His Dark Materials Season 1 recap
At the end of the first season of His Dark Materials, Lyra is about to step into the new world glimpsed in the aurora borealis (the ‘Northern Lights’ that give the first book its U.K. and Ireland title). The man who she thought was her uncle but is actually her father Lord Asriel (James MacAvoy) has managed to open a bridge between this reality and the other world using the energy that is released when you sever the connection between a child and their daemon’s, this world’s version of a soul which takes animal form.
The child who he kidnaps to perform this procedure is Roger (Lewin Lloyd), Lyra’s best friend. The pair had previously set out on a mission to the north to find out why children are going missing, and to give Lord Asriel an alethiometer (the ‘Golden Compass that gives the book its U.S. title), a mystical device that can reveal the answer to any question to a person that can read it; A skill that Lyra proves herself a prodigy at.
On the way to the north, Lyra and Roger meet a number of key characters, including the Gyptians, a river-cruising tribe, Lee Scoresby (Lin-Manuel Miranda), a hot-air balloon-riding adventurer, and Iorek Byrinson, an armored polar bear.
Also heading north, meanwhile, is the devious Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson), a glamorous woman who Lyra briefly is apprenticed to before she realizes that she is up to no good and escapes. Mrs. Coulter is working for the Magisterium, the religious order of Lyra’s world who are trying to learn about Dust, a mysterious substance they believe is related to sin.
This leads them to start taking the children so as to experiment on them using the intercision process, which severs them from their daemons. They believe that if they can cut the daemon young enough, they will never attract Dust, and so therefore create a world free of sin.
However, the more Lyra learns about Dust, the more she thinks that it is something that should be protected, explaining why she goes through into the new world to find out more about it. Lord Asriel, meanwhile, heads into the new world on an egomaniacal mission to kill God himself in order to create a new Republic of Heaven and bring true free will back to humanity.
This is all mostly as it is in the book, but the first season of His Dark Materials also introduces Will, who in the books is only introduced in the second novel. He lives in a world that for all intents and purposes is our real world, or at least a world that looks like ours and where people have no daemons.
Like Lyra, Will’s father is an explorer, John Parry (Andrew Scott). John disappeared after an expedition to the Arctic and never returned. In the show, he has a mother with mental health problems, which are exacerbated when mysterious agents come to her house and start asking questions about her missing husband.
They were looking for a green writing case that was his mother’s prized possession, and clearly has something to do with the work that led to John’s disappearance. In a confrontation between Will and an agent, one of the agents died accidentally, leading Will to go on the run with this writing case.
As he is escaping, he sees a cat disappear, and in investigating he too stumbles into a window into another world. There is a prophecy that there is a knife in a tower surrounded by angels, which they believe Will will lead them to, so Will’s encounters with the agents is probably far from over.
Season 2 therefore picks up with both Will and Lyra exploring new and unfamiliar worlds, completely cut off from their friends and the worlds they have left behind—though it is hinted that they will soon meet to become each others’ allies.
His Dark Materials airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on HBO.
