Review: His Dark Materials season 2 finale, “Æsahættr”

“I think I’m changing, Pan.” Over its first two seasons, His Dark Materials has gone from meh to good. As it embraces the difficult themes of the books, it could become great.

His Dark Materials has improved as it’s gone on. The first season started very slow and only really gained momentum towards the end, climaxing with Lyra and Will walking through doorways into other worlds. This second started stronger thanks in no small part to the chemistry between those two, but there were still too many points when the scripts dawdled, adding extraneous threads to the books by Philip Pullman that pulled our focus away from what the story is really about.

But these last couple episodes have cut the fat and drilled down on the best bits from the books, all while keeping what additions have worked. Take the increased focus on Mrs. Coulter. Sometimes it’s led to head-scratching scenes like a time-wasting meeting with Lee Scoresby earlier in the season, but Ruth Wilson has been doing a fine job bringing more depth to a character who can be cold and remote on the page. Seeing her inhale the scent of her daughter’s discarded shirt was genuinely touching, if a bit creepy, as is her ever-more-complicated relationship with her golden money dæmon.

The golden monkey has had a rough go of it this year. If someone’s dæmon represents their inner selves, what are we to make of Coulter physically abusing her’s, only for it to recoil and be tempted back with soft coos and pets? These two have one of the most fascinating relationships on the show and he never says a word.

The golden monkey is also testament to how much better the show has gotten at rendering the dæmons. I dunno if they got more money or if the animators simply became more skilled or what, but the dæmons felt far more a part of the world this season than they did last, with the golden monkey in particular being wonderfully expressive.

Pantalaimon benefits, too. He’s sort of developed his own relationship with Will, which is symbolic of Will’s deepening relationship with Lyra, since she and Pan are basically the same. When Will told Pan that Lyra was “the best friend I’ve ever had,” I let out an extemporaneous, non-ironic “Daawww.” However clunky I sometimes find Lyra’s story when she’s on her own, together, actors Dafne Keen and Amir Wilson have an irresistible chemistry. It’s hard not to root for them, and I’m already looking forward to when they inevitably reunite in the officially greenlit third and final season.

Even Hester, Lee’s dæmon, put on a good showing this week, as did Lee. I’ve been ambivalent about Lin-Manual Miranda’s performance as Lee and remain unconvinced that he was the right choice to play this true blue Texan aeronaut, and if there was ever a time to prove his worth, it was in Lee’s final shootout, which I knew was coming but still found gripping. When Lee, on the edge of death, told Hester, “Don’t you go before I do,” I felt all of his fear and all of his gentleness; Miranda’s Texan accent even sounded convincing. I haven’t always been happy he’s here but I’m sad he’s gone.

Lee died fighting Magisterium goons, giving John Parry enough time to find his son Will and tell him what he needed to know about the subtle knife. Their scene together was interesting. Amir Wilson and Andrew Scott were both terrific, but I don’t know if I quite buy John’s explanation for why he didn’t try harder to get back to Will and his mother. He says that Will’s destiny as the knife-bearer is more important — as the witches put it, he’s part of a prophecy that will “bring about the end of destiny, and return free will” — but that doesn’t mean much to Will, who just wanted to grow up with a dad.

John is killed by a surviving Magisterium goon before he and Will can fully reconcile, but their parting conversation shows that the series is finally brushing up against the book’s anti-religion themes. Will’s destiny is to use the subtle knife to kill the Authority, the all-powerful being whose tendrils creep into other worlds and crush all individuality and difference from them — in Lyra’s world, he is represented by the Magisterium. Another way of saying this is that Will’s destiny is to kill God.

The series frames this as a destiny worth fulfilling, but as you can imagine, not everyone who’s read the series sees it this way. The 2007 movie adaptation of the first book, The Golden Compass, minimized these themes but got plenty of backlash anyway. It was also a bad movie, because without the anti-religion thread, it’s not really His Dark Materials.

The show preserves this aspect of Pullman’s books much more faithfully, with Lord Asriel popping up at the end to recruit the angels who lost against the Authority’s army the last time, his end goal being to topple the Authority once and for all. But Asriel doesn’t sound so much a courageous freedom fighter as a power-mad demagogue. “You are either for me or you are against me,” he shouts.

Of course, Asriel is an ambiguous character at the best of times; let’s all remember that he murdered Lyra’s best friend Roger to further his own goals. We already know that Lyra’s parents don’t have her best interests at heart — Mrs. Coulter drugged her and put her in a box, for heaven’s sake, all out of “love” — but I think Will’s dad could fit right in there with them. He, too, thinks the cause is worth more than the people he loves. We’ll have to see how Will and Lyra respond to that line of thinking in season 3.

And I’m so happy we’re going to get it! As the show has matured, it’s gone from meh to good and might even become great if it can keep up this momentum and give The Amber Spyglass — the longest and most complex of Pullman’s books — the banner treatment it deserves.

Episode Grade: A-

His Dark Bullet Points

• And now, a list of things the finale changed from the books:
  • While in the world where Asriel is building his fortress, Ruta Skadi overhears about what’s happening from a group of cliff ghasts. In the book, the little ghasts are talking to a giant, impossibly old ghast, but I guess the show didn’t have the money to bring him to life. In fact, that whole scene was shot to suggest the strange landscape of another world without actually showing us much.
  • They added in the little plotline where Mary Malone escorts the Lord of the Flies kids into the mountains. I liked that the kids got a little redemption, and always enjoy spending time with Mary.
  • In the book, the Magisterium goons burn down the forest to flush out Lee and John, but the show isn’t made of money, people.
  • In the book, John cures Will’s still-bleeding hand wound. In the show, I guess the witch’s spell worked.
  • Probably is the biggest change is that John is killed by a Magisterium goon instead of by a witch whose advances he once spurned.
• I would’ve thought they would have showed us Ruta Skadi’s meeting with Asriel. Then again, maybe that was part of the cut episode.
• We got a preview of Roger stuck in the spooky underworld from the third book. Things are gonna get weird…er.
• Hey, we got an Iorek Byrnison cameo! If you’re looking for more of the legendary fighting bear, just wait until next season…

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