This episode provides examples of:
- Abusive Guardian: Mrs. Coulter fully transitions into one when she allows the Golden Monkey to attack Pan. It's treated deadly seriously, and it's clear Lyra can feel every bit of pain the Monkey inflicts. It's especially shocking as Lyra clearly did not think that Mrs. Coulter actually Would Hurt a Child.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: A doorway between the worlds. In the books, one did not appear until the end of The Golden Compass, and the window variation not until the beginning of The Subtle Knife. Lord Boreal's promotion to a point of view character means we get one here.
- Adaptational Explanation Extrication: Boreal examines the skull the Lord Asriel previously proclaimed to belong to Stanislaus Gruman, and declares it to be an imposter after examining a hole in the skull. While this scene does not occur in the books, the meaning of the hole is explained. Gruman had his skull voluntarily trepanned as part of his initiation to become a Shaman, and all of his scholarly colleagues knew this. But, he had the procedure performed several years before the book starts, meaning the rim of the hole would have had the skin healed over and the sharp edges rounded. One of the characters later concludes that Asriel must have performed the trepanning on skull post-mortem in order to fake Gruman's death, and that the examiners would have noticed this had they looked more closely. None of this is explained, and to an unread viewer it appears that Boreal concludes the skull is a fake after looking at a hole leftover from a bullet, leaving the viewer wondering why he thought this.
- Ambiguously Human: Lyra and Pan are so creeped out by the distance the monkey can go from Mrs. Coulter that they openly wonder what she is.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Justified. Mrs. Coulter had her entire penthouse designed with a whole network of them, spacious enough for the Golden Monkey to navigate, implied to be so that he can spy on residents and guests.
- As You Know: Boreal and Thomas have a conversation establishing their working relationship and a few of the differences between their two worlds, despite the fact that it's obvious they would have had just this conversation at least several times before.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: This is the Gyptian's general plan for raiding the Gobbler compound in London, as they are on a limited timetable for reconnaissance. It doesn't go as planned.
- Bat Deduction: Boreal concludes that Gruman must have faked his death and be hiding on our world. He gets this from examining what is purported to be Gruman's skull and declaring it a fake, then telling Thomas that, as Gruman was multiple worlds, he must be on this one, and thinks Thomas (a hacker) can locate him.. He gives no further reasoning, despite there being a myriad of holes in his logic.
- Beneath the Mask: Mrs. Coulter's mask slowly slips throughout the episode, at least partially due to her swings in mood. It starts off with her wistfully implying to Lyra that she occasionally contemplates suicide from her balcony and goes downhill from there.
- Blatant Lies: Mrs. Coulter tells Lyra to her face that she is most certainly not angry following her conversation with Father Machphail, despite nearly quivering with rage. Lyra doesn't buy it for a second. Ironic, as she'd previously been mildly threatening when Lyra tried to entertain her with a fanciful story, because she hates it when Lyra lies.
- Broken Pedestal: A twofer for Lyra first to realize Mrs. Coulter is truly a wicked woman and then discovering her "uncle" is really her father.
- Character Development: It's subtle, but, out of self-preservation, Lyra spends part of the episode learning how to lie convincingly to Mrs. Coulter.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Twice:
- The safe house in London where the Gobblers hold kidnapped children resembles a rundown Catholic Orphanage of Fear, complete with women dressed like Nuns in control.
- Lord Boreal seems to make the sign of the cross while kneeling in the Jordan College Chapel, but the editing prevents us from seeing the whole movement, leaving it ambiguous.
- Downer Ending: The episode ends with a Cliffhanger version: Lyra is captured by the Gobblers, and Roger being shipped off to parts unknown.
- Evil All Along: Mrs. Coulter goes from warm and friendly, then to cold, and finally to outright abusive. Then it's revealed she is actually the head of the Gobblers and knew where Roger was the whole time.
- Evil Is Petty: Mrs. Coulter takes a moment to grin as she burns letters home from all the children she has had kidnapped.
- Exact Words: Lord Boreal tells Mrs. Coulter that he has been in Oxford recently. He doesn't include that he has actually been to two different Oxfords in separate universes.
- Forgot About His Powers: Pan completely forgets that he can change into any animal when he's attacked by the Golden Monkey. Justified as he and Lyra were not remotely expecting such an attack, and he has never really had to use his shape changing effectively.
- A Friend in Need: Lyra spends a good part of this episode imploring Mrs. Coulter to use her contacts to search for Roger. Mrs. Coulter for her part pays lip service to the idea, and attempts to redirect Lyra's attention.
