Physician Who is a present about questions greater than anything—greater than about time, than about area, than about monsters, than about operating up and down corridors to and away from these monsters. It’s within the identify, a query so profound that the present has continually struggled to play with that very essence of its core. So it is smart that its newest season, one thing of a relaunch for a brand new age, brings all of it house by weaving via solutions to particulars left all through its season.

However in doing so, “Empire of Demise” posits one other query to its viewers that it itself struggles to reply: if a thriller’s not meant to be a thriller, then why make it a thriller within the first place?

For essentially the most half, “Empire of Demise” is a finale a lot in an identical method to a lot of Russell T Davies’ personal prior big-event finales in years previous. It’s an episode that leans closely on emotional climaxes delivered impeccably, within the hope that these highs and heartbreaks, these chills and thrills, will distract you from the very fact the episode itself is an ambling, logistical state of perpetual disarray, by no means fairly managing to attach the dots. Arguably, by beginning with its greatest, boldest gambit—a gambit that in all probability ought to’ve climaxed the already superb ending to final week’s episode—in making Sutekh go all Avengers: Infinity Warfare and kill off 95% of Physician Who’s supporting solid, and the whole thing of Earth, with a skeletonizing sandstorm of doom, a lot of “Empire” loses its narrative thrust. That’s as a result of the second everybody within the universe aside from the Physician, Ruby, Mel, and Claire from Fleabag (Sian Clifford) is straight away lifeless, that there’s going to be a manner again from all this by the tip of the following 45 minutes.

Alongside the best way to returning from all this then, we now have, finally, the Physician and Ruby put within the stress cooker of getting to spend a while with one another. Not of their ordinary TARDIS, alas—Sutekh and his harbingers have that now, and Sutekh’s apparently simply been invisibly clamped to the skin of it for the final 50 years, uncovered to the Time Vortex lengthy sufficient to grow to be an precise god. However as an alternative, unexpectedly thrust into the “Remembered” TARDIS created in UNIT’s time window—itself the narrative crux the Tales of the TARDIS omnibus has been constructed from—and in there we see the Physician and Ruby alike compelled to confront all of the methods their adventures this far have introduced them thus far. Alone within the universe, alongside Mel, as stars start going out one after the other, it’s truly a extremely deft solution to get all these moments and concepts woven in from previous episodes to make this finale really feel like a correct cap to the season. In doing so, it offers the Physician and Ruby precise time collectively that—sure, whereas compelled by the literal finish of the universe—begins to make the duo really feel just like the unit the present has tried to inform you they’re, quite than present you, for a lot of the season. These scenes are arguably the moments “Empire” works finest, letting Gatwa and Gibson’s electrical chemistry shine ever brighter as they hatch a plan to outlive Sutekh’s countless chase.

The place that sends them, then, is—after a short interlude to ask Claire from Fleabag for a spoon, in a scene that, very similar to the remainder of the episode, feels utterly out of odds with all the things round it however is impeccably acted to emotional catharsis by Gatwa and Clifford—2046, as a result of if the universe is ending, why not get the reply to the large query the Physician and Ruby have been wanting answered since they met? Once more, not a lot of this is smart, like how the construction of the UK has managed to persist after Sutekh’s demise wave has sandy-fied each residing being in existence, but it surely in begins to layer within the different huge ingredient of “Empire of Demise”: Ruby studying who her mom actually was. Maybe that the reply so easy a DNA registry search might discover it was meant to prime us for what was to return, however contemplating we now have to shift from this second—by way of poor Mel being killed by Sutekh and reworked into his harbinger—proper to the large climax of the episode, we’re barely given time to take a seat with simply why getting the identify of Ruby’s mother was really easy within the first place earlier than we’re thrust into the large climactic finale of the episode. Which… entails dragging Sutekh on a leash via the Time Vortex like he’s a quite literal canine, as a result of he’s Demise and the Physician is Life, however as a result of Life is Demise and Demise is Life, the Physician has to grow to be Demise to deliver Life by way of Sutekh, who can be Demise, by sentencing him to demise by Time Vortex disintegration?

