His Dark Materials season 3, episode 6 recap: The Abyss

In His Dark Materials season 3 episode 6 “The Abyss” all the worlds start suffering the fallout of the Authority’s interference. As Lyra continues to lead the dead towards freedom, Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter must come to terms with each other and those who disagree with Lord Asriel’s methods.

His Dark Materials Season 3 Episode 6 recap – Where is Lyra?

Mrs. Coulter comes to, after experiencing the Authority’s presence and immediately retrieves Lyra’s hair from what’s left of the machine. As she leaves, she confronts a priest, asking for him to find Lyra.

Using an alethiometer, he tells Mrs. Coulter that Lyra is dead. In reality Lyra and Will are still in the Land of the Dead.

However, hearing her daughter is dead, Mrs. Coulter returns to Lord Asriel in the Intention Craft. Naturally, Lord Asriel barely reacts to the sad news that has broken Mrs. Coulter to her core.

Lord Asriel continues to remain focused on the task at hand. As parts of the world begin to crack and crumble, he explores the depths as witch Ruta’s daemon is pulled down.

Her daemon dies and thus so does she. Seeing this firsthand, makes Lord Asriel realize that the Authority is pulling dust from all the worlds into an abyss.

Even Dr. Mary Malone sees this through the amber spyglass and begins to worry. Witch Serafina Pekkala can see the deep chasms from the air and senses her sister Ruta is gone.

What proceeds is several characters, including Serafina and Iorek blaming Lord Asriel for this event to happen. They blame him for Ruta’s death and all the trouble with the dust being pulled away and into an abyss.

The good news is everyone continues to support him, knowing he is their best, albeit only choice. The good news continues when Iorek tells Lord Asriel about Lyra’s plan to go to the Land of the Dead and free Roger.

When Lord Asriel returns back to base, he tells Mrs. Coulter but she finds it very hard to believe.  He is finally able to convince her and the two acknowledge how remarkable their daughter is.

As they and others try to figure out what Lyra’s actions will mean, an angel appears before them.

His Dark Materials Season 3 Episode 6 recap – Mrs. Coulter and her daemon

Mrs. Coulter is practically a mindless zombie, moving about with little to no thought after hearing the news that her daughter is dead. This leads her on a path of making questionable decisions.

She tries to leave with the Intention Craft, but Lord Asriel had already taken it. She then encounters Serafina and tries provoking the witch into killing her.

However, Serafina refuses, even out of mercy. Lastly, Mrs. Coulter’s daemon seems to have finally had enough of her.

When she calls to it to follow her, it blatantly walks away. Mrs. Coulter seeks her daemon out later on where one of the most powerful and emotional scenes of the entire series takes place.

She speaks openly about why she had treated her daemon so poorly all these years. She apologizes and hopes that it will forgive her.

Hearing her kind and heartfelt words, her daemon does silently forgive her by holding her hand. Although it would have been interesting to hear her daemon finally speak.

His Dark Materials Season 3 Episode 6 recap – Lyra frees the Dead

Lyra is thankfully still alive after the bomb, although it seems the Land of the Dead is a little shaken up. She and Will continue to lead the dead, while sharing stories about each other and her memories with Roger.

As she is doing so, it becomes evident that both Will and Roger are almost battling each other over Lyra by means of their connection to her. Even Lee Scoresby finds it very amusing.

While leading the dead, Will is hoping to find his father. Lee Scoresby knows Will’s father as they had met in season 2 and offers to try to and find him.

He succeeds and Will has a tear-filled reunion. During what will become their last conversation, Will’s father reveals that Will indeed has a daemon.

This was hinted at several times but never a focal point. He tells Will that he needs to find her.

However, Will does not share this information with Lyra. As they continue to move upward, Lyra and Will feel the pull of the abyss below.

As Lyra leans forward a little too much she falls but is saved by one of the demonic creatures. She tries to be kind to the creature who does not handle kindness well.

She decides to name it Gracious Wings and asks for help. Gracious Wings directs her where to go, in exchange that it and the other demonic creatures hear stories from the dead.

Lyra and Will follow the path until it stops. Using the subtle knife, they are able to open a portal to another world that looks warm and inviting.

As each of the dead pass through, they become dust and thus one with everything around them. Turns out that the portal happens to be the same world Dr. Mary Malone is currently located at.

His Dark Materials Season 3 Episode 6 review

While this episode packed a lot of emotional punches, I still enjoyed episode 5 better. Episode 5 flowed pretty well and left little room for moments to come to a complete halt.

The momentum stayed at a impressive steady pace. Here, once very powerful and emotional scenes conclude, the episode feels as though it is barely moving, which caused me to check the time, wondering how much was left of the episode.

That’s not a good thing. I will also say that it felt like the process of leading the dead to their freedom took a lot longer than necessary.

There are so many pauses and drawn-out scenes with odd lines of dialogue that felt endless. There is no need to stop every half a step to remember something funny or good from years ago.

Pick up the pace a little. But, as I mentioned earlier, there were some pretty amazing scenes, especially from Mrs. Coulter, who let’s face it, always performs the best!

As horrid a woman she is, every line of dialogue has you invested and lingering on every word. It is a real shame that His Dark Materials is often neglected as well when it comes to award season.

But I already made it known that actual good, relevant, groundbreaking shows, like The Walking Dead, are often ignored in favor of shows that have either completely lost all relevance or don’t remotely pack a punch in any way, shape or form. Regardless, the biggest confusing aspect is the revelation that Will somehow has a daemon even though he had been living in our world.

If he was living in Lyra’s world and then moved to ours, then wouldn’t his connection to his daemon be so strained it’s unbearable? I’m hoping this is more thoroughly explained.

Especially the reason why Will doesn’t even tell Lyra about it.

What did you think of the His Dark Materials season 3 episode 6? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

His Dark Materials season 3 episode 7 airs on HBO December 26, 2022.