“Pain is a gift.” – Doctor Who Recap

Series 8, Episode 12
Death in Heaven
Posted by Sage

Pain is a gift. Fear is a superpower. And the only man you’d possibly want in charge of all the world’s armies is an idiot.

I watched “Death in Heaven” on a bed full of friends in my hotel room at L.I. Who, with a sippy cup full of wine in my hand and Paul McGann, Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and other Doctor Who royalty just a few doors down the hall. And no matter their content, I almost always enjoy the episodes I watch in company more than those I watch alone. This is a series that’s meant to be shared. So, kindly indulge my rosy take on things and blame it on the 3-day Whovian love-in.

I’m not alone in my feelings. After the episode, we booked it downstairs to an instant reaction panel moderated by our girl Deb Stanish (and almost got kicked out, but that’s a story for another post) and the response from our fellow fans was pretty positive, across the board. Maybe it’s because Moffat was working with an established villain, but the series 8 finale buttoned up story in a way his past season-enders have not. There are ends that remain untied, but time will tell which are continuing mysteries and which are plot holes, cheerfully skipped right over. Obviously, we’re all hoping for more of the former.

After the show totally went there with Danny Pink and revealed Missy as the Master, the time came to reveal her devious bat-ass-shit-crazy-as-frick plan. And in the TARDIS team (and friends) response to that threat, all the questions swirling around this series joined hands and formed a giant chain of THEME. Is this regeneration a good man? What does being a soldier tell you about a person? What doesn’t it tell you? Why are we so obsessed with the concept of an after-life? Why do people without a clue continue to call this a kids’ show?

We’ve been teased with visions of the Nethersphere all season. (And wondered right here on this blog why only people who gave their lives for the Doctor or to ensure his eventual victory seemed to end up there.) Now we know that this place is actually a data cloud of consciousness – “hell” to some, “the promised land” to others. Missy has been traveling (presumably since John Simm’s Master dusted himself off after “The End of TIme”) back and forth along the Doctor’s timeline, “saving” unwitting accomplices to her Cyberarmy. (“Bit of an upgrade.”) She preys on vanity, on fear of death, and on sacrifice. While the Doctor is constantly chasing opportunities for humans to surprise him, the Master uses what she knows of humanity against us. She’s good.

But why, the Doctor keeps asking. Why, why, why? He needs motive. Motive is usually his way in. Most of the villainous species he runs up against are trying to survive, to protect, to grow. But The Master? The Master only ever thinks of the Doctor. (“I need you to know we’re not so different. I need my friend back.”) She has no other motive. Not money, not power. Her plans are always designed to draw the Doctor in, which makes them difficult to avoid and impossible to predict. I wrote in my “Into the Dalek” recap that if anything, the Doctor defines himself by what he is not. And every one of his personal codes is tested when he runs into his childhood friend. Because, on the other hand, the Master is the only creature in this dimension who also knows what it’s like to feel the turn of the Earth.

Missy had to have foreseen UNIT’s getting involved in this whole global Cyberman takeover, though I’m not sure that she anticipated the President of the Earth business. Me? I’m just happy to see lady Earth defenders extraordinaire Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and Osgood swoop in for their first (and in SOME horrible cases, last) adventure with Twelve. Ingrid Oliver remains adorable, especially since Osgood has traded her multi-colored scarf for a new, more streamlined accessory.

Osgood’s death hurt like hell. I’d never pretend otherwise. She represented the fan girl in all of us and we could have used her clear-headed assistance a few dozen more times. Some audience response has decried her death as pointless and cruel. Well…yeah. Isn’t that just the Master’s way? I do believe that’s the point – that she didn’t go out in a blaze of glory, and that Missy didn’t need to kill her to advance her scheme. “Why does one pop a balloon?” Missy asks her. “Because you’re pretty.” One might also pop a balloon to ruin a child’s day. The Master sees the Doctor’s companions as his distractions – his playthings. And she’s forever jealous of them. Osgood died because the Doctor admired her, and we have yet another TARDIS pair that could have been but never was.

Frankly, it’s the only item on my bucket list, Doctor. Anyway, Osgood’s death is quick and dirty because the real linchpin of Missy’s operation is Miss Clara Oswald. Moffat knew his “master” plan (rimshot please) at least as early as series 7B. Missy was the “woman in the shop” who gave Clara the Doctor’s number in “The Bells of St. John” and the “needy ego-maniacal game player” who placed the “Impossible Girl” advertisement in the newspaper in “Deep Breath.” Since she’s been stomping all over the Doctor’s timeline, isn’t it possible that Missy saw several shades of that impossible girl along the way? She hand-picked Clara for this job, just like The Moment hand-picked Rose Tyler as its interface. This was the one who would lead the Doctor right where Missy wanted him.

