Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Series 2 Episode 3 - Theft

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

Lyra and Will aren't just stealing our hearts this season: There's another thief with a snake daemon stealing the alethiometer from our beloved heroes. In another world, characters get ready for war and even clash unexpectedly to talk love, hurt, and the value of a life.   Cassidy's Birb Thread --- 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, and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Watches His Dark Materials, Series 2, Episode 3, Theft. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Aliana. Yes, season two, episode three, depending on who you are, where you are in the world. Yeah, episode three, Theft, we are getting into the thick of it, of this book. We're looking at chapters, you know, five, six, seven, this kind of range, and not a lot happened in this episode. I don't mean that in a negative way, but it did feel lots of setup, lots of filler.

Yeah, I think in the previous two episodes, right, we're doing the establishment of Will and Lyra's connection and then the world building for Chittagaze and we get more world building here and then Lyra's dynamics, right, in Will's world slash our world and this is now

the setup for the plot of the season slash book. For us to get to the climax, we have to get on in there, get some alethiometers stolen, deal with some sad rubble, and deal with some other stuff that we're going to get into. So spoiler scope for this episode, if you are listening to us cover His Dark Materials, the TV show, we will cover the main books, the main trilogy, that is Northern Lights or The Golden Compass, depending on where you're from, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. We also may have some light hints about Books of Dust as we go along.

Today we will not have a dust-scussion, which is where we usually spoil the heck out of the books of dust. There's not a lot I want to dust-scuss today with you all, but there is a couple, just a couple small details I'm going to spew throughout the text, so we'll get there. Yes. So, let's just dive into it. We start off the episode with the aftermath of what has happened. Last episode, as the witches survey the lost, we have Seraphina's voiceover on finding Lyra, being very important, of course, that plays over the scene, while Mrs. Coulter also stares down in her round red hat, and Seraphina saying that they must find Lyra.

Seraphina's hand is surveying the damage. We get a good look at Lena Felt, who in the books is the witch who's tortured. So I'm curious to see, we haven't met Judah Cominen at all yet, but I'm curious if they're going to move the role of killing Jopari to Lena possibly? I'm not sure. We haven't seen enough there, but she was kind of a focal point of this scene. Yeah, and I think that it could be interesting. They might even change the motivations for the death of Jopari. As we've discussed, we have Ruta hardly even bringing up Asriel, if at all, so far, which I think has been a fantastic change.

So to change the murderer of Jopari's motivations, I think, it could potentially be a very welcome change on my part. My thing is they have to. Yeah, I mean, they've already started adapting the witch plot in really great ways. This destruction, this aftermath we're seeing, this all flows really well in the plot.

And you can tell that they've given Ruta Scotty a lot more already this season to go off of rather than just, Asriel and I were lovers once and we have to fight for Asriel he's gonna save the worlds they've changed that already and they've changed it for the better so I am no pressure guys over at the HGM world no pressure but I'm you have to you have to fix it you have to do something here that will make me happy so i expect it i expect it yeah you know the fogs are rising here in this destruction as they're looking around at the blackened trees and plants uh all that death of knowledge if you think about

the tree of knowledge we were talking about with our friend lo the fogs are rising but there hasn't been a mention yet about these rising fogs specifically. There is a very small mention we'll get to later with Lise Scoresby, but still nothing. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. Ah, there is. That's right. We start getting more of it and maybe it'll come through more in this upcoming episode, right?

For episode four, especially since they've been alluding much more to Will's age. But in general, you know, the witches here, they are angry and grief-stricken. They are ready for revenge for pretty obvious reasons. But Lyra comes first for Seraphina. Yes, and not only does she come first here, but she comes next in the next scene because we get Lyra, as we move on to the next scene ignoring the alethiometer's warnings it tells her not to go to Will's world again but she steps through on her own anyway she packs it up leaves him a note Pan even says to her don't do it this is a bad

idea and Lyra's like think I'm gonna do it yeah I think that the show makes it more explicit when Pan's like the alethiometer is pretty clear on what we need to do it yeah i think that the show makes it more explicit when pan's like the alethiometer is pretty clear on what we need to do interpretations of the alethiometer seem i think clearer in the show right versus lyra being like he's a good murderer but that's mostly in her head the good kind in the book versus it sounds like that's a shade of the interpretation here and i also just want to point out the lyra flicking like her damp hands at pan every now and then because I'm five years old uh I do that to people oh I do that to my partner all the time yeah that's who that's who uh incurs yeah who people is yeah I figure people is your partner

yeah I do that to my partner often I usually use the ha-choo uh as a joke yeah so try that one out if you get a second just straight up you know when you're shaking your hands out just ha-choo as a joke. Yeah, so try that one out if you get a second. Just straight up, you know, when you're shaking your hands out, just ha-choo and sneeze all over him. Get him. It's my favorite. I don't do that because I feel like it'll telegraph it and I really, you know, want to get it in there. Surprise.

There's a lot of really good visual stuff happening here. Lyra watches Will through the window floorboard again that we see right in the last episode will watched her from the floorboard and she watches him now through that devastates me every time devastating yeah it is and something i was thinking about is that the quilts that will has are patchwork quilts and they're very bright that are over him he's very cute very asleep you could say they're multi-colored patchwork quilts like kajava his demon eventually multi-colored uh as that means in finnish we were reminded by candid 59 last week talking about that but i actually think the patchwork especially i mean his cat was a patchwork cat. Oh, I didn't think about that or notice that. Yes,

absolutely. There's so much building up to what Whale's Demon is going to be like, and I guess that makes sense because we keep talking about him being on the crux of adulthood. Some of the most amazing shots of Chidagatse happen right here. We get a topward pan down view of all of the staircases, the ones we're very accustomed to from the intro, obviously, here in Shidigase, though, and Lyra goes up. I find the floor plan really interesting, and this is because I've spent a lot of time with The Sims 4 and their new platform feature for building. So please disregard, but I am now into architecture is what I'm trying to tell you all. I'm a professional in The Sims 4. But the floor plan is really weird

because all of those levels of stairs have, at different points, have arches that you can go through. So it kind of works out to be different floors and mirrors that many worlds that we see in the introduction, right? Where the worlds collapse in on themselves and become smaller. It kind of mirrors that with this stacked kind of feel. And when we're coming out of that aerial pan over the city, it seems like Lyra is coming out of the arch she climbed up to. So it almost exists like a subfloor of Chittagatse, almost like how a subway would be set up with the different

elevations of the weird city thing of Chittagatse and parts of the floor are kind of open for the tops of the buildings to peek through. I feel like it's interesting because we get the shot of the tower, the Tour de l'Angely, in this pan overview. And I'm intrigued because later on in the episode, Angelica says to Will,

there is no in and no out to that tower. So that kind of subway feel and how there's different levels, it shows the tower being at the highest most, peeking through at the highest most, and there's no entrance in or out. It's implying, and especially here, that you're going to have to use a window or an arch, as Lyra's currently using an arch,

but it's implying they're going to have to get a window in. Yeah, I don't think I remember that being from the book. So that's an interesting addition. And, you know, this is dumb, but every now and then I still keep... This is not dumb. So I am still continuing to just play through passively Breath of the Wild.

It's what I do in the background while I'm editing episodes to an extent. Keep having to pause for obvious reasons. I'm just like, I don't understand the problem. Can't I just like, fly up to it? Going through the window, just hop up? Anyway. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, there's a lot of interesting architecture. And I'm just like, I feel like Will could have picked a different room, right? Because he's just sleeping on the floor. Weren't there other beds in this home? There were so many rooms.

Anyway. Lyra steps through a window instead of just peering through one. She steps through the window on her own and right behind her there is this artwork on the wall. Kind of like a stone cave drawing-esque thing. Game of Thrones fans, don't think about it they meant nothing uh but there's art of shirigate with the tour d'alien julie on top in the stone building where she enters the window and it has a lot of book of dust vibes going on i won't go too far with it but if you look i believe the his dark materials twitter account actually just posted um a nice bright vibrant photo of it where

you can see a little more detail but it has roses all over it creeping up chita got say and not only roses but even the architecture in the city like the cafes it's a lot of redstone which is used a lot in the books of dust in the secret commonwealth so we'll get to that someday i'm excited i i think it has to be uh candid 59 was just yelling about it online and i was yelling with them because it feels i mean they all read the books we know they have we know they're out there we know they're they're getting little pics little peeks at the architecture so it's great and it also looks like our album cover by the way for our little podcast thing we do here every week every week yes looks like our little art it was a really beautiful mural i didn't notice the roses and i haven't taken a look at what they posted on the

social media account yet but i wonder if it's like i want to say it was her dark materials i don't remember who it was they were doing an analysis sort of chitagatse i think as a sleeping city and it makes me think of you know the the vines over and if you're saying that i i don't know what it looks like exactly the roses over it but like sleeping beauty city and things like that kingdom oh that's really interesting like to combine that i wonder if they'll talk about it this week i'll have to listen after this it might not have been them it might have been a different cast and i'm so sorry to both if i am getting this wrong and yes but it was a nice art you know people like their city in general hopefully uh even though their city's like kind of fucked up but i mean it is right it's it's in disarray a lot of things are bad right now they used to have

risotto now they don't uh jopari summons lee with the little navajo ring and then lee's balloon begins moving in a quicker direction and hester wakes up to tell him to get it together oh my gosh hester is a high point of every Lee scene in my opinion. She is, Cristela Alonso does an amazing job, but she cracked me up in this as well. She was sassing him and she actually looks like my cat Alysanne, but as a rabbit, if you do not look at her head, don't look at her ears in this scene, but when she is leaning up on the rim of the balloon and her little body is all like long instead of normal and on four legs i was like is that my cat it looks just like my cat uh so i love hester i like that i have a

lot to say about the navajo ring but i'm gonna bring it up later so we can keep going but they are definitely looking for mr gruman yeah and then they show like the return going all over in the wind and i was like watching the leaves all move from that house. I was like, did they just have a camera there filming that house for a whole day or for several days, hoping for that one shot of the wind blowing everything in the correct direction? I mean, that's how B-roll, I assume, works regardless. I was just like, who's the person who watched until that happened? regardless it was just like who's the person who watched until that happened and yeah joe parry also has his uh just because i'm talking about zelda his triforce ring he does you know he could have been a fan based on when he disappeared oh my god he probably is

