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The finale of the first half of series 6. '''"Spoilers!"'''
 
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Last episode, we found out that the Amy we've been seeing was not, in fact, Amy. It was an avatar, making her constantly believe that she was walking around unharmed, while her real self was held captive in a place called Demon's Run. She's given birth there to a baby girl named Melody, guided by Madame Kovarian -- theKovarian—the eyepatch lady -- andlady—and surrounded by an entire military. But she's not scared. Because she knows that the baby's real father will come for them. A man who has travelled across the galaxy. A man who has lived for centuries. A man [[Ship Tease|known as the]]... Last Centurion.
 
The soldiers are quite nice, actually, and simply believe that the Doctor is a fearsome warrior that should be killed. That doesn't mean they can't be his fanboys, too. One of them, Lorna from the Gamma Forest, met him once when she was young and only joined so she could see him again. She's happily embroidering a little piece of cloth with the words "Melody Pond", as a religious good luck charm for Amy.
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Almost blind with anger, he orders her to stop lying to him and to finally explain who she is. She takes his hands and leads him towards the baby cot. He looks down at his old cot, at the Gallifreyan text, at his little kinetic baby toy mobile. He looks up at River. He looks down again. And he starts to happily make incoherent [[Squee]] noises while she grins and nods at him.
 
It's all still a bit confusing to him -- theyhim—they've kissed and everything, and that's just ''weird'' now -- butnow—but he's too busy being flabbergasted to even care anymore. He waves goodbye to the Ponds, promises to find little Melody, gets in the TARDIS and gives River one final [[Squee]] before dashing off. River can take the others home.
 
Amy has a full-on [[Heroic BSOD]] at that. She picks up a gun and prepares to shoot River right then and there. River calms her down with some effort, and tells her to take another look at the Doctor's cot. Because with written text, the TARDIS translation matrix can take a while to kick in. No, not the Gallifreyan text on the cot -- [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E04 The Time of Angels|the TARDIS doesn't translate ancient Gallifreyan anyway]]. River means Lorna's beautifully embroidered cloth, and she shows it to Amy and Rory. [[Arc Words|The only water in the forest is the river]]. In Lorna's Gamma Forest language, the elaborate embroidered text says "Pond" on one side, and "Melody" on the other. {{spoiler|"River", and "Song"}}.
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=== Tropes ===
 
