DW 9.02. The Witch's Familiar
Less than 24 hours before the next episode... I'm all for openers that function like finales, but my goodness, they take some work. As always, with endless thanks to promethia_tenk without whom I couldn't do this, I don't think.
The Witch’s Familiar
To start - mostly I just adored this episode. It was almost symphonic. Humour and serious talk side-by-side, woven together. There were so many wonderful moments, I’m going to have to list some of them.
No words. Literally.
Well, that's not quite true... For starters, it sits very well with this quote:
CLARA DALEK: Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!
MISSY: Cybermen suppress emotion. Daleks channel it through a gun. That's why they keep yelling exterminate. It's how they reload. So, let's go and kill them. Come on.
The Doctor in Davros’ chair, with a Dalek weapon, asking where is Clara… There is a lot of channelling his emotions going on.
We saw a similar furious & single-minded attachment in 'Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS':
DOCTOR: I just activated the Tardis self-destruct system. One hour until this ship blows.
(Bram runs for the door, which slams in his face.)
DOCTOR: Don't try to leave. The Tardis is in lockdown. I'll open those doors when Clara's by my side.
BRAM: You crazy lunatic!
DOCTOR: My ship, my rules.
GREGOR: You'll kill us all. And the girl.
DOCTOR: She's going to die if you don't help me. Don't get into a spaceship with a madman. Didn't anyone ever teach you that?
~
DALEK SUPREME: The Doctor does not use weapons.
DOCTOR: Doesn't he? Ah, listen to your little hearts beat!
[...]
DOCTOR: Ask me what I want.
DALEK SUPREME: What do you want?
DOCTOR: Clara Oswald.
DOCTOR: I want Clara Oswald, safe, alive, and returned to me immediately. You bring her back. You do that. You do that now. Unharmed. Unhurt. Alive. I saw what happened. I was there. And I'm hoping, for all of our sakes, that it was a trick.
DALEK SUPREME: It was not a deception.
DOCTOR: Because if Clara Oswald is really dead, then you'd better be very, very careful how you tell me.
I love Missy’s explanation for why they always say exterminate. And of course it confirms what Oswin said:
OSWIN: You know how you make someone into a Dalek? Subtract love, add anger…
Also nice differentiating between Cybermen & Daleks. And how Danny became the former, and Clara the latter. (Srsly, the monstering is… off the scale.)
~
DAVROS: I hope you are grateful. It wasn't easy to procure. And very nearly unique, of course. You should feel privileged. The only other chair on Skaro.
I went looking for janie_aire, remembering that she hangs out at Phil Sandifer’s these days. I have already linked to her meta, and apparently she will write about the chair agenda next week. Yay!
Because the Doctor is, quite literally, taking Davros' seat. Placing himself in the same place where the father of the Daleks resides. There is a LOT of parallels being drawn between Davros & the Doctor in these episodes...
~
DOCTOR: Of course, the real question is, where did I get the cup of tea? Answer? I'm the Doctor. Just accept it.
(I can’t even. And where DID he get the tea?)
~
CLARA: What are you doing?
MISSY: Murdering a Dalek. I'm a Time Lady, it's our golf.
This is delightful on every level.
~
(Explosion.)
MISSY: Wheeeeeee!
I just love the way she says ‘Wheee!’
~
DALEK: You are a Time Lord?
MISSY: Time Lady, thank you. Some of us can afford the upgrade. Is it still the same old Supreme Dalek these days? I fought him once on the slopes of the Never Vault. Tell him the bitch is back.
The bitch is back… *happy flailing* (Also love the ‘upgrade’ comment.)
~
DALEK SUPREME: The Tardis has been destroyed.
DOCTOR: Ah, don't be silly, of course it hasn't. It just redistributed itself for a moment. Hostile Action Dispersal System. I'll give it a quick blast from my sonic, and the real time envelope will reassemble right here.
HADS! Also neatest use ever of ‘Just the Doctor & Clara Oswald in the TARDIS.’ The line was of course used in the trailer, and rang all sorts of bells, as last time that specific turn of phrase was used was during S2 (The Age of Steel):
MICKEY: Jake, you want to watch this.
(The TARDIS dematerialises.)
JAKE: What the hell?
MICKEY: That's the Doctor in the TARDIS with Rose Tyler.
Then, it was used as if Rose & the Doctor were some sort of universal constant. Here, however, it’s quite simply a statement of fact. <3
~
DOCTOR: Generations of Daleks just woke up very cross, and they are coming up the pipes. Or to put it another way, bye!
*Lovely* shout-out to Ten. <3
From The Stolen Earth, when Ten has been talking to Davros over the subwave network:
DAVROS [on screen]: True Daleks. I have my children, Doctor. What do you have, now?
DOCTOR: After all this time, everything we saw, everything we lost, I have only one thing to say to you. Bye!
~
MISSY: Can I just say, it's been an absolute pleasure to finally meet you?
(She gives a little curtsey and holds out her hand, then pokes Davros in his blue eye. It hurts. Then she runs out.)
Oh god this episode had the Doctor and Missy and Davros all in the same room!!! Thank you Santa Moff.
FAMILY
(Welcome back family theme, it’s good to see you!)
It’s not that this theme ever completely disappeared, but it’s been on the backburner since we lost our lovely Ponds. Now, however, Davros brings it front & centre:
DOCTOR: How long has it been, you and I?
DAVROS: Long enough. Galaxies have burned.
DOCTOR: And now you ask me a personal question?
DAVROS: You have slaughtered billions of my children, as I have slaughtered billions of your race. We have exhausted the conventional means of communication.
Also it’s worth pointing out at this juncture how radically the show has changed. Last time we saw Davros, the Doctor was a PTSD’d lost puppy, and the following year his immediate, instinctual reaction to learning that the Time Lords were returning was to grab a gun.
