Between “The People That Look Different From You Should Be Feared’ and “Attack of the Eye Boogers”, I went into the episode with very little motivation, considering I still got four episodes of watching David Tennant destroy the image of the Tenth Doctor forever in “Jessica Jones”. But who knows?! Maybe it can turn around! Let’s find out!
Be warned: This has MASSIVE Spoilers!
1. The Diagon Alley for Aliens
When I heard that the “Trap Street”, a street that is protected by misdirection circuits, served as a “refugee camp” for aliens trying to get away from my homeworld, I, remembering “The Zygon Invasion/Inversion”, nearly ran to break open the wine I wanted to save for when my Conservative family members came over for Thanksgiving. Luckily, it only goes that far, and they do a decent job of tying it into the season story with the reintroduction of…
2. Ashildon’t
Yes, Maisie Williams’s Ashildr/Me/Whatever Name She’s Going By Now makes her return as the leader of the Trap Street and essentially Judge, Jury and Executioner of any who disrupt the order around it. And she’s got quite the weapon to take care of miscreants. Essentially a kind of Familiar (shaped like a Raven) that will hunt you down and rip your soul out. Watching Williams’ character go from the resourceful young viking girl to the unscrupulous women here over the season has been interesting and the actress has shown a great range that makes a very different character from the famous Arya. And it looks like her ruthlessness to protect the Street has lead her to making some bargains with some very dangerous things. More on that later.
3. Ohhh….
Okay, last chance to avoid spoilers:
So yeah, Clara is dead. She takes the mark that the Raven hones in on from Rigsy (a returning character from last season’s “Flatline” played by Jovian Wade) and when the timer on the mark runs out… yeah, she dies. She does get a finale moment with the Doctor and props to both Coleman and Capaldi for it. The moment re-emphasizes the themes of not being a warrior and Clara choosing to be brave. There is also a nice call back hug to the first time Clara hugged Twelve and it is nice to see it come back round.
That said: While this was an emotional scene, it wasn’t as emotional as I feel it should have been. I’ll discuss that further down, but yeah it did feel a bit lacking. And for those of you about to go: “But there’s still two episodes left!”, well, they’ve pulled off deus ex machina in the past to get the Happy Ending, so it could happen, even if it shouldn’t.
4. Fury of the Time Lord
There was a shift in the Twelfth Doctor between last season and this season. This season he was a lot more approachable and fun with the guitar and such. Quite the different one from the much more bitter, sardonic and cold Twelve of last season.
Yeah, that Doctor didn’t disappear. And it looks like he’s going to be making a comeback because Twelfe angry. Not “Malcolm Tucker Creates Several New Expletives” angry but the absolute scalding yet frozen rage he throws at Ashildr at the end of this episode is chilling, even if Ashildr has shown remorse for what has happened.
5. Technical vs. Emotional
Let me be blunt: This episode is a technical trainwreck. Apart from the blatant and kinda hackney foreshadowing of Clara’s fate (her literally dangling from the edge of the TARDIS entrance and laughing) to some kind of dodgy CGI to the incredibly lazy reasoning behind Clara’s death. Okay, so there’s two ways to get rid of this mark that the Raven hones in on, either A. the original caster (Ashildr) removes it or B. someone willing takes it on themself. Clara does B to save Rigsy, but then Ashildr suddenly can’t remove it. She says that “The Shade (the thing she’s made a deal with) was promised as soul” and that Clara “changed the terms”. How? Why? None of this is explained and it does crack the episode a bit. Yes, the scene between Twelve and Clara is emotional but this internal logic ambiguity harms it.
But that’s not all that’s harmed the emotional resonance of this death. As I’ve said in prior reviews, it felt like Clara got sidelined to a degree. I was suspicious then that it would impact her character leaving this season and yeah it did for me. Yes it was sad, but not as sad as say the fate the befell Donna Noble (Before “The End of Time” happened). This could have been done better, is all I’m saying.
But who knows. Maybe I’ll eat my words in two weeks time. I hope so.
