Girls Gone Canon Cast - His Dark Materials S1E5: "The Lost Boy"

Episode Date: December 6, 2019

The Girls face a few disappointments as we barrel toward the end of Season One in His Dark Materials.  But where there is darkness, there is also light - except maybe not for the Costa Family.  Come get teary for Billy Costa (and plead justice for Tony Makarios) with Girls Gone Canon.  Check out Lo's piece on Nordic influence in His Dark Materials: https://lo-lynx.tumblr.com/post/189230180712/the-nordic-influences-in-his-dark-materials    ---------------- Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/ Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor Chloe's blog: www.liesandarborgold.com Intro: Waltz Of The Skeleton Keys by WombatNoisesAudio | https://soundcloud.com/user-734462061

Hello everyone and welcome to Girls Gone Canon Watches, His Dark Materials. This week we are watching Season 1, Episode 5, The Lost Boy. I am one of your hosts, Eliana. You might know me as GlassTableGirl on Reddit or as Arithmetric over on Twitter. And I am another one of your hosts, Chloe. You might know me from the internet as Liza Narber on Twitter, Tumblr, and LizaNarberGold.com, or my many shit posts.

I need the internet taken away from me. I've gone too far. I'm just talking about my journey to becoming a Pokemon master. Yes. Different thing. Different. Totally different thing different totally different thing this was an episode uh my first watch i was unhappy my second watch i feel better which is like i guess the last few weeks i like get really raged maybe it's because i'm a huge book nerd and

i'm just a book snob and the books are great not perfect but great and i don't know i i get enraged about like some of these details getting changed but then i remember the next day it is what it is and i don't know jaded i watched game of thrones so yeah this is really good but we're getting all right yeah i know i have to keep reminding myself that by watching it a second time you're like oh wait this is actually really good um yeah i really like the episode except for the part and we will talk about that it's something that of course that change disgruntled me from the beginning i was like you know it's fine they're gonna land it i don't know if they stuck the landing i don't either and i really thought they were gonna land it like i was

like yeah i gave them so much hope i was like like, I can get over it being Billy Costa. And I mean, let's not knock her out the bushes. This episode was supposed to be emotional payoff for setup of so many things like the taboo of demon touching and cutting the adaptive changes to my cost as character, putting Billy in the role of the book character, Tony Macarios. It wasn't necessarily asked to do more than pay off those things. Like, that's all we were asking it, right? It was supposed to do that and set up the very end of the season in the next three weeks.

I think in the long run, it was a slower beginning with a very hard-hitting end. Some twists we didn't expect unless you were spoiled on Twitter by Jack Thorne. The less than 24 hours episode was released i was like okay interesting about the whole you know series co-protagonist was introduced i was like

okay thanks jack thorne you and i kind of speculated it was gonna happen yeah and mine might have been joking but like i don't know I think we're on track for finishing season three by episode eight. I mean, it's like, you know what, two and a half times the time, the length of time that Golden Compass got. So I mean. I mean, yeah, they can do it. The second watch did wonders, though. Like all these new changes, all these new inventions.

They were great. They were fun. Bringing subtle knife plots forward to collapse the timeline is really smart but some of them i felt were unnecessary which we'll talk about i just feel like the biggest problem with this writing and i was thinking about citing some other issues with some of the writing i have like the cursed child but i was like no i'm not that petty it slows down and then it speeds up there's like a lot of filler to get us through to the big scenes but a lot of this filler starts to feel like a shower drain full of hair right like we're kind

of murking through some of this filler to get to these big scenes there's so much story in this book and it feels a bit rash that there's a lot of let's invent this better scene of what could have happened without even trying to cover the basics. I don't know. Maybe it's just my opinion. Maybe I'm crotchety. Maybe I'm jaded. But I don't want that to detract from this episode. I want to get the bitchiness out now, you know, because it is good.

I still think it was a good episode. Like you said, this is like eating porridge your whole entire life and suddenly you're introduced to some maple sugar right like yeah this is a treat it's a treat i love it um it's just interesting to see certain adaptive choices come to light and like you said i think it was a swing and almost hit and missed yeah i think some of the pacing that you're saying might be the case i i don't mind some of what you might be referring to as filler scenes. Like, I think that those are important for like, establishing some of that characterization. But I think that more time and space needed to be allotted to the scenes with Billy. Yeah, absolutely.

absolutely i'm almost like wondering if part of the issue is so a lot of the beginning of the first book right it feels very childlike not in a bad way like the tone of the golden compass movie for those first few parts i don't think that was necessarily off like there are a lot of things that were off about the movie but maybe the tone of like childish wonder fun whimsical world and book right and you start getting a hint that it isn't quite that with mrs coulter but the scene with tony macarios who is the child who ends up severed in the book signals a huge tonal shift in the kind of story that we're telling and reading and i almost wonder if maybe because of the serious and somber mood of the rest of the series it's harder to create that sudden like tonal shift into utter darkness yeah into the darkness and like oh we're in the north now and how brutal it is in that way but you kind of have some of that like, oh, fun village, but like scary village, right thing going on with when they were in Trollosund. But you know what I'm saying? I think suffered for it to be giving that they wanted it to be this big sad thing they wanted

a tonal shift but they wanted this moment to be the big sad heart-wrenching heartstrings being tugged moment they wanted everyone aboard whether you've read the books whether you didn't they wanted Ma Costa cradling her dead kid's body singing a song they knew they had this big moment to play up and for me what they did with Makasa's characterization in the beginning kind of and she was just kind of like a clay moldable thing in a way like they just molded her to you cry now in this scene you comfort Lyra you do this uh they kind of wanted us to really care and it was very hard for me to care very hard just from that characterization it just bummed me out

I didn't mind the characterization but I think you're right that we were supposed to feel the impact of Billy that was supposed to be rooted in how Ma Costa felt about it and I think the impact of Tony Macarios is and we'll get into this later it doesn't matter

it shouldn't have mattered whether or not there was a mother there or not we need to care about the child not the mother what happened there is sad for Ma Costa and she is a great character to see it through I like that they're giving us more from her

in fact I actually really liked her in this episode otherwise this is probably the first time you'll hear me say that outright and i like the actress i think she could do a great job either way i think she's doing a great job but the writing for her is just not right for mac costas tone for me and by making us care about that motherhood it's like at the hard home when they kill off that wildling woman carsey because she had a moment of weakness where she was sad for the children that were undead in front of her um spoilers season five if you haven't watched it stop now but if you haven't gotten that far you should just quit save yourself a few years off your life um yeah it's one of those things to me it's like just

cheap it's a cheap way to connect it they could do better and it's about the kid it's about what happens to tony slash billy mark harry o slash costa um and i think that's what was missing we don't understand why it was horrible for him we understand everyone's horrified for him but they had so many opportunities in this episode it's like our friend tana who was on with us in uh northern lights she said you know show don't tell they have many opportunities to do that and they did kind of if it yeah they didn't really show much of that scene and even like we get hints throughout the previous episodes where people will voice aloud like it's very painful to be apart from your demon but they

didn't even show it to us right they don't have the scene of lyra and pan where pan's like i'm going to pull going towards yorick so yeah they didn't do that exactly actually that that that beginning was very different that's why it was important yeah pan went and why she sheepishly hung around back and even though it hurt her and there are things like that that to me i think are like guiding points like that's not an important point to show show for you know you don't have to make it a huge exposition dump where pan looks at the camera and says and then this happened and then this happened and matter does this and i think they're trying to explain it in dialogue a lot and it's not something that uh they're alone

with right like i talked about this last episode pullman is guilty of this in the books as well he double hands some of this stuff so hard that i'm like yes we know we read about it in this person in this person's chapters phil let's move on um that's what i think they're doing here and it's just that common tv thing of watering it down for your audiences for the common denominator and it just sucks being so smart is what i'm saying i don't even know if it's like watered down it's just um i i don't know what it is like that it just didn't stick for me but yeah anyway part of the way that they reference that this is billy right comes through flashbacks of what happens in previous episodes you know the last time or previous other

times on his direct materials with billy and roger writing lettersoreal, they show a shot of him showing the pictures of the Perry family to one of his men. Yep, and then you have John Faw's speech and the Egyptians going north. They show Lee and Hester going to Trollisend and meeting Lyra. You also have the Witch's Council

and Armored Bear joining the party. And then the party is moving north from afar. Was that a lightning round? Did we just do a lightning round? Wow, this kind of is a lightning round. Oh my god, we did a lightning round. I never do those here. What is that? I don't know if I liked it. Okay.

So we get an opening shot with kind of a voiceover. At first you're like, interesting, a narrator. Then you're like, I know that silly little voice. That's Kaiza. That little nerd. I love his voice. I love his. I want to hug Kaiza. Kaiza's like, these do not

assist my wings. Yes, that's exactly what he would do. Oh yeah, and also that's Tibu. I could not touch Kaiza. You couldn't. You couldn't. It's rude. God, I'm so rude. Kaizo is narrating Lyra's prophecy and then says that she's not gonna walk alone.

The army stands beside her. I was thinking the, what is it? Green Day song. Boulevard of Broken Dreams. She walks alone, she walks up. Kate Bush sings a song that's titled Lyra. And there's a boy who's tied to her in this prophecy who's going to help her change everything.

And then we get a cut to Will. Dude, and the cinematography is great here. It is. It shows him split. It shows her walking alone. She walks alone. And then it shows Will. I was going to call him Bill.

What is that? That is actually a nickname for William. Yeah, Bill. That's his adult name. Oh, God. Bill. He's a doctor. Bill.

Okay, so it flashes to Will walking, and it shows this split kind of pathway, like a forked road. And it shows Will upon the road, let's take in a lane. Pond. The pond. Across the pond. This does, in fact, take place across the pond, you're right. And yeah, I love the way that they shot that.

And then also how you see his reflection in the pond. Like, it's him in another parallel mirror world also it's fucking Will Perry holy shit we've never seen him like here he is I remember I was going to be really surprised about seeing Will but then Jack Thorne tweeted about it

fucking Jack Thorne fine the worst part was that it was a notification on our Twitter, and I had to hide it because I was worried you'd see it. And I was like, I can't let her be hurt by this too. And then I was spoiled, and then you got spoiled anyways!

All of your efforts were for naught. You can't protect me, Mom. It's an unfair world. I can't protect you. Oh my god, for Mrs. Coulter? Or Mrs. Coulter can't protect Lyra. Were you trying- coulter or mrs coulter can't protect lyra were you trying was it was this never mind let's not so kaisa's voiceover i really liked there's this line in the beginning that he says which is here the immortal whispers of those who pass between the worlds they speak of a child who's destined to bring the end of destiny two things first thing the

serious thing then i have a joke thing am i allowed the serious thing and the joke thing aliana yes do you gavel am i allowed it so the witches hear the immortal whispers of those who pass between the worlds in the idea of north season one episode two we talked about the lyrics to the intro music, which are Latin. They roughly translate the first couple lines to, They hear immortal whispers, begin children and read the omens.

