Mrs Coulter In His Dark Materials Is The Best TV Villain We’ve Had All Year

There’s something about the sound of a high heel against a concrete floor. Purposeful. Authoritative. Sharp. Consciously or not, the wearer demands attention and carries with them a stone-cold authority that, even in the hallowed halls of a university ruled by stuffy old men, supersedes everything (and everyone) in its path.

These footsteps mark the arrival of Mrs Marisa Coulter. As she strides through Oxford’s Jordan College wearing bold skirt suits that jar against the sea of black gowns worn by the exclusively male body of academics, Mrs Coulter exudes a gorgeous and terrifying power that you really have to admire.

Played by Ruth Wilson, this villain commands the BBC’s new TV adaptation of His Dark Materials. She is connected to the Magisterium – the omniscient governing body that operates on behalf of the church in the alternate world where this story is set (or at least, where it starts). There’s an undercurrent of friction between the organisation and academic institutions like Jordan College which, technically, are shielded from the prying eyes of the Magisterium by the protection of 'scholastic sanctuary'. It allows those brave enough to challenge the prescribed belief system to covertly research things like Dust, a mysterious particle that could be the key to understanding other worlds and the connection between humans and their daemons (an animal which is essentially the physical manifestation of a human's soul).

Mrs Coulter’s position in all of this is deliberately murky from the outset. "No, I’m not really a scholar. I’m a member of St Sophia’s College, but most of my work takes place outside Oxford," she tells our spunky young protagonist Lyra when they’re introduced over dinner at the college. "But I’m not interesting, you are…"

We find out very quickly that she knows Lyra’s rebellious uncle, Lord Asriel, who happens to be the scholar investigating Dust, much to the Magisterium's distress. When Lyra asks Mrs Coulter if she’s an explorer as well, she responds with a coy "Yes, I suppose I am." It might be enough to convince Lyra to follow Mrs Coulter to London as her new (and entirely unnecessary) assistant, but as an audience we know that it doesn’t quite add up. You don’t need to have read the Philip Pullman books to have a niggling apprehension about Mrs Coulter's intentions with Lyra. Her allure is smothering. Like a sickly sweet perfume, Mrs Coulter's well-chosen words fog around whoever is on the receiving end. They stick and linger on your skin until you absorb them, until you’re on her side.

Of course, a lot of Mrs Coulter’s power comes from the basic fact that she’s a woman, and consistently the only woman in the room within the highest social and political circles. Among men, she represents an unpredictability which, bound by rigid traditions and consumed by her striking beauty, they don’t quite know what to do with. Though slightly arrogant (the best bad guys are) and acutely aware of her physical appeal ("The clothes you wear determine the way people see you," she tells Lyra), Mrs Coulter is also unwaveringly intelligent and can rarely be challenged by the heads of church or state, or even by an army of armoured bears, as we’ll come to learn later on in the series.   

Mrs Coulter is at her most chilling when she’s teetering along the edge of composure, though. Even before we learn the true nature of her relationship with Lyra, it’s clear that she cares for her in at least some capacity. It’s a lukewarm affection that seems out of character for someone who glides through interactions with cold, emotionless purpose. If she smiles, it's a smug smile. If she frowns, it's a piercing, venomous grimace.

Even her daemon, a nameless orange monkey, is treated with contempt at her hand. But when Lyra doesn’t fall into line or protests an opinion, hairstyle or outfit choice, the ferocity with which Mrs Coulter will tighten the grip at the nape of her neck, without so much as a wobble in her itchingly soft voice, will send shivers down your spine. It's her interactions with Lyra that remind us that she’s as human as everyone else, which of course only makes her more rationally terrifying. It roots her vicious potential in a child – the character who holds the fate of multiple worlds in her hands – without ever showing us the full extent of her villainous range. Sometimes the scariest things are the things you never see.

By episode three we know that Mrs Coulter is the head of the General Oblation Board – the Gobblers who have been stealing children up and down the country, including Lyra's best friend, Roger – and her villain status graduates from a sentimental orientation to a tangible one. We discover how closely her spitefulness influences her intentions and how much joy she gets from being sincerely awful. The smirk as she throws Roger's handwritten letter to Lyra into an open fire, minutes after telling Lyra that she doesn't know where he is. The condescension in her gentle pat of a seat indicating the head of the Magisterium sit next to her, moments after he attempted to fire her. The fevered excitement in her eyes as she sends dangerous and illegal surveillance devices after Lyra, who has escaped her supervision. Halfway through the series, we have Mrs Coulter as an extraordinarily ruthless, power-hungry bulldozer whose sophisticated demeanour masks a sinister energy that we've only experienced whispers of. There's humanity and empathy for her backstory yet to be released but for now a brilliantly chilling potential lingers around the forthcoming episodes. God help anyone in her path when that malevolence is fully realised.