Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Series 3 Episode 1-2 - The Enchanted Sleeper & The Break

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

The final series of HIS DARK MATERIALS on BBC/HBO has premiered. These podcasts will drop weekly covering two episodes of the series - first up, The Enchanted Sleeper and The Break. SPOILERS: His Dark Materials Main Trilogy, Novellas, and HDM Series 1 + 2. Looking to catch up? Check out our full coverage of Northern Lights/Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass, La Belle Sauvage and the novellas over at patreon.com/girlsgonecanon  --- 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 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 3 Episode 1 and 2, The Enchanted Sleeper slash The Break. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. And yes, it is Series 3 slash Season 3 because we are premiering in America first. This time... Wow, before we get into our gloating okay before we get to the gloat about how an american saves british football welcome back oh my god welcome back it's been two years

question mark two years since our last hisials series coverage, since series two came out. third book is so ambitious and requires a lot of things that require a lot of cg very difficult i think to visualize because it is so fantastical even more so than the previous books and between all that planning adapting it etc and also navigating it was still like very much COVID lockdowns and things like that, I think, when some of this was starting. So here we are. And also, I guess they wanted to navigate some stuff, too, with like the actors' ages. Yeah, there's a little bit in this that I can see that they're covering it, question mark. I think that we're gonna like the way it goes so far so good and before we get into some of those thoughts we do want to preface with

our spoiler policy if you're new to the girls gone canon show coverage or if you've forgotten because it's been two fucking years and I forgot we are are a spoiler books podcast. So we will be spoiling the main trilogy of His Dark Materials, that is Northern Lights slash The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. And if you're looking to check out the past seasons that we've covered, or series that we've covered, series one and series two of this show please go back and take a listen we may refer back to that as well which you can find on i don't know your favorite podcast platform near you right whether you're a spotifier checking that hashtag wrapped or whether you are itunes in or acast stitcher all those different apps that people are on. Well, along with spoiling what's in the main trilogy, including the lantern slides, right? We are, of course, going to talk about what happened in seasons one and two,

because it's kind of hard to talk about season three without all of that. And we've also already covered those. So there might be some things we don't address here, because maybe we felt that we discussed it very in depth when we covered these books and you can find all of those episodes again in the same places that chloe said we already read through and have episodes out regarding books one through three of his dark materials and we also covered some of the outer materials and we also covered some of the outer novellas right we discussed all of the outer novellas we're done yeah we did

for now for now i'm hoping that we have some new ones but we've covered all of the novellas which can be found at our patreon for the patron bonus episodes in the Stranger tier and above, $5 and up at patreon.com slash girlsgonecanon. And we've also covered some of the outer trilogy, right? The companion trilogy, La Belle Sauvage, with hopes to cover the secret commonwealth in the future. Yeah, eventually. And it sounds like we're not the only one with hopes to cover that series, right? It sounds like there are talks uh going on right now with some of these production companies you know some of these studios of maybe they will continue stories in the his dark materials universe says i was like plural i would love that

i would love that the many worlds of hdm cinematic universes i love it also if you want to join in discussions we've got something uh in the new year yeah our patrons and friends over at the discord which you can get lifetime access to at patreon.com slash girls gone canon uh thunder tier and above 10 bucks and up will get you access to our private server where people are not only chatting all day long about his dark materials and when i say all day long i get up what like 5 6 a.m i'll wake up and look at my phone and there will always be some new posts from someone from one of our friends in another world talking about hdm uh and also in the new year our friends will be

hosting a weekly discussion on his dark materials series three because as eliana kind of mentioned at the top there's a little craziness with the release schedule of his dark materials uh you know in the past some people have had to suffer and not get to see his dark materials exactly the moment it aired ish and every season i feel like there's a victim of the hbo bbc crime of the airing schedule and this time i don't know how they did this one it's kind of insulting right like this is like a uk thing it's kind of insulting the uk does not get access until december 18th on the iplayer all at once so they get it all they can binge it for the holidays which is exciting but america they're experimenting and they're dropping those puppies two by two

every monday well i think it is right i I think Monday actually used to be especially a prime time. It might be because a lot of people stay home those days on Mondays. I mean, everything's prime time on HBO. It's not TV. It's HBO. Yeah. I don't know. I guess this might be, what, our time to air our minute, tiny little grievances that it kind of feels like our season, our show here, got fucked.

They just didn't care in time? Yeah, I just felt there wasn't pretty much marketing agreed. Like, the release date was kind of... It wasn't, like, announced till much later. I wish that there had been a little more fanfare, like, even, you know, a new episode dropped, right? The new season premiered, and it wasn't even, I think, like, the very first title card or whatever that showed up for me when I logged on to, what, HBO Max or something, and I feel that that should have been the very first of the cards that shows, especially because they have my data, right? this series it should be something that's announced like that

uh and i don't know uh i'm hoping that they're releasing it this way because they think that's what's best for it because this is kind of also part of for the course now for HBO Max right they're releasing a lot of shows two episodes at a time yeah just to see how that functions for the bingeability for the the brain the chips inside of us that go ding and we watch a show which is fine I mean it is just a noticeable difference I mean look we have a bot that posts the tweets for the official twitter account in our channels and it was weird because we had a few new tweets in the last week that were like okay series three is coming and then monday it was like every hour they had a tweet scheduled to go out and i was like are we just just advertising this today

it's weird because the past seasons there have also been some really interesting fanfare for the fans, right? Series one. I would just like to bring up the blanket event real quick. That was two. That was series two. First, series one. Oh, it was two. Sorry.

Series one was the demons, the sculptures, which we didn't get any of. the sculptures, which we didn't get any of. So in series one, there was a great viral marketing campaign they did where they gave some fans some personalized demon sculptures. And then in series two, there was a box that they sent that had some candies, some cute little theme-y cute whatevers. candies some cute little theme cute whatever's and then there was a blanket everyone and the blanket had the his dark materials logo what monogrammed in the very small corner or threaded in the small corner which and i and eliana both were quote unquote winners of this marketing scheme exploit. And one of us got the box and the other did not. Eliana did get me a blanket to make up for it, by the way. But I never got my blanket.

I never got my sculpture. And now there's neither. There's neither for series three. I mean, I was like, what are they not gonna send me this season right i was getting excited i want to know what they're not sending me but it turns out they're not sending anything actually kind of fun and cute if they sent out like little seed packets i think that'd be fun environmentally conscious and and in theme i think that could be cool if they sent some seeds

and I think seeds could be fun but also yeah I got the blanket and they sent me some gummy candies actually some of it was chocolate I think and some popcorn if I'm not mistaken

and a deck of playing cards, and a poster. Do you even play with these playing cards? I don't, but I could. Do you even know where they are right now? God damn it. You heathen. Anyway, yeah.

Just an interesting spin down the block of their advertising for the prior seasons. And I don't know, you have obviously HBO put their whole asshole into Hot D, into House of the Dragon, which if you watched House of the Dragon and read Fire and Blood and want to check out our coverage, that is over on our streaming services as well. services as well but they put like a hundred million into advertising that because they wanted it to become you know they they i mean not only wanted it they needed it to become the next big thing right they they gotta try to reawaken that brand and make some move off of it and i get yeah waking the dragon is their future but i would have liked them to you know kill god a little with us that's all i would have liked them i i just feel like this show is actually really under like undersold to the public right like i feel like the people that i do know watching it there's not a lot of them and i want

more of them too i tell them all the time uh but i feel like it could have reached a bigger crowd and also i mean at least like the the account was interacting when the episodes were airing but yeah i agree with all of that and also it was a strong premiere right it was a really strong premiere and they captured a lot of those moments from the books well and even fleshed out some characters and we're gonna dig into that i loved it overall i don't know what your overall rating of uh both episodes is i'm a strong somewhere in between 9 to 10 8.5 to 10 somewhere in the higher range i'm thinking there are a couple things we're gonna get into but we'll save them for the episode we're gonna you know we're gonna kick back and just chat about our fave parts here what was your

what was your rating and what was your favorite part part yeah I don't know I think probably are the same as you right between 8 to 10 or so like it was really strong yeah absolutely favorite favorite part of the adaptation or your favorite It was really strong. Yeah. Absolutely.

Favorite part of the adaptation or your favorite scene? What was the part you loved? My favorite scene from these first two episodes is... I'm just, like, not a very deep person. So when Will is finally talking to Baruch and Balthamos, right? And Baruch is trying to find where lyra is and then he's like relaying this information saying she's in the world of the demons etc and will's like oh okay we're gonna figure out who this woman is he takes out the alethiometer and then just as baruch says

and her demon is a golden monkey will suddenly shuts and he's like it's her mother. I just thought that was like fantastically done, very comedic. And I found that so charming. I love that it was like, she's with a woman with, and he's like, you don't even have to finish that sentence, dude. Like, I already know exactly what you're about to touch. He said golden monkey. Will's like, nevermind. Shuts a lithiometer. He's like, I'm not even going to find it.

Not even worth it. monkey will's like nerman shut's a letheometer he's like i'm not even gonna not even worth it i think my favorite part definitely the oh gunway backstory uh he was kind of a blank slate in the books we discussed that a lot in our final book coverage and i i mean with what they've done with the angels and what they've done with a lot of the other bits of adaptive stuff in the show i was interested to see the expansion of his world and the world building. And I really like some of what they've brought so far, as well as how they're kind of leveraging that tension to show why he's going to join Asriel. I was kind of surprised at where we got him.

I thought he would just already be established and we'd just learn about him. But I like the show instead of that the showing yeah because I remember we had a lot of questions of like where did he come from etc like how did he meet and I think this is something that was implied in the books but I just never picked it up that and this is something we did discuss during our book coverage like is he also from Asriel's world or not but this made it very clear that he was not and i i think part of it is like we don't want to animate more demons but yeah that's that's a good point i actually didn't even think about that with his demon like not yeah and and i don't think his demon is there right in the book so that that's a giveaway and i didn't really think about that but yeah it's it makes sense that they would flesh it out and show us how a gunway is there and

they've given him very much i think a leading role or supporting character i don't know how all these like tears work you and i were discussing yeah definitely supporting to azrael's lead character and i like that he really stood out he didn't just have conversations with asriel too in this episode we see he has other conversations in these episodes and uh there's something that i just trust inherently about his dark materials team when it comes to making some of these adaptive choices some i there were a couple in these episodes i'm like i don't know how i feel about that but i'm gonna let it slide but this was one that like a couple things happened and part of my fangirl brain my first reaction was like what and then

i was like huh nice and that's a good feeling that means good they did good it's also good because like especially for older audiences they're gonna wonder how did this guy get here how did how did he get recruited especially if he's going to be a key leader in this rebellion right so it's good that they gave that sort of they built out the character which they also did very well with uh as we discussed charles latrum r.i.p Arian69 Arian69 that he killed it as Charles Latrim and he actually gets mentioned in this episode or in the

next episode Marisa says something about him to Will that's right when they were discussing that time that they briefly saw each other it was a very stressful time this is also a stressful time. If only Freud was here today.

Well, The Enchanted Sleeper, episode one, is written by Jack Thorne and Amelia Spencer. Give them a round of applause wherever you are right now. Don't worry, I know people are looking at you funny. Just do it anyway. I loved the open. It was a Zephania voiceover right so we get new zephania new zephania just dropped and it's kind of like the lord of the rings prologue uh where they have

all the clashing and this is the great war of old and also like the valkyrie stories and thor one of the best movies of all time so great exposition amazing lore drop and also great because it takes like a third of the lore in the book and it's like now you know it you don't gotta worry about it and I found it clever dropping it like that like to catch you up to speed here's everything you're missing for why we're going to war with god I agree with that and they're not really hiding behind they're not hiding it right they're not hiding or trying to couch some of the stuff that like was an issue when they tried to adapt the series the first time visually they're like this is about attacking and dethroning god

right like they're not trying to beat around the bush they're like yeah you might call him the father or the almighty and i'm like all right you might part of that is because of course philip pullman is very inspired by the epic poem by john milton paradise lost and a lot of that opening sequence you know that voiceover really really i think cameras home some of the moods of paradise loss in the beginning that idea of like vengeance they they explicitly say that they are seeking vengeance in that voiceover they're not talking about liberation really in the same terms that azrael is talking about it and that idea of using vengeance very much is part of that driving in that beginning of paradise Lost as they're discussing

being cast out of heaven and having to live between the worlds. Like they're not living between the worlds, they're in Pandemonium, which we'll discuss a little bit probably later on or in later episodes. They're in the city of like the demons, kind of the fallen angels, Pandemonium in Paradise Lost, but there is an idea of having to traverse into a different world, the world of men. And so a lot of these early two episodes, especially with everyone talking a lot amongst themselves about why this war matters and the different factions sort of trying to convince each other to be involved, I think feels a little bit like those different speeches that like debate team stuff going on at the start of Paradise Lost.

Again, when the rebel angels are cast out. Yeah, and the vengeance part, right? Like that was so loud that it wasn't in this overture. The angels aren't trying to make nice or make peace between worlds. They are making war and it really made the interactions later with alarbus the captured angel and zephania very interesting and they don't really they're they're allied with the humans but alarbus points out like i don't know do the angels really care about humans that much and you can see that with baltamos being like

i do not give a fuck about really any of you so will shouts for lyra in the dist in the darkness and he's searching for her throughout the world cutting to and fro it's a fun little montage and i'm kind of wondering how long has will been searching for lyra in the books? This happens immediately after the death of his father, right? Like when he discovers that Lyra is missing and meets with Balthamos and Baruch. But there is like that gap of him trying to find her. So it's like a little bit tweaked, but I think what works well for this montage is we don't really know the time span and Will might have been searching for years and in doing so kind of helps address that our actors are growing up in sort of like some of the changes that they've experienced. I have two thoughts to this, Eliana. God bless your heart. First of all,

does it address it? Because I was yelling at my screen, that man ate Will Perry. Right there, officer. This man on my screen, this young man, old man on my screen ate William Perry, and we have to find him. Right here, officers. Just kidding. But that was my first thought. I'm like, damn, these kids are adults now. How did this happen? That said, that said, my second thought is there are two types of people in this world. The type that has to worry about how old they are

and how much time has passed, and the other type that knows it's TV. Yeah, it is TV. I mean, they hire these kids at an age where like they were on the cusp of being kids and then a few years pass and the thing about being in puberty and the teenager is

your body goes through a lot of changes during that time. I know because that happened to me. Happened to you too. We have both done this. I came out like this, okay? I came out just like this my poor mother fully grown yeah poor roger because the next scene we get like lyra dreaming of the dead world where roger's shouting her name and i'm like oh roger you have even he ro Roger is big. He is grown. He was such a little kid.

He's like, what? What happened? Well, and COVID doesn't help. Right? We shot this through COVID. It should have been a successive handful of years with Books of Dust following. We cut over to Lyra, who has awakened. And the Golden Monkey and Coulter are murmuring her name.

Absolutely, and this comes up later, right? Lyra can't find Pan as soon as she, like, awakes in that weird place, which is probably, I don't know, suburbs of the dead or something. And it speaks to that idea later on of Pan being like, I couldn't go where you were, and of course, that fore foreshadowing we'll discuss that in a bit but for now the most important part oh my god we have a new intro oh man oh man i forgot that you were gonna get a new intro to be honest and then it happened and then i was like oh my god what a wonderful surprise for me who forgot well i i like knew that things were gonna be different but i didn't

know it was gonna be so different wow Wow. I don't talk this language. Yo, it's good good. I mean, I had to listen to it before the show because you gotta kind of get in the mood pregame sometimes you just gotta pregame and get a little pregame the thrones yeah when I say

Lauren Balfe drop your mixtape he already has the music's already out but absolutely and I yeah I'm gonna be real because i can't understand the lyrics and also do not speak latin are there new lyrics this season who knows oh that's interesting we'll have to ask the dust podcast maybe they'll know well lauren valve usually will say but like

yeah they might be able to tell a little better. Well, something that I thought was really fun that changed in the intro is we see that zooming out of the trees and up close as the dust that makes up the silhouette of the trees, etc. is dusting around. Dustily. Resembled to me, yeah, dustily resembled to me yeah dustily kind of like

what it looks like when people recreate images of synapses in the brain firing or like I went to this exhibit of like the life of a neuron and it really kind of looked like that with all the branches and then like the lighting up and i think that ties really well with how dust is supposed to be born out of

conscious thought that's amazing that's i was wondering because it looked like i mean it always looks a little medical not to be a weirdo it always always has like a medical look to it but that's perfect um not unlike when they had the machine the cave yeah on lyra making it work or on mary making it work with the nodes true i love that yep uh when i saw the cube aka met, I mean, we got a Metatron drop, what, in the second episode? I screamed. it's the thing it's the thing and we actually have spoken a little bit more about metatron's cube back in season two episode four when that actually did appear and as you were saying right like during the cave the cave computer so yeah the cave was kind of like just the foreshadowing for this season of what was to come in a way which was awesome really well done really well used application also there were some flying figures and i think those were the harpies

yeah uh they showed us the flying figures that look like the harpies we see the intention craft right zooming in and out of the worlds which was well done and i thought the harpies in the world of the dead right there were really cool, especially because they're not hiding it, that they just put it like right in the dead center. Haha, dead center. My favorite part, especially because all of series two, you know, we used to wait every intro I used to watch and be like, did he change it? Did he change it?

And if you have listened to our Hot D episodes, you know, I'm always on intro watch for that show, which you have to be crazy to be on intro watch for it is not an easy intro and this is i don't know i'm just like chloe tell me what is this yeah i sing to you my story of my people aka me every week but in series two every time i'd like we're gonna see the mulefa I just know it we're gonna see them someday and they're gonna add it to this I know it and they didn't however they have done it the Mulefa are here they are here that stack was amazing that the Mulefa and the trees my heart soared wow it was really cool that like that's the final world that they're focusing on but it also kind of made me a little emotional and tear up for a second like when i was watching it re-watching it for preparing for this episode like that that's

the final world like that the final thing in the intro is that focus on the garden of eden and i was like my babies the trees the trees with all of the dust all glowing upon the roots. It was so beautiful and sad. Anyways, also, what did you think? I realized that I think this is the first time that the intro actually had very clear representations of both Will and Lyra, right? Not just like silhouettes of them, not just their backs. Like, it is them in the intro. their backs like it is them in the intro yeah it was great to see them almost not like zoomed in but yeah he's definitely much more clear than he was before in the intro and i was really happy to see their representation both of them because it's about them right even in the uh the last times on his dark materials they represented him well which was great and i will say having him be that lead protagonist for us in episode one with lyra out cold nothing new there is that he kind of gets to take the lead he gets his kind of somewhat cocky moment with yorick and he gets to kind of

go to marisa and lay down the law and has the power in the situation of how he wants to be able to get out, you know, until his knife breaks. And then he shoots a guy. Exactly. Maybe guns aren't for you, yeah. Well, they kind of had him, like, reluctant about that role that he had in the previous seasons,

which I think is good that they're taking it a little slow because, like, what kid is just, like, a killer, right? I love when he set it down, right? Like, when he was like, no, this is different than the knife. This is not me. Yeah, so I think that they will explore that a little more. They were really hammering that idea of him being strong home these episodes. But also, and I guess this has always been the case with the intro.

This is just something that I realized now. This has been there since season one right with the yes the dust like right after the dust exploding and looking like angel wings which we've discussed before I realized that the dust in the next scene of streaming upwards actually looks like it's the dust leaking through the cracks which is what turns out the subtle knife does every time like a little abyss or like window is opened yeah i didn't really realize that flow until you mentioned it that's amazing there the whole time i maybe someone else has discussed it and i like just forgot but sorry i need to watch it against the old intro now i really do unfortunately i need to watch it against the old intro now.

I really do, unfortunately. I need to check it out and just see what else I can spot that's different. Because it was very subtly done. Except for the intention craft. That was not subtle. No, that was very clearly a spaceship-esque thing. And that's kind of what we open with, right? Yeah, that's the very beginning is asriel's

crash landing that's true yeah and part of it is because he's struggling to use the intention craft right so maria is giving him these or still maria sorry pronounce a little differently it's still maria telling him to sort of like clear his mind right which is very much the same way that both lyra and will use their respective tools and he he struggles with it right he struggles to do what his daughter can do so easily and i'm also wondering did it look like the intention craft can jump worlds to you not just sort of like boof boof teleport yes it absolutely did and you know in the books i don't think it specifies that however when you think about it that intention craft does get around more than i care to go track and when thinking about it and all the places it went i'm like did it cross worlds it might have crossed worlds and we just didn't notice one point because and we don't get that sort of like told to us because when marisa escapes with it

from pandemonium that isn't it that isn't a different world right that's in the same world that like the the land of the dead leaks out into and that is not the world of the demons she obviously gets there into the magic that's what i's what I thought. We're not told. I think I'd assume that she finds a window and goes through it. This makes sense. This makes sense. Yeah. And this was one of those thoughts I had when I was thinking about their adaptive genius that I was sitting there and like, because at first I was like, it never said it could

go through worlds. Like I had that annoying voice pop up and then I went, wait a second. Didn't it though? Like without telling us? Without telling us. So I think that's so cleverly done because they pick up on all of those off page details and bring them to life. And not all of them are winners, but this definitely is.

Especially when you consider if Marisa uses it to pass through worlds. I mean, just what? Like it would take so much more concentration, intention. I mean, we think about the intentions that the knife will need repairing probably in the next two episodes, right? That's so true. It will. It will. Ooh. Strong themes. I'm excited now.

I forgot. I'm really excited to see them repair the knife. Why don't they show us Yorick repairing his helmet? We'll get there. Sorry. I'm so confused. I will say also it's nice to see James McAvoy again. He wasn't a big part of season 2 because of COVID.

It's just nice. Atonement did things to me for me. Professor Xavier. You know. Yeah. I'm learning so much on this podcast today already and we're not even in the thick of it yet I love it

uh I loved Colter and Ama meeting there was so much to love about it right a great sign language scene great representation of BSL and I love having sign language and fantasy scenes well done right my favorite was in the magicians there was a really well done scene in the magicians it's one of my favorite episodes if you're into the magicians you got to check it out

but there's just this moment with Coulter where it's like, first off, the show goes from like sci-fi all of a sudden to fairy tale, right? You go to the hut in the woods where the witch is living and it's a seduction in a way. It's alluring, right? Come to my cabin, little child. And it blends so seamlessly that you go from Asriel's crash landing out of worlds to Coulter, you know, the seduction of, you know, gobbling a child back up in a way. And there's something really carefully shown of Amma's demon, the squirrel, like has to get down at one point to follow her as she goes toward Coulter, where you don't really realize it till they go inside the hut and she shows her lyra but the monkey's not outside at all the

monkey's far inside so there was almost like a very intentional showing of the demon and showing like also where the power is right that coulter's like well you have to come here i can do whatever i want i don't need my demon but you and your demon even if your demon wants to stay back have to come in here to see what the enchantment is. It was really interesting. Yeah, that's a good point. And it's something that also I was wondering because like the changes they did with Valthamos, he's not playing the role of Will's demon and no one seems to think it's suspicious that Will doesn't have a demon. So that is something that I wondered about. Ama is not suspicious of like where's your demon right for example and also when he

first comes to york because that is in the world of the demons no one's like i guess they're just too relieved that this kid took care of their bear problem to be like where where's his demon and of course like he could have a small one who knows but um but absolutely like i didn't catch that the golden monkey wasn't there and as you said right it's mrs coulter gobbling up kids again she's just that's just like what she does she's just really good at that and like it's a great tie to the first season they have a lot of other great ties for asriel's arc back to the first season and reminding us of things um and as you said that kind of seduction and it's very it's very eerie because she says to Ama

this is our secret and I'm like stranger danger stranger danger because like that they showed us a video in health class when I was like I don know, in middle school or high school, and it was there to kind of warn you about adults who take advantage of children in very inappropriate ways. And it was about, I'm just gonna, trigger warning, sorry. It was about an uncle, like, molesting their nephew and saying, this will be our little secret. And no one ever forgot that moment from health class. And that's what that reminded me of and also i want an apron dress like amma's we gotta work on your segues some of these days yeah it is stranger danger i mean what were we recently watching oh house of the dragon where

there's also like a keep this between us secret in an exploitative relationship with a power imbalance absolutely stranger danger and i will have you know i looked up your little apron ama dress today because some people have the power to make this happen so if you're good santa might deliver it you just never know thank you just never know i was like i was on google i'm like i'm a apron dress and nothing came up so i had to get a little more creative but i just thought it was kind of cool how like you know comes in triangular and stuff that's neat stylish almost like those somewhat v-shaped overalls but like with a skirt or something but with this instead i like it it's very cottagey very you this could be your new look the whole part like all of those

scenes with mrs coulter and lyra and even with ama etc it was a it was very cottagecore yeah they were living their cottagecore fantasy out but but that unfortunately has to end. Just like this story in a few episodes. Meanwhile, Will was spotted by the angels, and after a little, no, go away, they cut to another world. It was a great first look at the angels, and I was trying to get a better look. Maybe next episode we'll have a better look,

but the embroidery on the angel cloaks almost looks similar to the intro with strands of dust embroidered on them. There's kind of like a very cosmic look with like gold embroidery and some strandy looking things and some blue bits kind of highlighting around it. Very good.

I thought those were tears, but yeah. I think you're right that it is something like what what you're saying little sort of dust-esque patterns or the strings and turns out as we see from how they're portraying these angels they could do the shimmering effect that we discussed which is how the specters are described in the books turns out they they were capable of doing that on tv quite a few times and i guess it really makes you think about the similarities between specters and angels one devouring dust one made of dust anyways but i guess it also makes sense that they didn't

want to go that direction visually for the specters because they wanted to make both the angels and the specters distinct on television especially for new audiences yeah and i think there's a certain from like that meta level of production right there's a certain part that like it's obviously it's way more expensive to consistently have them phase into that look. So we saw them phase in between a couple times or like kind of phase out and in. And I really liked that. Later, there's that great sneaky moment where Larbis appears behind Baruch and you almost don't notice him.

And then you're like, oh my God, there's a shape in that sky. It's very cool that they're using it intentionally. Oh my god. They're using it intentionally. And also, again, I imagine it's not cheap and easy to consistently do that. And it's easier for a actor to wear some crazy contacts and possibly, if you're Baruch, some whiter face than the white you already have on up close I'm like oh man there's some cake and guys there's some cake and going on and be bald like as long

as like you could just wear the robe it's a good medium for their human suit right and I think that's the other part of it is they can phase in and out of whatever they kind of want, right? They could transform themselves into demons in the books. So this is the least scary, crazy look maybe for them since they're around humans so much more in this war. I think there's a couple good in-universe reasons, but I do think that I likely, for example, the intention craft, we watch Asriel, as you mentioned, struggle on and off with whether or not he can really intentionally use it and we see the angels kind of phase in and out a couple different times in both of the episodes so i thought that was interesting to keep that theme

going of that in-between space and of you know of putting yourself in that mode you'd have to be in for the knife or for the alethiometer. Yeah, definitely. And regarding how they're styled, I think even Zephania, they added like, did it look to you? Like they added like, yeah, shimmer, gold highlight all over or something. That girl had Fenty Beauty gold highlight up and down her. She was out there like a beautiful disco ball. Good for you, just throwing it out there as the holiday season comes around y'all got holiday parties i think that like the shimmer stuff that was in that sort of frosty look during the 2000s with like the shimmery lotions and stuff i've seen those being sold in a lot of places again so that's in to get friends if you're ready to cosplay zephania or cosplay baruch or baltamos

it's weird because baruch is like baruch has like uncle fester makeup and i feel like it's unfair like he just has like white white makeup on and baltamos looks just like kind of cool he's chilling and sad he's chilling and big sad but like baruca was like how'd they give zephania this beautiful creamy edward cullen skin but they didn't give you shit a larvis goth makeup they like gave him like the dark under eyes and i'm like oh he got he's got yeah like ball paint some of them are like, so angels have different sub-pop cultures that they like to look like or can look like. Zephania's got that dewy, glowing look going on, right? She's all about 2023's top trends.

2023 slash 2003, depending. My god, exactly. That's true. Okay, that's true. Check me on the timeline. No, but it really is. Yeah, it could work either way you got malgoth oh my god it could work either way you got malgoth on a larbis that's true that's true you got that back balthamos and baruch are kind of like that wonderful gay couple who like

they theme right when one goes one way the other goes the other way they really complement each other really well in fashion, and I love that for them. Except for the part where one dies, that I do not love for them. Well, and he had a really bad foundation, and he should have gotten that fixed. Also, when they introduce themselves to Will,

they say, don't be afraid. It reminds me of how constantly in the Bible, something like some heavenly figure shows up or whatever he goes be not afraid and you're like that's great i didn't even notice that that idea right especially because like some of them they show up to ezekiel it's like three-headed figure shit tons of wings and i can understand but you're like be not afraid and we're discussing how they can take different forms and they i think more or less explicitly say yeah we pick this form like for you and that speaks a little bit to how they are portrayed in paradise lost right some of

the rebel angels or like rebel faction um they're described of those male, these feminine, for spirits when they please can either sex assume or both. So soft and uncompounded is their essence pure, nor tied or manacled with joint or limb, nor founded on the brittle strength of bones like cumbers flesh. But in what shape they choose, dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, can execute their airy purposes and works of love or enmity fulfill. So this is canon. Oh, I love that. Yeah, I love that. They're changeable, mutable, like flam. Or air. Or air. They flow. They're spirit. I mean, they're everything that's within us and everything that's within us is everything. So that is a look Baruch chose.

They are who they are. So Asriel and still Maria do a prison break of some men together with the Calabasians. Chloe's like, ooh, I don't like that pronunciation. They free a gunway and go. Yeah, we get our first look at the Galavesians so early on.

And I don't know what my deal is the last few weeks. I've been in like kind of a Dune kick, but I haven't been rereading it. I haven't rewatched it. It's just like everything is reminding me of Dune. rewatched it, it's just like everything is reminding me of Dune, mostly because Dune is like very formative of some of the books we have today that follow a hero's journey, right? And also the downfall of a hero's journey. But the Galavespians have a lot of changes. Some I'm not happy about, but some I'm getting used to. And one of those is their wings, right? They fly on a dragonfly, usually.

That is kind of, they're just little Thumbelinas, as we've talked about in our past coverage. They fly on dragonflies, and they're very deadly assassins otherwise. And they really leaned into the assassin side of this instead of the Thumbelina side. We do not have the dragonflies. They have their own wings. Their wings, though, are kind of like ornithopter blades, right? A machine that's designed to fly by flapping its wings in an imitation of a bird. If you saw Dune 2021, oh my god.

If you saw Dune 2021, was it 21? Was it 22? If you saw the new Dune movie, you'll have seen this helicopter that I'm talking about. It basically looks like a little hummingbird helicopter, but their wings are very interesting. I'm definitely disappointed

in the books. They have these super important eggs, right? From their dragonflies, and we do? From their dragonflies. And we do not have the dragonflies. We do not have the eggs. I, uh, I'll get over it. But interesting that they took them so ninja assassin rather than fantasy folklore assassin.

Yeah, I agree. I don't mean to be, like, you know, like like wedded to this thing in the books, but it was something that I love, right? And lived with for like, I don't know, 20 years of my life now. And yeah, I liked the eggs, okay? I liked the eggs and the idea of, there was just that really visceral and intimate thing that i loved of how the galavespians kept those dragonflies alive by feeding them off their own blood especially in the world of the dead but as you said they really took the aesthetic like very assassin style but like spy assassin and also kind of like you, maybe is it like this idea of going against the system kind of reminds me a little bit of the Matrix. You know, ladies.

Very Matrix. I especially agree. I thought so, too. They're very Matrix. Right. Agent Salmakia. Very Trinity. Speaking of the odds and stuff.

Absolutely Trinity coded. Absolutely. Absolutely. and stuff and absolutely trinity coded absolutely absolutely as you said like as opposed to going that thumbelina or like five or even like some of the other inspirations that felt really like they came through in the books of things like the borrowers or or the lilliputians from gulliver's travels which you know the the the lilliputians like take down like the quote unquote big people right like so it's something that i i get it i get it with the aesthetic etc for the other things but i'm just like you know i like i like the dragonfly aspect and for what it's worth in the moment i

didn't think about the dragonflies this is just after watching it twice that i was like huh i do miss the dragonflies i was genuinely so excited that we got three galavespians in our very first galavespian scene and then we got another like that was cool i liked that part and i guess aesthetically does it play well with the parallels right with the angels i don't know we'll find out i'm looking forward to finding out i also love a gunway being like what the fuck is going on here when he's like why is there a leopard why did it talk to me i like that he's kind of getting he's getting kind of like an intro plot which is funny because we had that from will last season in some ways and in season one i would say you know you have lee scores be kind of as the outsider that joins up at some point right so you have like these outsiders joining

in and learning these people and their ways and i really like that he's getting his own introduction plot from the very beginning and i'm'm curious how they're going to make it work. Will he have a meaningful end to his arc? I don't know. I don't know yet. They got to bring it home for me. Because he doesn't in the book. I mean, he had a meaningful end in that he was part of this great revolution in war, right?

