Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials S1E3 - "The Spies"
Episode Date: November 22, 2019After a near-miss escaping Mrs. Coulter's apartment, Lyra joins some familiar faces: The gyptians. With them, she learns more about her past finally begins heading north. Meanwhile, Mrs. Coulter and L...ord Boreal continue their respective searches.Â
Transcript
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Hello, and welcome to Girls Gone Canon.
We are watching His Dark Materials, Season 1, Episode 3, The Spies.
I am one of your hosts, El you might know me as glass table girl on
reddit or as arithmetric on twitter and i am another one of your hosts you might know me as
lies in arbor on twitter tumblr or lies in arbor gold.com just a flag for everyone tuning in
we are not keeping with as we do on our historic Dark Materials read-through, where we have non-spoilery content up top,
and then spoilery stuff from all three of the books,
and some of the Book of Dust content at the end.
This entire episode, pretty much everything is fair game.
Yeah, I won't spoil the Books of Dust in depth or anything,
but I might allude to them or wink and be like, huh, that's interesting. That comes up.
Just as the show is kind of just alluding and winking to it.
Yes, I feel like we're like, it's like driving, you're supposed to go with the flow of traffic. I think we're going with the flow of traffic.
yeah you know what's hard to do with going in the flow of traffic i mean like i guess lord boreal's used to it driving on that side because that maybe they drive on that side of the road in his world
but i tried to drive on the other side of the road it was a bad time everyone was holding what i call
the oh shit handle and they were like eliana what are you doing yeah no i was about i was about to
get us in an accident no i would not feel safe or comfortable especially with you helming that so thank you for letting me know absolutely not last week's episode was really
strong i left it feeling wowed and this week's episode i would say maybe as strong not quite as
a pow but still pretty strong i left it still going that was an episode as opposed to what
I don't know maybe feeling like
not being an episode like
that was a not episode
that was
I don't know I just feel lame about it
man I'd be like that was alright I guess
like season 8 episode
3 Game of Thrones
watching it after Ice and Firecon
and everyone was like cheering
and just like standing up excited
about the Night King and I was just
like okay. Like looking around
going what? Why is everybody cheering?
That's how I felt.
You know part of it is because we were cheering
about our friendship and everyone being in the room together.
I think that
was part of it. I really strongly
do. Yeah, and the friends you
made along the way. Exactly.
But this episode is
also about the friends that Lyra makes along
the way. Like the Gyptians.
Exactly.
I like that it opened
up kind of like a cold open.
The Gyptians
ambushing the Gobblers driving the van
Lyra's in she like
looks at Tony Costa when he opens
the back of the van and
in that moment I was like say something
about the bung say something about the bung
and she doesn't say anything about the bung
say something about
the bung
that's my uh
take on on that song nope nope uh yeah yeah and then we go from my song into
the theme song of the intro once more that theme song slaps every week it gets better like i was
sitting on the couch doing some uh reading and some writing about this
episode for tonight for us recording and i was like just bopping my head like humming it under
my breath it's in there i feel like you weren't super into it the first time no i like it now i
do like it now i wasn't sure what to think first but now i'm like okay kind of i liked it the first
time and when i heard it but every week i do get more and
more hype as i hear it it's growing on me especially with the score later in the episode
that we get when lyra is trying to read the alethiometer and it's kind of that really slower
uh more bare bones dramatic version of the score and it was very good something
yeah think i yeah and it's just really soft but like not i don't know it was good it was a really great
slowed down version of the score did you notice uh so we've talked about how there's that metallic
ring in the intro that folds out and how i think it's basically that metal alloy that we've talked
about in the guillotine the silver guillotine and also the metal alloy that is part of a certain knife that we'll see in the future the subtle knife it's great because
we can just talk about it openly since we get all this book two content i know i'm so glad they're
spoiling the book so i can go in with the flow of traffic uh it's not my fault blame bbc hbo
it's all bad wolf's fault bad wolf did you notice though that when
that metal the metal alloy goes out in that circle which i think i was right to suspect
that's what it had to do with it because it forms into a knife up and down her spine when she's
looking out at the worlds you know i didn't notice and i didn't understand what the note
here was i thought you meant in the opening scene. So I kept rewinding the opening scene of the episode looking for this. And only now that we are speaking, do I realize what you meant. And so I have not noticed or paid attention to it yet because I kept, I tried to.
Thanks, Eliana. tried to thanks eliana effort uh i rewatched that scene a couple times i'm like where where is it oh
my gosh she's just wearing this uh this dress just i always see the color about communication
and trust you guys they are and i trusted chloe uh there's just a miscommunication but right now
you are witnessing us working out our relationship our bonds yeah on the air on the air this is some I don't know Mari shit
right so the next scene
breaks out and it's Mrs. Coulter
searching for heresy
at Jordan she has magisterium
men tearing apart Jordan to find
Lyra looking for anything
heretical to condemn them
they find the alethiometer books
to leverage against Jordan but the master
calmly explains that it was her job to take Lyra from Jordan.
If Mrs. Coulter lost Lyra, it's now on her.
I really liked this scene.
It's kind of akin to something that happens in the Secret Commonwealth.
Won't spoil it, but it reminded me a lot of that.
It's a little more inventive, right, for adaptive purposes.
Great aerial shots.
Other shots of the college as well here look great.
The monkey in the firelight is a really cool shot with the flame was just flickering in its fur.
The monkey is great.
The monkey is good.
I have been willing to set aside my differences to accept the monkey, the ultimate monkey.
He is the ultimate monkey.
I do think so.
What is that? that well just that
i didn't like him two weeks ago i just thought his nose was so ugly and it still is ugly but
you can't change that i have an ugly nose too we're homies now me and this monkey
does anyone like their nose i don't think so i don't know i don't think so there's that line
mrs coulter had that i really loved, right? Because all of
this is about free thought and condemning free thought. And Mrs. Coulter says, if the thinking
was clever enough, it would find a way to obscure itself from the magisterium.
It was a great line. And there's, I think, a lot that can be taken from that.
It's everything that we saw in that first scene with the librarian, right? Where Lyra,
you know, says, says oh let's read this
and he's like no no no that's heresy like we can't read that it's not approved to read and if the
magisterium finds out our scholastic sanctuary will be at risk and here they are they overstepped
their bounds but also mrs coulter is corrupt as hell so she's also just like making it happen
yeah i thought what was interesting about this is this is her perspective because she's someone who was not allowed to necessarily
be openly clever right because the system was stacked against her as a woman right
and she didn't necessarily obscure herself from the magisterium she has done so in many many other
ways but what she's done is she's just become found ways to make it work through that system to do, I don't know, her thinking.
But I don't know.
I think I get what she's saying to some extent, but also I think she's wrong.
Because I feel like, you know, that's the whole point of the scholastic sanctuary, right?
The whole point of like the university slash college.
It's not to like obscure thinking, right?
Because you're supposed to shine light on
it so that others can see it and you can react to it and like talk and have discourse and get
better knowledge and like i don't know coming back to scholastic sanctuary i think that we
start getting layers of that second parentage reveal in the scene because the master tells
mrs coulter that she of all people should understand it and then another aspect of the foreshadowing from within this episode right to like keep it all together
cohesive is that mrs coulter just keeps saying alethiometer and you know sets it up so we also
get continued characterization of mrs coulter in this episode right i don't think we'll ever stop
she's such a compelling character especially the way way that Ruth Wilson has been playing her.
And we see in the scene another way of how Mrs. Coulter acts
when she doesn't get her way,
especially when it comes to Lyra.
Because I like that the show has kind of brought this
to the forefront of the series.
We got a sense of it in the cave in the Amber Spyglass
when Mrs. Coulter just hands bats to her monkey
to let it tear apart while she's over there being like being like oh my god i'm so exhausted but it's shown to us rather than
told and last episode when mrs coulter didn't get her way what she did was she took it out on
the stolen children by getting her maternal fix right and then burning their letters and
taking some sort of delight in that and we get a cue that that's what's going to happen again here
because mrs coulter once more she just tears pages out of the book and throws it in the fire
like that's a thing that she just likes doing right in the same way that i don't know people
like playing with their hair she just throws papers into fire like information i don't know
and then her tearing jordan college apart we realize isn't actually about finding lyra right
she realizes that the
lithiometer and lyra are missing it's a tantrum and she more or less admits it to boreal as she
leaves she's like oh we're tearing it apart but like whatever it's not here we gotta expand the
search and then i do love that the master tells mrs coulter that she's already done the worst she
could by losing lyra and it shows how much he hurts part because he loves lyra but also like
he's right in in a way that he
doesn't realize. If Mrs. Coulter lost Lyra
it is her fucking fault because who are
the people who took Lyra? The Gobblers.
It's your fault. Yeah, they're literally
your people.
And throws the children's letters
in the fire. It's obviously power, right?
It's a lust
for power and it's her having
control, something that she never got to have,
and she had to work very hard to actually get control. Her ripping out the pages in the book
almost feels like her trying to erase the truth, erase free thought and free thinking and free
speech, kind of, you know, with everything she's been saying in this scene. It feels so much like
an attack on free thought. And it reminds me a lot of william blake and some of the thematics that he puts in his poetry and in
his art as well because he was also an artist in the ancient days there's the summation of his work
that was at its last exhibition that said that it was a relief etching with ink and watercolor on
paper and in his final days he is said to have colored an
impression of this work and it has some angels on it basically it looks like he's reported to
have claimed it the best i have ever finished oh it's it's urizen that's right uh though small in
size it's it's become one of his best known images you've probably seen it before i'll send you this
in a dm too it's so the central figure the painting is Urizen. He represents the scientific quest for answers
and he measures the world below
with his golden compass.
They said the thing!
This act symbolizes a threat to
freedom of thought, imagination, and
creativity. For William Blake,
these were the cornerstones of humans'
happiness.
