Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials S1E2: "The Idea of North"

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

Lyra leaves Jordan College for London with the hopes of finding Roger, instead finding Ruth Wilson's incredible performance as Mrs. Coulter.   Tune in for some info on the alethiometer, visual and character analysis, takes on how the episode went—and more.   NOTE: Episodes include spoilers from all three main His Dark Materials books.   Reddit thread with other HDM podcasts: https://www.reddit.com/r/hisdarkmaterials/comments/dsxdwh/podcast_list_his_dark_materials_tv_books/?st=k2wpqv39&sh=30cc13a1   -------------------------- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric   Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl   Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/   Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor   Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com   Intro: Waltz Of The Skeleton Keys by WombatNoisesAudio | https://soundcloud.com/user-734462061  

Hello everyone and welcome to Girls Gone Canon. We are watching, this time, His Dark Materials, not reading. We're here to discuss Season 1, Episode 2, The Idea of North. I am one of your hosts, Eliana. You might know me as GlassTableGirl or Arithmetric, depending on the medium. And I am another one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me as LizaNarbor on Twitter, Tumblr, or LizaNarborGold.com. And you guys, we are covering spoilers from the main trilogy. That is, of course, Northern Lights or the Golden Compass,

The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. So if you aren't really keen in on those, you might want to log off for now and come back later. Unless you're ready to be spoiled, come on in. However, if you do want to hear some of our takes that are a little less spoilery, we are doing a reread of the His Dark Materials books. We just wrapped up our read through of the first book, Northern Lights or the Golden Compass. And wow, is it a doozy. So the first part of our read through episodes, we do more or less spoiler free, more or less, more or less than more. And we end it with a dust discussion that covers material from all three of the books and sometimes an even deeper, dustier discussion with information from the Book of Dust. information from the book of dust yeah it was great ending the books when we started this read-through i had not read them eliad and by the time we finished the chapters of the northern

lights i have read everything and eliana has not read everything i have read up to the secret commonwealth so the student has surpassed the master of jordan which is eliana in this example it's so poetic i'm really glad that this happened. I'm actually very pleased. I'm so glad you're proud of me. I fulfilled my destiny. Yeah. On one hand, Chloe's like, this is great.

But on the other hand, she's like, Eliana, catch the fuck up. Please read the rest of the books. I also enjoy that it's like in the words of the great Kate Bush. Chloe. Chloe. Chloe. Chloe. the words of the great kate bush chloe chloe chloe chloe so also amongst the things that we have done that are his dark material is related we had a patreon episode in which we watched the golden compass movie and honestly there's a lot of things that are similar to the movie in terms of its execution in in in this television series yeah a lot of it is

kind of tonally off but there's a lot of similarities last episode we talked a lot about coulter's entrance and how they were in prayer and everyone just kind of like stopped and it's like oh like here she comes hell in high heels uh totally hell in high heels trope and same thing in of course the movie in the golden compass directed by chris white it's a great great episode where we dissect all of it like why what happened yeah there's that there's having billy costa right be the one with the demon ratter as well as having lyra knock the glass out of Lord Asriel's hand instead of just whispering no. Yeah, there's a lot, too, in this coming episode we're going to talk about.

But first, we need to get some emails and tweets of note from some of our friends on the internet. I want to start off with something a little light from our friend Ari Sunshine, who sent us a very fun tweet that basically is, that says no one. And then Lyra and Mrs. Coulter. And then we have a clip from the award-winning Nickelodeon television show. Victorious,

which is as many of you might know where Ariana Grande got her start. It's not where she first started, but it's where she, you know, started becoming a little more known. So, anyway, someone says. It's a tweet. Yeah. There's someone asking, what are you doing? And this girl says, none of your stupid business. And obviously it's edited for for younger audiences audiences maybe around

the same age as those reading these books because we all know it's saying none of your fucking business but it's pretty much what it felt like the whole episode too i was like damn that was we're gonna get into it very soon it was an intense episode we got another email from our good friend shadow fox, our patron. He said that the issues he had with this episode are, why is Mrs. Coulter's demon, which Philip Pullman has said affectionately that if he had to name it, it probably would be named Malice at this point. Why is it sneaking around Coulter's apartment? Like there are handrails in the ducts for him.

It's interesting. Why? Just why? Okay, that's a. Like, there are handrails in the ducts for him. It's interesting. Why? Just why? Okay. That's a good issue, I guess. I don't know, issue, but I do think it's an interesting concern. The reporter didn't turn to dust once her demon was killed. We are gonna talk about this in just a bit, so hang on to that one under your hat. The exposition dumps.

The reporter, Coulter's argument, finding the plans. It felt too convenient and like there was too much information. And then, of course, he said, Boreal, is this removing the dramatic tension of the big reveal at the end of the series, our first book, about the different worlds? I feel like we're going to cover a lot of those in depth later, but yeah, I do feel like that exposition dump one,

I felt like it felt fine. Lyra needed confirmation from several places it's actually quite similar to how it's executed in the books i would say too with she doesn't even find the plans and i thought that one was a little more clumsily done in the movie right she looks at the plans and she goes gob she's like general ablation board gob gob gobbler and i'm like whoa We did a lot of word association just now, and I think that was a step too far. It was definitely a pull.

Good job. A pullman. Congrats. But whereas in the books, it's also at the party, right, where Lyra realizes the General Ablation Board from the reporter having just a casual conversation. She's like, oh duh gov that's why they're calling it the gobblers and so as for mrs culture's argument i don't know i i don't mind

it taking place there it feels unfortunate and perhaps true right they're pulling perhaps from not everyone's homes were like this. But of course, some people who came from homes in which their parents had a very nasty separation, and perhaps toxically so might sort of expunge information about the other, right? Yeah, I didn't. I didn't feel awful about it. I think it felt dramatically fine i think it added more weight to that argument and to a scene that's already so iconic right that's an iconic scene the iconic scene is of course coulter's demon beating the crap out of pan and beating lyra into submission that is what that scene's all about it's about power we're going to talk about the power that's displayed in that

scene in just a bit i think it works i do think that it coming from Farder Quorum is a little better. Only because of just like the connections the story has now, and now that you know what happened in the Great Floods and et cetera, you'll get a little more information as you get into La Belle Sauvage and the secret commonwealth so it doesn't feel awful i think that far decorum was a more comfortable choice and a safe choice and overall a lot of these changes that are happening i think that you know pullman did produce and he did approve the scripts this isn't butchery and it's it also could

be a lot of you know hindsight like it's 2020 right like maybe he's fine with this new fresh take on it and he thought you know i didn't think about the story in this manner when i told it and this might be a smoother way to do so and i do think it's a good adaptive choice to get it out now because it seems like they're barreling on fast yeah and i think i'm gonna come back to what i think ends up happening regardless of intent and whether it's good or bad but what it tells us about the story and Mrs. Coulter's character for her to be the one that this reveal comes through

what the story is doing when we discuss that scene Shadow Fox did say that the likes of the episode the highlights for them was Ruth Wilson's interactions with Lyra it was amazing her performance uh showed some cracks in the armor some emotional instability when she let slip about asriel when

she's like in the bath scene contemplating the urge to jump i think he says that he thinks these scenes plus her acting really lets us understand mrs cououlter's complicated character and what a multi-faceted, layered character she actually is. And I agree with that. Ruth Wilson was the MVP of this episode. I don't... If you watch this, just her tone, the way she flipped between, and the way her lips smiled when she burns the letters,

her face. Ha ha ha ha. Yeah. She really nails a lot of it and i mean she's been nailing it since the first episode like sometimes her face doesn't even move but you can tell exactly what the emotion is and she conveys it like for example her displeasure with roger speaking to lyra she didn't even have to move it was a reverie she didn't move at all but it was clear what was happening there yeah it was amazing so i she she's just been doing an incredible performance maybe i'm blinded maybe maybe we are is she the

lena heady of this show her shoulders probably hurt just as much you know i don't know i think so but i think that everyone else is doing a really good job right now too i'm like blown away by uh farter quorum as lc mormont lord commander mormont from game of thrones that is like i didn't know if i would like it i told you this before we've talked about it on the cast before i love it i think he's a perfect farter quorum and all i could see is just like no spoilers but him in the cast before. I love it. I think he's a perfect Farder Quorum. And all I can see is just like no spoilers, but him in the future. And it just makes me happy.

I love it. I like that they made him more gruff as opposed to bumbling old man, which is how he's kind of in the movie. But still a sweet grandpa. Yeah. But they're all sweet. That's the thing about Farder Quorum and Jon Faw. And you see it in this episode, right?

They're both sweet in different ways. And they both play off each other. Yeah. That relationship's so clear. This Jon Faw is definitely growing on me. Definitely. Oh, we did get another tweet from Tiger Woman Bride. And it was about the golden monkey.

And I thought it was interesting. Yes. So the tweet says, about the golden monkey and i thought it was interesting yes so the tweet says the golden monkey species was on seven worlds one planet on the bbc as well they live in really cold forests and have snub noses because they're less likely to get frostbite well suited for a trip to bovangar interesting that's very interesting i have seen the screenshot of the seven worlds episode yeah i thought it was funny. When I first saw it, I was thinking, this is a weird historic materials promo.

Then I realized, no, this is actually about our real life. Yeah. But I think that's a great detail about the type of monkey that they chose. Because there are several different kinds of monkeys that they could have chosen, right? I love seeing the golden lion tamarins when I go to the zoo. They are so small and fluff and shiny, but this is not

that species. I do want to say that last episode I was maybe a little sacrilege saying I didn't know if the monkey lived up to it. This episode the monkey killed it. I felt the monkey. The monkey killed it. I felt the monkey. The monkey killed it. Maybe I wasn't in touch with my monkey.

That's what I am. I'm a 92 baby, so you're the monkey. And maybe I just was rejecting my monkey ship. But here I am accepting it because this episode, the monkey killed it, literally. It was just out there, dominating. It was nuts. I was like, wow, I'm afraid.

Well, you know me. I was there. I was like, this monkey's chill. You knew the whole time. You knew the whole time. I was wrong. I'm just like ugly animals. I don't think it's ugly.

I find it really charming. I don't think it's that you like ugly animals. I think you just appreciate all animals. Let me think about that more deeply at some point in my life. I was scrolling on the subreddit, which the other day in our last episode for Northern Lights, the Golden Compass, we talked about some of the other great podcasts in the community.

We'll link that on this description as well. The reddits have been great. The subreddits have been really fun. Fun memes. Lots of good discussion going on in the HisDarkMaterials. My little boy! My little boy! The meme about someone from The Subtle Knife that we'll talk about today.

