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Part II finds everyone still imperiled by the chubby Slitheen. The Doctor electrocutes one of them with his ID card, and the lot go twitchy all around London. Mickey grabs Jackie and rushes her away from the flat; Rose and Harriet -- and the Doctor, now accused by the PM of killing the alien expert assembly -- all go running around 10 Downing Street like it's Scooby Doo for a good long while, during which the Doctor and Harriet decide that they are friends. The Doctor discusses the whole snarled plot with the Slitheen over a decanter of port, and figures out that they're actually a family of criminals planning on roasting Earth with the UK's nuclear weapons, and selling off the scrap. Harriet, Rose, and the Doctor lock themselves behind blast doors in the Cabinet Room, and use Rose's beefed-up mobile to communicate with Jackie and Mickey. As more government-placed aliens arrive at Downing Street -- and the Doctor begins to remember Harriet's name from somewhere or another -- Mickey and Jackie use the Doctor's UNIT connections to hack into some kind of political über-website. Contra the Doctor's promise to protect Rose, Rose okays her mum and boyfriend to launch a missile at Downing Street. The Slitheen are dispatched and our kids emerge safe from the wreckage of yet another London monument; the Doctor recommends Harriet as the new Prime Minister, and remembers who she'll be: the three-term future architect of Britannia's Golden Age. Back at Jackie's, there is much emotional processing about where everybody will end up. The Doctor offers Mickey a place on the TARDIS, but he's still too anxious about all the death-defying feats, so the Doctor tells Rose that he's absolutely uninvited. It's sweeter and less humiliating than it sounds, because now that the Doctor likes Mickey, he is cool. He gives Mickey a computer virus that, if activated, will destroy all references to the Doctor on Earth. Jackie -- and Rose -- accept that Rose is in for the adventure, no matter what. There's an emotional goodbye outside the TARDIS, between Rose and her family, and she reminds them that (barring any more twelve-hour/twelve-month fuckups), she could be back in ten subjective seconds. The Doctor and Rose take off again, and Jackie and Mickey settle in to wait, and move on whilst waiting. It's everything that Rose's first goodbye wasn't, and what it means is that the show's about to kick in all over again. (Math: in a thirteen-episode season, this would be your U.S. "episode seven" act break.) High hopes for Daleks in 2012! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
The Doctor shakes off last week's electrical attack by the Slitheen. (Remember that he is being held by them at 10 Downing Street while, upstairs, Rose and Harriet are also trapped. Rose's mum Jackie is with another one in her kitchen, and Rose's boyfriend Mickey is tearing around London very worriedly.) While the Doctor is sweating and clearly traumatized, he is not dead. He holds up the device with which the aliens are killing everybody, points out intensely that he's not human -- maybe it's the two hearts? -- and shoves it into the Slitheen's chest. PM Joseph Green -- still in human form -- and the Slitheen formerly known as Asquith scream in pain.
Credits. Elsewhere, we see that former MI-5 Margaret, still busily killing Indra the Undersecretary, is also affected. The cop Slitheen in Jackie's kitchen goes down as well. The Doctor jumps the bodies in the Briefing Room and heads out, just as Rose and Harriet, hands clasped, whimper and slide past Margaret and out of the room. Jackie watches her alien freaking out, and stays crouched on the floor. Mickey appears, and smacks the overwrought alien with a chair. He snatches Jackie, and then snaps a photo of the Slitheen with his phone, grinning. Well done, Mickey. They bounce.
The Doctor yells at the security officers in the corridor that the aliens they were looking for are indubitably present inside Downing Street, and then impatiently claps his hands to get their attention. I love that. He leads them back to the Briefing Room, guns at the ready, while inside, Joseph Green has managed to deactivate the electricity weapon. He picks up the General Asquith skin suit and helps his whining brother back into it.
Rose and Harriet are running around upstairs, still, kind of hysterically. Harriet finally stops her, remembering the Emergency Protocols that are still in the Cabinet Room. With MI-5 Margaret, who is no longer being electrocuted. Harriet screams in this very funny Brit TV Lady way, like this "Whoawaaah!" Harriet runs back, Rose behind her, but they see Margaret coming, and are forced to jump down the hallway and into another room.