- Gaslighting: Mrs. Coulter attempts this on Lyra, but she is resistant and eventually catches on to what she is doing.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Mrs. Coulter has a number of wall-mounted Art Deco sculptures, which match her apartment's general aesthetic enough that Lyra doesn't immediately notice them. She later figures out that they are actually a disguised method for the Golden Monkey to climb into the ventilation system and spy on visitors.
- Hope Spot: About 1/4 of the way through the episode it looks like the Gyptians may successfully rescue the kidnapped children. They have found the Gobbler's safe house and made a direct assault on it. Instead, it's empty.
- Hot Scoop: Reporter Adele Starminster is this.
- Love Is a Weakness: Mrs. Coulter has a nonverbal moment of this as she wistfully sits by the tub after giving Lyra a bath and zones out. The Golden Monkey snaps her out of it with a look that just reeks this idea.
- Squee: Lyra is positively giddy at visiting the Artic Institute in London. Mrs. Coulter actually has to stop her making a scene while she gushes over the displays.
- Mood Whiplash: In the middle of washing Lyra's hair, Mrs. Coulter turns on a dime between being warm and affectionate to being mildly threatening after Lyra tells a fib about previously using her hair as a rope.
- My Country, Right or Wrong: An unusual example in that Macphail actually advocates slowing down the progress of Mrs. Coulter's project, as he fears that the potential scientific discoveries will weaken the power of the Magisterium, which the story makes clear he has devoted his life to.Macphail: The Magisterium is more valuable than any of us. Any sacrifice that we have to perform to preserve its power, we do. Gladly.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Mrs. Coulter has a brief moment after she has the monkey beat Pan and spills the beans to Lyra about Asriel. Tellingly, she never actually apologizes, but tries to spin Lyra's parentage as not defining her.
- Mythology Gag: Three:
- The hole in "Stanislaus Gruman's" skull. In the novels he had a voluntarily trepanation.
- Mrs. Coulter offers Father Macphail some tea as a courtesy when he arrives at her home, but he responds curtly that he doesn't drink tea. In the novels it's mentioned the Macphail keeps an extremely strict diet of eating only bread and fruit and drinking only water.
- Averted with Father Machpail's companion. He a priest with a green flying beetle for a dæmon and a threatening demeanour, leading book readers to assume him to be Father Gomez, the assassin from The Amber Spyglass appearing early. However, the credits list him as "Father Garrett". He's still creepy enough to make an impression.
- Oh, Crap!: Lyra and Pan have a series of them as it becomes increasingly clear just how sinister Mrs. Coulter actually is. The biggest one comes when Adele spells out to her that Mrs. Coulter runs the General Oblation Board, and how ''Gobblers" is a bastardization of the acronym GOB.
- No Escape but Down: Subverted. It looks like the Penthouse is built this way when Lyra escapes, having no stairs or fire escape. Lyra solves to issue by climbing over to another building, which does have a fire escape.
- Properly Paranoid: Upon discovery of air-vent spy system, Lyra covers up the vents at ground level in her bedroom using cushions, and creates a blanket fort to be out of view of the ceiling-high ones.
- Refuge in Audacity: Two characters. Roger seems to realize that Mrs. Coulter won't be sending the letters she writes for the kidnapped children home to their families. Therefore he dictates a letter that is actually subtly addressed to her, not to Lyra. Adele Starminster tries to coax information out of Lyra regarding Mrs. Coulter at a party the latter is throwing.
- Saying Too Much: Mrs. Coulter gets just a bit too carried away when insulting Asriel at one point, and accidentally lets slip to Lyra that he is actually not her uncle, but her father.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Mrs. Coulter takes a car across London to the Gobbler's hiding place, writes a letter for each of the (roughly a dozen) children there, and is driven back in the time it takes Lyra to break into her office, search it, and get out.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Oblation Board revelation finally pushes Lyra and Pan to escape the Penthouse.
- Signature Item Clue: The Gyptians find Billy's cardigan while raiding the Gobbler's abandoned compound. It's enough proof to convince them they aren't on a wild goose chase, especially for Billy's mother, who up until then was hoping that Billy was only lost.
- Sleek High Rise Apartment: The episode opens with Lyra's introduction to Mrs. Coulter's penthouse, although the latter does clarify that it's only one floor of the entire building.
- Uncanny Valley: In universe, Lyra and Pan are disturbed that the Golden Monkey move away from Mrs. Coulter than he should be able to. Lyra outright calls it unnatural.
- Wham Line: "He's a failure of a man, and a failure of a father!"
- Wham Shot: Twice:
- The Window between Worlds, and Boreal stepping through into our world.
- The hands of the Aleitheometer begin to move on their own.
- Woman Scorned: Whatever history Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter may have shared, she clearly still holds a grudge.
- Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: Mrs. Coulter's lecture to Lyra as the Golden Monkey hurts Pan positively drips with this.
