Tuesday, November 24, 2020

What I’m Watching: His Dark Materials

His Dark Materials: Season 2, Episode 2 “The Cave” (B+)

All of the antics surrounding the magisterium are considerably more intense and a bit less engaging than everything else that’s going on, but it’s clear that the worlds are going to continue to collide, especially considering the destructive drive that the cardinals have to see their will exacted upon all worlds. Mrs. Coulter is doing a good job of remaining calm and determined, fiercely protective of Lyra even though her aims for her daughter aren’t necessarily any nicer. It’s strange to see Lyra out in a world where Will uses a smartphone and her Oxford looks different, a place that she seems to do well in even if she doesn’t understand the way that things work at all. Mary was pretty startled to see how Lyra operated and what she was able to achieve with her mind, and, as long as she doesn’t get killed by someone from the other world, she will end up being a good ally for Lyra and Will. It wasn’t a surprise that Will didn’t take being called the “good type of murder” very well, and his visits on behalf of his mother were also met with doubt and suspicion. I know they did fine meeting up and Lyra has chosen to trust Will completely, but it would make me feel a lot better if she had a smartphone too so that they could be sure to keep in contact. After all, this is the same show where kids used to get “gobbled up,” and it’s likely they could have been more easily located had they just been able to drop a pin. It’s an interesting choice to make this story set in the modern day since cell phones definitely were not in popular use when the books were first published in the late 1990s.

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