His Dark Materials producer previews the final season

Lin-Manual Miranda (Lee Scoresby) breaks down the heartbreaking season finale of His Dark Materials, while producer Jane Tranter looks forward to season 3.

The second season of HBO’s His Dark Materials came to an end this week, bringing the characters and storylines crashing together in a stunning and suspenseful way. Not only did fans learn more about Lyra’s place in the oft-discussed prophecy, but they got to hear more about Will’s destiny as the bearer of the Subtle Knife. In addition to the reveals, there were plenty of twists, a couple of deaths, and a passionate speech from Lord Asriel, who has been missing for the entire season. The final moments of the finale give fans more insight into what Asriel is up to — namely, enlisting the help of angels to declare war on the Authority, or God.

And according to executive producer Jane Tranter, viewers will see more of Asriel in His Dark Materials’ season 3. Speaking with Deadline, Tranter revealed that much of the story going forward will revolve around Asriel’s journey. (What a relief, since we were robbed of an entire Asriel-focused episode in season 2 thanks to COVID-19 shutdowns.)

“We wanted to lean forward to the next season and just remind an audience that a major part of the final season is Asriel’s journey and just have him begin to look forward rather than often what you do in an end-of-season episode is kind of look back and conclude,” Tranter said. ”I’m really looking forward to having proper time with Asriel and understanding what his mission is and what makes him tick and see the lengths that Asriel is prepared to go to, to see his will enforced.”

Of course, season 3 will also see Lyra’s and Will’s destinies unfold, and if what viewers witnessed in “Æsahættr” is any indication, their fates are going to be pretty important. Although this season revealed that Lyra is Eve and Dust is original sin, the upcoming episodes will give a clearer understanding of what that means for her and the other characters. “So the prophecy with Lyra is really clearly explained in season 3,” Tranter said. “In season 2, we learn about the prophecy. In season one, we learn that the child’s important. We learn that the child will have a boy with her, and we learn in season 2 that the witches are very sure of the importance of Lyra.”

"I’m so looking forward to shooting the Lyra and Will story. I really love it in television series where an audience grows up with its young leads. We’ve been filming this now across a four-year period. Those artists, Dafne Keen has changed and Lyra changes in Phillip Pullman’s novel. So I’m really looking forward to telling that story about the growth of that relationship."

I assume that means Lyra and Will eventually reunite, which is good, since at the end of season 2 Lyra is back in her mother’s clutches.

For now, there’s no word on when season 3 might arrive, though if production is able to go on uninterrupted, it’s possible we’ll see it around this time next year. Until then, fans will be left to speculate on how these storylines will play out (or pick up Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass to find out for themselves).

But that’s in the future. Right now, we’re still too busy crying over Lee Scoresby’s death in the finale to focus. And according to Lin-Manuel Miranda, we’re not the only ones. “I think the secret of it is that it’s not one death, it’s two deaths, it’s Lee and Hester,” the actor told Slate. “I watched the reactions on social media when the episode aired in the U.K. and it was about 50-50 people screaming, ‘Lee’—crying face, crying face, crying face, and ‘Hester’—crying face, crying face, crying face. So it’s a double heartbreak, because they are such a unit and we’ve gotten to love them both.”

Miranda is a superfan of the books, so he was both excited and nervous to get to this scene. “Like it’s one of the most heartbreaking ways to go in any literature I’ve read, full stop,” he said. It helped that they were able to shoot the scene sequentially, which is rarely the case on TV. “So we got to Alamo Gulch on Monday and I was dead on Friday, and every step you see in that sequence happened in order. We all got there together.”

Miranda even gave some background behind his sometimes-there-sometimes-not Texan accent: “[M]y accent was very much my Mexican cousins who live in Corpus Christi. I’m not trying to do the typical thing.”

He’ll be missed come season 3.

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