he probably played it on n64 at least possibility if you look at his tattoos i i was kind of looking at all the different shapes and the ring is it looks kind of like almost like a celtic knot oh that's probably more real closer i'm interested you can't see them very well and i know there's been a lot of promotional material that's being posted of him so i can probably get a better look but i'd like to look at them more he really though does look like the guy that would totally wear the stoner sweatshirt that every skateboarding guy in your high school would have worn the one with the threads the multi-colored looking one yeah yeah we talked about that in the trailer episodes and I think turns out it does it's not exactly

that sweater but that's definitely what I thought it was at the beginning oh i thought it was for sure like you know that he also probably used to go to skate parks when he was like 17 years old yeah he uses those skills to go exploring i don't think i'm joking i think i might be serious no i am too i mean i can see that being useful you know that that like athletic adventurous spirit and doing kickflips and not to get into it too much but that is what they wanted him to be right like as we met the grandparents last episode and we kind of mentioned they wanted him to be the

preppy jock kid and get all the the straight A's and get the scholarships for sports probably be a fucking football hero is probably what they hoped in their heart of hearts and then the motherfucker did not the motherfucker was like I'm dropping out of ivy league college to go find myself do ayahuasca somewhere where you guys can't find me yeah he was like fuck this tony hawk pro skater uh i could see will on a skateboard too will awakens though and as he's sleeping he also

interestingly is having a vision. He's seeing visions of his dad in the videos, the tower, his mother's words echoing in his ears. He wakes up and comes to the conclusion that his dad is still alive. He rushes to find Lyra to ask for help from the alethiometer. And then he can't find Lyra. He freaks out and then totally misses the message that she left for him. I have a couple thoughts here, which first, I was screaming because this is a classic trope right and she put it right there on the counter and he looked everywhere but the counter it wasn't like a bad place to put it i was just like is should she have picked a different place to put it i'm like no that was a perfectly

reasonable area to put it now she probably should have just put it on him but she also wanted to avoid confrontation obviously because she might have w she knew she shouldn't be going alone. Yeah, exactly. So she did the best she could with her plotting and scheming, in my opinion. I like that he immediately looks for Lyra, and it was very sad, right? Because, of course, she's off disobeying the original plan and accidentally giving him away in the process. And he's so excited to share this information with her because he finally has someone to share this information with he has no one else close in his life he doesn't have pan

you know he doesn't have his demon yet he can't talk to people so i was uh very sad i was like oh oh yeah so excited yeah and he's been alone for a long time and it's just another thing and after lyra you, has promised to not leave him. And then she's like, I'm not gonna leave you, but BRB. Little shit. Also, like, it's better. She should have waited. She knows better. I mean, we've had this discussion before.

Damn it, Lyra. She knew what she was up to and that's why she flicks water at Pan. She's sinning. She wanted to go taste the fruit. The fruit of knowledge, man. Indeed. You know, that first shot we get of Will, him laying there is actually through railing

and it looks like we're watching him through windows once more. So well spot there. And I don't know, I really like this more active role he's playing with the letters from his father. He seems to comprehend the letters now. He's trying to at least and understanding why they're important. I really like the use of Jopari sending visions and summoning that we're starting to get because it's very obvious now that this has to be Jopari likely giving him some visions. It feels stronger than the book version of Will with the letters. This idea that he comes to the

conclusion of Jopari being alive feels really important. And I also love that they reinforce Jopari's love for Elaine in these memories that he's suddenly hearing. I'm curious what they'll do with his death, as we mentioned earlier with the Judah versus maybe Lena conversation. I think they're going to have to be a little more imaginative for sure. And one of the letters will is reading that his father sent to his mother uh there's one that was similar from the book this is one of the letters he closes it with wish me luck my darling i'll bring you back a trophy from the spirit world i love you forever kiss the boy for me johnny so i feel like in the actual show version they're really capturing that emotion uh they're definitely making me feel closer to that relationship or closer to him and his relationship with Elaine.

Yeah. And, you know, now that you pointed out, there's another sort of aspect that the letters add that intimacy, right? Because Will's been watching a lot of, in the past, interviews with his father. of in the past interviews with his father and that's not the same as this really personal love you know those those love letters that joe parry we keep calling him joe that is also his name uh and and elaine had so that's a great point and that's that he has like eight names okay he does including apparently heretic according to some. But... Yeah, airmail paper. That is what it is. You are correct. Yeah, I think that was the chapter.

You're right, they're giving him a more active role there. And I think that's a thing that happens well in a lot of, I think, cinematic adaptations. I have thoughts about that when it comes to crazy rich asians and anyway uh different different story entirely mary tries to communicate with dust she has many notes and i didn't take pictures of the notebook this time because i was lazy um and some of the most

important one just pretty strange for it it said make words that's that's what it said there's also the divination alethiometer and the e-jing moments yeah the make words i almost kind of like glossed over it because that's what lyra tells her right and she she's doing this she's looking in her notebook, like, what did Lyra say? What did Lyra say? And she's trying to re-emulate what Lyra did with the dust. So she's in her notes and one of them, I didn't look at the equations also, because it seemed they were all kind of redundant, same stuff already that we've talked about. So you know, equations, math, science, I'm good. But make words coming up felt significant to me. Make words is what Lyra did with it. She made it make words.

But it also reminds me of something that becomes pretty significant in the Amber Spyglass with Mary's story and with Lyra's story with the freeing of the spirits. We have in the Amber Spyglass's passage. Some of them came toward Mary as if they wanted to tell her something and reached out their hands, and she felt their touch like little shocks of cold. One of the ghosts, an old woman, beckoned, urging her to come close. Then she spoke and Mary heard her say, tell them stories. They need the truth. You must tell them true stories and everything will be well. Just tell them stories stories and that's what that made me think of make words made me think of tell them stories absolutely yeah and you know that's i think

one of the most iconic lines and passages right from the book people have grown up quoting that line and because that's something that really speaks to people tell them stories yeah i mean that's how cultures are passed on and that's how cultures sometimes can be preserved. Yeah. And that is a big part of, as we'll see, that will build up in this and especially in the Amber Spyglass. But we get a little bit in Mary's story during the subtle knife. But I don't know if that's coming forward as much here with the discussions that she

would have with Oliver, right? And telling them that, like, oh, this is a skull from 33,000 years ago, right? And then all of those things that we've noticed in terms of that timeline. Yeah, you know, now that you say that, I kind of forgot about that being an important thing. I mean, in the books, it's not as much it's an important thing, but as much as like, it's a fact that's disputing, obviously, what the Magisterium is saying.

Yeah. And it proves, it's disproving the Magisterium. So that feels really big in the books. And it feels like such a recurring line of thought that comes up, oh, throughout, even back in the Books of Dust, right? Like back in La Belle Sauvage for Malcolm, we're hearing about it too. So, yeah, I find that really interesting that that isn't being adapted here and we don't actually hear much about that in this it might get adapted well I this would be I guess the time to drop it in and it was sort of kind of like an

easter egg or like hey isn't this interesting that all these are happening at the same amount of time but it might be something that they're saving to play up more in the Amber Spyglass. And by that I mean Season 3. Season 2, sorry. Yeah, so until then, Miri attaches the nodes, the little node-y thingies to the Iijing box. It doesn't really give her

much, and I just wanted to point out something that it occurred to me later on, is that we talk a lot about the imagery that's in the opening credits, which the lyrics in the opening credits, and I don't think we got to talk about this last week, and we'll probably talk about it more next week as the subtle knife comes forward in the story. Lorne Balfe posted the lyrics to that, and it actually seems like a Latin version or translation of the spell that is used to close Will's wound, but we'll talk about that more later. Anyways, the imagery in the opening sequence, right, it's got all those different lines of dust, but also lines showing us the worlds, but in a way it kind of almost looks like the I Ching, right? We're seeing it here in the lines on the computer monitor as well, and it's another thing that's just like bringing

all of that imagery together in the series. Yeah, I didn't really ever connect the bundles of the sticks that you cast for the I Ching with that, so I found that absolutely neat when they showed it in the dust. I was like, ah, everything is connected.

Literally all matter is connected. Everything is part of the matter of the universe. Well, all of her fun with this big breakthrough she's so on the verge of gets ended because she goes back to her office and the music's amazing here, right? The music underneath is really interesting and you're really pumped and she opens the back to her office, and the music's amazing here, right? The music underneath is really interesting, and you're really pumped, and she opens the door to her office,

and D.I. Walters, Detective Inspector Walters, is waiting for her about her visitor yesterday. So he's waiting for her, and he's also waiting for Lyra to show up, which she does. Lizzie shows up. She saves face for the most part, including saying, D. including saying di mustache has a wonderful mustache which was great but this is pretty much from the books right what happens

here uh they go back and forth and well we'll get to that we didn't address our favorite moments from the episode this time but this is my this is my favorite moment from this episode. Lyra looking upwards and saying, what a wonderful mustache. Just don't admit she says it. That's my favorite moment. I guess my favorite would probably be that too, but also Pan earlier with the

bag, he goes, when do I get to get out of the bag or something like that? He's like, do I have to get in the bag? And then she just closes it on him. If he had just stayed in the goddamn bag the whole time, maybe we wouldn't be having this issue.

