Lyra sneaks back to Oxford without Will but quickly finds herself in all sorts of trouble. Lee Scoresby’s continued search for Doctor Grumman leads him into troubles of his own. Dr Malone continues to worry away at the puzzle of the Dark Matter computer.

As soon as Lyra elects to sneak off into Oxford on her own before Will wakes at the very beginning of the episode, you just know it’s going to be a bad idea. As clever and resourceful as she might be, Lyra’s main weakness is overconfidence, exposed here brilliantly in an exchange with a ‘policeman’ where she seems to have the upper hand right up until the moment she doesn’t, and then it all rather falls apart.

Back in Cittagazze, Will finds himself wandering the streets alone, having no clue where Lyra has got to. An encounter with the young girl Angelica is unnerving for a number of different reasons, not least her apparently staring at a mysterious figure in the city’s central tower who she claims isn’t there. The way Angelica and her friends always turn up at random moments and the crafty looks they always seem to be giving make me think they have a greater role to play, and that they shouldn’t be trusted.

Meanwhile Lee Scoresby is drawn to an outpost town in his continued search for Doctor Grumman, and what appears to be a promising lead turns into something else altogether as he finds himself at the mercy of the Magisterium. By coincidence, Mrs Coulter also happens to have stopped at the same town and their meeting is easily the standout scene of the entire episode: the tension between them, the hidden depths which both reveal. Under all that bravado is a stronger man than we could have initially guessed, and beneath that cruel certainty of Mrs Coulter lies…well, something hitherto unexpected for sure. I’m not sure I’d go quite so far as vulnerability but certainly there is more to this woman than meets the eye.

Back in Oxford, Lyra learns once again the cost of trusting too easily, losing the one thing she cannot afford to lose, especially at this stage. It isn’t until she goes to confront the thief that she realises finally she’s met them before. And it turns out they have an agenda all their own. Across town, Dr Malone, driven by the curiosity inspired by Lyra’s manipulation of the Dark Matter, is desperately trying to recreate that progress, and she may be getting closer than she realises.

Verdict: Honestly, most of the main plot stuff feels a little mechanical and by the numbers (especially when a literal fetch quest pops up) but that one scene between Scoresby and Coulter makes this episode. 8/10

Greg D. Smith