So the intro is kind of roughly the beginning of the prophecy, is what this means to me, in a way of words. I thought it was interesting use of language that Kaisa said, Wishes hear the immortal whispers of those who pass between the worlds and it translates to they hear immortal whispers begin child and read the omens i kind of wonder if that's actually directly from the books i know that they said that the witches had heard the prophecy before in the books based on whispers that they hear

between the worlds but i don't remember if they use the term immortal whispers or not i believe that this does come mostly from what the console says in northern lights golden compass he talks about the witches talking about her for centuries and this is while lyra's off playing with the pine spray which is arguably the only thing that i wanted that we did not get last episode was the console and her like running around playing with the the pine sprays and that's why i thought they were bigger because in my mind she was just like trying to ride them and nothing was happening also because that's what i would do yeah absolutely and she's like playing in the snow and shit like she's like out there i believe like she's just having her blast she's a kid i loved that i was sad about that but i still think it was fine but he says

because they live so close to the place where the veil between worlds is thin they hear immortal whispers from time to time in the voices of those beings who pass between the worlds so that is straight up what kaisa says but the console says it in the books yeah and so coming back to that scene i know it was last episode whatever but kaisa here is talking about, and this is said throughout the books and the prophecy about Lyra also, if she is told what she must do, she will fail. And it's so fascinating because in the scene with the console, we learn in book three, the Amber Spyglass, that Lyra is like, oh, actually, I kind of learned that there

was a prophecy about me i kind of knew i think this is what i was supposed to do and she still succeeds so she's all like i don't play by the rules whatever i did it she wasn't told exactly what to do anyway she just knew she was special but it's so like there was no opportunity for that whatsoever in that in that episode or that scene yeah with lyra and the console and quorum it was just right there and she stood there yeah yeah she's like listen listen go play with pine branch which is a perfect way to get rid of a kid as we learned true the overture during this scene, A, rocks. I just want to put that out there. B, it's like the main theme, but it's different,

and I love that it's just like a play on the overture and regular score. But C, I almost heard the song Lyra by Kate Bush, the big tender reference in it. If you listen to it, put your headphones on later and listen to it. When Will is walking, I like yelled out loud. It just sounds like, and I'm going to hum this for you because the melody is actually similar.

That's what it sounds like. And to me, it sounds like that song. I don't know. You've got to listen to it. It just sounds like sped up version of that melody. I't know like how i feel that there's this one moment in the song in postwick which is your hometown in the gala region and pokemon sword and shield that sounds to me like west covina have you finished the bell savage yet no i haven't okay let's talk about i'm talking about Tony.

Tony Costa is taking on more responsibility in this scene. I noticed that. I thought that was a deliberate choice because obviously since they can't make like a whole funeral come to the screen, then they're being deliberate about the things they do include. Just putting that out there. You know, a whole rattered funeral.

I'm not salty. But he's taking on more responsibility. You hear in the background the Egyptians exchanging, just chattering, and Tony being told to do something and saying he can do something as they carry along. And the men telling him, Tony, do this. So I thought that was interesting. And we'll talk more about that in a bit. Yeah.

Also, ya boy. Lee was like just laying on his balloon in the cart with it instead of flying it. I loved that. Yeah. Was Lyra helping push him? Was he just being pushed? I hope so. I kind of fucking love that Lin-Manuel just showed up on this show and just

is. He just is. I think they've been doing a lot of really fun and great characterization for lee scoresby like the pickpocketing not canon but also why not yeah it fits especially if he's like yeah i'm really into card games and one night balloon through poker and i'm like yeah okay general rogue things i get it he's a scoundrel i love him then we go a little more into back in our world you have boreal lord boreal and the guy who i don't know unnamed yeah who looks a little bit like what's his fucking name edward norton yeah just a bit on mrs perry and will leave them alone that's all that's all i had you know i agree we got a really great email from tana ford who we already talked about earlier today

and who joined us again for one of the episodes on Northern Lights. I think it was chapters, what was it? 16 through 18 or something like that? The Witches. Yeah, The Witches. The D.A. Cages? Yes. Okay.

I think so. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, and it was a really great episode. And Tana's a longtime fan of these books as well and has a podcast called Wheneverly. Usually it's called Westeros Wheneverly, but sometimes they throw in another series in there, right? And Tana also has a really great mind for visual storytelling as a comic book artist and says this regarding the Perry household. The best stuff will at his mom's house. Think about the choice

of scenery here. This house, with its vertical lines and many oddly shaped and oddly placed openings, opening to the stairwell, to the front entry. Watch Will's mother as she counts the wooden planks, one by one, each plank almost a reflection of the many universes of this world side by side. It soothes her, each plank having a long vertical slice separating it from the next plank, the next universe. Worth noting that this is also the case with the bricks earlier in the episode. Then Tana says, and openings everywhere in this house, cutouts and missing walls and holes abound. Watch it again, my friends. You will catch glimpses of other rooms,

sections of wall or stairwell or kitchen or doorway that you wouldn't normally see in a typical house. The choice of this particular location for Will and his mom seems brilliant to me, and the secrets hidden away deep inside this universe, this house, is also a reflection of Will's arc. God, I love it it i didn't even think about that with the planks that's brilliant yeah that and and the construction of will's house i think i think these are such great insights for yeah the way that visuals location can be part of storytelling i mean that house is vulnerable it's basically naked right and once you go inside it's inside out there's no secrets but there are they're just hidden very very deeply um it's basically naked right and once you go inside it's inside out there's no secrets but there are

they're just hidden very very deeply um it's vulnerable that house is vulnerable when you go inside and look inside and see everything revealed in the walls and the stairs yeah but again like you said there are the secrets hidden different ways that the cutouts work those glimpses that you catch and it it also makes you wonder like this is a nice ass house also like was it something that john perry maybe he was also obsessed with windows and designed his house in that way and was like live live here family on that same note there's something that gets said later when thomas is talking to boreal that we'll talk about probably a little more but he talks about the state of their money and kind of the the amount

of planning that john perry had to have done to do that so he stashed money very hard he could afford a good architect like this is a nice house yeah so the intro happens which is of course still a banger just in case you forgot uh this week, what I'm going to appreciate about it is just that beautiful slice between, haha slice, the knife, which there you go, there's another bit, by the way, that that house is cut out, like with a knife. the intro this week i'm appreciating that lyra when she stands there and the knife's in her back and then you go out to that amber spyglass um i was appreciating before that there's kind of just these shots of the alethiometer that make you think of the golden compass and then of course the northern lights with all the sparkles oh yeah it just like goes bang and then you get the knife and then you get the lens and every time i'm just like, oh, yeah, it's happening. It's just so good.

So I just want to appreciate the intro because we should every week. It's just such a banger. It's such a good song. I've like bopped my head. I'm into it. I'm like, it's time. It's time, MRFers. Let's watch the show.

I get excited at the beginning when it's starting, like that moment of like silence. And then it builds and beginning when it's starting, like, that moment of, like, silence. And then it builds and, like, it's like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, and then, like, it goes, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And then the little lines, and Daphne Keene appears. Yeah!

And then the sparkle, the sparkle, the dust on the alethiometer, and really, I mean, could you ask for more? Also, do uh sing along to the the hbo ah uh the uh no i don't but i can start speaking of the intro i actually haven't mentioned this i have mentioned it to you and i meant to say it last week on the podcast but if you sing the melody of the intro in a choral voice like like you're singing in a choir in a chorus like think of a church choir it it literally sounds like a

church hymn like something you'd hear during mass that might have been intentional probably was yeah it's interesting when i like sing along with it next time you're listening just you know play around get weird is what i'm trying to tell you be weird like i am because you have to understand these things i keep saying to you i've thought of before eliana that's the problem why is that a problem i mean in my own spare time i have sang the whole song melodically like a choir i don't think i sing it like that i do sing it sometimes though to myself i'm like but i do it very differently i don't i do it regular too i go and like i'm jamming out that's what i'm saying you need to experiment while you do this i've been experimenting is what i'm saying

and sometimes yeah sometimes i rock and roll. I GM out. I headbang. But also, sometimes I sing it in a church choral voice while I'm cooking, waving spatulas around. You know what I mean? Yes. Yes. But you know what else has meaning? The symbol reader. Nope.

That was not a segue. That's the segue. That was not a segue. That's the segue. The symbol reader. And Jon Favreau wants to know what meanings the symbol reader can tell him about Bolvangar. He keeps calling it the symbol reader, not alethiometer. Yeah, it is very, very much so.

Like capital S. Symbol reader. I like it. I like this. This thing of his. Jon Favre respects nothing. It has not earned his respect yet, this symbol reader. Tell me what the knick-knack says.

I like it. I think I would do that if I were him. Lara reads that there are 60 Tartars with rifles and miniguns guarding Bolvangar. And it also tries to warn her of something else, and she doesn't know, and Jon Favre says, it's warning you about everything. And it also tries to warn her of something else. And she doesn't know. And Jon Favreau, it's warning you about everything. And she's like, okay, word.

Yeah, it's obvious by the end of this conversation that it's a no go. Like Jon Favreau is not going to be like, you should go get it. So she moves on to try her next dad, which is Fardercorum. And she shows up and starts talking to him and tells him all about the warning from the alethiometer, or at least what she knows of it. It's very cute in the beginning, because she shows up as she starts firing off at the mouth, like Lyra does. And he interrupts her and he's like,

hello, Lyra. Like two sentences in, he looks at her and he just goes, hello, Lyra. Like interrupts her like, hello, it's me. I'm here it's a very cute it's very cute it reminds me of my grandparents and like you know as a kid me probably just prattling away and then being like whoa slow down there kid yeah where are your manners child and far decorum's like you know i know he doesn't say i know your other dad said not to

go but he's also like i too am saying no this doesn't make any fucking sense you can't just go on a whim to find a ghost quote unquote ghost yeah the wolf liar's like okay shit both my dads have said no no well and of course, and of course, Fardercorum had said, like, how could you do that to Ma Costa? She's seconds away from Billy, which we know haha, she's not, but Lyra can be. Lyra speaks with the Costas

next, hoping she can sway them. And she explains that if she leaves, it might delay finding Billy, her vet. And Ma Costa says she'll think on it. Yeah, and she does. What I found interesting about this scene in the context of the entire episode is there's a moment where Ma Costa is telling Tony to do some very, very, very simple cooking duties. She's just like, I don't know, fucking stir it or something.

He's trying to shirk that responsibility by saying that i'll burn it and his mother's like i don't care like i need to go take care of something like step up and do this right and i mean tony is still young his demons only just settled but she's telling him all right this is part of what it means to take on responsibility it doesn't seem like a glamorous adult role it's not you going out and being a spy but sometimes adulthood's fucking boring all right and i think that's a great contrast to will especially later on in this episode because will's demon as we know from the books hasn't settled yet when we eventually see it and it runs around with pan and we get an x we get an info dump of that they've seen a bunch of things

right because we basically see it for like two seconds change and then it's his final form or sorry it's her final form but anyway will's being thrust into this very murky position of taking on a lot of these like caretaker responsibilities for his mother and it's not like this show of bravado as tony's been chasing of what he thinks that adulthood is and i really like the way that this question in the q a on twitter to the his dark materials account and will willie mcgregor uh who directs the scenes of his dark materials that take place in our world, discusses it of Elaine and Will's complex relationship constantly shifting between mother-slash-son and childcare-slash-dependent.