I feel like
Philip Pullman agrees with this, but also he's like nobody should be too
imaginative or else you can't read the alethiometer so i'm like what what where do you fall philip
pullman yeah but yeah that's very fun the golden compass that measures truth that does measure
truth then you get a scene about tony lying to his mom about finding Lyra.
Not the truth.
Tony brings Lyra home to the Egyptian camp,
and the boys targeted the van with their own private intel on the gobblers,
but he instead lies to Makas about it, saying, like,
I don't know, we heard noises and we followed it.
Yeah, that was very much so a kid lying to their mom.
It was an interesting dynamic, and you do get like for as
much as they're biffing it with my costa which we'll talk about because you know i'm furious and
we'll get there it's like my one big complaint so i guess that's it that's the one i'm honing in on
as much as i can complain about that i can appreciate that they're setting up the dynamic
of you know you're billy's older brother he trusts you He looks up to you. Now Billy's missing. Now I've lost my baby
boy son. Now my other son is acting up and doing shit without telling me and lying to me and growing
up. Now that his demon's settled, he's an adult. Things are changing. It's an interesting family
dynamic, especially when you have such an incomplete family between Lyra and Coulter and
Asriel. There's a really nice cut to Lyra in the alethiometer. After Coulter was just talking about the alethiometer in the last scene.
I really liked that.
Really great exposition with Egyptian people.
And their stories on their boats.
As Tony and Lyra kind of roll in on the boat.
I almost shipped Tony and Lyra.
I don't know what's happening with me.
I was like, whoa, they are just young teenagers.
I can't ship things that aren't Lyra and Will.
Heresy. I mean, you could, I guess, later whoa, they are just young teenagers. I can't ship things that aren't Lyra and Will. Heresy.
I mean, you could, like, I guess, later on, right?
I mean, that's what they told each other.
They're like, dude, we gotta, like, live our whole lives.
We gotta actually be there, you know, be present, have other people.
We can't just, like, wait forever, right?
So, I mean, it's not impossible.
He's a little, I think he's less older than
her right i think the age gap between them seems a little smaller yeah and they've they've aged
lyra up in the show definitely they've talked about how she's aged up just a couple years
and i can't spoil this for you you have to get there on your own but it's not tony but she does
date egyptian sometime yeah mean, that makes sense.
And as you said, I do love the scene Tony here has.
I just like how he's having his teenage rebellion,
but we're doing it through this.
And I think it is hard for Bacasa.
Like, no, she's running a single parent household and she's like, fuck, one of my kids is missing
and the other's going through puberty.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
And to be fair, I mean,
he is, he's trying to live up to that man role, right?
And that's what it feels like.
It is very coming of age,
watching him want to go on these covert ops missions
and try to bring good to their family name.
It's kind of a very, you know,
he's trying to be a big man.
It's a lot of pressure, this coming of age.
He's trying to be a big man
and he's trying to keep
up with like his friends some of whom are a little older and i think that you know psychologists or
whatever talk about how this is part of the adolescence right where they try to find
difference in their identity with their parents by like having different opinions and through that
rebellion and doing different things so i also like that Lyra backs up Tony. Such a kid code thing.
She's like, yeah. Yeah, for sure.
She's like, he saved me. Yeah, she's out
there like, you know, he might be my enemy on the
streets, but today, today he's
my friend. Today the bung is
behind us. The bung is always below us.
This bung
was beneath us the whole time.
Lyra
meets Jon Fah and Farder Coram for the first time. Lyra meets Jon Fah and
Farder Coram for the first time.
They know her, but she does not know
them or trust them. She's super
defensive because of this, but Farder Coram
tells her they've always held respect for
her dad, and they've known her since she was a
baby. They all had to work together
in surviving in the Great Flood.
Coram tells Lyra that she's special
without the mention of asriel
or her mother whoever her mother is that while they like asriel she is something else entirely
she's remarkable on her own he asks her if she'll help them find the missing children and stay
yeah seeing that they've known lyra since she's a baby is i think another layer of the foreshadowing
within this episode tying it once more all together i don't think
so something that was like a little annoying for me this episode is like how much lyra is like i
don't trust you i don't know you and i don't think it's unrealistic for her to distrust egyptians i
get it it makes sense especially after her previous traumatic experience with an adult
and people she didn't really know i feel that this is a thing that they have had lyra do and act
because it's a stand-in for what really stood between lyra and being open with egyptians in
the books and that is the bung all right she was afraid to trust them because she was like oh no
they hate me because of the bug and the time I tried to pull it out.
And I think that the story needed the bung.
And it was central to the plot.
As facetious as we get with the bung, like, I do think you're right that there's a certain amount of that world building that was left out.
The Golden Compass has that really cute intro scene where the Egyptian kids and Roger and Lyra are all like fighting in the streets.
And I did kind of have hopes that
maybe we would see another bit of that like reworked in its own way in the beginning of the
the show but we didn't I've moved on I guess but I did think it was important just to show
a to show like just how young these kids are right they're juvenile they're young
we get that feeling obviously with her and roger they focused in more on her and roger that's kind of the trade-off there i think and it's nice for that building i
know i i see a lot of the building they're doing because they want it to hit right like when that
betrayal goes through it's gotta hurt and they want to pack this punch um the asriel stuff you
know they're really softening him to the viewers mind mind, you know, to make us feel like, oh, Asriel, he's okay. He's all right. So that when we get there, and it happens, everyone's devastated.
scene even though it wasn't supposed to be wholesome they're like the children are straight up fighting but that felt true to me like i would go out in the streets not like the streets but
like i would go out and get into like tiffs with the other neighborhood kids and then we'd all
sort it out yeah and then we'd all sort it out and then we'd all play together again like that
just feels real to me and i think that a part of it as you said they treated it off to build her relationship with
Roger and from that building how lonely they were right as kids because she's all like we were just
orphans together he's my only friend my best friend in the world because I guess she's technically
not friends with the other Egyptian kids but in a way like if you play together enough I think
you're in a way kind of friends yeah absolutely it felt
like that too in the novel that like yeah even and that that is something that feels amiss uh
that the childishness in general that kind of childish whimsical quality that lyra has in the
books she feels a little too deep and a little too tragic in the show and like you know 10 layers of
i don't know how to trust anyone when part of her
was kind of just like well pan i don't know what we're gonna do but we're gonna go to this next
place and we're gonna find roger and we're gonna figure it out the darker tone might have something
to do with that and i do like it i agree but all this betrayal she's feeling now i don't want to
say it's overstated i just maybe think it's like misplaced in certain spots.
They're really building on that feeling.
And like,
I feel like there's a lot of little just childish antics in between that
remind us of who Lyra really is.
Like right now it feels like tomorrow she's about to make out with will with
the fruit.
Okay.
Like it feels like emotionally she's already in the third book.
You know what I mean?
It doesn't feel like this Lyra.
Lyra changes, right?
She starts off as this little girl, and then by the third book,
she has this understanding of life and its betrayals,
and she feels like a goddamn jaded 29-year-old.
Yeah.
And I don't dislike it.
It's just a little different, as you said,
and I think, again, it has to do with that tone
and I do really like how they've
built out the Egyptians and given them their own
weight in their story
so I do like that
but you know what we needed
was not just a betrayal what we needed
was a bung trail
and that's what's missing
Boreal then has a scene with a cleric And that's what's missing.
Boreal then has a scene with a cleric.
He chats with them at the magisterium.
He warns that there are consequences for the meddling of Scholastic Sanctuary happening at Jordan.
Boreal's like, well, all right, but there's a rumor that turns out the Egyptians are the ones who actually have Lyra.
And the cleric says, all right, officers are going to be dispatched on the situation now they're doing a fantastic job and I'm going to come back to this later too of setting Coulter up is not really aligned with
the magisterium we both know the direction they're going to take that in it's just going to make the
cave scenes I think pop really well like it's very obvious they're like uh Colter is kind of out of control
Boreal just so you know
like we don't really trust her
anymore and it's getting worse
every day and this isn't the first time I've had this chat
with you Boreal like just
letting you know it's not getting
better this is not getting better
I wonder to what extent it's not shown
right we don't have a point of contrast
because we don't have a point of contrast because
we don't see anyone
else doing crazy shit like
Mrs. Coulter but there is
me wondering to what extent is it
that you gotta rein her in because she's a woman
yeah
there is a little bit of that involved
it feels like and they are treating Boreal
like he can do that
and as we learn B boreal doesn't really
control coulter so much he doesn't really care he's like whatever he has a whole different agenda
which we are going to learn more about in this episode which i'm excited about he's like would
the sex be as good if i reign her in no no well maybe no Lyra and Pan then have a soul-to-soul
Lyra and Ma
Kosta chat. Pan wants Lyra
to trust the Gyptian faction.
And Lyra then trades out her
Mrs. Culture clothes for Gyptian basics
which I will say are in that
reddish color, speaking to
characterization and
clothing choices. Ma Kosta
teaches Lyra some tricks in the kitchen.
None of them are actual cooking.
It's making fires, which include Ma Kasa also telling Lyra that she could pass for
Egyptian, and that if Lyra wants to grow up to be Egyptian, she can be whatever she wants
to be in life someday.
So like the opposite of the scene in the books like the
exact opposite surprised were you sitting there going chloe's gonna be shaking her head so hard
because i was just like my jaw dropped i was like oh i didn't realize it was gonna hit you so hard
i was busy being like uh this was like a big thought i had of how you know we were talking
a lot about this with lyra in the books because she's always changing and adapting to whoever she's
most traveled with. When she's
with Coulter, she becomes her
doll, which we'll talk about in a few minutes
as well because I did want you to bring up
the colors. I've seen a lot of color
analysis of her outfits and you've talked about
it a few different times, but
I get that Ma Costa is supposed to
serve as a contrast from Coulter
in Lyra's life, but at what cost to Ma Costa is supposed to serve as a contrast from Coulter in Lyra's life, but
at what cost to Ma Costa's character?
It's murkier every week.
It's subservient to everyone else in the episode.
