\n<\/p>\n
If Ncuti Gatwa\u2019s first full run of episodes manning the TARDIS has been characterized by anything, it\u2019s big swings.<\/p>\n
Over the course of this season, the \u201cDoctor Who\u201d showrunner Russell T Davies has explored racism, queer love, the threat posed by technology and even fandom itself, with episodes ranging from the abstruse (\u201c73 Yards<\/a>\u201d) to the strangely saccharine (\u201cSpace Babies<\/a>,\u201d which I have largely advised friends skip).<\/p>\n The season has, at times, felt overstuffed, but it\u2019s been the overhaul \u201cDoctor Who\u201d needed after losing some momentum under its previous showrunner, Chris Chibnall. Davies\u2019s ambition is undeniable, and the penultimate episode \u2014 in which the evil god Sutekh returned after nearly 50 years \u2014 was one of the boldest, scariest \u201cDoctor Who\u201d episodes in years.<\/p>\n While the finale doesn\u2019t quite maintain the tension, \u201cEmpire of Death\u201d is still an effective and satisfying end to the season. The episode opens with several loose ends to tie up: Sutekh needs to be stopped, and we still need to discover the identities of Ruby\u2019s mother and her neighbor Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The action picks back up in medias res, with Sutekh\u2019s hollow-faced, red-eyed servants Susan (Susan Twist) and Harriet (Genesis Lynea) uncurling their palms and blowing out a brown dust that turns everyone it touches to ash. Kate (Jemma Redgrave) and her team at UNIT, Britain\u2019s supersecret extraterrestrial task force, are quickly destroyed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mel (Bonnie Langford), who was one of the Doctor\u2019s companions in the 1980s, pulls him onto her orange scooter and a swerving camera follows them through the streets of an apocalyptic London. In UNIT\u2019s Time Window, Ruby (Millie Gibson) is still trying to recreate the memory of the night she was abandoned as a baby, but the Doctor arrives and informs her they\u2019ve got \u201cworse problems.\u201d<\/p>\n Sutekh (voiced by Gabriel Woolf, who also played the villain the first time around) has captured the TARDIS, and he greets the Doctor as an \u201cold friend\u201d before dropping a bombshell: Sutekh wasn\u2019t destroyed by Tom Baker\u2019s Doctor back in 1975, but clung onto the TARDIS during the Doctor\u2019s subsequent travels through time and space, biding his time. Wherever the Doctor landed, Sutekh replicated and deposited new versions of the mysterious woman now known as Susan to bring unending destruction to every planet, in every timeline.<\/p>\n The Doctor, Ruby and Mel take refuge in a \u201cremembered TARDIS,\u201d made up of previous iterations of the spaceship. It\u2019s held together by a technology, first seen in the recent Christmas special called \u201cintelligent rope,\u201d and it is packed to the rafters with trinkets from Doctors\u2019 past.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Doctor usually puts on a brave face and hides his emotion, but throughout this season, Gatwa\u2019s Doctor has embodied the full spectrum of human feeling. As he watches the destructive dust blowing across Earth from space and blames himself, he emits a guttural sob of anguish.<\/p>\n The unanswered question of Ruby\u2019s origin still hangs in the air, and Sutekh demands the answer. The Doctor and Ruby want to know, too, and travel with Mel to the year 2046, where they track down her DNA records in a Department of Health database.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When Ruby reads her mother\u2019s name on the screen, she looks more perplexed than ever. She turns around to the fearsome sight of Mel, who now has the same skull-like face as Susan and has been possessed by Sutekh as a proxy through whom he can also learn Ruby\u2019s mother\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n Mel transports the Doctor and Ruby back to Sutekh, where the god uses his powers to bend the Doctor to his will. Angrily branding Sutekh a \u201cgreat big god of nothing,\u201d Ruby hooks the Doctor\u2019s intelligent rope onto Sutekh\u2019s bejeweled collar, while the Doctor blasts the original TARDIS away from Sutekh\u2019s grasp.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m back!\u201d trills the Doctor in a playful singsong tone, as he clips the intelligent rope onto the TARDIS and he and Ruby fly off, dragging Sutekh along with them like a dog on a leash. It\u2019s a climactic moment, only undermined by some distractingly rudimentary visuals. I can only assume that Episode 7 used up the green screen budget.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Doctor watches through the TARDIS\u2019s open doors as Sutekh\u2019s claws catch on the fabric of time, reviving all the people previously turned to dust. The Doctor and Ruby celebrate \u2014 but now the Doctor must destroy Sutekh and lower himself to the monster\u2019s level. \u201cYou win, because I pride myself that I am better than you,\u201d the Doctor shouts. He cuts the rope, and Sutekh is consumed by flames.<\/p>\n Next, the question of Ruby\u2019s mother. The answer is a little underwhelming: She is an ordinary woman, called Louise, who was just 15 when she gave Ruby up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ruby is, of course, joyous. But she is also confused. How could the fate of the universe hinge on this woman? Well, the Doctor explains, Louise was important \u201cbecause we think she\u2019s important.\u201d She was important to Ruby, and therefore the Doctor, and in turn, Sutekh.<\/p>\n After so many complex theories throughout the season, it\u2019s a somewhat simplistic answer. Ruby reunites with her mother at a coffee shop, in a true tear-jerker of a scene.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve shown you monsters and planets and legends, but this? Honey, your adventure is just beginning,\u201d the Doctor tells Ruby as she leaves the TARDIS, but he promises that he\u2019ll see her again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And that, declares a voice over, is how \u201cthe story of the church on Ruby Road comes to an end.\u201d Ruby is gone, for now, although casting announcements from the show\u2019s producers have stated that Gibson and Varada Sethu, another returning actress, will both be companions next season.<\/p>\n There is one remaining unanswered question: Who is Mrs. Flood? She is the one speaking to us in the voice over, it turns out. The camera pans up to the roof of Ruby\u2019s house, where an older woman is standing in a white fluffy coat, holding a parasol as she stares down the lens.<\/p>\n Of the Doctor, she teases: \u201cI\u2019m sorry to say, his story ends in absolute terror.\u201d The shot zooms in on Mrs. Flood\u2019s darkly rimmed eyes and red lipstick-smeared mouth. She grins, and ends the episode with a chilling \u201cNight, night\u201d \u2014 a promise of more creepiness to come when \u201cDoctor Who\u201d returns for Season 2.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n