Warning: Spoilers below for Doctor Who's latest episode, "The Eaters of Light!" If you aren't current, come back after you've caught up with this week's adventure.
If there's anything Doctor Who loves, it's a good redemption story. In particular, the redemption of The Master/Missy is something that's reared its head time and again in the history of the series. With last night's episode serving as one of the Twelfth Doctor's final adventures, it looks like the Missy query is going to be the theme of the last couple of episodes. But is Missy actually ready to go on her big hero test in next week's episode?
This question came to mind after "The Eaters of Light" ended with another sequence that bookended the events of this week's main story with the further adventures of The Doctor and his pet project: turning Missy into a good guy, as it were. Yet again, we see her understanding a universal truth that The Doctor has taught her, and once more, she cried as she discovered how heroes' virtuous deeds can be remembered long after they have been committed. But upon watching the preview for next week's episode, "World Enough and Time," it looks like Missy's greatest challenge is about to come.
Honestly, I think Missy is ready to be a hero. While her more malicious motives have always been in question, and they've definitely outnumbered the good things she's done in any incarnation, she's ultimately been known to clear the slate from time to time. Much like she did when she was still John Simm's version of The Master in "The End of Time: Part 2," she can be a softie when it comes to The Doctor's faith in her, and this ultimately lead her to defeat Rassilon and the Time Lords when they tried to replace Earth with Gallifrey. True, Missy is still a bit snarky, calling Bill and Nardole her "disposables," but let's remember she is still kind of new to this whole protagonist racket.
As with any pivotal moment in Doctor Who, there's another facet that needs to be considered: is Missy's heroism coming out for the right reasons? Considering we saw Simm's Master rise again, introduced with the line, "Give us a kiss, then," one has to wonder if she's playing the hero with expert precision specifically so she can regenerate into a more familiar and evil form. Yes, it was presumed that The Doctor sapped Missy's regenerative abilities during "Extremis," so one has to wonder if or how this could be possible. But there is always the chance that this process didn't work, or that something cancelled out the regeneration -sapping, which would allow Missy to revamp herself through an extreme makeover.
Ok, so maybe we're not completely ready to give Missy a free pass into sainthood on Doctor Who. But with the return of the Mondasian Cybermen coming, basically anything is in the cards. And surely, this week's episode taught us that if a great evil threatens everyone on all sides, then two opposing factions can come together to defeat evil for the common good. We'll have to wait until "The World and Time Enough" to see what's next, and Doctor Who returns to BBC America, in its usual 9 p.m. ET time slot on Saturday night.