But now, the Time Lords are his source of hope, the thing he clings to after he has lost everything else:
DOCTOR: Because if Clara Oswald is really dead, then you'd better be very, very careful how you tell me. MISSY: Listen to that. The Doctor without hope.
DOCTOR [OC]: Who's going to tell me that Clara Oswald is really dead?
MISSY: He'll burn everything. Us too.
Except she’s wrong. He doesn’t burn everything. Never considers it. (Davros shows him a way to kill all the Daleks in one go, and he turns in down. If Davros had extended the offer to Ten - oh he might just have taken it. But Twelve is long past such temptations, and Davros will go on to use another tactic to entrap his Time Lord.) He may have failed in every way, failed to save Clara (or Davros) but - he saved his people:
DOCTOR: My people are alive. They didn't die. I brought them back. I found a way.
DAVROS: Is this true?
DOCTOR: Gallifrey is back in the sky. I don't know where, I may never know. But Gallifrey is back and it is safe from both of us.
And Davros understands:
DAVROS: A man should have a race, a people, an allegiance. A man should belong, Doctor. Believe me, please. I am happy for you. So happy.
A man should belong. This is the key. Ten didn’t belong anywhere. But Eleven had his Ponds, his very own family. When he lost them, he found Clara, whose life is so very wrapped around his (and his around her's). And she helped him save the Time Lords, helped him to belong once more:
DAVROS: If you have redeemed the Time Lords from the fire, do not lose them again. Take the darkest path into the deepest hell, but protect your own as I have sought to protect mine. Did I do right, Doctor? Tell me.
Also, a lot of religious imagery. Davros talks about the Time Lords being ‘redeemed’ and tempts the Doctor with god-hood… Most of all though, we are establishing both Davros and the Doctor as part of a people. Davros calls the Daleks his children.
Again, contrast to last time, when the Doctor ‘only’ had his companions, which Davros referred to as the Doctor’s ‘children’.
This time - partly due to Missy’s presence - the Doctor is firmly established as a member of his own species, with family and friends. (See Missy claiming his confession dial in the first episode.) And also:
(Missy removes the cameo brooch from her blouse neck.)
MISSY: Dark star alloy. Goes through armour plating like a knife through people.
CLARA: Missy. Missy. Missy, uncuff me now!
MISSY: It's pretty, though, isn't it? Got it in the olden days on Gallifrey. The Doctor gave it to me when my daughter-
Missy as a mother (or just parent, generally) is… technically new, but the role fits.
I am not familiar enough with Classic Who to say if the Master was ever a parental figure, but within New Who Simm!Master referred to the Toclafane as his children.
In the S8 finale she talks about the Cybermen as ‘her boys’, very much echoing the relationship with the Toclafane, but now Moffat has taken it a step further. Partly confirming that Missy had at least one child, and partly having her fill a ‘motherly’ role towards Clara:
DOCTOR: It's the wicked stepmother! Everyone hiss!
MISSY: Shh, now. Mummy's talking.
I’ll get back to what this means for Clara later on. For now, I want to tackle Missy/Doctor.
As some people have noticed, there are a lot of similarities between Missy and River. However, there are also differences. One of them being Missy’s jealousy.
DOCTOR: Which Time Lady?
MISSY: The one you abandoned, Doctor. The one you left for dead. Didn't you ever think I'd find my way back?
DOCTOR: Clara. Clara. Clara. I've got to get Clara!
(The Doctor runs to the lift door.)
MISSY: Oh, Clara, Clara, Clara! You know I should shoot you in a jealous rage. Now, wouldn't that be sexy? I've turned the lift off, though.
CLARA: A what?
MISSY: In your terms, a will. The Last Will and Testament of the Time Lord known as the Doctor, to be delivered, according to ancient tradition, to his closest friend, on the eve of his final day.
(Clara reaches for it, and gets an electric shock.)
MISSY: Ah, ah! What are you doing?
CLARA: You said. I thought.
MISSY: No, no, no, no, no. It was delivered to me.
CLARA: You?
MISSY: Well of course it was sent to me. What have you got to do with it? I'm his friend. You're just [the puppy].
MISSY: Morning.
DOCTOR: Where's Clara?
MISSY: Oh, hello to you, too.
DOCTOR: You're alive, so she is too. Where is she?
MISSY: I'm fine, thanks for asking.
Partly, I think, this is because River - from the start - pushed the Doctor as far as she could re. his feelings for her. From her perspective, the first time they meet (LKH) he tells her he loves her. The second time, he marries her. She was made for him, is his Bespoke Psychopath, is his wife. She is unique, she knows it, and he knows that she knows. They take their feelings and relationship as a given, and everything flows from there. (Not always without problems, but she’s never jealous. When she meets Clara, she takes the opportunity to establish herself as knowing the Doctor better than Clara, pulls rank as it were, but it's merely to establish their roles.)
Now Missy & the Doctor’s friendship is… complex. Not catching each other, but trying to kill each other instead. (Although, of course, saving each other from other foes.) Traps are Missy’s way of flirting. And attention are a very important part of this. When Missy shows up, she expects the Doctor’s undivided attention. (As her attention is usually fixed on him…)
But here, for example, he treats her very much like he would River - of course she has saved him, he’d expect nothing less, now where is Clara? (Possibly he subconsciously has them both placed in the same sort of role in this instance, see how when he sees Missy has survived, he presumes Clara has too...)
River’s response would be ‘Clara is fine, now give us a kiss!’ Of course if the the Doctor then discovered that Clara was inside a Dalek and began shouting at River, she’d probably be thoroughly blasé about it - ‘Safest place to be! For goodness sake, stop fussing!’
