To be honest, I don’t know what to write about this episode. If life were simpler, I would just write “it’s perfect” and be done with it, because that’s honestly what I think about it. I mean, I’ll agree that the plot isn’t Steven Moffat’s absolute best, but who gives a damn about that when the emotional core of the episode is so sound that I’m brought to tears just thinking about it? It’s an episode of television that is both perfectly heartbreaking and wonderfully uplifting, and it’s nothing short of a perfect ending for the story of Amy Pond, because it hinges on that choice that has always followed and defined her character: Real life or Doctor life?
What do I love about this episode?
I like that it uses the Weeping Angels pretty effectively and manages to make all statues everywhere even creepier than they were before. I know a lot of people complain about the Angels being “overused”, but seriously? They’ve featured in three stories. I realize they aren’t as creepy as they were in Blink, but there is still a fundamental scariness to them anyway, and Moffat utilizes that to great effect here. Plus, they make good antagonists for the sorts of timey-wimey stories that Moffat loves, and he uses them well, in my opinion.
I love everything about Amy and Rory and what they weather and the choices they make for each other over and over and over again. Amy’s relationship with “her boys” has been core to her character, and here more than anywhere else we see just how much Rory means to her–more than the Doctor, more than his promises, more than that life of adventure he carries around with him. “Together, or not at all.” Here, more than anywhere else, we see how much Amy loves Rory, and we see how much she has changed and grown as a character. This is the girl who ran away from her own wedding in her first episode. And she ends it all by facing one of her biggest fears on the off chance that she will see her husband again. She has grown /so much/, and it’s amazing and wonderful to see that onscreen and I really couldn’t think of a better place to leave Amy’s character.
I love that Amy and Rory got a happy ending. The unfortunate tragedies of RTD’s companions have always grated on me a little, and I just loved, so much, that Amy and Rory lived their lives together for near-on fifty years, and they were happy. I know we didn’t get to see any of it, and that it hurts because they left us so suddenly and so quickly, but the point is, in the end, that they were happy. They weren’t hurt, and while they lost their life with the Doctor, they didn’t lose each other, and that’s all that matters. (I’m sure they didn’t lose River, either. She totally visited them with her vortex manipulator.) (At least right up until she told them about her new expedition to the Library and okay if I go on I’m going to cry some more.)
I loved seeing River Song again. It was fun to just have her along for the adventure again, especially since she was basically the focus of the arc last series. I liked seeing her and the Doctor interact, seeing that they are both still wonderfully and messily in love. I love that we got to see her with both her parents, and I love that she was there for Amy at the end (though it breaks my heart because she had to be brave and keep it together because the Doctor was totally losing it, and she says it doesn’t matter about losing them, but it does, and I just have a lot of feelings about this character, okay?).
Honestly, I love everything about this production in general. The writing is great, the acting is great, everything is great, and as much as this episode breaks my heart, I cannot help but love it because it breaks my heart, because it does what it sets out to do so amazingly well. The shots of New York City and Central Park are gorgeous. The shots that were done in studio and around Wales somewhere are just as gorgeous. The episode takes me by the hand and leads me along, and it does what Moffat’s episodes have always done so well: it breaks my heart, and then it makes it better.
We lost Amy and Rory, yes. But they didn’t lose each other, and they didn’t lose their happiness together. They got their happy ending, even if it wasn’t the sort of ending we might have envisioned for them, and I think they did their best to help the Doctor with his loss, or at least Amy did with her Afterword, which is one of the most amazing and heartbreaking scenes in an episode that is nearly bursting with them.
I think, more than anything, I love the very last scene of the episode. I love Steven Moffat’s sleight of hand, I love that Amy’s story ends at the beginning, I love that Amy wants the Doctor to remember all the wonderful things they did together, to not focus on losing her, on her inevitable death, but on her life and what she did with him and how they helped and changed each other over so many years of their lives.
I don’t care what the haters say. Steven Moffat writes beautiful things, and this is one of them, and I will love it no matter what.
(60/260)
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