Ma Costa is very moody and sad and doesn't have a clear, like, I mean, she's the Molly
Weasley in the books.
It's very easy.
That's what I don't get is this is the easiest character to pin.
Okay, it's so easy.
She's brusque.
She's not very sweet in the books, right?
She's a little rougher around the edges.
And she's a mom, a single mom, very single mom.
She, you know, has had to make her way and has had to live and has kept up with this lifestyle as Egyptian with these boys, raising these boys.
up with this lifestyle as Egyptian with these boys raising these boys and uh we learn later of her connection to Lyra which we learn in this scene just a little bit in a couple scenes later
of you know that Ma Costa watched Lyra as an infant when all the crazy crap was going down
um but Ma Costa's like tough on the outside with a heart of gold on the inside. And I'm not seeing it here. I'm seeing, like,
Makasa smokes a pack of cigarettes
a day and cries a lot
and then, like, watches her
soaps at four and then
sometimes cooks stuff and thinks about blowing
things up.
So, I think that's part of
why I'm wondering, I don't know, why they
did that. Okay, so first of all, I
don't love, I i don't love i really
don't love that maukos is like lyra you can be egyptian if you want i'm like i don't know if
that's how that works yeah like in the books she is exactly saying the opposite and saying hey lyra
you're kind of appropriating my culture my people have suffered and you know this isn't the first time we've been targeted
against like from the magisterium from people that our culture has been targeted our children
have been trafficked like this isn't the first time these kind of things have happened to these
people and they've lived and survived through it and that's what she says to her and says
you can't just copy the outfit and understand our past and our pains and what we've built
in this world
and in this scene they did the exact opposite and i just went but the scene literally says not this
yeah and they end up centering i think lyra in a lot of the other egyptian scenes from here on out
which we'll we'll talk about that in a bit uh when get to the scenes. But yeah, I agree.
She can't know all that.
Lyra's here masquerading as Egyptian.
She can choose to not be one at any point in time. And while Egyptian, they can maybe do something else, that doesn't change who they are.
Just as even though Lyra doesn't like who her parents are. That doesn't change.
That those are her parents.
Yeah.
It doesn't sure define who she is.
As Mrs. Coulter said last episode.
But.
It doesn't change it.
Yeah.
Regarding I guess the rest of Ma Costa's character.
I have been kind of wondering that. Like maybe they chose not to go the Molly Weasley route because I think the idea of the mama bear, which is, I think, an archetype that Molly Weasley is tohood could be, what it means to be a single mother.
It's not fucking easy.
And I don't think that she necessarily seems run down in that way, but I think that it is difficult.
And maybe that's what they there trying to be a mother for her son
and trying to make sure that they don't
fucking die doing dumb shit
as Tony Costa does
is wanted I mean like
he's a teenager but at the
same time like
I get it on both
sides
yeah I get it on both sides
I just hate it is all so so that's how i feel it didn't ruin
the episode it just like takes away a little bit you know from the experience it's just like bummer
it just could have been a little easier it didn't have to be and it had the hbo level of drama okay
like that was good whatever there was some very obvious hbo kind of moments in this episode uh definitely more music
like when the gyptians take off at some point there's some music and it's like again very
denarius and her dragons like that's all it felt like but some of the drama felt a little forced
here for macosta and a lot of scenes too yeah some of the gyptian like drama with lyra running
out that that felt like mostly the
scenes where lyra is being like i don't trust you felt forced yeah i think again it needed it needed
a bung but anyways i kind of feel like lyra learning about this sparking powder right uh that
marcos shows her this is gonna come into play later on like maybe this is what she uses and she draws on this
experience in bull vanguard to blow stuff up at the station uh and i mean like she can still do
whatever else she's doing but i think that like you don't learn a skill like that and devote a
fun scene like that for to have no payoff yeah it was definitely building that uh i thought that was
so clever that they're building the moment in bull vanguard when she uses the flower and catches the flame so we're definitely
going to see that happen and that's a real thing for those of you that didn't listen to our his
dark materials episodes about the northern lights golden compass we did talk about how this is like
a big risk uh people that work in mills might even know in grain factories that like if they hit the air at a certain rate because they're particles.
Because, you know, they are made of materials of prime materials or prima materia, as we talked about last week.
They will ignite and blow up some shit and my cost a tonner.
So it's going to happen.
I'll take it.
So Lyra is back
in red. You have, like, fashion
houred for Lyra in our episodes
often.
In the Golden Compass, when we watched the movie,
in the books as well, you've
talked a lot about Lyra wearing red,
and I very much so feel
some Little Red Riding Hood vibes here.
She's being chased by the Big Bad
Wolf, by the Wicked Witch. There's definitely some Wicked Witch vibes. Big Bad's being chased by the Big Bad Wolf, by the Wicked Witch.
There's definitely some Wicked Witch vibes.
By Bad Wolf Studios?
Yep, Big Bad Wolf Studios.
You don't even know what that's from, do you?
I don't know, but I know that this series
is from Bad Wolf Studios, right?
So, Tranter, in general,
Bad Wolf has to do with Doctor Who,
and they became their own producing team and etc production
team so uh it originally originated from a phrase there but i digress coulter turned lyra into like
her little porcelain harlequin doll her pet as we talk about with those copycat jewel tone outfits
right that she kept wearing but lyra's not wearing drab or darkened colors with Egyptians,
she is put back in hues of red, keeping her still kind of that highlighted protagonist.
Yes. And like, so she's in the reds. But speaking to something that you've talked about in our book
episodes of Lyra trying on different identities, right? Because Lyra's not just wearing red,
she ends up wearing like these little overalls that
must have belonged to ma costa or still does but maybe like folded up or something because instead
of emulating how mrs coulter dresses now she's emulating how ma costa dresses part of it is
because she doesn't have a choice but also this is a television show and there's visual storytelling happening and i think
that's a way that we can interpret that huh yeah and it is very macausty now that you say it like
it's very it's very blending in but not it's an interesting way to keep the protagonist you know
singular but also put them in a new set of a place and not look ridiculous. And then we cut to Boreal
going through his window again.
Yes, I did find out what the real
place actually is
where this garden is, where this
window is. It's called the
Blaze Orangerie
and it is on the Blaze
Castle Grounds. It's a real life setting.
They filmed in Bristol, not
on the college. Yes, 420 Blaze Oranger filmed in Bristol, not on the college.
Yes, 420 Blazer Andre.
It was not in the college.
I know you're disappointed.
It's mentioned in other famed pieces like Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.
It was added onto in 1805 or 1806, so that's when this place that Boreal is going into first happened and i guess the whole entire grounds and castle were
restored in 1957 but i don't think the orangery was restored i think the orangery was kept the
same so really beautiful place they're filming in for this gardening scene it's very pretty
i really like that place it's beautiful and uh it's very much so like a dead garden of eden or like absolutely
like very much so gardening and like it reminds me of something in labelle sauvage without spoiling
there's a garden they see and it almost reminds me of that yeah i think there's a lot of garden
stuff of course going on and it makes sense right based on the story being based on paradise lost so
they've been having some fun with that and then when boreal steps through the window right he sees his car
it's got a boot on it he's living the city life dude yeah i like those details i'm like that's
fucking real welcome boreal yeah he's out there on his smartphone he's got a boot on his car he's
like god damn it i gotta get to work in like half an hour and so i want to cut back here we cut back from the boreal going in the window immediately to
the most important part of the television show his dark materials which is sophanax the cat
sophie affectionately farter quorum's demon just kidding's Lyra and Fart or Quorum having a chat. But Sophonax is so prominent.
No, Chloe needs it.
She really thinks that Sophie is the most important part of the show.
Sophie is the protagonist of this whole show.
I know you, like, think I'm kidding, but I'm not kidding.
I love this cat.
I want a pet.
Chloe, only cat.
Only cat.
Okay, not to be taboo about it, but, like, if it wasn't taboo, I would touch that cat.
I wouldn't pet that cat.
I mean, Lyra strongly wants to. It seems like
a very soft cat. It is a soft
cat. It is the kind of cat I want
to pet. And it's so autumnal.
What does it mean about Farticorum that everyone's like
ooh, let me touch your cat? Dude,
Farticorum has some game. I mean,
look at Seraphina. He does.
Yeah. Farticorum pulls. Yeah, he pulls. So, Coram has some game. I mean, look at Serafina. Yeah, part of Coram pulls.
Yeah, he pulls.
So Coram works to earn Lyra's trust in the scene.
He tells her that Mrs. Coulter isn't as powerful as she thinks,
and they talk about their demons.
Coram was surprised that Coulter's demon is a monkey,
doesn't know why still,
and he was also surprised that Tony's demon turned into a hawk
and then pan is like i want to be a mole when i grow up 10 points to slytherin for my patronus
finally it came in handy i got a mole if you recall you took the quiz thing right on on the
bbc no the patronus oh no i was talking about my real patronus like my harry potter i just saw that
you started doing it and then you abandoned it i did start to and then it never responded to us on our account so i did it from my account and it gave me
a cat i believe actually oh i got a gecko that could work for you lyra smacks back to
farter quorum and she's like yeah pan's gonna be a mole so he can burrow underground and stay safe from all you grown-ups oh that was
a good one oh it was pretty funny she doesn't want pan to settle right and this is a discussion
she has and also comes up in the books but fartacorm hints that when it does happen one day
maybe she'll be happy then lyra asks what about the people like aren't they ever disappointed
when they find out what their demons are and he he says, you know, he didn't know what Sophie was going to settle as, but that he would not change a hair on Sophanax's head.
No! He even said Sophanax!
I'm the lead. I am the president of the Sophanax fan club. Sorry.
And this is just, no one loves this cat as much as I do, I'm the lead. I am the president of the Sofinax fan club. Sorry. And this is just, no one loves this cat as much as I do, I'm pretty sure.
No. Well, except for Fardricorum.
Yeah, I don't know about that. Not as much as I do. Listen, Coram, Vantrexel, if that is your real name, do you even deserve your demon?