Although as Promethia pointed out to me, this episode is an interesting contrast with Name of the Doctor:
If Missy is the evil stepmother here, River was the fairy godmother there (as she has been before). And where Missy shamelessly and sadistically uses Clara as a tool in her quest to rescue the Doctor, turns her into a Dalek, and then tries to turn the Doctor on her, River acts to protect Clara against the interests of the Doctor and, indeed, the interests of the whole universe. Twice. 1) Once when the GI is stopping everybody's hearts to force the Doctor into saying his name and opening his tomb. 2) Once when she argues with Clara to not jump into the Doctor's timestream because she will be torn apart into a million echos who may be able to save the Doctor but 'they won't be you.'
Which makes Clara's bridging of the Pond & Twelve eras extra interesting. She has both the 'crones' of the 'verse advising her: the fairy godmother and the wicked stepmother. Or rather - they are linked. Literally. River and Clara were psychically linked. Missy and Clara were linked by vortex manipulators. Though the 'directions' are reversed: Clara's vortex manipulator is 'slaved' to Missy's, so Clara goes wherever Missy goes. Whereas River has to follow Clara.
Fairy tales alllll the way. Yay metaphors and symbolism!
MERCY
DAVROS: Oh, they have no choice. My Daleks are afflicted with a genetic defect.
DOCTOR: What defect?
DAVROS: Respect. Mercy for their father. Design flaws I was unable to eliminate.
CLARA DALEK: Mercy. Mercy.
DOCTOR: You shouldn't be able to say that.
CLARA DALEK: Mercy.
DOCTOR: That word shouldn't exist in your vocabulary. How did Davros teach you to say that?
Sidebar: If you’re anything like me, this immediately popped into your head:
RIVER: I'm River Song. Check your records again.
DALEK: Mercy.
RIVER: Say it again.
DALEK: Mercy!
RIVER: One more time.
DALEK: Mercy!
Because oh yes, they know the word, and the concept.
CLARA DALEK: Mercy.
DOCTOR: Why aren't you trying to kill me?
CLARA DALEK: Mercy.
CLARA [in the Dalek]: Because I would never kill you. You are the last person I would ever kill.
CLARA DALEK: I show mercy.
Incidentally, I love the fact that their vocabulary is restricted. It’s very 1984.
And then of course we have that final scene:
DOCTOR: When you were in the Dalek, you made it say mercy... It shouldn't have understood the concept, it shouldn't have been able to say it. How did a tiny piece of mercy get into the DNA of the Daleks?
(Long pause as the obvious reason finally dawns on him, then he runs to the Tardis clutching the Dalek gun
YOUNG DAVROS: Which side are you on? Are you the enemy?
DOCTOR: I'm not sure that any of that matters, friends, enemies. So long as there's mercy. Always mercy.
Linguistically there’s an interesting distinction being made in this episode between ‘compassion’ and ‘mercy’. You may not have compassion - and some people may not deserve it - but you can still show mercy.
Even a Dalek understands the concept.
HYBRID
(Hi my little quantum mirror leaf! ♥)
Love is a rebellious bird…
Missy: Every miner needs a canary
Am glad to see that Clara’s bird imagery continues. (See last weeks’ post re. birds & Horus etc.)
Eggs and birds. (Gallifrey is the egg, Clara the bird? Will she make it hatch?)
~
Stepping away from Clara's imagery for a moment - who was the Magician’s Apprentice? Who was the Witch’s Familiar? Well, both of them were Clara, as Clara is (always) all the things. At the same time. ♥
Now you could certainly argue that Davros could qualify as the Doctor’s ‘Apprentice’. However, I’ll go for Clara for the purposes of this meta, as it’s the far more interesting option.
If we view Clara as the Apprentice, then she does a very good job of ‘being the Doctor’ in the first episode, making full use of her ‘training on the job’. She’s the one UNIT call on, she’s the one to solve the puzzle of where the Doctor is etc. She is a very Doctor-y person - spent S8 becoming the Doctor in every way she could - and as we see when she fails to kill Missy when given the chance; much like the Doctor turns down the opportunity to kill the Daleks:
MISSY: You won't survive down here on your own.
CLARA: You won't survive turning your back.
MISSY: Ooo. How exciting.
(Missy turns her back on Clara. Nothing happens.)
MISSY: God, you're dull.
(She spins round and grabs the stick back.)
MISSY: In future, if you're going to take my stick, do me the courtesy of actually killing me. Team work is all about respect.
~
DAVROS: Genocide in a moment. Such slaughter, not in self-defence. Not as a simple act of war. Genocide as a choice. Are you ready, Doctor? So many backs with a single knife. […] Why do you hesitate? No one would know. Clara Oswald is dead. Is this the conscience of the Doctor, or his shame? The shame that brought you here.
DOCTOR: There's no such thing as the Doctor. I'm just a bloke in a box, telling stories. And I didn't come here because I'm ashamed. A bit of shame never hurt anyone. I came because you're sick and you asked. And because sometimes, on a good day, if I try very hard, I'm not some old Time Lord who ran away. I'm the Doctor.
DAVROS: Compassion then.
DOCTOR: Always.
But as we saw in the S8 finale meta here, Missy is not a clear Doctor-mirror anymore. She was also a mirror for Clara. And now Clara - always mirroring - is changing in response to Missy.
She was the Magician’s apprentice - but now she’s also the Witch’s Familiar…
(Clara is always two things at the same time, a quantum creature. See my big Clara meta. To see her inside a Dalek almost made me fall off the sofa. I was so right last week! :D)
Deaths are always symbolic, and this episode opened with Clara 'resurrected' if you will, having been exterminated at the end of last episode. Death means change. When Clara first met the Doctor, she was also killed, uploaded to the datacloud by the spoonhead, echoing the same 'Where am I?' that she had cried when she was a Dalek. And if we count this episode's death, then she is quite literally:
Anyway, this new death led to:
1) Her world literally turning upside down and
2) Missy is giving her a lesson in not dying. As she said last episode 'Death is for other people, dear.'