Anyway, cease asking questions and simply respect the performing, as a result of all the things is okay! The universe is again—possibly even all of it, relying on how far Sutekh’s ctrl+z defeat applies to civilizations misplaced earlier than Sutekh’s storm, like Gallifrey, and even these destroyed by the Flux in Jodie Whittaker’s tenure. Sutekh is gone, having accomplished little or no since his huge Thanos sand-snap initially of the episode. It’s time to ask the suitable query, after UNIT does their very own second verify: who’s Ruby Sunday’s beginning mom, the second we’ve all been ready for all season, that’s been teased via magic snow and mysterious carolling, this peculiar lady of such thriller that nobody dare see her face, clad in ominous hooded cloaks that Christmas Eve? The lady so mysterious, that earlier than Sutekh himself worn out the final of the complete universe, even he needed to attempt to discover out who she was?

The reply, is nobody. Nicely, it’s Louise Miller (Faye McKeever), a nurse who, 20 years in the past on the age of 15, gave beginning and fled her abusive household’s house, not even with time to inform her boyfriend concerning the baby, and left her on the church on Ruby Street. And once more, the emotional construct up round this reveal is fantastic—particularly the friction between the Physician and Ruby, each foundlings, when she has him take her to Louise, now residing in Coventry, because the Physician bitterly notes that she’s had years to search for her daughter and by no means has, simply as he in flip was left deserted to be discovered by the Gallifreyans. And, as Russell T Davies himself acknowledged within the episode’s commentary observe—in a weird clapback to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, of all issues—there’s an influence in Ruby herself discovering out that there isn’t any cosmic secret to all this, however actual, messy, extremely atypical humanity. She is just not Ruby Palpatine, to borrow from Davies’ personal obvious distaste for a way his new enterprise companions in Disney dealt with Rey in Star Wars: she’s Ruby No person. However once more, that is what all of “Empire of Demise” has been: compelling emotional work, delivered impeccably by its stars, constructed off the again of a logical and narrative fallacy.

Treating the atypical nature of Ruby’s true beginning parentage as a perceived gotcha, after a season of taking part in out layer after layer of significance on the reveal, lessens its affect, as a result of the one motive a “twist” exists within the first place is as a result of Physician Who has been making this data a grand thriller and telling us as such, quite than it being left for the viewers to naturally surprise. A lot of Ruby’s growth as a personality has been constructed across the thriller of her mom as a crux, to the purpose that she herself hasn’t actually been in a position to develop till it was resolved. You may’t spend the entire season yelling on the viewers that This Is a Thriller, after which, in the long run, mock them for having handled it as such. What was the purpose of constructing this a thriller if it doesn’t truly affect the characters like one? What was truly value dragging this out throughout an entire season, as an alternative of coping with it in “The Church on Ruby Street” and letting Ruby herself be a personality outlined past this mystery-that’s-not-a-mystery?

In a manner, there’s a parallel to all this and the equally catastrophic method “Dot and Bubble” took to its last-scene reveal of Finetime’s true nature: should you return and watch this season of Physician Who with the context of who Ruby’s mom actually is, immediately a lot of what was structurally laid out to get to that reveal doesn’t matter in any respect. Not as a result of the reply itself is unsatisfying, however as a result of all these moments have been laid out to inform you that there was a significance past Ruby’s personal character arc to this reveal that have been finally nothing however purple herrings. The structural thriller of “Dot and Bubble” was intentionally designed so that you just’d by no means guess that the actual twist of all of it was white supremacy. The structural thriller of “Empire of Demise,” and of the season at massive, is likewise intentionally designed so that you’d by no means guess its precise end result. It’s simply that this time it’s Rey Palpatine fix-it fic, of all issues!

However once more, all that doesn’t matter now. “Empire of Demise” sees Ruby bid farewell to her time within the TARDIS, selecting to discover her life along with her household now this not-so-grand thriller has been solved (though we, the viewers, already know she’s again in some capability subsequent season), just for Physician Who to already be organising its subsequent one, as we minimize from the Sunday-Miller clan rejoicing in togetherness to Mrs. Flood on the roof, decked out in a flowery winter coat and umbrella as she spouts guarantees of terrors to return for the Physician. The issue is, why ought to we care about who Mrs. Flood is at this second? We’ve simply had Physician Who construct up one thriller, solely to inform us it wasn’t one in any respect. Will it’s the case along with her? Will it truly matter? It’s emblematic of a season that, at massive, has struggled to determine what it needs to say on this new period of Physician Who. In the event you can’t belief Physician Who to reply a query, then what can you belief it to do?

Need extra io9 information? Try when to count on the newest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on movie and TV, and all the things it’s worthwhile to find out about the way forward for Physician Who.