His Dark Materials season 1 episode 5 review: Where is Ratter?
Get your box of tissues ready for this week’s His Dark Materials, as Lyra finally brings home Billy Costa — but something is very, very wrong.
Last week’s episode of His Dark Materials introduced us to fan favorites Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison as Lyra and the Gyptians headed north to Bolvanger to rescue the stolen children.
This week’s episode begins as Kaisa flies through the air over a beautiful mountainside landscape, while Lyra and the Gyptians travel to the North, recalling similar lovely imagery in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first installment in The Lord of the Rings.
The bird helpfully recaps and reminds us of the whole prophecy that is centered on Lyra, which honestly, even after reading the books multiple times, I couldn’t explain to you if I tried. But Kaisa will.
Cut to another person walking, but in a different world — our world — with his reflection perfectly mirrored on the water beneath him. (Get it yet? There are multiple worlds!)
Kaisa explains that the prophecy also includes a boy whose fate is intertwined with Lyra’s. As it turns out, the boy is the same one Boreal asked his men to check into in our world: Will Parry, the son of John Parry (or Stan Grumann).
To be clear, this is a huge departure from the books. Not anything that actually happens with Will or his storyline, but just introducing him this early. I’m sure people who are book purists (in general and with His Dark Materials) did not like this choice.
But in this case, it makes sense to introduce Will’s character early. HIs Dark Materials is a hugely complex world, and nothing is isolated. Rather than leaving second-book stuff for the second season, it makes sense to weave in the interrelated pieces as they occur.
Also, the clues to Will’s introduction have been here from the beginning. Just watch the title sequence. (Shoutout to my sister for picking up on this!) If you look closely at when Lyra is going up the staircase (after the hot air balloon but before the airship), someone is also climbing the stairs upside down and opposite her, but it isn’t Lyra — it’s Will. Intertwined fates, y’all.
Lord Faa tells Lyra to ask the alethioemter how Bolvanger is defended, and she tells him it’s surrounded by Tartars. She also sees that there’s a nearby town haunted by some kind of spirit and believes it’s connected to them. She thinks they need to go, but Farder Coram won’t let her.
She tells Ma Costa that Farder Coram won’t let her go. Ma Costa is wary, but Lyra asks her to trust the alethiometer.
Lyra and the Gyptians are charming as hell, and Dafne Keen has grown on me immensely. I never thought she was a bad actor, but that maybe Lyra seemed a bit stilted. Her character is supposed to be an almost pathological liar while also being incredibly brave, smart, and adventurous. As Lyra goes further into her adventures, we’re now getting to see more of these depths, and thus, more of Keen’s depths, too.
Back in our world, Boreal and his man are still watching the Parry house. Will’s mother leaves the house, so Boreal walks up, introducing himself as Charles Latrom, an old friend of John’s. She says John died 13 years ago on a lost expedition in Alaska. Boreal expresses his condolences and slips her his number, charming and slimy as ever.
Of course, this freaks Elaine out, and she goes to Will’s school where he’s in the middle of wrestling practice. The other kid calls her mental and Will knocks him down. (You all will soon learn why Will is the absolute best and had to be introduced early.)
Outside, Elaine tells Will someone was following her and came to the house asking about his father. Will nods like this is something he’s heard many times. She begins to count the bricks outside, clearly distressed. Will grabs her by the shoulders and tells her to stay right there while he runs back in for his stuff.
Will’s coach asks her how she is, and Will promises everything is fine. In a heartbreaking scene, the teacher tries to cut through everything and suss out what their home life is really like, how much of an adult Will is having to be, and if either of them are in danger. But Will insists everything is fine, so the teacher lets it go.
That night, Farder Coram walks to the outskirts of the camp to meet with Serafina Pekkala. (As a reminder, it’s been years since these lovers last saw each other after losing the child they had together.)
“You aren’t so old I can’t see the man inside,” she says, and Farder Coram tries to stay strong and brush off the compliment from the eerily beautiful witch with branchlike scars crossing her shoulders. He gives a passionate plea for her help, while also doing the classic, “I didn’t mean to call you, but I had to” thing.
Serafina tells him they are headed in the right direction and that Kaisa will guide them, also adding that Asriel is right to search for multiple worlds, saying something ooey-gooey like witches can feel the worlds but not see them, and there’s a lot of extra energy there right now that could make anything possible.
“Anything?” Coram asks, and Serafina quickly has to remind him that she can’t bring back their son. With tears in his eyes, Coram tells her that there has never been a moment he hasn’t thought of her and their child.