And in this episode she coaches Clara, getting her to work out the answers on her own, quite enjoying her new pet. And Clara is an apt pupil:
CLARA: Can I have a stick too?
MISSY: Make your own stick.
Missy's lessons are, in many ways, exactly what the Doctor taught Davros: Survival is a choice.
Now I know basically nothing about tarot, but google gave me this:
The Hanged Man shows a man suspended, upside-down, from the living World Tree, rooted in the underworld and supporting the heavens. […] Around the Hanged Man’s head is a bright yellow halo showing spiritual attainment, with the grey background suggesting invisibility (a good reminder to not flaunt your spirituality). This is the card of ultimate surrender, of being suspended in time and of martyrdom and sacrifice to the greater good. This is the archetype to meditate on to help break old patterns of behaviour and bad habits that restrict you.
The Hanged Man’s number is 12 - a higher octave of the number 3, representing careful planning and orderly growth leading to spiritual development. 1 (beginning) + 2 (the reasoning force) = 3 (the product of rebirth). The ruling planet is Neptune, the planet of self-sacrifice and idealism.
The Hanged Man reflects a need to suspend action, and as a result, a period of indecision may be indicated. Decisions or actions that need to be implemented will be postponed, even if, at the time, there is a sense of urgency to act. In fact, you may be much better off if you can stall on any decision-making and action-taking at this time in order to provide yourself with more time to reflect on the situation at hand and to consider the greater good.
I’m sure you’ll agree this is all very very Clara. And very fitting to the current circumstances.
Now what else is Clara? Duality. Or to use one of the keywords in this episode: A hybrid.
DAVROS: There was a prophecy, Doctor, on your own world. […] It spoke of a hybrid creature. Two great warrior races forced together to create a warrior greater than either. Is that what you ran from, Doctor? Your part in the coming of the hybrid? Half Dalek, half Time Lord.
MISSY: In a way, this is why I gave her to you in the first place. To make you see. The friend inside the enemy, the enemy inside the friend.
DOCTOR: I'm sorry, Clara. I'm so sorry!
MISSY: Everyone's a bit of both. Everyone's a hybrid.
Now considering that the very first time we met Clara she was a Human/Dalek hybrid - and the fact that she repeats that role in this episode - I’d say that if this prophecy doesn’t have her name written all over it, I’ll eat my hat.
And oh, Clara may not consciously remember Oswin, but subconsciously she is obviously dealing with some sort of post-Asylum PTSD, given how desperately she begs Missy to stop when Missy seals her in. If you were trapped on a Dalek world, a Dalek would be the perfect hiding place. (As shown in the very first Dalek serial!) But Clara is terrified. Which makes sense, for me, of why she didn't think to just open her own shell at the end when she's trying to communicate with the Doctor. Clara in her right mind, Clara 'three of you in here and you didn't think to try the door?!' Oswald would have been way ahead of the rest of them there. But she's really not, poor thing. She grudgingly followed Missy throughout, but once she's in the Dalek she seems almost paralysed, can't even think of a good line to give to the interrogating Dalek. Somewhere, I'm sure, there's this playing in her mind - bone deep terror that she doesn't understand, just knows that things are very very wrong:
Back to the prophecy, it's especially neat given the fact that her first action on the show - as Dalek!Oswin - was to sever the link between the Doctor and the Daleks.
She’s been mirrored with the Doctor from the start, and has narrative power that’s off the scale. If her ending is to be an instrument to heal/end the Time War, it would be immensely fitting. (I could go over everything again, but I’m not sure I have the energy/time. Just follow my ‘Clara Who’ tag and you should get the idea.)
And we can see her Hanged Man status (time of reflection) and her tutoring by Missy (getting her own stick) as preparation for this. Actually the whole episode would be a pretty good model: Die, journey through the underworld, become a Dalek, ask for mercy. That covers all the important bits, I should think.
Of course the prophecy talks about a ‘warrior’, and Clara could certainly fit that role. She was specifically made a general in Nightmare in Silver, and as the Doctor's apprentice he's been training her to take on his role, esp. in S8. We saw her pretty much fully fledged in Flatline:
DOCTOR [OC]: But pretty soon a leader is going to emerge. You need to make sure that leader is you.
CLARA: I'm on it. George. George, isn't it? Can you watch that area? If you hear anything, anything moves, you shout, okay?
FENTON: He will do no such thing until I get some answers. Who are you? That's what I want to know. Impersonating a government official. Trespassing on council property.
CLARA: Seriously?
FENTON: Seriously.
CLARA: Fine, I'll tell you who I am. I am the one chance you've got of staying alive. That's who I am.
Apprentice is pretty much the BEST, most accurate word for what Clara is to the Doctor, I'm beginning to realise. But what will that mean for her?
Finally
As I quoted last week:
And so the moral heart of the Moffat era stands, for a moment, revealed - an understanding and principle we can take forward in reading everything else that he does. It is an observation that stems inexorably from the history of alchemy within the series and from the underlying imagery of this story. “As above, so below,” the injunction goes - a declaration that manipulating symbols and manipulating objects is, in some sense, the same thing. That a symbol and a thing are in some sense interchangeable. What is the moral heart of the Moffat era? It is simple.
The secret of material social progress is alchemy.
Phil Sandifer
‘As above, so below’ - this was literally true in this episode as all the Daleks were infused with the Doctor’s regeneration energy. The ones below as well as the ones above. The secret of material social progress - or revolution - is alchemy.