I like the moment that he said that sometimes I imagine her different, right? Because I mean, as we've discussed, the demons
are them, right? And I
think that's just such a very true
thing. Like, we've discussed before
how I'm like, yeah, I kind
of would want to know what my demon is.
But, and as
an adult being like, yeah, it makes sense for them to settle
versus how I felt when I read this when I
was 13. I was like, I don't want my demon to fucking
settle. That's lame. You settle someday as an adult when I read this when I was 13. I was like, I don't have a demon to fucking settle. That's the thing.
I mean, you settle someday
as an adult, right? You grow up.
Yeah. You figure out who you are
or maybe you don't and you're discontented
but of course, as Farger Coram says,
sometimes you imagine your demon different
and sometimes you imagine yourself
different, right? Like there's
a tree that's referenced by
Sylvia Plath talks about seeing
all the possibilities of herself and all like the fruits and the branches and who she could be and
which fruit she could pick and i think that that's what it means to imagine your demon different
it's not bad or wrong it's just like what if i were this kind of person instead
you're not yeah and happiness is understanding no not i thought it was interesting
that uh lyra asked specifically if there are ever people that are disappointed with their demons and
i think that the series does kind of start to tackle this question later on we kind of see
something happen where after the third book after there's separation that happens i mean we
learn from the book of dust and we learn from the first and the second one from commonwealth and
labelle savage that this isn't i wouldn't say rare it doesn't happen often it's a seldom thing but it
is something that happens that demons and their people do not get along so it was a very tender
moment especially when he was like i would
not change a hair on sophanax's head that connection is just so important and i think
that's another thing this scene is doing it's telling us how important this connection is right
between human and demon very very sacred which will make what happens to the children at bull
of anger that much more disgusting but when we really get the real view of it yeah and as you
were saying about people being unhappy with what their demon is or disconnected in their emotional
life that's true in real life right there are people who hate themselves yeah or like they
don't want to acknowledge like who they are right? Or they're not happy with it.
And I'm not saying that's not like, people should never
try to improve themselves, but you know what I mean.
Yeah. I do think
it's interesting that Pan thinks
he would be a mole,
which ends up being quite different
from what he becomes in the end,
which is a pine martin,
which I think, like,
spends a lot of time in trees right and shows
that lyra thinks she's going to be one thing and will be another and like i don't know you all know
what fucking moles are right they live underground and in one sense this does end up being true of
lyra's story for a brief bit she's the girl who goes underground into the underworld but the rest
of her human life she chooses to specifically not be a mole she
chooses to live that life and not die she's got to be above ground right that pine martin amongst
the trees yeah in the next scene boreal meets with his informant thomas who reveals a photo
of a certain suspect thomas has a data record of dr stanislaus Grumman cross-referenced with one other person, Colonel John Perry.
Perry was on a government-funded science expedition in Alaska when he disappeared.
Before that, he spent 14 years in the Marines, meaning he's not actually from Lyra's world.
He's from the world that's similar to our world that Boreal keeps slipping into.
He doesn't understand how.
Boreal is like, he has a demon.
People from this modern world don't have demons.
Interesting.
Thomas knows his last location,
which probably isn't helpful
because it's kind of been a while
since that knowledge happened,
but he has other valuable information too,
like that John Perry slash Stanislaus Grumman
has a wife that's mentally ill
and a son that's in and out of trouble.
He questions why Thomas never worked up the courage to follow to the other world after him,
and Thomas says it frightens him.
Boreal says he overcame that fear.
But Stanislaus is more fearless and has seen more than even Thomas or Boreal has seen together,
and Boreal wants to know what he knows.
He leaves, he sends out a text to meet someone, and walks through worlds.
I'm headbanging right now.
Ugh.
Dude, that scene slapped.
Ugh.
Anything with John Perry is just like, what?
It's so smart.
It's so smart.
My little boy.
Ugh.
This scene is brilliant.
This is a brilliant adaptive choice it's brilliant
everything with lord boreal so far has been brilliant it's just so smart it's the smartest
way like it's gonna start off season two of the pop like we can start subtle knife scot-free we
don't have to worry about any of like the backstory we know it you start season two and it makes sense
you're like oh my god
that's will he's being chased by these dudes yeah and like now you know how the dudes fucking found
them right and like it's more of a slow reveal that the whole time the magisterium has been
hooked into this power playing and scheming and experimenting and the corruption and all that
like seeing it start and putting this into Charles in the beginning is so smart
his subtle knife arc is so
much more compelling than like this crusty
old dude with a snake demon and a cowboy
hat right yeah this adds
just I don't know it's just overwhelmingly cool
to see this happen I also
am wondering though are they giving Thomas
too much characterization is he gonna die
soon
I mean probably hackers. Hackers like
this always fucking die, right? Didn't that happen
in, what was it? House of
Cards? Yeah. Those characters
always die. Sorry, spoilers House of Cards,
but I assume everyone's caught up if
you ever actually intended to watch it.
Well, actually, I didn't watch the last
two seasons. I didn't care, but I assume everyone knew that.
I mean, he's probably gotta. He's
not important. He's not in the plot.
I'm really excited for
Lord Boreal to meet Lyra
in the museum and for her to not recognize
him.
It's going to be so good.
But yeah, as you said, I've
been really loving the way they've been adapting him.
It gives us actually a great contrast
for Mrs. Coulter because both of them
are agents of the
magisterium in different ways but they're also in their own ways disobeying the magisterium
they're different they've got different people that they're searching for for different reasons
they're very they're very fun this is some of the i think lord boreal and mrs coulter are some of
the best character work that they're doing. Yeah.
And there's, like, obvious connotations behind Lord Boreal having a snake demon, right?
Like, that comes through in the books, but there's, I think, a lot of really great framing of it in the show.
Like, he emerges from that little island in Oxford with a tree behind him.
It's a very small little garden in this island right and the serpent
it reminds me right it makes me think of the serpent slithering out of the garden of eden
away from the tree of knowledge and he keeps asking thomas for more knowledge like literally
the line from him is i want to know what he knows i want to know where he crosses i want to know what
he has seen and like it's the serpent tempting others to find
forbidden knowledge because he's literally like thomas you can do it you can break in and hack
more illegal shit for me he himself is starved for that knowledge he wants to know what stannis
los grimm has knows it's out of his reach and then you have that detail like of what you pointed out
last time right in the literal visual framing of lord
boreal this is just really fun like one of our last shots of him again is also through a window
it's through thomas's window pane and i think it is really important for lord boreal to be needling
thomas about like never crossing from his world through the window because i think that discussion of courage is
kind of the way that pullman wants us to interpret lord asriel and his like very cool big cat demon
but i mean fuck lord asriel and it's also how he wants us to interpret stanislaus grumman right and
all these explorers even though technically gr Grimm did it on accident in the books
but by playing this up
it sets us up as viewers to interpret
that Lyra when she eventually decides
to cross into a new world
alone but not alone because she has Pan
doing so as a child is a huge
act of courage
oh absolutely it really sets her up to be on that same
playing field as Asriel
it goes on that Lyra does things she's on the same playing field as her dad with the stuff that she does and learns. She does things that Asriel couldn't even imagine doing, right, in her time, because he's too busy and wrapped up in power.
He's like, I don't have time for you. He literally said that to her. Yeah, he's like, I have to wage a war on God. Spoiler alert. And something else you just
said really stuck out to me
is that he is needling
Thomas for information, right?
He's using Thomas.
He's nagging Thomas.
Now that I say it, he has to kill Thomas
in this season. I almost guarantee
you Thomas is going to get killed by Boreal
and we'll see the snake demon
slither out of Boreal's sleeve
afterwards probably menacingly
because he's using him
for this information and then
he's lording it over him
and like you said kind of negging him
and being very this is his
power play right like this is him saying
I'm a powerful man Thomas
you're a little bitch boy you
would never follow me
I have big boreal dick energy
Thomas thank you for your
information but it takes very
much bravery to go across the world
that you can never do Thomas
I will say Thomas has a nice ass house though
oh yeah very nice I love the water
I was like I would love to come out and go on a little boat ride
in a little rowboat
maybe one called LaBelle's Fudge
I thought you were going to say with Thomas I would love to go on and go on a little boat ride in a little rowboat. Maybe one called La Belle Spage. I thought you were going to say with Thomas.
I was like, oh, okay.
Yeah, with Thomas.
I would love to go on a little rowboat ride with Thomas.
Oh, sure.
Before he dies.
Thomas probably has interesting things to say.
But, like, what you were saying about him dying because of Lord Boreal,
for some reason I didn't put those things together when you were talking about Thomas dying.
But there's something about that, right?
The serpent tempting him to eat
from the fruit of knowledge, gain that
knowledge, and then killing him for knowing too much.
I see something like that.
There's something interesting, I think, around that.
Because it is a power play for knowledge.
Who gets the knowledge? Who has the
knowledge? Who keeps the knowledge? We see that
with Asriel when he presents it to the scholars
and they're biting at this knowledge like
fish, you know, just like leaping into the air going what do you mean what do you mean this is heresy but
tell me more um you know he's offering it on a platter and they're eating it up and that is
something that pullman is critiquing right like how come only one person gets to keep it all and
as you said that power imbalance because yeah why would god punish adam and Eve for knowing more?
And that's something that Pullman is questioning throughout the whole thing.
Why would knowledge be sinful?
Yeah, and that whole idea of who controls power, who controls knowledge,
who deserves that knowledge.
Knowledge is power.
Yeah, knowledge is power.
Power is knowledge.
Power is power.
France is bacon. Benjamin reveals
the gobbler's direction. Lyra
tells the group where to look for Mrs. Coulter's
evil plans if they happen to raid
her apartment. Farticorum's like,
you're absolutely not going to go do
that because that would risk
them finding out everything about where we are.
Us having Lyra.