She kisses him goodbye, promising to confer with the witches, and falls into the air flying away. James Cosmo must have trained at that one British acting school where they can produce instant tears in their eyes that make instant tears in your eyes…
The next morning, Lyra persuades John Faa (“Lord Faa when she wants something”) to let her go to the nearby fishing village and asks Iorek to take her, following up on what she’d seen in the alethiometer.
Lee comes to bid them farewell, asking, “You’re going to chase a ghost. Is that sensible?” Iorek growls back, “I’ve never heard Lee Scoresby talk about anything sensible.” Once again, as these two grow closer to Lyra, it becomes clearer why they’re such fan favorites.
Lyra rides on Iorek (he is not a horse) across the snow recreating the cover of the first book. They take a break to eat, and Lyra snuggles into Iorek. They have a conversation about Svalbard bears that will come into play later, but the most important part of it is when Iorek says you cannot trick a bear.
Meanwhile, Will makes dinner for him and his mother. She tells Will he’s just like his father, that Will is going to take up his father’s battles. Will has never known his father, who died when he was just a baby, and has had to do without him his whole life. But hearing about him, especially as someone with a mission, is something that must be so special. So when Elaine abruptly stops because she notices the rug has been moved, it’s doubly upsetting.
Will asks if she’s been taking her meds, but Elaine ignores him, telling him that someone’s been in the house. She goes to check a wardrobe, pulling up a small cupboard under the sewing machine inside and finds that a folder is still there of John Parry’s letters.
Will is taken aback. In all this time, he never knew about the letters. While Elaine knows he’s destined to follow in John’s footsteps, she also wants to spare her child a little longer, and tells him he’s not ready yet. Later, Will looks at the sewing machine, and his mom tells him he can read them, but he declines.
Lyra and Iorek arrive at the village late at night. It’s empty and clearly something is wrong. Pan keeps whimpering. “Pan, you’re making me nervous,” Lyra whispers. “Don’t let Iorek see me nervous.”
Lyra follows her instincts into a hut full of hanging dried fish and finds poor Billy Costa there — without his dæmon. It’s the unthinkable.
Billy is still alive, but without his dæmon — his soul — what is left? Lyra, tears in her eyes, tells him everything is okay and that his Ma is waiting for him. She and Iorek rush him back to the campsite where the Gyptians are soon horrified to see that Billy has returned without his beloved Ratter.
Ma Costa and Tony take Billy somewhere private and Lyra tries to follow to help, but Lee pulls her aside, telling her that as much as they love her, they need to be alone. He hugs her around the shoulders, telling her that she was brave and did the right thing to follow her instincts.
“I’m proud of you, kid,” Lee says, and it’s a sweet moment in an episode full of heartbreak and melancholy. (Also, a reminder of the trauma that Lyra, who’s only 11, is going through at such a young age…)
Poor Billy Costa won’t wake up and he won’t be like he ever was before. Doing only what a mother can, Ma Costa sings him a lullaby and tells him it’s okay for him to go to Ratter, letting her baby son go. It’s an absolutely gut-wrenching scene to watch, and Anne-Marie Duff plays it beautifully. (She must have gone to that same acting school as James Cosmo.) While His Dark Materials is ostensibly a children’s book series, the subject matter is incredibly dark and should be treated with the according care and respect.
(Sidebar: The handling of Billy is also a slight departure from the books, but isn’t so big that it’s Earth shattering.)
Lee wakes up Lyra to tell her that Billy has died. She goes outside where Ma Costa and the Gyptians have built a funeral pyre for her boy. Lyra takes one last look at Billy and hugs Ma Costa and Lord Faa says their duty is clearer than ever. Ma lights the pyre and Lyra stands with Lee as the Gyptians sing.
Pan wakes Lyra up later that night due to some sort of intrusion in the camp. Rather than waking up her tent mate, Lee, Lyra goes outside herself to check things out and gets kidnapped and taken straight to Bolvanger.
They assess that she’s “right on the verge” of puberty and want her to be prepped immediately. A nun takes her into a separate room and tells her to undress. As they ask her who she is and how she came to be in the North, Lyra brilliantly lies through her teeth.
They make her strip down completely and put on a creepy green spacesuit like the one Billy was wearing. We’re in the thunderdome now with three episodes to go…
Next. His Dark Materials season 1 episode 4 review: Meet Lee Scoresby!. dark