And this comes from Twitter user TedRyan94. And I think it's not a huge deal, but I think it is significant that Tony refuses in this moment to cook for his mother. And he eventually does it reluctantly. Whereas later in the episode, we see that Will is the one who has been tasked for the most part in his own home. He's the one who's cooking for his mother and their family. It's so rough because I feel like that's something anyone can relate to. In some way, each child has had to caretake for

their family and some obviously have it extremely rough and not that they would ever say that but some people have to take care of their family in a little more extensive way whether it's impairment whether it's chronic illness in general it's hard and it's it's it was a very emotionally pulling bit of the show seeing that and then seeing the costas and how they're coping especially when we get to the end with them sobbing over billy's body right uh families and how they cope and the humanity of what keeps people together and keeps them talking and keeps them you know continuously improving themselves uh it's all very complex and it's interesting to see play out on this show it's very different from a lot of the tv i think has been out there in the last few years right game of thrones was obviously a big

game changer haha but i think this is different seeing it finally brought to screen and given its due diligence i think it brings up a lot of conversations that people everywhere aren't having and they should be having yeah and i'd be interested to see where that goes and obviously tony doesn't have it easy right like they've all set out on this huge journey north and his brother's missing he's about to not be it's about to be even worse but he's been thrust into a very difficult situation as well but right now will perry is in a different kind of difficult situation high school where he is ostracized as a freak by his peers relatable it's interesting that uh it sounds it seems like i'm not sure but it looks like he's going to

a private school and i would make the assumption that perhaps a catholic school not necessarily not all private schools but a lot of them are run by religious institutions which context interesting yeah context of the storyline that could be interesting and i think it also frames him as this you know uh abandoned kid right like obviously not his mother he's had to be there for his mother and she has been there for him although not in the full capability probably that will needs but he has his father you know he has that huge hole in his heart but it is his father and his soul you could even say that he's looking for and lyra of course has had that huge hole her whole life

uh so they're both these like almost rich kids not by you know not not in the rich kid like house slytherin way right but like they're these like accidental orphan rich kids that you know will has to take care of his mother who his father left them in his mind you know his his mom says he's dead and that's kind of what he believes, but he thinks deep down they were left. Yeah. Whereas Lyra doesn't. She has, she grew up quite differently. She grew up with the, with a sort of closure in thinking that her parents were actually dead and thinking that they died some sort of noble explorer-y death. And quite frankly, she grows up pretty loved.

Yes. She has this huge male presence in her life of all the scholars and, you know, a calm presence of some females like Mrs. Lonsdale, who's the best character in the whole entire story. And if you don't agree, you don't know. And read The Secret Commonwealth. It's good for your health. And she has friends, right? She interacts with other kids in like a mostly healthy way they're they're having straight up battles but they sometimes form alliances and it's a complex fun it's again very childlike she's not lonely and what i was what i was really

looking toward though was that you know she grew up without the female influence the maternal influence and will well you know i wouldn't say he didn't grow up without that he did have his mother but he grew up without that father influence in his life he didn't have that strong father influence whatsoever um so i think it's interesting that kind of duality that's shared by both of them right that opposites attractites attract kind of thing. And the one thing the other had, the other didn't. And it's really just great contrasts and really good writing when it comes to Lyra and Will. And this whole time, all I can think about is them meeting next season, episode one, first scene, you know? It's gonna be, yeah. That's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm thinking.

Bringing it back, sorry, quickly to Tony. We don't know when Tony's father, if he passed or left or whatever, but it seems like because of the Egyptian culture he has had the benefit of, it seems, quite a few father figures around him or other male figures who were there to help lead. And even Benjamin stepped up to be part of that for tony's life not as a father figure but as at least a male mentor figure yeah anyway back to will his mother is being watched like not like in a good way like watched while he's at school by lord boreal who would purchase her he's extremely charming he tries to get information about her dead husband, John. She does not give much away. She kind of scurries off and leaves.

And then we see Will go to gym class. His teacher is very kind. This kid's kind of beating the crap out of him in boxing in the ring. And his mom shows up. All the kids are making fun of her and him. God, it's awful and she just keeps repeating that she feels awful for interrupting she's sorry but she was unnerved by the visitor the teacher is very kind to her but the kids are obviously all dicks and she it's so

sad because she's like i don't mean it to cause any trouble i'll go i'll go and a kid calls her mental to will and says he is too and will lets his anger consume him and beats the crap out of this kid for a second and then gets it case closed yeah i agree but then he gets the crap beaten out of him yeah he does but i mean that adrenaline was rushing through him so i don't think he felt it um the teacher has will go after his mom check on her will doesn't believe his mother kind of about the visitor it seems he seems a little skeptical uh when she tells him about the man that spoke to her and she starts to count the tiles outside the shot pans out as if they're

being watched and he asks her to come with him inside while he packs up his belongings to leave so first i want to without very much explanation at all reference the scene from the end of the subtle knife when will and john perry meet they don't know who the other is yet too late you haven't got a choice you're the bearerer. It's picked you out. And what's more, they know you've got it. And if you don't use it against them, they'll tear it from your hands and use it against the rest of us forever and ever. But why should I fight them? I've been fighting too much. I can't go on fighting. I want to- Have you won your fights? Will was silent. Then he said, Yes, I suppose. You fought for the knife.

Yes, but- Then you're a warrior. That's what you are. Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature. Will knew that the man was speaking the truth. But it wasn't a welcome truth. It was heavy and painful. The man seemed to know that because he let Will bow his head before he spoke again. Anyway, just leaving that there in the context of will in a boxing scene anyway so i'm gonna come back to elaine for a second in the books it's strongly suggested that elaine will's mother has schizophrenia or something similar and in the show it seems that they've gone

the direction in my opinion, it reads to me like obsessive compulsive disorder, which is characterized by quite simply extreme compulsions. I'm super oversimplifying it. I personally think it works. Like I don't have any strong feelings of what it should have been either way. I'm just like, okay, yeah, fine. This works for me, especially with a visual medium, because it's something that can be shown through those tics and the rituals that Elaine performs, rather than necessarily having her try to act things out like that or trying to show the difference between what's going on in someone's physical and mental world. And, you know, for clarification, OCD, a lot of people talk about it in a very

casual way as though it's just being like, oh, I just am a huge neat freak and need things to be clean or tidy. But Elaine shows if this is OCD, it's not exactly like that um and people who have OCDs often know that they do Elaine's showing that again I have friends who know that they do and it's shown in she's realizing she's giving into these compulsions they know that there are things that are nonsensical sometimes but it's it's a need right it's that obsession need to perform the counting, the constant checking, things like that. It can manifest in other ways. I have friends for whom certain patterns, literally visual patterns are triggers for them, and they feel like it's full of illness, right? It isn't, right? things like that. And Will asks Elaine if she's taking her medication later on. And there are medications that folks can take to help with OCD. There are serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SRIs that can help with those symptoms. So.

To that, I do think it's interesting that Pullman does sometimes show certain illnesses. Obviously, this is something he wrote for Elaine in the books that she has some sort of impairment as far as mental illness goes. Something that whether it's anxiety, whether it's schizophrenia, whether it's OCD, I felt like the show characterized it well enough in the way they did. And I think the way that Pullman does it in the book is obviously better. I mean, you can you can't you know you can't say you like a piece of art better than that come on now uh but pullman does it well he shows that grocery store scene which is vaguely mentioned by will and mrs perry in this uh back and forth at some point of just you know them grocery shopping and it being a normal everyday activity for them you know every not. God, that'd be a nightmare having a grocery shop every day. A weekly nightmare. A weekly thing for them of them going to the store and playing this game. But then the game was real. And I think that was pulled across well in this episode, that the game was actually real.

At least for us, we saw it. And I think that whatever mental illness that Elaine does have, it didn't need to be categorized because you could see the fierce protection that Will felt for her either way. And obviously that she has a little bit of difficulty with doing things that some people might not. Yeah, I agree. It doesn't need to be characterized. I'm just discussing. No, I do think that the counting especially with the ocd is interesting and it reminds me also i had more to this and i just kind of like lost it not thinking about it

uh it reminds me a lot of other fantasy pieces like the magicians that lean heavily into mental illness signifying magic and with what tana said about her counting the worlds counting out you know the different planks. That to me reminded me a little bit of that, of magic existing for those that have impairments, you know, those that see the world differently than other people. So until then, Will gets his gym things. His teacher asks if Mrs. Perry is okay, and Will explains she's just having a bad spell. I'm guessing this is where Elaine's going to be left, by the way.

That's also why we're seeing the gym. She's going to be left with the gym teacher, which I'm fine with. But that's my big guess. We'll see what happens in the next episode or two. But that would be my guess. Will leaves her with the gym teacher because he says, you know, my door's always open. I think that's a really good call. And I think that you're

right that's what we're gonna see because why else introduce this guy i mean there's obviously other reasons right like someone trying to be there for will but yeah i really do appreciate though jack thorne and the show trying to show this um jack thorne in that tweet that we saw wrote hashtag his dark materials is about two child heroes what I always loved about Pullman's choice of will is that he is a child carer in today's broken world what greater hero

can you find than that we wanted to give that the space it needed I hope people like the choice I just didn't like that this was in twitter that we wanted to give that the space it needed. I hope people like the choice. I just didn't like that this was in Twitter, so 24 hours. Anyways, yeah, I agree, and I think that's something that's always really resonated for me with Will's character, and I'm sure you've all heard me gush about Will a lot, call him like my little boy and like my son. And I think this tweet put into words why that's always been so important to me and why I've been so excited to get to the Subtle Knife and Will's story in these moments. I don't actually share this very often,

so this is me really being vulnerable for a moment, but I don't think I can discuss Will's story without it and why it's so meaningful to me. And it's because the story of Will and his secrets of being a child carer is my story. My father had a lot of different kinds of public outbursts and displays, suffered with chronic illness and pain, and having to deal with what that meant in many different ways in public in front of one's peers is something that I really appreciate that the show presented we don't see Will having to deal with that in front of his peers in the books um unlike Will I had the privilege though of having friends at school especially later on in life, in high school, all of the 90s propaganda about, you know, people being unique really paid off for me, again, and how everyone else treated me, but I didn't really share a lot

of those parts of my home life that were difficult to or what was asked of me being a child carer. And there were times that school and extracurriculars were my escape and I felt a lot of guilt attached to feeling and there's a lot of guilt for me feeling that way attached to to those emotions and it was because home life was hard and I was sometimes actually asked to skip school by my parents in order to be that health and emotional and mental support for my father so i really appreciate that we have a scene of will boxing um him trying to find maybe some sort of solace and something else it helps also of course characterize him as a fighter as in that quote that we shared earlier but it shows that he's looking for those outlets he's

still trying to have some sort of hobbies and maintain a sense of identity just for him and himself. That's not purely defined by his family. And I think that's part of why I feel so hard for Will at the end of the series, at the end of The Amber Spyglass. Because when he realizes he's losing Lyra, he's terrified because it means that he's going to be alone again. And he's gone through this whole journey. He fears he's not going to be able to share with anyone and that's another secret that's going to sever him from the rest of the world until mary malone is like i'm going to be here for you i'll be there and you can come to me with things and just having that one person so that your secrets don't make you

alone in in the things that you're hiding from everyone can make all the difference. And I appreciate that the show depicts all of this for Will. They make explicit those choices for him in the boxing scene with the way it's directed. His first lines in this entire episode, in the entire series, are to his mother like everything else is non-verbal acting and i think amir wilson kills it right but these first lines are that repetition of mom mom mom calling after his mother it's him taking care of her his first words aren't him retaliating to others through insults he only does it through his actions his he he uses his words to be there for his mother. And coming back to the episode at large,

I think Will, he does fight, right? It's one of the ways that he's, of course, characterized. Did he have to? Did he not? I don't know. Eventually he's going to have to. And I think that's part of the discussion with other scenes in the rest of this episode, whether it's like the Egyptians talking about, we need to fight, Fardekorm saying,

we need to fight it, despite being ill-prepared what's worth fighting for yeah um and i mean thank you for being vulnerable to us and everybody not just me because obviously you were going to tell me this but everyone's like you already knew these about yeah i mean i do but you know it's still vulnerable and it's still really something special. And it does explain the connection you have with the series and with this character. And I think that what you said about him only retaliating with his actions is interesting, especially considering that Lyra uses the alethiometer to gauge how she should trust this human, what she should do about Will will and she takes it as

he's a murderer i trust him uh and obviously well and this episode does a little bit to help that not only in this but later with yorick as well uh she normalizes yorick and what he did because of what she's read in her alethiometer what she's heard from him, she kind of understands more. And I think it's a good part of her arc to kind of, things aren't black and white, Lyra. And she's learning that. She's learning that. They're very gray in between, shades of gray.