But he had to go out because she was like, Pan, I need help. Yeah, no, that's true. Double-edged sword. Double-edged sword. Which I have thought, but yeah, the mustache. What a wonderful mustache. mustache just the delivery everything all of this delivery here for her is amazing though daphne's like really good in this scene there's a couple scenes actually this episode she really held the line but i actually

like something subtler in this scene which is mary mary's role here is she repeats a couple of different things and she says shouldn't we wait for her parents? This feels inappropriate. Lizzie is welcome in my office anytime. I thought that was really big that they're showing that kind of almost guardian role that Mary is playing and kind of the obviously we know she's going to play the serpent. We'll talk about the serpent with her later. But the guardian role she's playing here was really interesting and I like how

much more they attacked it. They even play it up right from the beginning, right? When D.I. Walters comes in and he says, hi, I'm D.I. Walters, when she arrives back to her office, reminding us of his name. Chloe has remembered his name from previous episodes, but here he's really telling us, y'all, I have a name. And then before Lyra even gets to mary's office she tries to shove her back in the elevator she's like you gotta go and then unfortunately that plan doesn't work but yeah and then as you said she's

showing that guardianship and then even plays a much more active role in helping lyra escape because she like pulls the i Walters aside and then motions to Lyra like, run now. Yeah. And of course, Lyra accidentally gives away Will in this time because DI Walters kind of tricks her. He does the thing that the lawyer in Legally Blonde does when he's questioning the pool boy and just suddenly like puts out that other question real quickly yeah exactly you know he's using her she's hopped up on adrenaline which is obvious by staring at her

acting here and she like makes faces we'll talk about that in a second it's so funny but she like is kind of hopped up he can tell she's got nerves because she knows she's fucked because there's a detective in here which is exactly what Will warned her about exactly what Will's been saying don't run off on your own about and be smart about and here she is with the worst fear but he does trick her like that is

trickery and that's probably why more for me like i'm like wow mary good for you because it is inappropriate he is tricking her he is using tactics on a little girl that like you know are trying to trick her into things and mary buys her that second of time and she bolts and we get the other best thing which the porter of this oxford yells no running as they run by fucking classic i lost it laughing at that i was like beautiful beautiful i know that was funny and yeah he does that and he even calls her Lyra not he doesn't just bring up Will but then uses her name and then that's like a tip off of like you fucked up but isn't it Lyra yeah and then it's like oh and then yeah the the porter it's funny because he kind of

just like let Lyra run because I guess he's like whatever kids and then he sees the man running and then he's like no running he decides maybe I should tell everyone to stop or else next thing we know we're gonna have a bunch of people running and actually at first later on we see the porter again in shadow asking Mary if they find the girl and I thought it was Philip Pullman in like a cameo but it's not and I'm just like when are we gonna get Philip Pullman in a cameo have we already I don't know I don't know if he's that kind of guy. I don't think so. But I also am like, how could you not be that kind of guy? You know what I mean?

This is your baby. How could you not be? I mean, it's your baby. You have to be that guy. That's my favorite thing until, you know, recently when he passed. That was my favorite thing about all of the Marvel movies and stuff. The little cameo from stan lee and i'd

always be like there he is yes you know it would always get me exciting and make me feel really empathetic towards it like like oh he could be a person just like me who built this huge empire and didn't fuck over jack kirby anyways yeah but i just like the easter egg of like he's there no i do too, yeah. And also, I mean, George R. R. Martin did it with Game of Thrones. Come on, Pullman, what are you gonna be? I bet he's gonna be the first Mulefa. Yes, George R. R. Martin did. He was super excited

about it and then he got cut out. Which is sad. He was really excited and loves posting that picture of himself. I love posting that picture of him. Well, until then, Lyra is saved, allegedly, by Lord Boreal after she runs through the streets. And he comes up in a really creepy way. You know, this is like a thing where children in our world are taught this. Lyra apparently was not, right?

Because he comes up and he's like, oh, do you need a ride in the car? And Pan ends up being trapped outside. apparently was not right because he comes up and he's like oh do you need a ride in the car and pan's trapped out ends up being trapped outside he has to like fly in his bird form to urgently keep up in the car i'm just like you don't get get in cars with strangers all right like one time i wasn't even that young but and maybe they were just being nice but someone like offered me a ride i was like no i said it in a nice way but like you don't if they don't say watermelon bubble gum to me I don't get in that car even if they do that definitely don't get it you know none of it just don't get a

stranger's car now I especially can't get in that car if they say watermelon bubble gum now they put it out on air that was my safe car word as a kid yeah it's uh it's really creepy and predatory. It's predatory, which, of course, if we look back at season one, at series one with him and the journalist, he's playing with his food, right? He's playing with his prey, just like he did with the journalist in series one. And he tells her to put her seatbelt on very forcefully. And then when she does put it on, it does that thing that seatbelts do sometimes where you can't like move in them. They've locked up really tightly against you. Yes. Oh, I hate that.

Yes. And that further kind of secured that severing imagery with Pan being outside and her being inside. Yes. And Daphne does an amazing job here. And like I said, the prior scene when she's faking being Lizzie, she has her face is like a mask. She's smiling and saying things so sweetly. It very coulter-esque again but here in boreal's car it's the opposite she's doing the opposite she's giving her lines that she knows she has to say to boreal while he asks these questions but she's looking behind her painfully watching pan and it's pretty

obvious that boreal knows that pan's outside because he knows exactly who she is and he can see the bird in his rear view because if you're driving a car you can see what's in your rear view mirror so again playing with his food that's a good point about the severing like there's a lot of anxiety there for you know are they going to be pulled too far apart with pan trying to keep up and you know there is a trick but she wouldn you know, there is a trick, but she wouldn't know it. There is a trick to dealing with the seatbelt when it tightens up. What? There is. I'll teach it to all of you in a second.

But you were talking about the windows and then looking through them and that sort of imagery earlier on for Will, but then we kind of get that with Boreal here, right? We keep looking at him and his eyes, looking back at Lyra through the rearview mirror lens yeah and it's super super creepy big creep vibes and another thing is like i was thinking regarding that seat belt boreal is in a way tipping his hand here with lyra and she doesn't notice tipping his hand that he knows that she's not from this world because she's too nervous to notice. And it comes through in that it's weird, in my opinion, for someone to very, very so explicitly direct you and tell you where the seatbelt is in the car like that.

Just like first thing, you know, like where it is. Because as people who have all grown up in this world, such as ours, i think it's kind of common knowledge for most of us of where we should anticipate the seat belt being she like didn't move at first and most of us know like the general direction of where to reach but boreal knows she doesn't know where the seat belt is so that's why he directs it and i think that's just another way that lyra in this moment right she's still too naive she's not as clever as she thought, which I think is part of what this episode is showing. And she's resets the locking mechanism once it's put all the way back in. And then you can pull it back out and your seatbelt will be fine again. But how would she know that?

She wouldn't know that. I mean, many people. I didn't even know that. Yeah, in this world. Do not know that. I usually just literally unplug it, replug it in, pull out a handful of times and then give up. No, you just have to do it for the most part one time. Let it go all the way back in,

and then you can pull it back out, and it should be fine. But anyway, seatbelts. They also really have to play up her nervousness, I think, in this scene about being chased, and of course, anxiety of Pan trying to keep up, and her insistence

in her trying to get out of the car. And that helps set up why she forgets her bag because they, it's a necessary change that they have to make from the books because it's also a minor change in which Charles Latrim is the driver for this fancy ass car, which by the way, has now finally been cleaned. It seems to me and versus he had a driver, if I'm not mistaken, in the book. And he was in the backseat with Lyra, which is also kind of creepy. All of it doesn't stop being creepy.

And so, I mean, I guess his demon could have gone in her bag for it, but that helps explain it versus yeah how it plays out he asks lyra if she had learned more about the skulls and he feeds her a little bit of bullshit about his collecting and yada yada and she's not paying attention as we said because she's like my demon uh and also as we mentioned no she has not learned more about the skulls and the seatbelt she asks to be dropped off she's kind of starting to freak out more and more he's getting creepier and creepier and there's an obvious power imbalance going on she begs him to let her out and in the process she forgets her bag he steals the

alethiometer then calling her back to take the bag and tearing off before she can say anything and i really really like how they open this with her forgetting Pan. Not forgetting, but Pan's on the outside of the car, right? So she gets into the car, Pan's on the outside, is what it is. But it ends with her forgetting her bag at the end instead. Yeah. When she gets Pan back. Well, she has to forget her bag because, like, I mean, it's not as important to some extent if your demon's not in it. But I was so, yeah, I was so nervous about Pan not being in there.

And I was like, why doesn't she, like track of that or she was too nervous but i think at the same time now that i think about it i'm like how do you explain to people like hang on hold up this bird is gonna come with me in the car like in our world i don't know how i'd be like wait this animal is coming in the car with me this pigeon everyone would be like that pigeon can't be in my car and i'd be like yes it can they'd be like no i mean it can be but it shouldn't be yeah they'd be like get that you can't be in my car anyway well speaking of pigeons so i'm really interested in Pan's birdness here. Demon Corner.

First, the first bird when they're being chased by D.I. Walters is a black-billed magpie, common in the UK. And of course, when you think about the magpie city, right, Chittagatse, I love that they chose the magpie for this. Magpies are very common, though, so it's not really a big deal. The second bird, I'm not 100% sure. I spent a good amount of time today talking to our friend Cassidy, one of our patrons over on Discord about this,

because they are our bird person. But it looks like a Carolina wren, almost, which would kind of connect to Mary's wrens when we meet her. Cassidy thought that it was a chaffinch but I don't know it kind of looks like a mishmash of just like a plain bird you know it's just like your plain garden variety brown bird with a light chest Cassidy actually made this really great list uh they've started doing a list of the birds in the show the demons in the show and they sent it over so like john fa has a hooded crow tony costas demon is a sparrowhawk ma costas is a goshawk benjamin de ruders was a eurasian

kestrel the masters of course is a common raven john perry's is an osprey and pan has been an arctic tern in series one and now a black-billed magpie and a chaffinch. Interesting. Interesting. And of course, I guess we know quite a few of the witches. They're pretty clearly defined as well. I think Cassidy's going to have to take some time to do all those, but I can't wait. There's too many witches. Well, speaking of people who fly, or things that fly, we have Lee Scoresby, who's now landing off of the Yenisei River.

He and Hester search for more info on Stanislaus Grumman. He starts in the Samirsky Hotel, which he's like, I got a good feeling about this place. And it's like, he always has good feelings about places and they're always wrong and hester tells him that too and anyways it implies that we finally landed in nova zembla lee has to schmooze with the locals for info and he opens this with listening to a very boring conversation in hopes of getting more info and there are quite obviously some other magisteria men listening in during this yes it's a cute scene at one point i like in the boring conversation a you can tell he's very bored and he says to the guy he's like now that we're such good friends and then pours him

more drink and tries to get it's pretty classic like that is pretty much lee going places buying people alcohol to get answers and i I love it. I love it. Very much like Lin-Manuel very much embodies that once upon a time in the North Lee. Yeah, it's very, that's the Lee that we're getting in this story. We move over to Mary Malone very briefly, and she is asking what matters? Literally, she's asking the cave, the dark matter machinery in the cave, if Lyra is safe, but gets no response. Yeah, we'll come back to that later. But right now, Will thinks that he sees Lyra, and turns out it's Angelica wearing a very, very similar outfit.

