His Dark Materials – Malice Review

The second season of His Dark Materials has reached its penultimate episode with its main characters coalescing in Cittàgazze.

The forces for and against freedom continue to make movements for the upcoming war with the Angels making their first appearance since the last war. The Witches have arrived in Cittàgazze and save Lyra and Will from the children of the city, but Will’s injury was more severe than first through. Lee Scoresby and Stanislaus Grumman arrive in the world to find the Knife Bearer. Mary explores the city to find out where she needs to go next.

Mrs. Coulter and Lord Boreal also arrive in Cittàgazze and Mrs. Coulter discovers she has an amazing power. Back in Lyra’s World Father MacPhail sends Magisterium soldiers into the other world.

The previous three episodes, “Theft,” “The Tower of the Angels” and “The Scholar” were some of the strongest episodes the series had to offer. Sadly “Malice” felt more like padding. The series had been able to translate great moments from the book like how Will got the knife, altered events like Lyra facing Mrs. Coulter in Sir Charles Latrom’s house, and allowed for world-building. The major changes that were made for the second season were used for character development. It is now pointless to complain about changes from the books because the TV series is its own beast.

My fear for the second season was it was going to be stretched because The Subtle Knife was only 341 pages long. The worst example of this in the episode was Mary’s part of the story. She wondered around Cittàgazze not sure where she was meant to go and met Angelica and Paola. Paola asking Mary for a hug was tender and it was a wonderful image seeing an angel hovering over Mary, but her part of the episode didn’t add anything to the story.

Will and Lyra’s part of the episode was also lacking. They go back over old territory with Will asking Lyra to help him find his father. They simply wander around the countryside with the Witches where the most exciting event was when a witch got attacked by a Spectre. The importance of this part of the episode was to allow Will and Lyra to bond a bit more, have a heart-to-heart about their childhoods and Lyra stating that Alethiometer was a part of her. Serafina Pekkala tells Will that even though Lyra is protecting him, he needs to protect her as well.

In the episode, Will was meant to be sick and weak because of his wound. The make-up team did a decent job showing his wound being infected and he was shown having a fever dream, but he seemed fine during most of the episode. There was no sense of blood loss or weakness that inflicted Will in the novel. The episode also marks the first time Lyra and Serafina met in the series so Lyra had to quickly establish what the girl knew about Witches and state Serafina was someone they could trust. In the novels, Lyra and Serafina had already met and it made a lot more sense in the context of the story.

The highlight of the episode was when Mrs. Coulter discovered she could control the Spectres. She re-joins the dark side due to her new ability. It was a striking image to show the Spectres gather around Mrs. Coulter and not attack her. Her deceitful nature was also on display due to her interactions with Lord Boreal. After the progress she made in the season Mrs. Coulter has taken a huge step back due to Lyra’s rejection. However, the explanation Mrs. Coulter gave for why she could control the Spectres made her sound like a high-level Scientologist.

Scoresby and Grumman supplied the action highlight of the episode which came at the end when they get chased by the Magisterium send airships into the other world. Grumman got to show off his mystical powers as the pair avoid the armed forces. Although one of Grumman’s methods of despatching with an airship was changed to be a lot less cruel than it was in the book. The episode did end on a cliffhanger like “The Dæmons Cages”.

“Malice” opened with The Witches witnessing The Angels going to Asriel’s rebellion. Ruta Skadi states she would follow them and contact Asriel. This was the setup for the episode that had to be cut due to the Pandemic affecting filming. I expect that some parts of that storyline will appear in the second finale.

The Angels were well visualised for the series. Their first appearance was as glowing, gold being flying in the night. It was a beautiful image. The angel flying over Mary was similar to how the lower order ones were described in the books – being a gold outline.

The acting and production values were still of a high standard, but “Malice” suffered from what I feared would happen to the series; being stretched out and leading to poor pacing. It was the weakest episode of the season so far.