And for Will, his actions are what does define him in some of these. The knife, when he does get the knife, it's very big. When he loses those fingers, that mobility, he feels very broken down, unable to function, losing a part of him. That's a severing, obviously, right there.

Yeah. And it almost kills him in some ways because it turns out it won't stop bleeding because of the way the knife is. But someone's able to heal that wound. And it was that hole we talked about in the heart. Yeah. Until he's like, what the fuck?

Why'd you kill my dad? Yeah. We'll talk about that someday because I hate it. But back to the show. Lyra watches the Aurora with Ma Costa. I thought this was a nice scene, actually. Kaisa is telling her about her father's arrest. Not as nice.

He tells her that he doesn't know what she's looking for with this ghost child, but that she's right to look into it. Which, like, part of me during this episode was like, shut the fuck up if you're not going to help her, Kaisa. She's like, well, I don't know what to tell you, Lyra, but you should keep doing it anyway. I'm like, what the fuck, you little nerd? I'm gonna give you a fucking swirly. But Ma Kasa tells her, well, you should speak to John Fa in the morning and basically gives her blessing.

Yeah. And they're like, well, Ma Kasa said I could go, so... Both my dads, no no but mom said yes finally someone had to and and so we cut from that scene of Kaiza being like yeah you should totally go do it Lyra

to Ferdricorum and Sophonax meeting with who is it? who is it Chloe? Serafina Pakala? what? she's here i feel like you're asking me to be a lot more excited than i am about this i'm sorry it's okay i'm just i was just trying i was excited about seraphina no i was it's just maybe i hyped it up too much This scene was a letdown in a couple ways. Interesting. It was awful.

It was still fine. Like, it was a fine scene, but it was one of those, like, why? Like, we didn't have to have it this way. Yeah. It's great to have this off-screen invention, though. It is cool to see them meet and see them speak. It's just, it's made up.

And Serafina comes. She tells F fartacorum that this whole bunch of exposition about the witches how some of them are going to fight and some won't because the magisterium has part of them on their side they talk about when they were in love and had the baby that died she's like i am 300 plus years old i can't be with you she gives some exposition about why other worlds are in the Aurora because the particles are thinner when the Aurora is happening. And then she makes out with him very briefly. And she says she'll help when she can, but Kaiza has to take it from here. Fardekorum painfully sobs at her leaving after telling her that he thinks about her and their boy every day. Okay, you have to give him something to do i get it you have to he's a great actor right like he earned his place on this show contractually he has to have some time i get

it and you have to introduce seraphina piccola piccola i don't want to say it that way but i wanted to be fair i think both of them knocked it out of the park in terms of acting and i think that's part of why i appreciate the scene and i'm like whatever it's fine uh just because they did such a good job and i'm like okay i feel feelings because you did so good yeah no it was amazing as far as tonally the actors were great i do love her as seraphina yeah i don't know yeah i don't know it bugs me This is why it bugs me. Because we are never going to hear about her mother dying. And if we do, it's going to be next season. It's being played as if Serafina is this hardened manic pixie witch girl that can't stay with Fardercorum and has to go because she's a free spirit on the wind and leads these witches and they'll help when they can but they can't commit and it it's like got some hints of that femme fatale and oh she's the wild earthy woman boho in the sky she's in the sky yeah she's like boho in the sky though you know like yeah i

don't i don't know it's hard because they're building off of that from the books as well. As Yumi and Tana discussed when Tana was on with us, they're very flimsy, these witches. It's very like they're either a jaded lover who has been scorned and is like, I'm going to kill this guy, or it's Serafina Pakala, or it's Ruta who is like, I want to fuck Asriel. I should have taken my chance when i had it like they're just like these lusty red-blooded like we fly in the sky and we're warriors that live forever and we're sexy women and on thursdays we do our kegels um i don't know it just bugs me

because then they made it all about now coram and seraphina have to talk about their past that they don't talk about because that's what Serafina have to talk about their past that they don't talk about because that's what's so powerful about their relationship it's the pride of these two adults that know deep down that they can't be together and work out these differences there's something between them that you know this distance between them including their son that's died is too much for either of their pride to muster and climb that mountain yeah i couldn't understand why it had to be done maybe for a tv show but i also agree with what you're saying it's that pride and that it's too painful for them to see each other and that's why

interestingly they never do in the books so it's like he was like what if they did and that's fine but it's meant for a03 come on now well no this is just an alternate world maybe this is one of the other parallel universes that apart from lyra in the books so lyra convinces john fa to let her go and that eoric will take her that's the next thing he takes her that's exciting uh and this actually made me feel better since i sat there and i just rolled my eyes the first time i watched that scene i was like really man because i was like in my head i'm like what if jack thorne doesn't do this to me and then he did but john fogg gives lyra until the next night to return before they leave without her i guess or

get worried that happens in the books yeah that's true that's true but I'm like in my head I'm like what are y'all gonna do leave without her they'll find you go without her or are you gonna go look for her instead we don't know honestly in the books both the both these scenarios are wild to me you know yeah like you said they're not gonna just leave without the child yeah but we do get after this a probably the most breathtaking montage i don't know how you felt about it i'm guessing similar a beautiful montage of lyra riding yorick it makes up for anything ever in this episode and i suddenly forgot any of the sins that i've been bitching about uh it's just good it was great it was good it was good i liked it it was good and the coming back was also good

we're gonna see more we're gonna see more i bet they're gonna we're gonna get a really really really good one especially with the northern lights in the background and like the last episode as they're running towards roger and she has to do the they better keep the bridge in yeah it's so important it's the bridge between the next world, basically. The bridge to the stars, which is the name of that forum. It's a good name. I'm mad at how good it is. I always feel that way. Will and Elaine then enjoy dinner,

and Elaine tells Will, you're very much like your father, and you're going to follow in his footsteps. Will disagrees, and then Elaine suddenly notices marks on the carpet in her room that make her realize someone's broken in. She immediately starts checking her sewing machine where underneath

the letters from John Perry are stowed. She makes sure that they didn't find them because they are worth more than gold to her and possibly the world. There's this line during dinner when she's talking about his dad to him.

First, she tells him that he cooks like his dad. And I didn't think anything of it until I realized they're eating omelets, Eliana. Like what Will makes Lyra when they meet. I thought he made her beans. He opened her a can of beans. Did he also make her eggs? That's right. The fridge was...

He made her eggs. Okay. Yeah. But there's this line she says to him this world is broken it takes extraordinary people to fix it extraordinary people like you like your dad to fix it and he says i'm not extraordinary does that remind you of anyone else? Only because you tweeted about it. It was a really good tweet. Thank you. I was really in my feels. I'm in my feels, man, about Little Lyra.

Always. They're giving it to me. They're giving it to me. Always. Of course, it reminds me of Lyra with Mrs. Colter. You know, Daphne Keene's acting. I can't commend her enough. Because they are both good. they're great younger actors and her acting in that scene with Pan when her voice breaks and

she's like she's nice I've never been called extraordinary before like it's just like so good it's such a sad thing because neither of these children have been called that before you know maybe Elaine has told him that but I mean that's all they needed to hear that they're special and yeah everyone's special but i like that you've called a salad because now it makes me start thinking that like part of what makes lyra extraordinary and part of what will make will extraordinary is lyra fucking gave a shit like she gave a shit enough to do something and i think maybe maybe that's part of what is meant by everyone special. Yeah.

Give a shit. Do something. Everybody has the same capability. Yeah. It takes you to be special. It takes you to be extraordinary. And in this especially, that's another thing. It connects Lyra and Will, right?

Two extraordinary young people that fix the world. Yeah. The world's broken. it takes extraordinary people to fix it where are we going to find these extraordinary people professor xavier's mansion no just there living living across the street um and all she does you know all she does is she opens the fucking bubble oh my god I love that I love how it's come back to get us to be honest I would Lyra also eats eggs in the next scene by the way like right after Will eats eggs

they're connected so I have a tinfoil in this scene before Will brings his mother the eggs it's zoomed in at first on Elaine's face, and she's kind of got her eyes in this half-lidded expression, just sort of looking off to the side. And Elaine really, really believes in the work that John Perry is doing.

Elaine really, really believes in the work that John Perry is doing. And the way that Elaine's expression looks kind of reminds me from the scene in the Amber Spyglass. What Serafina taught Mary to do now, sorry, reminds me of the scene at the end of the Amber Spyglass when Serafina is teaching Mary how to see her demon. And she says, it's kind of off to the side. You kind of have to look a little to the side right but not concentrate and i'll just make the quote what seraphina taught mary to do now was similar to that she had to hold on to her normal way of looking while

simultaneously slipping into the trance like open dreaming in which she could see the shadows but now she had to hold both ways together the everyday and and the trance, just as you have to look in two directions at once to see the 3D pictures among the dots. If any of you, like, Pullman, like, references this in extensive detail in the paragraph before, but I didn't feel like quoting it. But the books, right, it's all just fucking dots. And you put your face all the way to it, your nose touching the page, and you slowly pull it away. Look in the way that Seraaphina has taught mary and then you're gonna see like i don't know peter pan's ship that's the only one that i remember starkly or and i mean those i know exactly now what you're talking about i didn't understand

it before now that you say that like a whole part of the book just made sense no i get it now though and it reminds me of like in doctor who, for example, in season series two of Doctor Who of New Doctor Who, there's an episode where Rose Tyler and the current doctor, the 10th doctor, have on 3D glasses so that they can see dark material, basically. And yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, it's something in sci-fi and in different fantasy that there's always this idea of being able to see other worlds with glasses or lenses. And it's something that we come to obviously later uh but that's what that reminds me of and that's what that makes me think of along with a villain from doctor who called the weeping angels do you know of them eliana no i've never watched doctor who well i mean it's a very popular thing like the weeping angels are so i thought maybe you'd seen them oh i've seen them but i don't know what they are other than that they scared the shit out of me it's kind of the same look good they could it's kind of the same

idea as like those dolls that when you look away they move at night oh i don't like that i don't like that well those angels it starts off in the first time that they appear that it's a statue an angel statue they're actually an alien race that's come to this planet and they live off of they can't move when you see them but this planet and they live off of they can't move when you see them but if you're not looking at them they can move and if they touch you they can transport you back in time and live off of that energy that you would have lived if you had lived in your time period but sending you back they have this energy they can feed off of well later in the series it turns out all statues they like corrupt all statues and any statue can be an

angel but we'll get back to that someday. But it reminds me of that as well. Like if you look out of the corner of your eye, it's there. Yeah, I am looking. There is a quote where they say corner of your eye, right? I believe so. I'm looking. We're at Dame Hannah now.

