Lyra continues her education at the hands of Madam Coulter, with some unpleasant surprises in store.

I really struggled with the first episode of His Dark Materials, which seemed almost obtusely crafted to confound anyone who wasn’t an avid reader of the novels which form its source material. Episode 2 improves a little, in that certain elements of it decide to start explaining themselves, but it’s still a little bit hard for the non-initiated to swallow.

Most of the episode revolves around Lyra’s new life in Madam Coulter’s apartments, being appropriately educated and dressed, but not able to keep herself out of trouble. Lyra’s naturally rebellious nature and curious streak end up bringing her into an open conflict with her new mistress, which leads to unpleasant revelations for her on several levels. To be fair to both Dafne Keen and Ruth Wilson, they play the scenes for all they’re worth, but it was rather crushingly obvious thanks to the script that Coulter would turn out not all that the idealistic young Lyra imagined her to be.

We also get some further explanation as to who and what Gobblers are, or at least we find out who they are and get an inkling of what they might be attempting to do, though no real idea as to why. I am starting to understand already why the books are deemed to be so very anti-Christian (and anti-Catholic in particular) and regardless of what the makers of the show might say, it’s difficult to find many alternative takes on the narrative the show is playing with here.

Speaking of which, we get much more from the Magisterium side of things here, including flashes of just how ruthless they can be in guarding their secrets, and the fact that the very heresy they seek to repress is not only something they know to be true but also something they are well-aware of and make use of themselves. I suspect I am starting to see where most of this is going, narratively, though I confess I’m struggling to see the point beyond it being a polemic against organised religion by the author. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself – genre is there to allow exploration of the ideas and feelings of authors and audiences after all. But it helps if those ideas and feelings are used to shape a narrative which feels like it has a point beyond them, otherwise it just starts to feel self-indulgent.

Verdict: A curious beast to be sure, equal parts committed performances and stunning visuals married to odd narrative. Still not fully sold. 6/10

Greg D. Smith