His Dark Materials: The Spies (1x03)

This was a great episode, and gave me high hopes for where the rest of this season is going to go.

Cons:

I think this might be a legacy problem from the book, although it's been so long since I read it that I'm not sure. But isn't it a little odd to set Lyra up as an orphan in the first episode, and by episode three she already knows that her parents are both alive, and she knows who they are? I feel like she didn't discover the full truth until later in the narrative, in the books. Maybe I'm wrong.

The stuff with Boreal in our world is just not as exciting or atmospheric or cool as the stuff with Lyra in her world. It doesn't help that he made no real progress on his goals. He's still looking for Grumann, we don't have any new answers, and very little new information. Maybe knowing that this stuff is added and isn't in the books is making me judge it more harshly, but thus far I'm just not gripped.

Pros:

The thing that made me happiest about this episode is that it slowed down. There were multiple scenes contemplating the nature of daemons. We saw Lyra start to work out how to use the alethiometer. She learned more about her past, about the rules of the world. We got to spend time getting to know the psychology of certain characters. When you've got a show like this one, where there are so few episodes to get through the plot, there's always a tension between getting to all the important details, and letting stuff sink in and linger for a while. This was a lingering episode, and I think it came at the perfect time.

I think the actress who is playing Lyra is doing a remarkable job. I had my qualms in the first episode, but any small bumps seem to have been worked out by this point in the filming. She is carrying some heavy material, and she's doing it masterfully. She knows to give a toned down performance, to not go over the top with her emotional responses. When she needs to get worked up, she does. Lyra is more than just precocious. She's also incredibly smart, and even as young as she is, she's worked out when to keep her mouth shut.

We learn a bit about how to read the alethiometer, and learn that Lyra has a special ability to do so without consulting books to explain the complex process. There's a theme here about choice, about how Lyra doesn't want Pan to ever settle into a single form, how she likes the freedom of change. And it's her ability to think in abstracts and to be creative that allows her to understand something that much older and well-educated people cannot. But it also traps her into a destiny that will take away that very freedom that makes her who she is. These themes have already been a huge part of the story, and will continue to reverberate as we go.

Mrs. Coulter is so interesting. The script, the direction, and the acting, are all combining to tell us so much about this person with so little screen-time. We learn from Ma Costa a bit about how Lyra came to be, that Mrs. Coulter was having an affair with Asriel and that she has been branded an adulteress because of what has happened. Lyra is horrified to discover that she is related to Mrs. Coulter. Already in this world we've discovered that she's unnatural, an aberration because of her strange relationship with her daemon. I loved the moment when we see her unsteadily walking along the edge of the balcony, nearly toppling off the roof. Her daemon watches anxiously from a ways away. Mrs. Coulter clearly has some issues with depression, and it's fascinating to watch how that manifests for this character, in this world.

I really liked spending some time with the Gyptians in this episode, especially Ma Costa. She's frantic for her son Billy, and later has to worry about Tony too, but even amid all of her own fear and pain, she takes the time to tell Lyra the truth about herself, and to share her own part in her backstory. It's such an obvious contrast to Mrs. Coulter, who is single-minded about getting Lyra back, but who has none of the warmth and safety of Ma Costa.

It was obviously sad to see Benjamin die, but I did like that there was one part of this episode that felt like it had real stakes, and elevated the tension of the whole episode as a consequence. Last week, we saw a daemon killed in order to snuff out a human. This week, we see Benjamin jump to his death so as to avoid betraying the Gyptians, and his daemon vanishes into dust. The Gyptians did get some information out of Tony and Benjamin's risky plan - the names of the children taken by the Gobblers.

In many ways, this episode was transitional. It was setting up big plot points for later on, but did not contain any huge shifts in the status quo just on its own. And honestly, that's often my favorite type of episode in a show like this, a show that requires a lot of world-building. We need to take a breath and check in with Lyra, learn more about daemons and the alethiometer and what makes this story worth telling, on a thematic level. This episode accomplished that. I can't wait for more!

9/10