Hell Bent
Hell Bent | |
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Ermagersh, s0 badass | |
Season: 9 | |
Episode: 12 | |
Vital statistics
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Air date | 5 December 2015 |
Written by | Steven Moffat |
Directed by | Rachel Talalay |
Episode guide
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Previous | Next |
Heaven Sent | The Bedding of River Song |

Hell Bent (a.k.a. Muh Clala): The greatest, most wonderful, most exceptional, most marvelous, most satisfying, most atrocious, most awful, most unacceptable, most unsatisfying finale in the history of Who. List of confirmed happenings:
- Capaldi reks the Time Lords. confirmed
- Clara
regenerates, steals a TARDIS, and flees Gallifrey to have mad adventures. confirmed - 8 and 10 confirmed. denied (rip Platinum Age)
- New screwdriver, sunglasses erased from Doctor Who. confirmed
- The Sliders have a stolen TIE Fighter sound effect. Seriously, am I the only one who has noticed this? confirmed
- The President is Rassilon. Duh. confirmed
- Looms confirmed canon. plausible
- Ashildr was Susan all along. denied
- Gallifrey is lost at the end/returned to pre-discovery status. denied
- It's a disappointing conclusion to a wonderful set up (a la The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, The Wedding of River Song, Dark Water/Death In Heaven). plausible
Contents
Episode Synopsis
In Nevada, U.S.A., the Six-String Doctor sits himself down at a diner and tells Clala Oswald the story of how he rescued Clara Oswald.
On Gallifrey, the Doctor returns to the barn seen in Day of the Doctor and Listen. The Doctor squatters in a barn that may or may not be occupied by his mum. Remember, the Doctor is half human on his mother's side. The Doctor gets an unwelcome visit by the Gallifreyan military, and decides to finish his soup instead of talk to them.
Eventually, Rassilon pays the Doctor a visit and orders a firing squad to kill the Doctor. They all miss. The Doctor kicks Rassilon's ass out of Gallifrey, and proceeds to save Clara from her death by taking her out of her time stream the moment before the Benefactor assaulted her. Time-locked, Clara has no pulse. The Doctor rescues her and steals a TARDIS to take her all the way to Russell T. Davies The End of Time, part 3, in order to break her from her time-lock and forever rescue her from her death.
At the end of time and the universe, The Doctor hears four knocks and almost loses his shit. Ashildr makes her fourth appearence this season, this time watching the end of everything in a chair. The Doctor proposes his fan theory that Ashildr/Me is the hybrid. Ashildr then proposes that the Doctor is the hybrid, being half human on his mother's side. The Doctor neither confirms or denies this. Ashildr then works out the bullshit loophole that the hybrid could be two people from two different races, and the canon officially declares the hybrid as the team of Clara Oswald and The Doctor. Ehhhh.
The Doctor attempts to erase Clara's memory as a last ditch effort to protect her from the Time Lords, but she reversed the polarity of the neutron flow using the sonic shades, and the Doctor accidentally erases his own memory of her instead.
The Doctor wakes up in the middle of the desert. Thomas the Tank Engine tells the Doctor that someone named Clara rescued him. The Doctor asks the question- the ultimate question, the oldest quesiton in the universe. The one hidden in plain sight. He then makes his way to a diner and tells Clara Oswald... oh we're back here again. He plays a song and tells waitress Clara that, though he can remember the adventures he had with her, he cannot remember what she looked or sounded like, and that he's sure he would recognize her the moment he sees her. He also comments on the diner previously being on the other side of the hill. Clara comments that memories can manifest into songs, and walks behind a door in the diner, revealing the entire diner to be the TARDIS Ashildr and Clara had stolen.
Ashildr tells Clara that she must return back to Gallifrey and face the benefactors' assault. In a power mad manic state, she kidnaps Ahildr and decides to run off and have adventures instead, telling Ashildr that she will go to Gallifrey, but take "the long way round".
The diner dematerializes, leaving behind the Doctor's TARDIS. The Doctor enters the TARDIS and sees the words "Run You Clever Boy and Be a Doctor" written on a chalkboard at the back of the console room. Some anon remembered seeing the acronmym RYCBABAD from an episode preview and predicted this phrase 100% correctly.
PROPHECY FULFILLED.
Reception
TLDR: It was GOAT, best finale of NuWho, only big bang is close ish.

/who/ ranks /who/ gave it a 7
It was ok.
THE GOLDEN AGE IS OVER HAS STARTED
DISGUSTING WHITE MEN BTFO, DOCTOR WHO IS NOW A MINORITY CLUB SHITLORDS
CLARA GETS A FUCKING TARDIS? SHE CAN BARELY RUN HER FUCKING FACE!
ORSON PINK - ERASED FROM POSSIBLY BROUGHT BACK INTO EXISTANCE!
IT ABSOLUTELY SUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKED.
IT WAS ABSOLUTELY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAT.
It's absolutely divisive; arguably the most divisive episode ever.
tl;dr Anon is mad that he overhyped it and didn't fit his exceptions.
It was a good romp. I enjoyed it.