His Dark Materials Season 2: Tower of the Angels aired last night on BBC in the U.K. For those of you in the U.S. you are roughly two week’s behind. Therefore, bear in mind there are SPOILERS in this review for HDM Season 2 Episode 4.

If you want to know what I thought without getting into the plot here is a blurb.

Tower of the Angels was almost perfect, almost my favorite episode yet. However almost, is not quite the prize as it were. There was one moment, a stupidly out of place narration at the beginning, which was awful. If you can get over this, then you have one of the most satisfying episodes of His Dark Materials yet. The really annoying part is that this could have very easily been placed within the actual episode itself to far better effect. However, overall, Tower of the Angels was still another great week of viewing, as ‘not perfect’ does not mean poor.

SPOILERS for His Dark Materials Season 2: Tower of the Angels lie below

****

***

**

*

An absence of perfection should not often be looked at negatively.

I’m saying this was a great episode, one of my favorites. However, it could have been number 1 were it not for that strangely out of place opening narration. The episode begins with an explanation of the Subtle Knife, the Tower, the Guild, and how their arrogance and selfishness caused the specters to arrive in Cittigazze. I had no issue with the way this was shown, it was just not needed in the beginning of the episode. Later on when Will takes possession of the Subtle Knife, it would be easy for Giacomo Paradisi to give this same backstory. That would have been an appropriate place for this scene to take place. It baffles me how the showrunners and directors didn’t catch this themselves, as it feels like a detail that could have been fixed pretty late in the day.

The Good

Aside from the criticism above I had a few niggles I will get to, but they are minor. The vast majority of what I felt from Tower of the Angels was positive. I thought this was a great episode, especially as they resisted the urge to ‘action movie’ up the fight scene between Will and Tulio. Instead the very life or death struggle between Will and Tulio felt like a 15 year old vs a 16 year old. Exactly how it should be, and highlighting Will’s bravery and willingness to fight if necessary. Terence Stamp was excellent as Giacomo Paridisi the former bearer of the Knife. I especially loved his death scene. As the specters come for Giacomo he drinks what is evidently poison, killing himself before they can feed on him. I loved how the specters just lose interest in him as soon as he dies.

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Giacomo was not the only character introduced this week. Fans were properly introduced to Andrew Scott’s Joparri. Now in the books Joparri’s identity remains a mystery. However, in the show, fans already know Joparri is really John Parry, father of Will. Scott does well in the role as it was one I thought that might be tricky to translate from page to screen. Perhaps having the character’s true identity in the open was better for the visual medium in this case? Scott and Miranda had some great scenes together as Joparri and Scoresby respectively, and I enjoyed Scott’s portrayal.

I thought Ahmed Best was great as Will this week, with so many nice little touches. Will’s reluctance to show his severe pain in front of Lyra, and the way Pan touches Will’s hand were perfectly adapted from the books. Finally, not much to say about Ruth Wilson as Coulter this week for once, as she was very much in the background for once. Though, I loved the little look she gave towards the specter she saw in Cittigazze. That moment will bear fruit further down the line, but for book fans it was a cool touch.

Niggles

I did mention a few more niggles, the main suspect in this case was the ultimate fate of Tulio. In the books Tulio goes about counting stones, and whilst this is never fully explained, I had my own head canon. It seemed to me that the specters feed on intelligence and pretending to have serious problems, or a lack of intelligence seems to confuse the specters. In Tulio’s case this does not work and he does get fed upon by specters. This may also be true of the show, but to have the specter seemingly jump him from behind and take him off-screen was in my opinion a poorly thought out shot. Seeing specters feed is far more horrifying than a simple poorly executed jump scare.

Honestly, this was a great episode and still one of my favorites for the scenarios we were presented. However, if the narration had been moved and Tulio’s demise had been better executed, it could have been the best episode so far. That’s a rather frustrating feeling for a big fan of the books like me. Luckily, I don’t feel strongly enough about these fau-pax’s to allow them to lessen my enjoyment of a great episode.

Grade: A

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