!” moment of Will noticing his dæmon from the books.

I think the ending is weak, too, as usual. Lord Boreal says he’ll give back the alethiometer if Lyra and Will fetch him a knife from the Tower of the Angels in Cittàgazze. Readers know this is the subtle knife, which is hugely important to the plot, but for everyone else, I doubt that ending on the line, “I’ll get you the knife” is very exciting.

Despite all my griping, “Theft” gets points for mostly hitting its marks. This show is fine; I just think this story deserves more than that.

Episode Grade: B-

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels