Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials Series 3 Episode 5-6 - No Way Out & The Abyss

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

The final series of HIS DARK MATERIALS on BBC/HBO has premiered. These podcasts will drop weekly covering two episodes of the series - today, No Way Out & The Abyss SPOILERS: His Dark Materials Main Trilogy, Novellas, and HDM Series 1 + 2. also reintroducing: the first dust-cussion of the season at the end of the episode, covering anything from the companion trilogy The Books of Dust!   Patrons in ANY tier can check out the video or audio of our "THE GOLDEN COMPASS" episode on the first His Dark Materials 'adaptation' to screen - (does pair well with a nice strong red to think on their sins) 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, Episodes 5 and 6, No Way Out, and The Abyss. I am one of your hosts, Chloe. And I am another one of your hosts, Eliana. You might or might not remember us from our coverage of a song of ice and fire in general which is still ongoing as well as some other shows for example house of the dragon yes and of course series one and two of his dark materials which we covered previously you can find at a podcast streaming platform of your choice so with that said we will have a spoiler policy for this

episode. This spoiler policy includes the main trilogy of his dark materials, which we have covered in full. That is Northern Lights, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass, as well as The Lantern Slides, which are fragmented notes that philip holman puts in these books in the published works 2007 and later as well as that series one and two show coverage and a couple of other things that we have covered but we won't talk about in the main part of the episode likely yeah so for example we won't really talk about maybe some of the novellas, even though I don't think it would affect much here, or we probably won't be discussing any of the material from the Books of Dust, such as La Belle Sauvage and the Secret Commonwealth, except, so we won't be discussing that in the main body of our discussion, but we will be talking about it not in this discussion, but in the dust-cussion the dust discussion dust discussion that occurs at the end of these episodes and i also want to flag that while yes we are discussing the overall end of the series based on what we know from the books we understand that in the uk and other areas in europe bbc has already released episodes seven and eight of His Dark

Materials, but we have not seen them yet. And we are not going to be discussing them. I mean, we'll be discussing ideas, right, of what might happen, but we don't know. Yeah, we've been, we've had to really limit ourselves. And it was hard because we had a really long plane trip this week in order to watch the last two episodes on sunday and uh we came back from the uk exhausted but energized ready to go today to record this episode for you but we're gonna wait we're gonna be sticklers and we are gonna stick to that us release schedule so you'll get our final episode of the series and maybe we'll do a series wrap up i think there's tons to talk about we limited ourselves to these two episodes an episode kind of thing and it's been I think it's

been fun though I think it's been doable and uh palatable because watching them two at a time works for me yeah I don't know if it works or not but let's be honest I'm happier to have more each week than less but i am sad that it's not you know like it's it's gonna be over i i legitimately i'm like if i were not covering this i probably would have delayed like watching that final season for months because i'm like i can't i can't do it again i can't let it all end again and this episode specifically these two episodes reminded you of why? Actually, kind of. The last week's episodes even more so. Really?

Yeah. I mean, the parting with Pan was just like so emotional. Well, it doesn't get happier. No, it doesn't. And like, we're getting set up for that. I'm not ready. I'm like seeing like every now and then screenshots. And I like jesus christ it's hard because we already know we know and that's that's also part of like why you know on our on our trip to the uk we did not extend

you know or see more places see more things because i'm just like i'm not ready i'm not ready for it to be over i'm not i don't know me either girlfriend me either well we're gonna discuss more of uh how we're not ready for it to fucking be over as we go through this episode because it is just riddled riddled with sadness and some of those classic scenes like we said it doesn't get better in terms of the sadness before we jump into all of that we do have to do our little patreon spiel at the top of the episode but i think it's a fun spiel because there's lots going on for girls gone canon patrons this year and next year the new year 2023 so with that said patreon.com slash girls gone canon where you immediately will get a private rss feed that you can load into your podcast player uh stranger tyran up you're gonna get bonus episodes every month sometimes they're

gonna be his dark materials themed sometimes they're gonna be a song of ice and fire theme and sometimes they might just be whatever we're listening to reading to talking about for that month it's been a blast doing those bonus episodes and this month will be the ice dragon a novella by george rr martin it's pretty short and sweet and well bittersweet i should say and we'll be talking about that by the end of the year up at our patreon absolutely and something else that we do on our patreon uh for patrons in the ten dollar tier and above the thunder tier and above you get access to our private Discord server, where we have, I don't know, lots of discussions, not only discussions, but those are there too.

And once a month, we do a brunch slash happy hour where we all get on, and sometimes we'll play reindeer games. December's has already occurred, and we have not yet scheduled January's, but it sounds like, I don't know know please don't hold us to this but someone here is batting around ideas of a bonus a bonus game day yeah there's a we've been playing a lot of jackbox games a bunch of us every every couple months at brunch we'll break them out and there are a couple favorites crowd favorites but i think we're gonna play a couple new year's eve just hanging out at the discord you know come as you go 1 p.m on uh i'll be around for a couple new year's eve just hanging out at the discord you know come as you go 1 p.m on uh i'll be around for a couple hours if not a few hours and i don't think i'm doing anything

too crazy but probably getting really drunk on champagne and you know being sad about his dark materials maybe new year same me so with that in mind come by and not just that but we also have some friends that are uh they've hosted in the past discussions weekly about his dark materials when the series was you know in the lull and we're doing a re-watch like series one series two i think everyone wants to do dust discussions themselves or discussions about dust discussions about his dark materials because all of us are on this wonky release schedule so in the new year look for information at our patreon about those weekly discussions getting that access to the discord is fun i like our discord i like hanging out there

i don't like other other medias honestly sometimes i go in there and i'm like what's the gang up to what you could do what you do yeah there's a lot into shenanigans i'm making them sound like it's always sunny the gang that's happening I don't know part of me is like do we also I don't know because people might not have watched it yet had batted around the idea of discussing a little bit the finale

at that New Year's party but might be too early for everyone we'll see we'll see yeah we still have some friends like Warren one of our buddies who's actually been on the cast before for La Belle Sauvage, right? He was so funny. He was he's like watching it weekly once a week. It just dropped for him.

Like when did it start? He's going to be watching till like February, dude. Yeah, I used to fly to the UK is really what I told him. You need to go to the UK is really what i told him you need to go to the uk that's what i did feel free to keep this or remove this chloe but as i told you in private i'm fine with people hearing like has has britain not done enough to ireland that they would keep them from getting like these episodes when everyone else does like where does it end february i guess you heard it here from eliana calling out the war crimes of the united kingdom

not so united now are they are they i guess not you, I mean, they never were. And again, this is part of the grievances. Glossing over all of that. What do you think your favorite scene was out of these two episodes that we're going to talk about, Eliana? You know, I always struggle with favorite scenes, but I've come up with ideas for this week. Okay. So my favorite scenes are either, and these actually are in separate episodes. So maybe you can like think of it that way. They can both count. Yorick getting ready to beat the shit out of Asriel.

And that opening scene with Mary and Atal and learning the Malayphal language in episode five. How about you? It's almost unfair to use that one, right? Whatever. Because that was like like you can't just say the mary mullum we left it's not as unfair as ireland not getting episodes i realistically do think that was like art that 10 minute whatever scene 7 10 minutes that was art what we saw that was so good wow anyways we'll talk about that really soon actually but yeah i had a lot of favorites in

the land of the dead or in especially in like the after the the second half of the land of the dead in that second episode i think there were a lot of great character moments i don't know i think mine is a coulter scene if anyone's keeping track at home surprise shock awe it's okay mine's yorick like almost every week so it's fine whatever we're scripted oh we have patterns yeah this is so scripted wow uh very patterned people with our media but yeah i love the coulter scene with the monkey but uh and i'll definitely go into why later i think there's a lot to chat about on that scene but i also there's something about um the coulter scene with lord roke dying but like that they like try to help each other and that was

really sad not my i don't know not my favorite it's just one that really spoke to me and otherwise i just really loved all those interactions in the land of the dead i don't know if i could choose one but there were some really good ones going on yeah i i was like are we gonna see you know i'm gonna just go balls out this week but are we gonna see a lord rogue turn look at dr cooper and be like i gotta know her barber but you know like they have the same haircut no wonder they killed her mom god couldn't let those secrets get out yeah for both of them i don't know what you said to me you were like they share the same bowl and i was like they must have 3D modeled Cooper's bull to be much bigger. Something like that for the bull cut. There's that.

I actually did consider the Mrs. Coulter and monkey scene. But I was like, I don't know. Like, where am I feeling really? I did really like that scene. But my heart told me Yorick. And I don't know. Being a basic bitch is apparently how you feel about me picking the Mary scene. I just think it's not that it's basic.

It's that it's like a choice that like, it's, we already know. Like everybody loves that scene. Sure, sure, sure. You know, that's not fair to say. There's so many other great scenes to highlight and we'll highlight that one in just a moment anyways. It's going to get a big chunk of our time, I'm sure.

But where do you rate these episodes overall? And like, it doesn't have to be exact. You don't have to be like 9.3 on episode five. And I'm gonna give this one an 8.7. And you don't have to in that I struggled with, I don't know if it was the changes, but just some of the ways like that, that things fell in these episodes. And I really loved season two and some of the changes that happened there. But it reminded me a little bit of how I did have a lot of criticisms with season one. And it kind of reminded me a little bit of that. I did have a I was a little turned off in the Tony Markerios of the entire episode. Oh, you don't know that name. They didn't. But I was a little turned off by that because I was

hoping they would fix all of those issues. A lot of the same issues that Golden Compass came across right in their movie, they condense certain plot lines to fit into a the movie which didn't work and execs ate it alive and you can hear about that in the episode we did on it which we'll link below but it's hard because i think we can come at this from a different perspective right that we suffered for a very long time i have held out we've suffered with another pretty popular adaptation now of book to show and we also just got done watching another adaptation from that universe that has started a season of it that was decent adaptation and the bold risks they took from the book to the show or in just adapting details were really cleverly done in some aspects, not perfect in others. There were still some bumps in that as well. But so we've kind of, you know, from the

A Song of Ice and Fire standpoint, it's hard because now when I watch shows, I leverage it differently, right? Like, there's some stuff that I'm like, I get how they did it. I don't like it. I don't have to like it. I get how they did it. These two episodes, I would put them in the eight to eight, like leaning up to nine, like the eight range. I think they were strong. The emotional moments were very emotional, even when I was pissed in one scene, like, why did they do this? By the end of the episodes, I forgot. I forgot a amount of the changes. There's a change that I felt really betrayed by that I was like, how could they do this to me? Like, I never saw it coming. But I felt salty about it. I still feel salty about it. So I don't know, we come at it from book adaptation. We come at it from previous bad adaptations in a sobering way, not in a like a knocking way. Like, I'll let them get away with a lot personally, I think. Because I've, I mean, once they ruin Sansa Stark's arc in the Vale for me, it's like, what else is there to do? You know, you ruin Sansa Stark, what else is there to do? Yeah, you cannot hurt me further, you know?

To make me feel that kind of way, I wasn't happy with that. It's apt to compare it to the Tony Macario thing because, yeah, some of the changes were small, right? For some of it. of it it still speaks to me of the issue with with the tony mccarrie's thing is it loses some of the characterization and the themes the messages of the books and i'm fine with changes that either heighten or you know still stay true to that spirit like for example last week when we were talking about the changing of the setting of how the suburbs of the dead are done right like you did lose one theme right in terms of what we were talking about of living a half-life in in how the people were living in the suburbs of the dead but it still worked for me if the train station like and you think of it in the context of the chronicles of narnia right and what the books

are responding to so that works for me like, or the changes that were made to how Joppery died, that works. For me, some of these changes, I think, again, they're minor, but it loses some of the important themes of the things that Philip Pullman wanted to critique. I don't know if he wanted to, I can't like ascribe it, but that's how it came through. Yeah, there's definitely one that feels unforgivable to me the rest of the changes in these episodes i get them from like a not trying to be an asshole just like a water down viewer way i do get it and i still think it gets some of it across and they keep a lot of those themes strong in some of the other segments of the plot but we're gonna get into that in a bit definitely eight i still think one and two were weaker but i might change my opinion on

rewatch like of the whole season i don't want to like critique like every single change right there are people for whom that is how they feel they want just like a complete book to show and i'm like that's what your imagination is for the budget has no limits right yeah and also i i think if i weren't watching this you know maybe in this way i as you said right at the end of the episodes i'd like forget to be like you know that was great but i you know, maybe in this way, as you said, right at the end of the episodes, I'd like forget to be like, you know, that was great. But I am thinking about it in this way. And so come at it with that sort of like, here's how I feel in terms of that criticism. Obviously, after next week, we'll see.

I'm sure there'll be more criticisms, but I'm sure there'll be things that might even pay off that might make us go, okay, I'm all right on that. Sure. That's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah, this is just in the moment you know our big reacts this is what we feel and to be fair as we kind of mentioned episode five opens with a masterpiece i mean absolute this is a fucking masterpiece right with mary following a, thinking on her mission and holding a seed pod. And from the very cut, I have to say that I called it. I am a prophet. The Mulefa had

Heelys. I literally was joking, but like I was so serious that they were going to have Heelys and little wheelies, little Heelys, they're using the seed pod to get around. Their parents probably get annoyed as hell with that. Just putting that out there there I had Heelys when I was a kid and I went out at recess and it had rained recently and I didn't understand how they worked and so I just had mud in them and my parents were like you're not allowed to have these and they like threw them out oh my gosh that's hilarious I did not have them and like honestly it's not too late I was gonna say now I know I know I thought about it I was like it's not too late I was gonna say now I know I thought about it I was like it's not too late for me but I will say so I thought it was great that they

the way that they did it again I don't mind that they don't have a diamond shaped body to be honest I could never really like imagine what that looked like in my head anyway and I've seen like artwork that is great of it but also I'm like well that's it's bizarre and that's I guess the point but it's a silazar from pokemon I have to I I is that in, it's bizarre. And that's, I guess the point. But it's a Silazar from Pokemon. I have to I is that in the new generation? Because I haven't seen that one yet. I cannot find my switch. It's ruining my fucking life. Because of stuff with moving, but I will say like, I like the way that they've done these movements for the Malefa. It kind of feels like they drew inspiration from skateboarding, and skiing, maybe even a little bit of like paddleboarding or something in the way that like, you know, when they were going off of some of the sides of stuff and the pushing off.

So I thought they incorporated a lot of different ways to execute that motion. And it was lovely. You got a sense of all of it, right? Like the scope, even, it's obvious they condensed this plot line a lot to fit into these couple of episodes, but it is actually the one plot you can do that with because it's a lot of chapters of Mary doing things with the Mulefa, which I love. I do love.

Like there is, I love those chapters so much and I wouldn't hate seeing them every single episode of her just hanging out with the Mulefa, but I get why it's condensed. It makes sense. It's smart. You have the sense of families starting, and hopefully we'll get another scene or two in the next couple episodes to really show the village of their people. The babies, the baby Mulefa. Oh, my God.

I cannot. That was amazing. The subtitles were brilliant in the beginning having Atal and Mary speaking back and forth and having the the Mulefa's language just melt away into the English words was so cool it was a very immersive experience for that first scene alone like at that ended and I was like wow what a way to start an episode. That was great. That was a brilliant way to convey like the gradual learning of a language. And also I loved watching Mary practicing the motions that are part of how you speak the Malafa's languages. And it feels almost like an interesting response to Mrs. Coulter's use of British Sign Language earlier in the season. But also I think there's something

a little serpentine, right? About the motions as her arms move, etc. And that is her role to play the serpent as we are reminded in this episode. There's that great overture from Zephaniah where you're hearing her words in Mary's head once more too, right? Of what her

true mission is. And so the first time I watched it i think i got a little mulefa struck i was too excited uh i i kind of missed it i didn't think about what zephaniah was saying and why the fuck it mattered i was just like yeah yeah show me more mulefa show me more but mary seems really conflicted as she was in the story in the books right that she doesn't her goals are actually almost the same thing in a way. Yeah. Also, she thinks that she needs to be with them.

She should be guiding them. Someone should be like Salmachia. Anyway, someone should be guiding them. I don't know. But it's the same goal. Protecting dust. Yeah. And it just doesn't always play out the way that you'll think,

which is what happens in the books, right? And yeah, I love that, as you said, right, as she's trying to figure out why she's here, you start the sequence with Mary questioning that and asking Atal, who does not, the two do not understand one another yet, right? There must be a reason why she's here. And then the sequence ends with Atal telling Mary, like, after that they've learned to understand each other, that seeing Prof is why mary is here and so that plays in perfectly with one another but as you said in regards to being like wanting to see the malefa and being malefa struck that's a great point like i do wish we saw a little bit

more of their civilization we saw it a little bit in terms of you know the kids running around but i think that it's such a core part of the story to show that this is still humanity even if it looks different right because like when mary first goes to them she's like i'm following a talking elephant and i think that's important that that idea that just because someone looks different from you you are still people you are still humans and deserve respect for one another despite your differences yeah and a lot of those themes felt like they were in this episode just not necessarily perfectly structured there i definitely think we see the mary learning their way which is great but i want a little more and i think

what with the books it kind of happens that you get another chapter and then the dualipa show up the tuolapi and that's the real conflict that shows up but I think they're probably going to expedite it and it'll be the Will and Lyra showing up sooner than later because there's still like that space to kind of that gap to close up now with no burbs yeah like I want to see I want to see just like how they have civilization you know and I I think we might have to get that eventually i think next episode with will and lyra showing up a little earlier there might happen since they have the time to cut there because it might be able to flash between asriel's camp because it looks like we

might get some asriel camp in the next episode that's a good yeah that's a good point so kind of showing those next to one another and those different civilizations made up of so many different people like the witches i could see that being a parallel a way they might want to take yeah and especially because like i guess a lot of it takes place in the final episode right probably with the world of the malefa so there's like i assume that we'll see that so i don't know there's this great part where mary holds up the drawing that she's made of a towel and she goes, it's you. And I'm like, that's what I do to my cats in the mirror. I'm like,

look, it's you. I'm like, damn Mary, it's you. It was very funny. A lot of good, a lot of good humor through all the sadness and all of this.

And actually that's a great point because cats don't know that they write like a lot of animals. That's part of the whole like thing of what counts as sentient slash humanity. Right. Or self-consciousness because a cat or an animal would look at that and be like that's another animal whereas a malefa can see even from a drawing because i guess they my assumption is it looks like they have unique markings would see that drawing and mary pointing and understand oh yeah great job you're a wonderful

artist that is a picture of me because they understand representation because they are people are you saying that my cats don't know it's them because I think they know it's them so then we have the intro dance I won't fight with clay butter cats. Yeah, so back to the boat where everyone is really sad, right? Just pure depression hours with Will and Lyra. Yeah, they kind of hint at it. I just think that Will should have been in a little more physical pain, not just emotional or whatever. He looked discomforted, to be fair.

Like he had a look on his face that was very... I only got to watch them... I watched it on my computer once because I had to share screens in my household to re-watch. With that in mind, it was a little dimmer on second watch, but there is something I noticed that the fog in the scene is also hard.

I'm thinking there's some little reveries in acting from amir that we also can't quite see he doesn't like go out of control like clutch his heart and fall over but he looks pained yeah he does and also i want to say that like amir is just killing it in in a lot of these episodes yeah i loved his reaction also like later on with the harpies and being like, that kid looks haunted. There's definitely obvious references to his demon, and it was great buildup for this episode because at the end of episode six, you get the reveal that, of course, he has a demon, my son, from Joppery.

So really great. I can't believe that I'm going to see Kerjava on a screen soon. That's going to happen for me. And there's this very awful sad line where he says, it feels like I've known her my whole life. Maybe she's with Pan now. She is. Don't worry. She's there. I mean, yes, you have known her your whole life. Also, speaking of Kerjava, I just realized this as you were talking about this, and knowing her your whole life, and with the idea of naming and later on will someone says you can't just give well the harpy says you can't just give someone

a name and someone does that to kajava that's true it's absolutely true good call this is also kind of a plot line in evangelion 3.0 plus 1.1, 1.01, whatever. Thrice upon a time. So they go into the Land of the Dead. This is the big entrance to the Land of the Dead. Yeah, I love that the boatman just pieces out. I don't know about you. I don't know if that was supposed to be humorous, but it is for me.

I think there are some things that I found humorous in a positive way that maybe they weren't supposed to be but i just like pain the title of this episode is no turning back the episode title takes it from the chapter title of the amber spyglass and it feels very much like a reference to sart's uh play i don't remember we might have actually talked about this during the amber Spyglass, maybe more towards the time of the Abyss, but no exit, right? No way out. And it's a play that is about hell, in which three people are trapped in the room. And essentially, the conclusion is hell is other people. They torture one another through sort of like their life experiences and digging into one another's like perceived flaws, like the things that they hate about themselves right really digging into those hurts and that is how the harpies operate by by digging into the

things that you're insecure about and using it to hurt you all of your faults and it does speak a little bit to that ending of marisa and asriel and metatron right three figures that'll be stuck with one another for eternity torturing one another probably loving and torturing one another that that that's swivel between it all that's a little bit of what happens in no exit i'm like i think it's gonna be a lot sexier than that but no exit was pretty like dark like touches on sensuality and like sexiness but it's also really warped so yeah so really sexy what i just heard yeah yeah lord roque rides above dr cooper and marisa's imprisoned and she's like ready to go feral her eyes are on one target dr cooper lord roque and marisa speak about asriel and dr Cooper and the bomb before she

starts to, you know, get her claws in and go do some stuff. There's something really great in the character development for Marisa with Roke that they did on screen that in the books, we get it a little subtler, of course, because it's a book. But Roke doesn't have enough juice to kill them, he says. He's like, I could take out two of them, but there's more like I can't do all of them. them he says he's like i could take out two of them but there's more like i can't do all of them and instead of telling him yes or no marisa goes into marisa mode and she starts to use her own weapon she's like i can take care of this with my weapon just one person which is dr cooper right that is a direct in response to what roke said when he said i could only kill two before dying she went no there's no option for

that. And then later, we'll talk about it. But his death really evokes an emotional response in her which in the books, it's kind of opposite that like the response is drained because she's emotional. But I like that in the way that they flipped it to be emotional, it kind of shows you that pattern without having to go through the mind of Marisa Coulter for a few chapters. Yeah. When you're depicting something visually, sometimes you do have to go towards the more action-oriented decision, right? And great point. And something that I do love about this episode is that Mrs. Coulter stays in this outfit for practically the whole episode.

And a lot of her actions seem very similar to Lyra breaking out of full of anger. And some of, I don't know, season one slash book one Lyra in general, right? And so the haircut that she has now, that hairstyle paired with the blue dress, really tie her visually to that young Lyra from season one and how they dressed her. Yes, I thought that she was very much dressed almost like you know lamb for slaughter at the magisterium interestingly mirrored to young innocent Lyra for slaughter in season one and she's not wearing heels and that's focused on very much in both this episode and when she gets to Asriel's when she gets to Asriel's it focuses

on her shoes being flats and not the usual kitten heels that she strolls about in all the time. Almost showing like, not tame, but more like a docile version of her, right? Like she's supposed to have been cowed being the Magisterium's prisoner and being more docile. But I mean, once she thinks Lyra's dead throughout episode two, this is her mission now is getting as close to Lyra as she can. And here she is, Lyra Jr. Now that said, she returns to her safari clothes later. So she's back in action. I mean, she is, right?

Because Lyra's Eve, mother of us all. So maybe she is Lyra Jr. And yeah, great call on the shoes and the focus on it. Because they did have a shot of her in the previous week's episodes. They do specifically focus on those heels, like the footwear and the clothes are such a big part of Marisa's characterization. And I felt like that was probably important that they had her in these clothes because, yeah, they're not her usual style, but they were like way too fashionable to be prisoners clothing. Yeah, no, absolutely too fashionable. Well, that's the thing is putting her in that simple dress, simple fabric, knocked her down a couple pegs, right? She went in strong and proud to the magisterium trying to fulfill in her mother's clothes that role once they gave them to her. She's like, I will, I'm going to boss this shit like I used to.

But now she's leaving it having been a prisoner in this docile outfit, choosing Lyra over her mom. And her mom's ways, right? Like, the way that her mom treated her. They could have just thrown her in, like, a simple shift. You know, something that almost looks like a hospital gown, but closed all over. And they didn't do that. Or, like, I don't know, something that looks like a habit, but isn't. And they didn't do that or like i don't know something that looks like a habit but isn't and they didn't do that

yeah so will and lyra find the walls in the land of the dead are made of people's things that have washed up there they also meet the dead i mean they they are here dead children tell lyra about their demons but something hears them a girl then takes over as their guide thought those walls were interesting the memories that these people aren't allowed to keep or cherish right and that builds what prisons them that imprisons them their belongings the things they don't get to keep from their old lives and now they're trapped here pretty fucking yeah it is it's nice though it's a nice choice of like how to depict that idea of like the wasteland right an unreal city made up of all these washed up things yeah much like we've talked about in the past with the wasteland exactly back at the magisterium daddy hitler youth gomez uh reminds father well sorry

furor bradley as aliana would want me to say father furor king bradley king is actually turns out king that guy's first name I want to remind everyone that I've met another King recently that's so interesting that's three I know a real one that one and then also there's a King in Tekken I guess it's like not that weird when you think of names like I don't know Reginald Rex right or Regina but it's just hilarious to me Fuhrer King Bradley, father president. Well, Gomez tells McPhail, touching another demon is taboo as he walks in on him, you know, with his fingers over the cage with the monkey being all, I want to touch her demon. That's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to get my hands on her. And I'm like, this is uncomfortable. He wants to just assault her demon. That's what he wants. That's what he has wanted to covet this whole time is just assault her demon that's what he wants that's what he has wanted to covet this whole time is her and her demon and it's very apparent through all of his motions through the whole episode right he's very aggressive and creepy and touching her right inappropriately or trying to touch her inappropriately i'm like whatever happened thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife thy neighbor's demon or thy neighbor's goodies no coveting of thy neighbor's

goodies it makes me think of so tell me maria i am a righteous man uh heaven's light and hell's fire from the hunchback of notre dame the yep, the very best Disney song. Also reminds me of Stanisim, Alessandra, and Shireen, but anyways, glossing over that. Yeah, it was an interesting scene. And it makes me kind of question now, like, it's something I didn't think about in the books, but it's still definitely in play there. But, you know, what did Father MacPhail intend by severing Marisa, considering that many, Did Father MacPhail intend by severing Marisa, considering that many, though not all of the adults, right, seem to actually survive the procedure? As we saw in Bulvanger with Nurse Galadriel.

And, like, that's not really the case for the children. A lot of them don't survive the procedure, whereas adults fear better. So I'm like, what? What was his plan? whereas adults fear better so i'm like what what was his plan it is definitely non-consensual whatever this plan is and i don't fucking like it the implication is horrific and it's like knowing that there's a difference that adults survive it after a certain time because of hitting puberty is that what's being implied in some aspects? Or of being sexually active? Or of being like, what is being implied in some ways too? at a like tie to life and being able to survive some sort of thing like that or if it's like having any kind of like life experience makes that possible for you because i don't know right like they had those i forgot the tartars like dogs that they're severed soldiers like in the

first book and i never really figured that out mk ultra ass shit going on. I'm going to pull Lyra. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I thought the scope of having this battle and these scenes take place at the Magisterium instead of elsewhere was interesting because in the books we have an open, outdoorsy kind of setting.

I know we had to literally pick our battles here and pun intentionally pick them because of budget so it's a more intimate and small scenario going on it's funny though because it's kind of like in the books it's very much a mid-end of the book like one of the second you know the penultimate big moment

is this land of the dead and then you have the end those are the three biggies you know know, events. Well, you forgot Attack and Dethrone God. Yeah, and God. Forgot about him. He's easy to forget. He's in the abyss. He's dead. He's gone. He's dust on the wind. I don't know.

It's interesting that it has a lot to compete with, with the Land of the Dead, so they have to kind of balance that. So I think the scope of this works, but in my head it's a battle sequence i was expecting a full-out battle scene i i did feel it was a battle sequence for me like but i see what you mean but maybe i just think of i guess not a battle right but it is a fight scene so therefore i'm fine with it no it works out and it's one of those things that i

think it's a good way they condensed it but i actually had to go back and reread today because i was like oh wow huh yeah there's a lot of people and i think it works also for some of the things that it calls back to which we'll discuss in a second it's a bummer that roke his role gets you know is gone no matter what in this scene because could really use some salmachia and some tialis right now in the world of the dead yeah yeah it helps kind of you know having salmachia and tialis kind of helps show the stakes of you know what it was that like will and lyra were risking and then in turn what roque died yeah as well for them yeah and what roque and roque salmachia and tialis were alsoque and roque salmaki and tiales were

also risking but thankfully for salmaki and tiales they don't have to go that far right they just go back to where they started upon they could actually be right there their souls could have popped out of their little bodies right there and then they could go straight on through the window take two steps the little little girl guide says character development with Lyra and Will. Like, just an ounce of character development, then she hears them, the harpies, the birds, and it scares her off.

Lyra hears what she thinks is Roger whispering her name, but then it transforms into Pan. And I thought this was great. This was so well done with the harpies, right? She's screaming for Will, and he comforts her, and they talk about eternity in this land, and how it would be and lyra rushes ahead to look for roger you don't uh in the book you you just know the harpies are evil and mean and you hear some of what they say but the way they zoomed in on the faces and made you feel like almost like it

was like a horror movie for a minute right of what they were hearing and thinking it was really well done the audio yeah it's a great point they really have the harpies kind of do more of like illusion stuff it's like to do that sort of psychic damage on you and yeah i i also loved daphne the way she delivered that line of like when pan's saying mean things to her and she's like this isn't real you're not real you know like i i cannot deliver it because i'm not an actor i'm very bad at it also when they kept saying lyra's name all i could also think as i told you was lyra i forgot the words i gotta i gotta re-isten. I also think they did a good job of

conveying the guilt she feels about Roger, about Will, about all of this, right? Really, the Harpies were doing a great job of negging, for sure, throughout the whole episode. Yeah, they do. They come at you in a lot of different ways, you know. How many ways can they

fuck you up emotionally? So then Lyra does find Roger, but their reunion, it's solemn. It's sad until Lyra breaks the ice. And then Will introduces himself. Roger walks away and Lyra swears that she'll break him out following him. I think I like the way this was adapted because it's kind of, you know, we've talked a little bit about how they're a little more grown than they are in the books, right? They were a little smaller in the books at this time but roger's attitude i

found was you know a little heavier in show compared to the book which is good because i kind of feel like the book is like yeah lyra thanks for finally saving me after i got killed i knew you'd come someday i'm ready to go die for real now goodbye fellow orphan uh it is a little it gives roger agency right that he's allowed to feel this way that he gets a chance to be upset thinking she'd come and then she just disappeared and never came back and then also blanket upset roger is over within moments of me blinking so i have no qualms with this i like it especially later because he and will have kind of some cute beef we'll get into i think that he did a great job coming on back, Mr. Roger Parslow.

Yeah, I think what you said makes sense, especially not just given their ages. It's hinted at in the books, right? How Roger feels like a little sadness as he sees that little bits of jealousy, right? It's much more subtly delivered, but I think this works because they are trying to play up more of that romance aspect which is good so that we can feel maximum pain at the end of the series it also i think is it's good because it shows you what rogers lost by dying right not just it shows you what azrael took from him right that ro Roger it's not just if he had feelings for Lyra he doesn't get to experience which is what it's all about he doesn't even get a chance to experience

life heartbreak love any of it because it was taken from him yeah and now he's stuck in that form and in that place and unable to feel those things and Lyra's moved on to a new part of her life so of course he's gonna feel a little sad and a little jealous and upset I think it's great that he gets he gets a chance to have feelings on this screen because that boy gone motherfuckers out of here yeah he's on the fucking wind now but actually literally yeah absolutely he's feeling everything now yeah he deserved to have like a personality and thoughts you know he was only in so few episodes as it was in series one and he was really good yeah he's really good in all of his all of his scenes so i like good for you kid yeah lewin lloyd something like that yeah yeah yeah he was he was he was amazing all right so will reminds lyra that she promised tan that she would

try and then they try making a window but it doesn't work and then the harpy comes to again continue passionately negging will and it's super mean and then it's mean to lyra but lyra is able to snap out of it uh and tells will she figured out the knife thing i like that she snaps out of it because she sees will in pain right that's what saves her that this she sees the one that she loves hurting and she can find the strength to go on because of that father gomez and father king bradley if you're president mcphail have another scene gomez proposes that he go after the serpent instead as contrition for his baddie daddy behavior as as Chloe has put here in these notes, which is an interesting little twist, right, versus how he's sent to kill the little girl instead. Risa gave up that information previously and was like,

there's going to be a serpent, you know, that's going to tempt her. We got to stop her. That was what I was trying to do. I knew that that would lead probably to his reasoning for going out on the winds. I just didn't know that it was going to come from Father Gomez being so mad at him. Yeah, I guess he's going to also try and go after Lyra as like a, you know, part of that opportunity later on. I understand why they like didn't go the decision of having the self-flagellation etc it probably would have

been really weird on screen it works in terms of like the criticisms of like really really intense catholicism as we discuss in the books but these make sense also Macphail's like in the in the throes of all of it you know he's like, I don't care at this point because I am so close to being God. So yeah, until he's not. Oop. Mary continues linguistics with the Mulepha and spots some pieces of amber in the water that she picks out. She reworks them into a lens after getting some oil on her fingers from the seed pods

and touching the amber and seeing dust through them, and then, of course, going back for a bigger piece of amber, she holds it up and watches dust fly all around Etal, and Etal then tells her to look from the tree, where she finds the dust is leaving. God, so good. Great scenes. And, of course, I love the connections to last week with the forging of the knife.

This is once more intentionally crafting the spyglass. I want to say we grouped those three chapters together, actually, because of that when we covered them. But the idea of just like crafting something together to be able to see dust and putting that seed oil in it, not just that, but also the time and the patience and what it takes internally to apply yourself to get it to where you want it to be we didn't get to see the entire lacquer process but i know what it took because i read the book so yeah and i guess she's probably gonna make something i don't know more spy glossy i assume we'll get there they just wanted to devote more time to it and also we're just starting all right we just fucking got here to the world of the malefa so like giving it room to breathe but i it's like every mary seen a masterpiece maybe the music the um the visuals the everything it's yeah it's amazing and i absolutely no spoilers because i told them do not tell me but i hear it gets better from there that's great i'm i'm excited i'm excited they put their whole spy gussy into it oh my god i thought you're gonna say they're melissi i was like wow oh no no that one's i think they might but you know let's let's hold off for that for a

bit we discussed this in our book coverage but you know it's the amber spyglass they're using amber to make the things and the oil to see it and it plays well because amber versus electrum both of them are that that element right that they find out will and lyra have different words for in each of their respective worlds and then like anbaric you know being like the word amber versus electricity and how that ends up like developing differently between those two worlds so also i just want to say again regarding the mary scene like mary not she's like an amazing explorer but also very swole i guess because she is just free climbing this incredibly tall tree. I don't know if there's holes inside the tree or like shelters or something so you can take a rest as you get

to different points, a safe point, you know, but I would die. I would have literally already died and fallen off. I'm not in great physical shape. You know? I've had a few months of resting because of my bum leg. So I would also before that not do well, even before the leg. You probably just don't try. Yeah. I probably would never even try, so I don't know how I'd do because I wouldn't. I wouldn't do. She has no harness or anything.

Mommy Mary. Yeah. I can't wait till the next episodes now. I'm kind of getting excited. Yeah. I can't wait till the next episodes now. I'm kind of getting excited. Yeah. Lyra reminds Roger of Jordan, of their childhood. It's a beautiful montage. And she tells him stories. They reminisce on being orphans together.

And Will brings others who want to hear their stories as well. A beautiful way to adapt that. Gorgeous. Part of those stories are there, the adventures of Will. Also, of course our homie george bernison yes oh i hate it here it was so sad i was sobbing like the whole time it was a mess i was uh that was where i was like it's beautiful yeah they did a really good job with all the roger stuff and gave him a really great goodbye and the montages and actually

letting them all express their emotions together and have these moments. I definitely wish that the harpies would have swooped in and been a little more attacky. I expected some blood so that Will could use some blood moss. I was disappointed. I was like, yeah, fuck her up. No name. Gracious wings.

Gracious wings. There was the funniest part. They were all gathered looking, you know know not very happy the harpies are like they flap their wings they're listening the stories are like these stories are so bad and then they're like wait i love them well lyra and will tell the omelet story which i love and it had me wheezing will's like she made me an omelet but she left the shells in and he's like looking around at everyone else like right guys that is messed up right guys right guys and lyra has this look on her face which my cat gets whenever i like tell her not to do something or spray her with water and lyra looks like she just wanted to be like i still don't

get why that was wrong i still don't understand why i did the wrong thing there with the shells in the omelet can someone tell me are you saying that lyra feels like why is everyone egging will on right now i'm not gonna say that i'm not gonna do that because it's what you want and i won't do it that's what you're saying oh my god so the shot of lyra and will walking through the crowd before they start announcing to everyone there's like a little bit of it that's shot from above and i i think it might be a reference it evokes the book cover of one of the editions of the amber spyglass the edition that i read so i i like that and also i will say where are the malefa and the galavespians in the land of the dead like the their shades right that are supposed to be there because it's all kinds of different human i love will going up there and saying hi guys i'm will dying i don't know why that that was so funny

to me a critique that i have this isn't it isn't like a change from the books but it's just i was a little bit like, hold on a second there, right? The woman who is advocating for Lyra and Will jailbreaking everyone out of the land of the dead says anything is better than this. And you know, she raises some great points about the themes of the story, right? This part is strong of why did I live my life allowing dogmatic faith to supersede the actual experience of living? Unfortunately, I don't think it serves as a actually good rebuttal to the guy who is doubting like, wait, hold on, what is on the other side?

And the questions that he raises, because I think there's a difference between how the conflict is portrayed in the book in which a person who refuses to go through the window does so out of a fear of change, of a fear of the unknown right like that lack of courage versus how it's portrayed here which is this guy wants to know am i going to see my son again and that's different that's a manifestation of love and that i think is an expression of the experience of humanity especially because we talk in these two episodes and by we i mean seraphina especially about love being an experience that is good that it is living and it changes you so it felt to me a little bit hand wavy and dismissive and so i'm a little conflicted about

the way the exploration of that theme shows up in this conversation yeah specifically the guy asked specifically the guy asks will i see my son again right exactly and i was confused i wasn't sure does he mean that his son's there with him because i didn't see like a boy he was holding so that that was my i do not know yeah yeah i think maybe we needed a little more to show how bad the harpies were like we get it because they were obviously bad but i wanted some swooping in because that would also be like oh yeah anything is better than here you know some uh evil harpy shit because i took it as if his son isn't in the land of the dead with him that still is a valid question but it's probably still better than waiting there and not being able to find out yeah like do you wait for your kid to die right like is that right well what do i should

i wait here until my son dies and then we go together or something right if he's alive or is his son as you said lost in the land of the dead because we find out that girl who was their guide was like yeah my sister's here somewhere but i lost her i was never able to find her because i was discouraged so those are different and if we were going to do this route, I think it needed a little more sharpening to get that message across. Yeah, I definitely needed a little more, just a little more to understand. But especially because of the Serafina conversation, like you said, I think that brings up such great, such great things to think about and like to actually dig into of like, you know, Seraafino doesn't think she'll ever see her son

again right or if she does it'll be that he's already in everything right like for her with her son dead i think there's a part of it that he's already in or she hopes that he's already in everything or thinks he is but if he was trapped down in the dead with everyone else he's not right he's not everywhere around you on the wind like dust yeah and so it could have it could have gone with anything is better than this and therefore the idea of wouldn't you want this for your kid yeah something better than this but it's just like an a question that the answer doesn't correspond to the question and there's a couple scenes that feel disjointed as far as the

dialogue and what's happening in them that i'm wondering did the direction change or did something change i'm interested in in the land of the dead specifically i'm i'm i'm interested because there's this isn't the only disjointed moment in my opinion yeah it's admittedly you know it's a complex place to i don't know film and do it but there's a lot that happens in the land of the dead but there's a lot of people who are dead so would you would you believe coulter is handcuffed and brought to a chamber where she please slash manipulates with dr cooper but in comes father mcphail who takes the time to mansplain the technology culture created to her on how Lyra will die. You know, the villain speech before the whole severing shebang.

Yeah, I just want to say, you know, I cannot wait for Double M's analysis on the podcast called The Dust, the dust podcast that covers his dark materials, because I feel like the music was a little different in the scene, right? Like a different version of how it's usually executed. So very excited to hear that analysis from him i can't wait to listen to their uh five and six episodes actually to the dust now that you say because there were also these little many darker versions with the main theme right that main melody that do do do do yeah very sad instead of the triumphant and yeah there were a lot of variations i want to hear him break down there was a line from mcphail where he says go willingly and this could be your redemption

to coulter about the intercision chamber which is funny to me because that's what she actually does right go willingly this could be your redemption she willingly goes and takes metatron into the abyss yeah and that's kind of what i guess you know you juxtapose that with the land of the dead go willingly to the window and that is your redemption yeah lyra tells them all about lee scoresby who is somewhere around these parts and the dead feel more alive and vow to come with her out of the land of the dead. The Harpies don't seem to like that their prey is being taken, which is probably how most people, well, most creatures feel about their prey. And Lyra stands her ground, telling everyone to think of the stories, which is honestly my motivation for doing a lot of things.

It wasn't even because of these books. I actually do sometimes do things because i'm like it'll be a good story ah i'm ready i'm ready to tell harpy's things anyway so as they walk away a man in a hat makes his way through the crowd and it's lee scoresby they reunite and lee says he'll help corral all of them to follow will and lyra and i love there's kind of a moment of sadness where ara's like wait you're dead it's a little humorous my partner was watching over my shoulder as I was doing this and he goes he's gonna die I'm like he's he's already dead that's why he's here he's dead already he's like well he's still gonna die I'm like yeah but like that's also the goal all right that is a good thing also he's already, in the books, we learn that from Yorick.

He tells them and she's like, oh no, not Mr. Scoresby. He's like, yeah, I ate him, which we didn't see. I understand like why he doesn't say that. But like, I'm just reminding everyone that in the books, Yorick ate him. Thank you for that reminder, Eliana. Just in case anyone forgot what Eliana's tastes are. Yep. We get to see the clouded

mountain, which looks really metal. I will say the flash we got to see of it. Metal Tron. It does get metal Tron. The look that we got to see from the outside was very interesting, and I love the inside. Alarbus kneels before the cube, and then Metatron comes out the top like a projection, right? He's like

a little steely projection. He plans to give the mortals a warning because they have been playing with dust and he doesn't like that because they're not god yeah i i feel like i remember there being sort of like thundery right imagery around it and if i'm not mistaken i think thunder is very much associated with the god's depiction in paradise lost and like his palace so yes metal metal metatron oh my god i almost said metal tron metatron ordering a larbis to kneel before the authority kneel before the authority or get down on oneeve whatever was i think a nice way to do a lot of lifting here in terms of that characterization with the way that the line was

delivered of how metatron seems to you know be using his proximity to someone else's uh authority to wield power over others he wants to control them and it's not surprising to me we got a metatron scene like a behind the scenes metatron scene like this and it's smart because i the only time you get to hear all about him is in a war council and you're like oh there's our new evil character we're gonna meet and i think this does a good job of kind of setting him up to be baddie to pay attention to baddie angel yeah i kind of like that they started bringing him in earlier i guess they did at the beginning of the the season which is also kind of how it goes in the books but also you're kind of like wait but that's the bad guy and by having a larbus too they actually like foreshadow that he's coming you know it's a in the walking dead when negan

appears the big bad there's a bunch of like it's a whole season build up and you hear about him you hear about him and that's what makes him the biggest baddie you know well now that i think about it because of what you're saying about a alarbus it's kind of necessary to have something like that i guess in the books they don't explain how metatron knows everyone's preparing for war and i'm sure like you know people just hearing it it's it's there's lots of rumors there's lots of angels they must gossip alarbus delivering the message works because the fact of the matter is like neither the authority nor metatron are actually what they say they are not omnipotent they are not omniscient so someone has to tell them because they actually do not know everything that is always happening right

which is the way that god is described in the books are like all knowing and everywhere yeah it's a lie and by the books i mean the bible yeah the books the book capital b yeah i just realized my terminology was confusing there so i had to had to you know make be a little clear there there's this line that isn't really part of the world building in the books i think if i'm remembering correctly of the knife bearers that i thought was interesting that alarbus delivered of not been corrupted by the knife's power like the bearers before him which speaks to the those ideas of is will yeah he is like the youngest knife bearer or something right and how he hasn't he's going through puberty he hasn't had that knowledge yet and has that innocence

which is kind of i mean even part of if you think about it how lyra is able to read the alethiometer through that grace of innocence as they describe it it also like we saw that the other knife bearers did get corrupted we saw chidagatse we saw what became of it yeah it makes sense it's perfectly sensible yeah he's the one that hasn't gotten corrupted yet and well we know that he won't because that knife won't last. Anyways, damn, we really have to watch this end? All right, Coulter continues to sass them before her imminent doom over at the Magisterium, and Father Macphail uses this moment to pray, brilliant, while Lord Roque kicks the ass out of all the guards outside.

Dr. Cooper also looks ready to break, right? Like you can tell that she's, she's worried. We cut between the bomb and the land of the dead for a bit. Some really great intercising of these scenes, you might want to say. And the blade, you might not want to. The blade comes down. Hang on. Dr. Cooper stops it, refusing to go any farther.

And Lord Roque frees the monkey. Macphail kills Dr. Cooper with one swift hit from a tool. That was great. Poor Dr. Cooper, rip in pieces. Oh my god. The entire scene is so well set up to be this huge parallel back to Bullvangor with Dr. Cooper and Lyra, right? And the chamber and freeing of the chamber and somebody freeing.

It's a perfect parallel. Everything is done really well. Yeah, it is. It is done really well. As you it is. It is done really well. As you said, fantastic callbacks. And I think that's why it works for me as that scene, right? Like, and not the big battle, because it does a great callback. I like that they make Dr. Cooper this, like, interesting kind of great character, because

she stops, you know, she stops the intercising, right? And disobeys, you know, goes against the authority, which is therefore an therefore an act of free will right they say earlier on that she seems to be acting against her own will and i like that it's funny to me because she only really feels compassion towards marisa coulter who is maybe like kind of nice to her as a respectful co-worker i assume maybe showed her crumbs of affection let's be real i'm not sure she was ever actually that nice to anyone and it's interesting because she doesn't really stop to think that oh does mrs coulter deserve to be severed because she did make this machine and killed a bunch of kids right she doesn't stop to think she doesn't stop the bomb out of any larger sense of justice or anything right she's not saying like this is wrong that the authority is doing this she does

it because she cares about this single one person and does it for the sake of one person it's a little bit like how mrs coulter doesn't really want to overthrow the authority out of any larger sense of justice unlike lyra right whose eyes are opened upon seeing the plight of the suffering of the the people who are in the land of the dead beyond just roger her compassion extends larger than that even until the harpies mrs coulter only wants to thwart the authority to save lyra so like dr cooper does not care i think about overall morals other than how it applies from risa colder what's the word it's a super amplified dunbar's number right that like what does that mean so dunbar's number is the theory

that there is a cognitive limit to how many people you can maintain stable relationships with right so it's like 100 yeah it's 100 to 150 people and then after that like they fade as people in the background so when you're 150 people are all fucking like borderline nazis slash are nazis basically right like when that's who you're i mean i'm just saying yeah yeah and so in the books dr cooper is also held by the magisterium is a prisoner by them after everything they find dr cooper dude dr cooper they pick him up they're like you're going in jail buddy because you know too much and then they use him for this so it's like there was no sympathy to be had in the books at all there was you know just do it because you're our prisoner

so i think this is really well leveraged in that they turned dude cooper into dr cooper here and had that slight sympathy almost that pang of sympathy of like whoa it i guess it could be me but she doesn't think it because originally who do you think her 150 people are but it's marisa too right like they seem to really imply they had a relationship slash understanding of one another yeah they were they were perfectly amicable co-workers i think and by that i mean marisa was her boss but like a boss who i don't know took her out for lunch on her birthday as long as she killed kids yeah that's all it she didn't have a problem doing this to kids really i well actually i might be wrong i

don't really remember season one that well if you can i don't remember but she didn't stop she didn't stop the machine when it was killing kids. She did her job. I mean. Yeah. It's funny. Not in a bad way. Again, I find a lot of things that are funny in this.

And I think I'm just like, I'm in some weird grief process. Yes. With this story and the pain that's going to come. So the monkey gets Mrs. Coulter loose and Macphail tries to do the bomb anyways. Macphail hits Lord Roke and Marisa says, no, that's my friend and beats the fuck out of him. Yeah. All like Princess Leia style, right? With Jabba, except less successful.

He rises praying again and straps himself to do the bomb, which then flashes to Will and Lyra. And then Mrs. Coul to do the bomb which then flashes to will and lyra and then mrs culture stops the bomb but metatron interferes and pushes the blade himself severing mcphail marisa's response to rogues is great as we mentioned it sums up that time together we don't necessarily get on screen and she's like exhausted in book when this happens right the real reaction we get is from asriel saving her and she's with him and she's just exhausted like she's just like my daughter no but i love it here because she goes feral like just fucking feral and mcphail um i just don't understand how dr cooper died within moments but marisa couldn't even knock this bastard out that feels like some plot armor mcphail what the fuck that's that's god's armor

that's god's armor it's his strongest soldier so it's around these areas right like this is one of my biggest criticisms of the changes and here's part one of like my criticism for this scene and then i have another one later on that i think you also feel strongly about i don't know if it was too difficult to like direct or animate because budget but i would have liked the detail of mcphail in the books forcing his demon to go through with the intercision rather than himself strapping like himself in and then the lizard going willingly into the cage because in the books it shows that the lizards like his demon struggles against it does not want to be severed and i like what that scene shows because it shows that mcphail what he wants to do is inhuman it's hurting himself he's going against

what should be his nature as he does like in the show, right? In the human will, like it's showing that the soul longs to live and experience. That's something that I kind of wish to see in terms of that messaging. And then I do like this line though, when Metatron does come and like, I don't know, do the blade thing. He says to Marisa, you think dust can make you gods? And also I want to call out that someone someone in the subtitles for hbo used the wrong version of fair they use f-a-i-r instead of it should be f-a-r-e right it should be f-a-r-e yeah right it should be f-a-r-e so i just want to throw that out there everyone uh but i like this

question of you think god you think dust can make you gods. It calls back to in the book of Genesis 3, 3 through 3, 5. But God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it or you shall die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not die for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And dust is, of course knowledge it's that fruit of knowledge and is part of to be like god said that is a biblical callback i love that you're connecting it to that because it's not the first thing i think of right and when you put it this way it also like shows me like it's it's flow of resources right which no spoilers the

secret commonwealth but that's also kind of a theme in the secret commonwealth and that dust is like whoever can not to go dune on it but whoever controls it right whoever controls the spice uh yeah yeah that's that's kind of what it's transforming this into a capital in some sort of way currency in some sort of way so i yeah it's interesting the way that they've framed this and i do think uh that's a great motivation to give metatron of like oh they think they can be like me when like you said he can't even be like him he can't even really truly be god you think darkness is your ally i was born in it that is what what he said, basically. Yeah, pretty much. The next, the last scene, closing out this episode, in the Land of the Dead, the bomb does land, but its impact is not seen until the next episode, really. So here's my thing.

With this ending, as this is a book spoiler podcast, you may have read these books before. So you may know that this is absolutely not in the books which is fine whatever overall it's fine i don't really like literally i watched these two episodes i got to the end of six and i almost forgot about this scene it gives an easier explanation in one hand to show us why does starts leaving faster it was kind of a weird way to have that be the crux that it rested on at the end of the episode and maybe just weird to have metatron doing that to kill mcphail because i prefer i mean mcphail's book end is at coulter's hands and it kind of shows that i think the show is kind of lubifying coulter a little bit too much in some aspects like just like she's like yeah no yeah i'm so sad my daughter no no but she is in

the books like she is like this in the books but it's not so full front center and she still is like murderous right like she's still murderous uh she's not fully docile so i like that she kills mcphail especially because he's you know threatening to give her bodily harm but the metatron i think something they're focusing on is adapting some of these off-screen moments that we don't see, right? Or what's next that the reader doesn't really see. And sometimes it really slaps. Sometimes it's amazing. Sometimes I'm like, okay, that did

nothing for me. And then sometimes it's a swing and a miss. I think this one's in the middle, like, didn't do much for me, but I'm not too upset about it. But also like, Metatron has to get paid, so I get that too. I think that's also a big part of this one yeah that's true metatron does have to get paid and i think i feel more strongly about it than you do i you're right you're right it's fine it's probably fine overall right it's not like that big of a deal but i just have my qualms with

it in terms of you know again some of the criticism of the show from book readers is overblown being like you know like can't believe lyra went to the debt for that and i'm like that's literally why she went there as in the books like it's not different chill out you know i sympathize with like here the idea that this does though i think watered down or misses some of the themes that i thought that the book conveyed well like again having the lizard go so willingly and then show mcphail's death like wish death wish to kill a little girl like if the lizard goes like willingly it i think undo some of that idea of like how futile this action was right like

how pathetic was it that your desire to deny others life simply because you want to deny your self-pleasure it doesn't show that self-denial right and then like how pathetic mcphail's like dead body was because of that. They do show his pathetic dead body, but it loses, I think, that impact. Yes, the dead woman spoke of it here, but it also shows the lengths that people will go to in their quest for martyrdom. And then again, how stupid that was if you just end up down there, in that prison camp, as they keep calling it. if you just end up down there, right? Like in that prison camp, as they keep calling it. And I think that Metatron doing the bomb only like really like half gets us there in that idea of, because it almost does then justify McPhail's actions

from his perspective, because God came to him in his last moments, right? Or what he thinks is God, like came to him in those last moments. So then he does really actually get to seem blessed and martyred by metatron by doing this thing right god chose him to be the sacrifice and i understand as you said like why it happens from a plot perspective in the show and things got to be like action oriented and the stakes of the war but the stakes in the book have always been that battle for the soul of

humanity. No pun intended, maybe a little pun intended, if I'm being honest with myself so that the harpies let me through. Which is, I mean, it's kind of why that act of Adam and Eve to save everyone. It's never, it's not about like, that they kill the authority. That's not what reverses the flow of the dust. It's not about like the death of metatron it's this small little rebellion this small act of love between them and you know i as you said in the long run it probably doesn't fucking matter it's probably fine but i guess for me i i just care a bit because it doesn't feel like it gets that theme across and you know like yeah mrs culture said that i don't know anyways, the more you take that mad about it, truly, though, like the more you speak about it, it makes me think about what I said earlier, that the scope of the magisterium

was kept small. Why? Because how much did the Metatron scene cost to add to the end of that? I mean, I'm serious. Like, when you look at it it they split the emotion of that scene what you get in the books and they split it to afford metatron from a technical standpoint sure yeah and they didn't need to i guess but as you said they have to pay that yeah contractually they need to i mean contractually they needed to write something for it so it doesn't surprise me

yeah and i guess they need to show like maybe they need to justify why we showed the clouded mountain. I don't know. Because it makes sense for them to start showing the clouded mountain here. Right and start establishing this setting. I don't know. we have to establish a new setting in this episode so that as we move forward in the final episodes, it makes the fuck sense why we see it. Yeah, that's true. It makes sense from like a meta perspective not to I really wanted to make a Metatron. Oh my god. You know when it would have been really good to have seen it in the first few episodes when it was in the books. Did we not they did it a little bit right at the beginning, right? Yeah, that's true. Did we not? They did it a little bit right at the beginning, right? Yeah, that's true. When they're showing the battle, but they didn't bring us in there yet.

The movable part is what I was thinking about the most. I'm like, oh, we didn't see it with the angels earlier chasing Baruch and Balthamo scenes, right? We didn't see that part, so we didn't get any of the chase. Because we see it dash in the clouds in earlier chapters. I don't know. I'm interested to see how it links up against Asriel's because it's going to move and bring the battle. Maybe they needed to see that force-wise, Metatron is very formidable

because he isn't that formidable in the books, but I also think that was kind of the point. Yeah, I think so too. Like individually, he wasn't. Well, that was episode five. That was no way out. But there is a way out of that episode. And it's into episode six, the abyss.

Okay, well, there's no way out of that one either. So. Oh, my God. Oh, wait, that's so true. So true, Bestie. So true, Bestie. I knew you were gonna say that. I know you.

So the sarcastic, like dry, dry so true bestie is more important to me like saying it about shit that makes no sense that's really important to me i hope you understand that yeah yeah i value it because i value you thanks metatron opens up telling us about dust and free will as the atom bomb goes off in the world of the dead. Gorgeously done, though. I mean, for all else, beautifully done how the bomb goes off. Coulter pulls the hair from the locket and the monkey grieves Roke. Yeah, that was good.

That with one hand, she's grieving her daughter that she thinks is hurt or injured and with the other hand, with her monkey's hands, she's grieving Roke, that part of herself that she's what stowed away for so long.

Yeah. Think of how many more people we could grieve if we had external demons, you know? Oh, just think. Fra Pavel is confronted by Coulter with the hair out who tells him, read the alethiometer, commands it and tell her if her daughter survived. She did.

He doesn't know that. And now Asriel's rebellion is based on a lie. Yeah. So Mrs. Coulter and Fra Pavel, like interpreting that the Lyra being in darkness and in the land of the dead means she's dead is a very valid and rational assumption based on the phrasing that the alethiometer gave them. And it is peak comedy, which I mean, as a compliment. Hysterical. And it makes so much sense too when you think about it from a skill level because lyra would have looked at that and said i wonder what this means it doesn't mean i'm dead or someone's dead right like she would look at it and go that's too obvious because fra pavel is a

basic ass bitch when it comes to the lithiometer he's a slower reader because he's an adult that's a that's a great point because she does tend to call out those nuances and being like it means something like this but that doesn't make any sense in this context or whatever. Yep. That's great. Everyone in the land of the dead has been knocked awry. Roger calls for Lyra and we see the abyss. It looks beautiful, big, voluptuous, gorgeous.

I was afraid of heights a few times in this episode. Yeah. The merry stuff in the tree and then this. I actually felt my stomach a little bit clench up and i'm not like afraid afraid of heights because i'm tall you know you can't just be afraid of heights you'd have a horrible life i'm just kidding yeah my stomach clenched yeah it it looks great captures how much of the dust is disappearing like so much of it that it's actually visible to the human eye yeah all right intro dance break eliana all right so we're back at azriel's camp amazing dust has gone crazy and he's measuring it with a

handy dandy silver dust measuring machine which is fun it's got like the detecti things and asriel is like fuck yeah about the abyss and dust reading like fluctuating with it and i'm like as well you fucking idiot you short-sighted fucking idiot he's like so jazzed about it because like i baited metatron into responding and like making this thing that we're going to use against him without realizing that this is actually a net negative for free will right until his daughter and will clean up his fucking mess but like this is actually going against like your goals of saving everyone and free will happily surprised with the consistent as real characterization in this season because even in the books he's like ignorantly stupid especially like there's the scene where he's all boastful at the council like well my children are gonna defeat you know death and my child lyra is out there right now and it only

becomes that after he finds out she's still alive and that her goal is basically similar to his and he's like well she's faded and that makes me more important and he like changes his tune and he starts to kind of do that even in this episode and it's really funny yeah yes very consistent to character we get a shot of our favorite uh one of our other favorite witches come back to the episodes i was wondering when they would introduce her but seraphina peckle flies in watching the ground below her crumble out and similarly lyra's other mother mary malone is watching dust leave from that tall tree through the spyglass yep the intention craft arrives at asriel's with marisa and her demon inside asriel welcomes her back as if nothing's happened but marisa as you all know thinks lyra is dead and informs him also of metatron's presence we get the metatron intro talk there

from them this woman is gonna lose her mind in this show i can't wait to watch her win awards for it like those last two episodes last episode is it gonna be penultimate they die at the end next what's gonna happen here shit fuck whatever happens oh it might be the finale i think it'll be the finale because i i don't really know everything about how like pay structure works, but I think they would like have to be in it, right? Something about contracts or whatever. Maybe. Maybe not, though.

Maybe not. But whatever's going to happen in the next two episodes, Ruth Wilson's going to lose her mind on TV for us and it's going to be extraordinary. And I can't wait to see it. Yeah. This is also kind of funny to me where she like goes up to azrael's like would you like me to tell you how your daughter died or would you like to keep tinkering with your toys and azrael's response is literally i ain't reading all that i'm happy for you though or sorry that happened yeah right the if what you're saying is true i am very sorry but like what a condescending

prick what what i do love that she sasses him though that was a great tinkering with toys line it was a very mom yelling at dad response glad we're getting the gang back together you know reuniting these two roger finds lyra and will and more of the land falls away meanwhile asriel takes a trip after the scene with with mar, and he scales down the abyss. Stelmaria yells at him for it as he goes lower and lower. He starts to see the dust flowing into the emptiness as Merry and Etal discuss it as well at the same time. Yeah, I love that Merry uses the language of saying that the dust disappearing is now like a flood. It could sometimes be used to mean cleansing but it's a

punishment right and we have that metatron voiceover and shit at the beginning telling us about dust and taking it away and in the dust leaving being described like a flood it's kind of like how noah's flood in the bible was sort of a punishment right like we're gonna undo it everyone was too bad and too disobedient i love that especially like connected with mary's arc i feel like she has a lot of like i don't know noah protection right you know you gotta protect people you got one of each lyra and will yeah yeah i don't even want to fucking say this sergey ruda's demon is scouting the area she sent to seraphina for help as well auta's demon, is scouting the area. She's sent to Seraphina for help as well. A gunway

and her are surveying the area themselves and Sergi falls into the abyss and gets sucked deeply within after fighting very hard against the abyss. She can't stop him from falling and Sergi bursts into dust. Ruta Scotty

I'm twitching right now. Ruta Scotty dies in a gunway's arms. Boo. Boo. This is my really well put together criticism, everyone, and I want you to hear it now word for word boo what what the flying fuck was that literally flying fuck right that's not funny but it kind of is when i wanted them to remove the asriel ruda sex stories i didn't mean like this yeah like i don't mind that you know like the gun like i don't really care that was just an idea we're like maybe but it just like makes no sense if sergi's like sucked into the abyss also why wasn't still maria still maria should be like right there right next to asriel like why wasn't makes no sense into the abyss no somewhere i can't even fucking fly yeah i don't know it was i'm sorry but it was kind of stupid no it was stupid it was really stupid it made no sense to me well it did but we'll talk about that i had there was just like a bunch of other witches which we have had established in previous seasons

that this could have been like one of those red shirts. I don't know if it was like, cause the audience should care, right? This might just be me. So, you know, take that as a caveat. It feels weird to me to fridge the black woman who has the most speaking lines in the last season and in this season for the development of three

white people, not just Azrael and Marisa, but we also see it used to further seraphina pekala's character development and therefore aid marisa's and and i also have a sinking suspicion they're going to use it for a gunways plot for him to have a reason to care even though he has a whole entire world to care right and there's like the gender aspect too when it comes to that and like it's the year 2022 all right it's the year 2022 yeah fridging happens sometimes but like let's be intentional about it and like what we're depicting you know i the kill your gaze thing with the angels that sucks right like it's something

that merit merit not sucks the kill your gaze thing with the angels, Baruch and Balthamos, is something that does also merit criticism. But also, that was the year 2000. And even just the inclusion of the gay angels, their relationship, and then casting them as holy beings was already kind of subversive and forward thinking for the year 2000. And it's insane how much the world has changed in those 22 years, but it has, right? Like, this just did not sit right with me. And the scene alone didn't sit right with me. But I have more to say when we get to Serafina arriving, because it's just very obvious what this scene really was supposed to be establishing.

And I think it was the worst adaptive choice they've made so far. It was definitely the Tony Macarius of series three for me. I really, it was funny, my husband got up to go to the bathroom, literally right before it happened. And so he left and he knows not to fuck with like TV at that point. Like it is what it is. If you go to the bathroom, it's like a movie in here. Like you don't we don't pause, right? Like you're choosing and you made that choice with your own free will free will yeah free will exactly but literally the time it took for him to go to the bathroom come back he walks in and it's me just booing at the screen it's just me alone like what the fuck boo what

it was definitely my least adaptive choice that they've made um i've lauded them personally on a lot of adaptive choices i feel like i've been really lenient and this one i don't like and that's that that's what i have to say about it but don't like it yeah and again it's also because it makes no sense because what about still maria or still maria right she's she's right there why is she not getting swooped into the abyss especially with like asriel that far down this one's the worst one and stell maria is the next worst one just so you know just say it one more time like that i swear to god ellian i'll divorce you on this podcast say stell maria how dare you i don't know stell maria that's

so hard stell maria they keep walking at the land of the dead surveying the damage will asks what would happen if we fall? Well, someone's going to find out for you in the next couple of episodes. Lyra pulls him back from the darkness. Aw. And they start to jump from rock to rock, kind of like that Abbott Elementary episode where the kids are jumping from desk to desk as a TikTok trend. Oh, have you finally started watching? Baby, I'm almost caught up. If you would get off this call with me i'd go

get caught up roger and will have this cute little pissing match you know where they get a little big dick jealous they're like no i'm her boyfriend no i was her boyfriend no i'm her boyfriend it's kind of cute but it's it's all light-hearted like it's really not serious but it was really funny because it was just the boys got a little chest out yeah yeah. Yep. I'm a man. No, I'm a man. And I'm like, you're both boys. You're both boys. One of you is kind of like corporeal. You know, like you're not even real.

You're kind of a ghost. So just settle down, you two. Chill out, Casper. That's what happened in Casper a little bit. Okay. Anyways. Goinway has to have a one-on-one with Asriel and is like, Queen Ruta is dead and Asriel does not care.

We do. Then Serafina shows up and interrupts. She's pissed as hell. Not as mad as us. And they talk her down and Asriel explains the abyss to them and what happened to Ruta Scotty. Ruta's death serves as giant foreshadowing especially in this scene for marisa and asriel's fate it's linked with that quick little scene we just talked about where you know will ask what would happen if i fall all this benefits asriel and marisa's plot even this

interaction here and i don't know sure seraphina is 300 and emotionally experienced, far past the likes of us, right? But for her to be pissed that Ruta dies on a technicality when she shows up to Asriel and is like, how could this have happened? But then later when Coulter goads her and is like, I tortured your witch friend, she refuses to take that. Like, she doesn't take the bait. That's fine. She knows it's bait.

But to me, that doesn't feel clean or cohesive. That is not consistent with Seraphina's character and what they've shown us uh to me it was very obvious that this was clunkily done to benefit foreshadowing for the future of the plot and to leverage tension in the plot and looking for payoff emotionally that won't be there yeah there's no emotional payoff to like what what happened there it they could have fucking redshirted it. Yeah. And like a gunway didn't need a reason to be mad at Asriel already. Like he already has reasons to be mad at Asriel. Absolutely. Absolutely. And like, I don't know, there should be a shit ton of witches, right? Seraphina's not traveling solo, necessarily. Like she might not be especially if everyone's coming here for this war like and the queen of witches dies on your watch yeah like a lot of people are showing up for this war so it uh not my favorite but i really want to feel good about the show again so i just have to

forget that ever happened for the rest of this episode right i guess i don't know yeah yeah yeah like i mean yeah whatever yeah i don't know i think the delay in climate change which we're about to get to here in a few uh that delay in the climate change mattering you know that yorick says to him like y, Yorick says, oh, you've ruined my world. And I'm like, finally, we get the climate change. But I think delaying it till this episode also was a disservice to this, because that could have been used. You know what I mean?

Like, there are so many things that we could have escalated Asriel's shitheadness for them to be upset about or deal with than just having a witch die because she goes into the abyss. And further, it's that goes into the abyss and further it's that they brought the abyss here because it wasn't here in the books yet um the abyss like started to show up everywhere bit by bit from the bomb and the effects started to be felt but there wasn't a huge crack in asriel's land right there yet yeah it is eventually there right because that's how they're able to fight the war and jump into it but yeah yeah he reminds me of that comic of like yes yes you know the little illustration yes sickos yeah that one so lyra and roger and lee retell their adventure in the balloon and

bill's a little jealous slash left out but gets over it and there's a little wink about lee knowing a shaman many people don't like how lee scoresby was casted by lynn manuel miranda or him as the role but i honestly i find the guy a little annoying outside of the show man well i do he's a nice guy i'm sure and i just find his i'm like yeah yeah you're lynn manuel miranda i get it he has the attitude but i love him as lee scoresby i actually think that lee is like supposed to be kind of a heavy-handedly cheesy character. And he's not quite, you know, he's the younger character of him, like from Once Upon a Time in the North, as we've discussed. But I find him great.

So his return and like, even like the shaman nods, I knew that we were getting played until the end of the episode because of that. Because every time you'd be like, it's like this shaman I once knew. Did you know I knew a shaman who made me a bacon sandwich uh uh wink wink like i knew we were getting him at the very end you were watching it and messaging me like where is he i'm so mad where is he and i'm like just shut up and watch the episode eliana just watch the episode i knew it i just need to tell you my thoughts you know like all the time and yeah uh as you said you know i've seen people being like no we imagine lee more like what's his name sam wilson or something from the first one he actually did not necessarily like match my conception of lee

sam wilson like he was much older right and they're like i think as you said this is very much the least scores we get in the novella once upon a time in the north if we could just have a middle ground between the two of them you know like add a decade or take a decade away mash them together they'd be perfect are you asking them to do even more makeup and cgi than they've already done just throw them onto lin-manuel no make a camera you know just form them oh yeah yeah yeah that that that works perfectly with the furor king bradley stuff coulter wants to bail but a gunway is like listen don't go we could do great things here if asriel's dick would quit getting in the way she tells him she's like my daughter's dead and he says well

asriel has gone north with the intention craft so i can't let you leave you can't take the intention craft yeah they're just almost about to let a gunway you know talk to her about losing a child but then they save that for seraphina yeah they do the golden monkey disobeys her order to come and skitters off somewhere the way that when a gunway tries to like comfort her he goes to touch her like some normal people might do that like physical comfort and it's heartbreaking because she just pulls away you see her flinch away uh which i would too especially after the last episode with the handling that she was receiving from mcphail and that he was constantly trying to put himself atop her with kisses or touches uh and then i also love though at that same token she flinches and she's like this hurt creature being like my

daughter's dead but then in the same exact breath she's like so can i have the car so i can leave like just immediately so anyway so you'll give me the intention craft then. Amazing. Great performance, Coulter. You know? Will glances around looking for his father, and Lee offers to send the word back for his friend. He's like, wait, John Perry. John Perry. John Perry.

Joppery. Which is not a conclusion I would have made over him. But at least the knife helped with that, right? He's like, oh, wait. Yeah, true, true yeah true true true yeah that helped a little bit you're a knife bearer oh my god the shaman's son is the knife bearer uh yeah a lot of things had to change for this scene to work in terms of like the order that things happened and and there it did have a lot of emotional impact. But I do like the scene. And I also like how that moment of irony of him finding out, like, is juxtaposed with the next one with Lyra's dad, a.k.a. Yorick, while this one is about Will's dad.

Yes. It's funny because my first thought was how it juxtaposes with the Serafina and Coulter scene. And I didn't think about how this actually juxtaposes with will's dad against this but uh i mean i think the the big theme is just these great horrible familial relationships because he uses the ring to summon joppery and yes i bitched about this to no end that lee gets his navajo ring that was once his mother's, right? There's no purpose for it. Well, then he realizes when he's given it back, it has a purpose. Yeah. And the Landrynsides actually ask us, where is it now? So we know it's in the land of the dead. Did it dissolve with him? Or maybe it's laying there right by the window. That could be interesting. That would be interesting. I'm glad

it got used. I don't know if this is like an official thing. You know, I don't know if Pullman gave it a thumbs up, but I'm just glad to have seen it come back into use because that lantern slide, you know, we just don't know it might come back in the books of dust. Yeah, it could. It's one of two things like it could come back. But also I think Philip Pullman loves those open ended questions too. Absolutely. He likes a little mystery because he doesn't know everything about his world. Yeah, he loves that he doesn't know everything about his world, which is something that I like about him and his philosophy about writing. Doesn't his other series have a little mystery to it too?

The Sally Lockhart, right? The Ruby in the Smoke, Shadow in the North. It is literally a mystery, yeah. Yeah, it's a good mystery. It's a Victorian setting. So he does like a little mystery yeah in the north as real oh my god when i saw this scene i knew eliana would be so happy as real gets his ass beat by king yorick burnison everything i've ever wanted to see and they finally address global warming, as mentioned. And also, Asriel admits Yorick is basically Lyra's real dad. Well, yeah, duh.

Yorick tells him Lyra's gone to the land of the dead and that he fixed the knife. Yes, Lyra's alive. Yes. So there we go. The climate change thing is canon and real. Finally, finally. What a scene.

There's a lot of why and how on why he's here, how he came here that I'll never get answers to. And obviously they needed to find out why Lyra's alive, but I don't care. No notes because we got to see Yorick cuff Asriel. That was everything I've ever wanted. And it connects really well to that Serafina Coulter scene coming up. And also, Yorick beats Asriel's ass. Sorry, did I mention that? Yeah. And I mean, he should have done it more. Yorick should have done it more. Throw him around a little bit. I love that Yorick not only wants to beat him up and not only wants to kill Asriel for being like a bad dad, but also on

behalf of Roger. Because Yorick did also know Roger, right? Like we love Yorick, aka Lyra's real dad. Of course, we saw Azrael, I guess for the first time do a prison break, Lyra's experience in Seasoned, but we saw him doing a prison break at the front of the season when he got a gunway, right? Yes. So here he is very proud all, oh, my daughter doing a prison break. Yeah, right. Like he thinks, oh, she's just like me. I'm like, no, you're just like her.

Right. Like, as you said, Lara's done it before in Bolvanger. She is the blueprint. Isn't that what they're both learning? Right. Coulter and him. He's just learning it slower. They both don't know, though.

They just like don't know. They are. Anyways. In the Land of the the dead our protagonists walk along a tiny ledge and the abyss stares up at them and lyra starts to stare back too hard and then falls but no name the harpy catches her bringing her back thought that resonated really well this episode the seduction of the darkness of the abyss for a lot of the characters that kind of looked into it a little bit as Asriel, for example, was like, wow, this is so beautiful, looking down into the matter.

And Lyra, too, for a moment started to look. And I love, I don't know, I thought the theme was just really resonant that we all have this darkness within us, right? There's always something that will call to darkness inside any of us. And we all stray sometimes close to the ledge. And sometimes you need someone's love to bring you back or someone to bring you back from that ledge. Yeah, I love that interpretation of it. For Lyra, it's like that moment of, I don't know, vertigo slash pride. But I think this one,

as you said, right, that's a really lovely way to read it, as you've said. Thanks. Which I've said too many times. But this one, i think that's a really lovely interpretation how you've read this and also that that love can come from unexpected places like a harpy like a harpy that's not nice to say about mrs coulter isn't it and i think that is the least of the things we can say it's kind of a compliment truly now that you look at it seraphina and coulter have a discussion about lyra where coulter tries and fails to get Serafina into mercy killing her. Serafina tells her about the loss of her own son, and that Lyra gave her hope.

They talk about the prophecy as well, which kind of gives her another new hope. While I certainly don't appreciate how we got to this scene, I love this scene. Like, I really do love this scene. It's one of my favorite non-book canon scenes on the show. I'm a noted hater of the Lee and Marisa scene, as we've discussed. I'm better about it now. I'm fine with it. It's fine. But this scene, I love.

Both Asriel and Marisa have had to confront these new parents of Lyra, right? These people that were there when they didn't choose to be there, but also kind of there when they couldn't in a way be there. And the first thing Coulter says to her, right, is I tortured your witches to hurt her because to her, she is the most hurt by this woman, by Serafina Pecola, who has had a fresh and new opportunity to parent Lyra, right? Opportunities Coulter could never have had with Lyra because she was kind of, you know, horrendous and chose a different lifestyle. And then when she did try to get in, Lyra wouldn't let her in because once more Lyra found out she was horrendous. So it's like this horrible innate

jealousy of watching someone else raise your child when you did want to, even if you would have been horrible at it. And even if your lifestyle wasn't for it, there was always that aching part of you that was like, I to love her too and seraphina got to in some ways and i i thought that it was just really well played by both actresses whereas that first scene with seraphina peckle running in being like how could bruda have died felt inauthentic to me it felt like a fourth scene this scene felt very authentic the flow of the scene was very emotional and it was very touching and especially for what it does to coulter for the rest of the episode right like this conversation truly moves her and changes

her in a way yeah it does it does all of that loss and learning to move forward from it and there's there's just like this wonderful line that seraphina delivers and then she goes on and expands on it and those are also really well written but like to do the succinct thing this pittiness of you were a monster but look what experience did to you i thought that was just very powerful yeah my heart was blown apart by that you know she was saying look love changed you in just this little time what could it do even more absolutely will and lyra share a moment together before lyra thanks no name the harpy and decides that she wants to give her something a name gracious wings they ask her if they're going the right way and she

points them in the correct direction and gracious wings tells them true stories nourish the harpies lyra makes a deal that if the dead tell her stories she'll guide them to this exit to be set free tell them stories tell them stories and everyone kind of you know keeps whispering that later on and will says of lyra like the language that he uses at some point is like that she tamed the harpies i don't know if she really tamed them but like whatever i don't care but it reminds me in general of maybe mrs coulter taming the specters that's interesting especially with all those lines of like i don't know you have the idea of mastering death right how do you master death and lyra is supposed to defeat death and harpies aren't death necessarily but just the idea of mastery when it comes to souls i just realized you might have said

this before mrs coulter is able to tame and master the specters not that she masters death but because she is also called to the abyss their little abysses yeah she can control the darkness within her which is probably why she's able to temper her demon this is great lyra naming the harpy coming off of yorick telling talking to azrael about renaming lyra right and with seraphina as well kind of drives home that great create your own family and fate narrative and that a family could just be an oversized bird woman with iGoop with thousands of souls to shepherd across. Lyra renames her and gives her a new narrative, a new story, a new fate. Something, I mean, it couldn't just be fun to scare people all day, though. Maybe it is. I should try it.

It's a new life. Lyra gave her a new version of life. I love it. it's a new life lyra gave her a new version of life i love it it's a fantastic like message and narrative and i goop is annoying and that's why monsters inc was such a powerful movie you know oh my god this is just monsters inc it actually kind of is just a little bit yeah the gobblers oh my god um wow and then with Sully, right? You were a monster, but look what experience did to you. They're actually all monsters, whatever. Gotta close that

window someday when you gotta grow up, right? It is a window. Yeah, I know. Oh my god. Goodbye, boo. Okay. Final critique for me on the Harpies. I really love the look of them. I thought they looked great and I loved the voice acting and VFX and different things things about them but i found it interesting they stuck and clung to the we need true stories when they didn't show the harpies attacking lyra and saying she was

telling lies and yes it just like came out of nowhere and i get you have to obviously give it a reason to happen which is good like good for it happen. But I did kind of feel like we were missing a chunk there of the story when and undoing the lies that are told to you. Not just like that lies don't nourish them, but like, especially because, you know, it turns out there's like one big cosmic lie going on in this story. Overarching. Mm-hmm. Oh, that must really be taking a big chunk of their day out. Those heartbeats. Damn.

Mm-hmm. Very unnourished. So Asriel returns telling Coulter that Lyra's alive. She's in the land of the dead, aka prison purgatory, and that everything is purgatory. And then Mrs. Coulter recalls a prophecy of like, wait, maybe you're right, because if Lyra's Eve, and then she's supposed to defeat death. I also love that Asriel's like, yes, finally, there's a valid reason for my war. Yeah, my sperm finally did something wait costume change of course coulter means business she's back in her explorer outfit her neutral browns lee has found will's father

and they finally get to share the moment we've all wanted them to have will gets to finally tell his dad who he really is he goes i hate fighting And it speaks to this idea of how both Will and Lyra are very much bound by these prophecies and these fates, right? Like, they themselves may not even have free will right now. Will is forced to fight by this fate. We talked about this in the books, too, I think. And when he's older, he gets to like become a doctor and choose to be a healer instead. That his free will yeah and it's what we've always wanted right you're able to finally say to your dad's face like i don't believe the narrative you've put forth for me is my path and i'm going to break that without any sort of you know it's very it's very healing it's like i know this is what you wanted for me but you're a dead

motherfucker and you can't do anything about it so you have to let me go because I'm letting you go today. Yeah, exactly. And he does. He gets all of that validation. It's a beautiful moment and scene. The one line I don't love, and I'm not saying it's bad writing. um i don't know if this is like intentionally delivered this way or not though but i just don't like the idea of it of like his father says to him you will live a full life with your mother which maybe that is reassuring to will right like because we see that the how the harpies use that against him but to me it just kind of still like goes along with the parentification the thing that he needed to heal from right and then also as you get older puberty right and this idea of experience and adulthood you have to leave the nest you cannot just be tied to your mother the whole time and how later on the the knife it's transferred from being unable to break the bond between

will and his mother because turns out that's not strong enough anymore to needing it to be the unbreakable bond between Will and Lyra instead. So that's just, I don't think it's bad. I'm just troubled by the implications of this in general. Yeah. And it might be, again, an intentional thing. Because obviously his dad doesn't truly get him. He's known him for, I don't know, three hours. Damn.

Yeah, in some ways it's kind of the opposite of lyra's situation in some aspects that her dad was there it's just he wouldn't tell the truth and take responsibility for her at all whereas his dad chose to leave and travel and couldn't get back yeah he tried yeah he sure did and then he died he sure did roger reassures lyra she's on the right path and how lucky will is to have her by his side they admire one another's bravery and they kind of make up no more competitions between the two boys will and joppery meanwhile talk about lyra and the knife will tells him he's exhausted and his father says well that's because you're without your demon silly he says he guided will's demon himself and that she's on the way to asriel's republic he also leaves him with a big nugget of

advice don't try to live in a world that's not your own no matter how tempting it seems i was crying a little bit, just a little, just like very faintly. You know, I'm practicing for the big leagues next week. I would have loved them for do, I mean, the timing of this, as you mentioned, it all is out disarrayed. It doesn't line up.

I would have loved for them to do the weird Lyra's hair thing and have them be with him for the second half of the episode. But I think sexy preacher guy, which I've also watched since we've covered the books thank you very much i've watched yeah that's i think our sexy preacher here uh you know he kind of costs a pretty penny so i get it and it's and he's busy he's busy he's

gotten real big he's gotten like he's really he's he's a very primo actor you know yeah and it was perfect setup otherwise boku bucks i mean this is like the perfect setup for the botanical gardens unfortunately yes absolutely absolutely and like this was delivered to us off screen in the books because they really wanted to twist that knife well i mean he kind of told it like it was a little on screen but like still i can see why they didn't give the entire speech from the books that he gives will where you learn you know he got mortally sick and that your demon can only live its full life he doesn't go into all of it he just says don't do it it's bad for you and it you will not remain healthy which is good because the entire passage

is pretty pretty explanatory uh but he does say something I wish that, I kind of wish this was kept in. He says, we can travel if there are openings into other worlds, but we can only live in our own. Lord Asriel's great enterprise will fail on the end for the same reason. We have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us, there is no elsewhere. Yeah, like you said, a lot of things had to change for you know things to fall like this way temporally within the story and it's fine like that that happened again love the scene between will and his dad my only qualm is that lyra doesn't get to meet joppery at all because will met lyra's mother and also her very supportive father, Yorick.

She needs to meet all of the parents and the in-laws for the wedding. I mean, he also did kind of meet like one of Lyra's dads, right? Like Lee Scoresby. That's true. Yeah. So like, I just want Lyra to meet one of Will's parents. That's it. Seraphina tells Coulter and Asriel that pan couldn't have gone to the land of the dead

and that she'll be sending kaisa to find the demon to reunite them thankfully she knows not to let kaisa go anywhere near that big gap in the ground i love that she basically tells them though you have to do everything for lyra now instead of doing it for asriel's hubris she like scolds them like they're children she's like i hope you know from here on out everything you do is for lyra and i mean coulter does coulter's on it coulter's like i feel like you don't need to tell me yeah i'm already did the class homework did all the essays did the projects i'm in yes yes lyra and will absolutely meanwhile get to the end of the road and have to cut their way out light spills into the land of the dead and roger says he'll go first before he drives daggers into my fucking

jesus goddamn heart he drifts into the dust after a great little back and forth with lyra and then lee leaves of course to go be with hester and the rest of the dead are kind of ready to go yeah i they did a wonderful job with this parting for both Roger and for Lee. And, you know, the pause of Roger giving sort of that closure to Lyra, but it's still a goodbye, you know? Like, can you really ever get closure from someone dying in front of you twice like that? And then, like, the goodbye for Lee, like, Lyra's being left behind here you know yes roger and

lee are going to a better place and they are kind of with lyra because they're part of everything in the world in life now but she can't really talk to him she was able to talk to him in this terrible form that they held but she's learning to let them go because that's what's good for them and the way that mrs coulter still needed to learn and won't learn until like in a few episodes you need to let them go right but it's just really sad for lyra like she's there's you see the grief she's experiencing and there's just so much grief for that little girl and it's i don't know it's different when you're older you know like you know you have to let things go eventually even when it it happens, though, it's hard. It's still hard when you're older.

I mean, they won't just be there when she needs their guidance, but also it's that crux of experience and innocence, right? And going over into having a lived experience and lived a life to where you know there'll be everything that you see every day. There'll be a part of you. There'll be everywhere you look. Even if you can't see them, they'll be there.

Yeah. Their lessons, their learnings, their everything. They'll be a part of you they'll be everywhere you look even if you can't see them they'll be there yeah their lessons their learnings their everything they'll be there well mary watches the sky feeling the wind rustle feeling something anything and marisa tells her demon that lyra's alive and she tells her demon that it hurts when they're apart and that she doesn't know why she does it it's actually like a really sad scene but the monkey is very cute she tells her demon that it hurts when they're apart and that she doesn't know why she does it. It's actually like a really sad scene, but the monkey is very cute. She tells the monkey that he was the strong one all along and that she's so very sorry and begs him to come back. I want you to know I have always been a Golden Monkey fan and you can go back in the podcast. I have always loved the Golden Monkey and some of you okay season one didn't happen but some of you that was marisa's fault some of you have bitched about the monkey and haven't liked him and said

he's evil but he's not evil he is an extension of marisa he is marisa and this was a beautiful reunion after having broken up earlier in the episode when he wouldn't go with her right when he would no longer follow her and there's actually a great mirror to one of my favorite chapters in the mid end of the book midnight which is when asriel picks up coulter and brings her back from the magisterium and they have this quiet conversation and she hears the war council she's asleep and she wakes up and hears it on this maybe they're at the they're back already or maybe she's on the ship i can't remember it might be still on the zeppelin But she hears everything and he comes to her and he's like, did you hear all that? And he's all, you know, blitzed.

He's excited. He's like, war, war. Did you hear all that? Did you hear all that? And she's like, yes, Asriel. Yes, Asriel. I heard all of it. She's like exhausted.

She doesn't care. She's like, where's Lyra? Did you, do you know where she is? And he's like, Metatron's going to go after her. And she's like, she collects collects herself her and her demon together and there's this great passage her eyes found that her eyes found the eyes of her demon the golden monkey's expression was as subtle and complex as it had ever been in all of their 35 years of life very well she said I can't see any other way I think I think will he knew at once what she meant

he leapt to her breast and they embraced then she found her fur-lined coat and very quietly they left the chamber and made their ways down the dark stairs because for Marisa and for the monkey they knew it was never a question at that part of their journey they knew they're like anything yeah that's a wonderful description of what's going on here and how they become aligned on this. And this idea of like the self-healing, it's really great. And it's a good scene. And I mean, I've always thought the monkey was cute.

Like I would have fucking gotten kidnapped probably. Actually not. I think I'm kind of, you know, stranger danger. I was also taught stranger danger. So maybe not. Either way. I do like this. As you said, right? Like it's always been the monkey is Marisa. They are one. Like one isn't evil.

Both of them were very troubled. And I wonder kind of if we're going to see like a mirror of like the reaching out of the hand scene maybe for other characters probably not that's like a common visual motif so whatever strong wonderful scene though yeah it got me it fucking got me yeah zephania then tells marisa and azriel that it's time prophecy number one is done. On to prophecy number two in episodes seven and eight. Time to kill God. Time to kill God. We have two left. I can't believe that next week's episode will be our final episode on, well, at least on the episodes of series three.

We're doing it again. Doing it live. Oh my God, it hurts. We just finished His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass, what what like a few months ago oh my god i know that's why i'm like i i feel too emotionally raw but i guess we're doing it again we are letting them raw dog our heart next week why would you want to watch a film that makes you feel that it makes you feel horrible us at home i know that i said we were gonna do a discussion maybe we were going to do a discussion maybe. We're not going to do a discussion today. I'm saving it for next week

because I'm so overwrought with emotion. I think there will be tons to discuss next week. Absolutely. Well, we really appreciate you taking a listen to us in our episode 5, episode 6 coverage of series 3 of His Dark

Materials. Thanks for joining us. And if you want to keep up with when our episodes come out, we're following the U.S. release schedule, but also you can stay up to date by following us on social media, twitter.com slash girlsgonecanon, that's C-A-N-O-N. Or you can also let us know what you think, right? You can send us an email at girlsgonecanon at gmail.com yeah and if you're looking for where to find our final episode of the season next week you can find that on a podcast platform near you whether that is spotify itunes google podcast

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$5 and up. Or maybe you're interested in doing a little Discord stuff, which is available for patrons in the Thunder tier and above $10 and up or maybe you're interested in uh doing a little discord stuff which is available for patrons in the thunder tier and above ten dollars and up yeah and there are lots of fun things going on like some hangouts with our other friends at our discord for his dark materials that'll be coming up in january for some voice chats there as well as our monthly brunch and happy hour which has happened this month but we will have a date TBA for you on next

month as always I have been one of your hosts Chloe and I have been another one of your hosts Eliana until next week indeed it'll just be atoms of you Indeed. It'll just be atoms of you,

atoms of me, Eliana, floating around. We'll be in a little bit of everything next week. We will. I mean, we're going to mostly be sad, probably. Goodbye. Goodbye.