His Dark Materials Episode Guide Episodes 001–015 Last episode aired Sunday December 20, 2020 www.hbo.com © © 2020 www.hbo.com © 2020 ew.com © 2020 tvmoviefix.com © 2020 www.imdb.com © 2020 www.thereviewgeek.com The summaries and recaps of all the His Dark Materials episodes were downloaded from http://www.imdb.com and http://www.hbo.com and http://ew.com and http://tvmoviefix.com and http://www.thereviewgeek.com and processed through a perl program to transform them in a LATEX file, for pretty printing. So, do not blame me for errors in the text ! This booklet was LATEXed on December 21, 2020 by footstep11 with create_eps_guide v0.65 Contents Season 1 1 1 Lyra’s Jordan . .3 2 The Idea of the North . .7 3 The Spies . 11 4 Armour ............................................. 15 5 The Lost Boy . 19 6 The Daemon Cages . 23 7 The Fight to the Death . 27 8 Betrayal . 31 Season 2 35 1 The City of Magpies . 37 2 The Cave . 39 3 Theft............................................... 43 4 Tower of the Angels . 45 5 The Scholar . 47 6 Malice . 51 7 Æsahættr . 55 Actor Appearances 59 His Dark Materials Episode Guide II Season One His Dark Materials Episode Guide Lyra’s Jordan Season 1 Episode Number: 1 Season Episode: 1 Originally aired: Sunday November 3, 2019 Writer: Jack Thorne Director: Tom Hooper Show Stars: Dafne Keen (Lyra Belacqua), Ruth Wilson (Marisa Coulter), Anne- Marie Duff (Ma Costa), Clarke Peters (Dr. Carne / The Master), James Cosmo (Farder Coram), Ariyon Bakare (Lord Carlo Boreal), Will Keen (Father MacPhail), Lucian Msamati (John Faa), Gary Lewis (Thorold), Lewin Lloyd (Roger Parslow), Daniel Frogson (Tony Costa), James McAvoy (Lord Asriel) Guest Stars: Simon Manyonda (Benjamin De Ruyter), Richard Cunningham (Gustaf / Chaplain), Philip Goldacre (Sub-Rector), Patrick Godfrey (Butler), Ian Gelder (Charles), Geoff Bell (Jack Verhoeven), Tyler Howitt (Billy Costa), Mat Fraser (Raymond Van Geritt), Helen McCrory (Stelmaria (voice)), Kit Connor (Pantalaimon (voice)), Eloise Little (Salcilia (voice)), Phoebe Scholfield (Alicia (voice)), Libby Rodliffe (Lyuba (voice)), Kai Gillett (Oxford Scholar), Juke Hardy (Blacksmith), Rich Lawton (River Police), Lewis Reynolds (Zeppelin Conductor), Sarah Trevelyan (Dress- maker), Tim Wildman (Magisterium Secret Police) Summary: In a world ruled by a religious power and people’s souls are shared with animal beings called Daemons; At Jordan College, when her un- cle leaves for a mysterious quest, a young girl named Lyra receives a mysterious gift called the alethiometer. The episode opens with a description of Great Flood that delivered Lyra to Jordan College in Oxford as a baby. Lord Asriel carries the baby through the flood and charges Jordan’s Master Carne with keeping her safe, invoking scholastic sanctuary to do so. Why Lyra is in danger and from whom, we do not learn as Asriel disappears back into the flooded night. Twelve years later, we see that the floodwaters have receded and Lyra has become a bold and wild girl, running through the halls and the rooftops of the college with her closest friend Roger while arguing with her daemon Pantalaimon about the form he will take when she becomes an adult. Lyra craves adventure in all forms and little does she know, she’s about to embark on a grand journey. While they are just kids for now, getting up to innocent mischief in the grand setting of the college, a storm brews in the North where we rejoin Lord Asriel on a dangerous expedition with his daemon Stelmaria. Rushing back to his camp after photographing the Northern Lights, it’s clear he’s captured something amongst them that no one else ever has. Whatever this mysterious evidence is, he believes it’s enough to convince the Scholars of Jordan College of its truth. And if it isn’t enough, the gruesome ice-covered head he brings with him should be. We rejoin a very bored Lyra during a lesson by the college’s soft-hearted Librarian. We get some exposition about how the school’s scholastic sanctuary protects both Lyra and the Scholars from 3 His Dark Materials Episode Guide the Magisterium. But there is a limit to its protections, and Lyra for her own safety would do well to observe them. But the girl has never met a limit she hasn’t tried to test. Once Pan notices the long-absent Lord Asriel outside the window, Lyra loses what little interest she had in the lesson and, after some trickery, is out on the rooftops tracking her uncle and hiding outside the usually forbidden Retiring Room. While she’s overjoyed to see her uncle again, others are not so happy. Outside the window, she spies the normally kind Master