Yes, she is wearing the blue, the Lyra blue. Will ends up seeing someone up in the Tour d'Angely. The person looks like they're dancing, so obviously it's probably Tulio up there with the knife. We get a little info dump about the guild and how they own the tower and how there is no way in or out, like we said. Angelica tells him that he needs a plan for aging up because he's getting pretty close. Getting pretty close. Yeah. I think this scene was good for an info dump about the guild, especially as we work up towards next week, right? A little expositions needed for the guild of the Tour d'Angely. It does have a purpose. It did feel like a little weak scene. I'm not sure what didn't connect. It might have just been a little awkwardly shot or I don't know, but it was just a weak spot of the episode for me. But it was so quick that I can't complain too much, right was just like oh okay info dump yep puberty yep okay next yeah i think it was just like the dynamic

between the characters and maybe it's supposed to be like that i don't know it makes sense as an info dump this is also i think the second time so far that they really really pointed out will's age and therefore vulnerability to the specters and it's kind of got me thinking that there's a potential that this will actually be a driving force for why he needs the knife versus the other reason we get at the end of this episode. It might not be. And I do think that the show did a good job of setting this up in season one in terms of some of the differences from the books. Like, people's demons settle, I think, in general, different ages of adolescence throughout the series, but Lyra's and a few kids seem to settle

at around between the ages of 11 and 13-ish in the His Dark Materials series. But actually, Alice Parslow's demon in La Belle Sauvage isn't settled yet and she's about like 15 or 16 so there's a bit of flexibility there and I think that's about Will's age in the show and it ends up being quite consistent with the way that it's been presented in the first season with the gyptians and their demon settling ceremony celebrating Tony Costa because he's like, I think about Will's age, a little bit older, I would say, than it seems than Amir Wilson.

But around that. Yeah, good point. I think they've really portrayed that well. And, you know, as I learned when I was young, girls mature sometimes before boys. I don't know. I really don't know, actually. We say that and

we're like yeah i love to flick water at my partner you said that and all i could think about when you told me that was we watched panyo yesterday as our uh little thanksgiving post thanksgiving treat with the family we all watched panyo and uh she spits water at people when she's unhappy and that's all i could think of in that scene. That's it. I don't do that, at least. Lyra and Will are so scampagno. Interesting. They come from different worlds, they're in love.

Oh. I hope the ending is what happens for Will and Lyra in the end. End, end. Well, we're back to Mary trying to speak to Dust. She's trying again, asking if Lyra's safe, still getting nothing. And as she leaves, there's a man who works for the college, George, who's outside, who says, No sign of the kid, huh? And she's taken a little off guard by it.

And she's like, oh, yeah, sure, whatever. Back in the cave, while this is going on, the screen has lit up. It's illuminated with a serpent. Yeah, and that means many, many different things. I think you pointed out something earlier in regards to, Miriam will come back to that, that I thought was interesting that could be part of this. But I think the most obvious associations for this episode, of course, are the ones about the thief and Lord Boreal's demon. But also it's gonna kind of play in well with some of the stuff with Dr. Haley in a second. Yeah, absolutely. Lee heads up to the observatory and he received a lead from the bar woman before. She said that Dr. Haley works at the observatory. Dr. Haley, when Lee gets there, tells him, yeah, I know of Grumman. He was a heretic, and a fight ensues. We do get our first mention of the fog here. Lee complains about it, and then Dr. Haley says, no one can change the weather. We know that's a lie, as we're going to learn this series, of course, with

Stanislaus Grumman himself. Dr. Haley's demon is really cute. It was very hard for me to dislike him when he was all like, no, you're a heretic. And the telescope is amazing. It's a beautiful set piece. The entire room looked really great for an observatory. So great job to the prop department. Kudos. Yes, it was a good scene. That's what it looks like, I guess, when you get funding.

it was a good scene. That's what it looks like, I guess, when you get funding. And I wonder if Dr. Haley's name here and how it's been set up in the show is a nod slash or like reference homage to Haley's comet, especially considering the astronomy and observatory stuff. And,

you know, comets are made up of a bunch of stuff, including like ice and rocks, more specifically, like mix of volatile ices. It's made up, well, we're told that it's made up of a bunch of stuff, including, like, ice and rocks. More specifically, like, a mix of volatile ices. It's made up, well, we're told that it's made up of water, carbon dioxide, and ammonia. But also, dust. Cosmic dust.

Cosmic dust. Yeah, like real dust. From, like, rocks and shit. I get that. I mean, there's dust here, too. Like, the dust that comes from my dead skin cells. But that's not very cosmic. Well, we do get a reference, an exact reference, right?

Because we know this one is written in a book somewhere, kind of. And that is to Matthew 7, 16 from the New Testament, because Dr. Haley's comment says, By their fruits shall ye know them, by their questions shall ye see the serpents gnawing on their heart. So the passage, of course, in the New Testament goes, Ye shall know them by their fruits. So the passage, of course, by their fruits ye shall know them. This is segued so well after just showing the serpent with Mary Malone. We know Lee and Mary

are coded as good characters in this show, right? Where they're protectors of Lyra, they want what's best for her. They're good people. They're not bad people, they don't do bad things. Obviously, Dr. Haley shoots first. That could be a shirt, Dr. Haley shot first, right? He shoots first, Lee is shooting to protect himself and Hester. Dr. Haley here is saying, those who seek knowledge the Magisterium disapproves of are enemies, and that the knowledge leads to corruption.

This informs the viewer that both of these good coded characters are seeking similar things. Also Lyra. And of course, Lyra is revolving all throughout that mix. So I find it so interesting. They didn't go on. There's a part in The Subtle Knife that the man says as he's about to die. He says, I'm glad to die. I shall have the martyr's palm.

You shall not deprive me of that. Because Dr. Haley in the books goes out as a martyr in this moment against Lee. And, you know, there's an aspect in which it's talking about that knowledge corrupting them, or this Bible just straight up might be different. And that line of, by their questions, shall you see the serpent gnawing at their heart?'s not from the bible that's the magisterium doing that thing to like kind of squash people's curiosity and i there's another aspect of this line and the fruits that are born from the tree that i think i want to come back to in a later scene in a moment but i also just love this moment where lee's just like deadpan and realizes what he's walked into and just goes, Amen! In response to the line.

I think that's another, maybe one of my other favorite scenes from this episode. He's just like, Amen! I like how it opens later, too, for him. He does that with Mrs. Coulter in a way, right? And he's just like, I will sign whatever you need me to sign to say that

I love the Magisterium. And it's pretty cute made me laugh i'm like oh lee scoresby he's like i gotta go nice talking lee fires back at hailey's shot as you said and kills him and just before he dies hailey utters to him, Grumman is an enemy of the Magisterium, and so are you. And his adorable demon dissolves as he dies. And yes, the lemur demon is adorable. And, you know, interestingly, I recently took the HBO Nordic quiz, because they had a personality quiz about which demon would you have,

as opposed to the downloading app one. I was too lazy to download the app, so I just took this one online, and I got a lemur because of, you know, my very, very playful nature, and I just feel like Dr. Haley and I are really different people.

Yeah, he's not a lemur personality at all, is he? Well, I mean, maybe he's that kind of lemur, not this kind of lemur? I don't know. We're pretty different is all I'm saying. He is not fun at parties is what I'm trying to tell you. Holy shit. I'm okay at parties. It's a coin toss.

Better than Dr. Haley. Better than Dr. Haley. Yeah, I am better than Dr. Haley, I would say. But maybe I should go around telling people, quoting Bible verses at them at parties and see how that goes for them. You know, we already do that weekly in this podcast. That's true. I received a lion when I took that quiz, by the way. Interesting.

Because of my ferocity, my fierceness. I'm a lion. I thought that was exciting. That is exciting. I could see it. Same. I'm a lion. I don't know.

Unfortunately, Lee walks out of this kerfluffle right and he walks into a whole group of officers who arrest him but before that he steps through the doorway the archway and it has orange curtains and it looks like he's stepping out of a doorway from another world and into a new hell yeah it's all very much those like western vibes that are played up in this whole scene which is fun mary's visited by her sister and nephew and niece and she hasn't been shopping yet they kind of caught her by surprise and so she gives them muesli bars as a snack and she promises them that's very unhealthy for them because it has chocolate and they want sweet things and i guess aunt mary lets them get away with stuff and i mean you can see

from this part of why mary's just so good with kids and and dealing with lyra and you know she lies the muesli bars are good for you they're very very healthy, probably. I did laugh at that. And there's some other really cool stuff here, right? Even though it's a very short scene, her sister snoops around and she looks at her mail and she's like, you look knackered. And all of our Irish friends online have been very excited about this

because knackered is very much their term for being exhausted. Those are their words there. So everyone's really hyped about that. And Simone actually commented about this, Simone Kirby on Twitter, saying that she can't remember if they changed the word tired to knackered or not, or if she just said it. But she definitely Irishized things up on set, she said. And the writers started to write more for her vernacular as the drafts came in after the initial round of the first script. So I thought that was really fun.

came in after the initial round of the first script, so I thought that was really fun. It is a fun detail, yeah, and them showing that come through. As we've said, it's not something I would have thought of or picked up on, so I'm glad I'm getting this education. Her

sister asks if she could take a break from her work, and maybe that'll help lead Mary to a breakthrough, and you know know she is gonna go on quite a long vacation soon have a nice trip mary she she thinks about this really hard for like three seconds and it cuts away but it's really well done uh from the books we don't get a lot of mary's past as far as her family she's portrayed as kind of lonely and isolated with her work and her past career as a nun so the sense of family and isolated with her work and her past careers and none so the sense

of family and community feels really important with mary because it seems that she finds that and establishes that as she goes in this story meeting the mulefa and understanding how they work together and that feeling of protecting something that's important to you like she does with will and lyra and i like getting to see her have family and affection beforehand because i just think she deserves it. Yeah, she does. And her fun little niece and nephew, who thinks she's a cool, fun aunt, feeds them healthy things, but tells them it's not. Will finds Lyra's note, and then he finds Lyra, who's crying.