For sure. Lots of good stuff happening in the subreddits, including this post from YGSVHIYM. I'm not going to attempt it because I don't think it's a real... I googled it. I don't know. Whatever.

But they posted about alchemy in His Dark Materials. I'll link this in the cut as well. They basically talked about how the alethiometer has hidden parallels to real-life alchemy and philosopher's stone. The show alethiometer, book canon and not movie canon, the show alethiometer has two words engraved on it, Kunroth and M-D-C-V-I-I-I. But in book lore, Pavel Kunroth made the alethiometer and he died in 1612, meaning that 1608, M-D-C-V-I-I-I, is the year that the lithiometer was likely created. And Pavel is a real-life parallel to Heinrich Kuhnrath from the second half of the 16th century, who died in 1605, and he cites something called prima materia in his works, prime material.

It was thought to be the ingredient in making a philosopher's stone. They also talk in this post about the pre-Socratic Paracelsus who talked about Eliaster, which meant to be similar and cause of the Big Bang. It was matter basically that caused the Big Bang,

released by a quote-unquote master who created chaos and life on Earth. So it could basically be translated from Eliaster to prime matter of body and soul and demons are linked directly to prima matter dust so basically the too long don't read is that the markings on the alethiometer refer to its creation by a character whose real life equivalent was an alchemist condemned by religious powers of his time for researching real life prima materia or dust this is very very interesting i am really glad that you found this post and brought it in and it's a fun easter egg that shows all the detail and attention that's

being put into crafting this show i think that's why i'm not mad about a lot of these changes too and these adaptive kind of things they're doing because i think it's fresh i think it's why I'm not mad about a lot of these changes to and these adaptive kind of things they're doing because I think it's fresh I think it's fun really respecting the lore and the world building because if it's something that Pullman does it's world build right like you feel like each world you understand I can see sitagaze in my mind right now without even closing my eyes yeah I can see the tower I can see the the brick walkways. I could just feel it all. I think that's really cool. The stony walkways in my mind. I just love that I can see that I can see the world of the dead. I can see the cliff ghasts in my brain. He really painted a picture

well. And they're, I think they're doing that there's some things they're adapting and skipping and skimping. And you you know i can see that's going to happen in the future too i don't expect the harpies to be perfect i don't expect uh certain things to be perfect we'll see what happens the galavaspians you know that'll be interesting as we talked about last week but i think stuff like this is really nice and it shows an understanding of the story which i think is important here. Absolutely. So that brings us, of course, to actually discussing what happens in the episode.

We're just going to go scene by scene, hit them all real quick. There's a lot of really cool cutovers in between scenes. We'll get into later where Lyra is with Coulter, but then we're shown something happening simultaneously, cutting back and forth. And I thought that was a great effect this episode, but we actually start with a view of airships over London and it pans to the flat. Coulter bringing Lyra into her beautiful new penthouse apartment. It's straight out of the Sims 4 Get Famous pack.

Coulter shows her around, tells her never go in the secret study ever. No red flags. And Lyra is romanced by its dazzle and sparkle. Pan, of course, is skeptical. I like how when Lyra first gets out of the car, she's like, do you own the whole building? And Mrs. Coulter's like, no, don't be ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous.

Oh, so you're still fucking loaded. Excuse me. Like, I own the whole floor. Okay, whatever. And yeah, it's a gorgeous apartment. And it's interesting that you said sims 4 get famous pack i was thinking fucking west elm oh my god right everything's from west elm but like uh just to talk a little bit about some of the decorations of her apartment a lot of

her ornaments a lot of the the side walls and some of the the tables right are very much in an art deco style but interestingly a lot of the seating for example the seat at her study when when she like talks with lyra and other places are in a mid-century modern style so we're somewhere around there she's a classic woman but also knows how to mix the two together and i think you can see a lot about mrs coulter by her furniture choices i mean you can also say a lot about her from like the way she murders children but anyways roger and billy costa reunite very briefly they just see each other they're in a room together and then we skip into the dusty intro you guys it's so hbo yes every week i'm just like the show has a lot of hbo it has some bbc vibes don't get me wrong this is someone who's like a doctor who watcher since i was really

young um but it's also very hbo the bbc part of it it's actually doing really good it's pulling your heartstrings i mean i cried in this episode that says a lot it's the second episode and i was like in tears so i was like this is good they're doing good i mean i really like the the intro and we discussed it a little last week but there's more things to say though yeah absolutely last week you called out some really cool stuff in the intro like the slicing of the letters eofer on tumblr actually made a post about it and talked about us talking about it, which was cool because I was like, yeah, that's what I

just thought it was the coolest catch. I did not notice. I guess I noticed it, but it was very subliminal to me. I was just like, oh yeah, whatever, the letters fall apart because cutting. It just moved on. I'm just impressed that Eofur got that handle on Tumblr.

I thought you were going to say that Yofer understood it. I was like, me too, because he's dead. So Lorne Belf, if you guys are looking for a better breakdown on some of the music that Lorne Belf is creating, check out the podcast. They are covering Lorne Belf extensively. Matt is covering it in his parts of the episodes. But Lorne Belf did the lyrics in Latin, which are based on Virgil, the Latin poet. And there have been some rough translations that have been passed around. I cannot read Latin.

Again, I did not take Latin. I took two other Romance languages that people actually speak today. But we're going to give it a go. It's Ciceros Immortales, a duiant or maybe it's incipite, I don't know I was thinking it was incipite but I didn't know fuck it, I don't know I studied Spanish and French and in French

you don't pronounce a bunch of the letters. No, I get it. Yeah, French you just skip over it and then you have a cigarette. Am I wrong? So the rough translation to all of this kind of comes to, They hear immortal whispers. Begin, children, and read the omens. Begin, children, for time passes quickly by.

Begin, begin. I wonder if it's supposed to foreshadow the lithiometer reading and kind of that loss of being able to read it and that loss of innocence over when adolescence is over. I think it's that. I think it's a lot of things. Like when I first read the line, Immortal Whispers, I remembered that the witches said that they knew of the child of prophecy because they were to hear whispers from the other worlds right but i think that there's something to what you're saying about read reading the omens there's a immortal whispers also uh reminds me of a couple things we're going to go down this weird chain of

a poem called whispers of immortality by t.S. Eliot, which is much more about death as opposed to immortality because T.S. Eliot was, you know, he was like that, a bit of a troll. More like extra. But not really troll. I don't know. He was a modernist. When it came to literature and was therefore responding in many ways to a lot of previous literature. And one of those includes a poem called intimations of immortality so you can see how whispers of immortality would uh respond to intimations of immortality by the poet wordsworth which is more about childhood and a sort of longing but at the same time celebration of it

versus t.s elliott's focus on death and decay and there's a line that kind of reminds me of the alethiometer in it where wordsworth again this is about childhood says mighty poets see are blessed on whom those truths do rest which we are tolling all our lives to find yeah absolutely i mean i'm just imagining especially with all the research and we talked about this last week but pullman has said you know i do research but you don't let your research become your book you take that research and utilize it so that the research you know just affords your book you the story is learned from the research and the story adds parts to incorporate but it doesn't revolve around it and it's like you know pullman just like laid there reading T.S. Eliot and William Blake and shoving, you know, Paradise Lost up his butt.

Well, just reading these for like days and weeks and months as he wrote these. And those were obviously big inspirations. And I think you're onto something with that one, too. He has to have read it, obviously. Yeah, he has to have. I mean, like he was teaching english for a while and uh speaking of poetry there's one more that you actually talked talked about just now you said that the lyrics are based on uh stuff made by virgil the latin poet who dante kind of writes this very

elaborate fan fiction this very big erotic friend fiction you might have heard of it it's called the divine company never heard of it i'm just kidding obviously yeah so obviously uh the most famous of these is the inferno right and he goes through the the afterlife and all these things and they're like hell and then and then like the other part and then he makes it all the way up to heaven and virgil is his guide but i mean we talked a little more in depth about some elements of the inferno that make its way into the books perhaps in our end of northern lights episode but it kind of makes sense for the series as a whole if you think about it especially with the amber spyglass and going into different worlds yeah if this is the inferno then it's like truly we're all just in hell yeah so if you think about it

you can combine the alethiometer and Virgil in some ways right because the alethiometer serves as Lyra's guide through all the different worlds as Virgil kind of does but not really he's like he's okay as a guide so speaking of hell and the almighty leaders of it Mrs. Clter has

breakfast with lyra on the balcony looks nice eliana's got a cool balcony-ish thing i was like that's what this whole scene is eliana's place me oh i've never been sure about them heights i can never get away from the occasional urge to jump and by me i mean mrs coulter oh so like so i watched this episode a little drunk okay i had had a little bit of wine to drink i was very excited about the episode and like an hour before i just kept drinking wine i guess so like by the time i watched it i was a little sauced i wasn't like bum but i was like oh i'm a little loopy and i was so excited about everything i think i was hitting my partner on the side just like, Oh my god, did you see that? Oh my god, that's so cool. They did that. Oh, that's so smart. But when she said this, it was so early on the episode. And I was just like,

I see you guys. I get it. Mrs. Coulter, not sure about heights and jumping. Hmm. Yeah, interesting. Metatron. hmm yeah interesting metatron yeah it's absolutely it's absolutely her jumping in off into the abyss as much as it is about of course her own like self-hate i guess but interestingly enough i do think it paints her obviously really well like they're obviously fleshing her out and making us really struggle with her so hard and i think this is important to establish her ending yeah yeah and for you know the amber spyglass and some of the questionable things that she happens to do for sure i do really love the way they capture the awkwardness of this scene right because she says

that really weird thing and you start to see some of the darkness within mrs cauldron which she's struggling with and lyra's like this was a lie she just kind of turns away she's like okay i don't know how to respond i'm 11 i like that the red flags were definitely cropping up early on in this episode like okay this is weird hmm yeah and those start coming out more right when they go to lunch at the arctic institute yeah lyra won't behave she's like i just want to look at all the cool shit like the pantsierborn skull which uh i know the whole time i was like can't they just say pantsierborn to make eliana happy and they didn't she called him an armored bear still but if you actually saw the his dark materials twitter account released the title card that was on display of the skull and it said the skull of this medium-sized adult male was brought back after being killed during the height of the

scrayling conflict it's preserved with the piece of armor it was found with as is custom for the pants you're born they build their metal from meteoric metal known as sky iron. Their armor is the nearest thing they have to a demon. So totally like official extra props and stuff that they're just like posting about and showing. There was also a follow-up piece that showed another sculpture there at the Institute that had like a title thing on it that talked about leaf erickson's son discovering it so really cool really they're going all out and

showing the detail again it's just another thing that i just go wow mad respect and i think the reason why lyra wouldn't say the word panther bjorn is remember at this point in the story she doesn't know panther bjorn means armored bear she doesn't put the two together until much later on so that works we'll call it canon and it yeah they didn't even say it in the retiring room right as as they had in the books they didn't really talk about joe for rackinson so anyways this is a really really interesting scene as they sit back down, Mrs. Coulter charms Lyra back to the table and says, and gets her to sit. I can

see why. She's being a complete child, which, I mean, she's a child as she wants to do. And then Lyra asks Mrs. Coulter what they're going to do. What are we going to do about Roger? Which is obviously what Mrs. Coulter is all about right now. Lyra's talking to her, and she says the saddest thing and just bummed me out so i have to repeat it now it's like you said in jordan

child's eyes useful when you look at the original plot of kind of what coulter was trying to do with her in northern lights the golden compass it was to employ her as, you know, an asset as an assistant to help traffic children. And it was going to be pretty much against her knowledge. Like she wasn't going to tell her that's what she was doing. She was just going to say, go get this kid and convince him to come with us to go north on our expedition. Oh, too bad. Sorry about your friend dying. Sorry about the new kid dying oops that was her plan it's a fucked up plan but I think what's very iconic about this scene and that we realize about Mrs. Coulter-Wright

she points out to Lyra look around this room how many other women do you see here and it's just the two of them and she tells Lyra that she can teach her the skills that she'll need in order to have power in this world of men. Yeah.