But now we see that there are personal scenes. So as you said, how's that going to work? I think I have faith that they're going to pull it off. I think. And I have some ideas, too, of how they will. So then we have Daphne Keene's dad. I'm sorry, wait. I meant father.

Will Keene. McPhail. But actually, literally, her dad. Stannis Baratheon. The Magisterium doing some physical punishment and censorship because of heresy of his own kind. And of his own kind and of his own kind also i have to put out there that uh hitler youth kristin cole i mean father gomez i mean daddy dom gomez yeah enters what he's very into punishment i'm very interested what is going on there a lot of uh yeah

very uh very kind of sadistic characterization dark also Father McPhail has a new title now it's Fuhrer King Bradley from Fullmetal Alchemist it is absolutely giving Fuhrer King Bradley

but no he's Father President McPhail now. And the Pantone 2023 color of the year, Viva Magenta. He is wearing the fuck out of that color. It's very royal, right? Compared to his fellow people. Yep. It's kind of funny because they're both,

in a way, like, jewel tone versions of, slash, like, the magenta's kind of an off version of it. They're, like, the colors usually associated with the Virgin Mary in art and paintings. Oh, yeah, that's true. The Virgin Mary is portrayed with a blue cloth or robe and the inside of the robe is, or, like, cloth is red. That's a typical language to signal this is the Virgin Mary in artwork. And speaking of artwork, Father King Bradley MacPhail does not like that the people are reading poetry.

And I thought that was fantastic. A, obviously, we've been talking about the influence of poetry on this book's Paradise Lost, but also the Inferno and Songs of Experienced Innocence, comedy in general. Exactly, exactly. And also he literally like quotes poems at the beginning of like each chapter. the nose there but also that they are so distrusting of poetry and find it so evil really stood out to me in regards to things like the cave and how plato and that idea of symbols like weaves into this story right because in plato's republic plato actually is very distrustful of poetry and poets as well right he? He fears their rhetoric and like how and perceives poetry as an even further version of the truth, right? The true forms from the world

of like the ideal because it's incredibly like removed this sort of imitation and mimesis and brings people away from that so I thought that was really interesting especially when we bring up the idea of this republic that Asriel is building right this republic of heaven that Pullman is working towards in this story and that's poetry is at the heart of what's building that right not just like this idea of being able to move people and again rhetoric is a big part of the beginning of paradise lost but like being able to articulate ideas language and and how even things like the alethiometer right that's poetry it depends on metaphor on symbolism and words being able to hold multiple meanings at once

yeah it's the fear of people being able to form together and communicate right in a language together i mean it's really interesting because then you have uh this fear of the influence of poetry. This fear of people actually uniting under it. And also symbols, like you said. Because we see throughout these episodes that Lyra and Will are major symbols for them. And that's what they need to destroy is symbols. They can't have symbols of the rebellion. Standing tall and standing proud.

Absolutely. A prophecy is one thing but that's true they're more than prophecies now i mean if you kill them they're martyrs no one knows that they exist which is what they're trying to do nip it in the bud now before the songs and the poems get bigger we get some exposition on baruch and balthamos's relationship with will and what they're searching for but will my son oh my absolute tall giant old son uh he says that lyra is the most important thing and that he doesn't give a fuck basically he's like that's really cool. But if it's not about finding Lyra, it's on the back burner. Priorities.

God bless Will or not God bless. So when Baruch and Balthamo's kiss, there's also this moment that I love in which it looks like they're shimmering even more it looks like dust is streaming from them which is foreshadowing for when will and lyra kiss and what that all means and also will brings out the alethiometers like will this help you track lyra right it's something of hers kind of like how i guess father gomez uses i don't know if that's Lyra's dress or Mrs. Coulter's dress to sniff and track her. Though, I have a very funny tweet about that moment if anyone wants to go check that out.

Please. Please do. That's a good call, though. I didn't think about that, that they were trying to track Lyra using something that's probably got her dust all over it. Her filthy dust prints. That's true we pass by dream lyra and dream roger who are in a bus station in hell should have made it the dmv

and asriel then goes home and meet goes home with a gunway and uh meets his family i loved this scene. This is definitely one of the favorite scenes of the episode, I think, for me. Because first of all, this is a fucking nightmare for Asriel and also very compelling. Asriel shows up and it's like,

wow, imagine if your kid liked you. He's like, imagine if you liked your kid, right? So many people were tweeting that. That too. It was so funny. This is what a family looks like and not just that but then i loved in the background while azrael and a gunway talked you could see a gunway's family and not just his primary family but their chosen family as well right like their

brothers in arms fellow soldiers that they treated like family and they were in the background just being together and warm even with like drones flying overhead all of them the introduction to the daughters was something really i don't know i really loved getting to see that kind of contrast and him having a family we notably didn't meet a partner we'll talk about that later i have ideas of why but the first daughter we meet machi she has many different main there are many different name meanings for machi or etymology you could look at like in hebrew it means to decrease uh there's also a japanese meaning that i didn't snag before this i did notice in swahili, it means to march. And I wondered if that was any given anything, you know, when the writers decided what to name her. And of course, her sister Aria is

named a tad bit ironically, right? Because Aria usually, usually with more obvious roots and like air and song, depending on what language you look in. But also in Kikuyu, in central Kenya, it means to speak is how they kind of take that word. So she does not do that any longer. I get it. I get it. I see where they're going with that. No sound, no air. Just like, what is that song?

How am I supposed to breathe with no air? How's it to breathe with no air? But how do you expect me? I don't even remember. i don't know the words because i always i think change whenever that song comes on to live or i can't breathe because the world revolves around you it's so hard for me to breathe tell me how i'm supposed to breathe but no air anyways so little musical interlude a gunway's daughter we get introduced that Arya was cut by the authority of their world, the temple, and they call being cut training for their own war. I kind of took that as like their version of reprogramming.

And it does make me wonder, do you think the drones are their world's specters? It's something like that it we did get that implication especially because in the next episode they're like yeah the drones won't go away anymore kind of like how the specters like settled upon shatagatse so it seems like there's some sort of yeah parallel that is intentional of how exactly like what Asriel says this is happening across all the worlds. And yeah, I thought that was interesting when you said about the names and like their origins. And I don't know, I'm just curious, like about that process. I'm probably giving way too much thought to like this world building. It's just something that, you know, like we called out when

we were reading the Amber Spyglass of like, where king agunwe from because they call him king agunwe and just say he's like an african king and i'm like it's a whole ass continent with like abazilian cultures and agunwe is a name that seems to be associated with nigeria and specifically within nigeria like yoruba people and the yoruba language and there is actually you know his his accent is some sort of I can't like tell things apart when this is like very hypocritical hypocritical of me because I can't tell apart like different English empire accents within like the UK to an extent I can tell some but like he it's clearly some sort of British accent, right? And there is a large British Nigerian community in England due to, you know, the transatlantic slave trade from

West Africa, but also it being a former British colony, but also so was Kenya and that East Africa, right, is where Swahili is mostly spoken. So I'm just kind of curious, maybe his partner, right? Who, or former partner or multiple, right? We don't know. Like, what is their culture like? Is it like the Egyptians or something with this sort of guerrilla group family? Were they named by her or like whomever? Or like, it seems like a community, community as you said this chosen family of very mixed nationalities so that makes a little more sense and brings that in into you know focus as opposed

to how they had it in the books he's not a king he's a commander which helps kind of explain all that and also the title of this episode is the enchanted sleeper and aria is another enchanted sleeper if you will actually yes not drugged one they haven't obviously revealed their own version of the map that's true maybe they're just pulling a pullman on top of their map and just going remix who knows i thought it was interesting it's great to bring them in either way and i think we will get to know more about whether or not he has a partner or you know i think you're right his you're gonna talk about it you're gonna talk about it but i agree i agree

i'm amping up we're edging uh oh my god another dune. Hold on to your seats. I love when they enter and then they exit out to the back where everyone is and it's a garden and it reminds me of the Arrakeen Conservatory, this hidden gem built on a mansion amidst the war, the desert, the land, the Dune. as a bridal present to his fourth wife, who was from a water planet called Humidus. And the room was basically, I mean, the Freeman hated this. The room, they thought it was a waste of precious water, and it was a status symbol, and they called it a weirding room, fit only for witches, which Jessica, the Lady Jessica, has some time spent there.

I really, that was really neat. I was like, oh, it looks like the room at Dune. You know, they have the garden in Dune. Yeah. That's a great call. A little place of comfort and a little hidden gem of beauty that they have amidst their war-torn place. Because, I mean, there is a feeling of refuge there, right? That they have banded together as survivors in their own rebellion and leaders of their own rebellion, and they are so having that garden there is kind of nice their own secret garden their own yeah it is garden their own it is their own eden and i think that that's a great observation on that symbolism

because it's not just that as you're talking about it's this area of beauty right and it's an it's kind of like an art right and people that's human that's what they're fighting to protect right their family they're in that gorgeous little garden area with all that greenery around and everything that they could really need if they have each other and if they can survive is that and that's i mean that's the story right like keeping your loved ones safe. Do you love your loved ones? Do you keep them safe? How do you keep them safe?

How do you love one another? What matters? Does matter matter? These are all questions that we're going to talk about and more this series. My last thought before I know you have something wonderful to come on in with is, okay, Asriel, talking about, you about you know oh it's only bad when the authority does it as real it's only bad when the authority does it balakwa i see you oh my god him oh that's so bad that the temple cut your daughter is it is it right and he does address

it the next does does his daughter have a best friend does kind of talk about it next episode but i thought that was so funny he's like they mutilate kids and i was like fascinating that you think that's bad as real i i think they they've done a good job of showing that this is hypocritical though as real is a hypocrite so i the whole two episodes the whole two episodes i appreciate that that they're not lionizing him. Or leopardizing? So no leopardizing. Speaking of spots. So the camouflage that a gunway and the other people in his community are wearing,

it's made by paint splatters. And it's obvious to us, we read these as camouflage, but that is actually how camouflage was originally made in our own world, right? According to Gertrude Stein, when in, what is it, the autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, When Picasso first saw the French military wearing camouflage, he said, c'est nous qui avons fait ça, or it was us who created that. So Cubism was in fact a large inspiration for camouflage clothing, and in fact the military employed artists in order to create camouflage during World War I, which is I I think, really fascinating because, again, when you consider the role of art in rebellion, right, we're talking about poetry, which is also art. Plato was also like, art is suspicious too, and that's what's happening, right? We've discussed also Cubism and the modernist art movement, modernist capital M, that sprung towards the

end of the 19th century, mostly in reaction to World War I with that lost generation. And a lot of part of that movement included poems like T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland, which is another poem where you can see those influences on historic materials. Pullman is inspired by cubism when it comes to some of this so it's a really great catch i'm not going to spoil the outer series obviously but in the secret commonwealth there is a new way to read the alethiometer that pullman has actually said is based on cubism it's a disruption of classical perspective which incorporates presence of time yeah i can see that and then they're attacked by drones fun less cubism we talked about that for a second i guess and speculated already

yeah flash over to the magisterium where father mcphail is doing his new favorite art form which is staring he's staring at the art of adam and eve and he charges daddy gomez to stop the prophecy and Lyra. However, there's going to be several more meetings about it, just so you know, because this is a bureaucracy and they can't get anything done in just one scene, I've learned. I am amazed at kind of the adaptation they're doing with Gomez here, because we know from past interviews they're not doing a certain character we'll talk about in a bit the dualipa but he they had so many scenes to get him some screen time huh father gomez is

really out here getting his screen time yeah i i don't know what i guess i just didn't have the budget to hire dualipa you know his uh world he gets a demon they did have a budget for him to have a demon though and he has a white spider that is so creepy a little bone colored spider it crawls out in this scene i was like yeah and they changed that from his beetle demon in the books and i don't really care about the differences between a spider and a beetle so that doesn't a bug's a bug i guess like a beetle's more what is the word that i'm looking for annoying actually i like beetles um maneuverable because they fly yeah you know you don't have to carry it more wing but it doesn't really i don't care hey the legs were creepy enough yeah it was

a very scary spider he seems like a scary dude they're gonna launch this man's career uh pan please with marisa to let them go but it doesn't work and marisa stares out at the great deep dark water haha you thought i was going for the abyss. We still have some episodes before that, but we get and appreciate the foreshadowing. Thanks, White Lotus. The angels... Right, I'm like, okay, we get it. Someone's gonna die of fun.

