The Cave is the second episode in the new second series, where Lyra goes to Will's world to discover more about Dust while Will goes in search of his mum to make sure she is safe. Lyra and Will meet key characters that will have a bigger importance in later episodes.
Lyra (Dafne Keen) and Will (Amir Wilson) travel to Will's Oxford to find answers they are seeking and figuring out who they can trust. Keen puts on a fantastic in this episode. We see Lyra is still grieving over Roger and is quite overwhelmed with the new sights in this new world she is in. Our world is a mystery to her, as she thinks there will be similarities from her own world but is disappointed when everything is so different, it shows she is homesick to the life she use to have at Jordan Collage before all of this happened. We can forget at times that Lyra is only a child but we are reminded with the dress up scene and "no capes", which provides some comedy and reminds us that yes Lyra has gone through a lot but she is still young and can be silly. Keen gives impressive speeches in this episode, which show how much of a great actress she is and how much she has improved since the last series.
While Lyra is in search of Dust and answers, Will searches for family ties. Will searches for his estranged grandparents who look as if they are fairly well-off. The meeting between Will and his grandparents is tense and awkward however Will realises that he isn’t safe anywhere in his own world anymore. Wilson puts on a good performance in this episode, we see another side to him and he gets time to grow without Lyra's story taking over.
Lyra encounters May Malone, played by Simone Kirby, a lapsed Catholic scientist. The scenes between Lyra and Malone are stand out moments , they speak about physics, life and grieve. The acting between both actors is outstanding and very engaging. Kirby is great in this episode; we see Mary as such a kind and understanding character. She accepts Lyra's story and wants to help her and Lyra returns the favour. Mary's work is all about dust.
We get to see more of the character Boreal, played by Ariyon Bakare, in this episode. We see him in every world that we visit in this episode. We must assume that he knows access to portals like Lyra and Will travelled through, as he slips into worlds so easily. Bakare adds a sense of mystery to his character and it is exciting to see more of this character in future episodes.
Also, we spend quite a bit of time with the Magisterium this episode. The tension between the Magisterium and the witches is growing in this episode and comes to ahead at the end. In the behind the scenes in the Magisterium we see the mourners at the Cardinal's funeral and the vote for his replacement. Mrs Coulter is still here, played by Ruth Wilson. Her character doesn’t have a lot of screen time in this episode, she mainly watches over the Magisterium until the end when she discovers what happened to lyra and Roger and we see the manipulative and dark side of Coulter.
As you can see we deal with a lot of characters and stories in this one 50-minute episode. As a result, there is a lot of short scenes cutting between worlds. We are still awaiting the introduction of another huge character, played by Andrew Scott. Tension is increasing and we are still awaiting a key object that this series is based around. The Cave is trying to develop the story and characters hence this episode can be very jumpy.
Overall, this episode is good as we are starting to get our teeth the story and Lyra and Will are finally being honest with each other. There are some great performances and good introductions to new key characters that will be important later on. This episode is very jumpy as a lot of areas are covered. There is some spectacle with the Magisterium and the witches but it is a lot of jumping and setting up this episode. Two standout moments in this episode is Keen's acting and speech about grief and the witches watching the destruction. Both are filled with high emotion and work so well. This episode is good but we need some more action with Lyra and Will that has something to do with the knife that is being talked about. There has been a lot of setting up and now we need some action, but this episode has a set a high standard for the acting which is now expected to continue throughout the rest of the series.