The Doctor and security guys come back into the meeting room, where Green is just finishing up with Asquith's human look. Green asks where the security's been, considering that they've almost all been murdered in there...by the Doctor. He still thinks he's so very much in the movie Clue, and it bugs me, but to be fair, all the Slitheen are like that, very broad and panto -- I've been alerted that "commedia dell'arte" is not as precise a reference, and I don't use the term "camp" unless I'm having pretentious tea with Susan Sontag, who is dead, so: panto -- so maybe it's me. "I think you will find the Prime Minister is an alien in disguise," says the Doctor, and I wonder if maybe leaving the title out of that sentence wouldn't make it seem just a tad less unlikely. Green stares, arms folded, and the Doctor asks the security officer to him if this is maybe the best strategy. The cop tells him matter-of-factly that it really isn't going to work, and the Doctor nods and takes off down the hallway. They catch him up pretty quickly, and he smiles with his hands in the air. Asquith cites the Emergency Protocols and authorizes the Doctor's execution. The officers all pull on him, and he stalls: "Uh, well, now, yes. You see, eh...the thing is...if I was [sic] you, if I was [sic] going to execute someone by backing them against the wall, between you and me, little word of advice --" The elevator bings open behind him. "Don't stand them against the lift!" He steps backwards, shutting the door with his sonic screwdriver, flashing the requisite cheeky grin.
MI-5 Margaret, still unveiled, chases Rose and Harriet some more. I wasn't kidding about the Scooby-Doo factor. You almost think there's going to be repeating vases on the wall. They come up against a locked door, but just then the lift opens, and the Doctor says hello quite pleasantly. The doors shut again, and Margaret's officially distracted, so Rose and Harriet run away, some more, and end up in a dead-end room with all locked doors. They then hide really badly.
In the hall outside the elevator, Asquith hands out his orders, which amount to staying away from the "quarantined" upper floors and to disregard any orders other than his.
A Sergeant asks PM Green to evacuate, and Green, ascertaining that he hasn't read the Emergency Protocols, bitches him out for questioning the Prime Minister. He orders them to seal off the whole building, including the ground floor, and to shoot the Doctor if he should make it downstairs. I was really wrong about the layout here -- I thought Rose and Harriet were on the first/ground floor, and the Doctor was upstairs -- I guess because I'm not and have not yet been Prime Minister, so why would I...well, as far as I know.
In the elevator, Asquith and Green fart around, both literally and figuratively. Green once again mentions the "gas exchange," which seems to be toxic to them. "I need to be naked!" he yells, and Asquith, regarding his Slitheen look, even though they are related, creepily says, "Rejoice in it! Your body is...magnificent!" I don't think you should say shit like that to the PM. The lady's not for turning, if you know what I mean. They strip off.
Margaret enters Rose and Harriet's hiding place, and her dialogue is both laughable and very, very creepy. The actor in question does a great job with the dialogue: "Oh, such fun! Little human children, where are you? Sweet little humankins, come to me! Let me kiss you better..." Oh, so scary. And funny, too: "...kiss you with my big, green lips..." she shouts, as Rose jumps from a cabinet to a curtain. Who knew old MI-5 Margaret had it in her to be the coolest one?
The Doctor runs down some stairs, to the tune of the Sergeant barking his orders. Hearing the bing of an elevator, he jumps back into a small spot to the door, overhearing Asquith and Green's very creepy plan to keep the floor "quarantined, as [their] last hunting ground,' before the "final phase." Even though this, like all but one of the storylines so far, resolves to an incensed and regretful indictment of capitalism -- and I've thought about it, and it's fair and not weird, because 99% of evil in the real world comes from greed (the other 1%? Gilmore Girls spoilers) -- this part is really effectively creepy, even with all the running around from room to room. The idea of all of them being stuck in 10 Downing Street and being hunted, as more and more aliens arrive, is scary and just a little subversive.
Green and Asquith join Margaret -- still in Rose and Harriet's room -- and she greets them as "brothers." They talk about how the hunting is so great because, as MI-5 Margaret puts it, "the more you prolong it, the more they stink." "Sweat and fear," agrees Asquith, causing the very classy, if not especially posh, Harriet to gross out a little bit. And, I guess, sweat and fear some more: "I can smell an old girl. Stale bird, brittle bones." More of this kind of talking -- and way less farting -- and the Slitheen would be the coolest. I guess it's a pretty good balance. "...And a ripe youngster," Margaret joins in. "All hormones and adrenaline. Fresh enough to bend before she snaps." Yikes! I like the comparison, though: older Harriet and younger Rose. Given a lot of what's to come, I like putting them side by side like this. Margaret pulls Rose's curtain aside, and she screams, causing Harriet to jump out all willy-nilly: "No! Take me first! Take me!" Which...I don't know if she was trying to distract them or what, but that's the kind of person I'd want in charge, frankly. She has no way of knowing that Rose, as the one who signed on specifically for this kind of crap, is way less a bystander than she is. She just wants to help. Harriet is so, so interesting. So having been distracted by how bird-boned Harriet just threw herself on the farting grenade for Rose, the Slitheen aren't prepared for the Doctor, who comes crashing in and shoots them all with a fire extinguisher. Rose pulls the curtains down and over Margaret, and both women head over to the Doctor. "Who the hell are you?" he asks Harriet, and she gives the answer we already know: "Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North." They exchange pleasantries, and the Doctor gives the Slitheen another shot of fire extinguisher before they all three take off.
