His Dark Materials: The Clouded Mountain (3x07)

Dayummmm I'm gonna cry so much when I watch the last episode, it's not even funny...

Cons:

The thing is, this show never should have tried to pull off an action movie. The special effects don't pass muster, they're forced to rely on shortcuts that just aren't all that visually interesting... angels and witches are having an epic battle but we can't really see it, human troops are valiantly dying for the cause but it's in dark snippets we can barely focus on. The Gallivespians continue to have not enough to do. It's not a matter of what's on the screen being bad, so much as it is a matter of them not being able to put stuff on the screen that should be there, if they really want it to.

Underpinning this problem with effects is a bigger one of Asriel's motivations. This whole time, his vendetta against God himself has been sort of a weak point. In the books, Asriel is more of a distant figure. By giving him so much screen-time in this final season, we sort of shine a spotlight on the fact that his whole war is a little silly and kind of useless. In the end, it's all about Lyra and the prophecy. So why is Asriel bothering with all of this? Is it just a distraction, a la the battle at the black gates in The Lord of the Rings, so Frodo can destroy the ring, or in this case, so Eve has the chance to "fall" the way she's destined to do? I don't know. When you really look at it, kinda weaksauce.

Also, Metatron ended up being kind of anticlimactic as a villain. He's just some name that we hear, then we meet him as a force of destruction, and then he's just Some Dude that our heroes of the hour can defeat by pushing off the side of a cliff. Meh.

Pros:

That stuff probably makes it sound like I didn't like this episode, but honestly for all my talk of how the finale will make me cry, this one got me weepy as well.

Starting with Will and Lyra, who took a backseat this episode. Their main role is getting reunited with their daemons. We get to see Will's daemon for the first time, and we're reintroduced to Pan who is... deeply hurt and betrayed still by Lyra's decision to leave him behind. We get this reunion moment but it's not fulfilled; it's painful and there's agony and longing on both sides, and then more plot stuff happens which means we're still unresolved with that. I loved the way Will reacted to the first sight of his daemon. Like meeting a friend he'd forgotten he once knew so well. Quietly beautiful.

I also want to mention Will and Lyra killing God. It's such a quick moment, anticlimactic, and the kids don't even know what they've just done. They set an old creature free, let him go to a merciful rest. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, here in the show and honestly in the book as well. That's just as it should be.

The rest of this review is just going to be about Marisa and Asriel, are you surprised? Knowing this was coming, I was anxious about how it was going to play out. I've been praising the performances from these actors from the jump, and the writing for Mrs. Coulter has been one of the most intriguing, gorgeous parts of the whole show. The writing and use of Asriel has been a little more hit and miss. McAvoy does a great job giving Asriel the presence and gravitas he needs to have, but his mission and his goals and his wishy-washy-ness about his priorities has made his build to this final moment a little less satisfying than what we've got going on with Marisa.

But that said, it all becomes so worth it to me for those moments at the very end. Mrs. Coulter, playing mind games one final time, against an adversary more formidable than any other. She uses her real feelings of pain in order to trick Metatron. Asriel is on the ground, weeping and weak, and Mrs. Coulter approaches him to "gloat." And then her daemon, left behind, deploys a weapon that turns everything on its head, and Asriel, Marisa, and Stelmaria together are able to knock Metatron into the Abyss from whence there shall be no return for any of them.

Just... the beauty of Marisa and Asriel doing this for their daughter, giving up everything so Lyra can save the day, both of them finding selflessness within them but only just in time to give their lives for a greater goal... this element of the books always gives me goosebumps and they did a properly epic job of depicting it here. The real gut-punch comes with the golden monkey, Marisa's daemon reaching out to touch Lyra in his final moments, but fading away into dust before their hands can connect. Lyra watches the moment her mother's soul ceases to be, and knows herself orphaned.

And... yeah. We're setting the stage for the finale to be the emotional center of the story, to focus on Lyra and Will where the focus should ultimately be. This episode wasn't some strong pinnacle of everything TV can be. I had my problems with it. But the stuff that worked about it was so strong that I was just happy to be there to see those elements, at the end of the day!

8/10