Doctor Who
Doctor Who

Episode Report Card
Jacob Clifton: A | 2065 USERS: B
YOU GRADE IT
Would You Go Along With Someone Like Me?

The DL tells her she'll never be the one the Doctor truly trusts, or else he would tell her his name. Which is just ugly, dude. Amy can't be expected to know what a big deal that was. It's almost like the DL is purposefully trying to drive Amy away from the Doctor, wouldn't you say?

Her faith is unshakeable. The DL points down at the two of them: "You ran away with a handsome hero. Would you really give him up for a bumbling country doctor who thinks the only thing he needs to be interesting is a ponytail? ...Maybe it's better than loving and losing the Doctor. Pick a world and this nightmare will all be over. They'll listen to you. It's you they're waiting for. Amy's men. Amy's choice."

Which, again, means at least three things, which is why you have to watch this episode at least twice just because of the way it's constructed. Because there's a level where this episode is a hamfisted metaphor for a romantic rivalry that shouldn't even exist. Then there's the level where the men are equal to the places are equal to the lives, and she needs to choose between them. I find that one a little hamfisted too, just because it exists entirely on the plane that says getting married makes you an adult -- but also cannot really be true, because we're only halfway through the season and thus we know for sure that Upper Leadworth is a dream.

But then on your next time through, knowing what you know, you can see that the DL is being just about as selfless and as beautiful as he ever could be. Everything means its opposite. To call the Doctor a "handsome hero" is to indict Amy on charges of which she knows she isn't, but still fears she is, guilty. And running down Rory like that just gets her dander up. What seems to be a leveraged choice actually pushes her the other way, which is what the DL has been trying to do the whole time. Take one impossible option and the other impossible option and trap her between them: She'll have no choice but to turn into something else. Learn that in either world, it's more important to the Doctor that Amy have a choice at all. That he's willing to open himself up to unimaginable pain in order to help heal what he has broken.

Doctor Who

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