Towards the tip of Matt Smith’s second season within the TARDIS, Physician Who traps him with Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), and a small group of random individuals inside a nightmarish lodge with an enormous, muscly minotaur. Every room within the lodge comprises a special individual’s best worry. There are abusive mother and father, cackling ventriloquist dummies, a scary gorilla, and one thing the Physician fears a lot that we’re not even allowed to see it.
“The God Complicated,” which first aired nearly precisely 15 years in the past, isn’t the scariest TV episode of Physician Who ever, however it’s up there. It has that unsettling high quality many episodes have the place the TARDIS crew is all of the sudden trapped someplace with no concept how they obtained there. And since the structure of this lodge is continually altering, they’ll’t discover the TARDIS to flee both. The one means out is thru, and the results of this episode are much more profound than most followers appear to recollect.
Amy and Rory don’t go away the present till the next season within the heartbreaking “The Angels Take Manhattan” storyline, however in a really outstanding thematic sense, their journey — and Amy’s private arc specifically — ends with “The God Complicated.”
The Physician lastly acknowledges what touring with him prices
It’s practically unimaginable to speak about “The God Complicated” with out additionally contemplating the episode that got here proper earlier than it, “The Woman Who Waited.”
The Physician takes Amy and Rory to Apalapucia, a paradise planet the place guests can observe terminally ailing family members residing out their remaining lives in accelerated time streams. A mistake separates Amy from the others, and by the point Rory reaches her, she has spent 36 years alone inside the ability, heading off medical robots with a samurai sword. She’s additionally spent all that point resenting the Physician for failing to rescue her. Ultimately, the Physician is ready to save the youthful Amy, however it additionally means erasing the opposite one. The Physician leaves the selection in Rory’s fingers as a result of two Amys can’t exist. Rory and the older Amy then say goodbye by the door of the TARDIS, professing their love by tears. It’s a grim reminder that in the end, one thing horrible tends to occur to every of the Physician’s companions.
“The Woman Who Waited” forces all of them to reckon with how inhuman and coldly logical the Physician could be, making troublesome choices that, at occasions, doom whole civilizations. Nonetheless, there’s not a lot time to course of. “The God Complicated” opens instantly with the trio already within the lodge and confused about how they obtained there, little doubt with the trauma of Apalapucia lingering of their minds. “The Woman Who Waited” undermines the religion that Amy and Rory have within the Physician. “The God Complicated” makes it all the level.
Together with our heroes, there’s a motley crew of random individuals, together with one alien, already trapped within the lodge. One after the other, every discovers their private nightmare room, then they enter a peaceable trance, start praising the minotaur, and eagerly enable it to kill them. Everyone makes the simple assumption that this creature feeds on worry, however the Physician finally realizes that worry is simply the supply mechanism.
Presumably, many individuals solely pray to God as a last-ditch resort when their life is at risk, and Physician Who transforms that feeling of non secular desperation right into a sci-fi mechanic. As a result of when somebody confronts their best worry, they retreat into no matter religion they’ve that sustains them. The creature is definitely utilizing worry to entry and feed upon that religion. It’s greater than slightly bizarre and doesn’t actually really feel as attention-grabbing or as profound as Physician Who desires it to. Nonetheless, “The God Complicated” stays vastly poignant due to the way it grapples with Amy’s religion specifically.
Amy’s unshakable religion within the Physician has outlined practically her whole life. An odd, raggedy man crashed into her backyard when she was only a little one, inspected a bizarre crack in her wall, after which promised to return in a couple of minutes. Then he got here again 12 years later, lengthy after everybody had satisfied her that she made the entire thing up. In some ways, Amy perpetually remained that little lady who waited. Ever since she stepped into the TARDIS, her life turned the fairy story she dreamed of for years. For this unusual minotaur alien, Amy’s religion within the Physician is essentially the most scrumptious deal with of all.
Amy’s room comprises her youthful self, sitting atop a suitcase and ready endlessly.
The Physician can’t save her by waving his sonic screwdriver to defeat one other monster. He has to destroy her perception in him. In a brisk and crushing scene, the Physician admits he knew that touring with him would finally place her in mortal hazard and confesses that his motives had been by no means totally altruistic: “I took you with me as a result of I used to be useless,” he says. “As a result of I needed to be adored.”
Regardless of taking part in the silliest model of the Physician to ever exist, Matt Smith delivers monologues like this with gravity, depth, and tenderness. Beneath the fez hats, bowties, and goofy grin, there’s one thing nearly sinister about him. The Physician genuinely loves Amy, however he additionally loves being the unimaginable hero she worships. We’re led to see the deliberate parallels between the minotaur and the Physician, and he decides it’s time to cease feeding on that worship.
“Amy Williams,” he tells her. “It’s time to cease ready.”
It’s a small element maybe, to name her by her grownup title, however the Physician has all the time considered her as younger Amelia Pond. Even earlier in “The God Complicated,” he referred to Amy and Rory as “assembled Ponds.” However the minotaur made him understand how harmful his relationship with them has develop into.
“The God Complicated” provides Amy her actual ending
The episode might finish there, with one other monster defeated and one other journey full. As an alternative, the Physician takes Amy and Rory again to Earth and provides them a home, a automotive, and the keys to an atypical future. Their subsequent journey is solely residing a standard life as a married couple.
The 2 remaining season 6 episodes function extra like an prolonged finale than a restoration of the outdated establishment. “Closing Time” sends the Physician on a farewell tour with out Amy and Rory, whereas “The Wedding ceremony of River Music” attracts them into an unlimited confrontation constructed round his demise as a hard and fast time limit. These episodes full the season’s bigger story, however “The God Complicated” has already accomplished the emotional one.
The Ponds return for a number of season 7 outings, however it’s all the time the Physician dropping into their lives to take them on scattered adventures earlier than returning them house. Even their iconic departure in “The Angels Take Manhattan” begins as a enjoyable little trip to New York Metropolis earlier than a Weeping Angel completely separates them.
“The Angels Take Manhattan” is likely to be Amy Pond’s closing episode, however “The God Complicated” is the final time we see the lady who waited. Fifteen years later, it stays considered one of Smith’s most iconic performances: the second his Physician realizes that saving Amy means letting her reside a life with out him in it.