Farticorum's like, we have it really good right now,
you guys, so please don't fuck it up
and as if on cue the Magisterium police
force arrives to search the boats
on a tip that Lyra is aboard
Lyra has a close call but stays
in hiding until they're gone in
Ma Costa's boat
they have that payoff right within the same episode
of Lord Boreal giving that tip off
I did find it
interesting that the police officer
has like that vicious very sniffing dog demon right because subservient still vicious also
they don't explain why the demons couldn't find her through the wall right it's explained in the
books i wonder if it's just a scene that was cut out for timing reasons or something right because
cut out for timing reasons or something, right?
Because Cedarwood apparently has a soporophic effect on demons in the books, and that's why the officers can't find Lyra there.
And it is actually true because Cedarwood has sedative properties.
It can be used to decrease heart rate and used in aromatherapy.
And we talked about this in our third episode for
The Northern Lights Golden Compass, chapters 7 through 9. rate and use an aromatherapy and we talked about this in our third episode for the northern lights
golden compass chapters seven through nine um i it's funny because we called that out pretty
specifically and i did see someone the other day on reddit actually say something like oh they
didn't even say anything about cedar so i'm glad that we aren't the only ones that noticed it
oh well can't win them all It's like not actually that important.
It's not, but it would have been cool.
It could have been something to slip into conversation.
Come on. Yeah, give me the fan service.
Right. You know, there's a lot of those moments
that I'm just like, it's right there and you know it is.
Yet you still
have chosen to say only your sister.
Every time.
There's a couple of those this episode
actually too that I'm gonna probably bitch about a little,
but whatever. Where's the fun without me bitching?
Chloe throughout the episode,
only cat, only cat.
In different ways, surprisingly.
It means different things at different times in this episode.
Oh, he's so funny.
We got a scene of Mrs. Coulter
in Lyra's bedroom.
I like how in these notes chloe has listed
in her flat just you know how they say it over across the pond i have a friend uh that i work
with that is from across the pond wow and yes uh very worldly i see her often she works in
commercialization and visits me often and whenever she's hanging out with me at work,
I adapt to whatever she's saying, right?
So she always will be like,
well, do you want to go get a pint after work?
And I'm like, of course, do you want to go to a pint?
You know, I mirror her back.
So maybe this is me subconsciously taking after my friend right now in her flat.
I like it.
It's like you wearing overalls.
Oh my god.
Like Lyra.
Yeah. But saying flat. it's the same energy i continue to love the complexity that this show is bringing to mrs coulter's
character and we've we've kind of discussed it before we see how divided mrs coulter is about
her own feelings but in the scene where she's like tearing shit apart
she and her demon are actually together and i think this is the side of her of course that
she doesn't let the world see not even the viewers and that's why the monkey when is
together with her closes the door and i'm going to come back to a little more about this in a bit mac costa brings lyra out of hiding and she reveals a big one uh lyra freaks out on her and is like why would i
trust you or them or anyone especially after mrs coulter and what does mrs coulter want with me i
can't trust anyone everything is crazy i'm like 10 years old what is this um i'm 13 years old what is this literally i love that meme so much
it's literally lyra right now uh and finally ma costa my costa tells her the infamous backstory missing a handful
of details so i may embellish a little bit because what is a lyra birth story without
embellishment lyra herself would argue that it needs embellishment just saying just putting it
out there uh mrs Coulter was married to
an influential man, Edward Coulter,
fell in love with Asriel during her
travels. They thought they could get away
with it, and that Edward would never
figure out that Lyra was not his
daughter, except Lyra looked
a little too much like
not Edward Coulter. So
Edward figured it out and wanted
to kill the child.
Definitely some LaBelle Sauvage parallels coming out here.
Because men have pride.
Asriel kills Edward.
She says he fought him to death in the show.
What's that?
That was weird.
I mean, as Lyra says in the books, right, there were swords involved.
Oh my god, it was a gunshot or two.
But Asriel had to give up everything to
the law in the loophole that he was defending his property but edward was legally avenging his wife
being violated so lyra was placed into a nunnery after being in the care of a certain gypsian nurse
that may or may not have been ma costa and during the great flood asriel quote unquote malcolm stole
her away and brought her to jordan
college malcolm in scholastic sanctuary and there is a really nice line that i will at least give it
this yes i'm really mad about ma costa's characterization no i'll never stop bitching
about it but i did like this line when she says i just want to keep you safe i didn't manage it
before let me manage it now there's a part of that line that
kind of makes you think like she's she's kind of singing about billy too yeah in the in the books
right and i actually really like that they split this up that they split up this reveal in the show
not one's not better than the other i just think it's a it's a good adaptive choice especially
because that way you know you you get two out of it and
the visual medium where people are carried along with it is a little different.
In the books, though, it is still with Egyptians that she gets this reveal. I do think it is better
coming from Malcasa than it is from Jon Farr, Farder Coram. And it kind of makes me think,
right? Interestingly, when she gets these reveals, it's along these rivers
with Egyptians and it kind of reminds
me to wax poetic a little
bit of, in Greek
mythology, there's a goddess called Nemesine
and she allegedly has her own
river called Nemesine
and in the afterlife or so
people can drink from
there are two rivers there's actually a bazillion
fucking rivers right but there are rivers there's nemocene and there's lethe and if you drink from
the river of nemocene you get your memories back if you drink from the river of lethe you forget
you forget it all and you're like ready to go be reincarnated or some shit and in this moment where lyra in both the books and the show
learns about her parentage right it it's on this river she's regaining that memory that she didn't
have the river of lethe actually gets referenced in paradise lost which i think is interesting
there it's a few lines down from iconic lines such as better to reign in hell than serve in heaven
but wherefore let me then our
faithful friends the associates and co-partners of our laws lie thus astonished on the oblivious
pool the oblivious pool here that's referenced means lethe and how it oblivates your memories
and i mean these are famous things rivers that are referenced i also wanted to talk once more
about the divine comedy for no fucking reason we actually referenced it more in our other episode but i just wanted to talk more
about how dante invented his own fucking river for all this called you know way and again i would
like to stress that the divine comedy is the ultimate erotic fanfiction. And if there's anyone who knows anything,
like I never want to hear anyone criticize,
especially female authors again,
for self-inserts,
but literally it's Dante in the Divine Comedy
being horny on Maine
because he puts his love interest in it.
He puts literally real life love interest in it
and uses his real name and i
just that's all that's how i feel about the divine comedy yeah i i feel like it's not fair to rag on
anyone for that because there are so many men that have made these ridiculous self-inserts even
pullman a little guilty of it in some of the new books in the books of dust so good call though absolutely because
the rivers in general especially for the egyptians and especially with the bel sauvage when you get
deeper into that book someday eliana um someday hey thanksgiving's coming up i could do it during
this break theoretically i would be thankful if you did i'll do this I'll do it for you. I want Chloe to be thankful. I would be thankful if
you finished the book, Eliana.
Goddamn. Wow, the way she said
that.
Listers. Did I just culture it a little
bit or are you a little afraid?
You're like a lithiometer.
If you don't finish the book,
Eliana, we will have a
confrontation that I will win.
Okay? Is what I'm saying.
Her cat demon is
probably stronger than allegedly
my gecko. Your gecko?
Fucking gecko-ass bitch.
Bitch.
I need insurance
for this confrontation.
Anyways, great call.
Great references to the rivers. Theians take a lot of strength from the
rivers and they know more about the rivers than pretty much anyone in this story so the only thing
that i didn't love about this reveal i think it's fine i like the reveal fine enough the only thing
i didn't love was actually that my costa revealed that she was the gypsian nurse, and I
liked the way that Fa
and Koram revealed, like, oh, but
don't tell her, because you know how Ma Costa can
get, but yeah, she was the nurse.
She's just, like, a different person
in the show. I guess. I'm accepting it.
Well, I would
accept it, but then how would you get
to hear me bitch week after week?
So... This scene is so angsty. Yeah, it is. would accept it but then how would you get to hear me bitch week after week so i just this
scene is so angsty yeah it is which is again not untrue of that age but also it's like oh so angsty
yeah it's just dark and angsty yeah then we have mrs coulter getting jumpy that right
chloe wrote these. Not me.
Give her credit.
She stands on the balcony of her flat,
and she's tightrope walking around,
before sending out the spyflies,
which have the Lyra scent from her dress.
This was cool. It was a cool little
mini-scene. The spyflies
looked very cool. Very technical
and metallic.
It's straight up a Fly My pretties moment with the wicked witch
setting out the monkeys like shot for shot that's what this was this was wizard of oz the wicked
witch setting out the monkeys and they're pushing the whole jumping off the edge thing again i can't
wait to see this actually happen someday it'll be very meta if you will. Yeah. Very Metatron.
Oh, wow. Metatron.
Metatron.
I actually heard the term Metatron used recently in Good Omens, which is
its own different take.
It has its own different takes on
biblical stories.
So, I'm actually
not sure what they say about this in La Belle Sauvage.
Surprise. But, I like how Ma Costa and this story frames that Mrs. Coulter was conflicted about keeping Lyra.
Like, it sounds as though she kind of had a choice in deciding, so do I just keep having this baby or not?
And her deciding, like, yeah, it's fine, i can totally get away with this and try uh indicates
some level of actually wanting lyra and like seeing all the other shit that mrs coulter gets
away with i think that in this world where i assume i assume that abortions are not permitted
by the magisterium i don't actually actually know that, right? There have been different attitudes towards it throughout time,
even within Christianity.
I think she could have gotten away with having an abortion
if she did want that.