* [[Action Prologue]]: The first four minutes of the episode has Rory infiltrate a Cyber-man fleet, and the destruction of said fleet. All before the title runs.
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*** Also, in ''Day of the Moon'', Rory mentions that Amy knows he's always coming for her. And what is Amy's speech about?
** When the gay married couple talk about the Doctor, they mention the time he [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E01 The Eleventh Hour|sent the Atraxi off and then called them back for a "scolding"]].
** The Doctor addressing an army with [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E12 The Pandorica Opens|"Guess who" ]], like in the scene on Stonehenge. [[Crowning Music of Awesome|Even the music agrees with the epicness!]]
** Amy refers to Rory and The Doctor as "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E06 The Vampires of Venice|my]] [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E07 Amy's Choice|boys]]".
** Amy arming herself with a toothbrush is even funnier when you remember the time the Doctor [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E11 The Lodger|held a toothbrush in the same intimidating manner.]]
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* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: Lorna. When she first appears, she just seems like a young soldier being nice to Amy. Then Lorna gives Amy the leaf, which shows up at the end for the final revelation.
* [[Cherry Tapping]]: The Doctor wants Colonel Manton to order his men not to fall back, but to "run away". For the rest of his life, he would be known as Colonel Run-Away - to show what happens when you mess with the people the Doctor cares about.
* [[Child Soldiers]]: Sontarans, sort of; as a cloned race of [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Proud Warrior Race Guys]]s, they skip past anything we would recognize as childhood, both physically and mentally.
{{quote|'''Strax''': "It's all right. I've had a good life. I'm nearly twelve."}}
** And of course {{spoiler|Melody/River Song}} as well.
* [[Christianity Is Catholic]]: Averted. Even though the sect called the Headless Monks follow decisions made by a "Papal mainframe", their Anglican allies are portrayed as a different sect where, if one of their number needs to join the former, they must first convert.<ref>In the most literal sense of the word.</ref>.
* [[Church Militant]]: Similar to "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E04 The Time of Angels|The Time Of Angels]]" -- though—though Colonel Manton has a military rank rather than a clerical one.
* [[Combat Medic]]: A Sontaran nurse. It started out as a punishment for [[Doctor Who/Recap/S30/E04 The Sontaran Stratagem|something his clone-batch did]], as taking care of the sick and weak is a Sontaran's idea of the perfect humiliation. In spite of that, he seems to have grown to like it.
{{quote|'''Boy''': "Will I be okay?"
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{{quote|'''Dorium''': There are people all over this galaxy that owe that man a debt. By now, a few of them will have found a blue box on their doorstep.}}
** {{spoiler|After he says that, Dorium walks into the back room and, of course, finds the Doctor on ''[[Oh Crap|his]]'' doorstep. "I'm old! I'm fat! I'm [[Crowning Moment of Funny|blue]]! You can't need ''me''!"}}
* [[Do Not Taunt Cthulhu]]: Remember, the Doctor is considered a [[Memetic Badass]] demigod in-universe. See Dorium's quote above, and his many [[Badass Boast|Badass Boasts]]s.
{{quote|'''Lady Kovarian:''' What have you heard?
'''Dorium:''' That you pricked the side of a mighty beast, Madam Kovarian, and entirely failed to run. }}
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{{quote|'''Rory''': Do I need to ''repeat'' the question?}}
* [[Double Meaning Title]]: With the "good men don't need rules" business from the Doctor, the title of the episode may very well apply to Rory.
* [[Elite Mooks]]: [[Word of God]] is that the Headless Monks are the [[Church Militant]]'s special forces. Possibly [[Elite Zombie|Elite Zombies]]s as well, since the detectors don't register them as alive.
* [[Enemy Mine]]: This looks to be the situation for the army the Doctor raises.
* [[Entendre Failure]]: When Vastra and Dorium notice the weird DNA in Melody's scan, they attempt to be tactful and ask in various vague ways if The Doctor and Amy ever.. you know. However the Doctor [[Completely Missing the Point|fails to grasp at what they're on about.]] Once they find out it wasn't his...
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** Not only gives a [[Clean Cut]], but also [[Body Horror|ties a knot]] [[Squick|in the neck of a decapitated enemy]].
* [[Leitmotif]]: The music that plays when {{spoiler|River reveals she is Melody Pond}} is the same heard when {{spoiler|the Doctor was given a Viking funeral in "The Impossible Astronaut"}} and {{spoiler|the girl regenerated at the end of "Day of the Moon"}}.
* [[Let's Get Dangerous]] / [[Take a Level In Badass|Regained Several Levels of Badass]]: The baddies -- notbaddies—not to mention the audience -- getaudience—get a vicious reminder that between being a nurse and being a companion, Rory was the Lone Centurion. Begins the episode by scaring the crap out of {{spoiler|a legion of Cybermen to determine Amy's location}}, and only gets better from there.
** As for the Doctor himself, this is not one of those episodes where he scares off his enemies by saying [[Doctor Who/Recap/S30/E09 Forest of the Dead|"You're in a library, look me up."]] No, this is one of the times when he shows exactly ''why'' everyone's so scared of him.
* [[Lovely Angels]]: Vastra and Jenny, though with no [[Les Yay|subtext]], it's right upfront.
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* [[Villainous Valor]]: We all knew how outclassed Colonel Manton's forces would be, still remarkable they got as far as they did.
* [[Waistcoat of Style]]: Jenny's outfit is very stylish indeed.
* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: The bad guys of this episode seem to be this--theythis—they genuinely think that the Doctor is a threat to everyone, and are willing {{spoiler|to turn Melody into a [[Child Soldier]] to stop him.}} Madame Kovarian [[Knight Templar|at least thinks she is.]] [[Hidden Agenda Villain|Probably.]]
* [[Wham! Episode]]: Almost certainly, not least because it's the last episode of this half of the series, the apparent [[Gondor Calls for Aid|Doctor Calls For Aid]] scenario and [[The Reveal|River Song's identity being revealed.]] Moffat's been promising a cliffhanger that, rather than endanger the characters' lives, will change them forever.
** {{spoiler|The Doctor and company manage to save the baby, but it turns out to be a double bluff as the baby is Flesh. [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Which completely makes things weird, as Little!River is still somewhere out there in the hands of Madame Kovarian.]] [[Fridge Horror|Wait, what?!]]}}
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* [[You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With]]: Near the beginning, Dorium attempts to educate the villains about the reality of their situation.
{{quote|'''Dorium ''': "Colonel Manton, all those "stories" you've heard about him? They're ''not'' "stories", they're ''true!'' Really, you're not telling me you don't know what's coming?"}}
* [[You Look Familiar]]: The Doctor's old acquaintences Strax and Vastra, even though we've never seen them before -- butbefore—but we have seen that actor playing a Sontaran and that actor playing a Silurian.
** In Strax's case the two characters were clones so naturally they look alike.
* [[Younger Than They Look]]: You wouldn't guess by looking at him, but {{spoiler|Strax is less than twelve years old}}.
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