And here’s where all the “control freak” comments pay off. My mom said to me on the phone the other day, “You have high standards for people, and sometimes they’re impossible to meet.” That’s the kind of control freak I am, and the kind Clara Oswald is as well. It’s why she puts the Doctor through his paces like few companions have and why she won’t sit and be chastised by Madame Vastra when she smells hypocrisy. Missy knew that Clara simply wouldn’t accept the death of someone she loves, especially one so mundane and unworthy of him. This means that Missy or one of her “boys” definitely killed Danny Pink, right? I imagine her behind the wheel, looking like something like this.

Almost all of Clara and the Doctor’s relationship has been puppet-mastered by Missy. Sooooo…thanks? (Related: I can’t stop laughing at her in the above left gif. What a performance.) Still, the choices that they’ve made to stand by each other remain their own. Clara and Twelve have gone to the darkest places of any modern Who pair, as far as their own relationship is concerned. Yet they each come out of it confidently declaring each other. The Doctor used to struggle to find a word to describe what Clara is to him. Not this time. As for Clara?

“I would never ever give up the Doctor, because he is my best friend too. He is the closest person to me in this whole world. He is the man I will always forgive, always trust. The one man I would never, ever lie to.”

She’s working the Cybermen when she says this, sure. And we know that Clara Oswald can talk herself out of a situation. We also know she very much does lie to the Doctor – we’ve watched her do it more than once. (“Danny’s fine with it.”) But her statement is more true than Clara even realizes. Though it’s occasionally had me pulling my hair out in feminist frustration (“The Caretaker”), the Clara-Danny-Doctor triangle has this nobody-wins quality that feels very grown up for this show. The Doctor was never a real rival for Rory, or vice versa. They were a family, quite literally. But the audience never feels like Clara will ever throw some ponchos on her boys and saucily suggest dying “like a Peruvian folk band.” Coexistence among these three would be nothing but awkwardness and hurt feelings. And it’s nobody’s fault entirely. Danny doesn’t trust Clara, but Clara has been lying to him. Clara wants to live the life she wants without feeling like she’s abandoning something. The Doctor and Danny don’t mesh, because they see something in each other that scares them. I think it’s something that reminds them of the worst part of themselves. And Danny’s greatest fear is that Clara will always regret it if she “gives up” the Doctor to stay at home with him. That’s the fear she was trying to allay when she called, whether she truly believed it herself or not.

I apologize for the backtrack, but I think it’s relevant. Clara’s actions at the beginning of “Dark Water” were not about a girl choosing one boy over another. She was driven by grief and guilt. (And guilty grief is just about the most destructive emotion in the human canon.) Clara has a healthy ego, and after all she’s done and seen she feels ready to take on whatever’s coming. But when it comes to Danny’s death, she’s utterly helpless. That’s when her desperation and anger turn to point right at the Doctor. Why take me with you and show me these things? Why make me believe in the impossible and in my own specialness if something this simple and necessary is so far beyond my reach?  I’d been tip-toeing around the 12/Clara ship for a while before this episode – just testing the waters. “Dark Water” threw me into the deep end. The Doctor’s response to Clara’s “betrayal” was a turning point that felt like a seismic shift. And all of a sudden, we’re standing on different ground than we were before. Let’s shut up and listen to Steven Moffat for once:

“I’m also proud of a line – I’m very rarely proud of anything I write – but I’m proud of the line ‘Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?’ because I got obsessed when I started to write this that Cybermen have no emotion, so it starts with Clara unable to find a way to say I love you and ends with Danny unable to find a way to say I love you, there are two phone calls that book-end it, and in the middle, the cracked old Caledonian gets it exactly right, he says I love you perfectly.

He’s surprised he has to say it. That’s the truth about him, he says lots of horrible things all the time, that’s because he assumes all the other stuff is taken for granted and it’s only in that moment Clara realizes just how much he’s assuming is taken for granted, absolute monomaniacal devotion to her. He absolutely loves her.” – Den of Geek Interview

Danny’s trust, if not his love, come with a lot of conditions. He has expectations of Clara that she’s just not able to meet (“I wasn’t very good at it, but I did love you.”) Are they fair? I’m not really qualified to make that call. But then there’s the Doctor, making the choice to double down on his faith in her right at the moment that she fails him, because he knows that’s when she needs it most.