In the hallway, the Doctor's all, "To the Cabinet Room!," and Harriet mentions, very hurried-businesslike, that the Emergency Protocols are in there, and that they "give instructions on aliens!" Hee. The Doctor says, "Harriet Jones, I like you." She likes him too. It's a beautiful little moment, two skilled and competent people sparing a moment. Kind of makes you hope they never disagree, because that would make this part kind of sad. I love in movies when people just "zing!" know they've met their match, or a kindred spirit. They're both so kind. Dude, what if she was a Companion? She could be all like the Theodore and could fight about "pick up your dirty laundry because the TARDIS is not an alien pigsty" and the Doctor would be like, "Stop bugging me, I'm watching C-SPAN from 1982 for no reason." The Doctor sonics them through a locked door, and they reach the Cabinet Room with the Slitheen in hot pursuit -- where are the security guys that were meant to be shooting the Doctor on the ground floor? Without the time to close the door, the Doctor grabs a decanter of brandy and holds his screwdriver up. "One more move and my sonic device will triplicate the flammability of this alcohol. Whoof! We all go up. So back off." I love how that's either bullshit, or the kind of bullshit that is true on a show like this. The Slitheen are like, "Sci-fi cliché? Or joke about sci-fi clichés? Or both? What is a 'tricorder' actually for?"
The Doctor having bought some time, everybody relaxes a titch. "Right then. Question time. Who exactly are the Slitheen?" Harriet helpfully points out that they're aliens, and Green asks who the hell the Doctor is, since he said before that he wasn't human. "Who's not human?" asks Harriet, and she and Rose have a tiny "Who's on first" moment about that. Considering that the only aliens she's met are E.T.'s hyperthyroid farting buddies -- and that was just today -- Harriet seems to be slightly rethinking the whole "I like you too" deal. The Doctor: "Can I have a bit of hush?" Harriet apologizes, and the Doctor turns back to the Slitheen and demands to know their plans. "But he's got a Northern accent!" Harriet protests, and Rose is cheeky: "Lots of planets have a North." Cute.
The Doctor tells them again to hush, and has to re-intimidate the aliens with his bottle of brandy and screwdriver. If I had my wish, every paragraph of every recap would contain at least one sentence like that. This show makes it much more likely. The Doctor: "You've got a spaceship hidden in the North Sea. It's transmitting a signal. You've murdered your way to the top of government. What for? Invasion?" Asquith asks why they would want to invade "this Godforsaken rock," and the Doctor keeps pushing: then what could have possibly brought the Slitheen race here otherwise? (Is it the gas? Because they should call the Gelth back in 1869 and work out some kind of timeshare.) Asquith and Green explain that "Slitheen" isn't a race, but a surname. Green introduces himself as "Jocrassa Fel Fotch Pasameer Day Slitheen" -- even their names are gross! -- and says that they're a family business. Like the Partridge Family, but with more farting. The Doctor asks how they can be making a profit on a "Godforsaken rock," but Asquith takes a moment to clarify the whole "triplicate the flammability" issue. Since the Doctor is doing his favorite part of these adventures -- the really intense conversation with the aliens who are about to kill him about their motives and customs -- he's like, "Who said anything about flammability?" Asquith realizes that the Doctor made the whole thing up, and the Doctor passes the brandy to Harriet: "Have a drink. I think you're gonna need it." She corrects him, "Pass it to the left first," and the Doctor apologizes and hands it to Rose. You might scoff at etiquette's place in this tableau, but I'm telling you -- it's when you're about to have your innards scooped out by aliens so that they can live inside your skin that you'll find etiquette is most important. Dignity's funny that way.
