Diplomacy? Schmiplomacy!

Title: Cold Blood

Episode: 9 Season: 5

Summary: We're in the Center of the Earth, and there are lizard-men.

Last time...

There were some holes, people were abducted by some lizard warriors who live deep under ground, and nobody dies today.

Uh-huh.

We begin with a voiceover of some unnamed being and the image of Earth, chillin' in the solar system.

He is telling the of how the Doctor brought a compromise to the species of human and siluran, and all the terrible losses he suffered.

Way to start the episode off on a high note!

So, the Doctor and Nasreen are touring the Silurian settlement way down deep under the surface of the planet. Nobody seems to be home, and the Doctor posits that they are probably mostly still in stasis.

Nasreen just wonders how the hell plants can grow down here.

Nasreen wonders of waltzing around the place all out in the open is the best way to be going about this. The Doctor thinks the "Front Door" approach is best. As soon as he says that, alarms start ringing. As they do.

They are surrounded.

Hands Up. "We Come in Peace"

They are immediately gassed despite their show of hands.

Meanwhile, Amy still hasn't been disected. Apparently this dude moves in super slo-mo.

The Doc records his observations of the subject. He is under the impression that female humans are more cold resistant than the males because of Amy's short shorts. She yells at him that she dressed for Rio.

Amy struggles against her restraints, but they just clamp down harder on her, and MO futiley yells at the Silurian to leave her alone.

Before he can get to the disection, the alarm bells that the Doctor has raised attract his attention and he has to go see what is up with that, because they are requestion a species diagnosis on them.

In his distraction, the Silurian has somehow been pick-pocketed by Amy while she was still in restraints... AT THE WRISTS.

Seriously? Girl, why were you wasting your time as a kiss-o-gram? You could have been a master thief by now!

In any case, Mo is happy to be rescued.

He's Mr. Question man as they make their escape. Aliens? Invasion? What's happening? Amy doesn't know, but she knows someone who can help.

Before they can get on their way, Amy is distracted by another door.

Amy somehow manages to turn the light on so they can look in the handy portal and see what's behind the door. It's Elliot, and he's hooked up to some tubes.

Understandably, Mo is a little upset.

Amy has to calm him down when they aren't granted access to the room. Mo's first instinct is to take the Doc hostage and make him open the damn door with weapons!

I think Amy just tells him that she'll go along with this plan of action so she can calm him down and get him moving.

Upstairs, Ambrose is still mourning over the headphones.

Now she's pissed off at Rory for lying about being the police. He calls it a more of a misunderstanding.

Ambrose wants to know who they are and what did they ever do to deserve this. (My guess is...you dug a big ass hole in the ground, deeper than any hole has ever been dug, and set off a red alert, awakening a race that would have just stayed asleep and not bothered you if you hadn't done that.)

Rory, in an attempt to be in charge and put her at ease, assures her that the Doctor will get her family back and in the mean time they wait and gaurd the creature.

Sounds reasonable to me, but Ambrose wants instant results!

Rory tells her to trust the Doctor. He does. with his life.

I am reasonably certain the Ambrose does not believe this shit.

Downstairs, the Doctor is getting scanned. Looks painful.

Meanwhile, we have a new charactor, who is admonishing the Doc for letting the prisoners escape. She thinks they should be under military gaurd for this very reason, instead of down in the lab being studied.

I think it's safe to assume that she's one of the warriors.

Her name is Restac. The Doctor tells us that even if she might want to run the place like a police state, she and he are of the same rank.

Restac just grits her teeth in frustration at him, and when asked about Alaya, she says no and turns away.

the Doc. tell sher it's okay to be emotional about the lack of contact since she and Alaya are related.

Then he decontamonates the Doctor.

Upstairs, Alaya is chillin in her cell.

Mac...or Tony. He can be Tony in this recap.

Anyway, he comes up behind her and she senses him.

Alaya is bewildered by the fact that he is still upright and breathing. She bit him, and he should be dead by now.

He shows her the venom coursing through his veins.

He offers to help her escape in return for curing him, but Alaya isn't going to take that offer.

She'd rather stay imprisoned and watch him die.

Damn.

In between the screaming pain of each round of decontamination, the Doctor attempts to explain that he's not human.

Apparently the removal of human bacteria from his system will cause him to die.

