BWW Recap: Watch What Happens 'Before the Flood' on DOCTOR WHO

By: Oct. 10, 2015
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Tonight is the conclusion to the second two-part episode of the season! Keep reading for the full recap of "Before the Flood."

The episode started with The Doctor breaking the fourth wall in order to explain he Bootstrap Paradox.

After the intro, we find The Doctor, O'Donnell and Bennet in Scotland 1890, where the ship originally crashed in the town. They run into the Tiviolian Undertaker, Prentis, who is preparing to lay the Fisher King to rest.

Back at the base, Cass realizes The Doctor's ghost is just repeating their names. Clara then gets a call from The Doctor and she tells him his ghost has appeared. The Doctor realizes he has to die, but Clara refuses to accept that. She tells him that if he loves her he will find a way back. The Doctor's ghost then comes into the room that Clara and the others are in and does nothing but open the Faraday cage. The Doctor asks Clara to talk to his ghost. The Doctor's ghost changes what he is saying to "the chamber will be opened tonight" and The Doctor tells Clara to keep her phone by her side because he needs to know everything the ghost does, and that he will come back for her.

Back at the spaceship, Prentis is killed by the Fisher King, who escaped. The Fisher King then begins looking for The Doctor, Bennett and O'Donnell. Unfortunately, O'Donnell is killed trying to hide from it.

After O'Donnell is killed, The Doctor realizes that list of names his ghost read is the order of people killed, and that Clara is next.

Back on the ship, Clara sees O'Donnell's ghost, who takes her phone.

The Doctor decides to go back to the base, and not die, because no one will stop him--except the TARDIS that will not let him leave his time stream, and instead sends him back 30 minutes.

Clara realizes that Lunn is the only one who didn't see the writing on the wall, hence is the only one who won't be hurt by the ghosts because the words aren't inside of him, which means he can get the phone back. Lunn agrees to go try and retrieve it, much to Cass's dismay.

The Doctor realizes he has to face the Fisher King, and goes to confront him. The Fisher King tells him that he and his friends will die so the message will be sent to his people so that they will come, so they can take over the Earth.

The Doctor tells the Fisher King that he destroyed the words so that they never see them in the future and no one will die. Except, as always The Doctor lied and instead blew up the nearby dam, trapping the Fisher King and letting him be taken away by the oncoming flood of water. The Doctor then returns to Clara from inside of the pod, and explains that his "ghost" was never a ghost but a hologram that was turned on when the doctor connected with the wifi of the base. He also tells her that the phrases he had the hologram say were things the Doctor needed to know in order to do the things he did. However, he explains to Clara that he only knew to do those things because of the ghost saying them, yet the ghost only said them because he knew to tell him it, so where did the idea originally come from?

Well is it just me, or are these timey-wimey, paradoxes, time loops, insanely confusing?? Especially when there is no end explanation of it. I do love these kinds of episodes, but sometimes they can be so dense that I have trouble following along. I also think that the Fisher King was rushed, we only saw him for 10 minutes, and for being a two-part episode, it felt like an after-thought, even though it was the main antagonist of the episode. O'Donnell's death also felt unnecessary, unless it was just as a means to be reminded of Danny Pink. (I miss him, man).

It seems like the writers have just given up on trying to get a story out in one episode, because we have yet to not have a two-parter this season. Well since they always had trouble wrapping things up last season, they are at least not rushing things. However, I would really appreciate them bringing back the Sonic Screwdriver, because these Sonic Sunglasses are just dumb, in my opinion.

Quotes from "Before the Flood"

-O'Donnell: "It's bigger on the inside, it's bigger on the inside!, it's bigger on the inside!!"

-The Doctor: "This regeneration is a bit of a clerical error anyways."

-The Doctor: "This world is protected by me." (sounds familiar doesn't it?)

-The Doctor: "Even a ghastly future is better than no future at all."

-The Doctor: "That's the thing about knowing you're about to die, you've got nothing to lose."


Leave your comments on tonight's episode below, or tweet me at @kaitmilligan. And be sure to head over here next week as I recap another episode of DOCTOR WHO!

Photo Credit: © BBC WORLDWIDE LIMITED



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