Ever since we met companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) in Christmas Day episode “The Church on Ruby Highway,” there’s been an enormous query on the coronary heart of “Physician Who:” who was the mysterious determine who deserted the new child Ruby on Christmas Eve 20 years earlier?
Fortunately, season finale “Empire of Demise” provides loads of solutions, because it seems the thriller is large enough to pique the curiosity of a god with the facility to wipe out life as we all know it.
This is why Ruby Sunday is so necessary to the destiny of the universe — and why her origin story has the facility to scare the mighty Sutekh.
What’s Sutekh’s huge plan?
In brief, Sutekh desires to wipe out all life within the universe — so form of an enormous deal.
The Physician ranks Sutekh as “the best monster I’ve ever fought,” and this dog-faced god comes near justifying the hype. Though the Time Lord thought he’d defeated this highly effective foe by casting him into the time vortex in 1911 (see 1975 Fourth Physician journey “Pyramids of Mars”), Sutekh survived by clinging on to the TARDIS. The undesirable hitchhiker subsequently adopted the Physician on his many excursions by means of time and house.
Alongside the best way, Sutekh targeted his thoughts to create an entire new individual all over the place the Physician landed. This legion of purpose-built angels of dying have been then in prime place to unleash common Armageddon each time he decides the time is correct.
Sutekh additionally exploited the TARDIS’s in-built notion filter (which, intriguingly, operates at a spread of 73 yards) to evade detection, and assist the Susan Triad doppelgangers (performed by Susan Twist) seamlessly mix into their environment. “Notion signifies that she fitted in,” explains the Physician. “She had character, she had historical past, she had reality.” And, as a result of Physician is such a frequent customer to Earth, the concept of this girl has grown to the extent that, by 2024, she’s grow to be a world-famous tech billionaire.
So, having bided his time for hundreds of years, Sutekh’s endurance is rewarded when he and his minions flip all life within the universe to mud — and since the Physician is so well-travelled, no world (not even the Daleks’ dwelling planet, Skaro) is immune from his wave of destruction.
Somebody has survived, nonetheless…
Why is Sutekh, a god with the facility to wipe out all life within the universe, so obsessive about Ruby Sunday?
“The universe stands silent in dying,” crows Sutekh as he seems to be out at his anti-creation. “But one factor persists. One factor retains dwelling, regardless of me.”
The Physician, maybe? “[It’s] larger than him. A secret the kid [Ruby] carries together with her.”
Sure, it seems that the season’s huge thriller — the identification of the hooded determine who deserted the new child Ruby on the church on Ruby Highway within the present’s Christmas Day episode — has additionally captivated a deity. As a result of though Sutekh can behold all of time and house — and was current on that fateful night time — he cannot work out who the mysterious girl is. For sure, it is driving him mad, and his apocalyptic scheme will not be full till he is solved the riddle.
Ruby and the Physician are capable of flip Sutekh’s obsession to their benefit, and — by pretending they’ve the solutions he seeks — they distract him lengthy sufficient to reclaim the TARDIS. They then drag him by means of the time vortex, restoring the universe, earlier than banishing the troublesome god into nothingness.
How do the Physician and Ruby lastly determine the hooded determine within the video?
A display screen linked to Ruby’s recollections through UNIT’s time window leads them to the Earth of 2046. Though Ruby cannot consciously recall the parallel timeline of “73 Yards,” it is no accident that that is the place (or when) she encountered Roger ap Gwilliam, “essentially the most harmful prime minister in historical past.”
It seems that ap Gwilliam’s xenophobic regime instigated a coverage of obligatory genetic testing, permitting the Physician to cross-reference Ruby’s DNA with the federal government’s huge database. As soon as they’ve returned to UNIT within the restored 2024, it is pretty easy for tech genius Morris Gibbons (Lenny Rush) to trace down Ruby’s mom within the current.
What makes Ruby’s delivery mom so particular?
Louise Alison Miller is just an peculiar 35-year-old human girl. Aged 15, she stored her being pregnant a secret and — fairly than elevating her child in a family the place her “stepfather was bother” — made the unattainable determination to depart the new child Ruby in that aforementioned churchyard. She went on to attend college and have become a nurse.
So on the face of it, there’s nothing significantly particular about her — apart, after all, from the actual fact she’s Ruby’s mum.
Have we seen the final of Ruby Sunday?
On the finish of “Empire of Demise,” Ruby is attending to know Louise and all set to proceed her adventures within the TARDIS. Then she receives a message telling her that her delivery father has been discovered. She immediately places her journey plans on maintain, and shares a tearful farewell with the Physician.
However though a brand new companion (performed by “Growth“‘s Varada Sethu) has already been introduced, Ruby Sunday will return.
“This can be a pause,” showrunner Russell T. Davies confirmed on companion present “Physician Who: Unleashed.” “I genuinely felt Ruby’s story paused there as a result of she could not get all that details about her household, and all that emotional overload, and run off within the TARDIS. [But] she’s coming again. A brand new companion’s coming in, however you will see the three of them collectively, three individuals on this TARDIS preventing evil. There’s actually essential tales for Ruby to come back.”
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What does Mrs Flood need to do with all of it?
That is a query that can linger nicely past this season, nevertheless it absolutely cannot be a coincidence that Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson) lived on the identical highway because the Sundays. In spite of everything, this fourth wall-breaking character has already demonstrated prior data of the TARDIS. Her response to an imminent, Sutekh-sanctioned dusting can be severely bizarre:
“I am sorry, you tiny little girl,” she tells Cherry Sunday. “I am so, so sorry it ends like this. I had such plans…”
Then there’s her mysterious commentary on the finish of the episode:
“However life goes on, does not it? Ruthlessly. And what occurs, you may surprise. What occurs to that mysterious traveler in time and house often known as the Physician? I am sorry to say his story ends in absolute terror. Evening night time.”
Let the hypothesis begin…
Each episode of “Physician Who” season 1 is obtainable on BBC iPlayer within the UK and Disney Plus elsewhere on this planet. Try our information to watching new “Physician Who” episodes for more information.
