Not since Fleabag season two has there been so much blinding sexual subtext on a small screen. A casual viewer dropping in on this episode would have absolutely no clue that this was once a children’s series — they might be horrified to learn that, in fact. True, Philip Pullman has said he didn’t write these books only for children, but for all marketing and critical intents and purposes, these novels were being read by the same age range as, say, readers of A Wrinkle in Time or Harry Potter. The TV adaptation has never been shy about its more mature take on the story, but if you had any doubts that this was not the His Dark Materials of your childhood, look no further than the utterly feral psychodrama unleashed when Ruth Wilson and James McAvoy are left in a room with one another.
If their chemistry and frankly terrifying commitment to these twisted characters didn’t have you watching these tête-à-têtes like a nervous monkey puppet, more power to you, I guess. At any moment it seemed like Ogunwe (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) himself might turn and look sidelong through the fourth wall, a silent plea for someone to save him from the depraved white nonsense he’s managed to get himself entangled in. Poor guy just wanted to save his family; now this man-bun’s ex is here, and he’s gotta be responsible for their horny bondage power struggle?
From start to finish, this episode tells the story of what happens when a man who thinks he’s in control of every room he walks into meets a woman who actually is. That’s not to say Marisa Coulter is the stablest person; Dust knows that lady has Problems™. But (and sorry to Xaphania for this) Asriel Belacqua’s delusions are utterly typical of his station. He was clearly like this long before he and Coulter met all those years ago. No matter how smart or determined or ingenious he can be, he’s been swathed in so much wealth and comfort, seemingly from birth, that all he can come up with when anyone questions his dedication to his cause is how many nice things he’s given up to be here. His “fortune,” his “reputation” — these are the big sacrifices of his life. All that bombastic hubris unravels visibly as he tries to force the estranged mother of his child to lavish him with the adoration and respect he has come to command even from angels.
He fails. Miserably. All Marisa has to do is suggest his crusade is about something a little baser than “a republic of knowledge” — “Will they bow, do you think, when you finally put yourself on the throne?” — and he’s off to the races with denial, raving about “sitting in the earth, the soil, the filth” like a common Bushwick fuckboy who just got caught with a trust fund. Sure, the couple knows each other’s buttons intimately — he pushes hers with open disdain for their child and her career path — but as we’ve established previously, she’s a masochist of the highest order. Asriel thinks emotional warfare is his ally? He was merely adopted by it. She was born in it. Molded by it. Only one half of this couple will be crying by the end of this episode, and it sure as hell won’t be Marisa Coulter.
Because while it’s obvious why they’ll never work out — even beyond the whole Dom-and-Dommer vibe — she’s had this man’s number for over a decade. He can tie her up in a shipping container, he can ridicule her sentimentality (lots of direct copy-and-paste dialogue from the book this week), he can delude himself into believing he’s been the better parent all along. Yet like his very own demonic manic pixie dream girl from hell, she absolutely shatters his grand orations with a tiny chuckle: “I don’t believe you.”
It would be easier to dismiss her response as a power play if she wasn’t so right. Which is it, Asriel? Is the Authority dangerous enough to need to be taken out, or are his minions not to be taken seriously as a threat against your child? Is Lyra meritless, or is she “born out of love” and thus not a “humiliation”? If Marisa is so ridiculous to you, why have you gone through all of this trouble — including, it seems, offering her a “uniform” so thirstily bespoke it fits like couture — to convince her to watch as you start a war? By literally torturing an angel to death? (“He’s beautiful,” she breathes. “Everyone’s beautiful,” replies the guy who literally murdered a child and has been bragging about it ever since.) Even Ogunwe and Ruta Skadi cringe at his desperation. It’s straight-up hard to watch, especially when he breaks down and begs, “Why can’t you just be who I want you to be?” Yikes, my dude.
Coulter, ever the virtuoso, plays her former paramour like a Stradivarius, learning everything she can about his plans (she’s a brilliant scientist, too), avoiding giving up intel on Æsahættr (if unsuccessfully), and making off with his intention craft as he’s caught up in the throes of sadistic orgasm (or whatever that was, bye-bye Alabas). Admittedly, Mrs. Coulter’s change of heart and overwhelming maternal guilt doesn’t play as believably in 2022 as it might have to a young reader in 2000 when The Amber Spyglass was published, but her core goal — “not letting my former employers murder my child, no matter how little I care about being a parent” — is real enough. Her clarity of purpose is confirmed by the craft’s immediate acquiescence to her touch (Asriel, remember, is still fighting his own invention). Even Asriel has to respect her play as they micro-express their way into a mutual understanding: She will always win. She’ll never be who he wants her to be, and that’s half the reason he’s obsessed with her.