I don’t know that Danny and Clara would have ever made it. They’d already hurt each other too much. And it’s a good thing they did, because otherwise, CyberDanny couldn’t have made the choice that he did. Pain is the access point. And once that door is open, other emotions can come rushing through. Even after the inhibitor is switched on, he remembers the heartbreak and the fierce affection that went with it. It’s an unprecedented situation, because we have no proof that the Master even feels pain. And though love might be what she’d call her obsession with turning the Doctor, we’d more accurately call it a unhealthy fixation. She can’t see what’s coming, but the Doctor can. “How can you win a war against an enemy who can weaponize the dead?” You get the dead on your side. And the way to do that, is to make them remember their humanity.

“I am not a good man. And I’m not a bad man. I’m not a hero and I’m definitely not a president. And no, I’m not an officer. Do you know what I am? I am…an idiot. With a box. And a screwdriver. Passing through. Helping out. Learning. I don’t need an army, I never have. I’ve got them. Always them. Because love is not an emotion. Love is a promise. And he will never hurt her.”

When Eccles or Tennant or Matty’s Doctor made speeches, they were dramatic and cocky and I loved every second of them. They knew exactly the kind of men that they were and relished any chance they got to shout that out to the universe. But Twelve’s “I am the Doctor” speech isn’t premeditated. He is literally figuring out what kind of man he is, right as the words are coming out of his mouth. And he’s sincerely thanking Missy for showing him. Like Moffat said in the quote above, this regeneration takes a lot for granted, but now he realizes he has to be more trusting and to meet his companions and friends halfway. So the man who’s spent all series failing to hide his disdain and fear of soldiers, hands the fate of the world to one who likely hates him. And he doesn’t hesitate for a moment when he gets the second chance to salute the best soldier he’s ever known.

Look at these lying liars.

The do-over button surfaces and then gives the finger to the Doctor and Clara. Missy was lying about the coordinates of Gallifrey, and the Doctor gets into a fight with his console because he should have known. Danny sends the child he killed back with the bracelet instead of himself and Clara has to deal with losing him all over again. (One wonders what Clara did with the Afghani kid in her flat.) But they lie to each other about their happiness, because it’s time to just pretend that everything is okay and move on. They’re not even particularly good lies! Danny and Clara had some deep, deep issues to work on repairing. And no one believes that the Doctor would easily settle in to a happy home life on Gallifrey. They’re both lying and they’re both fine being lied to. The Doctor doesn’t want Clara to feel like she needs to come with him for his own sake – she’s in mourning and should have her privacy. And Clara doesn’t want the Doctor to put his focus on her instead of finally finding his home planet. They don’t need to hide their faces from each other – they are willful participants But in other cases, the truth is easily offered and exactly what the other needs to hear.

“Doctor. Traveling with you made me feel really special. Thank you for that. Thank you for making me feel special.”
“Thank you for exactly the same.”

FOOF. 39 shopping days until Christmas.

Timey Wimey Observations:

• OMG SANTA, I KNOW HIM!

• I kept writing “3W” in my notes as “3LW”, but no more. (Baby, Imma do right…)
• I love that Missy “oh, honey’ed” the Doctor.
• “89, OCD. “91 Queen of Evil.”
• RIP, Man Scout.
• “We don’t want Americans bobbing around the place. They’ll only start praying.”
• The Doctor was SO PISSED when he found out Osgood was dead, it was almost worth it.
• “Kindly delete your opinions, thank you.”
• Clara claims she’ll never say “I love you” again, so it’s a good thing she already said it to the Doctor. Oop.
• “Then shame on you, Doctor.” “Yes. Oh, yes.”
• Clara Oswald is mourning the love of her life and is still cool-headed enough to pick up Missy’s remote without her noticing.
• CyberBrig, though.
• “Don’t you worry….go home. Go be a king or something.” “Yeah, might do that.” “Or a queen.” “Yeah, queen would be good too.” QUEEN WOULD BE GOOD TOO.

 

What did you think of “Death in Heaven” and of the season over all? Did Danny’s arc work for you? Sticky representation politics aside, how amazing is Michelle Gomez? Thoughts in the comments, if you please.