Along these lines, it's just like what Tana said, right? I think this actually fits really well what you're saying because tana said that she's looking through she's looking at those planks and seeing them like worlds and counting the different worlds uh and it wouldn't surprise me if she you know she understood some of john's writings yeah i, people share their work sometimes, their loved ones. And obviously, this is something that he was passionate about. If he's the one who designed this house, maybe he was like, look, Elaine, I made this house to be like windows everywhere, windows into other worlds so that we can always reach across and touch each other. Maybe I don't know, that sounds like a cute

romantic thing someone would say. Probably. You're like, if I understood love. If I wrote the fanfiction of Elaine and John's life and this newlyweds. The house is very, very much so symbolic of that cut too, of that knife cutting of other

worlds. Seeing parts and bits of other realms in the house. Now that Tana has said that i'm like i get it just because elaine has you know more vulnerable capabilities than maybe someone else doesn't mean she's stupid doesn't mean that she can't understand things like people undermine people with mental illness so much and think they're stupid or incapable or you know infirm and incapable and elaine is probably smarter than most people she pays attention to things that they don't you know yeah she probably has read some of his actual

writings to her that talk about different scientific learnings and things on his exploration and she probably understands them yeah absolutely i mean i don't know john terry doesn't strike me as also the kind of guy who marries someone who's not in who doesn't have a curious mind right right it's like you said she she believed all this she loves her son clearly she's not as you also said earlier enough but yeah yeah then we come back to york and lyra as you said eating eggs taking a break on their journey it's all sansan this is sansa stark and sandor clagy oh my god lyra is huddled against york for warmth it's actually very cute because she like cuddles up against him and he gravels instinctively again sansa and sandor and she's like i'm very sorry i was just trying to get warm

and he's like fine like he like just like rolls around a little like all right position yourself kid they discuss bear nature they discuss demons bears don't have any they're very solitary she tells him about her father being imprisoned in svalbard which most lyra part ever i was dying laughing i don't know what you were doing physically but i was actually like keeled over on the couch laughing because she starts spitting this yarn about her dad being able to trick these untrickable bears she's like he tricked me he lied to me about my parentage my whole life and then he sprung this on me and then this this this and i'm like yes lyra you are a child i get it you are telling your big stories right now like i was waiting for her to be like

and actually i'm this and i'm this but she's not wrong he did lie to her her whole life but also i mean as we're gonna see later on he does trick the bears but he doesn't really trick them he more of just like scares them and they're like all right i would give a shit what we that we give this man the nicest prison ever yeah honestly if it's anyone that she and we we will talk more about it but Lyra quite obviously rejects her parentage on her maternal side. She's very rebellious. She's like, fuck you, mom. Like, you can't tell me not to bleach my hair. And I'm a diet green.

And she rejects her mom so much. But Marisa is like about 80% of her actions. I'm like, oh, that's Marisa. Oh, that's Marisa. Whether Lyra admits it or not. of her actions i'm like oh that's marisa oh that's marisa whether lira admits it or not when she says to lee scores be like now what did i tell you about how i play cards i'm like okay marisa whoa um and her tricking bears is more like that right that is more what is happening for her and i guess her dad too both of them apparently apparently he tells her that he was sent away

for killing another bear which is like a huge bear sin and lyra's like you're just like my father they stripped him of all of his titles too yeah lyra and my favorite part though this whole conversation is when he's like but you are not a bear and she's like you're wrong some part of me is definitely bear i was like shut the fuck up lyra like it's not but witch bear whatever but i mean you're right like it's in keeping with the character of lyra that they've established throughout the show so at least it's consistent yeah but yeah she she's very childish with yorick in a fun way but they don't do fencing nope but i kind of get it i don't think that really in my opinion as we discussed during the book episodes that didn't really show that you can't

trick a bear that just tells me that lyra is a poor fencer she's not trained in fighting. Yeah, she doesn't know. How would she know how to, like, faint in front of a bear, you know? We come back to Will, who's looking for his mother before bed, but instead stumbles into the room with the letters instead. And as he's there, Elaine says, you know what? I changed my mind. You can't read them. And he's like, no.

Well, now I don't want to. So there. Just like Lyra. I'm going to dye my hair green. So there. These rebel kids. He closes the door on the letters for now. Dot, dot, dot.

But now that you talk about them as rebel kids, it is a contrast, though, to Lyra's earlier scenes with her own mother. She doesn't know it's her mother, but she goes explicitly to sneak into her mother's study to read her secret papers. Whereas here, he has the chance to read his father's secret papers and has chosen not to. Yes, Will is a good boy, a clean boy, a handsome boy. You bring him home, he's going to be a doctor someday. Lyra, bad. Ratty girl. Bad girl be a doctor someday lyra bad ratty girl bad girl stinky girl i love her but bad girl i just think that they're like so it's interesting that

contrast between who they are and opposites attracting but not they complement each other lyra's throwing mud at people yeah they complement each other she is wild she is a savage as charles lantrum says to her she's a brat a savage brat and she's my savage brat god damn it and she's like damn straight i am through and through to the core charles lyra and yorick we're back here to lyra and yorick they come to the village and york says when he feels fear he masters it pan is super floofy again in the arctic fox form this is my favorite of pan's forms thus far i understand because it's like all he is anymore except for like air mine once yeah i understand that the urban is like once yeah i understand that the urban is like classic right but the butt is not as floof no cute though small small i do like the small and the little nose but not floof pan is hesitant and feels anxious and yorick thinks something's wrong as well but lyra continues forward pan tells

lyra turn back she tells him no we have to trust the alethiometer and she repeats herself that she's going to master her fear over and over again fear cuts deeper than swords you know you know this deal fierce as a wolverine swift as a deer i love you what that those are literally literally what it was that's all it was. I was like, this is Arya Stark. This is it. So inside, this is such a big plot twist. And I know everybody here listening probably felt their heart just like wrench when you were surprised by this. Because inside this fishing hut is Tony Macarius. I'm just kidding. No one was surprised.

It was Billy Costa, the lost boy. Not Tony Macarius. Everyone can sit back down. But it's Billy Costa and Lyra brings Billy back atop Yorick, telling him that she'll take him to Ma Costa. You know, the first time I've ever thought any of this CGI look cartoony was tonight on this episode. Yeah, I kind of felt that way about Hester a little. Yeah, a little bit too. A little bit with Hester in the one shot we saw of her. It got a little cartoony tonight and maybe it's more seeing several and maybe that's what it is. Seeing several of

these animals in one shot isn't easy because it did look cartoony from the front. From the side, from the back, it was fine. But seeing Yorick and Pan in the same shot, dead on, I was like, alright, what the fuck is this? The mystery machine? Like, what's going on, Scoob?

Like, they looked like they were creeping up to a hut to de-mask a killer on an animated show. I was like, what's going on? I was giggling. But it looked fine, like, from afar. It was just up close for a second. I was a little little maybe i was just a little like whoa what the fuck i think that's interesting yeah i i didn't really notice but i wasn't like i wasn't super super paying attention at that moment but yeah i there are moments that

every now and then i'm like oh weird right but yeah and maybe it's just CGI, you know, maybe we're old. I think it's just a CGI. My parents have like one of those really nice TVs. So at Christmas time, I know I'm going to get weirded out because when I watch shows on it, it's like, why does TV look like this? Yeah, it's weird. We recently got rid of this. I'm like, why does TV look like this?

I guess you get used to it after a while, but I'm out here like, nope. Nope. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't know. I haven't get used to it after a while but i'm out here like nope nope i don't know if that's true or not i don't know i haven't gotten used to it yet let me know when you do okay i just i won't ever complain about kaiza again i guess because i can see why a goose might look silly now that i like saw this in the face like they looked at me i looked at them through the screen i was like oh god uh another interesting thing in this scene the only interesting thing in this scene honestly not to uh throw some shade but the the one thing i thought was interesting was billy when they get in the hut is counting he goes one two which reminds me of elaine counting the tiles in the walls i couldn't even tell that Billy was saying things it was so faint

it was very quiet but I think that's a really great catch yeah very interesting I just didn't at first I was like wait is this and then when she was counting the tiles and the planks I was like it has to be it just has to be obviously Elaine

isn't severed right she has her soul she's very much here. But I wonder, now that you've pointed this out, is this a way that they're going to sort of indicate that a specter maybe has eaten the soul of any of the adults in Sirigase? I could see that. I think so. It's an easy motif. Oh, it's an easy. It's an easy motif.

And like I said to you in that quick shot from that trailer last week, I couldn't tell if it was a witch or if it was a specter. And honestly, now that I've seen what it looks like when Serafina flies off, I'm kind of pushing toward it could be a specter. We might see some specters. Maybe a flashback maybe it's just something we see in like a book two pull ahead kind of thing that we're you know invented scene but I think we might see some specters

anything could happen apparently season three who needs that it's over I mean I like that I'm being kept on my toes I like the surprise when the writer doesn't tweet about it. I'm sorry, everyone. I'm just a little salty.

It's fine. I think this is our first salty episode. We've had a little bit of things here and there that were like, oh, okay, that was interesting, but whatever. This week is our first salt episode. We're like, hmm, interesting. And I think it's only a little bit of salty just just a tad it's enough to keep us fun add some flavor yes yes

absolutely finish we're finishing our steak like a salt bae yeah is that still relevant probably not i think so right i don't know this is just a little melaldon salt. Speaking of relevancy, Billy Costa returns for a brief trip back until he joins Ratter. Wow. Sorry. I'm sorry. Fuck.

God. Billy collapses and Jon Favre lifts him into Ma Costa's arms. Lyra makes to follow them, but Lee holds her back, telling her they love her, but they probably don't want her here for this. Lyra tells Lee that the alethiometer was

right, that Billy was a ghost. It was like he wasn't there. Oh. Then that was it. That was the emotional weight right there. I am glad that Lee held Lyra back here because he's right every now and then she does need to be told no and respected and she does here i think there's

some noteworthy distinctions that we are seeing uh between what's considered the private space and the public space we actually talk about these i think a little in our aswaf reread at some point i don't remember where and what parts of family belong in the private one. We see it mostly in this moment through the interactions of Tony and Ma Costa and Billy being together as that family for the last time, and I think that stands in great contrast to, again, the scenes of Will and Elaine in this episode. For example, how Will hardly speaks unless he's with his mother in that sort of private space that they have with each other. Lee also says a different noteworthy thing here. When Lyra asks why would the Gobblers cut off children's daemons, and he says it's about

control, that if you can cut off someone's soul, you can control them essentially and we've referenced low jacob muir a few times on this podcast but again low has written another fabulous essay digging deeper into those power dynamics using a phocodian framework that we touched on last episode where they draw the lines between power sexuality and the control over it and again how this ties into eugenics and discursive power as as low goes into detail and explains what that means in procoding terms and who has it and i think that with this line lee says about control low absolutely hits a nail on the head about the magisterium's obsession with controlling sexuality because it is so important in society.

It holds a lot of weight. People are talking about it all the time. And if intercession is meant to be a metaphor for sterilization among, you know, it's a metaphor for a lot of things, right? I'm not saying it's only this, all right? And there's a sociopolitical aspect in terms of whose bodies are policed and whose aren't. We're going to link these essays, and we're also going to talk a little in depth about Lo's other essay on aspects of racist systems in Sweden and Scandinavia and how these intersect with some of those eugenics practices. Yeah, lots of good stuff.

