At the end of Episode 4 of “His Dark Materials” Season 3, we saw Lyra and Will cross the river to reach the Land of the Dead. Unfortunately, Lyra had to leave Pan behind. Coulter has been taken prisoner, and MacPhail intends to use the energy produced by Coulter’s interception to locate Lyra and kill her. Balthamos is on his way back to Asriel to tell him that Lyra and the Knife Bearer are going to the Land of the Dead. Meanwhile, back at the Republic, Asriel must be waiting for Roke’s return with news regarding Coulter and more.
Spoilers Ahead
Heaven And Hell
Lyra and Will reach the Land of the Dead, which is gloomy, cold, and dark. After speaking to some of the people there and looking around for quite some time, they find Roger. However, even though Roger doesn’t blame Lyra for his death, he isn’t willing to get back to the living world and walks away. Lyra decides to drag Roger with them, but Will isn’t able to open a doorway using the knife. He is about to be pulled into the dark by the vulture-like creatures who try to manipulate him, but Lyra talks him out of the influence. They then decide to head to higher ground. Looking for a way upward, Lyra comes across Roger again. This time, they talk about their fun times at Jordan College. Their conversation lights up the surroundings, and other people also approach them, asking them to share their stories with them. Lyra realizes that the Land of the Dead isn’t where people come to live in their afterlife. It is a prison. She requests that all the people join her and Will, whose knife can open doorways, in their journey back to Earth. That’s when the vulture-like creatures arrive, clearly feeling powerless, and try to scare Lyra, but she doesn’t even flinch. Rather, she asks one of the creatures its name, which flies away after saying that it has none. While all the people are heading to higher ground, led by Lyra and Will, Lee Scoresby finds her and is overwhelmed to realize that Lyra is alive. Lyra runs into Lee’s arms, not knowing that he has died. Will shows Lee his knife, and Lee is reassured.
Mary Malone makes friends with elephant-like creatures who reassure her of her significance as the serpent. She slowly learns to speak their language over time, staying with them in their trees and learning their way of life. Using oil that she came across inside fruits eaten by the creatures, she cleans the stones she found on the riverbed. Finding a large, smooth, flat stone, she uses it as a lens to see her surroundings, only to find that the creatures and the trees around her are made of Dust. However, the Dust is leaving. The trees are dying, and so are the creatures.
The Holy Bomb
Marisa Coulter remains inside a cell while MacPhail builds his machine with Dr. Cooper’s unwilling help. Fra Pavel has said that the serpent is in another world. Thus, Father Gomez requests that MacPhail let him find her; otherwise, she will provoke Eve to sin. Coulter and her daemon monkey are put inside the intercession chamber. Meanwhile, Alarbus arrives in front of the Authority, having been sent there by Lord Asriel, who blasted him there. Alarbus tells the Regent, aka Metatron, about the energy that Asriel is harnessing by manipulating Dust. He also tells Metatron about the knife bearer. Metatron decides to send a warning. With McPhail standing right beside her, Dr. Cooper turns on the device to separate Coulter from her daemon. Coulter, who is tied to a chair, desperately tries to make Cooper realize how wrong what the Magisterium is doing is. Moments before the device could tear Coulter and her daemon apart, Dr. Cooper turns the machine off, saying she won’t be a part of it. MacPhail kills Cooper. Roke, who has made his way inside the room, manages to free Coulter’s daemon out of its cage and tries to stall MacPhail, giving Coulter’s daemon the time to free her. MacPhail grasps Roke and throws him towards a glass wall. Roke hits the wall and falls to the ground, his wings broken.
MacPhail then turns on the machine, locks it so that no one else can alter its instructions, and rushes into the chamber, but Coulter has freed herself. There is a short fight between her and MacPhail that ends with the latter on the floor. Coulter rushes outside to see that the machine is locked. Inside the chamber, MacPhail pulls himself up and ties himself to the chair; his daemon lizard takes its place on the other side of the machine. Coulter checks the screen and realizes that if the interception process is complete, the bomb will reach Lyra. Before the timer counts down to zero, with no switch or lever working, Coulter rushes back inside the chamber and pulls out a part of the device containing Lyra’s hair, thereby turning it off. It seems that the bomb can no longer reach Lyra. However, at the very next moment, the skies open up, and a bright bolt of lightning hits the interception chamber. The voice of Metatron is clear. He is about to take away Dust from this world. As Coulter screams in pain, the intercession machine turns on, and MacPhail dies as a result. The very next moment, Lyra, Will, and the others in the Land of the Dead saw a bright beam of light come down from the skies and hit the ground near them, the impact throwing a cloud of light and Dust their way.
