The final episode in this exciting first series is finally here and it doesn't disappoint. We are left with Lyra walking into a new world just as Will walks out of our world into a new world and the ending is ready for the next chapter of their stories to begin and the next chapter of the next book to begin.
Betrayal sees Lord Asriel played by James McAvoy proving to be not the person we all thought he may be. He shows himself to be a cruel and selfish father to Lyra played by Dafne Keen. Throughout this series we have believed that Mrs Coulter (Ruth Wilson) was worst of the two parents of Lyra yet we discover that really Coulter is the nicer of the pair especially in this episode. They both may kill children for their research but Mrs Coulter still puts her daughter first and wants to keep her safe while in this episode we get the impression that Asriel does care but also will gladly abandon his child so he can start his life all over again in a new world.
This episode goes more into depth of the idea of dust and the Magisterium who believe it to be evil. Considering opening a portal a sacrifice is needed to be made to get the energy to open it. This sacrifice was made in the form of Lyra's faithful best friend Roger. Lewin Lloyd who played Roger has gone a great job in portraying this character and making us love him. Roger's death is a heart-breaking moment as we have grown to really care for this character as he has always supported Lyra especially as she worked so hard to find and rescue him.
Dafne Keen in past episodes her emotional performances haven’t always hit home, as she is a much better physical actor than emotional sometimes. Although, in this episode, the moment she rescues Roger's dead body its Keen's performance which is amazing. We really feel her pain and especially since we had a sweet scene between both characters earlier on in this episode where we got to see how close their friendship really is. Keen's performance in the final moments show how far her acting has improved in each episode just as the character Lyra's strength has improved.
Not only do we deal with the death of Roger but we witness a battle between the armoured bears and the Magisterium. This battle isn't huge but it is interesting to watch and we get to see it from Lyra's perspective. It is intense, big and loud yet we don't get to see the real outcome of the battle. However, it is lovely to see the close relationship between Iorek and Lyra and there is a sad note that we may not see him again or for a while at least. This episode at the heart is about the relationships Lyra has made and the impact these people have had on her whether good or bad.
Along with all the events with Lyra and Roger, we do have little moments with Will and the idea of a special knife is mentioned. This is huge and important narrative idea from the second book. However, it is interesting that we do see Will in this episode yet he doesn’t say a word yet his presence has huge impact in this episode. It is exciting to see what Will and Lyra's relationship will be like once they meet and what may happen.
This is a great final episode to close this first series. What this episode does well is show us how far Lyra has grown from the first episode. We see how important the relationships Lyra have been to her. Now all alone, with only Pan left she enters the portal opened by her father. It is interesting how we haven’t seen or heard of anything of Lee Scoresby since he lost Lyra and it will be intriguing if we discover in the next series what has happened to him. We leave this series with both Will and Lyra entering a new realm, both feeling alone and don’t know what to do next yet they are venturing into the unknown. For Lyra she wants to discover dust but for Will he is escaping from our world yet he still doesn’t know how important he really is due to his father's past. This is a great final episode but we must now wait until next year to see what will happen to these characters.
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