Although, at its most basic, the whole resolution turned around a pun:
The sewers are revolting.
The Witch’s Familiar
To start - mostly I just adored this episode. It was almost symphonic. Humour and serious talk side-by-side, woven together. There were so many wonderful moments, I’m going to have to list some of them.
No words. Literally.
Well, that's not quite true... For starters, it sits very well with this quote:
CLARA DALEK: Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!
MISSY: Cybermen suppress emotion. Daleks channel it through a gun. That's why they keep yelling exterminate. It's how they reload. So, let's go and kill them. Come on.
The Doctor in Davros’ chair, with a Dalek weapon, asking where is Clara… There is a lot of channelling his emotions going on.
We saw a similar furious & single-minded attachment in 'Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS':
DOCTOR: I just activated the Tardis self-destruct system. One hour until this ship blows.
(Bram runs for the door, which slams in his face.)
DOCTOR: Don't try to leave. The Tardis is in lockdown. I'll open those doors when Clara's by my side.
BRAM: You crazy lunatic!
DOCTOR: My ship, my rules.
GREGOR: You'll kill us all. And the girl.
DOCTOR: She's going to die if you don't help me. Don't get into a spaceship with a madman. Didn't anyone ever teach you that?
~
DALEK SUPREME: The Doctor does not use weapons.
DOCTOR: Doesn't he? Ah, listen to your little hearts beat!
[...]
DOCTOR: Ask me what I want.
DALEK SUPREME: What do you want?
DOCTOR: Clara Oswald.
DOCTOR: I want Clara Oswald, safe, alive, and returned to me immediately. You bring her back. You do that. You do that now. Unharmed. Unhurt. Alive. I saw what happened. I was there. And I'm hoping, for all of our sakes, that it was a trick.
DALEK SUPREME: It was not a deception.
DOCTOR: Because if Clara Oswald is really dead, then you'd better be very, very careful how you tell me.
I love Missy’s explanation for why they always say exterminate. And of course it confirms what Oswin said:
OSWIN: You know how you make someone into a Dalek? Subtract love, add anger…
Also nice differentiating between Cybermen & Daleks. And how Danny became the former, and Clara the latter. (Srsly, the monstering is… off the scale.)
~
DAVROS: I hope you are grateful. It wasn't easy to procure. And very nearly unique, of course. You should feel privileged. The only other chair on Skaro.
I went looking for janie_aire, remembering that she hangs out at Phil Sandifer’s these days. I have already linked to her meta, and apparently she will write about the chair agenda next week. Yay!
Because the Doctor is, quite literally, taking Davros' seat. Placing himself in the same place where the father of the Daleks resides. There is a LOT of parallels being drawn between Davros & the Doctor in these episodes...
~
DOCTOR: Of course, the real question is, where did I get the cup of tea? Answer? I'm the Doctor. Just accept it.
(I can’t even. And where DID he get the tea?)
~
CLARA: What are you doing?
MISSY: Murdering a Dalek. I'm a Time Lady, it's our golf.
This is delightful on every level.
~
(Explosion.)
MISSY: Wheeeeeee!
I just love the way she says ‘Wheee!’
~
DALEK: You are a Time Lord?
MISSY: Time Lady, thank you. Some of us can afford the upgrade. Is it still the same old Supreme Dalek these days? I fought him once on the slopes of the Never Vault. Tell him the bitch is back.
The bitch is back… *happy flailing* (Also love the ‘upgrade’ comment.)
~
DALEK SUPREME: The Tardis has been destroyed.
DOCTOR: Ah, don't be silly, of course it hasn't. It just redistributed itself for a moment. Hostile Action Dispersal System. I'll give it a quick blast from my sonic, and the real time envelope will reassemble right here.
HADS! Also neatest use ever of ‘Just the Doctor & Clara Oswald in the TARDIS.’ The line was of course used in the trailer, and rang all sorts of bells, as last time that specific turn of phrase was used was during S2 (The Age of Steel):
MICKEY: Jake, you want to watch this.
(The TARDIS dematerialises.)
JAKE: What the hell?
MICKEY: That's the Doctor in the TARDIS with Rose Tyler.
Then, it was used as if Rose & the Doctor were some sort of universal constant. Here, however, it’s quite simply a statement of fact. <3
~
DOCTOR: Generations of Daleks just woke up very cross, and they are coming up the pipes. Or to put it another way, bye!
*Lovely* shout-out to Ten. <3
From The Stolen Earth, when Ten has been talking to Davros over the subwave network:
DAVROS [on screen]: True Daleks. I have my children, Doctor. What do you have, now?
DOCTOR: After all this time, everything we saw, everything we lost, I have only one thing to say to you. Bye!
~
MISSY: Can I just say, it's been an absolute pleasure to finally meet you?
(She gives a little curtsey and holds out her hand, then pokes Davros in his blue eye. It hurts. Then she runs out.)
Oh god this episode had the Doctor and Missy and Davros all in the same room!!! Thank you Santa Moff.
FAMILY
(Welcome back family theme, it’s good to see you!)
It’s not that this theme ever completely disappeared, but it’s been on the backburner since we lost our lovely Ponds. Now, however, Davros brings it front & centre:
DOCTOR: How long has it been, you and I?
DAVROS: Long enough. Galaxies have burned.
DOCTOR: And now you ask me a personal question?
DAVROS: You have slaughtered billions of my children, as I have slaughtered billions of your race. We have exhausted the conventional means of communication.
Also it’s worth pointing out at this juncture how radically the show has changed. Last time we saw Davros, the Doctor was a PTSD’d lost puppy, and the following year his immediate, instinctual reaction to learning that the Time Lords were returning was to grab a gun.