And that she can mold her into something special. I thought it was a really interesting scene on power. I mean, that is what this episode's about. It's about showing power. Who has it? Who does what with it? Who wields it? And Coulter tells her that. And one of my complaints that will come up on is how, and it's a very minor complaint, but it's that Lyra doesn't get to see a lot of the femininity in Adele Warminster.

In the books, Adele Warminster, the journalist, is kind of chit-chatting with some scholars and being flirty, and Lyra watches it. And it's like her scene where she realizes, oh, this girl's doing flirting for a different reason. Coulter is really the other big source of femininity. And later on with the priest coming to Coulter's flat and all of that, there's an interesting display of power. And Lyra sees the power transferred from person to person and who actually has the power and Lyra sees the power transferred from person to person and who actually has the power and who does not. So I think

this episode really, really established power and structure. Yes, absolutely. And that's absolutely part of why Mrs. Coulter calls Lyra back, right? She's like, we need to show them that we can control ourselves and that way we can control them, I guess. And then

she afterwards offers Lyra all right so who do you want me to introduce you to first yep i there's a small thing that i wanted to call out here uh showing kind of the world that they live in the chef brings mrs culture without her even asking a dish at first and they're sweetbreads And I just want to elaborate on what sweetbreads means, because interestingly, neither of them eat it, so we don't get Lyra's reaction to it. Sweetbreads does not necessarily mean pastries. And that gives you a sort of sense of what kind of place the Arctic Institute is in terms of it's full of explorers, and therefore a more expansive culinary palette, right? Sweetbread is a name that can

refer to things like the throat, gullet, neck, parts that people, as we know of, don't usually eat of the animal, right? It's not quite awful, O-F-F-A-L. Sometimes it refers to ovaries and testicles of animals, but it isn't literally a bread that is sweet in a pastry. It's an interesting metaphor when you think about it, that it's something like savory and it's something you wouldn't immediately think of when eating a cut of meat. You don't immediately go for that. You think, I want a T-bone if you're a meat eater. But it's also interesting because it's something that's savory and maybe not the first thing you'd want to eat called a sweet bread so something that looks really really good and beautiful and

wrapped in a satin dress on the outside but when you get to the inside it's disguised you know it's something it's a misnomer it's completely a misnomer it's definitely something metaphorically that you're like oh would you like some sweet bread, child? Come into my lair. All of a sudden you're in a trap. This wasn't sweet bread. Yeah, this is, I mean, it's absolutely a valued dish in many places, right? And it's called sweet because some of the meat might be sweet compared to other like savory parts of the meat. But, and apparently bread might come from breade, meaning roasted meat. meat yeah it's supposed to be really like marginally juicy it's supposed to be tender but yeah anyway then we cut away from the arctic institute to a different place entirely somewhere that isn't the height of privilege

it's the egyptians planning their attack yeah it's a short scene uh benjamin is taking a big leadership role and you saw the preview for episode three, right? Benjamin is out on a mission in the preview for episode three. So everyone say goodbye to Benjamin. Yeah. Yeah. Motherfucker dead. The next episode, right, is called The Spies.

And I believe that correlates with what happens in the book. Yeah. And that's what I do. I'm kind of excited about this change, because it's not exactly a change, but we know that Benjamin went out on a secret mission to go do some shit. And that was it. So the fact that they're showing this, and this is what Benjamin was taking and doing covert ops on, I think that's really smart. I love that they're showing the other side of all of these different factions involved in the story. of all of these different factions involved in the story. Yeah, I think they're doing a really good job in thus building suspense, showing how big this world is. And we'll talk about it a little later.

I love that they're focusing so much on Roger and his story. I think that's really good. But also, we talked about how there were hints that it's going to focus more on Roger at the end of episode one. But at the same time, that kid was too well cast. You can't waste an actor like that kid was too well cast you can't

waste an actor like that no he's doing a great job he's so good I was proud of him like what's gonna happen when you get Will what are you gonna do about your baby boys my little boy you're just gonna replace Roger with Will that's what Lyra does yeah it is because that's what lyra does yeah it is because that's what lyra doesn't look come back to this in a second coulter gives lyra a bath in the next scene they talk about giving lyra a new hairstyle and she starts to tell a story although it could be false of roger climbing her once long hair coulter tells her very sharply total change of mood don't lie to me and she then goes into the speech that lyra has potential but needs to be prepared to change because she could be extraordinary so what's remarkable about this scene is when we get the hints right of what mrs coulter is about because

when she tells lyra don't lie to me she grabs lyra by the hair and turns her head to look at her it's it's a violent scene yeah in a way this whole episode is just like very violent and very abusive yeah but you start getting hints of it here and then you see the monkey turned away interestingly mrs coulter doesn't make pan turn away, as she does in the books and in the movie. I was waiting for it, too. I thought there was a moment, and then it didn't happen. I never realized it before in previous versions of the scene, but I think there's a little bit of something to Mrs. Coulter taking Lyra into the bath and the whole idea of Mrs. Coulter doing the oblations to try to keep kids from getting dusty allegedly and it's that idea of not wanting them to be dusty and this idea of trying to keep lyra clean innocent within the bath yeah baptismal little keep her innocent and young yeah anyway and i mean she does this when she dresses her up in a couple scenes. It's very much infantizing her and very much so just turning her like into a doll almost,

which we get into later on with Eofur Ragnarok. That's his name. It's Ragnarsson or whatever, but I'm just going to call him Eofur Ragnarok because Ragnarok is the best movie. Thor Ragnarok, the best movie ever created. That's my decades list, Eliana. Thor Ragnarok is the best movie. Thor Ragnarok, the best movie ever created. That's my decades list, Eliana. Thor Ragnarok. So Thor Ragnarok, the bear, has the demon doll that he

got from Coulter that, you know, resembles Coulter. While Lyra comes along, she's like, I'm your demon. Well, that's what is being done to her right now. She's being dressed up as a demon doll. That's what Coulter is doing with her. She's made her into her little pet just like pan says in the books pan doesn't like any of this he tells lyra later and she this is when i cried i'm gonna be honest with you all

this made me cry this is a chloe cried alert because lyra is like, you know, she's nice to me and we deserve to have nice things for once, Pan. And he's like, yeah, we do. And then she says, no one's ever said I could be extraordinary before. Yeah. That hurts. I'm getting sad right now. We can't talk about it. We got to keep going.

I'm going to cry. Oh, I was going to talk about something in this. Okay, I'll just cry alone. Okay. I think it's interesting that at this point, right, as we see Lyra getting more experience and realizing the difference between appearance and what's actually within and what people are like, right, and it changes at the end of the books. She's conflating being nice with being given nice things yeah and of course it's also that mrs coulter said that she could be extraordinary but we're

seeing throughout these moments i'm like mrs coulter's not really treating her that nice but she doesn't know yet she just is mistaking that all that glitters is not gold as we've talked about many times uh and she's swept away by the dazzle of women can do things you know like oh wow mrs coulter's a scholar that's not something i ever knew was possible the only woman she knew was mrs lonsdale the housekeeper who isn't in this show but i digress sorry did I just did I flip a switch a little bit? Did I Colter out there? Maybe you did. During all this, it flashes to Mrs. Colter at the bathtub, still full of water.

And she's contemplative. She's deep in thought. She's kind of staring. She's disassociative. And then she pulls the drain kind of violently and walks out eventually. And what's remarkable, she pulls the drain and makes that motion immediately after making eye contact with her demon and it leads to what we see later right with that her and the demon the next tense moment with them that we see a little bit later on but

it's sad it's a sad little moment it's it is. These bubble scenes like this are really touchingly deep. Ruth Wilson is obviously providing so much service right now to us. She is just killing it as Mrs. Coulter. But Mrs. Coulter is just as much servicing her in this. The role is so depthful. I don't know. It's just such a complex complex role she's doing a great job though of showing uh those ruminating and even though it's not said in this episode

of hinting towards uh that longing that mrs colder has to connect with lyra yeah it's obvious what she's doing here like very obvious and the ambition that stands in that way yeah gotta choose shouldn't have to but we know what she chooses. Lyra, right? Yeah, I mean, it's also obvious when you get to that last book that she wanted to keep her deep down, but Asriel was cold and distant and would never have let that happen. Dude, it's gonna be, it's fucking hard to want to try and raise a kid on your own. Anyway.