Pan is lecturing Lyra in his ermine form, while Will shows up for round two of his own lecture, but then sees that she's so upset that he's like, maybe she has lectured herself enough for today and doesn't need me. He's pretty upset about the alethiometer being stolen himself. He has his own investment now in it with finding his father, right? So she tells him what happened with the mustache cop another blow another disappointment and they plan to go to borealis to try to barter for the alethiometer back aurora borealis the aurora the roarer we got some roarers here when kaisa visits yorick turns out this is uh about global warming and how it sucks because the mountains are

melting, the seals are all gone, and the bears are hungry, and it's because of Asriel's hole in the sky fucking shit up. Yes, and Yorick standing at the water looks almost exactly like one of those northern posters we saw in the last episode that we talked about in detail. Like there's literally him standing in front of melting mountains and it's exactly the image that lyra ran by it is and it's that mirroring between their world and our world because you know people have made a hole in in the sky here too those only are and it is hurting the bears uh jeff bezos and his magical knife it was was long before then, but yes. No, it's true.

Very far. He's just one of the many guild members. The many. Yes, it's true. Kaiza tells Yoricka the prophecy and Lyra can't know about the prophecy in order to fulfill it. She has to do everything in ignorance. Kaiza says we are all subject to the fates, which is a throwback to the speech that Seraphina gives to Lee in series one and season one, when she says we are all subject to the fates which is a throwback to the speech that seraphina gives to lee in series one and season

one when she says we are all subject to the fates but we must all act as if we are not or die of despair there's a curious prophecy about this child she's destined to bring about the end of destiny but she must do so without knowing what she's doing as if it were her nature and not her destiny to do it so i love that they're referencing that speech once more and bringing it back. And I'm sure we are going to get more of that as we keep going, especially as Lee climbs closer to his demise. Maybe some flashbacks to that speech. I know.

Yorick looks beautiful though here. I was so excited to see Yorick. It was such a treat to have a Yorick scene. Kaisa explains to yorick that the magisterium has targeted the witch's homes has killed their people and that they plan to find their own justice for it and he flies away i just want to say these birds don't seem very socially apt they kind of like fly away mid-sentence all the time have you noticed that they're like yeah well that sucks bye yeah i don't know if it's supposed to be like the same detachment maybe some of the witches feel towards like human interactions or

they just like whatever i'm a berm do whatever i want and they kind of are a bunch of little nerds they sound like a bunch of little nerds the magisterium has done to the witch's homes quite what asriel has done to the bear's homes I think and humans in general and the world doing to bear homes but Seraphina having Kaisa come here to treat with Yorick and tell him what's going on it's interesting because Seraphina is bound

has to address the witch's cause since their home has been attacked and she's the queen of their clan but her soul, Kaisa, is the one who's the one who's like the queen of their clan but her soul kaisa is the one who's the one who's like executing the other part right is dedicated to that cause of lyra that's interesting i didn't think about that that's great to think of it in separate terms like that because she is being called to the carpet now as we figured it happened like she you have to react now there's no playing

sides now i know that we're told that we are right the same kinds of humans and that we all have demons same as in lyra's world right but it's really not the same because i can't do multiple things like that like lyra's able to be like pan help me navigate these streets and he goes into the air and tells her where to go and i cannot do that and i also cannot send my soul out to someone else to be like help me out with this plan like this like i actually have to fucking do it like using i don't know maybe technology or whatever but i can't do two things at once like that anyway that's all i'm just no no i get it I get it I mean it's literally the same for you

and for everyone listening to our podcast I mean sometimes I'm like could my cat go do something for me and I know they won't Jake can get the mail that's actually true so I might be closer than you guys

I'm on to something you are well speaking of someone else who can do some crazy things with their demon like separate and go very far from them Mrs. Coulter also is showing back up on our screen. She's showing up in town and she's in Nova Zembla? What? After hearing that Lise Goresby happens to also be here possibly from the two magisterium guards that whisper to her that were in the bar and the barmaid she visits lee scoresby's cell and she eventually asks about lyra she drops her empty niceness and threatens him and i did laugh very hard at this because lee rebuts and he starts telling her like lyra bellaqua is she related to asriel because man i

love that guy i love his work he does some great stuff and i'm like a personally like we know that i am not an asriel fangirl as we've discussed i am an anti-asriel but hysterical way to play way to go like get her where it hurts be like yeah we love asriel marisa yeah talking up someone's ex and how much you like them okay so quickly i want to say that i thought that barmaid was going to be way more significant than she was she has like a presence to her and like her hair matches her demon maybe it'll be later i don't know I just thought that woman was going to be way more important than she was. And this is another example, like another reveal of like, oh yeah, isn't it funny, the weather and how we can't control it and things because the magisterium guards tell her like, sorry, but this weather, we can't fly yet. And as we know, this is like

caused by Joe Pari. We have the monkey attacking hester during that interrogation mrs coulter loves interrogations as we've established by the beginning of the season and then lee tells her though like it's not gonna work i'm good with pain he tells her about his childhood enduring abuse and he keeps going on which seems to strike a chord with mrs coulter we really zoom in on ruth wilson's performance here they reach a common ground about their own childhood abuses and lee courageously stands up to mrs coulter then questions and realizes that she loves lyra in her own way and that he can see it he rattles her and then she leaves leaning against the wall for support

breathing heavily and then her monkey demon comes and holds her hand slowly and softly as they both stare and lean against the wall then hester tells lee that he did good snuggling up to him the coulter shot here where she's leaning against the wall is great when you compare it to series one when she and lyra fought obviously the subject matter is the same here because she was frustrated with lyra they have their heads against the walls opposite each other, if you recall, and they're just angry and worked up. And it reminds me a lot of that. I really like Hester comforting Lee, especially against the monkey comforting Coulter, because

it details those differences in their relationships and how they processed their childhood abuses with Coulter's self-loathing including the monkey's violent and then kind of further unnecessary transgression towards the snake demon and the monkey takes later uh knocking him out once was enough so that she could break Lee out but the monkey goes back to inflict pain on someone because Coulter did not inflict the pain on Lee they were denied inflicting more pain and interesting yeah I found it all just really interesting how it was held back in different ways the demon operated in the scene for her.

Now, I'm going to preface this with, I liked this scene a lot better the second time I watched it. I'm over my initial knee-jerk reaction for the most part, but I'm still a little critical of it. Last week, the witch invention, where the witches and the magisterium had a little bit of drama ensue week, the witch invention, where the witches and the magisterium had a little bit of a drama ensue and the magisterium bombs the witches' homes, that blended really well as an invented plot. Really, really well. But this wasn't quite as smooth for me.

It works. Lee's backstory is detailed here that he suffered abuse from his father, and it's implied that his mother was at least culpable for some sort of abuse or in allowing the abuse to go on and this is a show creation but the team did say they sought Pullman's guidance when they brought it to life. No real spoilers probably not a huge shock but Coulter canonically does come from a home of abuse. If you read the secret commonwealth once you get to the end, you'll figure some of that out. And I'm interested to see it brought to screen because the familial bonds Marisa has are very significant. I'm kind of a stickler when it comes to adaptations adding extra abuse. And I'm not at all doubting that the abuse could have happened to Lee's character. I just wonder if it's going to have an effect as we go on. Ruth and Lin

Manuel have a huge, beautiful moment here, right? They're acting their hearts out here. It shows. The scene was given detailed time. It was well blocked. It was directed. It was great quality. I love the line that Lee gives of, my life is worth one-tenth of that, girls. And I think it was really inventive. The thematic resonance comes off pretty clear. Coulter wants to find Lyra and knows that her way of love is abusive because this is what she was taught, it's what she grew up with. Lee pulling it out of her and kind of empathizing her in a way in this moment is big because it kind of shoehorns her into reckoning with that abuse in this moment and kind of helps form what she might think about during some of her later actions

that said i wonder if this could have just been cut tighter uh with the focal point last episode being the witches and what happened to their homelands it it had a few scenes ramped up around it and the big scene of the destruction but in this episode we don't get resolution quite yet on it besides the beginning where they survey the bombing ground and the resolutions being pushed off definitely for later. This scene was about seven minutes. The second part of it was only a few minutes, but it ends up being about 10 to 15 minutes of the show, which is fine. The payoff is probably not going to be immediate. I'm guessing until when Coulter kidnaps Lyra or when Lee dies. But that's my big question is with this added background for Lee,

which I'm reserving my final, final judgments until obviously the end of series two, how is it going to affect his plot closure and his search for Grumman and the usage of the Navajo ring? I'm hoping I'm going to see them tie it all together with the Navajo ring because that is one of the least detailed items we have in the book or detailed relationships with an item for Lee. That ring we see him fingering, we see Joe Pari fingering in the beginning of the episode,

is Lee's mother's Navajo ring, and it reminds him of the days he spent as a child playing at war with his friends, right? They used to pretend they were at the Alamo. That's about as far as the details go. And we do have a lantern slide talking more about it in the 2007 publishings. In the lantern slide, John Perry and the Turquoise Ring. How did he get hold of it? You could tell a story about the ring and everything that had happened to it since it left Lee Scoresby's mother's finger.

And you could tell a story about Lee himself and recount his entire history, from boyhood to the moment he sat beside the little hut on the flooded banks of the Yenisei and saw the shaman's fist open to disclose the well-loved ring that he'd turned and turned round and round his mother's finger so long ago. The storylines diverge and move a very long way apart and come together, and something happens when they touch. That something would lead Lee to his death. But what happened to the ring?

It must still be around. Somewhere. I love that scrap. It's a great tease, right? Because Pullman is like, ah, and then some things happen, and they come together and more things happen. But no one knows, huh? Maybe we'll know.

Maybe we won't find out. That's like what the whole entire scrap reads to me. I'm like, shut up, Philip. Shut up. I do like that Philip Pullman does that, that he allows that ambiguity.