But now, the Time Lords are his source of hope, the thing he clings to after he has lost everything else:
DOCTOR: Because if Clara Oswald is really dead, then you'd better be very, very careful how you tell me. MISSY: Listen to that. The Doctor without hope.
DOCTOR [OC]: Who's going to tell me that Clara Oswald is really dead?
MISSY: He'll burn everything. Us too.
Except she’s wrong. He doesn’t burn everything. Never considers it. (Davros shows him a way to kill all the Daleks in one go, and he turns in down. If Davros had extended the offer to Ten - oh he might just have taken it. But Twelve is long past such temptations, and Davros will go on to use another tactic to entrap his Time Lord.) He may have failed in every way, failed to save Clara (or Davros) but - he saved his people:
DOCTOR: My people are alive. They didn't die. I brought them back. I found a way.
DAVROS: Is this true?
DOCTOR: Gallifrey is back in the sky. I don't know where, I may never know. But Gallifrey is back and it is safe from both of us.
And Davros understands:
DAVROS: A man should have a race, a people, an allegiance. A man should belong, Doctor. Believe me, please. I am happy for you. So happy.
A man should belong. This is the key. Ten didn’t belong anywhere. But Eleven had his Ponds, his very own family. When he lost them, he found Clara, whose life is so very wrapped around his (and his around her's). And she helped him save the Time Lords, helped him to belong once more:
DAVROS: If you have redeemed the Time Lords from the fire, do not lose them again. Take the darkest path into the deepest hell, but protect your own as I have sought to protect mine. Did I do right, Doctor? Tell me.
Also, a lot of religious imagery. Davros talks about the Time Lords being ‘redeemed’ and tempts the Doctor with god-hood… Most of all though, we are establishing both Davros and the Doctor as part of a people. Davros calls the Daleks his children.
Again, contrast to last time, when the Doctor ‘only’ had his companions, which Davros referred to as the Doctor’s ‘children’.
This time - partly due to Missy’s presence - the Doctor is firmly established as a member of his own species, with family and friends. (See Missy claiming his confession dial in the first episode.) And also:
(Missy removes the cameo brooch from her blouse neck.)
MISSY: Dark star alloy. Goes through armour plating like a knife through people.
CLARA: Missy. Missy. Missy, uncuff me now!
MISSY: It's pretty, though, isn't it? Got it in the olden days on Gallifrey. The Doctor gave it to me when my daughter-
Missy as a mother (or just parent, generally) is… technically new, but the role fits.
I am not familiar enough with Classic Who to say if the Master was ever a parental figure, but within New Who Simm!Master referred to the Toclafane as his children.
In the S8 finale she talks about the Cybermen as ‘her boys’, very much echoing the relationship with the Toclafane, but now Moffat has taken it a step further. Partly confirming that Missy had at least one child, and partly having her fill a ‘motherly’ role towards Clara:
DOCTOR: It's the wicked stepmother! Everyone hiss!
MISSY: Shh, now. Mummy's talking.
I’ll get back to what this means for Clara later on. For now, I want to tackle Missy/Doctor.
As some people have noticed, there are a lot of similarities between Missy and River. However, there are also differences. One of them being Missy’s jealousy.
DOCTOR: Which Time Lady?
MISSY: The one you abandoned, Doctor. The one you left for dead. Didn't you ever think I'd find my way back?
DOCTOR: Clara. Clara. Clara. I've got to get Clara!
(The Doctor runs to the lift door.)
MISSY: Oh, Clara, Clara, Clara! You know I should shoot you in a jealous rage. Now, wouldn't that be sexy? I've turned the lift off, though.
CLARA: A what?
MISSY: In your terms, a will. The Last Will and Testament of the Time Lord known as the Doctor, to be delivered, according to ancient tradition, to his closest friend, on the eve of his final day.
(Clara reaches for it, and gets an electric shock.)
MISSY: Ah, ah! What are you doing?
CLARA: You said. I thought.
MISSY: No, no, no, no, no. It was delivered to me.
CLARA: You?
MISSY: Well of course it was sent to me. What have you got to do with it? I'm his friend. You're just [the puppy].
MISSY: Morning.
DOCTOR: Where's Clara?
MISSY: Oh, hello to you, too.
DOCTOR: You're alive, so she is too. Where is she?
MISSY: I'm fine, thanks for asking.
Partly, I think, this is because River - from the start - pushed the Doctor as far as she could re. his feelings for her. From her perspective, the first time they meet (LKH) he tells her he loves her. The second time, he marries her. She was made for him, is his Bespoke Psychopath, is his wife. She is unique, she knows it, and he knows that she knows. They take their feelings and relationship as a given, and everything flows from there. (Not always without problems, but she’s never jealous. When she meets Clara, she takes the opportunity to establish herself as knowing the Doctor better than Clara, pulls rank as it were, but it's merely to establish their roles.)
Now Missy & the Doctor’s friendship is… complex. Not catching each other, but trying to kill each other instead. (Although, of course, saving each other from other foes.) Traps are Missy’s way of flirting. And attention are a very important part of this. When Missy shows up, she expects the Doctor’s undivided attention. (As her attention is usually fixed on him…)
But here, for example, he treats her very much like he would River - of course she has saved him, he’d expect nothing less, now where is Clara? (Possibly he subconsciously has them both placed in the same sort of role in this instance, see how when he sees Missy has survived, he presumes Clara has too...)
River’s response would be ‘Clara is fine, now give us a kiss!’ Of course if the the Doctor then discovered that Clara was inside a Dalek and began shouting at River, she’d probably be thoroughly blasé about it - ‘Safest place to be! For goodness sake, stop fussing!’
