lizbee | Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan

Note: this post contains a lot of animated gifs.

I kind of need to express my feelings through the medium of a gif parade. One moment.

(FACT! When I hit Tumblr's "crying gif" tag, the first six entries were all reactions to this episode!)

SO, YES. I HAVE SOME FEELINGS. THERE HAS BEEN SOME UGLY CRYING. AND NOT JUST BECAUSE iVIEW LOST ITS CONNECTION FOR 30 SECONDS RIGHT AS AMY WAS ADVANCING TOWARDS THE FINAL ANGEL.

Basically, I was afraid of an ending like "Doomsday" or "Journey's End", something that basically said, "Hey, remember everything that made this character likable and interesting? Yeah, forget that. We've mind-wiped it and dumped it on a beach with a homicidal clone-Doctor, and you're going to like it, fandom."

This wasn't that. This felt like a natural end to Amy and Rory's story: a timey-wimey happily ever after where Amy willingly walks away from the Doctor because she's finally found something more important. (Remember those times Rory felt like he held second place in Amy's affections? IT'S OKAY, RORY, IT'S REALLY OKAY.)

A really horrible ending would have been for Rory to be unreachable, and Amy to have demanded to be taken home to Leadworth so she can live in her blue-doored house and MOURN FOREVER. This was a happy, bittersweet ending. Amy and Rory can be together, and have amazing adventures in twentieth century New York, and ... well, okay, there's WWII about to happen, but they're better off in America than Great Britain. (Someone should write fic about Amy and Rory's grandparents getting anonymous care packages from America containing nylons and lipstick and chocolate and general rationing-avoiding things!)

And, I noted, River, with her vortex manipulator, can still visit them. She just can't bring the Doctor, or take them with her. (I presume that Amy and Rory themselves are paradoxes now, so it would destroy New York if the Doctor, say, turned up in 1942 and took them home then. And in theory he could visit, but I think it's better for him to make a clean break, and not burden the next companion with "Amy would know what to do" type shenanigans. Hopefully his time with River will help him move on a bit.

OMG RIVER AND THE DOCTOR. How can people say he's not into her? When he's checking his breath and straightening his bow tie, slicking his hair and giving up a bit of his life to heal River's arm. The only other time we've seen him do that is for the TARDIS in "Rise of the Cybermen" or whatever it was! THAT'S HOW MUCH HE LOVES HER!

I just read the transcript of Amy's afterword, and now I'm all teary again. STUPID SHOW.

"Only you could fancy a character in a book." IF ONLY YOU KNEW, AMY, IF ONLY YOU KNEW.