The Doctor succeeds in getting the others home, but they find themselves in another adventure when they learn of a spider problem in the city. At the Robertson Luxury Hotel in Sheffield, owner Jack Robertson (Christ Noth) is angry to hear from his assistant, and nieces wife, Frankie (Jaleh Alp), that there's some kind of problem she can't contain. As she says she's unsure she can make the problem go away, Yaz's mom Najia (Shobna Gulati) enters, surprised to see the others there. She explains she wanted to prepare for when they open, as she's the general manager, but Robertson cuts her off by firing her. Meanwhile, the TARDIS hurtles through a dazzling new effect of time travel, with the Doctor explaining she's still learning the new controls. They step outside at Yaz's apartments, surprising Ryan that she lives in a nice place, and with everyone shocked to learn they're only 30 minutes after the disastrous time jump in the first episode. The Doctor sadly notes that they'll be on their way, and the others give somber goodbyes until Yaz, realizing the Doctor will be leaving alone, invites her to have tea at her place, to which the Doctor eagerly agrees. Yaz extends the invitation, so Ryan joins, but Graham decides to go home first, wanting to do so alone. When the trio gets to Yaz's apartment, an upset woman, Jade McIntyre (Tanya Fear) is banging on a neighboring door and calls someone named Anna, but says she's fine. The Doctor, noticing a spider web nearby, enters Yaz's apartment, where her dad Hakim (Ravin J. Ganatra) is excited she brought company and her sister Sonya (Bhavnisha Parmar) takes a jab about her having friends. The Doctor rambles about wanting a sofa, noting she doesn't know if she's just nervous or socially awkward yet. She notices trash in the room, and asking about it causes Hakim to go on a rant about how it's evidence of a conspiracy. Sonya asks about Ryan and Yaz's relationship, seemingly hitting on him, and Yaz gets a call from her mom wanting her to pick her up, though she doesn't say why and doesn't want Hakim to worry. Yaz lies that Najia forgot something and grabs her keys, warning them about her dad's pakora as she and her sister send jabs at one another. As the Doctor rambles about her past, she notices the Khans need to pick up a package from a neighbor, offering to do it since Hakim says no one is ever home. Graham, meanwhile, imagines Grace at the house, telling him about the things he'll now have to do alone. The Doctor and Ryan head next door where Jade is still worried about her friend, so the Doctor offers to open the door since they're also looking for their package. Though Jade says it's only been a few days since she saw Anna, the apartment is covered in giant cobwebs. While they look around, Graham spends his time with coats that smell like Grace, until he hears a bump upstairs. He finds a spider carcass just as the Doctor and the others find Anna's body in her room, cocooned in spider webs. They soon also find an abnormally large spider in the room, and after escaping, the Doctor has Ryan hold it off until she manages to create a barrier of vinegar and garlic in the hallway. She calmly tells it to stay in the apartment while they try to figure out why it's so big, and the group leaves. Outside, the Doctor demands to know who Jade is, since she didn't seem surprised by what they found, and Graham arrives to tell them what he found. Jade admits that this isn't the first spider incident; stuff is happening throughout the city. Yaz's dad and sister are left wondering where their parcel is. While Jade tells the Doctor about who she is, Graham reveals to Ryan that he found a letter from the boy's dad, but Ryan refuses to read it. Back at the hotel, Frankie heads into a restricted area with her phone camera on. She explains that she was forced to keep secrets and regrets it, and an unseen creature drags her away screaming. Yaz arrives, happy to see her mom, and is shocked to learn that she has been fired just before Robertson arrives; his guard Kevin (William Meredith) holds them at gunpoint. He claims they're trespassing, ignoring when Najia points out her daughter is picking her up to leave, and says he would've fired her anyway because of seeing the rooms, which confuses her. Jade takes the others back to her lab where she studies spiders, explaining things like their immense silk strength, which the Doctor says she and Amelia Earhart dealt with. Jade reveals she's been working on a way to increase spider lifespans, and that spiders can grow their whole lives. Ryan points out the spider was far too large, and when the Doctor asks about Anna knowing of the research, Jade says her friend didn't have the clearance and wouldn't have taken anything illegally, and they dispose of carcasses safely. Jade reveals a map marked to show reported spider incidences throughout Sheffield, explaining she can't tell what's going on with the arachnids and sees no pattern. The Doctor theorizes that they're sending a message and connects all the locations; they form a web with the hotel at the center. There, Robertson shows the Khan duo a room that is filled with cobwebs, then leaves for a scheduled bathroom break. Najia tells Yaz the room was fine the day before, and they hear a spider crawling around in the wall. Najia gets a call from the Doctor, who has arrived at the hotel. Inside, Robertson hears a noise from the bathtub and investigates, and a spider breaks through, horrifying him. He leaves his phone as he cowers in a corner, then escapes when Kevin enters, stuck hearing his guard's terrified screams. The others soon arrive, and after a flash of the psychic paper and the Doctor demanding to know what's going on, Robertson easily blurts out full details of what just happened. Yaz and the Doctor investigate the bathroom, and as the others recognize Robertson, the Doctor tells her about the spider issue in the city. Investigating the bathtub, the Doctor comes face to face with the spider and rushes out with Yaz. Najia volunteers to lead them out of the hotel, with Graham telling Robertson to run now and wait to ask questions. They get back to the entrance but find webs blocking it, and though Robertson says spiders couldn't do such a thing, the Doctor says these spiders are trying to trap them. They go to the brightly lit kitchen, where Robertson demands to know what's going on and why they're there. The Doctor doesn't