Yeah, and obviously, as we know, culture's a little interesting. Yeah. Pan makes Lyra up because culture's a little interesting yeah pan makes lyra up and because there's a noise in the pipes and then lyra shoves him off with a pillow which like same oh yeah no the cats attack the door all the time and emmet will be like 4 a.m he'll just like go pick them up put them in their spare room lock them in and be like in two hours you can come out i feel like everyone shut the fuck up yep trying to sleep i get it absolutely sleep is important lyra the egyptians in the next scene are looking for their children they find evidence of billy by his sweater left in an empty warehouse-esque kind of place with cops empty cop frames so we saw it a little last episode i'll dig into this a bit more in a moment but

the fact that billy costa is symbolized here by his little sweater vest, which adorable. Billy Costa in his sweater vest. But now he doesn't have a sweater vest. He's still adorable. Anyways. He's just the kind of kid who wears sweater vests. I love his big stupid glasses. I know! He's like mini

cheaty. Just wanna give that boy a hug. Anyways hug anyways clothing is a big part of how we can understand the characters in this story yeah uh roger and billy are the next scene and it flashes to them in cots no longer empty celsilia is trying to see a way out but she can't roger gives kind of a backstory for his aunt bringing him up that he has no parents and that lyra is out there looking for them right now too bad roger didn't have an older cousin named alice that's all i'm saying it was a really easy plug again remember last episode when i told

you that it was really easy to just appease the 10 people that have finished LaBelle Sauvage that Eliana isn't one of. I'm just kidding. No, I'm not. Eliana is zero of ten people. There's totally more than ten, but you're still zero of them, too. Yep. I'm a disappointment. Doesn't improve the number. Yeah, but that one's a shout-out

for our LaBelle Sauvagers. But yeah, there's a cousin that is right there yep in this scene I noticed Roger's voice and this is what I was coming back to a little what I was saying earlier of Lyra replacing Roger

with Will in a way she doesn't exactly but you can see from Roger's voice like he has all this admiration for Lyra there's a line in the books if he would follow her to the ends of the world, which he does. But the way that he is described

in the Amber Spyglass looking at Lyra and the way that Lyra's posture changes as she talks about Will and Roger looking at her sadly. Wow. There's something there. Have you ever thought maybe you should bring your current boyfriend

on a trip to your ex to go like save him from the afterlife that's killing him every day forever with no end in sight someone actually tweeted something like that today really? or maybe it was another it was another day I don't know it was pretty funny it's like imagine spending your whole

life married to a woman and then woman, and then you die, and then you die, and you're waiting for her in the afterlife. And then she gets there, and then she breezes past you to go be with this man that she knew for three days on a boat.

Anyway, everyone, let's watch Titanic. No, she should have known each other for longer than that they went through a fucking lot but that's like yeah that was honestly like a decade in uh his dark materials world in my opinion so yeah but lyra and roger weren't at that point in their lives you had to realize yeah they didn't realize what romantic feelings were but they were on the cusp and they slagged the fuck off on the rooftops of jordan yeah they were kids yeah innocent they they were and but there's like some language in there that you see like hints of of like with roger anyway will is a total mother duster you know what i mean i mean he's basically yorick as less yeah as a human apparently that's the appeal that's the appeal young yorick to lyra oh my god so the next scene colter is involved

once more she's buying lyra a dress because she's the nicest caretaker mom ever um she teaches lyra how you dress as a woman is important for people to take you seriously she dolls her up in blue this is her like i said earlier playing dolls and coulter says it's her color which i mean sure but coulter keeps wearing it so i love that coulter is projecting this is your color ly Lyra, because you're mine. By the way, you literally are. You're my daughter. Yes, and that's absolutely what she's doing. And again, clothing is a big part of the characterization in this show. There's actually a great article on Tor.com by Tyler Dean called What Setting and Costume Reveal about His Dark Materials Literary Agenda. literary agenda. And the author actually talks a little bit about how the costume setting allows people to interpret how this show is very much in reaction to the Chronicles of Narnia.

But here, as you said, Mrs. Coulter is projecting on Lyra. And this is actually another cue, I think, that's taken from the Golden Compass movie. We discussed it in our episode about the Golden Compass, but Lyra's characterization comes through not only her type of clothing, the golden compass movie we discussed it in our episode uh about the golden compass but lyra's characterization comes through not only her type of clothing but the colors like obviously she's like oh i can hardly move in this clothing about the restrictive nature of her relationship with mrs coulter right but in the movie she's kind of known by that red color and here again mrs coulter is projecting that blue onto her and we see that almost all of her outfits and the colors match mrs coulter's throughout her time with with marissa but slowly the colors that lyra wears begins to diverge a little from what mrs coulter wears by the end at

that party she's wearing like a lighter dustier almost, almost grayish blue. And Mrs. Coulter is wearing this amazing deep green dress, right? And I wonder if we're going to see Lyra return to that red color in a bit as she regains more of who she is outside of being Mrs. Coulter.

But she might not. She's going to don some of that Gyptian wear. Yeah, she's very adaptable as we've learned as far as where she fits in you know she wants to be a polar bear she sleeps under the snow she wants to be a witch you know she flies around on the deck and makes pan be a burb in her brain she likes to fit in getting where you fit in kid she's just trying to find her flock that's all she's. She's just trying to find her flock. That's all she's ever been doing is trying to find herself among people, among her flock. And I don't know if she'll return to Red so much now that she knows Asriel's her dad,

because that was if that was her thing before, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But she might. Who knows? I think she might go a little bleak for a while, right? We might not notice a lot about her clothing. She's going to be first captured and then move to the Gyptians and maybe nothing stand out outfit wise. But she's going to be in furs soon too, going north more. So maybe bland furs will see a lot of seal skins and such.

And it's practical. She's like in the mirror and she's playing with her dress, trying to get comfortable with it. And Pan like starts making fun of her and they both laugh about it it's not too tense but in a way you're like pan don't be a dick you know let her play around with it even if it's uncool because coulter's dressing her up like a doll at least let lyra play with it let her explore that femininity obviously yeah and then lyra says like if my uncle could see me like this and mrs colder says he'd be delighted she's totally being sarcastic too and you could see it i wish she'd like he'd be delighted yeah at the same time i wonder if

she kind of means it a little like clearly she's frustrated with the way lyra's been brought up and i think lord asriel is a little too he like, they didn't teach you fucking anything, did they? Yep. They tried! Yeah, but, like, you can't teach. Not like that. It's the wrong pedagogy for a child. Yeah. Especially Lyra. Yeah. She's not just any child.

Yeah. She's a child in a fucking college being taught university courses. It's like, smart guy, but not. What a great show. Anyways. Lord Boreal meets with the master. Yeah, Boreal wants to study Grumman's head, the head that Asriel

brought in. The master's like, nope, sure not gonna let you do that because of Scholastic Sanctuary. And Boreal's like, yeah, but no one gives a fuck about Scholastic Sanctuary. B boreal then accuses him of uh imbibing in heresy with lord asriel because of him visiting and speaking about dust and because oh jordan decided to fund his investigations the master says it's jordan's

right to keep grumman's skull because he's a scholar and he's protected there keep the skull that was weird though yeah it's it's an interesting that they've decided to make this skull like a big plot point in this way i'm like whatever it spurs something but anyways so i missed this last time but in the last episode but this is a change from the books right we remarked upon how it becomes like a big thing right that they're saying that his head belongs here but turns out in the books grumman is actually part of a different university i believe it's a german one and so yeah they've really decided that this is this is part of the plot now it could be worse but like i i'm totally sitting here like okay i don't really care yeah i don't really care.

Yeah, I don't really care. It's easier than trying to explain all the other stuff. It's unnecessary for him to be part of the other one, and clearly this is part of the story that they're telling. And it's very smart to mold it all together. We'll keep talking about that, but I think it is smart. Also, the scene, it was in the trailers for the entire season, but of Lord Boreal sitting, then the Master's Raven flying behind him.

Iconic. Incredible. Yeah, absolutely. Beautiful. So dramatic. And then the backdrops during their interchange, I just wanted to call this out, I thought it could be interpreted a little. I think they're paying a lot of attention, right, with their shots in this

episode, in this episode in this series in general boreal as he speaks behind him is the altar right of whatever this church or chapel is and behind him is all are all the saints and so you get that sort of symbolism that sort of setting of the magisterium is what's backing him whereas for the master what's behind him is this light the door of the that goes into the rest of the university so lyra is studying very poorly might i add at the table with mrs coulter and mrs coulter has zero sympathy she's not having it lyra is like i just want to adventure and find Roger instead of reading Mrs. Coulter's like didn't I literally tell you to

trust me like why are you acting out like this and Pan's kind of huddled like in her lap during all of this and it's very sad right like I was just like bummed because you could see Pan like super small being like you could feel the tension his eyes are so big and his nose is so

small and pointy. He looks like my cat. So cute. Okay. Done. Coulter starts telling her about electrons and Lyra finishes her sentence for her and says she knows this because of dust. Coulter's like, interesting.

What do you know about it? And she's like, kind of gives her a half-assed answer. Little bit of lying she does give the truth that it does not affect children she obviously is like a kid she does not get all of it uh and then she's like oh yeah i learned it from a visiting scholar not from watching asriel's thing and the monkey is like audibly unhappy during all this you can hear the monkey making like whimpering like upset noises that was a great touch yeah man it must be inconvenient having a demon i know gotta have a weird insect like everyone else uh in the magisterium i am oh yeah the bug

demons no way this scene shows you that lyra's a fucking troll right she's a fucking troll and is good at uh figuring out what to say to push buttons and get a rise out of people as well as how she lies yeah uh coulter just was all like don't lie to me in the bathtub at her but here she is lying to her right now and Coulter's missing it because Lyra's actually a pretty good liar, right? We learned that she's a great liar. She gets that from her parents.

She uses the charisma. But Coulter is totally, this one's slipping by her. I like that. Yeah. Lyra has hilarious mannerisms, though, where she, like, puts her head in her fingers, like, like this.

Like, ah, this is so tedious. Yeah. hilarious mannerisms though where she like puts her head in her fingers like like this like this is so tedious yeah we cut to a scene of macosta breaking a cup on the butt boat on the butt god damn it you touched the butt finding nemo shit tony wants to help her clean up the cup and she's like no and he's like i want to go with all the egyptian leaders and she's like no also so we talked a lot about the rights of adulthood uh that comes through the egyptian scene last time but i am really really enjoying the direction that they've gone in this right by having tony have his own storyline they're rather than it's not just that the egyptians have their own storyline, which they do, there's a lot of focus on Tony, and that's giving us another lens of the transition into adulthood

through his perspective, and trying to, like, live up to the role of what adulthood is in the Egyptian world, right? Of what it means to be, like, maybe a man or a man of the family by being allowed to go on these sorts of adventures and raids, in contrast with Lyra's own transition into adulthood, especially if Pullman sees the story as being about that. And I think that that's part of why we're getting Benjamin DeRoyter's story, right? And they're gonna play off Benjamin's death as not just like, oh, it's dangerous and despised, but it's going to be a big thing for tony's story it's people building it's world building it's yeah i'm over i guess the tony mccario stuff

whatever fine it's billy costa and it does work it's an obvious adaptive choice because it makes you give a crap about these people they are a people they are a whole people and they are fighting for their own loved ones to be able to live and i think that's what's kind of important about what they're highlighting they're really fleshing them out they're really gonna make it hurt it's gonna suck when that costa gets billy back and he's broken that's gonna suck whatever happens there we'll see but yeah what i'm curious about is how they're going to keep the egyptian sort of storyline going into you know season two three and four so i think with a lot of the stuff

they're pulling forward i think they're pulling it forward for a reason so they can reintroduce the egyptian plot line faster okay so here's my theory and we'll talk about this as we get into more of the sporial stuff but i think the subtle knife might not be what we end in the second season i think we start amber spyglass in the second season and i think we end maybe i don't know like the bomb or like lyra in the cave is the cliffhanger of season two. I don't know. Something. But I feel like there's just so much more in the Amber Spyglass than there is in The Subtle Knife to Cover. And they're already introducing these elements. So I'm wondering if they're splitting Amber Spyglass, which they should.