Although as Promethia pointed out to me, this episode is an interesting contrast with Name of the Doctor:
If Missy is the evil stepmother here, River was the fairy godmother there (as she has been before). And where Missy shamelessly and sadistically uses Clara as a tool in her quest to rescue the Doctor, turns her into a Dalek, and then tries to turn the Doctor on her, River acts to protect Clara against the interests of the Doctor and, indeed, the interests of the whole universe. Twice. 1) Once when the GI is stopping everybody's hearts to force the Doctor into saying his name and opening his tomb. 2) Once when she argues with Clara to not jump into the Doctor's timestream because she will be torn apart into a million echos who may be able to save the Doctor but 'they won't be you.'
Which makes Clara's bridging of the Pond & Twelve eras extra interesting. She has both the 'crones' of the 'verse advising her: the fairy godmother and the wicked stepmother. Or rather - they are linked. Literally. River and Clara were psychically linked. Missy and Clara were linked by vortex manipulators. Though the 'directions' are reversed: Clara's vortex manipulator is 'slaved' to Missy's, so Clara goes wherever Missy goes. Whereas River has to follow Clara.
Fairy tales alllll the way. Yay metaphors and symbolism!
MERCY
DAVROS: Oh, they have no choice. My Daleks are afflicted with a genetic defect.
DOCTOR: What defect?
DAVROS: Respect. Mercy for their father. Design flaws I was unable to eliminate.
CLARA DALEK: Mercy. Mercy.
DOCTOR: You shouldn't be able to say that.
CLARA DALEK: Mercy.
DOCTOR: That word shouldn't exist in your vocabulary. How did Davros teach you to say that?
Sidebar: If you’re anything like me, this immediately popped into your head:
RIVER: I'm River Song. Check your records again.
DALEK: Mercy.
RIVER: Say it again.
DALEK: Mercy!
RIVER: One more time.
DALEK: Mercy!
Because oh yes, they know the word, and the concept.
CLARA DALEK: Mercy.
DOCTOR: Why aren't you trying to kill me?
CLARA DALEK: Mercy.
CLARA [in the Dalek]: Because I would never kill you. You are the last person I would ever kill.
CLARA DALEK: I show mercy.
Incidentally, I love the fact that their vocabulary is restricted. It’s very 1984.
And then of course we have that final scene:
DOCTOR: When you were in the Dalek, you made it say mercy... It shouldn't have understood the concept, it shouldn't have been able to say it. How did a tiny piece of mercy get into the DNA of the Daleks?
(Long pause as the obvious reason finally dawns on him, then he runs to the Tardis clutching the Dalek gun
YOUNG DAVROS: Which side are you on? Are you the enemy?
DOCTOR: I'm not sure that any of that matters, friends, enemies. So long as there's mercy. Always mercy.
Linguistically there’s an interesting distinction being made in this episode between ‘compassion’ and ‘mercy’. You may not have compassion - and some people may not deserve it - but you can still show mercy.
Even a Dalek understands the concept.
HYBRID
(Hi my little quantum mirror leaf! ♥)
Love is a rebellious bird…
Missy: Every miner needs a canary
Am glad to see that Clara’s bird imagery continues. (See last weeks’ post re. birds & Horus etc.)
Eggs and birds. (Gallifrey is the egg, Clara the bird? Will she make it hatch?)
~
Stepping away from Clara's imagery for a moment - who was the Magician’s Apprentice? Who was the Witch’s Familiar? Well, both of them were Clara, as Clara is (always) all the things. At the same time. ♥
Now you could certainly argue that Davros could qualify as the Doctor’s ‘Apprentice’. However, I’ll go for Clara for the purposes of this meta, as it’s the far more interesting option.
If we view Clara as the Apprentice, then she does a very good job of ‘being the Doctor’ in the first episode, making full use of her ‘training on the job’. She’s the one UNIT call on, she’s the one to solve the puzzle of where the Doctor is etc. She is a very Doctor-y person - spent S8 becoming the Doctor in every way she could - and as we see when she fails to kill Missy when given the chance; much like the Doctor turns down the opportunity to kill the Daleks:
MISSY: You won't survive down here on your own.
CLARA: You won't survive turning your back.
MISSY: Ooo. How exciting.
(Missy turns her back on Clara. Nothing happens.)
MISSY: God, you're dull.
(She spins round and grabs the stick back.)
MISSY: In future, if you're going to take my stick, do me the courtesy of actually killing me. Team work is all about respect.
~
DAVROS: Genocide in a moment. Such slaughter, not in self-defence. Not as a simple act of war. Genocide as a choice. Are you ready, Doctor? So many backs with a single knife. […] Why do you hesitate? No one would know. Clara Oswald is dead. Is this the conscience of the Doctor, or his shame? The shame that brought you here.
DOCTOR: There's no such thing as the Doctor. I'm just a bloke in a box, telling stories. And I didn't come here because I'm ashamed. A bit of shame never hurt anyone. I came because you're sick and you asked. And because sometimes, on a good day, if I try very hard, I'm not some old Time Lord who ran away. I'm the Doctor.
DAVROS: Compassion then.
DOCTOR: Always.
But as we saw in the S8 finale meta here, Missy is not a clear Doctor-mirror anymore. She was also a mirror for Clara. And now Clara - always mirroring - is changing in response to Missy.
She was the Magician’s apprentice - but now she’s also the Witch’s Familiar…
(Clara is always two things at the same time, a quantum creature. See my big Clara meta. To see her inside a Dalek almost made me fall off the sofa. I was so right last week! :D)
Deaths are always symbolic, and this episode opened with Clara 'resurrected' if you will, having been exterminated at the end of last episode. Death means change. When Clara first met the Doctor, she was also killed, uploaded to the datacloud by the spoonhead, echoing the same 'Where am I?' that she had cried when she was a Dalek. And if we count this episode's death, then she is quite literally:
Anyway, this new death led to:
1) Her world literally turning upside down and
2) Missy is giving her a lesson in not dying. As she said last episode 'Death is for other people, dear.'