know who Robertson is; she thinks he's Ed Sheeran, and after explaining his real estate background, Graham says he's running for president. This triggers a conversation about whether he is capable of running things and how he hates current president Donald Trump, and he gets back to the point, blaming the spider issue on Najia. Learning that he fired Najia, the Doctor says he can't be president if he fired "Yaz's mum," and Graham and Ryan point out the spider issue could be a targeted attack. To his annoyance, everyone says the Doctor is in charge and she suggests they get plans of the hotel and capture a spider. Robertson obviously doesn't want to get near a spider, so Graham stands in a hallway and allows one to get close, then he and Ryan catch it in a pot before running away as a swarm of spiders invades the hall. The Doctor inspects hotel plans, with Robertson pointing out they don't show his panic room, and Najia demands to know who the Doctor is and how she knows Yaz, even wondering if they're dating. Robertson explains to the Doctor that he has hotels all over the world; they re-purpose old locations. Najia reveals that this particular hotel is on some old coal mines. While Ryan reads his father's note, Jade says she recognizes the kind of spider they caught but that it doesn't look good; she needs them to check if there are any larger spiders out there. The Doctor and the others have since gone down where Frankie died, and despite Robertson's protests, the Doctor opens the door. Jade joins them with news, and even Najia goes in in spite of Robertson trying to keep her out, pointing out that he's not her boss anymore. While Robertson explains his deals are a win-win because old, unused areas become something new, the group stumbles upon Frankie's cocooned body. The Doctor theorizes that the spiders are storing people for food, and as Jade points out how strange this is, because spiders don't do this, they also find Kevin. Robertson retrieves Kevin's guard as the others find something else: a massive landfill, which he says is vertical integration, because this business is both waste disposal and his hotel. The Doctor points out that the toxic waste stewing down here is becoming worse as it's stuck down there, and Najia realizes this is what Frankie was talking about at the start of the episode. he puts the blame on the company that disposes the waste, mentioning he'll just pay the Doctor and the others off. Najia realizes her husband was right: this is the conspiracy he was talking about. Jade then realizes another problem: the waste company Robertson mentioned also handles her lab's spider carcasses. Robertson again pushes off the blame, saying he didn't know, and Jade snaps that he doesn't know anything, so he can avoid taking the blame. She and the Doctor realize a single spider could have survived and begun mutating and growing in the toxic waste. Ryan and Graham soon come across the main spider, and it's up to the group to figure out a solution to Sheffield's spider issue. Honestly, I wasn't a big of a fan of this episode as the last one, though it was definitely an unnerving, at time scary one to watch.
In the second episode, the two men introduced were pretty blatant examples of toxic masculinity, and similarly here, Robertson is a pretty typical self-absorbed businessman who does everything with money. He's a jerk throughout the episode, overdramatic at times, like when he has Najia and Yaz held at gunpoint for not being gone yet. It's interesting, however, how the writers did give him a true reason for firing Najia, rather than having him be a copy of somebody like Marvel's J. Jonah Jameson. Though rude and blunt in firing Najia, he honestly didn't know about the spider issue and ends up finding the rooms in a terrible state, though to be fair, and against the idea of him being decent, he admits he only saw the room after firing her. The scenes with the Khan family show us a fun dynamic between the four, and I thought it was funny to have Yaz's dad be a conspiracy guy. There is a definite feel that they are a family, with how they poke fun at each other like Yaz and Sonya arguing or Yaz mocking Hakim's pakora. It's good to see that neither Ryan nor Graham has simply gotten over Grace's death, and she is instead made more prominent in a new way. Considering how much both of them obviously loved her, it's good to see that Graham is now having to grieve since he's back. The vision of Grace is sad to see Graham just in the house smelling coats, and while of course it seems odd, it's realistic that he'd be looking to anything he could for comfort, and Grace's old clothes would have her scent on them. It's important to show people that grieving can be a long process, but that it's normal for a person to go through it. The Doctor gets to show some of her typical silliness with moments like meeting the Khans, as well as intelligence like when she makes a barrier against the spider in Anna's apartment and later when she figures out the map. There is definitely a sense of unease in this episode, especially for someone like me, who, while understanding spiders are our friends overall and help out, still find them pretty creepy. In this story, they're not only creepy, they're also reaching Harry Potter sizes, and going after people, which makes them a terrifying, unseen threat. The scene in which Yaz hears one in the walls is creepy because you know it's right there and could easily get to her, especially when you see they're strong enough to break through a bathtub. At the same time, a bit point of this episode is that the spiders are really just confused due to what's happening to them. They don't know why they're so big, nor what they should do now that they are, and are having to simply deal with their current situation. I didn't enjoy watching this one as much as the previous one, but it's still a good episode with an important message about business, waste disposal, and the idea of not jumping the gun too fast (literally) when you're afraid.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI love the entertainment side of things. Video games, tv shows, superheroes and movies are my passion and I'd love to get the news out for things I enjoy. My contact page has links to my social media, so if you enjoy what I have to say, likes, shares, comments, and follows are always greatly appreciated! Archives
April 2020
Categories
All
|