#listen i still have my moffat hang-ups but this episode convinced me

[khruschevshoe]

There's something to be said about Heaven Sent/Hell Bent, despite the Doctor overthrowing the Time Lord Council and spending four and a half billion years in the confession dial and him and Clara and Me meeting at the end of universe, therefore technically spanning the longest time span, being fundamentally the smallest in stakes of any of the modern Doctor Who finales. At the end of the day, there is no threat to earth or the galaxy or the universe or reality. It's just about two people and the way that they turn each other inside out and the way that they reflect each other as two sides of the same coin and the way their relationship was always going to end this way- with the flip of the coin, spinning in the air, each trying to override the other, each trying to take control of the story, each haunting each other forever.

It's under my microscope. It's rotating rent free in my head. It's everything good about Moffat's writing- fairytale vibes, wrenching character work, two characters that thematically parallel each other- and none of the bad, because he's not trying to be too clever or fuck with the rules too much, there's a couple of simple concepts played straight to their inevitable conclusions: Clara Oswald needs to die but the Doctor can't let it happen, he wants her to forget but she can't let it happen, so they both will do the most devasting things in the world to stop the other and they both get their way in the end but only in a way that will leave them haunting each other forever.

And it's so fucking good.