Not everything has to be tied up. Yeah. He's a tease is what I'm saying. Stop teasing me. But it does feel like there's something more with the ring. I think we have a lot of symbols in this story. So I don't know if they have time to even bring it up or have anything happen with it or adapt why it's so important. I think we'll possibly see it in the Books of Dust, maybe, right? Eventually, we don't know in that last

Book of Dust, we could, but there are a lot of symbols in the story already. So I can understand if he doesn't come back to it ever. But I want to know how that's going to connect in the story. Colter in this scene says, I'm her mother. And Lee says, so? But he's about to be summoned using his mom's Navajo ring. I know he's trying to act hard in front of her and trying to push her back. But later on in the scene, Lee says, you had parents just like mine. Coulter feels a little sympathetic here.

It feels like added ramp up for where we find her at the end of series two with the kidnapping plot and the drugging of her child. It feels like it might be added for that plot wise. But as far as for Lee Scoresby's plot, that's what I want to know. Are we going to get background? Is the Navajo ring going to connect back in? Will we learn more about his mother? I just, I'm fine with it.

I like that they're inventing things for the show but i just also hope that lee having this background of abuse in his story is brought back up in a meaningful way to tie into his mother's navajo ring that was the only thing of his family that we learned about it's interesting that they chose to make this the crux of the episode it was a little long but i think there's a lot about it that I think works really well, you know, like rewatching it. I don't know that I necessarily think it makes Mrs. Coulter more sympathetic. I think it kind of does in that just Ruth Wilson's a fantastic actor. But it depends because it presents, I think, two different possibilities, two paths, two worlds, or

you know, perhaps in the scheme of humanity humanity an infinite number of worlds in terms of the paths that we can all take as adults who had abusive or like violent parents and i don't know if lee's mother was complicit or was herself perhaps a victim or perhaps um she ran away and had to escape or maybe she even died earlier on in his life leaving him alone with his father and his father and that becoming worse there's a repetition of that line as you said in lee's life being worth one-tenth of lyra's and that ends up i think meaning two different things in its delivery especially in the context of all the reminders of the prophecy surrounding lyra that come in this episode i think there's an implication true or not that lee's life is literally worth less

than hers in terms of i don't know value and mrs coulter of course thinks so and these are the terms that he uses because of the prophecy deeming lyra's fate as of this great celestial importance that's tied to the fate of like fucking all living things and but i think especially with that repetition there becomes this other underlying message right he in fact values lyra's life as worth 10 times his own as this sort of protector father figure in in her life and that he just loves her so much that he sees her of this great importance to him. And like I said, I don't know if it makes Mrs. Coulter more or less sympathetic in some ways, because I think that the scene can actually be read as somewhat damning. There are studies that

show that certain kinds of abuse during childhood can lead to those behaviors being repeated by the victim onto others due to it becoming normalized or learning those behaviors. It depends on the kind of abuse. And there are studies that discuss that and I'm not a scientist or psychologist. But again, it comes back to those two paths that I think are shown here. And how I think it could actually be read as more damning to Mrs. Coulter. And, you know, the way that it diverges it comes back to that line uh that we were discussing earlier on from dr haley uh that biblical verse of by their fruits you shall know them kind of that idea also like the fruit doesn't fall far

from the tree but as we see lyra has had horrible parents bad trees but she herself as a fruit is quite good. You know, we see all this love and compassion that comes from her. And we see that in the case with Lee as well, right? We have his backstory. He's enduring this fate. And he has this opinion where that he's formed throughout his life of what a life is worth, that it is in fact valuable.

He stands up to injustice. And based on what we see of his actions in the main story in Once Upon a Time in the North, he stands up for what's right. It takes, I think, a lot of effort and healing to come to that point. Hester points out to Lee that it's been a while since he's spoken of his past, which I think says that he's spoken of it before and that he's addressed it, he's reckoned with with it but lee hasn't built an existence on harming children uh his own or not adopted or not unlike mrs coulter and whereas mrs coulter has used what she endured as a sort of fuel maybe or anger or perhaps even justification for the evil acts that she does you know there's there's saying um i see it every now and then i have mixed feelings about it it's both true and untrue, the world is full of nuance.

But it's this idea of like, you may not be responsible for the horrible things that have happened to you, or that have hurt you, but you ultimately have to be in charge of your own path forward in that healing. And I think that's kind of what's presented to us here with Mrs. Coulter and Lee. You know, Lee has chosen to be a good fruit despite what happened to him. Marissa has not. Lyra chooses to be a good one. And, you know, Marissa, she chose

pain, chose instead to inflict it onto others on a very mass level. It's actually impressive in a way. In a terrible way. Lee chose not to. And we get the sense that Marissa hasn't really dealt with that pain. We see the difference between her own relationship with her demon as opposed to Lee chose not to. And we get the sense that Marissa hasn't really dealt with that pain. We see the difference between her own

relationship with her demon as opposed to Lee and Hester, that tender, single moment that Chloe was pointing out, right, when she allows herself to feel and be with herself and comfort herself as the monkey holds her hand, which it is a very good, that's a really great and touching scene. We don't, um,

and plays off of some of the other ways that we've seen her interact with her demon, and I don't know if it's ramping up for the end of season two slash beginning of season three, depending on where they decide to cut it, but it does help, I think, set the stage for what we'll see in terms of that foreshadowing slash groundwork for

what that scene is, with the drugging and kidnapping of Lyra, as Lee points out to her explicitly that just because she loves Lyra doesn't mean that Lyra is safe with her. And I think I've spoken of this before maybe in any of our other episodes of anything else that we've discussed. But maybe not. I don't remember where I say things anymore. And especially in the context of Avengers Infinity War. But I think a series that does this really well is N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy

with those parent-child relationships and that love isn't a promise of safety. Ideally, in a wonderful world, it would be. And I think it's good that in general, in media, we're having those more complex conversations about abuse. And again, I'm not an expert, I'm not a doctor in all of these things so do not take my word for evidence or anything in terms of drawing a distinction between parent child abuse versus intimate partner violence because i think that there are distinctions in those dynamics and how that plays out um but we want to all make these neat little boxes when it comes to love you know quote fucking corinthians of like love is patient love is kind

um and say that if someone hurts you or abuses you that means that they don't love you but as nk jemisin's story points out like there's more complexity to that to it than that it doesn't justify it at all it's still terrible and harmful but i appreciate that the show is part of bringing it into that mainstream conversation. Yeah, and circling back to what you said with the groundwork that it is laying, the one thing that I feel disappointed about is that when I first read The End of the Subtle Knife and Lyra's Gone, and then I read The Amber Spyglass and I was like, oh my fucking god, Coulter has Lyra?

What the fuck? And then it opens with the surprise of, oh, but it's good, actually? Besides the drugging? It's good? My downside with this is that it makes that less of a surprise. I liked that surprise, and you know me, I hate surprises. As me and you have talked about many times,

I'm not the surprise person. I like spoilers, I like knowing ahead of time because i'm a control freak and i have to have things in the order that i want them to happen or i will have an anxiety attack and i'm like oh man that was one of the cool surprises i feel like so i i hope i hope it still comes off with that shock you know what i mean like that wait what oh my god what yeah yeah interesting and i think um i'll let you know what my partner who read these long ago but doesn't remember everything like thinks if they think it's surprising or not yeah i'd be interested to hear that i assume no one who listens to our coverage of it is going to be able to tell us if they find it surprising or

not because they have read all the books so unfortunately tell us what your friends think when we get to that scene everybody it's so funny having people that haven't finished this you know that don't know i just saw someone the other day go i hope pan settles as a red panda and i'm like okay but it's not that different you know if you think about it it's like a skinnier it's like a skinny red panda, a diet red panda. Diet Dr. Pepper, I don't know. Diet Dr. Pan. Dr. Pan! Okay, anyway, sorry.

But yeah, I don't know. I haven't thought about it in terms of that surprise. That's more of what I was saying with like, it's weird that they're setting it up as almost sympathetic in this way because that to me is the surprise and I wonder if it'll affect that so I don't know I'm just thinking as someone who recently read it as a like two years what a year now year and a half now as a first

time reader because when I read that my jaw dropped I was not expecting it for me the surprise is Will going Lyra's mom has got it going on that's the surprise for me has got it going on and she's all i want and she's severing so much i don't know marisa can't you see you're actually not the girl for me yeah literally i'm in love with lizzie's mom that would be the fake version of it because you know he

couldn't actually put lyra and Marisa. They'd all know. Yeah so that was for me the surprise in that scene. I was like interesting weird. What's happening? Hey people say I look like my mom so I get it. They think my mom's a milf and I do too. No I'm just kidding. I don't think that about my mom. I don't think

that about my mom but I look very much like her and I'm like alright this is things could turn out okay for me i'm way i'm way i'm way meaner than my mom oh i'm probably less i mean i don't know my mom's way nicer than me well on a positive note outside of all of this unearthing of trauma will and lyra go on their first date. Okay, well, Lyra ends up having a little trauma at the date, so maybe it's not that much of a disappearance from that. But they go on a date, they need to waste daylight hours so that they can sneak around in Oxford, and they go to see Paddington Bear, which they only show the clips that perfectly fit to the plot, including that they're looking for a scholar.

clips that perfectly fit to the plot, including that they're looking for a scholar. And if you haven't seen Paddington, the cliff notes is well, I got you, Eliana. I got you. Buckle up. Get your strap fixed. Let's go. After a deadly earthquake destroys

his home, a bear makes his way to England in search of a new home, and he becomes called Paddington for the London train station, and he finds shelter with a family. although Paddington's amazement at urban living soon endears him to this family someone else has their eye on him that someone else is taxidermist Millicent Clyde who is played by Nicole Kidman and she has designs on the Baroness Hyde. So yes, Nicole Kidman is after the young protagonist in this story, just like the Golden Compass, if you guys saw 2007's The Golden Compass.

So naturally, like I said, all the scenes they're watching are about an explorer and how Paddington's being doubted about meeting the explorer. Did you watch Paddington there? I saw it, I'm pretty sure drunk okay because i didn't and i was like i don't understand what is happening like how did these scenes fit so perfectly i tried looking at the synopses i'm like where does this moment happen in this but anyway yes there's a i think

the traumatic scene though that really happens in this is lyra eating the popcorn she finds that it's disgusting and tastes like wood shavings and was like stop eating it then and flyer's like i can't she's like i'm trying and it was the ultimate mood like that she was like this is awful i can't stop that is how i feel about popcorn sometimes depending on it chocolate covered popcorn amazing uh butter pop popcorn is also good but i'm always like i want this to be better and i keep eating it in the hopes that i like it more it needs more of the oil to be good like you need that gross butter mixture on it or else it's not as good, in my opinion.

