If there’s one thing Doctor Who can’t resist, it’s a villain hiding in plain sight. In the latest episode of Season 2, “Lucky Day,” Who gives us two versions of this trope: one short term, and one with much bigger implications. And by the end of this episode, it very much seems that the series is gearing up to drop a twist similar to something showrunner Russell T Davies pulled back in 2007.
Yes, there’s another Mrs. Flood tease in this episode, but this time, has Doctor Who all-but-confirmed her true identity? Here’s what happened at the end of “Lucky Day,” and why it could mean we’re about to get a very specific kind of villainous comeback.
Spoilers ahead for Doctor Who Season 2 Episode 4, “Lucky Day” ahead!
Doctor Who, “Lucky Day,” Ending — Explained
After Ruby’s new boyfriend, Conrad, reveals himself to be a horrible human being intent on exposing UNIT for what he claims are lies and conspiracies, the Doctor eventually gives Conrad a huge dressing down in the TARDIS.
But, we also become aware of the fact that the Doctor’s timeline isn't’ quite synced up with what his happening this episode. In fact, the Doctor and Belinda can’t even get back to 2025, the time period in which this episode is happening. Instead, the version of the Doctor we see at the end of the episode is from an earlier point in Season 1, before he met Belinda, a fact which Conrad points out.
At the very end of the episode, Conrad is locked up for terrorizing UNIT, spreading misinformation, and a variety of other obvious crimes. But he’s freed by the character we know as Mrs. Flood, who, for the first time, calls herself “The Governor.”
Is Mrs. Flood a Secret Time Lord?
Back in 2007, in the then-Season 3 episode “Utopia,” we learned that the Professor Yana was really a version of the Time Lord known as The Master. On top of that, we discovered that the Master had retroactively been on Earth the entire season, running around as a character named Harold Saxon, who eventually became the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Seemingly, Mrs. Flood is up to something similar. And by referring to herself with a title like The Governor, we have to wonder if that’s not her real-deal Time Lord name. Back at the end of “The Church on Ruby Road,” Mrs. Flood made the audience aware that she knew what a TARDIS was. Since then, there have been a ton of clues that Mrs. Flood has powers beyond that of a simple doddering old lady. And, if she is a Time Lord called “The Governor,” then that’s a big game-changer for the status quo of Doctor Who. Not counting flashbacks with the Renegade Doctor during the events of the Flux, we haven’t seen any Time Lords actually alive — other than the Master — since the 12th Doctor episode “Hell Bent,” in 2015.
Does Mrs. Flood represent the return of the Time Lords? And if so, are we witness the beginning of the the next great Who villain?
Here’s hoping Mrs. Flood is a Time Lord, and that she has an amazing, and utterly evil TARDIS of her own.
