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| Death, but not for you, gunslinger. |
It's a curious case. I don't know if this actually redeems The Legend Of Ruby Sunday or not for me. It is certainly better in that it is an episode of television I liked rather than just sat through with anticipation. The opening is certainly rad with its bombast and everyone just fucking dying in some blatant "We have Infinity War at home". Bitch, you're on Disney+, this is Infinity War's home! Snark aside, this is jaw-dropping in its shock. You know from 2 minutes in that all of this is getting cosmically undone at the end, but you don't know how. Classic narrative collapse, but if I may engage in wishful thinking... Imagine the world where about three minutes or so of last week's episode were trimmed down. Instead of the cliffhanger being "Oh no it is that known guy from Pyramids of Mars, what will he do?" it is "Oh no it is that known guy from Pyramids of Mars AND HE'S KILLED EVERYONE WHAT IN THE FUCK WILL WE DO ABOUT THAT NEXT WEEK?". One can quibble about whether this one or that one works, but just my two cents.
On Sutekh, he's just about justified as to being Sutekh from the old show again instead of just a regular old god of death, having been retconned to have been lurking around the TARDIS since literally that Tom Baker story, biding his time. The canon welders are having a field day about how this does not make sense and surely he would have activated his evil scheme at some time during [insert old story here]. Eh, let 'em. It will at least make for an interesting episode of the Doctor Who Reviews podcast (seriously, please listen to 212 episodes of me and my pals blabbering about this dumb phone box show) and I have bigger fish to fry. Like what I really like about Sutekh here, how he mirrors us at home in wondering about the mysterious mystery behind Ruby Sunday's mom to the point of obsession leading to his downfall. I really like that, as I like the barmy resolution to defeating him. God, let's talk about that.
In the first place, we beat the God of Death who's taking the form of a death dog by putting a leash on him and taking him for space-time walkies. If that weren't enough, dragging him through time creates a double negative of death wherein all the death he had his Susan Twists spread through everywhere Doctor Who was (We should have gotten a scene of the Finetime rich racists getting dusted, damn it!) get negated back into life? Because Doctor Who is a self-professed god of life, spreading it through the universe? It's gloriously dumb and saccharine. I fucking love it, it rules. Before I get into the next big thing, just some rapid-fire points that don't quite fit anywhere else. First, props for that scene where the Doctor gets the spoon from that lady. It's a nice way of showing the microcosmic consequence of Sutekh's death spreading across the cosmos, and the reversal of it at the end is as lovely as "oh my baby died and I forgot" is horrific. Mel's possession also has this wild angle to it, as Sutekh's mastery over death literally applies to dead skin cells so he can get you that way? I love the implications of what being a god of death means beyond just "he kills you and that's bad". Canonizing the memory TARDIS from those Tales Of The TARDIS is neat. Giving a perception filter-esque explanation of 73 Yards does not. No, don't do that. They've had a month to get over not having the answer to that. Solving it does nothing.
Speaking of solving things, Ruby Sunday's mysterious birth mother. Is she a godling? A harbinger of Sutekh? A Time Lady? Nope, she's just an ordinary human woman. It was the importance Ruby, and the Doctor, and Sutekh, and even us at home put in her identity which made her into a mythic mysterious figure whose identity vexed a god. There's something beautiful about this, and it calls back to the me of a decade ago, the amateur alchemist. The ordinary Louise Fletcher, just a microcosmic girl who got pregnant as a teen and left the baby at a church on Christmas, becomes something so powerful that it frustrates an actual god obsessed with the mysterious mystery. How many times have I said mystery this paragraph? Either way, I fuck with this kind of symbolic imbuement. I extremely fuck with this kind of thing, but it's totally just me. It's less Rise of Skywalker, more Last Jedi (and RTD has actually made this comparison in the commentary and HE IS RIGHT TO DO SO QUICK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP ME BEFORE I GO ON A TANGENT-- oh hey, the coffee shop scene. God, the scene in the coffee shop. I teared up. Yes, Carla Sunday is Ruby's mom, but there's something powerful about finding her birth mom as well and gaining more family. Powerful enough to have Ruby step away from the TARDIS for now. I hope she'll be back.
There's still a lot unresolved this season, like what in the fuck is up with Mrs. Flood or some other teases like the Meep's boss. Hopefully that will be a season 2 thing. If not we might have a problem, but I don't have one here. Empire Of Death was a wild one, full of shock and intrigue and optimism and sheer microcosmic love winning out at the end of the day over entropy and literal death. It's what I watch Doctor Who for, and this is the first consistently great run of Doctor Who since Moffat left. This first season along with the specials was great, the only duds being Space Babies in hindsight and Legend Of Ruby Sunday for me. Everything else was all killer, no filler. Doctor Who is in good hands. It's the old hands, but good hands nonetheless. I feel cozy and without apprehension as I leave it be for another 6 months. Let's hope for even better stories and even some new voices on it for Season 2 of The New Doctor Who. That's where I leave Doctor Who... but there's another time travel show I have to talk to you about very soon.
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