And in the scene, I think we begin to see a little more
about why Mrs. Coulter would have done something
to be further from her demon
or to feel more separated from it but not entirely like
we've discussed in some of our book episodes the difference between the body and the spirit and the
soul where the body houses the spirit which is what ends up going to the underworld and then
that the demon is representative of the soul which is a part of the humans that feel sensation it's a
very much a tether to the world and whatever happened i think
mrs coulter maybe because it was too painful whatever happened or something else right she's
so distant and hurtful to her demon because she doesn't want to feel and she's spiraling right now
and beginning to self-destruct especially as she very explicitly goes against the magisterium and like mrs coulter clearly isn't
good she is explicitly like a bad person and what she's doing right now and to herself isn't good
either but i think that the sensation of wanting to turn off your feelings and forget hurtful things
or just not have to feel them is like if that's not relatable, I don't know what is. You know, when we first talked about that theory
of Coulter possibly
being separated from her demon back
when we talked about it during the Northern Lights
and Golden Compass, that was kind of
the lens that made me
stop to think about her character more. It was what
really made me understand the complexity
that if this is true, if that
metallic scent is really the metallic scent
of the blade and that
she was experimented on or she chose to take the experiment because it would stop the pain um
it very much so frames her desire for lyra which obviously she doesn't know how to
desire lyra in a healthy manner it's very abusive very psychotic uh but she wanted lyra and i think uh labelle sauvage
doesn't perfectly cover it but it does discuss it a little bit that mrs coulter is with the
magisterium in pursuit of getting lyra back she wants lyra too but we don't get mrs coulter's
side in this story we really don't you're not going to get probably i didn't get what i wanted
out of it in terms of that to understand how she really truly felt but i think we don't need it because if you read this
main trilogy you see how she really feels like psychotic feeding her drugs you know to like keep
her down so that she doesn't run away just so she can keep her love it's like me with my cats
right like sometimes i just pick them up and i'm like stay with me i love you forever you know and like jaharis will be like no mom i do not want your love and he'll try to squirm away
and i'm like no i'm just gonna love you forever like it's the same kind of thing but you just see
that like she wanted to keep lyra and asriel did not you know likening it to you and like
now i'm worried about your cats
no it's just like Jahaerys doesn't like
doing things like hugging
I'm worried about your cats
they're fine
Brielle meets with a new informant
he meets with a guy and gives him an envelope
of photos
who are these photos of
they are of my baby boy
my son also my baby boy
we birthed him
primarily you and i birthed him will perry yep and no one should ever touch him and they should
leave him alone yep um and boreal tells the guy to watch this kid and his mom closely how dare you
we too will be watching him closely so watch the fuck yeah i'll be watching you stranger and
stranger guy stranger danger yeah yep and this guy isn't even thomas i'm like who is this guy um yeah who who are you do you even
go here really good stuff adaptively speaking this is we're seeing the other side of what
happened and why will is being watched and chased yeah wow i did kind of always wonder i mean like
you kind of get an idea right like they're after him because of John Perry, but also like, this is good.
But that's kind of the mystery of it, because now we're gonna know and Will won't, right? Because he doesn't understand. And that's kind of something that I really liked about Will's plot when you first meet him is he's like, I literally do not know why these people are after my bitch ass. But I do know my mom has had issues forever and it's
probably her fault and my dad well who knows about him yeah and i think we'll still be able
to understand that about yeah but now it's just even more like oh you poor boy caught up in all
this shit it feels like there's a reason for it now it does some of these mysteries being unraveled
sooner are really gonna pay off i think i like it i also like very minor detail but again really
grounds the story lord boreal is eating he's got like a little thingy right and he's eating his
fucking chips and by chips i mean fries because that's what they call them once more across the
pond chips oh like the flat yes like the flat like the flat but Yes, like the flat. Like the flat. But by chips, we mean french fries.
And it feels fucking real, man.
It's got little fucking chippies on the other side of the river.
Amazing.
Yeah, I mean, he just needed a pint to go with that.
Oh, you're right.
He could go get his pint and go to the flat and wear a jumper.
Yeah, wear a jumper.
I'm running out.
I'm sorry. I don't have any more.
Yeah.
Be five hours ahead.
All sorts of things.
He really is just winning in this.
Truly. And then we have the roping
in which Lyra gives an
impassioned speech about Billy and Roger
and stopping Mrs. Coulter.
And Jean-Fa gives his own speech and
Farnacorvus says,
as you're going north,
all the Egyptians are to send their fighters there. I really liked my rendition
of Jon Faw
calling out Raymond, but you know, this
was like, it wasn't as, I
think, seething and dramatic as my
rendition from the books, but whatever.
No, I do think your rendition in general
was a little better in some ways. I'm gonna break
it down right now.
Thank you, everyone.
Give me the Emmy Award.
I did die laughing, though.
I was like, sit the fuck down, Raymond, the whole time.
I was dying.
My hand was over my mouth like, Raymond's in it.
I thought it was really cool.
They used one of the guys that we had already seen above on deck as Raymond.
They even are taking these extra background characters and turning them into people of the plot, which I thought was nice.
Yeah.
The scene is great because of that.
I do wish they would have
used more of the book speech for Jon Favre
because it's right there. Yeah, I was
like, waiting to compare my actual performance.
I really was.
I honestly was. I was like, waiting for him to be like,
to be like, so how well did
I say Raymond? How close
is it to the way that this John Faw is
going to perform it?
I was surprised that they didn't use more of
his book speech, you know, of
striking fear in their hearts.
There were certain themes that matched
and certain phrases that were similar,
but they changed the speech
and I don't know, I just really liked his whole but they like changed the speech and i don't know i
just really liked his whole position on justice in the books and like how you know like we'll save
our kids first and then we'll get the vengeance and you know bring justice down but like only if
it's the right time like we're not wasting our own kind for this yeah i agree and i think it's
partially because they gave the azrael reveal of like him helping out with the floods a little bit earlier in this episode but like i personally don't know if i
love the adaptation of lyra being part of this i hated it i not hated it i guess that's a little
dramatic but i am dramatic but i don't think it i think it works well in the context of the books
for this exact reason i felt like it was just not right.
It feels intrusive and not right.
And I understand why, because they want to, of course, give Lyra and Daphne Keene a little bit more of that role.
And show who she is, that she's standing up for what's right.
But I think what was important here is that the Egyptian people, including Lord Fa, decided amongst themselves that they had to defend Lyra, right?
Because it wasn't just about the Egyptian children.
The morally right thing to do is that they defend all children.
They don't pick and choose because they are above the people who keep them out of the system, right?
Who choose to not look out for Egyptian children just because they're Egyptian children.
So what, are they going to do the same thing to Lyra?
Exactly.
Just because she's not an Egyptian child.
And I think that that was important, that this is a part that centers that Egyptian culture.
And I think that's part of why I didn't like the insertion of Daphne Keene's speech. I think it was a perfectly fine and well executed and well written and performed speech. I just don't love what it means for that story and the Egyptian culture.
my eyes either way right like there was emotion in this uh i i do like the casting for john fa now i think the casting for farter quorum and for john fa is really good i think the show is mostly
well cast you know i don't have any big issues uh the emotion was totally there for this i did like
the touch where john talked about how the magisterium has made them the villains in this
yeah yeah i think that is a good touch, because they're-
They're being persecuted.
They're the ones who are most maligned.
How could they when they are the victims?
And then after the roping, we have a scene with the deck,
and Benjamin and Tony, they escape to go on a secret covert ops mission.
Lyra reads up on her alethiometer, catches Tony leaving.
She's like, I want to come with.
I'm a kid. I want to go. But she's like i want to come with i'm a kid i want to go
but tony's like uh no it's a really cute scene though too because she's nagging she's like i'm
gonna tell your mother right away tony costa so if you don't scream she's like i'll scream tony
costa i'll scream i'm like oh my god uh there are these little moments of Lyra that we're getting like that they feel very much like Lyra
exactly
yeah and then Lyra though at least
she's like alright if I can't come she gives them the layout
of Mrs. Coulter's apartment
yep and off they fuck
off they go
it works it's a made up
whatever scene but it works I think
I do like this scene because again
like the way
that they've been building tony costa it of course these are moments built into this fantasy world
but this feels like a very real teenage experience to me just as we were discussing that some of the
scenes with larry's childhood like in the books feels like a real childhood scene this feels like
a real teenage scene to me like it's his friend benjamin pulling up in his car honking outside
like texting him be like yo bro i'm out your window let's go but it's like way more difficult because everyone
has to sneak out on fucking boats like i was looking at benjamin trying to get into his boat
to go away i'm like that seems like an endeavor yeah it did feel very teen movie i did like that
so maybe that's where we're getting a little bit of the childish antics in a way but yeah they go on a joyride right yeah in the big city but only for like a way more dangerous
mission that ends in death yeah so that's pretty much a plot point in most dramas i mean yeah
teenage rebellion someone dying from it fun that that does that does happen yeah in these movies
though and like yeah tony's testing his boundaries i don't know i like
i like all of this alongside lyra's growth especially because like we know what's gonna
happen yeah yeah lyra falls asleep working at the alethiometer it began to move for the very first
time that was a cool scene the alethiometer stuff this episode is really good this was a good soft
bringing in before the next alethiometer scene where she really gets it finally.
That's very exciting. But Ma
wakes up to Tony being gone,
which intercuts with Tony and Benjamin sneaking
about places and getting into
Coulter's flat. Ma wakes
Lyra up. She fell asleep at the
alethiometer wheel. The boys get
into Coulter's office simultaneously.
They're caught by the monkey.
Yeah, there's a lot of lamps. I just want to point this out there.
The lamps at the entrance of Mrs.
Coulter's apartment with those three legs.
There's a lot of them on Craigslist
and Facebook Marketplace in case any of you
were wondering or interested in a similar style.
Oh, I'm glad you're
bringing your obsession to the
forefront.
I would never. I just think
people need to know in case they want that.
So there's a scuffle in their pursuit of Coulter.
They end up getting some stuff before they're caught by the monkey.
They're going through some paperwork.
Tony gets out of a window, leaving Benjamin inside.
