New episode of His Dark Materials with a new director!
The first two episodes of this season were directed by Tom Hooper. This third episode was directed by music video and documentary director Dawn Shadforth. How much of a difference does a director make here? It’s hard to say because so far, each episode has taken place in a very different world. The first, the world of Jordan college took over most of the episode. The second, Mrs. Coulter’s posh London. This third episode is the episode of the Gyptians. And much like the Gyptians themselves, this is an episode of movement and transitioning.
As always, spoilers for episode 3 to follow.
As you probably recall, where we left off with Lyra in the last episode is her getting kidnapped by the Gobblers after her heroic escape from Mrs. Coulter’s fabulous party. In this episode, Lyra is kidnapped for all of about two seconds before someone comes to her rescue.
And her savior is none other than… Billy’s big brother TONY COSTA! He who we will continue to call by his full name for the duration of the show because that’s how they roll in this world.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Coulter (as you can see from the image above) is stewing. She goes to the university to be like, “WHERE DA FUQ IS LYRA?” But the headmaster gets an attitude with her and says, basically, “We had her for her whole life and she was fine. You had her for about two days so who is the dumb one here? Get out my face.”
The headmaster and Mrs. Coulter proceed to have a conversation about unique thought that seems very #TrumpsAmerica to me. Mrs. Coulter says she doesn’t get the point of scholastic sanctuary because if people were so smart they’d know how to keep their ideas hidden. Headmaster asks, "You don’t believe original thinking should be protected?” Like, clearly not.
But things get really heated when Mrs. Coulter finds a book that teaches one how to read an alethiometer. Mrs. Coulter, using her fine deduction skills, is all, “Why would anyone need a book about an alethiometer if they didn’t have an alethiometer?” IMMEDIATELY, the headmaster comes ALL THE WAY clean: “I did have one but I don’t have it anymore. I gave it to Lyra, but it belonged to her, etc. etc.” Like, Mrs. Coulter hasn’t even burned a book yet and already this dude is coming completely clean.
Elsewhere, Tony Costa brings Lyra back to the Gyptian boat and receives a mixed response in doing so. Mostly, Ma Costa is pissed Tony was messing with Gobblers. But anyway, now that they have Lyra, they feel like she could be a big help to them in finding the children that were taken.
Lyra is not about to buy into the friendly act as easily as she did with Mrs. Coulter though. She has trust issues now. I did find this weird, though, because isn’t she familiar with these people already? Or am I just projecting that from the book? It seems like these are people she’s known all her life.
Anyway, they promise her she’s not a prisoner, which means it’s time for Mother Figure: Take 2. This time, Lyra is looking to Ma Costa as a mother figure. Ma Costa teaches Lyra how to cook like a Gyptian, which looks like it’s all about making flames on the stove and not really about making actual food. But I digress. Lyra asks Ma Costa if she’s going to become a Gyptian woman. In stark (and obvious) contrast to Mrs. Coulter, Ma Costa tells Lyra she can be whatever she wants to be.
Lord Boreal, meanwhile, is back in our world stirring up trouble. His little spy friend in our universe has some good intel on the dude Boreal asked him to look into. Plot twist: his name isn’t Stanislaus Grumman; it’s John Parry. Wait, but that’s not the plot twist. Turns out he’s not from Boreal’s world at all. He’s from OUR WORLD. Whaaaat?
Well then why, you might ask as Boreal did, does he have a daemon?
Spy guy posits that maybe everyone develops a daemon in that universe whether they’re from there or not. But Boreal doesn’t like that theory because he likes to think his snake daemon is special.
Hmmm… I guess we’ll just have to keep watching to find out. This is a pretty exciting development. But more on this later.
Back on the boat, Lyra and Farder Coram are talking about daemons as well and how people feel about their daemons turning into different things. Pan’s little cute self says he’s going to turn into a mole so he can hide from everyone. Aw. We get a good look at Farder Coram’s daemon here too, and let me just tell you this is such a cute little kitty. I want more cat daemon time in future episodes, please.
Everyone’s looking for Lyra right now. And by everyone, I mean Mrs. Coulter is looking for her in multiple ways. She’s going the police looking through the Gyptian’s boat. She’s tearing apart Lyra’s room. She has little spy flies tittering around. It’s a mess and she’s freaking out.