Of course, Restac wants the process complete. She doesn't care if he lives or dies, but the Doc shuts it down regardless.

The Doctor is none too pleased with having to deal with the military.

This "Doc" explains that the drill was "attacking" the oxygen pockets above the city.

Restac is under the impression that the Doctor and Nasreen are the first wave of the coming human invasion.

The Doctor reveals his bargaining chip, and somehow picks up on the fact that Restac and Alaya are related.

Well, whatever the Doctor was hoping to accomplish with that...he accomplished the opposite. Restac now is determined to execute them as an example and refuses to negotiate with the humans.

In other areas of the settlement, Mo and Amy have discovered some statis pods.

Amy, being Amy, is not afraid to go inside and have a look, while Mo frets in the background.

Amy spots some metal disks beneath the Sleeping Silurians, and Mo finds some tubes up in the ceiling. Let's see if they can put two and two together.

Amy does, but Mo's not interested in getting back to the surface as much as he is in their weapons.

Of they go, and come accross an entire army, just waiting and ready to go.

Later, Ambrose figures out what is going on with her dad. He's worse off than she thought, and getting worse by the second.

The Doctor explains to Nasreen a little Silurian history while they are on the march to...somewhere else.

It seems that they took to the underground to avoid a massive, apocolyptic crash with another planet...which turned out to be the moon coming into orbit.

Ooops.

The Silurians want to know how the Doctor knows about their history, and he has to admit that he's met other Silurians before.

When pressed to reveal if they survived as well, the Doctor has to admit that the humans took them out.

This little nugget is probably not going to help ease negotiations at all.

*sigh*

Back Upstairs, Ambrose is visiting Alaya and demanding a cure.

Alaya, of course, isn't going to be doing that any time so, but Ambrose came with reinforcements.

She will taze you, bro!

Manipulative Warrior with hell bent on martyrdom, remember? You cannot reason with her, she wants a war spurred on by her own death.

The words came out of her own mouth. Threats of death are not going to sway her.

Alaya walks right up to her, calls her a wuss, basically and eggs her on.

So, Ambrose tazes her. Dude. That's what she wants you to do.

Ambrose apologizes. She didn't mean it. Alaya practically walked right into the tazer after all.

Alaya doesn't let up though, and when Ambrose pleads for the cure she tells her that her father and all humans deserve to die.

Alaya just doesn't stop. She's not giving up on her death wish any time soon, and Ambrose is teetering right on the edge of desperation. She thinks her dad is the only person she's got left after all. As far as she's concerned Mo and Elliot are already dead.

And she Tazes Alaya again.

Over with Tony, Rory is admonishing him for not speaking up sooner. I mean, maybe the man with actual medical training could have helped. He certainly couldn't have hurt.

They hear a Alaya's screams and come running to her aid.

Ambrose tries to make excuses for her actions, but Tony is having none of it. It wasn't supposed to go down this way.

Rory wants to help, but he doesn't know what to do with Silurian physiology. Alaya is no help. If there's a way to save her, she doesn't let him know. She wants to incite a war after all.

Rory doesn't even get a chance to attempt to do anything before she gasps her final breaths.

Yeah. You just did that.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is being led by Restac and her Doc. to some sort of hall. the Doc is arguing with her about her overstepping her authority, but Restac doesn't care. She'll do what she wants.

It's court, and also their execution arena. Good times.

Pond to the rescue!

Or not.

Yeah, this is some sort of coup happening up in here. Seems the poor Doc. here is the only civilian Silurian that's awake right now. He's certainly not going to stop Restac, who is bend on taking over the entire world and riding it of the human race.

And the Doc has a name! It's Malokai. We can call him Mal.

They're prepared for execution by being tied to some stone pillars.

Instead of being ended straight away, the Silurian's are waiting for something. I wonder what.

Back upstairs... Tony is a bit more sympathetic now.

The lights flicker adn somehow Restac is able to project herself onto this computer monitor which, if I had to wager a guess, isn't plugged into anything. That's some sweet technology there.

She asks for the leader and everybody turns to Rory. Tony says not to tell Restac what happened.

You know that's the first thing she's going to ask, right?

They're glad to see their friends alive, but not so keen on the hostage situation.