poisoning a decanter of Tokay, a certain rare liquor that her uncle favors. He flees right as her uncle enters and pours himself a glass. Lyra foils the poisoning before he can take the first sip, jumping through the window and smashing the glass out of his hand. Taken by surprise and paranoid from experience, Lord Asriel throttles Lyra before he realizes it’s her. Once he figures out that she isn’t lying about the poison, he assigns her to spy for him as he gives his presentation to the Scholars later that night. He wants to know how the Master reacts whenever Dust is mentioned. Now this isn’t the normal sort that you banish with a can of Pledge. Dust in this world is a subject that is highly controversial, even heretical, and the Magisterium will police even the discussion of it. And Asriel, being as headstrong as his niece is, plans to discuss it. He hides Lyra in a window cupboard to spy (though during the actual presentation she’s hidden in a different part of the room which the show does not explain). During his presentation to the Scholars, Asriel confesses that for the last year he’s made a se- ries of discoveries while trying to determine what happened to the missing Stanislaus Grumman expedition. Through his research, he’s obtained long-suspected proof that Dust is only attracted to adults and not children. The show does not explain why this is scandalous so for now, you’ll just take it on faith. More controversially, he announces that within the Northern Lights, the Dust reveals there is a city in the sky, which indicates there is a myriad of worlds beyond this one, worlds that the Magisterium does not control. As the room explodes in alarm at the blasphemy Asriel has just uttered, the Master tries to end the meeting, but Asriel protests that Grumman discovered the same information and paid with his life. And he can prove it as he pulls out Grumman’s ice-covered head. Asriel warns that there is a war brewing between two powerful forces and he needs funding to continue this dangerous work. And he dares them to stand against him. In the end, they don’t and he gets his funding. In the excitement, he forgets about Lyra and later finds her fast asleep in her hiding place. He carries her up to bed and tenderly tucks her in. It’s obvious that behind the gruff exterior, he deeply cares for the girl and McAvoy is excellent during the quiet moments in this scene. Once he realizes she’s been faking sleep just to be close to him, he becomes aggravated as she starts pestering him with a million questions. What is Dust? Can she look at Grumman’s head? Will he take her North with him? And can they still trust the Master given what he tried to do? "I don’t trust anyone," says Asriel. And he’s right not to; word of his blasphemous presentation has gotten back to the Magis- terium and he needs to flee back to the North as soon as he can. Roger tips Lyra off that her uncle is leaving by airship and, furious that he’s leaving so soon, Lyra begs him to take her along. He tells her that it’s too dangerous and that she needs to stay put. Scared for her uncle, Lyra asks if this was the same type of airship that her parents died in and Asriel’s pause reveals there is some hidden truth about her parents that he hasn’t told her. But that’s a mystery for later and Asriel looks conflicted as he leaves. Lyra, though still determined to go North, flees in distress. Elsewhere in Oxford, a Gyptian child named Billy Costa has been kidnapped. The Gyptians are a group of river-dwelling nomads and Billy disappeared after the ceremony celebrating his older brother Tony’s daemon settling into a hawk. Since several other children from the community have mysteriously disappeared, the Gyptians are convinced they’ve been kidnapped by a group called the Gobblers. Some scoff at the idea that the Gobblers are real and that the children haven’t just run away, but with 16 children missing so far, something must be done. While Billy’s mom, Ma Costa, wants them to keep looking in Oxford; John Faa, the King of the Western Gyptians, and his advisor, Farder Coram, believe Billy’s been taken to London with the other missing children. And that it’s time they went to London to find them. At the Magisterium itself, they’ve received a full report of Lord Asriel’s heresy and they are deeply concerned. Though Asriel has invoked the cause of academic freedom in his work, he’s gone far beyond the limit of scholastic sanctuary. Father MacPhail charges Lord Boreal with 4 His Dark Materials Episode Guide pursuing Asriel to the North while keeping the investigation quiet from a mysterious woman.