And in this episode she coaches Clara, getting her to work out the answers on her own, quite enjoying her new pet. And Clara is an apt pupil:
CLARA: Can I have a stick too?
MISSY: Make your own stick.
Missy's lessons are, in many ways, exactly what the Doctor taught Davros: Survival is a choice.
Now I know basically nothing about tarot, but google gave me this:
The Hanged Man shows a man suspended, upside-down, from the living World Tree, rooted in the underworld and supporting the heavens. […] Around the Hanged Man’s head is a bright yellow halo showing spiritual attainment, with the grey background suggesting invisibility (a good reminder to not flaunt your spirituality). This is the card of ultimate surrender, of being suspended in time and of martyrdom and sacrifice to the greater good. This is the archetype to meditate on to help break old patterns of behaviour and bad habits that restrict you.
The Hanged Man’s number is 12 - a higher octave of the number 3, representing careful planning and orderly growth leading to spiritual development. 1 (beginning) + 2 (the reasoning force) = 3 (the product of rebirth). The ruling planet is Neptune, the planet of self-sacrifice and idealism.
The Hanged Man reflects a need to suspend action, and as a result, a period of indecision may be indicated. Decisions or actions that need to be implemented will be postponed, even if, at the time, there is a sense of urgency to act. In fact, you may be much better off if you can stall on any decision-making and action-taking at this time in order to provide yourself with more time to reflect on the situation at hand and to consider the greater good.
I’m sure you’ll agree this is all very very Clara. And very fitting to the current circumstances.
Now what else is Clara? Duality. Or to use one of the keywords in this episode: A hybrid.
DAVROS: There was a prophecy, Doctor, on your own world. […] It spoke of a hybrid creature. Two great warrior races forced together to create a warrior greater than either. Is that what you ran from, Doctor? Your part in the coming of the hybrid? Half Dalek, half Time Lord.
MISSY: In a way, this is why I gave her to you in the first place. To make you see. The friend inside the enemy, the enemy inside the friend.
DOCTOR: I'm sorry, Clara. I'm so sorry!
MISSY: Everyone's a bit of both. Everyone's a hybrid.
Now considering that the very first time we met Clara she was a Human/Dalek hybrid - and the fact that she repeats that role in this episode - I’d say that if this prophecy doesn’t have her name written all over it, I’ll eat my hat.
And oh, Clara may not consciously remember Oswin, but subconsciously she is obviously dealing with some sort of post-Asylum PTSD, given how desperately she begs Missy to stop when Missy seals her in. If you were trapped on a Dalek world, a Dalek would be the perfect hiding place. (As shown in the very first Dalek serial!) But Clara is terrified. Which makes sense, for me, of why she didn't think to just open her own shell at the end when she's trying to communicate with the Doctor. Clara in her right mind, Clara 'three of you in here and you didn't think to try the door?!' Oswald would have been way ahead of the rest of them there. But she's really not, poor thing. She grudgingly followed Missy throughout, but once she's in the Dalek she seems almost paralysed, can't even think of a good line to give to the interrogating Dalek. Somewhere, I'm sure, there's this playing in her mind - bone deep terror that she doesn't understand, just knows that things are very very wrong:
Back to the prophecy, it's especially neat given the fact that her first action on the show - as Dalek!Oswin - was to sever the link between the Doctor and the Daleks.
She’s been mirrored with the Doctor from the start, and has narrative power that’s off the scale. If her ending is to be an instrument to heal/end the Time War, it would be immensely fitting. (I could go over everything again, but I’m not sure I have the energy/time. Just follow my ‘Clara Who’ tag and you should get the idea.)
And we can see her Hanged Man status (time of reflection) and her tutoring by Missy (getting her own stick) as preparation for this. Actually the whole episode would be a pretty good model: Die, journey through the underworld, become a Dalek, ask for mercy. That covers all the important bits, I should think.
Of course the prophecy talks about a ‘warrior’, and Clara could certainly fit that role. She was specifically made a general in Nightmare in Silver, and as the Doctor's apprentice he's been training her to take on his role, esp. in S8. We saw her pretty much fully fledged in Flatline:
DOCTOR [OC]: But pretty soon a leader is going to emerge. You need to make sure that leader is you.
CLARA: I'm on it. George. George, isn't it? Can you watch that area? If you hear anything, anything moves, you shout, okay?
FENTON: He will do no such thing until I get some answers. Who are you? That's what I want to know. Impersonating a government official. Trespassing on council property.
CLARA: Seriously?
FENTON: Seriously.
CLARA: Fine, I'll tell you who I am. I am the one chance you've got of staying alive. That's who I am.
Apprentice is pretty much the BEST, most accurate word for what Clara is to the Doctor, I'm beginning to realise. But what will that mean for her?
Finally
As I quoted last week:
And so the moral heart of the Moffat era stands, for a moment, revealed - an understanding and principle we can take forward in reading everything else that he does. It is an observation that stems inexorably from the history of alchemy within the series and from the underlying imagery of this story. “As above, so below,” the injunction goes - a declaration that manipulating symbols and manipulating objects is, in some sense, the same thing. That a symbol and a thing are in some sense interchangeable. What is the moral heart of the Moffat era? It is simple.
The secret of material social progress is alchemy.
Phil Sandifer
‘As above, so below’ - this was literally true in this episode as all the Daleks were infused with the Doctor’s regeneration energy. The ones below as well as the ones above. The secret of material social progress - or revolution - is alchemy.
Although, at its most basic, the whole resolution turned around a pun:
The sewers are revolting.