The angels try out the alethiometer. They, like, give it a whiff. They're like, huh, I'm gonna find Lyra from this. And just from looking at it, smelling her dust on it. Truly, I'm guessing. I mean, it's got to be connected to her viscerally. I mean, she spends a lot of time with that alethiometer.

They say to Will that she's with a woman with a golden monkey, unharmed. Balthamos will take Will to them. Baruch will take the news of the subtle knife over to Asriel. And then Father Gomez reads the alethiometer with fra pavel and tells him to do keep trying pan tries to wake lyra to escape and the golden monkey keeps an eye on them but lets them pass for a second and then outside it's bright as fuck and pan doesn't believe in lyra and nor do we uh but then comes along mrs coulter and she's so you know she's she's just all like oh lyra you're so funny trying to run away all the time it's like so so condescending

lyra's obviously too weak to run away and mrs coulter then just you know drugs her again with the handkerchief and off they go back into the house yeah those muscles are atrophying as hell first of all i'm like that girl's got some bed sores um but also this scene this is totally me when i haven't left my house in weeks because i've been working from home and i've been binge drinking on the weekends and i have a good parking spot like this is a mood that first day that you leave the house and the actual sunlight pierces your eyes. I'm like, wow, this is horrible. It was, I felt the staggering.

In fact, I have to do that in the morning. And I felt the staggering that Lyra had to do there. It's so funny, the staggering, like, out of the bed. I guess it's not really funny. But when she was doing that, I was also thinking, like, I felt that feeling before. I was like, that's me after a night with Chloe. More than once. Don't forget it.

That was your last warning. Asriel continues to try to convince Ogunwe to come over to his world. Yeah, again. This is the moment where Asriel's like, they're mutilating children in every world. I'm like, yeah, look who's talking. And then also, I don't know, he's just giving this holster in need of a whole new world to a gunway. Oh, instead of a whole new world, a hole in your world. Yeah, oh.

More than once. A hole in your world, boom. Because you just bust the hole. Busts into the hole. Whoa, whoa. Bust the- anyways. James McAvoy. So Marisa-

Marisa also is staring out a window and the monkey tries to kind of comfort her in some sort of way and I get it. They're waiting next to a window. Come to a window. Absolutely not.

Yeah. Palthamos and Will discuss the alethiometer and they seek a ship but instead they find King Yorick Bernison real dad okay real dad this is again this is all happening so fast we have a lot of time to cut through uh their meeting kind of mirrors Lyra and Yorick becoming friends and establishing trust in one another by that kind of display and performance with the other yeah I thought they did a really good job of highlighting those parallels between how we'll connect with Yorick and Lyra's first like some of those first meetings I thought that

was really good and what was especially good was you know Yorork being like it would be shameful to fight you and he's like you are as weak as an oyster out of its shell and that i think was the best line in these two episodes and i think i'm gonna just start saying that to people like you are as weak as an oyster out of its shell yo there were great yorick one-liners. I really loved it. I was, I was, that was the one thing is like, I was happy to see Joe Tannenberg return. Not see, but hear him return. For sure. Yorick rocks.

Is he still my rival? Absolutely. But like, yeah. Well, if they ever need you, they know where to find you, Yorick Jr. Exactly. Um, why are you cutting his soul, Will? Right, I still need Philip Pullman to explain this.

Philip Pullman hasn't explained it, and then the council, which is what I'm calling our revered writers and executive producers here, the council elected to continue the dumbass decision set down by Philip Pullman, and I have elected to ignore the dumbass decision set down by Philip Pullman and I have elected to ignore the dumbass decision but at least this one's easier to fix than we'll be just like sitting there kind of like peeling it into a bunch of like confetti yeah that was pretty rude in the book but also like yeah it's just one I mean sure easy to fix but have you had your soul cut in half lately, Aliana? I have not, and I do not intend to find out. Well, either way, I didn't like it.

I would like them not to do that to him, because it's literally explained. It's basically his soul. And then his face being like, oh, shocked. I was hurt for Yorick Burnison. I was hurt for Beardad. Yeah. That said, did the knife get upgrades this season? Because maybe we got to reach out to our friends in the props

because it looks good. It has like a new shine in the light. Maybe it's just seeing it in the light. It just looks brighter, shinier. Maybe so. Maybe so. I'd like to know. Or he cleaned it.

Oh my gosh. I mean, what else is he going to do while looking for Lyra? He doesn't have his smartphones now. Like a little knight with a sword, but it's a knife. Yeah, like Ned Stark at the Godswood cleaning his sword.

That's what he does at night. What has he been eating? Anyways. It's actually a good question. I don't know. Oh, I thought your time skip solved everything, Eliana. I thought he could, like, cut into a market, steal some food, cut out. You mean he's been criminaling this whole time? He already, he's a murderer.

He's already a criminal. He killed at least one person. Lyra logs on. I don't consider that a criminal. She killed at least one person. Lyra logs on. I don't consider that a criminal. She's like, that was actually good, in fact. Criminal? Yeah, that's my man. I love how in all the scenes about Lyra, though, they keep saying that, like, she will, I don't know, do this or something.

Or they keep saying she's being held against her will. Right? will i don't know do this or something or they keep saying she's being held against her will right and i'm like oh she's being held against like her will oh she's gonna be held against her will whoa whoa whoa all right innocently it's innocent cuddling yeah i mean well they held hands at the end of these two episodes and that is the yeah they that's the weirdest thing anyone can do hold hands yeah i've of these two episodes, and that's the ludicest thing anyone can do, hold hands. Yeah, I've read that in Jane Austen. McPhail and Gomez talk. Gomez plans to go find Lyra using unofficial techniques.

Gomez then unleashes a spy fly on Lyra's scent, like you said, following that scent. spyfly on Lyra's scent like you said following that scent we talked about how the Dualipa the Dualapi the Tualapi the burbs have been removed which in my opinion that takes a lot of the nuance of Father Gomez's mission out so it seems like they're actually funneling some of Book McPhail to him now and it seems the first half of the season he's going to be active in the field looking for Lyra probably before the bomb um i don't know how i feel about it i know there's contracts to fulfill there's all sorts of stuff and he's great i i really think hitler youth kristen cole is a good like he's brought a lot to the screen already but the spy fly was smart because most of your viewers will remember the

little from series one whether they've read the books or not it is not a spy fly in the book right he is actually on the hunt of well the mulefa and mary malone and the dualipa so it's a completely kind of different plot so this was a great way to connect him to the plot and make it all feel like there's a purpose instead of the 50 different magisterium meetings that we yeah i don't like one version better or worse we'll see how the season plays out right in terms of how they're they're interpreting father gomez's character but as you said it is a very marked change and they are playing him up more as a villain which i understand why they're doing that based on where his storyline goes yeah they they kind of are like having him take on that more active role

and he i do wish there were two alapi but again i understand that you know dualipa is a very in demand artist and might have been i just feel like it's an important... I don't know, like, you should... It's... Yeah, it's the themes. It's like that against just the Magisterium, the Mulefa and Mary Malone and Lyra and Will is one thing, but when you add the Tuolapi, it makes it, like, a whole different thing

in that, like, it shows that cycle that our world operates on because of that. Yeah, I agree. The Tuolapi don't have to hunt the mulefa and take their land it's that they're also being hunted and they're naturally predators the two alapi yeah yeah yeah they and they're being provoked they're just also out here to fuck shit up and now they're like let's fuck it up even more because we've been provoked by Daddy Gomez. Which is funny, because this whole episode,

Asriel's talking about, or these whole two episodes, provocation for the rebellion, right? Like, the big goal is piss them off enough that they pay attention to us. And he talks about that a lot. Yeah, and Gomez kind of taming, I guess, and using the tulapi as a little reminiscent of, you know, Mrs. Coulter taking control of the Spectres specters so it's kind of a lot of stuff going on there but this book has a lot going on let's see let's see how it goes like

we're getting harpies and we're getting the land of the dead so i mean i'm happy i'm just pointing out these are definitely yeah it's just some stuff that i feel is central to the themes that's all yeah i feel that something that is kind of fun though in terms of not themes but maybe visual motifs is the decor of the magisterium as you said they have like that cool old room with all the adam and eve stuff it's interesting that they went more of this like austere aesthetic, this sort of like more Western military style. Not that the other style of churches were not Western because they very much were because they take place in the West. But yeah, I don't know. I recently visited a bunch of like those old churches from, you times. And I was like, dang, this art is amazing. If I were a person during the time that these were made,

came in and saw these sick stained glass paintings and all this stuff, I'd be like, yo, this is really, really cool and majestic. God is for sure real. And that would definitely move me. But they didn't go for that aesthetic but what is fun is again they went for more of that militaristic authority like kind of pared down showing like the the lack of imagination and thought and i thought it was cool that some of the way that the lamps that are on the wall those those sconces, the way that the light comes out of them is a little bit reminiscent of the angel's wings. And even like the way that they make that

sort of cross look, not all of the crosses, but some of them like in the wall tiles, etc. Also look a little bit like that three pronged wing of how they've portrayed the angels. progged wing of how they've portrayed the angels that's a great call visually i really love the there's something like you said it's not pure majesty right but it's like got a very imperial and authoritative feel about it and very still beautiful i mean even in the the wall tapestry thing of the adam and eve right like that was kind of more of the classical look what you'd imagine if you closed your eyes and thought of the big church where god lived or something you know like if you just looked at your most ridiculous fantasies in your brain uh something like that artwork was a little more

traditional yeah you could tell that it was older and you could tell they've gotten away from that in time yeah that's what it used to be and now it's about this more modern look absolutely so then there's this montage next like of a lot of people and we get a reprise of like the theme song kind of but like remixed which is and will and yorick are embarking on a boat and speaking of season one parallels it's a little bit reminiscent of you know the egyptians going to go rescue children who were kidnapped by mrs coulter but now it's just these two going and rescuing only one child kidnapped by Mrs. Coulter but yeah how do you know that it's an HBO

show why there's an epic moment near the end of the episode where our protagonists do something where they have an aerial view where they have an aerial view or another view and you know they play the music and it's really grandiose that's how you know, they play the music, and it's really grandiose.