That's true. And maybe it's like, so the top parts, right, are really good. And anyways, so... You gotta shake it. You gotta eat off the top, re-oil it, and then shake it before the movie starts. That's your best bet. I didn't even know I could do that.

Yeah, if you get, like, the nice ones, you know, you can, like, the tubs, you can put it underneath the oil. And if you have someone else near you, ask them to hold it while you shake it with two hands to get the oil to the bottom. I don't think I'm allowed to put on my own oil as part of it. Like they put on the oil. You have to put on one where you're allowed to do the oil. Yeah, the corporate powers that be determine how much butter oil i get that's your first problem is going to a place where you don't get to choose your own oil that is my problem uh

things that weren't my problem things that i got to choose is kinda is so the his dark materials twitter account at demons and dust had a promotion for the premiere of the second season of his dark materials i say season because this was in the US. And, you know, it only took me entering a bunch of times and giving all of my personal information. And then I got a bunch of cool stuff, including His Dark Materials popcorn. And so when I saw Lyra eating the popcorn, I paused the scene, ran and got my popcorn.

And then I sat down and ate my popcorn which was pretty good it was like with a sugar sort of mixture and i ate that together with lyra oh that's great i'm so jealous have you not gotten yours yet no mine got lost between worlds i'm pretty sure so i don't think i'll be getting this dark materials promotional box and I really wanted the blanket. It's a really soft blanket. It's really great. I'm so sorry. It's okay. It said seven to ten business days, so it could still happen.

But the problem is it seems that everybody who did the His Dark Materials promotion has gotten their box already. Maybe this is our plea. His Dark Materials, if you hear this, anyone from the show, please pass it on that I did not get my blanket and I'm going to cry about it right now on this podcast. That sounds so outrageous, but literally my eyes just welled up because I was thinking about how I'll never get my blanket. So it's a really soft blanket. And it's exactly I use it. I use it quite a bit. It's it's blanket weather. It was great timing it is! they also sent

and you know this is like a thing that anyone could have entered and we just kept entering over and over for this giveaway and it was a well thought out gift in that there was a candy that kind of matches in theme with the aurora borealis and like polar bears and they made the joke I thought I came up with this joke

and then I looked at the next box and I was like goddammit they came up with this joke and then I looked at the next box and I was like, goddammit, they came up with this joke. Where I said something was like spectacular and they said specter killer and then I look over and I'm like, goddammit. Goddammit. I thought it was so funny. Hire Eliana and then she can send me blankets.

My lemur demon. Will says that Lyra doesn't take anything seriously, which I'm starting to feel like i'm will i'm like is that us right now how people feel about us being like blankets lyra snaps at will and is like just because i'm not crying in the corner doesn't mean i'm not taking things seriously and then she tells him how she lost her best friend roger who was killed by her dad neat and tells him about all the guilt she's feeling also neat and will's like i was just worried about you that's why i came looking for you sorry i love you yeah they love each other and they watch the movie

and pan peeks his little head out to watch while paddington's going through windows to a beautiful world like exactly the same looking window you know that Will and Lyra do and Pan keeps watching it and his little mouth keeps opening and closing like little like gasps and like watching and it's just so sweet oh I'm just so I'm very happy that Pan was able to watch the movie he hates being in the little bag so I'm glad that he like was able to be like oh fun that's the thing i was thinking about with him in the bag i was like oh is that how you guys are saving your money on demons this this series put pan in the bag but all of these small fan service moments i'm like i'm here i'm here i'm in it yeah no this is what we want this

is the cutest shit uh they know how to do fan service you know like there's a certain show that i won't name that uh wrote not great like their fan service was not great and it's like you have the internet at your disposal like it is 20 whatever and you have the internet at your disposal and you can't figure out how to do fan service right his dark materials is crushing it with the fan service okay but there were a lot of people who for a lot of seasons of that show thought they were doing the fan service well and right and i was like this is what you're gonna get at the end was i right yes um so lord boreal dms mrs coulter that he knows where lyra is wow first of all he calls her mrs coulter

in the note and i'm like damn not even gonna try the first name basis like what a simp first of all he calls her mrs coulter in the note and i'm like damn not even gonna try the first name basis like what a simp first of all mrs coulter i found lyra because he thought and he has the upper hand right like he's been keeping this close to his heart this has been his upper hand having lyra info and she does not and so now he's like hey i got your girl and uh that's a threat that's a threat. That's a threat. It is. Like, if you recall their last conversation, he said to her, has your daughter's demon settled? Think about that. And then put that in the context of her in the car freaking out, begging him to let her out of the car.

Yikes! It's interesting. It's a little different dynamic. I think it works. It makes things a little more complex. But from the books, where he's just like yeah i've seen your daughter he doesn't really like hold her over her head or anything yeah uh mrs coulter though then heads back to lee's cell uh is prompted by this i guess because she's worried about lord

boreal and mrs coulter's demon attacks the guard's snake demon. And as you pointed out earlier, Chloe kind of takes its anchor out on it. And that's another snake. Another snake that's coming up with the whole snake thing in the computer. Mrs. Coulter enters. She gives Lee keys to escape, telling him what his story is going to be, which is that he stole them from the guard. And then Lee can now continue up the Yenisei River. Mrs. Coulter asks him to trust no one

and keep Lyra safe if he finds her, and to fight every battle in his mind. Inside and outside. Oh yes, that's the one. At the same time! As Mrs. Coulter leaves, her demon goes back to attacking the guard's demon for a moment.

And then Mary is doing her own thing. Yeah, Mary is trying her hand over at the I Ching in the next scene. And the cave lights up simultaneously. It's intercut while she practices in her home. Really cool. If you watch it, try to look at the lights when you're watching it. Because the lights, as you zoom into the cave there are these horizontal strips of light and as you zoom in you can see them reflected in the glass

these horizontal lines look like the lines of the I Ching so the very lines that when you throw down the sticks of the I Ching uh throw them down you'll get lines basically that you then look at what they mean, translate them, and make your little hex circle or hex square, I should say, of lines. And you can see reflected in the glass, you can kind of see the lines of the lights

reflected in the glass before it lights up super bright. It makes them look like the actual interpretations that will end up on the screen in just a moment. I didn't notice that, I'll have to check that out. And it seems like the massive wires of the cave that we're getting back there, that is the one that we see in the opening sequence. So the scene shows us the bundles of the I Ching, Mary doing it on her bed, divining, and then her drawing the lines and trying to decipher their meanings. It also then gets reflected in the now turned on computer, the cave, and Mary finds that

it says, to the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders from a book that's helping her interpret her using. And then again, the screen of the cave is shown and the the matter the dust seems to be flying out of her computer screen it's it's very dramatic to come back to the line that mary reads to the mind that is still the whole universe surrenders that is from the philosopher lao su uh an ancient chinese divination text or oracle the book of changes or changes of zhou Zhou is what Mary seems to be reading here. Many commonly refer to it as the Book of Changes. There's more than two and a half millennia's worth of commentary and interpretation, right?

As far as the I Ching goes, over two and a half millennia. That is a very long time. The Changes of Zhou, it's an influential text read throughout the world, and it became part of the five classics in 2nd century BC, basically informed divination in the East. A lot of people have changed to using coins to decide the numbers that allege the hexagram reading, which is what those lines we see both on the cave screen and that Mary Malone is writing down in her notebook. And the gyro sticks, which is what we're seeing, are reflected again in that cave, as you said, in the cave screen and that Mary Malone is writing down in her notebook. And the gyro sticks, which is

what we're seeing are reflected again in that cave, as you said, in the cave screen. This started in the Zhou dynasty with cleromancy, but changed from coins over to these gyro sticks. There are two main lines that parallel each other in the I Ching, and they're represented in dark and light forces, other in the I Ching, and they're represented in dark and light forces, yin and yang for balance. I'd relate it to basically playing tarot cards or doing a reading, help dyads if you're in help dyads or die. A lot of people feel it's very explorative of the subconscious and obviously it is very much so in relation to how Lyra uses her lithiometer in harnessing that capacity of your subconscious arbitration. Yeah, and we're going to see this play a role in the story.

And if it weren't for the show, I don't think that I would have made this connection. But it is a quite explicit connection between the I Ching and the cave and their similarities. Maybe others have talked about this before. And I think that it's a very smart way that they've interlaced the two. And I'm sure that actually Philip Pullman probably intended these connections when he was writing this all together, probably, because he has Mary's involvement and has explicitly decided to use that computer for the cave. And we've spoken before about Lyra's role as a translator when it comes to these different languages with Mary. She explains again at first that she's using that language of pictures

and that the computer can be programmed to use this language of words that we all understand. And then we see Mary coding at the beginning of the episode. And the first few functions that she gets it to do are allowing her to ask the cave, is Lyra safe? And the outputs would only be Y slash N, yes or no, true or false, right? It's a very, very simple command to an extent, but I don't know, probably dividing the universe's will is not simple at all, whatever. But what she has here is a sort of Boolean data, is what we would call it

in terms of logic or programming. There's only two values that can be outputted, that y or n or 0 or 1, true or false. It's named for the mathematician, logician, and philosopher George Boole. But the basis, so again, true or false, but the basis for all computer code is binary language, which is not just zero or one, but many zeros or ones together, creating bits and then bytes. And we expand the number of slots of the zeros and ones that we have. As we go in higher powers of two, binary uses a language that is based in powers of two. uses a language that is based in powers of two. So for example, to give you some some idea of it, to write the number zero in binary is just zero. To write the

number one in binary is just one. If you want to write the number two in binary with only zeros and ones, you write one zero. To write the number three is one one. To write the number four is 1 0 0. And we keep going, right? And each of these individual little slots is called a bit. The 0 1 is about like, if it's on or off, right? Things like that. And each byte is made up of 8 bits. So it's like 8 0s or 8 1s or 8 combinations of ones or 8 combinations of zeros and ones to denote things. And there are many who would say that everything is expressible in the binary language. It's the language of course of computers. And the basis for this language I would say is actually very,

very similar to the structure of the yin, made up of the yin, the broken line, or the yang, the solid line, that negative or positive energy, light or dark. And they actually do, some of them have binary values that are attached to them. I don't know that much, but people have already made this connection before, but in terms of the actual yi zhing. But there are 64 hexagrams, as they're called, those which you can see Mary drawing in her notebook. And interestingly, right, 2 to the 6th power is how you get 64. It makes sense.

