His Dark Materials Review: Æsahættr (Season 2 Episode 7)

While some things may end far sooner than hoped, His Dark Materials Season 2 Episode 7, “Æsahættr,” also gives us those moments we have been waiting for for two seasons now.

That moment comes with Will finally meeting his father, John. Amir Wilson and Andrew Scott are fantastic here, where their characters are incredulous about finding out certain things about each other while the frustration and regret paint the entire conversation.

There’s a lot riding on this scene, not only for pushing the plot forward with Will now to seek out Asriel, but to condense Will’s anger when there’s not much time for them to talk. It works, fortunately, and for how brief it is, there’s just enough for Will to realize his power (in terms of bravery) for it to become a fleeting moment between father and son.

It’s over too fast, but it helps give Will the push to take matters into his own hands, the thing he’s needed all along.

Lyra, meanwhile, doesn’t get to do a whole lot on the episode other than wait. But we do get a touching, heartfelt moment with Pan and Will, where Pan becomes a way for Will and Lyra to share their feelings privately about how close they have become. It’s a friendship where both are on guard, but definitely care deeply for one another.

Lee’s death is one of the most affecting moments His Dark Materials has gone for. It’s been emotional to lose Roger during the first season and to see good suffer to get to this point, but there’s something in Lee’s good nature and kindness, along with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s charming and heartfelt performance, that makes his passing even harder.

Even as he knows this is likely the end, he fights for Lyra and the thought of her continuing the fight for freedom. It’s a tough scene, but it’s also one of the show’s strongest, showing how love and the good in people burn on through the darkness of the Magisterium.

One plot point that doesn’t sit so well is Mrs. Coulter effectively having plot armor, where nothing can touch her. The witch she encounters looking to help her evacuate the specter-infested city looks like she’s about to take out one of her blades, but even as her daemon is threatened with specters, she never decides to fight back.

It’s easy to forgive a lapse here and there when danger is concerned, but it’s been happening a little too often across the board, and not only for Mrs. Coulter. It can be hard to place characters in danger every episode, but there needs to be some struggle, rather than simple submission.

A good balance could work to the show’s favor, where a threat has more meaning beyond the finale (where death is more likely an outcome).

But for that, there’s scenes like Marissa’s daemon starting to struggle to go along with her, which is a deeply fascinating moment. The flinches and fear her daemon has of her is such a gruelling thing to realize, that one’s daemon can essentially be afraid of what its connector is capable of.

Marissa may coax her daemon to go along for now, but that hesitation says a lot about their relationship that has only been hinted at through bouts of anger and violence. Her daemon is usually the one to do her dirty work, even killing the witch by handing over her daemon, and so perhaps the toll is starting to become too much.

Now that Lyra is in her possession, creepily placed in a trunk like an actual possession, maybe there will be more chances for hesitation and the start of a conscience. Having a character go through the questioning of their morals but through a physical version of themselves could be great storytelling for the show to go down, if it does go down that route.

But the reaction Mrs. Coulter has to the reveal of Lyra being Eve, or a second version of Eve, makes her even more dangerous. She only knows how to use her anger and to destroy, so holding onto Lyra like a weapon makes her the most fearful character, even if she’s less equipped for war than the Magisterium.

So what does Lyra being Eve mean, exactly? So far it means she is the catalyst to striking down the Authority and bringing peace, but with an Eve, there most likely must be an Adam. Is that Will, or is that too obvious? With the way Asriel calls on the angels at the very end of the episode, perhaps father and daughter are the pair that will do this.

But there’s still this feeling that despite all of the good Asriel is fighting for, he’s laying waste to everything along the way. It leaves his character in a grey area, which is probably the best place for James McAvoy to play in to keep Asriel complex and difficult to fully understand until closer to the end.

Now that he’s back in the picture (though there could have been a full Asriel episode if not for the pandemic), his complexities can start to find some meaning and purpose, especially as Will is now tasked with finding him.

The show also continues to look and sound fantastic, with the jungle set and slippery specter design really selling the locales and fantasy elements, but the moment that catches my eye the most is the bat-like creatures called cliffghasts, which are some of the more fantastical creatures the show has shown so far.

Something about that dark, dingy cave system being full of them, conspiring about the war and arguing among themselves, is a creepy moment that makes me wish more of this would come along from time to time. The sounds they make, echoing through the walls, is some of the show’s best soundscape yet.

For this season, as a whole it’s a great continuation of what the first brought forward, but there’s this sense that it’s holding back, all the same. The finale here makes up for a lot of that, but there’s still this feeling of missed potential, where Will and John only share a single scene together before he’s taken away, and Lee dies alone before reconnecting with anyone else.

That’s likely for effect, taking good away so all seems darkest going toward the final season. But still, it leaves this feeling like we’re on the cusp of a great reunion, or a time for things to start moving much faster, only for things to abruptly close. It’s somewhat anticlimactic, in a way.

It’s something mentioned on the previous review, but still, it’s a very solid season of His Dark Materials, and a good finale. The sense of despair is felt throughout, as though the walls are closing in, and that’s the kind of feeling you want in a middle act.

Hope isn’t lost, but it’s in short supply, and His Dark Materials uses that to cut back its worlds and show how humanity fights for its freedoms.

Some stray thoughts on the episode:

• Speaking of anticlimactic, Mary does end up bringing Angelica and Paola back to their families, and then follows a path off into the jungle. The show does like to take its time, but on a finale, there doesn’t seem to be a lot for some characters to do.

 

What did you think of this episode of His Dark Materials? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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His Dark Materials airs Mondays at 9/8c on HBO.

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