If You Were Lost During ‘Doctor Who’s ‘Empire of Death,’ You’re Not Alone

Doctor Who’s season 14 finale, “Empire of Death,” was a bit polarizing. Fans came away with multiple questions after it was done, mostly because you actually need a good working knowledge of classic Doctor Who to understand who the villain is and why he’s so important.

The villain of “Empire of Death” is Sutekh, an entity the Doctor first met allll the way back in 1975 in the serial “Pyramids of Mars.” The Doctor was able to stop him, but in “Empire of Death” it turns out that Sutekh had been hidden in the TARDIS all that time, waiting to rise again. (This poses a lot of questions, since there’s frequently been more than one version of the Doctor’s TARDIS in play on the show.)

So, what exactly happens after that?

How does the Doctor defeat Sutekh?

It doesn’t actually take all that much to defeat Sutekh, the god of death, even after he’s killed virtually everyone in the universe.

You see, Sutekh is very invested in finding out who Ruby’s biological mother is … so much so that he lets the Doctor and Ruby live. Ruby is eventually able to distract him with a fake-out about her true heritage, and that lets the Doctor get close enough to Sutekh to destroy him.

First, the Doctor and Ruby tie Sutekh up with some “intelligent rope” recovered from the Remembered TARDIS (a version of the TARDIS made up of memories) and then the Doctor uses a whistle to control the real TARDIS and open its heart.

The Heart of the TARDIS is an immensely powerful thing. You might remember it as the reason Rose became “Bad Wolf” back in the season one finale. Here, it destroys Sutekh’s harbringer and gives the Doctor his time machine back. The Doctor then uses the TARDIS and the intelligent rope to drag Sutekh through the Time Vortex.

(Yes, there’s definitely a joke in there somewhere about how Sutekh, a being in the shape of a giant dog, was defeated by a rope and a whistle.)

The act of dragging Sutekh through the Vortex returns life to the universe—come on, you didn’t think they were going to leave everyone the Doctor ever knew dead, did you?—and destroys Sutekh once and for all. It’s a happy ending for everyone! Except Sutekh, obviously.

Who was Susan Triad?

Throughout the whole of season 14, the Doctor and Ruby were followed by a mysterious woman played by an actress named Susan Twist. (Casting an actress with that name is a tremendous act of trolling by showrunner Russell T. Davies.) At first, the Doctor thought she might be his granddaughter Susan, but no, she was Susan Triad, a creation of Sutekh made to lure the Doctor in. She was his angel of death who unleashed Sutekh’s dust across the world and killed everyone.

But then! After Sutekh is defeated, Susan Triad reverts to just being an ordinary person. Kate Stewart even suggests that the tech genius would fit in well at UNIT.

Who is Ruby’s mother?

The biggest mystery of Doctor Who season 14 was: Where exactly did Ruby come from? She was abandoned outside a church by her cloaked mother, but why?

“Empire of Death” finally answered that question. Some fans loved the reveal, while others found it disappointing.

It turned out Ruby’s mother was no one “important” in the grand scheme of things—Sutekh simply believed that she was. Ruby’s mom, Louise, was actually a regular woman who abandoned her child when she was fifteen years old, because of her abusive family situation. UNIT is able to track her down so Ruby can meet her.

Ruby forms a relationship with her mother and because of this, decides to leave her TARDIS travels behind for a while to focus on her family. She tells the Doctor she loves him before going home. Don’t worry though, she’ll be back next season!

What’s the deal with Mrs Flood?

Another tantalizing mystery from Season 14 was Mrs Flood. She knew what a TARDIS was, she lived in Ruby’s neighborhood, she declared “Tell your maker I will come to storm down the gates of gold and seize his kingdom in my true name” when the Doctor wasn’t there to hear it … So all of this points towards her being the next season’s villain, yeah? Well, the last moments of season 14 certainly seem to point that way.

At the very end of “Empire of Death,” Mrs. Flood stands on a roof, holding an umbrella Mary Poppins-style and talking directly to us the audience. She declares that the Doctor’s story will tend in “absolute terror” and wishes us all a good night. What will she be up to when we see her again? Well, Doctor Who season 15 will air next year, so we don’t have to wait long to find out.