So...Restac wants to see Alaya.

and Ambrose is going insane. She's not listening to the Doctor when he tells her to hand the reins over the Rory. Instead she goes off on Restac and demands her family back.

Restac is all: No! Off with their heads. Amy first!

Amy! No!

Right before the firing squad is about to pul the trigger, Mal returns with an important looking dude in some robes who orders the gang's release.

Restac doesn't want to recognize his authority. (We'll call him El.)

El tells her to go ahead and shoot him if that's the case. This gives Restac pause.

She wants to know why Mal loves humans so damn much to go and tattle on her. He's just fascinated by our evolution. Unsurprising, coming from a scientist. There is much to be learned.

El tells Restac to go play soldiers. She's done for the day. Or is she? She doesn't seem to think so.

Back upstairs, the gang are stressing out over the sudden cut in the magical feed to this derelict computer, when the Doctor reappears on screen and gives Rory instructions on how to get down to where he is.

The Doctor seems to think everything is going to be hunky-dory with the exchange, all they have to do is bring Alaya down with them. Good job, everybody!

The gang exchange uneasy glances. We're only a quarter of the way through this episode, it's not going to be that simple.

The Doctor doesn't give them a chance to explain before he's off again, and Tony expressions his frustration at Rory, as if it wasn't his daughter that cocked everything up.

Rory, the every honorable man that he is proposes that they bring Alaya back with them anyways. The Silurians deserve at least that much consideration.

I don't think Ambrose and Tony think that's a good idea.

Back downstairs the Doctor is holding negotiations. He admits he's not qualified for the job since he is not of this planet and hands over negotiations to Amy and Nasreen.

Neither one of them seem to be too keen on this kind of massive responsibility.

The Doctor tells them they'll be great at it. The best humanity has to offer, but Amy wants Spoilers!

Do they share the planet in the future? Nasreen is just trippin' when she learns that Amy and the Doctor are time travelers.

The Doctor tells them that this isn't a fixed point in time. They have a chance to change the future and make a new timeline! Sweet!

For the good of humanity! Woooo!

Nasreen expresses her own concern for humanity's willingness to share the planet. I mean... we can't even share the damn planet with EACHOTHER, let alone an intelligent reptillian species.

The Doctor tells her to go forth and be awesome! Nasreen pouts at him because she knows she can't resist. He has a certain way of being convincing.

The Doctor is certianly tickled about this meeting of the minds. He leaves Amy, Nasreen, and El to their business and goes off with Mo to retrieve Elliot.

Upstairs...

They have to get on the disks and travel down the tubes to the Silurian settlment. Tony is skeptical, and Rory explains the Geothermic Gravity Bubbles. The Dude catches on quick for someone who keeps getting called stupid. He was explaining it all, all the way back in season five (even when he doesn't know what he's explaining)

Ambrose is over here still marinating in thoughts of what her manslaughter may have cost them.

She pulls Tony away and tries to convince him to do something he clearly doesn't want to do in the name of rescuing her son...

Methinks somebody has not learned her lesson at all. My sympathy...it is slowly leaking away.

Back downstairs, Mal is explaining how he studies the young...slows down their rate of growth so can observe them. Poor guy has beend down here all by himself for 300 years...I guess studying whatever falls down one of the holes.

The Doctor declares his love for Mal, I suppose for being a rational and scientific reptilian amidst Restac and her crew.

They exchange bro-fists.

Family reunion! Awww.

I'll let Mo recap the current situation for you, as he does when Elliot asks him where he is:

They are in the center of the Earth, and there are lizard men.

Succinctly put, Mo!

The Doctor apologizes for not keeping an eye on him, and Elliot forgives him. Smiles all around! Everything is going to be okay! Right? RIGHT?

So, Mal lets them go on ahead without him. I wonder what he's got up his sleeves?

In the courtroom, we larn that El here is the voiceover man, and he's wondering if they will ever find a solution or a compromise as Nasreen explains how we've already got an overpopulation problem.

Amy wonders if we shouldn't just give them allt he uninhabitable areas, but Nasreen doesn't think that's much of a solution once they start breeding and spreading.

Nasreen wonders what's in it for us? El explains about how his people can contribute all sorts...new medicine, new forms of energy, scientific advances etc...