I think it's enough to cover two seasons. There's so much shit in it. Yeah, I think ending with Lyra in the cave is a good good ending spot it's a cliffhanger you end with coulter over her unconscious body yeah wiping her brow and it's creepy and that's the cliffhanger that's a good ending spot uh so john fa far decorum and some of the other leaders amongst egyptian men show up and turns out ma costa's name is. Oh, Ma-gy Costa. That makes sense. Oh. Yeah, you know, it's where the Ma comes from. I wonder if that's canon. I want to ask him.

We should ask him. Tweet it. Philip Pullman, can you tell me about your views on the Mortal Kombat game from the 90s and about the canonicity of Maggie Costa? I am gonna tweet it. I feel like it's very in character for me to tweet at Philip Pullman while we're podcasting, and he will never respond.

He might one day. You never know. What do you think about Mortal Kombat? The 1990, what, 1992 video game? Exactly. It's very important, in my opinion, as a monkey- 92-er as a mrs coulter's monkeys demon it all it all intersects it all means something i knew it philip i knew it oh so they present ma costa with billy's sweater she's kind of upset uh her and john

foster this intimate close moment where he's like come on Maggie like you know they have him let us go get him back. Jo Bradley one of her friends on the internets was saying that she thought that Jon Fah and Ma Costa were in a relationship from this scene and it is a very intimate moment. It shows him grabbing her hand and getting really close in the face. And, you know, all signs point to yes, intimacy, but I also think it's the type of charismatic ruler Jon Favreau is. And I don't think it was meant to say they were together at all. Yeah, yeah, I feel the same. And but I can see why the scene would be interpreted like that, right? Like there's a saying or something in stage direction or acting of like, you only get that close to someone like there's, I don don't know a delineated space or whatever if you're going to kiss them or kill them

yeah but i i agree i i saw it as more of like he cares deeply about his people yeah it felt very much so like maggie this is what we've been trying to tell you i'm sorry but we have to move on and we have to find them yeah and then we get to the magisterium our father Macphail has to deal with the cardinal who's like Mrs. Coulter is bad she's better at her fucking job also Job

and by that I mean Gob sucks the Egyptians also suck and this entire fucking endeavor is risky even if it's hashtag good for us the cardinal is obviously above father mcphail and he's like i come with orders to tell the gob they need to cool it or they'll lose everything and he's like then it ends and father mcphail is staring at the magisterium symbol, just looking up.

Very, you know, disassociative. I think it's interesting that so many people in the magisterium have, like, bug demons. Yeah, because they're the insects and locusts ruining this world. Locusts is interesting in the context of the Old Testament. Mm-hmm. Open that seal, baby. So the noise in the pipes has come back to Coulter's apartment. Lyra finally believes him.

She's like, all right, Pan, you might be onto something here. They explore the hallway. They follow the pipes and they end up following them to the secret study that they're not supposed to be in and open the door and find the monkey, but no Coulter. Dun-dun-dun! Mrs. Coulter ends up waking up, looking for Lyra, and she's very far from her demon.

The demon suddenly appears next to her, and Lyra's like, that's weird, that's not natural, and she says something about the pain, and Mrs. Coulter says, oh no, you're wrong, my demon was here the whole time. And is kind of like uh an info dump ish for those who are not familiar with having read the book series right kind of just telling them like this is weird anyways uh mrs coulter puts her back in bed

closes the door and then smacks her demon very fucked up very much so signifying that self-loathing we've been talking about and very taboo you don't just hit your pet yeah especially when you understand that it's also like hurting yourself i was just gonna say stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself and the monkey looks so sad and pathetic in that moment as opposed to i don't know the way that it's kind of portrayed in the movie, maybe even in the books, because this scene doesn't happen in the books, right? The hitting of her own demon is a direction that we do see in the Golden Compass movie. It is a very interesting detail. They kept it in this direction as well. you look at LaBelle Sauvage you have a character named Gerard Bonneville that is a little violent with his demon and I won't go into detail to do any spoiling since it's outside of the main trilogy

but you do get that feeling that he's very charismatic and at ease when you talk to him and then his demon is just like what's off-putting that's the same thing with Coulter right when you speak to Coulter her eyes don't really meet her smile. She's very charismatic, and she can talk the talk. But the second she's alone with her demon, you see she crumbles. It's really interesting as a character. And I really want to harken back to our second episode, I want to say it was, was it episode two of His Dark Materials, Northern Lights, Golden Compass, where I mentioned that there were theories on the internet that i had read a bunch of and totally agreed with as soon as i read anything about this scene about coulter and her demon being separated whether it was through experimentation whether it was through she

objected yes i want to have the surgery and try it uh whatever it was almost like you know choosing this is what i want to choose to stop the pain of adulthood. It feels almost like she did that. And the passage from the book is, Mrs. Coulter seemed to be charged with some kind of anbaric force. She even smelled different, a hot smell, like heated metal, came off her body. Lyra had felt something of it earlier, but now she was seeing it directed at someone else. Poor Adele Starminster had no force to resist. Her demon

fell limp upon her shoulder and flapped his gorgeous wings once or twice before fainting, and the woman herself seemed to be unable to stand fully upright. Moving in a slight awkward crouch, she made her way through the press of loudly talking guests and out of the drawing room door. She had one hand clutched to her shoulder, holding the swooning demon in place. Well, said Mrs. Coulter to Lyra. I never told her anything important, Lyra said. What was she asking? Just about what I was doing and who I was and stuff like that as she said that lyra noticed mrs coulter was alone without her demon how could that be but a moment later the golden monkey

appeared at her side and reaching down she took his hand and swung him up lightly to her shoulder at once she seemed at ease again so interesting reveal that coulter can pretty much separate from her demon that's kind of what we learned this episode they decided to reveal that and there is that metallic scent i kind of theorized that it was supposed to be similar to the metal alloy that separates you know the guillotine that separates human and demon and i feel like this was a confirmation of that i don't know if she has intercision right because there's clearly still a connection yeah i wonder if it's like she's able something happened that she's able to tolerate the pain more or i don't know because in the passage you read aloud right she took his hand and swung him

up slightly lightly to her shoulder once she seemed at ease again and i'm not saying that people like get more used to pain right but it's right she hits her demon right so it's like canonically it has to have been like they had to separate physically not with the metal but the fact that there's that metallic scent really makes me think that that metal alloy was involved and that she had to undergo it for some reason it makes me maybe it's metal alloy was involved and that she had to undergo it for some reason. It makes me, maybe it's just adding to the tragedy that is Mrs. Coulter and how awful she is, but also that vulnerability to her. But that fact that there's that metallic scent with her anger, that makes me think that she was separated physically with some sort of metal alloy from her demon. Especially because she's

the poster woman for this experimentation on children there's that or like it almost sounds like she's taking something like that has to do with the metal i don't know but like i mean she takes this beyond even the idea of taking like the something that could make the metal smell like that i mean it's more also the joy she gets from these children being sent to these centers in that self-loathing sense it feels like she hates it because she's had it done you know but she also was like good someone else should suffer it's like the system that nourished her for so long even though it really didn't it rejected her she refused to see that and now she's like keep going for them yeah the system that made me this way

or she keeps hoping to find a child that'll end up like her right insanity basically yeah because like she's not completely yeah she's not completely severed right in the way that like the other people at the station as we see are it's interesting so boreal is hanging out doing some boreal things with a snake demon snake snake his he's uh looking for stanislaus grumman in the crypts of jordan he finds stanislaus his skull but then he's like it ain't stanislaus's skull azriel's a motherfucking liar. Who saw that coming? Not me. How could- I just want to know how he knows, right? Right. Absolutely.

Just from looking at this skull and his weird snack going through its hole, what are you telling me, Boreal? Did you just, I don't know, did you touch Stanislaus Grumman's skull a lot? He does! He rubs his- Right, he rubs the skull though. But before, after, why? like just like i don't know did you touch stanislaus grumman's skull he does he like rubs his right like he rubs but like before after like why that's it that's how you know like how many questions yeah but like before like when when he was with stanislaus grumman was he like

can i touch your your head hole dude so what i want know is like, how well do you know Stanislaus Grumman's head? And maybe it's selfish because this Boreal is a rather dashing gentleman. Not saying book Boreal's not a dashing gentleman. He's just a little older than I personally am willing to pork in this timeline. And I'm just saying that maybe Boreal and Grumman, maybe that's the ship now. We don't know. Could be. Could be.

But Boreal then is like, shit, to his demon. He's like, we need to cross. And that's when I started freaking out and shaking the noisemakers and going, oh, my God. And he walks and walks and they go outside and they go through this cool garden-y dead area. They find a window. It's a glass-like mirror, kind of translucent, greenish, glows ever so slightly, but also not quite there. And they hop on in there. Off they trot, him and his slithering demon.

And they come out in another world, a world similar probably to someone like you or i where there's technology and sirens and cars it's will's world i'm pretty sure which is our world he watches a cop drive off and then he gets in a car and he waits and he just plays on a smartphone yeah he messages someone but i couldn't read the message i I'm like, whatever. It says it's 3am and it says you up. You know who it's to. It's 3am. He's texting Stanislaus Grumman. He tried. Then we have Lyra consulting the alethiometer and Mrs. Coulter is guests over. And Mrs. Coulter tells her you gotta stay put. Father McPhail shows up and Father Garrett, the character's name is, or Fra Pavel is what I'm going to call him because, you know, whatever. He's supposed to be Father Gomez, I think. That's what I was thinking.

