N187 Empire of Death

What this episode covers

Myriad single tears later, an old man takes credit for the women doing all the work in this season finale* * *Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we? Susan Triad has turned into Sutekh’s puppet, along with Harriet Arbinger, and they’re threatening everyone with some death dust. Before you know it Sue is blowing kisses to the TV crew and they fall to the floor like grains of sand. Doc and Mel manage to escape the recording studio but UNIT’s approach of “fire first, run away later” doesn’t go to plan and their HQ now needs a good old spring clean after Ms Arbinger dusts the lot of them.While Doc and Mel outrun a dust cloud on a surprisingly speedy scooter, the rest of the planet is getting engulfed, including Ruby’s mum, grandma, and Mrs We’ll-Totally-Find-Out-All-About-Her-This-Week Flood. No time to care about that though, as Doc and Mel meet up with Ruby in the Time Window. There’s a handy memory of a TARDIS there that enigma Ruby can patch up a bit just by thinking about it, so they use it to escape into space.Sutekh’s dust of death touches every world and every time that Doc has ever visited. You see Sutekh’s been having a piggy-back ride on the TARDIS all this time and left little Susan Triad-like presents everywhere. Things look hopeless for Doc and co, but there’s one thing that might help them stop Sutekh: solve the riddle of who Ruby’s mum is. A riddle that’s so important it’s the last concern of Sutekh before wiping out all life in the universe. Surely only a time-wimey, ingeniously planned out explanation can be waiting for us as the conclusion to this whole season, right? Right?

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