Seriously, these are millions of years old creatures and they've mastered suspended animation at least and somehow are able to live in the center of the damned Earth without burning to a crisp. That might come in handy some day.

They're starting to like the sound of this.

The Doctor returns, applauding their progress as he enters with Elliot and Mo. Oh, but this celebration is about to be short-lived, because I hear the transport disks approaching.

Mal is walking through the corridors and comes across Restac, awakening her army.

Restac has gone Rogue!

Mal is horrified at this, but I don't think confronting the woman with a bunch of armed soldiers behind her is a good idea, really.

Noooo! Mal!

Still not the sad part.

Back in the meeting hall, things are about to go from pretty bad to even worse, as the gang trudges into their midsts...Tony carying Alaya wrapped up in a blanket.

The Doctor knows something is amiss.

He reveals Alaya, and is extremely disappointed in them for letting this happen.

Ambrose admits that it was her, but she did it all for her family. If she thinks Elliot is going to be pleased and grateful that she would kill for him...she's sorely mistaken. He totally gives her the brushoff.

Even Mo, who was down with the weapons before, seems a little bit shocked by this turn of events.

The Doctor tries to reason with El before he says anything. They really are better than this he says.

I don't know about that, but it isn't as if the Silurians were all entirely peaceful about things either.

Instead of attempting apologies or anything like that, Ambrose instead undoes all the diplomatic progress Amy and Nasreen have made with all the subtelty of a sledgehammer, by screaming at El to just leave them all alone.

C'mon, El! Don't listen to her. Think of her as the Restac of the human race or something.

The Doctor stalks right up to her and gives her a stern dressing down. He sure is angry about this and calls her so much less than the human race has to offer. Which, if you think about it, is a pretty fantastic insult.

well, the time for explanations and apologies has now passed with the arrival of Restac and crew. They are here to overthrow you, El.

Restac finally shows that she has some feelings, and cries out for her sister.

Yeah, lady, you're not the only being around that has a family that cares.

The Doctor attempts to reason with everybody and get the alliance back on track.

Restac thinks Ambrose = all of humaity. The Doctor tries to explain that she's just one person who was scared for her family. We can still work it out!

At this point Ambrose tells everybody that it is too late for that.

STOP SPEAKING! Oh, my god, and I thought Nasreen was the expert on digging really deep holes.

The Doctor wonders how Ambrose has come to that concluse, but it seems she has set the drill to start digging again. Countdown: 15 minutes.

Oh, well. Too late to close that window now. My sympathy has completely flown out of it. Maybe they should have locked Ambrose down in the church cellar.

Ambrose seems to be under the impression that Restac is going to let them go in order to save the settlement or something. As long as they stay underground it'll be all good.

That is not a settlement Restac is going to agree to.

Instead she orders Ambrose to be executed.

Well, that brilliant plan backfired spectacularly. Good Job.

The Doctor barely manages to escape a tongue lashing as he pushes Ambrose out of the way and sonics all the Silurian weapons within sonicing distance.

The Doctor attempts to convince them to go back into hibernation if there can be no deal. Otherwize he will smite them with his very deadly weapon.

Of course they call his bluff, so they have to escape to the lab where the Doctor discover's Tony's malady.

Meanwhile, Mo discovers that they've been surrounded by Silurians.

Short story:

Tony may be cured by the Decontamination program.

the Doctor is going to blow up Nasreen's drill, which is her life's work. She's okay with that, but it's going to cause a massive cave in and all the tunnels will be shut.

This means they have to be out of the ground, before the pulse blows up the drill.

How to get past the troops and too the TARDIS though? El has an app for that! He's going to trigger a toxic fumigation of the place. Basically all the Silurians are going to have to retreat to their cryo-chambers to avoid being gassed.

Amy doesn't believe that he'd gas his own people. He's down with it because it will only affect the ones that are going to follow Restac despite the toxic fumes. He's sad, but he realizes that the humans aren't ready for them yet.

The Doctor has his own plan though. He thinks the planet can be shared one day and he tells the gang that they need to pass the word on down through the generations with stories or relgion, or however they can do it.

Meanwhile, he'll set the cry-chambers to wake the Silurians up in 1,000 years time.

Elliot's down with that. I am now invisioning little Elliot here founding the Church of the Shared Earth or something, with a bible explaining all about the race of Homo-Reptilius living deep down in the center of the Earth and how they will one day return to the surface...

