Doctor Who, S6 Ep2 — Day of the Moon

A case of the Previouslys, the crack of gunfire, and suddenly Amy is reenacting the scene in Forrest Gump where Tom Hanks is working out his issues.  I don’t want to know how she got into the middle of the desert on foot, or where she expects to go, but she’s running like her life depends on it.  And apparently it does, because it’s been three months since Amy graduated from Feisty Companion to Apparent Child Murderer, and Canton Everett Delaware Kentucky Johnson Jenkins III, Esq. is in hot pursuit.

The death of Amy Pond?

Amy decides she’d rather face the music than go all Butch and Sundance off a Utah cliff, so she stops and turns around as Canton and what can only be described as his goons exit their vehicles and draw their weapons.  Ominously, one of them unfurls a body bag with unsettling familiarity, like it’s always his job to get the body bag ready just in case a standoff against an unarmed 90 pound pregnant 23-year-old redhead goes south.  And it does go south, because even after Amy tries to jog Canton’s memory with some convenient flashbacks showing us the aftermath of Scaredy-girl’s shooting, he returns the favor and blows her away.  As she collapses, we see that her arm is covered in counting lines (is that what they’re called?).

Meanwhile, in Area 51, The Doctor (sporting a serious Unabomber beard) sits, chained and straitjacketed, under armed guard in the center of a high-security facility.  White lab-coated sci-gineers toil away with little black cubes that fuse together on contact, building what The Doctor calls “the perfect prison” around him.

While we wonder to ourselves what happens if The Doctor has to go to the bathroom, the action shifts to New York, where River has been taking a break from a fancy dinner party to go up to an unfinished floor of a skyscraper and draw lines on herself. After a brief encounter with a handful of Silence, she stares down the barrel of Canton’s gun and does a swan dive off the 50th floor that would make Greg Louganis proud.

Rory, exercising the typical amount of foresight and planning, has decided to hide out inside a dam. Canton and Company flush him out, and with the squeeze of a trigger, reunite him with his beloved Amy.  Their body bags are delivered to the now-complete prison cube (which, to these overanalyzing eyes, is awfully reminiscent of last season’s Pandorica, which was also a cube-shaped perfect prison).

Canton seals the door from the inside, The Doctor leaps to his feet, and as two body bags sit bolt upright, the truth is revealed!  The prison isn’t meant to contain the Doctor, but to isolate our gang (including the still-loyal Canton) from the Silence.  Canton faked their deaths to throw the Silence off their scent. Everyone climbs into the cloaked TARDIS and off they go!

Everybody remember where we parked.

NOTE TO AREA 51 WHITE LAB-COATED CUBE BUILDERS:

If you’re building the perfect prison, make sure there isn’t an invisible time machine inside it. You can do this by feeling around with your foot, or flailing your arms around aimlessly.

NOW BACK TO THE SHOW:

The first order of business is in rescuing River, who’s still plummeting toward Manhattan asphalt at a greater-than-survivable rate.  They park the TARDIS underneath her, and she lands in the pool with a tiny splash.  The East German judge gives her a 6. They grab a front row seat for Apollo 11 on the launch pad, and The Doctor assures them that victory over the Silence lies in… Neil Armstrong’s foot?!