It's been really cool actually learning with lo yeah as we go along i think uh i was reading some of the essay there was a little edit at the bottom that lo learned something about sissleman from our episode last week they learned something about sissleman after the episode last week and our episode and i'm sitting here i'm like well i just learned eight million new things from your essay so how do you do so it's a nice symbiotic relationship it's very fun uh and it's awesome to see someone writing stuff about his dark materials it's almost inspirational enough for me to get off my butt and do something but we'll see we'll see lies in arbor gold.com where i post new essays god damn it tony and ma costa are watching watching over Billy in his final moments.

Ma Costa sings to him and tells him that he can go to Radder now. He can be with him. It's sad, and the second time I watched it, I got really sad. Like, I know all of you are keeping count. This is now five episodes out of five episodes that I've cried, and I cried a second time today re-watching it, so

glad you guys have your count now. Tally that one off i just wish they had let ma costa be ma costa not just sad mom to make it sad it's just a bummer it was sad but like the whole time i was just like interesting yeah uh i wish billy had any fucking lines to be honest yeah. Yeah. It's okay, though, because Ma Costa got to sing about it. Yeah. Tony Macario's headlines. All of them biffed it on this, right?

Golden Compass, His Dark Materials. They biffed it on Tony Macario's. And that makes me so mad because that's like the one, that's like the tool I use to measure your His Dark Materials adaptation. It's like, did it have Tony Macario's? I don't want it. Then take it back. And I do want this adaptation. I'm sorry I'm a brat. I do want it.

But, yeah. And we were waiting for them to nail it. We discussed it in earlier episodes. I was like, I get it. I see where they're going with this. But. It just got lost. It got lost. I didn't connect with it as much as I thought I was going to in this scene. And it's not hard to make me cry.

You made me cry already once today, so it's like on the podcast, it's not hard to make me cry. I'm a very emotional person. I like crying. It gets the demons out. Not the demons. You keep those ones next to you or in, depending on the world you're in. But for me, crying is good. Feels good

sometimes. If I'm watching a show that's emotional, I want it to fuck me up. I cry a lot too. I cry mostly at the happy endings maybe. I'm like, oh, how beautiful. I cry at happiness. I cry at sadness. I cry when I'm mad. I don't know. I can't help it.

Another day we'll talk about this character in the John Dies at the End series. Not Game of Thrones, the other one. The one that's literally called John Dies at the End. not game of thrones the other one um the one that's literally called john dies yes and there's a character who cries a lot and uh i totally relate like she has a whole passage about it and i'm like same sister like good for you yeah and i also especially cry on things on a rewatch and not usually with like tv shows but i don't know movies and catching little bits and pieces that you remembered from before that get you worse this time yeah and maybe that's what happened when i re-watched this

a second time because i did cry at this the second time i cried at the will stuff the first time if you had to know but re-watching it got me there but it should have got me the first time i should have been shocked the only thing i can say for all of this is the slow build of horror that's happening. It's done really well that this episode turns into a horror episode very soon. And it's all starting very soon in this because then after this, Elaine is unable to sleep is where we flash to. She's standing over Will and watching him for a moment asleep in his bed. And then she walks throughout the house and stops at the sound of their cat at the door moxie she lets the cat in until she notices a light peering in and a car outside

watching as she locks the door the man same from earlier does not see her and she watches gasping and begins to count the boards on the wall that we've been talking about so a year ago in sci-fi on sci-fi.com someone wrote chosen one of the day which i guess is a series that they have moxie the murder cat from the subtle knife oh wow and about how moxie leads to the death of these men anyway sorry um i love it moxie the murder cat and I love that Moxie is called Moxie because that cat has some Moxie we know that

Will's tied with cats Boreal meets with Thomas in the next scene this scene hurt me Thomas confirms that there's money activity in Elaine Perry's bank account that John Perry has been putting money in there monthly and set it up before he left probably he talks about kind of how he set it up and that he set it up

to be heavy at first and that it was obvious he had a plan of when to taper it and when to come back. They kind of hinted almost that they were watching that to see when it tapered and when they could use that to their advantage. He also said that if they follow the trail of money, they'll probably find the window that leads them to John Perry. And I'd like to just repeat a brief statement, which is stay the fuck away from them. That's how I feel about it. Also jokes on them.

He's never coming back. He's dead. Not yet. Soon. Yeah. The way this is going, he'll be dead tomorrow i feel i think it's so interesting that boreal can't like put it together if he's together like he was looking for the window but he obviously was never able to make it back yeah like we get it you have the biggest

crush on john perry but he's gonna let you down. That is what I feel like this is leading to. I'm like, and that's, again, my worry from last week. What's Lee Scoresby gonna do when Boreal's done it all for him? It's all over with the singing, you know? Like, he's out there romancing John Perry. Well, he's here to swoop in and be the, what is the word that I'm looking for?

Rebound. Oh my god. what is the word that i'm looking for rebound that's the word lee wakes lyra up in the middle of the night and you guys i just think that this is really important because it means that lyra slept this episode okay this is a huge part of lyra's characterization in the first book in my opinion every every chapter never gonna let it go she takes like a nap um i wouldn't go as far to say that it's implied she sleeps twice in this episode oh my god that's that's true lyra that is the lyra that i know we are finally at peak lyra on the 3rd of december 2019 as we record this at 10 48 p.m we are at peak lyra but twice low lyra not peak lyra anti-peak bottom bottom of the barrel down very down very sad lyra being awakened by lee who tells her billy died lyra wants to see him and lee takes her to see him before they set his body to rest with flame.

Jon Favre speaks to Ma Costa, saying that now they know that they must fight. And while Maggie, Ma Costa, hugs Lyra, clutches her close to her, she responds, no, they have to kill. Yeah. Okay. I've seen that trope before. Yeah. Yep. Whatever.

The Egyptian faction sings a goodbye song in chorus to Billy as his pyre is ignited, and everyone harmonizes really well, which is I think maybe why they all have bird demons. Oh. Like, they have not one bad singer. They all sounded beautiful, like really good

choral voices. I was like, huh, where did you guys find all these singers? Or they just tell the one bad singer, like, amongst all the Egyptians. They're like, shh, just keep it low. You just sang very quietly. You're a client. I just realized that Maggie saying that they have to kill is supposed to be a tie-in between her and Serafina. I see it now.

It's a connection. So, I realized at some point that there are words to this song, and so I turned on closed captioning so that all of you can have the lyrics. It's that call and response, right? Jon Faw sings,

first, Dear Son, and then they sing, Your soul never leaves you, Dear Son, and then they sing, Your Soul Never Leaves You. Dear Son, God does never leave you. Dear Son, you are God's son. Dear Son, your soul never leaves you. My son, you are God's son. Getting some mixed messages about the paternity.

Who's the father of the baby is this confirmation some people were taking that one scene between john fawn ma costas confirmation that billy people are taking it as confirmation and i don't get it uh we talked about this about that scene when he was all intimate with her yeah i'm not i mean maybe we were wrong i mean he sang a song where he says he changes the last line instead of dear son to my son so i don't know i just thought he'd be like way more upset i don't know i just don't think that he would randomly like know some hymn about your son dying and sing it about his son yeah i mean obviously everyone knows the song this is obviously all suspension of disbelief that the egyptians have beautiful choral voices and they all gather in a circle and sing this song that they somehow practice enough

to be perfect on key i mean they have nothing else to do i guess in the north right but like i'm just saying the internet chloe this is what people do they couldn't even practice like all right suspension of disbelief aside sure i think it makes sense it's their culture and like they're singing for it i think that the song is kind of sad and ironic in a horrible way that does kind of work for me of dear son your soul never leaves you yeah and he does probably eventually go and rejoin radder. That is how it'll work at the end when Lyra frees everyone's spirits. But the god does never leave you and the whole thing about god's son when it's the Magiserium that is funding what has happened to Billy Costa. I think it's kind of looking past the system part of it.

And maybe it's more hopeful of you know like the holy creator is good and his plan is good it's just those that are trying to deliver it incorrectly is not is kind of what they're thinking i don't know it's a it's it turns out they're wrong about that too yeah right god's fake open the bubble Open the bubble! Kill the god. That is the book. Alright, so the funeral. I guess we're at our penultimate bitching. Just kidding, this is probably the biggest bitching now that I say that.

Our ultimate bitching. Second watch, like I said, was better. I didn't get sad. I was furious, though, about the lack of Lyra fighting for King Cratter. But I was furious the first watch at that. The second watch, I wasn't as mad. I got over it, I guess. I put my big girl panties on.

But I was more angry about Tony not being there. And I'll talk about it after this. Tony Macarius? Yes, Tony Macarius. I was more angry at the whole no Tony Macarius. And we'll talk about it in just a second. But first, Tana sent us something that kind of put it into better words, I think,

than what I would say of what really was disappointing. Yeah, and this comes back to what we were saying about the execution. From Tana, Leading out to the reveal of Billy Costa was great. Spooky and hazy and cold, Lyra deciding to go into the fish house alone, Pan being scared and telling her not to, Yorick slash Sandor being concerned for her, all this is great setup for a spooky and creepy moment

with a zombie child clutching a dead fish and mumbling about, Ratter, where's my Ratter? But no. We get inside and they decide to shoot this big reveal from a sideways angle where we cannot see Billy's face and we do not get any part of the he was clutching the dead fish to his chest the way Lyra clutched Pantaleon hard against her heart. All the anticipation of this critical moment is given to us through Lyra's voiceover exposition. Where is his demon? Is that Billy Costa? Which violates the sovereign

rule of any visual medium which is show and don't tell the casual viewer could not even tell that this boy who was inexplicably filmed in profile while laying down why and again i want to remind listeners that her living is working within visual mediums so i i really respect her analysis on this who did not have his glasses on who was barely moving whose head was shaved and no longer looks remotely like the boy we met in episode one was even billy costa lyra had to tell us that in her exposition if billy wandered that far from bull vanguard surely they could have shown him zombie walking in the dark here surely they could have shown him clutching a dead fish in the books lyra wanted them to burn him with his dead fish but horror of horrors the dog ate it

violation after violation for poor billy costa and yet in the show we got none of that what a wasted chance tana felt it was a dreadfully disappointing scene, which, like I said, I did at first. I also feel, I feel like it makes sense that they didn't do the dried fish. And I'm only going to say that, and that sounds crazy, because Billy was given everything Tony Macarius had except for name, right? All of a sudden he was given Radder. He disappeared similarly-ish to how Tony Macarius likely disappeared. tony mccarius had except for name right all of a sudden he was given radder uh he disappeared similarly ish to how tony mccarius likely disappeared he was lured over you know tomy

though had no one and nothing billy was cared about looked after the gyptians all go on this big mission for billy costa first and all the kids as well they're getting the kids back but billy costa is kind of the figurehead for the egyptians in this right they're thinking we have to get billy back for ma we have to get these children back for everyone that's their poster child lyra yes has all these people searching for her and her privilege shows through that and we know that that would be her had lyra not had this privilege and the protection of scholastic sanctuary from Jordan. All this bad stuff in life probably would have befallen her because you don't just wake up one day trafficked by the gobblers. You wake up one day and you've been born on the wrong side of the tracks and you grow up with not as many chances as other people.

