The god of all gods has returned.
This article contains spoilers for Doctor Who: The Legend of Ruby Sunday
Who is the One Who Waits? The Legend of Ruby Sunday – the first chapter of an epic two-part season finale – saw Doctor Who finally answer a question that’s been hanging over the show for six long months…
If you cast your mind back to The Giggle – the third and last of last year’s 60th anniversary specials – you’ll recall that the Fourteenth Doctor (David Tennant) once again faced off with The Toymaker (played by Neil Patrick Harris), a seemingly all-powerful being who nonetheless feared one opponent – The One Who Waits.
“There’s only one player I didn’t dare face – The One Who Waits,” the Toymaker confesses. “I saw it, hiding, and I ran.”
Now we know that enigmatic figure’s true identity – but who are they, and what is their history with the Doctor? Read on for everything you need to know.
Doctor Who: The Legend of Ruby Sunday ending explained
Seeking to solve twin mysteries – the identity of Ruby’s mother, and the secret of a woman (played by Susan Twist) who keeps appearing across time and space in different guises – the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby (Millie Gibson) arrive at UNIT HQ in 2024.
The pair use UNIT’s time window – a device that allows you to experience, though not interfere with, moments from the past, “like 3D history” – to enter a virtual representation of Christmas Eve, 2004, the night an infant Ruby was abandoned outside the church on Ruby Road.
Though their efforts to identify Ruby’s birth mother are unsuccessful, something else appears in the projection – a dark, reddish cloud with malevolent intent that consumes UNIT colonel Chidozie (Tachia Newall). “I am lost,” says a disembodied Chidozie. “I am in hell.
“It’s seen me – it’s seen right into my soul… and it’s so old. Waiting… it’s been waiting for so long…”
The evil force is revealed at the episode’s climax to be Sutekh, the “god of all gods” who serves as “mother and father and other” of the Gods of Chaos, a pantheon of supernatural beings.
Sutekh materialises inside UNIT HQ, promising Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) and her assembled forces that “all life will perish at my hand.”
Who is Sutekh?
The Legend of Ruby Sunday marks a dramatic return for Sutekh, a character who last appeared in Doctor Who almost 50 years ago.
In 1975 serial Pyramids of Mars, the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) first encountered Sutekh, one of a race of Osirans, beings of God-like power who worshipped by many cultures across the universe, including on Earth in ancient Egypt.
When the archaeologist Professor Marcus Scarman excavated the inner chamber of the pyramid beneath which Sutekh was imprisoned, it allowed the villain an opportunity to escape – Sutekh controlled Scarman’s corpse, using it to construct a war missile aimed at the Eye of Horus on Mars, which was beaming a signal to suppress Sutekh’s powers and hold him prisoner.
The Eye of Horus is destroyed, unleashing Sutekh – but in a final showdown on Mars, the Doctor is able to extend the terminus of the time tunnel down which Sutekh is travelling into the far future. The end result? Sutekh appears to age rapidly and eventually perish, with the Doctor suggesting that he may have lived for as long as 7000 years before meeting his demise.
Why was the TARDIS groaning?
Recent episodes of Doctor Who have seen the TARDIS behaving peculiarly, making odd groaning sounds – in The Devil’s Chord, Ruby assumes that the noise is a result of the Doctor freeing his ship from Maestro’s control, but the Time Lord tells her that “something else” is responsible.
The Legend of Ruby Sunday reveals the cause of the grumbles – Sutekh survived his apparent expiration by weaving himself “into the fabric” of the TARDIS.
“He has hidden in the howling void,” explains Sutekh’s harbinger, Harriet (Genesis Lynea). “He has hidden within the tempest. He’s braved the storm and the darkness and pain and he whispered to the vessel. All this time he whispered and delighted and seduced and the vessel did obey.
“The Lord of Time was blind and vain and knew nothing.”
Is Sutekh the One Who Waits?
Yes – The Legend of Ruby Sunday confirms that Sutekh is the One Who Waits, courtesy of Ruby’s neighbour Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson).
“There’s a storm coming in,” says Flood, delivering one of her now-trademark looks to camera. “He waits no more.”
Who exactly Mrs. Flood is, how she apparently has the ability to bend reality, and how she knows about the threat posed by Sutekh, remains unclear.
Who are the Gods of Chaos?
Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies had previously teased that Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor would be going up against a fantastical “pantheon” of gods and later confirmed that, despite appearances, the Toymaker was not “the supreme being” of the pantheon, known as the Gods of Chaos.
Instead, it is Sutekh who commands the collective – and The Legend of Ruby Sunday also reveals the identities of the rest of the group.
They are as follows..
- the Toymaker, the God of Games
- the Trickster, the God of Traps – as previously seen in The Sarah Jane Adventures
- Maestro, the God of Music
- Reprobate, the God of Spite
- the God of Beasts
- the threefold deity of Malice and Mischief and Misery
- the God of Disaster, and her children called Doubt and Dead
Reference is also made to “gods of skin and shame and secrets” – so it’s possible that the above does not cover the Pantheon’s entire membership. It remains to be seen if any more of Sutekh’s minions will appear on-screen, but either way, the Doctor will certainly have his hands full in next week’s finale Empire of Death.
Doctor Who continues on Saturday 22nd June on BBC iPlayer and BBC One. Previous seasons are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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