I think he's going to cover both Gomez and Fra Pavel is what it seems because they're not obviously calling him Fra Pavel. They're calling him Garrett. That's literally his name. So Father Garrett, Father Gomez, Fra Pavel, similar enough. enough yeah but he's very tense and he stares at lyra there's no frog demon it's the bug demon and the bugs like crawling on his face it's real gross he's a beetle well father gomez has a has the beetle demon yeah so that's why i was like maybe i think it's supposed to be a mixture i think that's what they're doing here is remixing it. Which is fine. Yeah. I don't care about Father Gomez that much.

Well, here's the deal. You know what the best part about Father McPhail sending out Gomez is? It's in the name. He's gonna McPhail. Yeah. That's it. That's a thing. They McPhail. Mrs. Coulter realizes Lyra's in the hall.

Fra Pavel slash Father Garrett slash whatever finds her spying. And Mrs. Coulter comes out and she's like, go to your room. Like, don't talk to her. Leave my assistant alone. It's so smart, though, because it establishes they see Lyra is kind of one of Mrs. Coulter's vulnerabilities here. They don't really know the extent of who it is, but they know like, oh, there's another person here we can leverage against Mrs. Coulter's vulnerability is here. They don't really know the extent of who it is, but they know like, oh, there's another person here we can leverage against Mrs. Coulter.

So it kind of sets up the bomb super well. Yeah, I didn't even think about that. I think you're right. That's part of why Mrs. Coulter didn't want them to see her. It sets up the cave. Yeah, it's a fascinating scene in the study and I'm sure someone else has pointed it out,

where earlier in the episode, you have Mrs. Coulter telling Lyra she can teach her different ways, right, to get men to do what she wants. And you have Mrs. Coulter kind of doing some of that, right? Kind of flaunting a bit of her sexuality as she puts things into her bra. She offers Father MacPhail some tea, and he's like, no, thank you. Then she offers him some water tea and he's like no thank you then she offers him some water and he's like no thank you i'm not thirsty and obviously like in in in slang terms right now we all know what thirsty means right yep and he's like no i'm not thirsty but he's not eating what she has to offer exactly which is a a very, it's the opposite of what happens in the Garden of Eden, right?

So he keeps, I don't know, maybe some of that innocence or like purity or whatever he might have going on or might not. I don't know, but he refuses Eve's temptations. It's very much a failed seduction. Very much so. Very failed. But she takes advantage of Lyra being in the hall to regain the upper hand, which is very fascinating. Lyra misinterprets it, I think, as Mrs. Coulter being angry and losing control. And I think that's why Mrs. Coulter's like, no, I didn't lose control. Because what she did was use it to get the men to get out of her house.

It was an escape route though it was but like she didn't quite lose control in that moment she was trying to regain it anyway but this gave her an opening and it's interesting because when she invites father mcphail into her study right she allows him to take a seat and she takes a seat as well she's not standing she's allowing them to be equals and she's lounging in her other like fucking mid-century modern chair. I do think it's quite fascinating that she has a study. It's brought up at the beginning, but again, I'm going to keep coming back to how she says we're the only women here in this Arctic Institute. And I think a study during this world that Mrs. Coulter is coming up in is very much a male coded thing to have

hell having a whole fucking floor of a penthouse oh absolutely power moves exactly for her to have her own study and just her using it and her living there doesn't belong to a man i think absolutely tells you what kind of woman she is she's a woman who has ambition and is working and is trying to like make her way in a world that's just ruled by men and it's her own business right yeah and obviously unfortunately she doesn't care who she stomps upon to get there but no that's a different story but she did make her way and also there's the fact that they're on her territory her saying get the fuck out of my house is normal here like she this is her whole entire owned level get out of there you don't all you have is the magisterium where you serve she serves no one she serves herself in science and what she's learning and finding yeah her place is decorated very differently than the magisterium which is not pan tells lyra she needs to hide her

alethiometer as mrs coulter sees the men out lyra puts it in her purse and keeps it on her coulter corners mcphail and she tells him this is a big opportunity and mcphail says that they have to preserve the power of the magisterium over everything it comes first and i love this line i feel like there's probably more to it but i'm not there i'm not grasping it uh whispers become weapons in the wrong hands i think there's a lot of different ways that can be interpreted yeah like prophecies about lyra yeah prophecy telling your own story when you're whispering as a dead person in the underworld yes i was definitely thinking of the uh the different kind of undead, the specters, etc. Coulter criticizes Lyra's new purse she's wearing, and Lyra pokes at her kind of and pushes.

And it's like, you lost control of the men after she had just apologized for being short with Lyra. And she finally, like, Coulter just is so immature, she's like, your bag's silly. And Lyra's like, it's the only thing I like. just a so immature bag. She's like, your bag's silly. And Lyra's like, it's the only thing I like. And then we get the iconic scene, as we've talked about. Iconic. The golden monkey strikes. It was every bit as scary

and intimidating as it should be. My stomach was twisting. It was very intense. Very intense. The monkey's just like looking poised to attack. But not like he's really hungry for it. He's just like, tell me what to do, boss, maybe? I don't know he's just like telling me what to do boss maybe i don't know very much like it was waiting like just waiting the whole conversation was obviously

there was going to be a fight but the tension had to go back and forth first yeah and it keeps looking at mrs coulter for cues and i look the monkey is so interestingly portrayed differently we've talked about it already. But the monkey's scary in its own way, but it's not like that weird, like, terrifying. There's so much pain on its face. It's so sad in the study. It's sad and crouched over and terrified when it's seen. Like, in the bathroom scene, it's not looking at Mrs. Coulter and it's just sad.

It's so pained and uh we we later on see her longing on the monkey's face to love lyra i don't know yeah and then we learn like coulter has obviously shut that part off whether it was through a physical severing by force or physical severing by she actually separated herself she's shut that off that whole maternal longing has been shut off from lyra it's been severed she struggles with coming back to it and trying to get into it but she also is struggling with the side of her that loves and wants and craves power um and then she also does crazy shit right like kidnapping and drugging her daughter you know normal people, normal people shit. Normal people shit.

It's very complex. Very complex. Not every person would understand it. You have to have a very high IQ to understand Marisa Coulter, nay Van Zee. Oh my god. I want that to be a meme. Then Mrs. Coulter tells Lyra if she continues the way she's being, you know, after the demons wrestle on on the floor they will have a confrontation and she's gonna win uh it's all just so like textbook literally from the book and i'm just like it gives me chills yeah then lyris is a very shoujo manga thing she says

the men just upset you this isn't this isn't you this isn't who you are it is it's called internal as misogyny but also i think she just doesn't want her to be done she's like okay i mean it's literally also texas cersei lannister right like that's what this is yeah there's a lot of yeah there's so much coulter basically like flips on her is like you're gonna be sweet and nice and charming all night at this party you're gonna be perfect and lyra's like my uncle would never do any of this to me. And she really flips and she's like, when has that man done anything for you?

He's done nothing for you. And then she reveals that Asriel is Lyra's father. Whoa, this is episode two. I think this is a scene that kind of shows you a little that, no, earlier she wasn't mad. This is her mad. And emotional. You know how women are when they women are emotional maybe she's on her period but mrs coulter just revealed such a vital piece of the plot about a man um but i liked it am i arrested for saying

i liked it because i liked it i think it worked just a little less on the whole because afterwards Lyra's like well who was my mom and she's like I don't know some hussy but it works for the moment I guess that makes that betrayal deeper for Lyra when she finds out it's Coulter even though it's like open your eyes yeah I it's pretty obvious from the way she reacts but at the same time like so something that i wonder is did she truly lose control in revealing that azrael was lyra's father or is she doing what lyra did in the study right where she lyra suddenly brings up dust and changes out like the dynamics like they're playing on the same game field. Yeah, and in doing so, what she does is redirect Lyra's displeasure, or she tries to, she doesn't succeed, but she tries to redirect Lyra's displeasure at her towards Lord Asriel. control or was it a somewhat calculated move uh a manipulative move to try and uh get lyra distract lyra from how she's feeling towards mrs coulter in this i do feel like it might be a little

column a column b because it was triggered by lyra saying like asriel wouldn't do this and culture going oh fuck you like asriel didn't give a shit about you your whole life like he visited maybe annually and from afar he was like don't be bad and be nice to the scholars and she's like but i like orchestrated all these things to get you here and you know she's like i've been plotting for six years on how to get you to be my daughter it maybe it just feels unfair and i think that unfairness is what triggered this for her to be like what the fuck and she has this line so like you know like I said Lyra's like who's my mother and she's like well he was kind of a hoe you know hooked up with side chicks all the time he took you to that college

they couldn't protect you they had hideous interior design by the way and that's when Lyra's like that's too far like you insulted Jordan like how dare you? And Coulter tries to save it. And she's like, Lyra, our origins don't define us. It's what we do with what we have. Which is meta because, you know, she's Lyra's mom. Kind of, I guess, her own everybody's special line compared to Asriel here. And then we get the beautiful cinematic shot of Lyra crying inside her room with the alethiometer, Then we get the beautiful cinematic shot of Lyra crying inside her room with the alethiometer asking it for help and what Coulter is and where Roger is and where her dad, Lord Asriel, is. I thought that was a good touch.

And Coulter is crying a little bit outside the door herself, but she wipes her tears and picks herself up because she has a job to do. Yeah. a job to do yeah i do like that again ruth wilson nails it with the look that mrs coulter gives lyra when lyra's like i would like to be alone right now and mrs coulter wanting to not but i do respect that she respects lyra saying i want to be alone right now you know she knew she couldn't do anything better there yeah and so she's like, all right, I get it. That is a somewhat good move to let Lyra have her space and privacy. And yeah, having that direction of Lyra crumpling and Mrs. Coulter crumpling outside, that mirroring, there's so much that's similar about them. Also, I think this is the case in the previous episode. I have to look again at how Daphne Keene's

eyebrows are styled. I think that's another hint. Their eyebrows are the same, okay? They did a good job with a lot of this casting. They have the same eyebrows. They all work. God, Ruth is so good as Coulter. She's like

perfect. Like, Nicole Kidman was actually great, even though everything about that movie was a little sloppy. And we obviously talk about why in our Patreon episode, but Nicole Kidman had the idea somewhere deep down. I don't think she executed it perfectly, but I felt that cold charm, right? That cold, like, I'm gonna cut your demon away from you but also you're my daughter and i'm very narcissistic and i have to have you um yeah but coulter does that ruth wilson does that for coulter in this and she brings that secondary and third level of just complexity of you know you feel her insecurities you feel what she's had to sacrifice as a woman trying to rise to power, whether or not the power is bad.