And Benjamin is caught by Mrs. Coulter.
inside and benjamin is caught by mrs coulter his demon goes out in a sparkling poof as he refuses to betray his family while she uh takes him down her kill style is like kind of seductive
and very creepy and then just animal rage and she's like climbed on top of him and it's totally
about power in this and she like has him subdued and he submits to her and like as you said there's the
thing about power and it's a very unnerving scene and i'm gonna go into this right now like
there's a couple things that are worth noting that are interesting so on one hand yes benjamin
is literally younger than mrs coulter and at first she calls him egyptian boy and i don't think that's
very off-putting right because like he like he theoretically is, he's a teenager
but when she says it
when she's on his back
with, yeah,
Benjamin Chokin, there's a very racial
and like racist element to it and I think
that it's written intentionally. I don't think that that
was written carelessly. I think that's an intentional
thing we're supposed to get and like we already know that
the books touch on ideas of
xenophobia and stereotypes being untrue we see it often with the rumors of how the egyptians act and then it
being debunked as lyra gets to know them and realizes how they've been maligned so i i wouldn't
be surprised if the show touches on elements of this and like we don't get as much of it in terms
of the actual egyptians like in terms of the rumors about them from other people, to contrast with our actual experiences with them.
That's not as highlighted in the show,
but the way Mrs. Coulter just punctuates
calling Benjamin only boy, not Egyptian boy,
when she's on his back,
she pauses and calls him that.
This is a term that has historically been used,
and even today,
against men of color in the
united states it's used also in south africa and it's an insult especially towards black men and
it's meant to diminish them it was very weird and then like as she was choking benjamin like i
couldn't help but think of like eric garner right in new york city and how there have been a lot of media that also pays homage to him and like
him dying under oppressive power structures and repeating the lines of I can't breathe as he
suffocates under the New York police officers yeah this is an incredibly tense racial and political
moment I don't think it's something that a lot of people would pick out just like that
thinking about it but it very much so that punctuation of boy i mean that happens all the
time there are just people hell a generation above us that use it still like normally it's very gross
it's very demeaning and it very much so i mean if you even look at the Gyptians, Ma Costa was hired help to watch Lyra, right?
The Gyptians are at best in society when we see them, even in this show, they're put as servitude to people in power like Asriel or Coulter.
Coulter's position and her looking down on this person.
I mean, you and I talk a lot about that power that Coulter has gained from climbing the ladder and having to, you know, like, the way she tried to manipulate Father MacPhail when he visited her, and the way she didn't win and the evil she's sacrificed every bit of her soul and heart
to be able to do these experiments and things and have power over people and it was an emotional
death that showed this portrayal of power and what it can do to people and how easily the monkey and
colter snuffed the life out of benjamin it was very uncomfortable, and it needs to be uncomfortable, and
unfortunately, it is kind of
serving for the Egyptians and Lyra, right?
Like, his death, yes, we're sad
about it, and they really did set it up well enough
to make us feel something for it, but
in all intents and purposes going
forward, it adds more fuel to the fire for the
Egyptians and Lyra to go at this hard.
Knowing that Coulter is truly that
level of just evil
it confuses the audience when it's sandwiched around a lot of this contrasting maternal stuff
from ma costa and these vulnerable scenes of coulter as well but the grounding point is that
she's bad and it was an assault we potted this a little bit very softly last week and said some of
the stuff that we've been seeing is borderline sexual assault like uh with the journalist with adele starminster but this is truly a deep physical very sexual assault up
until the death and it's about power and control it's not about anything but power and control
her sitting on his back and pinning him down and making him submit is extremely apparent
yeah and i think that goes to highlight like mrs coulter for all
her talk of inequality isn't doing anything to change the system to make it better right like
other people have pointed out and and we didn't discuss this but that in the scenes where we see
the children who are taken right they're egyptian children a lot of them are children of color
they're the children who don't have the same kinds of privilege as mrs coulter so i think that this is a scene that was written that way intentionally and
lo jatcomur has shared with us some information about how some of the elements within the books
are drawing on a past in the north in some of those areas that where people were doing experiments
and like practicing eugenics and a lot of that has its basis in racism so i
think that this is absolutely like an undercurrent within the series that it's addressing benjamin
choosing not to speak not to give anything away and dying rather than betraying his family that
was a really poignant moment yeah i switching gears like that he does so it's kind of notable
because a few scenes earlier right benjamin was the one who was in the role of a very, very forceful interrogator. He knows what it takes to get someone to confess and like what's at stake for him. So he chooses death over the fate of the man that of older Egyptian gentlemen going out to spy on Boreal
at Whitehall in London and Benjamin dies falling down a staircase I believe or a stairwell I think
it works well to keep Coulter relevant in the episode especially with the new motives they've
given Boreal for season one and his arc of kind of being you know the antagonist in the Perry plot
for now I think this worked well i really do it
it gave coulter screen time which was good for her contract and because she is the lena heady
of the show right like she is cersei leonster for us she is the reason we're going to tune in every
week because her dresses get more ridiculous and she gets meaner and crazier when you point out him
falling down the staircase i mean like that is kind of a funny, but I like it, adaptation of, it's an elevator versus a staircase, right? Yeah.
And Ma Costa, Farticorum, and Lyra all talk about Tony. Lyra feels like she's responsible because,
you know, she saw him sneak out, but Farticorum explains, like, it's not your fault, everyone
told him not to go. And Lyra reveals that she is the alethiometer, and Farticorum gives her
some pointers as to how it worked, and he tells her that reading it is going to take years of study and many books to finesse.
It's not going to help them now, though.
And then he leaves, and she's like, you know what? I'm going to fucking do it.
Lyra reads the Alethiometer for the first time.
Okay, Boomer, is what she should have said to Fardecorum as soon as he was like,'ll take years so right now it's not helpful okay boomer
so I thought this scene was beautiful like akin to Harry Potter at Ollivander's with the wand uh
just an iconic scene there's slow orchestrated theme playing close up on the alethiometer
it points to the snake for cunning the crucible knowledge, and the beehive for hard work, and the
wheels turn, finally pointing
to the hourglass with a skull on
it for death.
Honestly, how anyone can tell it's
a fucking beehive and that that's
an hourglass with a skull on it, I...
Oh yeah, all these symbols are so
worn off. I'm skeptical. They look like my keyboard.
They're like no letters. Yeah.
And I'm just like, did you
maybe that's part of the magic, literally.
Well, it is old, I guess.
I can tell what it is.
I'm like, that doesn't look like anything.
There have been
there was a hilarious, I don't know if it was a
tweeter on the Historic Materials subreddit
though, I think it was the subreddit and I sent
it to you of like the
alethiometer as emojis
and her asking like who's my mom and they put like the fucking like
pointer finger and like the other like finger emojis for like fucking it is kind of one of
those things that you're like dot dot dot dot dot dot can't believe she still doesn't know. I'm glad they dealt with it this episode.
I also like this line where Lyra says
about the Alethiometer that the Master
said, he said it tells the truth, not
that I know how. She's kind of a
funny double entendre. Yeah, she's a little
liar pants.
Little fiery pants. Lyra
tells Fardercorum of
Benjamin's fate via the
alethiometer, or tries to. She makes her way
up deck where Coram is like, go down
into hiding. But she does
not go down into hiding in time, and the
spy flies interrupt them.
They get one of the spy flies
locked down in a cup, and
one of them escapes back to Mrs. Coulter.
He commands that they need to
go north now due to this,
after getting it into kind of a safer hiding spot for that spy fly.
Yeah, it was a fun scene, seeing both Lyra mirroring Pan.
Pan is adorable even when he's trying to catch a spy fly.
Oh, absolutely. Very cute.
Pan really had some really cute moments this whole episode.
Yeah, a lot of people are sharing the gif of him yawning yeah big mood pan yawning oh oh my god i melt
tony brings home evidence of the gobblers taking billy he comes back and he presents paperwork from
coulter's desk included billy's name on it which kind of is the wake-up call to ma costa that she
cannot deny it any longer the gobblblers have Billy and they're real.
And then, of course, when Benjamin's fate is asked about, silence is the answer.
Bummer.
Quick cut back to Billy.
I did like the detail of Ma Costa sleeping with his little sweater vest.
Oh.
Sad.
Farticorm and Jon Faw then discuss Benjamin's body because Jon Faw wants to recover the body and Farticorm's like
we can't, it's hers now
he's like but if we have the
witches and the right wind at our side and Lyra
who can read the alethiometer
they believe that they can
get justice for him
so they set their course for Trollisend
it was a nice mini
scene, I like that they're showing a lot of these smaller
short scenes just to establish
that these characters, like, interact
off the page, too. You know,
like, you're seeing the main stuff, but then you have a quick
10-second, 20-second blurb of
just, like, hey, this is happening,
and our characters are acknowledging it. Cool.
Moving on. Yeah. Lyra
wants to throw the spyfly into the
water, but Ma Costa stops her, saying
that it is a bad idea
it's just a bad spirit with a spell through its heart and then she goes on to explain the
magisterium are even afraid of spy flies lyra is surprised coulter broke the law to find out where
she is using a not magisterium approved fly costa tells her to keep it as it's a sign of her
desperation and that farter quorum will weld it shut in a tin.
Lyra and her discuss the North
and the challenges that lay ahead for both of them.
Lyra says she's ready to fight,
and Ma Costa says that she is
a remarkable young girl.
I wonder if this has some
foreshadowing in it for other spirits
with the whole bad spirit
with a spell through its heart, like Cliffgaster
Specters going forward,
or, of course, the underworld and then coming back
and freeing some of those people that are stuck between realms.
I think it would be interesting.
In the books, it isn't that, but, like, it could be.
Yeah.
Especially with, like, maybe just, like,
the things that aren't allowed part using those.
Mm-hmm.
So Coulter is lounging around
in some sexy
emerald-colored silk Slytherin
pride baby 2019
house cup. Can I hear you?
Oh my god.
Make some noise!
Slytherin
head girl, Mrs. Coulter.
Oh my god. She kinda is, though.
Absolutely. Her and azriel were head boy
and head girl yeah totally and that's how they met by head oh oh oh okay uh mrs coulter i'm gonna
just move forward she was lounging around because she's hung over clearly while she's being hung
over boyle comes around and you know, he doesn't bring her a fucking burger
or a breakfast sandwich, which is
what you should really do. Gotta hook up with better
guys from Tinder, Mrs. Coulter.