End Of An Abyss
Coulter regains consciousness and pulls herself up. Her daemon is alive, but Roke and MacPhail are dead. She pulls out Lyra’s lock of hair from inside the device and takes it to Fra Pavel, asking him to use the alethiometer to tell her whether Lyra is still alive. Asriel watches as the lands beyond the Republic’s cliff crumble, revealing the dark depths of the abyss—a tear in the fabric of the multiverse. As he works in his workshop, Coulter arrives and tells him that Lyra is dead. As expected, Asriel is unmoved and bent on using the abyss’s quality to draw and trap Dust and send it to the void that exists between the worlds to his advantage. He drops down into the abyss to take the readings of the Dust that it is drawing and sees Ruta’s daemon Sergi being pulled into it and killed. Back at the Republic, Ruta dies in Commander Ogunwe’s arms. Serafina arrives at the Republic after hearing her sister’s death call and is told by Asriel about the abyss that is Metatron’s doing. Her only way to find revenge is to take the Republic’s side.
Later on, Coulter tells Ogunwe of Lyra’s death and asks him for the Intention Craft, but he tells her that Asriel has taken it and gone to the North. Asriel arrives in the North and meets Iorek, who tells him that Lyra isn’t dead but has gone to the Land of the Dead along with the Knife Bearer, whose knife Iorek had fixed, to look for her friend Roger. Asriel realizes that his daughter is about to implement a prison break. Asriel returns to the Republic and tells Coulter that Lyra is alive in the Land of the Dead. Coulter tells Asriel that they need to help her. After Asriel tells Serafina that Lyra is in the Land of the Dead, Serafina reveals that Lyra and her daemon Pan need to be reunited. She sends her daemon Kaisa to look for Pan.
‘His Dark Materials’ Episode 6: Ending Explained – Do Will And Lyra Free The People From The Land Of The Dead?
In the Land of the Dead, Roger regains consciousness and sees all the people on the ground, some unconscious, others hurt and wounded. The blast has formed an abyss in the Land of the Dead as well, and they all have to tread softly if they want to make it to the top without falling into the abyss. Scoresby tells Will that he knows his father, John Parry, and heads in the opposite direction to find him, telling Lyra and Will that he will catch up. Later on, after the vulture-shaped creature, whom Lyra had encountered earlier, saves her from falling into the abyss, Lyra gives it a name, Gracious Wings, and makes a deal with it. The people will tell Gracious Wings their stories, and in return, Gracious Wings will have to allow them safe passage to the top. Will meets his father. However, Will finds out that as soon as a person walks into the doorway, he or she will drift apart and be free. Not intending to bid his father another goodbye, Will leaves with Lyra and Roger, and they ultimately reach the topmost spot in the Land of the Dead. Will pulls out his knife and tries to find a doorway. The knife goes down smoothly, slicing open a doorway that reveals what seems to be nothing less than paradise. Lyra and Roger hug each other, and Roger walks into the doorway, thereby drifting away. He is followed by Scoresby, and the rest follow. Meanwhile, Mary senses people around her. Will’s doorway has opened into Mary’s world. Eve is about to meet her serpent.
Xaphania reveals herself to Asriel and Coulter and tells them that the first prophecy has been fulfilled. Lyra and Will have freed the dead from purgatory, thereby proving Metatron wrong. His control is now weak, which means that he will attack with all his might. Asriel’s rebellion has begun. While Asriel and Coulter will prepare their forces against Metatron, it waits to be seen what happens when Lyra, aka Eve, meets Mary, aka the Serpent. Metatron will try his best to prevent the fall of Eve, which, according to what Serafina told Coulter earlier, wasn’t her fall at all but her courage to experience the unknown. The last two episodes of “His Dark Materials” Season 3 will show the Authority and the Republic of Heaven waging war against each other. But we do not know specifically what Lyra’s role in the war will be. We have to wait to find out.