That's how you know it's an HBO show. Absolutely. Ladies, gays, and nays, that's how you know. Speaking of drones, those drone shots, you know? Them drones. Them thrones. Them drones. Oh.

Oh. Finally, Asriel convinces a gunway to join, because he shoots his portal, he shoots his shot into the sky and they have a great conversation that makes me think of what we might see later this season where they talk about death and

Asriel says death is a lie and he says, Ogunwe responds that he's wrong, death is real he's seen it more than his fair share of battle and it just reminds us you can't really have life without death and that concept of finding your own death later on and facing your own death and not being do not be afraid right of your own death because it's always going to be there waiting for you around that corner very true and as we'll be

like i'm going to save everyone from you know know, whatever that fate is. That's death. And I'm like, no, you're not. It's gonna be Lyra. Not one bit. Lyra. You're not the fated one. She is. I wonder, yeah, how they're gonna flesh that out. It seems like they might actually address that for his character. kind of feel like he's already going towards it right that he's like no i'm the chosen one and then it's gonna be like oh my bratty child that i don't respect is the chosen one huh how'd that happen yeah he's still in like his tsundere phase and they have this conversation of like how humankind can't not stand against its creator and yeah it's that conversation of how rebellion against those who make you right against your creators like i don't know your parents and how lyra stands against both her creators in terms of her parents and also creator right the authority

yet interestingly the magisterium also is trying to destroy the mother of us all which again in a way kind of another war against the creator well let's find out what eve gets herself up to in episode two the break which was also written by Jack Thorne and Amelia Spencer. We launch off with Balthamos explaining he can always feel Baruch, who we then watch fly away. Baruch flies away with this gorgeous rainbow spirit shit, just like their kiss, just like their weird rainbow barf kiss. Now he has a rainbow fart cloud following him, and I love it. But another angel appears in the back watching him. And, you know, we talk about

some of this stuff with like churches. One of the prettiest things of any church, of temples, of mosques is the ritual of it all, right? There's like a very quiet reverence and some rituals that just feel very beautiful and traditional and old and the stained glass right like the magic of light coming through colored glass that's what it looks like when baruch flies across the sky i feel like there was a lot of thematically speaking uh bonds right came up a lot in this chapter. And Balthamos has a talk here where he says, I feel as one, though we are two. And later, we have Marisa talking a little bit about that similar bond of love, right, of love, unconditional love, or just love. And it was interesting to see

brought up so soon. Yeah, that's a great they're they're talking about that idea of love in its different forms and this idea of being one and torn apart early season and there's also this like one moment where you know like both almost says something about like protecting the one that you love and i'm like, they're just out here. They're just giving it all away. That, yes, the love between Will and Lyra. And, I mean, as they should. Marisa fingers a locket.

Looks like it could be an important locket for our plot, I was thinking. And a spyfly drifts down and finds them. In Lyra's subconscious, meanwhile, she's asleep on a dock in the land of the dead and she wakes and promises roger she'll find him in real life she wakes up to pan who says he couldn't follow her there yeah and again um that's what we discussed about the land of the dead not being able to go there but also i don't know she just feels so vulnerable being at the land of the dead and like in her pajamas like i'd be so mad if that i went there like in my flimsy jammies and it'd be horrible very vulnerable like i don't know give me at least some pockets or i don't know i do love daphne keen at the edge of that pier screaming roger i just think daphne keen is so good at screaming right i don't know if any of you watched what is it logan which

is the first time i ever saw her yeah she's so good at screaming and you know also a little like how will was screaming for where's lyra at the beginning of the first episode. A lot of yelling, a little bit of sleeping, and a lot of yelling. Same. Yeah. We take a little intro dance break. Do-do-do-do-do. Ba-da-ba-da-boo.

Do-do-do-do-do. And then we open up on Asriel's compound with a gunway where we are introducing Ruta to a gunway. And she has this kind of cute little comment of, I chose you, by the way. You know, I can go to all these worlds and I checked out your work and I was impressed. So, you know. And they enter his fortress asriel's fortress to check it out and i have to say i think there could be a love story on the rise i agree it definitely felt that way i really feel like they were trying to kind of

highlight that meeting between them and them like sizing up. I agree. Because there's a lot of mutual respect, right? And later they kind of have a conversation that actually convinces him that like maybe he should join this crazy ass fucking guy's war. Like realistically, they both kind of look at each other. She's like, look, I know like what you might see and think of him, but I trust him, and I think you should too. And the respect that she earns from him at the front of the episode

helps there and helps to convince him to come along. And I think they're going to have a good bond, and I see them as a Pecklesby 2.0, you know, as a Lee and Serafina or a Seraaphina and farter quorum yeah 3.0 really especially because they're from different worlds right so they wouldn't they'd have to part and then yeah and they also didn't even include ruda's having a you know being lovers with asriel so this this i've been very surprised they've kept it quiet they are it's not the case right like in this especially if this is what they're going towards that's kind of how i feel is i'm

like we haven't heard anything about her and azrael banging in the last season so and they didn't do anything yet in this season and they had a very respectful good meeting solid meeting and establishing of characters for her and a gunway i'm just saying i think a romance plot is on the rise but like every his dark materials romance plot i'm gonna need us all to cool it because you know what usually happens at the end of a his dark materials romance plot nothing good good actually for real though true well we have the council room and the remaking of the intention craft they discuss labor and dust and i i don't know i will say like i am confused about this version of pandemonium and will there be more volcanic fiery brimstone stuff later i was kind of yeah i was surprised about asriel's but also i didn't

know if this felt like the only part of it like maybe there's deeper into the mountain maybe we haven't seen the deeper parts but i expected it to be a little hellish yeah and like i don't know if it was a budget slash filming constraint of like where they could film or something. And it's not necessary, I guess, but the vibes to me were great in terms of, again, creating that connection between pandemonium and the idea of Asriel as a stand-in for Satan, right? And that rebellion in Paradise Lost paradise lost etc and how that place is described maybe it's very zach snyder of me but i see it just very gritty in my head you know darker and i was the whole that might have thrown me off and i don't care but it's like the first two episodes were very bright yeah believe it Believe it or not. No, that's true. And, like, I know that's, like, kind of, is that annoying of me to say?

Because I know we critiqued, like, the first season for being too dark. And. Now we're complaining because it's too bright. Yeah, I think that they, like, the brightness, et cetera, last season, they hit it. So. Yeah, it was perfect. And maybe it'll get darker, right? As the wars and stuff happen

that's what i was wondering but i just feel like i don't know why azrael came upon a place that was full of like brimstone and volcanic activity and decided like that's where he wanted to like set up base that seems to be what's implied in the book and it's fine it's fine i just you know you have an image in your head for a long time so yeah no it's uh now it's for us it's about adapting to these images adapting to the adaptation is going to be that could be a story whoa adapting to the adaptation we get our first mary scene i can't help but put a smile on my face when Mary Malone is on screen. For me, it makes me happy. Yes.

Mary has her I Ching, her sticks, once more, and she's mapping in a journal and figuring out where the fuck she is. And she comes upon a village where she finds, you guessed it, two orphan girls, different orphan girls than the last three uh two orphan girls in

the camouflage of a gunway's world they haven't seen lyra but a drone hovers overhead so yes mary malone has adopted new orphans classic i was surprised to see this scene but i like it uh lorne belf's mary theme here is like out of control good it has that light tinkle of hope and innocence and childlike wonder and it makes you so excited in my opinion like it just makes me go ah oh what's gonna happen yeah i feel the exact same way about mary's theme so i'm excited every time it happens i think they've done as they've done, as you pointed out, right, they have Mary drawing maps, and I think they've done a great job of emphasizing how Mary is a very capable explorer as well, right? In the same rights as Coulter, Asriel, and Joppery. And I noticed that one of the youngsters, right, that she comes across, so I don't know if they're like meant to maybe like non-binary or trans or

something one of the youngsters is named joseph blakely according to the closed captions there is a boy in lyra's world named joseph blakely in series one episode six at registration outside following the fire alarm going off one of the nurses calls his name but we don't actually know if it was a his so this could be do you think this is that child that could be joseph blakely in another yes and no in that this could be that child in another world because they discuss how in parallel universes right the same person is there but like different things happen so this could be the same joseph blakely but yeah interesting but like not interesting this isn't the demon cages yeah i'm like this

is a joseph blakely same soul idea etc but like not born in the world of demons yep in the demon cages tommy lindsey here miss lizzie brooks here miss joseph blakely and this is when she finds roger it's literally happening in the background how fun and i have to know do they have a joseph blakely do they like somebody is someone's kid someone got their kid in twice that's's actually funny. That's interesting. So I'm wondering if that's another world version of Joseph Blakely, huh?

I think you found a very good Easter egg. A little, here are the Easter eggs you've missed. Yeah, we didn't get dragonfly eggs. We got maybe some Easter eggs. So Marisa meets Ama up the road and some of the herbs have been destroyed from the

salt which burns the roots which Mrs. Coulter says aloud which Ama obviously I guess cannot hear so suspicious very suspicious of you Mrs. Coulter and Asriel takes counsel from Lord Roque who brings word from Lady Salmakia who intendsends to find Lyra, who is in danger. And he's like, of course she's in danger. She's always in danger. And out at camp, Baruch fights an authority angel and then gets dragged down, shot. Baruch delivers his message and dies, whispering Balthamos' name. They take the enemy angel hostage in the intercision chamber. Meanwhile, on the boat,

Balthamo suffers as Baruch dies. And I thought, yeah, absolutely. And then I thought it was interesting how they had his sort of form shake as though it hurt him so much that it threatened the integrity of how his dust holds together together and then they did a good job of like really showing since they didn't show his pain in another way but showing it as him like blaming Will that was a good way to adapt that

yeah I imagine we might get a little bit more in the next episode too of just some finality of the grieving yeah that's a good point we'll see the spy fly returns to Gomez and drops a pin says this is of just some finality of the grieving. Yeah, that's a good point. We'll see. The spy fly returns to Gomez and drops a pin, says this is where you need to go.

Ogunwe is pretty upset about this whole Asriel stuff, and this is when Ruta and he speak and kind of come to Jesus about what they want to do. That's a bad choice of words. They come to Jesus about what they want to do. I'm keeping it. You're keeping it. I was like, no, that was great. The next scene was wild and honestly really parallels well with Coulter, right?

And her torturing of a witch. But Asriel experiments on the other angel, Alarbus, in his dust chamber to get some answers out of him. And he asks him about Enoch slash Metatron. And Alarbus is like, don't call him that. Metatron. It's his real name now. We see Alarbus go between forms coming off of Balthamos and Baruch there. That's a great point that we then see Alarbus go between forms.