And in a strange turn of events, the golden monkey seems very worried and forlorn. For some reason, I found myself feeling sorry for the golden monkey in this episode. Did anyone else have this reaction? This character seemed wholly evil in the book, but here the golden monkey does seem to have some tenderness and concern for his human counterpart. What’s more, we’ve seen how hard on the monkey Mrs. Coulter can be. And yeah, it makes me feel sorry for the poor thing.
But back to what’s going on. After the boat is searched, Lyra is clearly confused about why Mrs. Coulter seems so intent on finding her. Well. It’s because Mrs. Coulter is Lyra’s mom. Ma Costa lays out the whole story for her, so here’s the super abridged version: Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel had a hot and sexy affair with lots of unprotected sex. When Mrs. Coulter got pregnant, the couple figured they could just pass it off as Mr. Coulter’s child. But then when Lyra was born, she looked EXACTLY LIKE James McAvoy for some strange reason, so then they had to go to Plan B: taking Lyra to a nunnery, I guess?
Anyhow, at some point Mr. Coulter found out about the affair and he and Asriel got into a big fight about it that ended in Mr. Coulter’s death. In Mrs. Coulter’s fancy social circles, this was a big scandal, which I guess is why Mrs. Coulter is so crazy now. You know how nasty rumors can be.
Cut back to our world…
Lord Boreal hands over his little dossier about John Parry’s family to ANOTHER spy dude. He asks this guy to keep an eye on this family. We see the picture above and if you’ve read the books, you know this is John Parry’s son Will Parry. In the books, Will Parry doesn’t get introduced until Book 2, so again, this is an interesting development. It’s fun seeing how these plot reveals are being done in slightly different orders. And we’re getting all of this side information.
I, for one, will be excited to see Will Parry a little early if that’s what ends up happening. Why? 100% it’s because he has a cat and I want more cats on my tv.
But this is the last info we get about the Parrys for this episode, so we’ll have to wait and see how this develops next week.
Back to the boat. The Gyptians are having a big meeting. Many people seem unenthused about having Lyra amongst them when she is obviously being sought out by the bad guys. Thankfully, Lyra is able to give a rousing speech that boosts morale and convinces them to let her stay. She says they need to fight back against the gobblers if they ever want anything to change and if they ever want to see their children again. And it’s a fair point, if an obvious one. Either way, the Gyptians seem into it.
They decide it’s time to head up North to find the kiddos! And on the way there, they’re going to ask the witches for their support. Me, I hear witches and immediately go “yesssss” under my breath. Here. For. It.
That night, Tony Costa and Benjamin, who doesn’t get a last name, decide they’re going to go dig up dirt on Mrs. Coulter. Lyra informs them how to get into her office.
After the boys leave, Lyra finally starts working in earnest to figure out this ding dang alethiometer. Without knowing how or why, Lyra watches in awe as the hands on the compass start to move. When she tries to explain it to Pan, all she can think is that she let her mind go blank. Pan says, “Make your mind go blank again. You should be good at that.” Zing.
Over at Mrs. Coulter’s place, the boys are found out quickly because of that sneaky monkey. And things soon escalate. Tony Costa is able to slip away, but a very golden monkey-like Mrs. Coulter pounces on Benjamin and acts like she’s about to try to rip him apart.
It’s clear Mrs. Coulter plans to torture Benjamin until she gets some answers. But Benjamin didn’t come here to become an informant. So rather than giving Mrs. Coulter what she wants, he drops himself down an elevator shaft. His sweet little bird daemon immediately disintegrates.
As Lyra waits for the boys to come back home from their dangerous mission, she asks the alethiometer what has happened to Benjamin. To her shock, the alethiometer answers and tells her that Benjamin is dead.
Moment of silence for Benjamin <3
Tony does make it back okay, however. He’s brought back with him a list of all the children who have been taken. That’s the only thing he was able to get from Mrs. Coulter’s office. But everyone is a little shocked at just how long the list is.
They also discover Mrs. Coulter’s spy flies and capture a few of them. However, one escapes and is able to get back to Mrs. Coulter and tell her where Lyra is, so… hopefully these Gyptians are able to book it to the North in a hurry.
I guess we’ll find out next time!