We don't have to go into that. We know the power she's trying to obtain slash has obtained is very awful. But you can see her struggle to the top and that struggle of her power and what it's done to her and it's eaten her from the inside out. She's rotten. Yeah, she's doing a masterful job of executing all of that. I mean, I just said all that to you and that's what she made me feel so yeah great yeah and then we get a scene of that other world again of lord boreal in a cafe he meets an acquaintance in our world he says he's looking for a man with an osprey demon interesting what could it mean eliana i think he's looking for

seraphine ofala, right? I'm gonna fucking scream. Don't even bring that up this episode. You guys, Kaiza is a falcon. Anyways. Give us the Affleck goose. Who could it mean?

Ditto. I don't know anyone with an Osprey demon and he couldn't be Stanislaus Grumman and he couldn't have a son that was in the episode three trailer with a picture in an envelope from boreal anyways my little boy the guy that he's talking to is a total made-up character apparently his name according to captions is thomas and according to people credited for starring in the episode it's thomas the only other thomas in these books is lord nugent the starring in the episode, it's Thomas. The only other Thomas in these books is Lord Nugent, the Chancellor of Britain, so it's not him. Interesting, though.

He's in a totally different room. It's a common name. Yeah, and this guy is a common guy, it feels like. So, one-off guy, whatever. Interesting. But they discuss how there's multiple windows likely in the world, not just the one that he's found. Hmm.

Interesting. Speaking of multiple windows, so there's that and the direction and how the scene is framed is really great. So the first way that we see Lord Boreal sitting in the cafe is through a window. And then it cuts to another window and you see their conversation. And again, it keeps showing us them through a window and you see their conversation and again it keeps showing them through a window and you can tell because of their reflections until finally you come inside and hear their conversation because you're like alright we had our fun. You know what's more fun? It reminds me of Citygaze

and the cafe. Ah yeah yeah. I mean it's just like a little like dig at like the very first scene with Will and Lyra's meeting. I don't know i felt good about that cafes are places for people to meet yeah yeah speaking of people talking this is actually not a great segue this is a terrible segue mrs coulter and lyra chat about roger is it is it a girls gone candid episode if i don't completely fail on a segue sometimes i

have to let you talk, Eliana. I mean, like, there's no other choice. I can't just keep talking. Okay? God, I have to let you speak once in a while. No, I'm just kidding. It feels good when you do a bad segue. It feels like home to me. I'm so glad.

I'm home when I'm with you on Girls Gone Candid. Oh, God. Coulter kind of comes to lyra and she's like so i've been doing some research and i kind of feel like maybe roger is still at jordan she's like he could just be hanging out in the college anywhere lyra's like uh someone from jordan would tell me so and colter's like honey jordan has moved on from you you You should move on from Roger. Which, to be fair, could be a very confident piece of advice if this was later in her life with a bad boyfriend. But right now, I don't know about that.

I feel like she's real focused on Roger for a reason. Because he was taken. Yeah, right, by someone. Lyra, as Liam Neeson, I don't know you. Lyra has a certain set of skills she does have a certain set of skills I know I've been thinking that the whole episode oh my god

someone should actually remix a lot of the scenes is it me? to be a Taken trailer I think it could be you oh no oh and the running on the rooftops that happens a lot in I think Taken 2 straight tooken 2. Straight Tooken 2. Oh, my gosh.

The best part about those is the key and peel sketches, okay? Liam Neeson's... God. Lyra calls Mrs. Coulter a liar, and the most memeable thing of all of 2019 is Mrs. Coulter just going, interesting. I was yelling when that happened

on the screen i was hitting my partner again like i told you i was very drunk and i was just very excited because i was like i need to mean that i stopped so many times to make gifts um i did i was like the second uh at one point we get to see farterecorum and his demon. And I am a pure fan of Fardecorum's demon, Sophanax. My child, Sophanax. Sophie is the best demon. And you get to see her in this episode clearly. She was in episode one. It wasn't quite as clear.

It was very brief. But she's in this episode. And by golly, what a shot. Her autumnal coloring her spots we're so lucky but so between that and mrs coulter going interesting those are probably the best moments of the episode i digress i posted a picture in our notes that we're looking at of food it looks so good the food in this scene the, the brunch that Lyra is having with Coulter is great. There's like some eggs and they have some caviar on them.

There's some lox. There's some little sausages with some cheese on it, some garlic, some other stuff. There's a fig. Yeah, a fig. There's some prosciutto, it looks like. There's just, it looks so good. It's very protein heavy. Is Lyra fucking bulking?

What's happening here i mean she's an orphan eliana it's kind of like the uh the witch in the woods with hansel and gretel you know she's like here roger here lyra the better to eat you with that's true but lyra's like i don't want your good food looks so good okay pan and lyra quote-unquote study, and Mrs. Coulter locks them in the apartment to run an errand for work. Pan says he doesn't think she's been looking for Roger at all. They crawl around in the vents to get to the study, because it's locked. They realize the monkey has been doing this the whole time, and Coulter and him are definitely separated. Flash between this, at the same time, Coulter is entering a very

broken down, abandoned looking building. She's visiting a bunch of children, including Roger and Billy. She's charming some of these dirty orphans by telling them they're going on adventures and that she's here to help them write letters to their families because most of them cannot read and write. Lyra is is reading gob letters and coulter is writing a letter for billy coulter comes to roger but roger is like i don't have parents i want to write to my only friend in the whole world he looks her straight in the eye and he's like her name's lyra from jordan college what a smart boy oh he knows what he's doing. Yeah. He tells her that they're going on a trip to the north. He asks Lyra what she's found and says that she would be surprised at who's taking them.

Well, by the time she would ever read this, which is check, never. I don't think she'd be surprised. He could definitely get to say, I told you so. Like we talked about last episode and he's like oh don't say I didn't tell you so when this happens because here it is it's happening I do love that we see Roger writing his own letter

right I do think it's so interesting that detail right that he learned to read and write having grown up at the college while the other children have to rely on Mrs. Coulter yeah i didn't even think about that but you're you're right he takes it she's a little surprised she's like oh okay just finish labelle sauvage so we can talk about this deeper um but he did and it's interesting that it gives him the autonomy right gives him kind of that

agency that roger gets to write his own letter even if it means nothing obviously in the end he gets to write his own letter he gets to be a part of his own story actively which is something obviously we don't get in the book so much i mean the most characterization roger gets is when he's an undead voice that lyra's reading between pages yeah i mean i really like i do like it Yeah He's very clever here, he knows who Coulter is and that Coulter knows who he is, he's not stupid he's also had to grow up being

observant as a servant, like that's his whole role is that he has to be quiet self-aware and understand what people make of him and what happens when people see him or see him places and vice versa he has to know where people are and what they're going to do at all times that's his whole survival instinct and we saw that in the first episode right because he tells lyra oh i noticed you

weren't at dinner when she's like i wasn't there and i think that's a that's something that's really important about how they're setting up roger all of this, because he and Lyra are both very clever. Yeah. Right? It's not like he's more or less clever than she is. They're both clever, but he's unlucky, right? He didn't get to still, like, grow up. Like, they're both orphans, but she grew up in a nice room, and he was the one who brought her food.

Yeah, and there's a lot to be said from that when you consider labelle sauvage and the books of dust and kind of like the servitude there's so much to be said of it it's very weird and you also have to consider obviously asriel who just manipulated jordan college into funding him to go do some heretic bullshit mrs coulter who they all are like, yeah, fuck that devil woman. But then she shows up and they're like, here's this kid you desperately want, even though I know she's unsafe with you. Yeah, obviously, these people have power and influence. They've risen really high in their corporate scenario with the magisterium. Asriel, maybe not

so much. He's obviously a little more challenged as authority but coulter has fitted and smiled and waved and showed a little ankle and you know gotten where she needed to go yeah i mean she's as smart as all of them it's just that they don't always recognize it well as a woman sometimes you gotta play stupid she does and she does it to lyra sometimes she plays stupid to her to try and get lyra to trust her ly Lyra, though, no, she's not, right? She discovers all these blueprints in Mrs. Coulter's study, sneaking into it for buildings in the north, which is really interestingly done. We're getting her

being like, what is the station? As the children are told, you're going to the station on the other side. Then Mrs. Coulter goes and burns all the letters and the monkey just watches. Kind of sad. Very sad. Yeah. The monkey and her finally are like, alright, we did our work

and Lyra and Pan start discovering the silver guillotine in the blueprints that they're reading and the letters they're reading while Colter is busy just smiling very softly after burning the letters. It's very chilling. Yeah. She comes home and she and the monkey hurry

to get to the bedroom where Lyra and Pan are sitting so still. They're doing the whole studying thing again. She looks pleased. She's pleased to see Lyra reading, who lies, of course, and pulls it off. The monkey pets Pan and it's very sickening because you see

the monkey hold and pet Pan and it's very much so like a dominant act. Pan submits to the monkey you see a very visible submission from pan i read that scene differently oh the monkey the monkey hesitates before petting pan right and i saw it between that and the look on mrs coulter's face the monkey uh and pan like there is that power dynamic and that pan is submitting but i think i read it as mrs coulter enacting that desire to try and have some sort of intimacy with her daughter and the monkey petting pan as that trying to have that i think we might still see it similarly because i saw that but i also saw like the monkey saying basically you're still mine right like in the last hour that I left you here, nothing changed, right?

Oh, it could be. Yeah. More of like, are you still ours? I don't know. Yeah. That's how I felt about it. The monkey was like, it was more of a let me reassure myself that you are under my dominion. But obviously Lyra and Pan were like, yes, we are.

Smile. Look into camera. camera gotta get the fuck out of here um and then at night time Lyra has gotten smart right like she's safeguarding the room she's got blankets hanging in places she's like don't fucking look at me and she

gets under the table with a blanket over the table and reads the alethiometer and she is just discussing the blueprints with pan and just looking at it and she just doesn't understand anything about it like why the master gave it to her is it to take to asriel and why did the master try to kill asriel then if the alethiometer is for asriel none of it makes sense to her i do just like the way that scene set up it feels very familiar yeah the idea of like hiding under your blanket so your parents don't know that you're

awake secretly still reading me reading these books growing up felt good lord boreal is looking fly in some clothes in our world and then he just goes back through the window to the cool garden then next thing we know there's the party scene yeah he's also at this party he's got an invite but yeah he's totally on the way to this party that's why he passes through that window can't be late adele starminster stylish girl tries to seduce information from lyra who's the very popular person at this party very much so like the books every person is stopping her like oh lyra we've heard all about you like every person at this party knows that lyra is coulter's daughter except lyra that's kind of how it feels they're all like oh we love you lyra we've heard so much about you

we're one of your mom's minions we appreciate you what yeah pretty much adele tells lyra everything she needs to put pieces together on marisa's work so to speak quote unquote i don't really love like i said earlier that we don't see adele getting flirty with the scholars to get information but that's okay whatever uh it's it's just important for lyra's femininity but we'll figure it out going forward i'm sure there'll be something she's an okay journalist but interestingly you know she she's one of the ones who doesn't know that in this version right she doesn't seem to know that Lyra is Mrs. Coulter's daughter because she's like oh that's smart get in close with the gobbler so that they don't take you and Lyra's like what

she's like what the fuck are you talking about like a that would be so smart b if I had done it Like, A, that would be so smart. B, if I had done it. Okay. Lyra, immediately when she leaves the conversation, Coulter's kind of coming towards her, being like, who the fuck is that that was talking to you? Because, you know, Coulter's obsessive, controlling, abusive. And Pan is like, just keep your cool.