But then as the torture kind of, you know, little intense he can't control it he's going in and out in and out so that should tell you a little bit about Balthamos's emotional state right against Baruch Stelmaria actually tells Asriel to stop Stelmaria is like this isn't right like this is kind of fucked up buddy then a larvus says that dust is not for him to understand it's for lyra to understand a couple fun things about the intercision chamber one nothing's fun about the intercision chamber we're no better than the enemy right is that not the first thing that went through your mind as he did this to the angel and tort like i get it you got a torture info but it was that feeling of war right

that like no one's winning it's war lyra and will are you know their own side that is better than all these sets asriel does say that the intercision chamber is lined with adamantine you know is the root of adamantium it is it is mentioned you know we also discussed adamantine before i don't remember where it was it actually might have been like in in these areas right like um of book three or so but adamantine chains as well like are mentioned quite a few times there's there's a couple of adamantine uh things mentioned in paradise floss it is an actual substance within the context of that as well it's like the gates that hold pandemonium or shit well and it's also an archaic form of diamond right yeah so it does remind me i would guess

that it's going to be part of the cage with the authority that makes sense because he's supposedly in a crystal ball but adamantine makes sense for what it is they never it might be yeah because it's kind of talking to the perspective wouldn't know what it was they're just like oh my god rescue the old man oh no there he goes oh no god he's falling apart oh god he's just a bunch of snakes oh god uh oh god it was god we killed god fuck shit they don't know that they're just like oh wow that what a sad man that sad man's now dust he looked real happy goodbye rip man they don't even know what they did we don don't really even. Anyways, we do. We do.

The thing about the scene that I want to bring up, when I was watching it, the thing that stuck out to me the most was I was like, oh, Alarbus, like from Titus Andronicus, right? This is a name straight out of Shakespeare, straight out of Titus Andronicus. And he's Temora's eldest son and a goth prisoner of war and he's kind of the proudest prisoner with the most to break right the most

resilience to break he gets chosen as a victim for the Romans ritual he doesn't actually have a speaking role and his presence is really brief he's on stage for like just a couple scenes and his death motivates Timura's revenge when it comes to Titus and kind of raises this question of like whether or not the Romans are as great and civilized as they claim to be. It kind of makes you uneasy watching like, huh, maybe this is also not good, which is pretty much what happens with Al yeah that's a good point it is also like it's funny because i i haven't i should probably think more deeply but it it is a the

most metal shakespeare play titus andronicus and it is a play very much about revenge you know vengeance especially because alarbus's brothers tamara's other sons uh also very uncomfortably rape lavinia and then silence her and then they're like remember that story where someone wrote out the names of her rapist and so they're like let's not just cut out her tongue let's also cut off her hands it's fun we're having fun we're having so much fun so what is kind of fun in the scene that is not very fun is some of the wordplay right you have a larbus saying that metatron will lead an inquisition into every world which very much harkens to that historical moment of the spanish inquisition of course right the catholic church and how they were trying to weed out heretics and force people to convert to Catholicism.

And then also, while Asriel is interrogating Alarbus, asks him, like, and then will his kingdom come? And that is a play, of course, on the Lord's Prayer, aka the Our Father of thy kingdom come and that is a play of course on the lord's prayer aka the our father of thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven so that's so great i love it there's a lot of great religious back and forth between them they're not hiding it not at all so mary's new orphans talk war and the temple and why they stayed behind when Asriel came. I love this view we get of the houses. They're kind of swathed in ivy and shrubbery and foliage. And it's kind of green with some gold tinges.

Almost like they're being swathed in dust. Right? It was just very beautiful to look at. Almost like dust falling on the land. But not yet. just very beautiful to look at, almost like dust falling on the land, but not yet. I love the idea too that she stays a little longer to tell them about her mission, about Lyra, because they want to hear about her. And she's kind of spreading the gospel of Lyra, right? And keeping Lyra alive and telling stories to people about her and keeping her journey alive. And that could mean so much

to these two child soldiers and survivors right joseph and their sibling that's funny because that's kind of like a she's like a prophet mary is yeah right and a savior's coming the book of mary that was her book that's her journal the book of mary is that is what it is and yeah another thing that i thought was like fun maybe not fun i don't know was was good about the perspective that these these orphans give of why they stayed behind um is it's another aspect on that whole like war and displacement and refugee story right of like yes it isn't easy to make the decision of we need to go right there are so many reasons people need to stay or have to stay like

whether it's loved ones or like it's their home right it's not an easy decision whichever whichever one you go so we get more father gomez and mcphail and like magisterium stuff and then we have will and balthamo's being sad and then marisa and the monkey are watched by ama and then we get the magisterium again with the soldiers and father gomez seeking lyra but now we have a Galavespian spy aboard Trinity from the matrix I those were fun though I have seen the little Galavespian like uh tuning in I love it it made me so excited there's a little bit more Galavespian too on the rewatch I had to rewatch it to kind of like contextualize I'm like there's a lot of Galavespian in these first couple episodes already, which is great because I feel like it doesn't happen so soon.

You get a little bit in the Asriel chapters, but you don't get all of it up front. Yeah, they've done a good job of putting all the pieces on the board. Yeah, especially because as we've talked about, they have so much to cover. Oh my gosh, yes. So I can't really be mad about a lot of these adaptive choices because I'm like, you have so much book and weird Oh my gosh, yes. So I can't really be mad about a lot of these adaptive choices because I'm like, you have so much book

and weird shit to do on screen. Father Macphail stares off in the distance some more with his demon looking very ravishing in color. But also I love his demon. I don't know why I find that lizard so cute. She's very beautiful, right? I just like her colors.

Will, Yorick, and Balthamos approach the cabin in the hill and come across Ama, who picks up some herbs that will wake Lyra. Balthamos signs. He helps translate their mission to find a girl, the girl. Then, of course, Yorick is like, conveniently, I cannot come with you because the plot says that I am not allowed to continue with you. So you go down there and deal with it.

And then Yorick, you know, goes to chill before eating some people later. Yeah, it makes a little more sense in the books because they're already being attacked that Yorick's like, I got to stay behind. Mm hmm. Yeah. It was funny. It was fine. I was I was definitely missing the weight, no pun intended, of the bears here. I agree.

We get that really great Will and Marisa confrontation, though, so it totally works that we left him behind. And there's this great and very sad line where they have a heart-to-heart, right? She's like, you know, I love my daughter more than anything in the world. I get why she hates me. I am the worst, but I love her and I need her and only I could save her. Don't you get that, William? And she says to him, that bond, it stretches, it transforms, but never breaks.

The line from here to here, heart to heart, she points, matters more than any line in nature. It's primal. It's beautiful. It overwhelms all other things if you let it. I love this compared to the beginning of the episode with some of that talk of bond between Baruch and Balthamos, right? That talk about that love that they have for one another. And this bond here, and I think it parallels the ultimate break to come, right? Like Pan and Lyra. That's a connection that, you know, the stretching and transforming. Does it break? I don't know. It's something we explore in the Outer Companion trilogy as well. And I'm interested to see how Pullman wraps that up and

what he thinks about it. Yeah, it's a question, really, like what Mrs. Coulter puts forth here. It's kind of like a, an argument. And I i i'm not sure i believe it you know based on how mrs coulter treats her child which i think is interesting because a lot of the series is about can you go against your creator and it's a it it's interesting when it's put in the context of like the parental abuse that lyra has suffered. She has suffered. So, and we also have this discussion, right? Where Mrs. Coulter points out Will's strength. And it comes up a lot in these two episodes.

And of course that idea of, you know, his name is Will. And as we joke, free Will. But also it is about free will. That is what the series is about. That is what is signaled by the consumption of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, free will, right? And that idea of strength. And it's very likely that Pullman characterized Will as he wrote him based on some of this dialogue from, or some of this text from Paradise Lost and his strength, because you can really see how this embodies him. So here's that quote of like, all is not lost, the inconquerable will. And here will is capitalized, it isn't always,

but here they're talking about, you know, like, one's will, you know, their intent slash, I don't know, that shit inside of you. But anyways, all is not lost. The inconquerable will and study of revenge, immortal hate and courage never to submit or yield. And what is else not to be overcome? Yeah, and that rolls really well into the next scene as well. Really will into the next scene. Oh, my God. will into the next scene oh my god we get so much with asriel talking to the council about the subtle knife right about its meaning and about how to destroy the authority with the knife and they discuss the lyra prophecy asriel goes a little okay a full stannis on this right that

he's like lyra doesn't matter no one fucking matters to me except killing God. Like, if my daughter dies in spite of it, that's too bad. Right? Just kind of says he's going to sacrifice all. And I have to say they're doing a really good job of that tension with Asriel because he's really a full-on prick. Yeah. In these two episodes. He's a total asshole and it's perfect. He's willing to risk Lyra.

He's willing to risk all these things like having a heart or a soul. But it's going to show such a huge change for him at the end of the season. And I had to keep that in mind. So I'm like, wow, he's coming on hard. This is great. This is awesome to watch him be a total himself for once. And I think it's good because it will give him a little bit of a turn midseason and end of season for him to right some of those wrongs.

That same guy who yelled everybody's special in the first season, right? little bit of a turn mid-season and end of season for him to right some of those wrongs that same guy who yelled everybody's special in the first season right like as you said huge prick and especially because he yells it at the kid he kills you know and yeah except for you it's that's right except for you well that kid was special in a different way to asriel and yeah part of it is also as you said like he changes but there's a little bit of him lying to himself especially with lyra that we've seen even in this episode and i just thought this speech and the rhetoric around it phrased with the constant repetition of like if i have to do x thing i will if i have to do this other x thing, I will. And he keeps saying I will. And just like the word

will and how it's used in this series really stood out to me in how it's coming back to Will Perry. And again, that focus on free will and revenge and etc. Yeah, it's a great cycle

in Paradise Lost that they're really pulling for this last season i feel like they're putting a lot of paradise lost in already the next scene is the angel in the dust chamber once more and zephaniah confronts them they share a great back and forth where they both kind of call each other hypocrites in a couple ways but zephania prevails in the conversation because zephania is working towards a greater good although alarbus is like but what if i am too huh like you ever stop and think about that i have not i did not stop and think about that alarbus look to your sins zephania alarbus says does like that's the whole point yeah that's why she's here fighting well and like we said at

the front right it's not you know it's not justice it's vengeance for her she's the last of the rebels right the last survivor of the last wars really she's seen the times that they've tried and this time she believes they can pull it off. Thankfully, she has protagonists like Will on the case because Will, Balthamos, and Ama are out there trying to get Lyra. They approach at the very same time that the Magisterium does, right? And we'll come back to them in just a few because first, we flash right back to Asriel where Salmachia reports back. This is crazy.

This is me, a noted Galavespian lover, favorite people, reporting in that we got the lodestone resonator. And it's very interesting how it was adapted. In the books, the description is a dark gray stone of magnetic iron ore, a lodestone, with kind of like a short length of pencil on a stand of wood, operated by using a tiny bow whilst pressing points on the stone's surface in a manner similar to playing a violin. So it's changed a little, right? It's not perfect. It's a lot smaller, at least the Galavespian version is, so maybe we'll still see their version. It's a lot smaller in the books, however, it really makes sense how they did it

with Salmachia's face forming in this kind of dark matter, right? It almost looks like dark matter that they're controlling and her face forms giving them information. And it does look like Asriel is tuning a frequency and playing with some knobs out of frame. We don't get to see that. So interesting how they've put it onto a screen and translated it. I had no clue what to expect other than some tiny little thing with a bow. Yeah, I thought this was fantastic.

