'His Dark Materials' Episode 2 review: Lyra finds herself in a golden prison and learns Mrs Coulter is behind the kidnappings
Spoilers ahead for 'His Dark Materials' Episode 2
Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen) had lived a near-feral existence in Jordon College, Oxford. So in episode 2 of 'His Dark Materials', she revels in Mrs Coulter's (Ruth Wilson) gorgeous penthouse, goes mad with excitement about her visit to the "Arctic Society" of explorers and sits up straighter when Mrs Coulter tells her she will teach her to "wield power".
As an orphan, ignored by Lord Asriel and mostly left to her own devices by the Oxford scholars, she had had all the freedom and no parental guidance or control. So when Mrs Coulter is kind and tells her she is "extraordinary", Lyra is enchanted by her and submits to her instruction even though Mrs Coulter yanks her by the hair when she lies. She has nothing to compare this "mothering" to.
At first, she doesn't see Mrs Coulter turning the key in the elevator door lock, or wonder why Mrs Coulter is so insistent that she stop worrying about her friend Roger Parslow (Lewin Lloyd) and just "trust her" to find the "Gobblers".
But as she pads around the apartment, 'His Dark Materials' becomes a bit of a gothic horror story as Lyra, to her increasing dismay, realizes she is in a golden prison with no way out and is entirely at Mrs Coulter's mercy. Roger is also being held as a prisoner in a less luxurious basement cell in the same building as Lyra, along with Billy Costa and a bunch of other kidnapped children. But neither Roger nor Billy know this and neither does Lyra.
One night, awakened by a restless Pan, Lyra discovers something peculiar. Unlike other daemons, Mrs Coulter's daemon strays far from her without causing Mrs Coulter any distress. Later, she understands that Mrs Coulter has been sending her daemon to spy on her and Pan. Both she and Pan wonder, "What is she?" Lyra sneaks into Mrs Coulter's study and finds papers for the "General Oblation Board" and plans for "The Station" in the North, which includes diagrams of a cutting machine with trapped children and their daemons. As Lyra grows increasingly suspicious of Mrs Coulter, her defiance grows.
Soon she earns Mrs Coulter's rage that simmers barely below the surface. In a disturbing scene, Mrs Coulter's daemon traps Lyra's daemon, Pan, in a vice-like grip when Lyra is caught trying to eavesdrop on a conversation between her and a Magisterium official. Since this official, sent by the Cardinal, is telling Mrs Coulter that her pet project, the "General Oblation Board" aka "the GOBlers", is attracting too much attention, Mrs Coulter is incensed at what Lyra might have heard.
In their confrontation, Mrs Coulter is so angry when Lyra takes Lord Asriel's (James McAvoy) name as someone who will "rescue her", she inadvertently lets slip that Lord Asriel is her father who had abandoned her in Oxford. Disillusioned, alone and scared, Lyra is now forced to grow up and adopt a smiling grimace, formal dresses and a biddable "seen not heard" demeanor after this fight. She manages to make the alethiometer work but doesn't realize it because she is so distressed.
At a party in Mrs Coulter's flat, a journalist, who has sneaked in, tells her that the GOBlers are doing Mrs Coulter's bidding. Its the proverbial last straw and Lyra is shaken out of her apathy and she escapes through an open window with the alethiometer. As she and Pan huddle in a doorway, after running away, Pan suddenly scoots away from her toward a fox daemon. It is the same daemon that had entranced Billy Costa's daemon. Seconds later Lyra is captured by the GOBler agent who had kidnapped Billy and Roger in Episode 1. In the meantime, we see Roger, Billy and the other children being shipped off to "The Station" in the North after being visited by Mrs Coulter, who identifies Roger through the letter he writes to Lyra.
The Gyptians, who are now in London, manage to track a GOBler hideout, but it has been abandoned in a hurry. But when they find Billy's sweater there, they know they are on the right track. Meanwhile Boreal, a Magisterium official slips through a sliver-like distortion in Oxford to step into modern 21st century London in our world and timeline, complete with smartphones.
Turns out Boreal has been doing this for a while and has enlisted the services of a spy in our world. He asks him to find a man with an osprey daemon, the same man who had ventured North before Asriel did. But this crossing of worlds is something that Boreal does in secret and all his furtive measures show that the Magesterium is unaware of his multiverse jaunts.
For an episode with so much intrigue, it plays out a lot more slowly than you expect and even drags at times. Compared to Episode 1, the second instalment is far more expositionary and most of it is devoted to the relationship between daemons and their humans.
Ruth Wilson looks like she is enjoying playing Mrs Coulter but comes across as a little too Madame Cruella with her little hums and tics. Dafne Keen plays the uneasy Lyra just right, feigning friendliness and privately nursing her dread. The other characters like Boreal and the Gyptians have too little screen time in the one-hour episode but their parallel stories are set in motion that we will see expand in the upcoming episodes. But, compared to the heart-warming premiere, episode 2 is a little too dialogue-heavy and light on action.
'His Dark Materials' airs weekly, every Monday, at 9 p.m. on HBO.