Speaking of clarity, somebody’s daughter is doing a little philosophizing. Miss Silvertongue has a lot of nerve preaching to Iorek Byrnison about doubt — how “it comes when you care” and the only people without it are the villains — as she cajoles Will and her own dæmon into seeing things her way. She might have doubts, but her single-mindedness in the face of her loved ones’ legitimate concerns really brings out the Belacqua in her. She snaps at poor Pan; she tries to bully Will. How dare she call the panserbjørne king a liar! “When I met you, you were drunk because you couldn’t cope with the idea of failure” is pure Marisa Coulter!
It’s rich, too, since Lyra can’t seem to cope with the idea of failure, either. She’s ready to risk everything and everyone just to apologize to the friend she led into her father’s snare — a failure of innocence, of course, a child’s blunder, but a failure all the same.
Our girl is, at least, desperate to do the right thing. (Also she’s still, what, 13?) She’s reeling from the emotional whiplash of being both drugged and cared for — for the first time ever — by her mother. And whatever her faults, they’re quickly thrown into stark relief by Agent Salmakia, who goes on the offensive when she discovers they haven’t told her the knife is broken. “Your father is right about you, you are insufferable,” the Gallivespian snaps. Not to call another magical being’s expertise into question, but “insufferable” compared to what, lady? Have you met your boss? Besides, you’re the professional spy letting children lead you around by the nose! Whatever rift was created between Lyra and Will in their argument over where to go next, it’s immediately sealed in the face of a common enemy.
The alethiometer closes ranks, too, apparently. A vague but positive reading helps Lyra convince Iorek to reforge the knife, despite his strong objection to reenabling a tool like this. “You may have good intentions, but the knife has intentions, too,” he cautions. Here’s the rest of the quote from the book, in case you’re worried our ever-practical ursine is suggesting this is, like, the One Knife to Rule Them All (sorry, I lied before):
The intentions of a tool are what it does. A hammer intends to strike, a vise intends to hold fast, a lever intends to lift … But sometimes a tool may have other uses that you don’t know. Sometimes in doing what you intend, you also do what the knife intends, without knowing. Can you see the sharpest edge of that knife? [No?] Then how can you know everything it does?
The only thing that feels certain in any world right now is Lyra and Will’s faith in each other. Their argument over where to go next isn’t driven by ego or bad faith (though there’s definitely something new and unspoken in the way they look at each other, in the way their hug lasts a few moments longer than before). Most importantly, no matter how stubborn they both are, they’re still willing to concede when they’ve done the other wrong. Lyra’s campaign against Iorek? In defense of Will. When Will is instructed to “find what matters” as he wills the knife back together in the flames? The vision that steadies him is Lyra. That kid, bless his heart, literally follows her to the underworld. For her part, she even agrees to return with him to her horrible dad, if they make it out alive.
Now if she could just extend that same loyalty to Pantalaimon.
Field Notes
• Poor Simone Kirby — thus far, most of Mary Malone’s scenes have just been various shots of her walking. This week, she left her ex-Temple friends and slipped into another world through a window left open (per the books, anyway) by a previous knife-bearer several centuries earlier. She emerges onto a savannah — deserted, but not for long.
• Just an observation, but we haven’t passed the Bechdel Test even once this season. Ruta Skadi deserves better.
• Now that I think about it, of course a guy like Asriel would invent a machine that literally turns intent into impact. (Cough.)
• Painfully brief appearance from Balthamos this week! After the toxic frenzy of Asriel/Coulter, it would’ve been nice to spend a bit more time with our lovelorn, perpetually annoyed celestial bestie (celestie?). At least he can self-reflect.
• How are we feeling about Gomez’s pivot from “holy-war spy-hunting Mary Malone” (in the books) to “MacPhail’s pet psychopath with a vaguely misogynistic grudge”? Jury’s still out over here; I hope they do both.
• Speaking of MacPhail, apparently the Authority has ghosted him, which prompts the totally normal and completely rational reaction of reenlisting (and holding hostage) the scientist who ran the intercision experiments at Bolvangar to build … something.
• A quick note, because yes, your recapper reads the comments: I did indeed forget the conversation between Coulter and Lee Scoresby last season that retconned her abusive childhood into existence! Not as subtextual as I imagined, then.