I actually really loved this. And it was one of my favorite parts of the episodes of seeing how they imagined the lodestone resonator. And yeah, it looked like, I don't know, some sort of dark matter, but it also kind of reminded me the movement of it of the specters. Same. Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

At first, I didn't realize it was a lodestone resonator. I was like, is that because it looks like a specters in there? What does it have? Yeah, it was. I thought it's like a fancy telegraph that goes across worlds, which is like, that is cool. But like, this was kind of way cooler. Agreed. Agreed. agreed agreed all the plots of course converge on lyra you got father gomez coming to arrest mrs coulter but then will cuts his way in and won't let mrs coulter escape with them

yeah there's a little there's a little bit of accidental comedy in some of this i loved when will like cuts just his eye and is staring out at coulter, just his eye, because Gomez is still in there. Coulter, there's a great moment at the front of this, right, where the monkey picks out a big boulder piece of rock of slab from the hut, and you think it's going to be for fighting, right, that she's going to stand and fight off the magisterium with this rock, with her monkey, and then she turns to the monkey and is like, do your worst, and he bashes her, her right we don't get to see that part but we see why she does it she wounds herself in order to show them like

oh they escaped and they got me thinking it could help and it reminds me of the flagellation that we had in the last season from Daphne Keene's dad, from Father MacPhail, from Will Keene, where he, you know, puts his hand in the fire to punish himself, right, of his sins and scourge himself. But here, she's doing it in a different manner for her daughter, right? Her flagellation is coming from avoiding the magisterium or trying to fit into it in a way and showing them, oh, I've suffered, don't hurt me. Very interesting. And I thought it in a way and showing them, oh, I've suffered. Don't hurt me. Very interesting.

And I thought it was a great part of the scene. Then there was this line that comes up, right? Because Gomez kind of has this talk and he's like, look, it's great. You're keeping her alive and safe. But what are you really keeping her safe from? She's just going to die. So isn't this just a pathetic life? Like, why not just kill her and be done with it?

Because to kill her would be an act of love he said which to me when i heard that it was great because it's setting that groundwork that like no to kill her isn't an act of love to die for her is an act of love to die to give her a better world is an act of love which is what marisa ultimately finally comes that's a great point you have how it ties into marisa's storyline later on absolutely it's it's a really flimsy argument because he's like you know let her die so that she never has to experience pain or hurt right and that's exactly what the the story is arguing against whether it's you die literally or you die figuratively by never experiencing life because you are afraid to ever experience hurt. Yeah, he talks about this image of what could be more beautiful than that,

what could be more sweet than that of like, I don't know, Lyra dying in her mother's arms. And I'm like, I do not think that is, first of all, how Lyra wants to go out. That is literally probably very low on the list for her uh but the image of it is reminiscent of like the pieta right of the virgin mary holding the body of jesus right especially with lyra having that messianic storyline following her and also there is no good justification for killing lyra especially her mother doing it uh but it is in other stories right i think that they bring that up as a really interesting point in regards to avoiding certain fates for their children like for example that is a big plot point in beloved by tony morrison

which i think it is a completely different argument and story than what is happening here. And historically, like infanticide is a thing, especially in religious context. Like it's not this is not I mean, when you think of where he's coming from, from the magisterium, there's lots of infanticide, right? Greece, Rome at the height of their culture even god japan china india british government there's just always so many stories about infanticide and getting rid of you know being overburdened with children so it's interesting because it's yet another little hypocrisy being highlighted about the magisterium right who is generally i would say pro quote unquote life unless you know it's of someone that costs them too much money. Jesus was like pro, you know, let the children come to me.

And they're like, fuck them kids. In regards to some of that comedy, though, I do think this one was intentional of like when Mrs. Coulter, after, you know, bashing in Father Gomez and then going to the other room is like oh great you're here will you came back i knew you would come back for us and will's kind of looking her at her like i don't know who us is excuse you i love that he left on his own terms and he was like no i'm leaving fuck you but he knew now that he was in there how to measure right you see him with the footsteps yeah just like he says earlier that he's counting. He kind of counts the footsteps a little when he enters.

So he's seeing how to cut back in so that he can get Lyra. The plan was never to take Colter too. Yeah, he's like escaping with Lyra. And Mrs. Colter's like, oh, great. We're all going together. He's just like, no, you're not coming. And because he denies her that, then she makes the knife break with her sexy motherness she's mother right right and like i don't know i don't know if i'm like

again too ingrained with this version of this moment from the books that's been with me for like 20 years of you know like in the books it's because he's looking at mrs colder from afar because she's all the way over there because shit's blowing up all over because there's a huge battle happening right now at the same time and he's able to abscond with lyra in the destruction right but yeah it's a little different uh it was a little more comical than intended i think for me yeah this is subjective opinion like when she puts a gun on them oh my god i was laughing so hard otherwise master class from her as always she could sell me fucking air in a bag and i would buy it first of all i just want you to know like ruth could never do any harm but i was dying

because she was all like here's our tender moment and now your knife is broken oh no and she looks down and then immediately she's like i have a gun you better fucking go if you're not taking me to you asshole and i'm like wow you just broke his knife give him a minute they're sharp pieces like he's got to pick those up we got to get that repaired like what do you think this is and i also i think this part was maybe intentionally a little comical where i liked when she's like what have you done what have you done he's like you broke it they're both like you broke it no you broke it and yeah it is they they do give i think a little bit more fault to mrs coulter on that and i think i don't know if this is like a fault or not of how this is.

We know in the books that part of why that happens is because Mrs. Coulter is goading Will, or not goading Will, but yeah, like he thinks of his own mother. And that's why the knife breaks, because that's a bond that he could not break. And that's kind of what's insinuated by this discussion Mrs. Coulter's having with Will but i've seen apparently people had who who perhaps have never read the books interpreted that as will being unable to cut the bond between lyra and mrs coulter i think that's like a valid interpretation of what we get you know thinking like death of the author stuff but i yeah i don't know I think I struggle with that interpretation because of, like I said, you know, the abuse that Lyra had at her mother. And also even like, if you think about it, not to give too many spoilers away about the Outer series, like even Marissa's old relationship with her mother is a bond that is broken. Is a bond that is broken.

It is. Some would say severed. Some would say it's an umbilical cord that's choking her. We just don't know. Well, another comedic moment is then Salmachia stings Colter, like shuts her up, stings her, and becomes their guide. That made me laugh as well. Which I do think is intentional.

Yeah. But where is chevalier tialis i don't want to talk about it because i'm worried about i'm worried i just thought he was like a big part of the emotional heart so i know a lot of my criticisms right now are just this didn't match how i imagined it in the book so you know give or take you know that with a grain of salt right like i don't know if that's like really a valid criticism i'm just saying like oh with a grain of salt you're the one ruining ama's herbs it's me it's me i'm not very good at growing god you're the villain i'm really bad at growing plants it's you i call this spider plant oh god? No, I named it berries, though. It varies how you do on plants, I would say.

I would say. Hey. So Yorick protects them from gunfire, and they run. Amma takes down a soldier. She's killing me. I was dying laughing at her just spider-monkeying it up and just taking him down. That was great. You go, girl.

That was so funny. I think she's just hilarious in general because even in the book she's funny where she just pieces the fuck out she promised will she was like gonna stay safe and out of the way and she's out here fighting i uh i'm glad york got to tear some shit up with these soldiers real quick and protect them again contracts gotta pay jo Joe Tannenberg to do something this season. So it's smarter to bring him to the front now. But now that we're not really in the Himalayas, they've changed the location of the hut here. I was kind of disappointed.

I was like, where's his bears? Where are they going to go when they decide their land has melted because of Asriel? Like you said, we're missing some of those Asriel effects because of his holes in the sky. So I'm hoping we'll get maybe some sort of adaptive choice of this and get to see where those bears go. Yeah, it might be a discussion or something that comes up. I don't know. Bears are expensive. It's also like a real question, you know, in real life about polar bears. Yeah.

I guess we just don't know where they go yet that's what's happening right now i hate this world i want another asriel arriving in the intention craft to mrs coulter's cottagecore bachelorette pad uh he heals lyra actually as he comes in the window yeah he like cared yeah he was like fine i care about my daughter for a second because i'm supposed to and as we saw him in the intention craft he had to actually really hype himself up and like you said earlier on like he had one thought of he had to cling to a thought yeah it was his daughter it was lyra in that moment thinking she's in danger although she always is but she's gone she's already gone the the last scene after that is Will and Lyra

lying hand in hand side by side with Pan curled up in between them right right in the nape right in the collarbone yeah it was very sad very beautiful and I didn't really see when I watched I just saw them as separate scenes but on re, I'm actually seeing these scenes as very connected because not only is he worried about Libra, but then if you look at the next week stuff, which we won't go too much into today because I'm sure we'll be chatting next week about it, there is a clip that shows Marisa's with him.

So he brings Marisa back, which tracks with the books, but he brings her back, even though he couldn't get Lyra, even though Marisa pisses him the fuck off as we're going to see the rest of the season. They really irritate one another. He still saves her from the magisterium, right? And from whatever would happen to her by the magisterium and by the authority members that are there,

saves her from Gomez's wrath when he awakens from his little concussive so his concussive i don't know oh my god but i think that's uh it's really important right because then you flash to something so pure and beautiful lyra and will when azriel and marisa are fucked up they have a fucked up toxic relationship but they do have something in one another and their hearts for one another and hate sex and he couldn't bear to just and hate sex they're the giant shadow behind lyra and will right like they are like what goes wrong when not that beautiful pure relationship of innocence and etc they're they're the experience side of things and kind of seems like a dead end right now for

them but stay tuned it'll get worse there is somewhere for them to go and it's all the way down it never stops suffering forever yeah very very no exit um oh okay well shit oh and yeah it's i love this scene this ending scene with Lyra and Will. I think it's good that they're showing that connection between them. And even like Pan jumping into Will's coat. I was like, oh, that's intimate. And when they were escaping. They're so close.

Yeah. I'm curious if like Commander Ogunwe, is he going to give some love advice or be like, what the fuck is going on with you and this woman? Because actually in the books, he's the one who brings Mrs. Coulterter back but there is something touching of how azra's like oh fine i'll bring her i guess in this version yeah it's kind of like it's that opposite so you see this very sweet precious precocious intimacy with will and lyra but then you see like by that same token you're looking at him it's like i don't know like a deeply when you know someone you have a relationship a bond that's lasted for years so much that like even if you're what you're feeling of them in the moment is overridden

by that relationship right like you okay interesting um just kidding maybe not like us but okay like me and my mom like like she could call me and i could be really annoyed but i'll i guess sometimes i'll still talk to her yeah yeah well there were a couple of other things in those like in the coming weeks trailer and i had some thoughts but i think i'll just talk about them in the coming weeks when they air yeah because we have weeks to come right yeah next week we'll be coming back oh to discuss the next two episodes episode three episode four so keep an eye out on your feeds for when that lands just like the intention craft and where like that intention craft will it be landing you ask well to keep up on things

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We'll be back next week. Thanks. Lyra.