Vulnerable people prey upon that. For Tony Macarius, ratter was what he had in his world that was it when ratter was sliced away from this boy the person in the world who understood or could fathom caring about it was lyra watching in horror but also not being able to not care for this creature this boy that this shell of a kid that used to be full of life playing with other kids and that's what's so powerful about the funeral scene for Tony that everyone there is sad because it symbolizes the magisterium taking their children and exerting power over them. And it's awful. But for Lyra, she's not just sad about all of it. In that moment, she's sad

specifically for Tony, for this little boy that other people have never seen him as a person for who he was and who he doesn't get the chance to be for pan who sees this child with a slain demon for this small cold broken lost boy um that's to me a sadder part of this adaptive flunk than not having the dried fish it's more about why he had the dried fish and what that was to him and what it really meant it didn't have the same emotional weight it was never going to tony mccarius was always a separate moment from this egyptian forge for the children it was this quiet creepy awful moment of intercision yeah it's all those things and honestly with the way that will's story is presented i think it kind of makes sense in the context of tony mccarius because tony mccarius was just

unlucky enough right as you said born on the wrong side of the tracks, and the world was unfair and unjust, and he was taken, and his mother wasn't fully there for different reasons, right? She struggled with substance abuse and thought, oh, maybe she thinks Tony has run away and doesn't go to look for him because she thinks that she deserves this and none of that is what happens and as you said it's unjust because of what happens to tony in and of itself and we do see that some of the other kids care about him in bull vanguard right that there was a moment a sort of like sweet moment he almost had with a girl they tried to actually hide from the from the nurses when they were coming to take tony and didn't get away and it's

the dead fish and it being fed to the dogs and lyra's fury at it i think that what it is for me is not just like, oh, how painful for these characters that we've bonded with as it's being trying to be played out with Billy Costa's scene. It's that Tony Macario's mattered regardless of whether or not anyone cared about him. Right. And that the last thing in the world, as you said, his fish is taken from him is just one more injustice that has been done to him like as though you couldn't take anything else from him you would take that dignity and lyra does what she can to give him this last bit of it yeah and it's an important moment for lyra it it characterizes her in all of our eyes uh that's a big moment and you know at least scores be telling her hey I'm proud of you kid out here

doesn't have that same weight as what it would have to that moment and it's not entirely awful like the whole scene this doesn't ruin the episode no it's a bummer it's I wished for better it's still a scene

and it still gives us a lot to process and talk about and you know the whole funeral scene is beautiful it really is the It's still a scene and it still gives us a lot to process and talk about. And, you know, the whole funeral scene is beautiful. It really is. The set right there, out there, ways away from Bolvager, where these Egyptians have gathered, is very pretty. We see Hester and Sophonax in the same shot, which is a blessing. First off, to see my favorite things in the world together. It actually was a cool shot because it shows them and it shows them very sad and in mourning.

We see Hester and Sophonax in that same shot, these adult demons grieving for what has happened to this boy and his demon. And then it pans, no pun intended, over to Pan. And he's so small. He's in his airmind form and he's small and he's white and just innocent, just pure innocence. And I think this would be a great

place for me to talk about songs of innocence and experience by william blake and the title of the episode the lost boy kind of this idea of innocence and innocence lost and you see these adult demons that they know of this horror and you watch them and then that slow move over to pan who's never seen this and who's just horrified, right? And guessing that's what was being conveyed as far as you can convey on a CGI Irvine's face. But I'm just saying, I'm guessing. William Blake is a huge influence on Philip Pullman. And you may recall if you've listened to our previous episodes that episode three of northern lights

seven to nine and episode four chapters 10 through 12 we brought up songs of innocence and experience by william blake songs of innocence was a lyrical slash poetic book released in 1789 published individually four times before it was combined with the Songs of Experience. 12 editions were created. Joint Songs of Innocence and of Experience was finally created in 1794. Each book has a more specific theme. Songs of Experience is a little older, has more tales about adults in it, and it's a little more experienced. It's all in the name.

And Songs of Innocence is very much so innocence it's about childish candor and religion and uh very just stuff about kids and god and it all seems just very light-hearted poetry however there are a couple poems in particular i want to bring up here that also have a mirror of themselves uh the two poems i want to talk about that go along with the title of this episode and a lot of the themes that we're seeing with Billy Costa and also even with Will are called Little Boy Lost and Little Boy Found. In The Little Boy Lost, the poem is, Father, father, where are you going? Oh, do not walk so fast.

Speak, father, speak to your little boy or else I shall be lost. The night was dark. No father be lost. The night was dark, no father was there, the child was wet with dew. The mire was deep, and the child did weep, and away the vapor flew. So that was Little Boy Lost, and Little Boy Found is. The little boy lost in the lonely fen, led by the wandering light, began to cry but God ever nigh appeared like his father in white. He kissed the child and by the hand led, and to his mother brought, who in sorrow pale through the lonely dale her weeping little boy sought. So the first poem, Little Boy Lost, is about a boy lost in the woods following his father, which has a dual emphasis here, to also mean God, following God,

but by the end the little boy is wandering around covered in mud, or a closer translation, in sin, or dust, and his father has turned into vapor and misted away. It speaks about the innocence, lost, and as an adult once you stray from his quote-unquote path, you're lost because you're covered in this sin, or dust. The second poem, Little Boy Found, the little boy is led home by God's light to his mother after originally straying from his path. The oblation board would probably frame this in propaganda as what intercision is or does. It saves you and cleans you of your sin and then leads you back to him. But here, as Billy Costas laid to rest, we know what truly

actually happened to this boy. He was mutilated by the church to take what little power he had away. These two poems are absolutely framing what happens to Billy Macario's Costa in this scene from beginning to finish his show arc. And interestingly enough enough they are framed against a whole entire other view when you look at in the songs of experience there are two poems little girl lost and little girl found we won't go into detail today about it but it does kind of signify this whole idea of two worlds right yeah and i i absolutely am so glad that you brought these back up and i think that tying it into these moments and these scenes is really sharp and it's what's going on here and i think it's what's up so we come back to our world yeah we're back in

will's home and elaine is not sleeping still and lights are shining in will's window i think the best part about all of this this fast and hard ending that's coming, is that it turns into this horror so quickly. The red light and the bright light shining into the Perry's house is that perfect cushion to what happens over the next two scenes when it comes to Bullvanger. We've grieved already for Billy, and the show catapults us into paranoia, tension, and anxiety, and then the Tartars attack. We just talked about William Blake, I know, but i did want to come back as well that in that meta sense of how this is framed especially flipping to will's world with the title of the episode as the lost boy it's not only referring to billy cost and his demise but also to another boy who's lost will perry who's searching for his father deep down murdering even maybe we'll see and straying from his lol magisterium

his path covered in mud or sin or dust whatever you want to call it and i feel like this is really showing us the two worlds really well and i think it's actually represented a little bit here with this title i like that they stayed true to some of these chapter titles. Yeah, and I think it was a smart choice to juxtapose that title as not just being about Billy Costa slash Tony Macarius, but also being about Will. And it also proves that theory that I came up with in episode three and four. I'm just putting that out there. That it was about them. That those poems are literally about them. Oh, so I'm right.

You're telling me I'm right. Good. Good. Thanks for time traveling, Philip Pull pullman yeah thanks jack thorn along with all that i want to circle back to lowe's essay on fico uh when they talk about the panopticon and surveillance within the structure of the Magisterium. The Panopticon is... The idea of the Panopticon is actually a prison originally designed by a philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, and Foucault uses it to discuss what he calls as the surveillance state within society.

And the Panopticon is basically it's a jail a prison in which the prisoners are always being looked at imagine it's all glass and it comes from the term the name panoptos who was a giant in greek mythology who had like a thousand eyes or something a hundred eyes something like that so side note if you ever see me in person ask me about my thoughts on the panopticon and how it functions in aswath regarding the master of whispers with varies especially in the first book and especially with blood raven whose name is literally a thousand eyes and one i'm not going to write it as an essay but you know maybe catch me drunk sometime ask me about my thoughts anyways

lo discusses the internalized behavior and rules of conduct and society of characters who fear that surveillance, living within the panopticon, that surveillance state. Lo gives a much better summarization of what the panopticon means, especially within society, and how it ties into the magisterium And people assuming that surveillance state, right? People are terrified of the Magisterium and being like, oh, this is heresy. We cannot do this thing. And I think it's interesting that, as Tana pointed out, there is so much glass in the Perry household in the way that the house looks. house looks. And effectively, what Boreal is doing with Thomas is creating an actual panopticon by watching every facet of the Perry's lives, looking at their finances. And they're not just creating

the sensation and fear of it. That does exist. They were kind of, I think, hoping that Elaine wouldn't notice. That usually works better for them in those cases um but they are creating even that like lived feeling of the surveillance state within the perry household elaine's the only one who's functioning under it and it's invasive because it's happening within the confines of our own home which should be a private space granted of course that is how the panopticon works it uh is permeating right and but you end up getting that blurring of those private and public spaces that we were referencing earlier that invasion of privacy and i think that invasion of privacy ties into the end of the episode with lyra right that feeling of vulnerability nakedness

and that's how elaine feels now in the confines of her own home there There, she's not safe. Lyra's body is scoured by these nurses, and it also ends up sowing distrust between mother and son, because Boreal in a way is sort of capitalizing on Elaine's mental illness. She becomes not only a person living within the panopticon, but a sort of Cassandra to her son, who's not believing that, oh yeah, no, people are actually here. It's actually fucking happening.

And of course, not all distress between child and parent is unwarranted, right? There are moments when it absolutely makes sense. And like the end of this book. Yes. Like the end of this book, like the middle of this book,

right? Actually the whole entire series. Yeah, a lot of it. But without having yet finished La Belle Sauvage, which, as you might remember, Chloe asked me about earlier today. And Lowe touches on the Foucauldian panopticon being an aspect in La Belle

Sauvage, and I kind of wonder, Boreal must have learned these ideas from someone who is effective with it, because while he's not doing it intentionally, maybe he is, maybe he isn't, he is very much breaking apart this important societal, this social bond between Will and Elaine here in the way that the League of St. Alexander did by recruiting children into being agents of their surveillance state. It destroys familial structures and that breaks down society in many ways.

And he's doing that to Will in the lane here. As things kind of go on after LaBelle, it gets ramped up. It's very much so that all seeing eye that kind of has happened that like snow globe, right? Like it's like they're living in a snow globe. Every move is watched. And that's what it it felt like lots of great shots to make you feel

that way as well uh and the other thing that it made me think of and you might realize this too we were just speaking about you know looking out of the corner of your eye to see your demon or her counting the planks and feeling the worlds almost as she does so um it kind of reminds me of bonneville gerard bonneville in lavelle sauvage and how i want to say it's during the farter quorum bit that we read spoiler alert if you have not read lavelle sauvage that there's a part where a character beloved quorum van trexel sees out of the corner of his eye the hyena demon and the man and they in throughout the book he kind of appears like that you don't see him but then all of a sudden someone will see him out of the corner of their eye and then he disappears so it almost feels like that

interestingly enough yeah and that's what's being done here and then we get that outer shot of the Egyptian camp we come back to that and it all turns to horror the demons were being done here. And then we get that outer shot of the Egyptian camp. We come back to that and it all turns to horror. The demons were well done here. Yeah. Were well done in this entire scene, including the little squirrel. Which is why Hester only appears in a frame and a half in this episode.