And everybody will think he's crazy.

Rory worries about how close they're going to cut it, between the fumigation and the energy pulse and getting to the surface.

Thing is, Tony doesn't have enough time. He hasn't been decontaminated yet.

Tony tells Elliot that he should forgive his mum. He doesn't have anything to say on that subject, but he gets that this is the last time he's gong to see his grandpa.

I dunno, I'd like to think that Mal slowed down his growth permanently and it wasn't dependent on being hooked up to those doo-dads...and Elliot will still be kicking around in a thousand years when his grandpa emerges. ;)

Abmrose says her goodbyes too.

The fumigation starts, and everybody has the good sense to go back to their pods and ignore Restac.

The Doctor and El share a moment of sadness for what greatness could have been.

It's time to go now, but Nasreen has decided that she too is going to stay behind.

Amy runs back to see what's holding the Doctor up in the lab, while Nasreen and Tony make eyes at each other. They have all the time in the world. Besides, Nasreen sure as hell isn't going to give up Tony only after they just found eachother.

See you in a thousand years, Nasreen!

Five minutes and counting everybody has made it to the TARDIS.

And just what is glowing way down here in the center of the Earth? It's another crack!

Quick recap of where we've seen the cracks before as the Doctor bends down to have a look. He thinks perhaps it was some kind of space/time explosion that scattered these cracks throughout the universe.

Enough crack gazing, Doctor! we're on a tight time limit here, remember?

The Doctor is just irritated that it seems like everybody they've come across knows what's in the crack except for him. He decided to reach his hand on in there. His reasoning? Where there are explosions, there is shrapnel.

The Doctor does pushups.

No. Actually he pulls something out of the crack and it flings him to the ground. He doesn't have time to check it out before a gassed up Restac comes crawling into view.

She attempts to shoot the Doctor.

But Rory takes one for the team.

The Doctor sonics him, but that doesn't do any good.

He just doesn't understand how he can be dying if he saw his future self up on that hill at the beginning of the last episode.

He tells Amy that he's sorry and she's beautiful, and then...

Just so you know...we're still not quite to the sad part yet.

Amy again wants the Doctor to bring Rory back to life.

The Crack reaches for Rory's New Balances, and we get a quick recap for those of us who don't remember our Crackology.

If the Crack sucks you in...it's like you never even existed in the first place. You were never born.

The Doctor gently urges Amy back into the TARDIS before the light can get to her too. It's too late to save Rory...from his own death and from the Crack.

He finally has to physically drag her back into the TARDIS.

Amy watches as the light embraces Rory and she realizes what this means. If he never exits, she will have never known him.

She will forget.

The Doctor turns the TARDIS on so they can get out of there as the Crack slowly sucks Rory out of existance.

This is the Sad part by the way. :(

Amy is practically hysterical at this point and the Doctor tells her that she can't forget. She has to keep him in her thoughts and remember him.

THe Doctor sits her down and tries to help her remember. He asks her to tell him all about Rory and his awesomeness.

Flashback on her memories as they slowly fade to white.

The Doctor keeps telling her to remember Rory and repeats it over and over again in hopes that it will stick.

She must not be distracted during this process...

But the TARDIS hits a bump in the road. Where is River and her stabalizing skillz when you need them?

Amy gets up from the floor, and the Doctor spots her engagement ring.

Amy asks the Doctor what he was just talking about and she sound remarkably more chipper than she did a few moments ago when she was wailing and grief stricken.

...

The only have a few seconds until... this.

Later, the Doctor and Ambrose have a heart to heart in the church doorway. She wonders why he didn't just let the Silurians execute her.

An Eye for an Eye is never the way. He says that at least now that she has probably, maybe learned her lesson, she can teach Elliot the error of her ways so he can be the best humanity has to offer.

Later, on the way back to the TARDIS Amy waves at herself on the hill. She is alone this time.

the Doctor senses something is wrong, and she says she thought she saw someone else on that hill for a second. Then she's back to being cheer and chipper and thinking about a trip to Rio.

She heads on in to the TARDIS leaving the Doctor outside alone to examine this peice of shrapnel that he pulled out of the crack, and El, the voiceover tells us that we have even more losses in store for us before this is over.

Oh, dear.