Keep your cool. If you keep your cool, we can leave forever. And Lyra's like, yeah, it's fine. I'm getting more ice. And she leaves and just walks straight to the elevator. And she's like, no, we need the alethiometer, Pan. We can't leave it here. So she goes to the bedroom to get it.

And as she's doing that, Coulter is confronting Adele Warminster. And Boreal is there. And he's like, let me just take care of this. This is very much so Peter Baelish in Game of Thrones and Cersei Lannister, right? Like, let me take care of it. Gross. Yeah. This all intercuts with Lyra. She's

climbing outside of the flat during the time that Starminster's being confronted, and Coulter discovers she's gone. Lyra's running on the ground at this point, far and hard. And Boreal is shoving Adele into his car. And she asks him not to hurt her.

He crushes her butterfly demon and he heals over. A lot of people were talking about like, oh, it's stupid. She died, but I didn't think she died. Am I wrong? I don't see her as having died either.

I don't think we're going to get that until a little later. I don't think she's dead. I think, like, you're saying she's unconscious. Yeah, and I don't know. A lot of people were like, oh, like, there was no dazzly, dusty, sparkly people death. But I just didn't feel like it was death, death like just because you crumpled the butterfly yeah in the books right like they don't the demons don't appear to turn into dust before lyra's eyes that's i thought that was just a thing in the golden compass they just disappear

yeah if i'm not mistaken she just sees the demon suddenly disappear i think that what we should get from the scene is not is she dead or what we should get from the scene is not, is she dead or is she unconscious? I think the scene is in many ways for those who have not read the books. It reinforces what we saw when Lyra was attacked earlier and how she felt physical pain when Mrs. Coulter's demon was attacking Pan and that connection between the person and their demon. And then we also also it's not dug into here right and they're showing it as best they can instead of having to just tell the sort of like disgust and surprise yeah on adele's face when lord boreal even holds her demon because that's breaking the great taboo it's huge taboo and it's, I saw a lot of, I saw a discussion going back and forth about this episode.

And someone was like, that's ridiculous. People are calling it sexual assault. And I'm like, it kind of is. It very much so he pushes her in. He's very much so close to being on top of her. And then he crushes her demon.

And he flexes his power. Because again, this episode is all about dominance and control. That's what it feels like. It's all about power. Who has power? Who does not have power? Who has power?

Then it leaves. Whose is fleeting? That's what it feels like. And Adele Starminster is in a position of no power when she's pushed into that car. And then he crushes her demon. It's very much so disgusting. You're supposed to feel sick to your stomach because it's like a violation.

It's a straight violation. And that's what the GOB and all these people are all about. Yeah. And I think that's what the scene is about, showing that it's disgusting and especially hammering that home for audiences who are less familiar.

I mean, we just had priests of the faith show up at Maurice's house and say, hey hey you need to chill because you're out of control and people are noticing and we aren't going to support you if you keep it up and then the gob sat there and threw a party and said okay yeah that's true because that's her sort of amassing that social power again in the face of the magisterium well and then the next scene is such a contrast to mood and tone and just as disgusting and creepy it's a very blank-faced nurse separating the kids to go north they're all going out single file and they're holding each other's shoulders so one hand on the shoulder and it's like i felt very unsettled it was very unsettled imagery we've been talking a lot about some of the trafficking of children not just in the u.s across the whole entire world but just children

and trafficking from many different eras in general whether it's by a government agency whether it's by a religious agency they're both both similar at this time. And it's very unsettling. These kids are just walking out single file and they're just like, yep, keep holding your partner. Keep going. We're taking you somewhere adventurous and fun. It's disgusting. It was very unsettling to watch that again. Yeah. Which is good. It should make everyone uncomfortable. This should be uncomfortable. It should. and how they're just lying to the children and as you see the danger that the children are in lyra and pan having escaped from the party are running around it's dark they haven't found a place to settle yet so they go

uh cry in a doorway about mrs coulter and azrael and then pass out in an alleyway before pan is lured out by a fox demon and a whistling yeah that wailing noise comes up that i can't whistle so just pretend i did but i can only do a very high pitched whistle that summons dogs don't you it would summon the fox demon in this in this state so maybe you should perhaps it would so that guy is kind of the children collector that we've learned, obviously, in the last two episodes. It's very unsettling. I'm very unsettled.

That's me. It's interesting that they went in this direction. This was one of the theories that the Egyptians had of who the gobblers were, or a couple of them did, and they went a very Pied Piper kind of route. Yeah. Especially with the whistling and the music as being part of it and we complained a little bit last episode about it but the coulter establishment of her with the letters and the children in the beginning and her getting the

kids in the very beginning of the story and then working to her like burning the letters and you you see that before she meets lyra so we know know of the fear and the association with Coulter and how like, oh no, Lyra, stay away from her. But you can't do anything. You're a reader. So you watch Lyra fall from grace, no pun with the story intended, to Coulter and kind of be like,

oh, she's so great and amazing. And it's different how they're doing it this time. I didn't like it last week. Now that I've seen that second episode, I feel fine with it. I'm not mad about it. I'm going to let it ride time. I didn't like it last week. Now that I've seen that second episode, I feel fine with it. I'm not mad about it. I'm going to let it ride out. I mean, I watched Game of Thrones, you guys.

So... Yeah, I think they did a good job of how you're taken through the mounting horror of Mrs. Coulter at the same time as Lyra is. And I feel like that is something that makes me more critical about these changes, right, from book to show, because I did watch Game of Thrones. I have watched the His Dark Materials Golden Compass movie. I've seen bad adaptations. I've seen things traded out for shock value. And I don't think they're doing shock value with a lot of these things that could be turned into it. I think they're doing it right. into it i think they're uh i think they're doing it right yeah and i think part of how you know they're not just doing it as shock value is they're introducing elements that could be seen as a twist or shocking earlier on right it's episode two yeah and they're like all right we're doing the world building of their windows now yeah i really won't be surprised if we end with the bomb or we end with Lyra in the cave in season 2 at this point.

I feel like they're really throttling ahead. Yeah, I think it's gonna be the cave. It just makes more sense to me as a good ending point. It feels like a really good cliffhanger and like I said, I feel like Pullman might have had some direction too in saying, why don't you do this? This would be better.

He might be able to correct himself. Yeah, I could see the bomb being end of season three, especially if they're splitting the Golden Compass and the other book into two. But we'll see. We'll see what they do. We'll see. Well, Aliana, what an episode. I give it, dude, I might give it a nine or a 10. It was up there.

It was very good for a second episode I was just freaking on it I was sitting here just on the edge of my seat going wow what a great change wow they incorporated this holy shit that happened wow Ruth Wilson that was me the whole episode

I think that some people felt that the first episode was too too fast right maybe too plot heavy I don't know. And I think that this episode slowed it down and just did a really good job of setting things up, especially with Mrs. Coulter

and just investing in her character. I think that sometimes first episodes can just be weak, also, in general, right? They're just trying to lift a lot. Not for this show, for a lot of other shows. I didn't think the first episode was weak. I greatly enjoyed it. And this has been such a promising second episode. Yeah, I feel like the first episode, I know I've said it, so I guess I have a formal apology to make. Last episode, I said I felt like the first episode was tame.

Now watching the first and second episode in secession i take it back i feel like it's not tame i feel like the second episode they wilded the fuck out and i feel like these two together are perfect two hours of amazing television that really is good storytelling it's i'm not a stickler for you know like oh you changed it from the book when it comes to adapting right and they're adapting correctly they are adapting things correctly they're keeping the tone some of the changes they've made with her work

because it keeps that feeling that she's this tragic awful woman that like you want to feel bad for but you know she's garbage and you're conflicted it's not just her who's conflicted in this story it's us we're conflicted about these characters and they're conflicted it's not just her who's conflicted in this story it's us, we're conflicted about these characters and they're selling it

Asriel is still probably the biggest weak spot for me, hopefully next week speaking of weak spot they will put some of him in there because there was no Asriel this week but I do worry that I won't give a fuck about Asriel still, ever yeah

but that is what it is, I guess. I think it's fine to not. I say nine. I say nine. Nine out of ten. What does it take to get a ten? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know that things will ever be perfect. But I think I just come at a lot of media, for the most part, of there's a saying when people are doing public speak or something, right? Like, the audience is on your side. They want you to succeed because they don't want to have to fucking sit through something that's terrible.

For a lot of media, right? I'm on your side. I want this to succeed. I want to like it. And I do. I think that I'm really enjoying what we're getting out of His Dark Materials right now. Absolutely. Well, you guys, thank you so much for listening. we will be back

next week as well with another episode of his dark materials girls gone canon watches his dark materials if you have not already make sure you check out our social media we are on twitter as at girls gone canon c-a-n-o-n where you can tweet at us, DM us, you name it, and talk about the episodes. But you can also send us an email over at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com if you so choose. Send us something about the episode, and you might hear yourself featured next week.

Yes, and of course, keep up with us. We don't only cover historic materials. We started out doing a podcast, rereading the A Song of Ice and Fire books by each character's combined point of view chapters. So keep up with that and our watch of the His Dark Materials season one on Spotify, on Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, Acast, and of course, where all of this is hosted podbean yeah we have a handful

of other places that are popping up people say you can check us out there too hopefully probably i don't know we also have a patreon patreon.com slash girls gone canon we're still working at our patreon episode for the month we will have that announced very soon for you. It may be something to do with a song of ice and fire this month. However, anyone that is a fan of the His Dark Materials series, we did just finish Northern Lights slash The Golden Compass, if you have the

US version. And we may be doing lantern slides soon. We would love to tear those apart, so keep an eye out for that, His Dark Materials fans. Yes. and of course i have been one of your hosts eliana and i have been another one of your hosts chloe goodbye everyone lara oh my god goodbye