The spyfly
makes its way all the way back to her.
It's broken, but it's still
quote-unquote alive.
Mrs. Coulter's pretty jazzed. She's like, I found
Lyra, and Boyle's like,
what are you fucking doing? This is not magisterium approved you are crazy they are right holy shit like you're
off the rails even though i too am doing off the rails things right she's definitely doing things
not in the name of the magisterium that is very set up in this episode it's going to play well
into that cave sequence eventually in the bomb uh it's really
lovely that they're creating these off-screen scenes to bring that adaptation to life when you
get to marisa in the caves in the book you're kind of sideswiped right you're like yeah makes sense
that it's happening i guess but now it's like oh now it really makes sense why it's happening
yeah absolutely and then it ends with the egyptians and lyra she's going she's going past the docks
and they're all getting in a boat
all right then uh
the lonely island plays
in the background as they set sail
oh shit
the next stage of lyra's
adventure
she's got her flippy floppies
i'm on a boat and it's going fast
pan actually what's happening right now that's the soundtrack she's got her flippy floppies I'm on a boat and it's going fast pan
actually what's happening right now
that's the soundtrack that's what
Lauren wrote for us
instead of Kaizo
we've got a gear of falcon
so
lots to look forward to next week
this week was solid
next week is another
iconic episode there's a couple shots from the trailer
if you haven't watched the trailer definitely watch it that i'm kind of excited about uh colter
is standing in front of an alethiometer in one of them looks like the magisterium's alethiometer
i'm all about more alethiometers i'm all about it uh really excited to think that it's being
introduced in this season like in front of us, in an episode
where it never touched the golden
compass. So that's cool.
I'm just glad that they're addressing that
there are more of them. And like, you know, in the movie
they're like, there's only one left. And I'm like, but how
then how is the Magisterium going to do their power
plays of their own Alethiometer?
Well, they didn't. What about the fucking chess plays?
You know? We get Lee Scoresby
next week oh and
eoric dewey and trolisand um i'm very excited you know lynn manuel miranda is playing
lee scoresby and i have a soft spot in my heart for him from in the heights and hamilton uh and
just generally things he's done and he is gonna make a great least scores me but he did an ama on reddit this
week and he gave a few cool snippets of information like joe tanberg who is the voice of eoric
actually played eoric with a big bear head that he wore on his own head so for blocking purposes
and such how cool is that interesting background pics of. That's the role that I want to play.
Eoric with the big bear head on your head?
Someone just putting a big bear head
on me.
I'm excited about Hester.
Very excited for Hester.
There's been a lot of discourse, actually,
in the last week. Some Hisdark discourse
of people not liking Lin-Manuel
as Lee, which I think is silly.
I think it works great as an aeronaut from Texas.
It could very much be someone
who is of Puerto Rican descent like Lin-Manuel.
It's showing some of the culture we see in Texas,
in our world's Texas, so why not?
Sam Elliott did a great job in the movie,
but this is a whole new adaptation,
so I'd like to see where they take it.
Yeah, and honestly, like,
in the context of this world that Lyra's in,
and honestly in the fucking context of our own that lyra's in and honestly in the
fucking context of our own world right like in this world texas is its own independent state
it makes complete sense to me like to have man of color be least scores be like literally
i don't know brown people were there first y'all right they exist like like being racist is great
and all i guess but like it doesn't mean that they stop existing, like, just because you're neurotic.
Like, it makes sense to me.
Like, Texas has had a lot of cultures, like, literally the name comes from.
It's a melting pot.
Yeah, it's, like, a word, like, Teja or something, meaning friend, and, like, Kado, which was one of, like, the indigenous languages, right?
Well, now it means Dodge Ram with huge tires, Eliana.
Oh, God.
So.
Yeah, so, I don don't know i'm excited i think from what we've seen of lynn minwell randa i think it makes sense especially as they kind of bring
a different take right a more grounded take to the his dark material series which like has its
moments in which we're like yeah i kind of wanted more of the childishness but i think that this is going to be a really good performance yeah and he has some great energy
there was also a little discourse dakota blue richards who played lyra in the movie
she was on his darker material so you can listen to that on spotify uh the semi-official podcast
and they also had the master on his actor on a little bit ago but she gave kind of her
definitive take on Daphne Keene's Lyra and I've seen it been displayed so dishonestly so click
baity that it's killing the world journalism's dead ask Adele Warminster but uh where she
basically just said that she was really she liked the rendition that Daphne Keene was bringing it's
a little more mature than what her role got to play which actually kind of plays into some stuff you and
I talked about earlier that there's not as much of the child stuff going on and uh I mean Dakota
was a little younger than Daphne Keene and the Lyra in the Golden Compass is younger than this
Lyra for sure yeah I and I like Dakota's portrayal of Lyra, especially in some of the earlier parts.
I don't think she brings the dramatic
parts like Daphne Keene
does yelling right out in the
fields. I don't think Dakota
was able to bring that, but I think she
brought a lot of that great spunk that we know
of Lyra. Yeah, definitely.
Lin-Manuel on
Reddit today in his AMA said something that
I thought you may not 100% understand, but you'll like. So if anyone that has ever listened to In the Heights or seen In the Heights, amazing. Really, really good.
Heights, When the Sun Goes Down, which is this moment where these characters who are kind of going into a long distance relationship, one of them is going back to Stanford and the other is
not. And they're talking about handling a long distance relationship. They have kind of this
first song called Sunrise, where they start their relationship and it's celebratory. And this song
is called When the Sun Goes Down. And there's a line that wasn't and a lot
of this actually this whole song was very inspired by the amber spyglass but one of the lines is
i'll think of you every night at the same time when the sun goes down and lynn manuel says that
it's a reference to a certain bench in oxford oh yeah i uh i was really just like oh i didn't know
that actually
and it makes total sense because I do love that musical
so check that out
In the Heights if you have ever listened to it
or seen it
the song When the Sun Goes Down
is directly referencing
the Amber Spyglass
yeah it is a long distance relationship
for you know a long term
like the rest of their lives
forever I still hope well until like they all their atoms like merge this relationship for, you know, a long term. No. Like, the rest of their lives. Ever. Forever.
I still hope. Forever. Well, until
like, all their atoms, like, merge.
I have some hope still, man. I have
some hope. What if? You never know.
There's one more book. Well, I hope that
they can use that power of
imagination that Zephaniah
told them about, like, which is truer than
like, just making shit up. Like, Grumman
was able to. Well, hopefully Pan can find her shit her shit yeah lynn manuel said about preparing for the role that he read once upon a
time in the north the standalone by pullman about lee and york highly recommend and that for the
accent he looked to his own cousins in san antonio and corpus christi in texas on the mexican side i
thought that was great uh And then he got some
weapons training so he could feel like
a quote, ding dang gunslinger
when necessary, unquote.
I love him.
That's great.
I mean, what do people fucking want?
He's a fucking Texan Euronaut.
Yeah.
These people are literally there.
Anyway, something else that i think we might
see or that i'm looking forward to next week like i kind of think that we don't see it in next week's
trailer right but i do think we're gonna get more tony costa because benjamin dying was like
literally his best friend dying and i think that benjamin is tony costa's roger right and i think
that i'd like to see how it impacts him as he comes to understand, again,
his own version of adulthood,
realizing, yo, things come with consequences,
especially as he has to go north
with the rest of his men on a very dangerous expedition.
Yeah, and it seems he's getting a bigger role, right?
Tony Costa's gonna have a much bigger role
in season one than what he had in the books,
kind of a background role,
or what he had in the books kind of a background role or what he had in the
movie so this is impressive that they're kind of giving every character a purpose every little
group has kind of a purpose moving forward yeah well i like this week's episode i didn't like it
as much as last week's but i think it was still really solid for a number of reasons on a scale of one to sofanax i'm gonna give it an eight last week had more sofanax this week i
give an eight but last week had a nine i can only hope that next week i can give it a nine again or
a ten even for sofanax content this is how i will be grading this show moving forward so please tune
into girls gone canon every week as we review the show and i give
you a rating about how much farter quorum's demon was in the show i'm i'm not good at numerical
ratings so i'm just gonna be like i liked it i didn't my specific rating is only about farter
quorum's demon and i think that's a perfectly valid scale it's more of a skill than what i'm
giving so well thanks for listening in, you guys.
If you have not already, be sure to subscribe to us on podcast platforms where we put out a review episode for His Dark Materials every week of the season of the episode.
Check us out on Spotify, Podbean, iTunes, or Apple Podcasts.
Google Play, Acast, Stitcher, you name it.
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Yep. And, of course,
keep up with us and check out some of the
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Or shoot us an
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We, along with
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are sharing other information
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and Chloe has
fun gifts. Yes, especially
of Sophonax.
And we do have a
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slash girlsgonecanon.
All of our patrons are wonderful and have been
so supportive, so supportive in fact
to allow us to be able to do several series doing A Song of Ice and Fire content and His Dark Materials content.
Last month, we did put out a tell-all on The Golden Compass.
What happened, what was edited in, what was edited out in the movie, and our overall thoughts on it, directed by Chris Weitz.
So check that out.
It was a video episode on Patreon for patrons $5
up. And this month, we will be putting out
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from A Song of Ice and Fire. So keep
an eye out for that before the end of November,
patrons. That is patreon.com
slash girlsgonecanon.
And we are thinking of, at some
point, we did a
Patreon episode about The Golden Compass, and we
are thinking of doing another one about
his dark material series covering
the lantern slides that are at the end of
each of the three main books
yes look forward to more details
on that coming soon to you guys
well thank you very much everyone
stay tuned with us I have been
one of your hosts Eliana
and I have been another one of
your hosts Chloe thanks guys see And I have been another one of your hosts, Chloe.
Thanks, guys. See you next week.
Thank you.