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The Doctor and Rory (dressed magnificently in his Last Centurion gear) prepare to raise an army. On his quest, Rory defeats a random Cybermen fleet without even a hint of fear. In her cell in Stormcage, River Song sadly acknowledges that the time has come at last. Today will mark the Battle of Demon's Run and the Doctor's darkest hour. Both sides will make their sacrifices and River Song must finally reveal her most closely guarded secret to the Doctor: her identity. She's unusually happy to see Rory, but she can't come with him.
 
The Doctor gathers friends with old debts in his TARDIS: a Silurian woman named Vastra from Victorian London and her human girlfriend, a [[Badass]] Sontaran nurse whose clone batch [[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/NS/S4 E4/E04 The Sontaran Stratagem|met the Doctor once]], Captain Avery and Toby, the Judoon of the Shadow Proclamation, Churchill's spitfire fighters, and [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E12 The Pandorica Opens|Dorium Maldovar, the owner of the Maldovarium]].
 
Lorna sneaks out, finds Amy and hands her the little embroidered cloth. Amy is too traumatised to talk to her much.
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By now, the Doctor has gotten into a habit of hugging Amy tightly, and rubbing her back, while he's talking to her. With permission from Rory, of course. Because he can only give her one nasty revelation after another: little Melody is not little Melody. She's made of the Flesh, and the real baby is far, far away by now.
 
And then, just as the Doctor's friends are dying all around him again, River appears. And the Doctor is ''very'' genuinely angry with her. He's beyond [[Tranquil Fury]] and gone off into plain old rage. Why did she wait this long to show up? Why did she do ''nothing'' to prevent all this? Why is she just standing there? This carnage, this drama, this ''isn't him''. River quietly replies that he's wrong. This is him. [[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/NS/S4 /E13 Journeys End|Gathering people around him, changing their lives, making them sacrifice themselves for him]]. As for the Demon's Run army: in the Gamma Forest language, "Doctor" has become the word for "Mighty Warrior". The Doctor's reputation has made him into a demon in the eyes of entire cultures. He's a true [[Memetic Badass]], and they've become so scared of him, they're going to kill him out of sheer terror.
 
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.
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It's all still a bit confusing to him -- they've kissed and everything, and that's just ''weird'' now -- 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"}}.
 