It's made up of six lines. That's the number of possibilities that you can have, whatever. But like the language of zeros and ones, it seems that a great deal is quite expressible through the e-jing. But unfortunately, so I thought it would be really cool, but when you hear hex codes referred to in programming, it's not the same hex as in hexagrams, it kind of is, but hexagrams is denoting six and the hex in hex codes actually stands for hexadecimal,

which is 16 and not six 6 so that's pretty different it's two to the fourth power and it's a it's a difference of like 10 anyways the show draws uh that connection though with the way that it's like edited everything by having the cave unlocking and reflecting the yijing sticks on its on its screen and even though mary's using them from far away. It's clever and it really makes sense in that it's showing that both of these are using the same base language. Hmm.

That is really smart. I didn't really- again, linguistics, but mathematical linguistics, I guess. I didn't really put it into those terms until now, but I'm really interested in that. Good call. Beeps and poops with the binary with the i just didn't wow wow and to bring back that quote on top of our mathematics to bring back that quote uh that we talked about earlier with lao su there's also the sutra of everlasting peace in daoism man's spirit likes to be clear, but the mind disturbs it. Man's mind likes quietness, but desire enslaves it.

When desire is transcended, mind will return to its quietness, and when the mind is pure, the spirit will return to its clearness. I don't know any of these feelings. I'm just anxious all the time. Never try to read your alethiometer during the COVID. I don't think I could. I don't think there are people the alethiometer won't work for and I'm one of them. Only ask Jeeves, only smarter child for me.

Will and Lyra end up tasked in the next part as well Mary's not the only one with a task at hand Will and Lyra arrive at Boreal's house and he extorts them he'll give them the alethiometer but they must bring him a carved knife from the tower in Chittagatse so my partner raised a really great question of like, wait, how does Lord Boreal know about the knife? And has he actually been in the world of Chittagaze? And I mean, it's probably been rumored for a while, the knife, but I was like, yes, that is a fantastic point.

And I think that he has been in Chittagaze. It's not like explicitly stated, I think, but when it was safer, right, because like Lord Boreal had found a window into chittagazze probably before and then into will's world and it seems like i don't know but now it seems like much more unsafe right with the influx of specters because of asriel tearing a hole into the world before there were specters but not as many yeah and it's interesting you bring that up because just like last night, Jack Thorne on Twitter mentioned something really interesting about the bottle episode that we are losing of Asriel this season. Oh, right. This series, we were supposed to get an episode of Asriel.

It was supposed to be the last episode and it was supposed to kind of be a bottle episode of him, possibly him building the kingdom that he's building up, everything. episode of him possibly him building the kingdom that he's building up everything and jack thorne said on twitter that the actor lewis mcdougall that plays tulio in the episode airing for episode four uh he's an incredible young actor and that he was featured strongly in the asriel standalone episode that's so sad i'm sad for lewis mcdougall's career that he's losing this performance because of COVID. I am too. Now, that being said, though, Tulio was in Asriel's episode. So that to me says that maybe there would be flashbacks of Asriel going to Chidagatse and meeting Tulio and learning of the knife through him and him seeking it. I would imagine that is who he learned it from since we don't

know anything about Tulio's backstory. Yes, so I'm guessing that is what the bottle episode entailed. And I think that's really smart. That's a really great way to adapt Tulio and give Lewis more stage time as well. I would have, man, it's too bad because we're probably not going to see this episode

from what they've said. They said it just, it did not happen. Literally the first day of filming is when they were like, oh, well, we have to close down filming tomorrow. So I imagine there's nothing left of it, but I would love even just the script or something. Yeah, storyboards, concept art. Yeah, storyboards. Yeah, maybe someday. Yeah, we got some of that eventually, right? With the effort of some fans to seek it out from the golden compass movie

so that could happen for us one day and anyways so we have a lot of incredible young actors i think the so i'm sad i'm sad for lewis and looking forward to the scenes we do get of him which will probably be what this week right yeah this coming episode here yes which will probably be this coming episode uh anyway so back to this one yeah they don't really have much other choice than straight up going to get the knife for boreal right they need the alethiometer yeah they do uh when they're at boreal's house though i thought you know doubling back for a second when they enter, we see Will and Lyra actually through these security cams. And I think it's funny because you have like the name for it. It's like LATCAM. And I'm like, did he just like fucking name these LatrimCam? And I think it's so funny. There's like a one and two. But I do imagine that maybe this footage will be used to convince Mrs. Coulter that he has seen Lyra and look, here she is. Hmm. Mm-hmm.

I don't know. That's, I didn't think about that. That's actually really interesting. I imagine so. I also like that they're being watched through a lens, right? Not Amber, but, and not one of the photogram lenses, right? This is a different camera, but this ring camera is watching them so interestingly enough there's so much going on at boreal's house it's funny we were talking about

this on discord i was talking with our friend pete over on our discord about this and uh it didn't look what i expected it was much more modern than i expected it to look i'm not complaining i just it's it's not i thought it was going to be like rich old people leather you know like fanciest office crap super luxurious office chairs out of very rich dark brown leather and uh i was thinking like stained dark wood and i don't know it just i was surprised because it's actually very modern and when you get into the home of him. You get a large section of the Titanic, Lucy, the earliest human skeleton, is in there,

a space suit, and then also Joel Collins, the set designer lead, who also is the one giving us this information, I'm telling you. He put it out on Twitter the other day, and there's a copy of his burst appendix. But how does he know what it looks like? His burst appendix? Like a photogram of it, I believe he know what it looks like his first appendix like a like a photogram of it

i believe is what it is oh like a like a probably x-ray or something of it yeah i thought like he asked his doctors like he could see his first appendix and then made a 3d anatomical model of his first appendix i'm like wow i'm like you imagine? He went over to the prop guy and he was like, hey, hey, you want to 3D print me this? And as I've heard from the head of props there, he's mentioned that 3D printing is not always easy. So it could have been 80 times just to get a burst appendix. Or molded. Either way, I thought that's what it was. It was like, damn, interesting.

I want to do that. But my appendix is not burst. But in general, yes yes there's a lot of other stuff too i can't quite see but those were just the biggest things you can see there's a handful of other things going on in his collection so i'm excited for the episode they go back i'm guessing it's not this coming episode but maybe episode five is the episode they'll be going back because we'll get a better look probably at boreal's house yeah and i i also had thought that his house would look the same as you said and i think that it's written that way in the books but this makes sense for this sleek

sexy boreal that we get in the show and the way that he has the display cases is interesting he has it inside his walls looking like windows into other worlds, perhaps. But also, most interestingly, of all the places he can put the alethiometer, it seems like he's keeping it in his bar area. Like he opens it and I'm like, those are the glasses for drinks. Hey, safest place in the whole house, okay? No one's going there except him. I mean, is it? I mean, the whole house, okay? No one's going there except him. I mean, is it? I mean, the bar area, though.

That's where I would go first, personally, but... I mean, same. So... I thought that was funny. Yeah, it's a good end. It's a good hard end, right? That now we have that anxiety back of, now we have to go deal with getting another thing on our quest and

it leads pretty well right like we know what this upcoming episode is Angelica the girl in the story here she ends up telling Will yeah there's a there's a tower and you can't get into it and then you know you have all this information being kind of info dumped little bit

through little bit in this episode all building up for our fourth episode, which I am very excited about, because we will finally get into that tower. Yes, and Giacomo Paradisi! Yes, I'm very excited. I'm so excited for him. I don't know why. Mr. Paradisi.

Well, it's Terrence Stamp, that's why. He's a damn badass. I just love that character so much. No, it's gonna be very good i'm excited to see tulio actually since we really don't get to see him much in the trailer we see just kind of part of him uh and it's gonna get gory i mean we're really we don't have to do a speculation because we all kind of know what's coming up yeah and i mean you're right i am interested in seeing tulio's actor they really just talked him up i'm like yeah let's get him let's have Lewis yeah that's all we can say that's it that's what we got I uh I'm excited to

go watch this other episode it's been a really good season this wasn't my favorite episode of the series so far I think episode two and episode one are a little stronger but I think episode four is really gonna be strong I think it's gonna start from episode four through episode seven i mean we have three episodes after this left so sad we were supposed to have four episodes i guess unless we were supposed to have eight whole episodes but we might never get that uh bottle episode of asriel ate it. They ate number eight. Well, thank you so much for listening in today to our coverage of His Dark Materials, episode three of series two, Theft. If you enjoyed listening today,

be sure to return weekly on Mondays when we release these episodes until the series is over, until we get to go on break for a little bit until series three. You can subscribe to us on many listening platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, Acast, iHeartRadio, Amazon Podcasts, Pandora, you name it. Yes. And of course, you know, we are on social media. And feel free to let us know your thoughts on the episodes. You can find us at Girls Gone Canon, C-A-N-O-N, on Twitter, or shoot us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com.

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like. And if you're in our $10 and above tier on Patreon you can join a very active bunch of fans in the Discord where we're talking about the episode with spoilers without spoilers everything his dark materials spoilers absolutely so come on down that's patreon.com slash girls gone canon yes and this month's episode for patreon was about the song of ice and fire series and covered the lysine spring and the End of Regency from the Fire and Blood book. But next month will be about

his dark materials, so... It's a Christmas miracle! And by next month we mean December. I don't know when you're listening to this. The Crux. We're on the cusp. We're on the cusp, for sure.

Like Will! Wow! Maybe my demon will settle soon, apparently into a lemur. Oh my god. As always, I have been one of your demonless hosts, Willie. And I too have been another one of your lonely demonless hosts, Eliana.

Do you think someone's gonna send me a blanket? Because I really want the His Dark Materials blanket. I mean, I hope they do. I was like, do I want to tell her I'll send her my blanket? Then I was like, I'm not gonna do that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Tune in next week when I might have a blanket. Hopefully. Pray for Chloe. Amen.