Had to pay for the wolves. Yeah. It's always like that, isn't it? You can only have one animal dragons or wolves pick it bitch the guards at the fire quietly have their throats slit by tartars and a guy who was about to go take a

whiz is out there you've seen him before with the little squirrel demon hanging out Egyptian and of course he goes to take a pee during all this so you know he's gonna die and they have a great shot where there's a wolf demon preying upon his squirrel demon slowly walking up behind it and then the tartar comes up and slits his throat and the demon goes poof sparkle very intense it's gone yeah pan hears a noise and he wakes lyra in the tent and she goes to investigate and is kidnapped

within a couple minutes very much so like Arya Stark getting the axe to the face in Game of Thrones A Song of Ice and Fire you just don't know if she's alive after this for a couple moments I actually thought they were going to end the episode here because they kind of did that when she was taken in episode but no they went all out they they take us to Bolvangar with Lyra, also brought there. She's extremely disoriented and the men and women are yelling around in Finnish around her. The language, Finnish.

And the lighting is very tunnel vision. Yeah, it's very, like, everything is just so disoriented. It's dark, it's light, it's, things are moving in and out of focus. She's dropped on the floor during this. It's so much like just straight up a video game cut scene um she's asked for her name finally she's being spoken

about and finished and she has no clue what's happening she's just sitting there laying there and she tells them her name is lizzie brooks the woman reaches for her demon very taboo to get him to change and pan does change that was the whole goal she wanted to find out how old lyra was and she says she's young enough yeah weird way to phrase that yep sends her with sister clara to be quote prepped for immediate treatment unquote yeah i like that they kept the detail of the doctor at first trying to speak to Lyra in Finnish couple languages until they're like, all right, let's try English. Sister Clara's actor, this is a complete side note, has this way of speaking that is just so interesting to me. Like the way she punctuates like some of some of her consonants, especially in what was at the end of episode two or so when she's telling the kids that they're going and she says like we're going to the best place ever or something like that and like the way she says it

is just like her lips are so pursed i i i don't know there's something that like really gets me like not in a bad way like it's so intriguing to me yeah she's great she's really well cast and i like that she actually gets a name right she's sister clara that's the way i like as a random side evil villain nurse character they named her it's a small detail to like but it just doesn't always happen for side female characters right so this is interesting she probably thinks she's doing good too you know not bad bless her separated soul slash heart i was very bummed about no poodle. I looked for the poodle. There was no blank poodle. Was it there in episode two?

No, she had some flying thing. Oh. I didn't draw about it then, but yeah, she had some flappity, butterfly-y thingy. Oh. Maybe it was a moth. It was something big,

and Pan actually mimics it when he turns into a butterfly again later. It's very interesting. Maybe someone else would have a poodle. Who knows? Who knows? There's a quote. She looks on the verge of change, don't you think? She's Category A.

Prep her for immediate treatment. Gross. Ugh. Yeah, Sister Clara tells Lyra to take everything off as they enter the other room, and then Lyra just strips down to nothing, naked in the unbarrack lights. They get her some clothes to wear, and Lyra and Pan are like, oh shit, they're not like that concerned about being naked. They're worried about the kinds of clothes that they're gonna put on, not because it's hideous, but because it's similar to Billy's jumpsuit. And they're like, oh oh this is it we're in bull vanguard not like that they said it way more scared than i did yeah i think they were a little

frightened maybe mostly frightened probably this is like an intensely sexual uncomfortable scene which is exactly what it should be and i again this was a all-out showstopper scene like they did awesome here this was i forgot about any sins i lived in the moment right uh she's being talked about like a slab of meat like a lamb being led to slaughter and we know lyra isn't really lamb like so to speak when we talk about this girl she's a little vivacious precocious but most of these children here at bullvanger are probably easily lulled into being lamb like and either gentle yeah they're docile they're a docile people most i mean there's a handful that are probably wild you know out there but most of them have been lulled into being docile either way and you think

about lyra being sexualized and she stands on her own during this while she's nude and she's more worried obviously about oh shit this is bull of anger not thinking anything of them sizing up her body in any sort of way but imagine some of the more passive kids here the things happening here we're not seeing i mean we'll talk about this in the next episode if it comes up but in the book some of the girls are talking about all sorts of tests being done to them to measure for all sorts of things and what happens behind those closed doors that even pullman did not explore yeah and low actually references a quote that i think ties into this well in the essay about foucault and sexuality mrs coulter throws back at the magisterium when they're trying to hold lyra and she says mrs

coulter says if you thought for one moment that i would release my daughter into the care the care of a body of men with a feverish obsession with sexuality, men with dirty fingernails, reeking of ancient sweat, men whose furtive imaginations would crawl over her body like cockroaches. If you thought I would expose my child to that, my lord president, you are more stupid than you take me for. Yep. So Lo has written some wonderful essays, as we've spoken about, but they also talk a lot about the Sami people. In the first essay we talked about, what was happening to these people, these marginalized people that were just, you know, just fucked with for, you know, the fun for these people that wanted to just, you know, use them for their power and get rid of them. And they're just not. It's evil, man. Like, it's just horrible. their power and uh get rid of them and they're just not it's evil man like it's just horrible i'm really bummed reading this series because i'm just like man it's real and it happens everywhere all the time not just like this not just in a fantasy world like why do we need animals talking

fucking animal souls to make this a conversation you know yeah god so there's this passage that lowe translated in their essay uh basically talking about sami people were it was claimed they were born with certain race characteristics that made them inferior to the rest of the population they could not live as civilized people in real houses if they did it was said they'd become lazy and neglect their reindeer and it would result in them having to become beggars because they didn't have real skills besides husbandry of the animals maybe if you gave them an actual education gave them access to resources and skills whatever sorry no they could just hang out with the reindeer all day reindeer are better than people i heard it on frozen it's actually true the swedish parliament decides in 1928 the Sami, who were not reindeer herders, would not have any rights.

For example, they were given no special right to hunt or fish. They were given no special right for hunting and fishing in the lands of their ancestors. And the state drew a boundary between them living on reindeer husbandry and those that supported themselves in other ways. The schooling was also affected by this. In 1913, a law came about a special nomad school. It stated teachers would wander the regions in the summer. The youngest school children would be taught in the family's cot for a few weeks each year in the first three school years. The rest of school time was winter courses only in regular schools for

three months for three years. The teaching would only cover few subjects and had to be at such a low level children were not civilized children of nomadic sami were not allowed to attend public schools damn yeah talk about like controlling knowledge as a means for keeping power and that's exactly what we're seeing in this story uh it's pulling a lot from it and low goes on to talk in their essay about how it wasn't just schooling and rights in general uh the ideas of eugenics and the way the swedish state sanctioned them is really prevalent in this and in 1922 the state's race biological institute was created in upsala in sweden we did talk about this very briefly a couple episodes ago by the scientist herman lundborg and scientists

is in quotes i think it's very important to say that he was researching the swedish race and mixing of races in several ways by looking at records of marriage, birth, supplied by church officials who had access to that, physical examinations of people. He and other people traveled around Sweden to examine the Sami and other groups that were considered inferior, like Roma, Jews, disabled people, Finns. The physical examination of Sami people happened in collaboration with churches or schools often, speaking of the Alexander League and league and of course of what's happening with the magisterium and another part of the movement worth mentioning is forced

sterilizations and there was a law that hindered the reproduction of the lower classes to increase birth rate among the better stock choosing your genes the sterilization program was between 1934 and 75 and sterilized over 60 000 people which in the u.s around uh similar years there's a lot of lobotomy that went on that we talked about in some of our previous episodes that was also over 60 000 people so this is something that just recently was still happening um this isn't just like well back in the 1800s this is the 1900s this is feels like yesterday you might have been alive depending on how old you are dear listener horrific absolutely this is just one place that's relevant obviously to the story a lot of this essay that low has written check check it out. It's amazing. It talks

about more and more of how this lines up some of the racism seen in different places in this area. And it's not just here. I mean, this is just relevant to this story. It's everywhere. Lo ties it back in. So there's two essays, right, that Lo has penned. One focuses on the Sami people and the history of racism within Scandinavian countries. And the second one that's a follow up and ties heavily into it and brings a lot of these elements in is about that exploration of Foucauldian power structures within his dark materials and low ties it in at the end with talking about serialization controlling of sexuality as as a means of controlling you know life who gets to live what kind of people get to live who gets to be considered a people and not right and what gives these people more rights to do that yeah so that's that's i think a discourse in the books and it's actually something that i've been thinking about lately i Mrs. Coulter is given so much more depth and characterization, I think, that the reader sees. And we're seeing it also, of course, in this first season.

And I still don't warm up to Asriel. And I think part of it has to do with seeing what he does to Roger. But I understand, as I think about it more, why Asriel is so characterized in many ways as heroic. Because if you think about it, Mrs. Coulter, the people that she's targeting are Egyptians, are the lower class. And as have been pointed out by many people, the Egyptians are made up of a lot of different races. A lot of the children that are taken to Bolvangar are children of color, are minorities, especially drawing on this history of the Sami people. And it stands in contrast, like what she's doing is oppressing all of these people, what, so that she, only she, right, gets some power within this horrible corrupt system. Whereas Lord Asriel does this

horrible thing to Roger in the pursuit of maybe knowledge, revolution, right, seizing other means of power. But the thing is, we only hear about some of his better acts, his better nature, and we see that the Egyptians hold him in high regard because what he did was he fought for their rights. He fought for the laws to be changed so that the Egyptians could have some freedom of movement. Freedom of movement is actually a very big thing when it comes to the rights that people have. that's absolutely a tool of oppression in a lot of conflict areas and things like that. So that Lord Asriel fought for that in contrast to what Mrs. Coulter does is I think a way that Philip Pullman is playing with our interpretations of good and bad and how people feel about certain characters. Lots to think about. And unfortunately, going forward, it's just going to get crazier. Lots to think about. And unfortunately, going forward, it's just going to get crazier.

I'm excited for this ride. I'm excited to be going through this and seeing the story come to life. And I mean, even if we don't like some of the choices, the actors are nailing it. Absolutely. The emotion is there. Yeah. I love Serafina. She was great. I don't necessarily love the writing, as we discussed in full, but I did love her.

It did showcase her well. And I think going forward, I can't wait to see her interact with Lyra. I'm holding out for that. That's what I want. Can't wait till Bullvanger's over for that reason. I am excited going forward to see next week her relationship with some of the other girls at Bolvanger. Yeah, same. I'm really excited about that.

And it seems like they're going to give some characterization, right, to even some of the people working there. So I think it'll be a really interesting interrogation into how people become complicit in evil acts. Well, guys, thanks so much for tuning in this week. I know we got really heavy at the end. We got heavy from the start of this episode. Yeah, but I mean, the jokes really ended. They ended as we talked about, you know, genocide and, you know, all the fun, happy stuff. So next week, I can't promise we're gonna bring much more

happiness however hopefully we do uh if you want to see more happiness for uh before season one episode six you can always check out our twitter sometimes i post really fun memes or pictures there especially of sophanax especially if Eliana's not paying attention. That account is at girlsgonecanon, C-A-N-O-N. And if you want to send an email to us and let us know what you thought about the episode, our episode, or the show this week, or last week, or

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in October we did an episode on the Golden Compass movie make sure to check us out on Patreon. Patreon.com slash Girls Gone Canon. In October, we did an episode on the Golden Compass movie where we analyzed it, talked about the script, talked about why it was what it was. You can check that out. $5 and up patrons at our Patreon. This month, we did put on an episode for our Song of Ice and Fire fans on House Valerian. But next month, we do plan on coming back with some His Dark

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And thanks everyone for tuning in. See y'all next week. i've been one of your hosts eliana and i have been one of your other hosts chloe thanks guys thank you