{{quote|'''THE DOCTOR WILL RETURN IN'''
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* [[Awesome McCoolname]]/[[Fail O'Suckyname]]: Amy argues [[The Maiden Name Debate|the difference between "Amy Williams" and "Amy Pond"]] is the difference between a geography teacher and a superhero.
* [[Baby Language]]: The Doctor can speak it, apparently. What's hilarious is the lines of the one sided conversation he has with little Melody. Includes, "Really, you should call her mummy, not big milk thing," "It's my hair, it's real" and in regard to the bow-tie, [[Running Gag|"No, it's cool."]]
* [[Badass Army]]: Lets see, the Doctor brought alongside with him an army of Silurians including the one in Victorian England with a female human partner, the Judoon who are basically an intergalactic SWAT team, a Sontaran as a [[Combat Medic]], [[Doctor Who/Recap/S32 E3/E03 The Curse of the Black Spot|Captain Avery and his son]], an intergalactic black market dealer, with [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E03 Victory of the Daleks|the Space Spitfires covering the skies]], Rory/"[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E13 The Big Bang|The Lone Centurion]]" and of course, the The Doctor himself who is a [[One-Man Army]] by himself, all there just to take back Amy's baby! Good Lord! The Doctor really outdid himself there!
* [[Badass Boast]]: The Moff delivers as usual.
{{quote|'''The Doctor''': "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out [[Bait and Switch Comparison|why I have so many]]."<br />
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** Also:
{{quote|'''Kovarian''': "Wakie waaakiiiieeeee...." *pop*}}
* [[Call Back]]: The hooded men with the [[Laser Sword|laser swords]] are the Headless Monks. Their future final resting place is the Delirium Archive where [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E04 The Time of Angels|River once left a message for the Doctor]].
** Also several characters and groups from previous episodes make a return to help the Doctor.
** {{spoiler|[[Doctor Who/Recap/S32 E2/E02 Day of the Moon|The baby has a Time Head.]]}}
** {{spoiler|The logo on the banners of Madame Kovarian's army contains the same logo we saw on [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E04 The Time of Angels|the Church's uniforms]].}}
** The shot near the end of {{spoiler|Amy and Rory looking on as the Doctor takes off without them}} is very similar to one from [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E01 The Eleventh Hour|"The Eleventh Hour"]].
** The Clerics practice recognizing psychic paper.
** The speech that Colonel Manton made to his army on the legends surrounding the Doctor as an exaggeration is a clear reference to "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E12 The Pandorica Opens|The Pandorica Opens]]".
** [[Doctor Who/Recap/S32 E2/E02 Day of the Moon|This is not the first time this season]] Amy has made a speech that sounds at first like it's about the Doctor, [[Bait and Switch|when it's really about Rory]].
*** 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 Amys 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.]]
** When listing the reasons its impossible that Amy and Rory would have had time to produce a baby on the Tardis the Doctor mentions [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E06 The Vampires of Venice|"sexy fish vampires"]].
* [[Cardboard Prison]]: Really... River can just waltz in and out (literally), use the phone to announce she's breaking in and order room service, and can gallivant off whenever she pleases. A [[Cardboard Prison]] would actually be more secure than what she's in right now.
* [[Chaste Hero]]: The Doctor is completely oblivious to the notion that Melody might have been conceived in the TARDIS until pushed by Madame Vastra. He works through the fifth season and comes to the realization that the first time they were together on the TARDIS after the reboot was... their wedding night.
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** 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 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/NS/Recap/NS/S4 E4/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?"
'''Strax''': ''[cheerfully earnest]'' "Of course you will, my boy, you'll be up and around in no time. And perhaps one day, you and I shall meet on the field of battle, and I will ''destroy'' you for the glory of the Sontaran Empire!"
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* [[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 -- not to mention the audience -- 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/NS/Recap/NS/S4 E9/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.
* [[Luke, You Are My Father]]: {{spoiler|River reveals she's Amy and Rory's daughter}}.
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* [[Mythology Gag]]: When Rory asks if there could be more than one Doctor, River says 'that's another sort of birthday', referencing the multi-Doctor anniversary specials (and perhaps hinting there will be another for the 50th anniversary?) as well as a very likely threesome.
** Also possibly a reference to the events of "First Night / Last Night" where the Doctor has to deal with trying to keep three River Songs from bumping into each other, each mistaking his TARDIS as the one that was meant to pick them up [[Timey-Wimey Ball|in their respective present.]]
* [[Name's the Same]]: The inclusion of a character called Jenny made fans assume [[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/NS/S4 E6/E06 The DoctorsDoctor's Daughter|the Doctor's Daughter]] was returning.
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: The Eye Patch Lady's real name is [[Obviously Evil|Madame Kovarian]].
** And of course, [[Mook Horror Show|for the antagonists]], The Doctor.
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** Dorium, when he realizes the Doctor's recruiting him too.
** The Doctor has one earlier, when he realizes that {{spoiler|baby Melody that Amy is protecting is actually a Flesh avatar, and that Madame Kovarian has successfully kidnapped the real child.}}
* [[One-Scene Wonder]]: A number of the Doctor's allies, including {{spoiler|[[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/NS/S3 E1/E01 Smith and Jones|the Judoon,]] [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E03 Victory of the Daleks|the Space Spitfires]] and [[Doctor Who/Recap/S32 E3/E03 The Curse of the Black Spot|the pirate captain and his son]].}}
* [[Only Known by Their Nickname]]: The Thin One and the Fat One. [[Lampshaded]].
{{quote|'''The Fat One''': "We're the thin/fat, gay, married Anglican Marines. Why would we need names as well?"}}
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* [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]: The "we are not fools" ploy might have worked had the Doctor been working alone as usual. Too bad he has an army.
** The [[Those Two Guys|fat/thin gay married Anglican marines]] seem to assume that they are quirky enough to outlive the story. [[Nominal Importance|They don't even need names!]] Unfortunately, in this series [[Anyone Can Die]].
* [[Xanatos Gambit]] / [[Xanatos Speed Chess]]: The Doctor's plan to take Demons Run. {{spoiler|Disguise himself as a Headless Monk and start an [[Enemy Civil War]] amongst the enemy factions. Colonel Manton gets around this by ordering his forces to lay down their arms to get the Monks to back off... leading the Doctor to call in the Judoon and Silurian forces to capture them in one fell swoop}}. Manton tries to counter ''this'' by using the base's automatic distress signal... at which point the Doctor {{spoiler|orders in [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E03 Victory of the Daleks|the air force of Spitfires armed with Dalek weaponry]] to blow their communications array sky high.}} How much of this he planned and how much he [[Indy Ploy|improvised along the way]] is anyone's guess.
* [[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?"}}
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