Asquith says -- now that the disposition of the brandy is through with, thank you very much -- the Slitheen will now "end this hunt with a slaughter," and flexes his creepy claws. The Doctor folds his arms, so you know he's still ahead of the game and Rose asks if maybe they shouldn't run away quickly, as the Slitheen move forward. The Doctor talks about the "fascinating history" of Downing Street: "Two thousand years ago, this was marshland. 1730, it was occupied by a Mr. Chicken. He was a nice man. 1796, this was the cabinet room -- if the cabinet's in session and in danger, these are about the four most safest walls in the whole of Great Britain." He presses a switch near the door: "End of lesson." And blast doors immediately seal every entrance of the room. Which is admittedly bad-ass, but now my worst nightmare is to be stuck on an historical tour with his ass, because you know he can't help himself. Is there anything more awkward than when even the docent wants to smack that guy? With her bony little hand? The Doctor turns to his compatriots: "Installed in 1991. Three inches of steel lining every single wall. They'll never get in." His satisfied smile doesn't fade even as Rose asks how the hell they're supposed to get out, but he does spare a somewhat disappointed "Ah."
Outside, Green makes his orders: cut off all communications from the lockdown room, summon the rest of the Slitheens, and finish with "this insane planet" for good. Everybody takes off.
Jackie and Mickey escape through a side door and take off, evading the cops still placed around the building. Stealthy!
A TV reporter tells us that "there's still no word from inside Downing Street," and various middle-ranked officials -- some of whom are funny, all of whom are overweight and, one can assume, farting -- are arriving all the time, and nobody can figure out why. "Group Captain Tennant James of the RAF," "Ewan McAllister, Deputy Secretary for the Scottish Parliament," "Sylvia Dillane, chairman of the North Sea Boating Club." Firstly: "Chairman"? Awesome. And secondly: didn't the Sugar Czar showing up last week tip you off? Somewhat totally unnecessary is his last word: "Quite what connects these people, we have no idea!"
MI-5 Margaret greets Tennant James, in high spirits: "Group Captain! Delighted you could make it!" He passes gas, and her delivery is such that I don't really mind it: "That's the spirit, off you go!" There's such a "well done, Tennant" in her voice that it's pretty funny. She greets McAllister and Dillane, and they all begin to gather. Asquith stops the Sergeant and says that -- now the Doctor's been neutralized -- they're cutting off the upper levels for everyone. The Sergeant, cute in a Full Monty kind of way, asks about the three new guys, and Asquith changes the subject, asking the guy to "liaise with Communications," because "the acting Prime Minister," Joseph Green, "will be making a public address...to the nations of the world." I like the writing here, as the aliens begin leaving more and more of the subterfuge out, since it doesn't matter, because they're about to go public anyway. The Sergeant stands there, confused as all get out, as the aliens retire upstairs.
MI-5 Margaret makes everybody welcome, ushering them into a changing room and hanging up their suits -- skin and regular type -- efficiently as they one by one "get changed," and directing them down the hall. This kind of absurdity I don't mind, for some reason. The "I'm the hostess" attitude is so hilarious. They're all very cordial with her and with each other, even as they're disposing of their various skins stripped from government officials.
Mickey, who has taken Jackie to his house, starts to make her some tea. "Have you got anything stronger?" she asks, because: word? He tells her no way: "I've seen you when you've had a few -- this ain't time for a conga." She sits down, too wigged to argue: "We've gotta tell someone." Mickey points out that, from this point on, anybody could have "big bog monsters inside" them, and then flourishes some mugs around in the air. "This is what he does, Jacks! Everywhere he goes, death and destruction -- and he's got Rose in the middle of it!" Jackie wonders if the Doctor's got "a great big green thing inside him," and Mickey's like, "That would be so him." His accent is so "Fix Up Look Sharp," especially in this episode. It's like getting flicked in the knuckles over and over and over again. Not hard, but firmly. "But," he reckons, "he's the only person who knows how to fight these things." Jackie bursts into tears, now, suddenly in shock from the attack, and Mickey gives her a quick hug. "I thought I was gonna die," she says. He brusquely calms her down and reminds her that nobody's going to be looking for her at Mickey's -- "especially" since she spent the last year trying to get him into jail for killing Rose. "You saved my life," she says. "God, that's embarrassing." That's...almost the opposite of an apology, but thanks for playing. They kind of laugh, and Jackie gets scared again, because the alien policemen are still out there, wanting her dead. Outside, the Slitheen in question sniffs, and then sends the others off: "I haven't quite finished with Mrs. Tyler yet..."
Joseph approaches Margaret, where she's adjusting all the hung-up skin suits -- she reassures him that's everyone, except for "Sitt Fel Fotch," who's "found a hunt of his own" in Jackie Tyler. They grin at each other about that. Phones are still ringing at 10 Downing Street. I don't know why that detail sticks out -- it's like, something about how the whole world doesn't know it's ending yet, just suspects. Little details. I know there were hella issues with the directing, particularly -- allegedly, this bit -- that Eccleston's love of writers and their craft was at odds with the liberties taken with the script, which...shall I imagine a script with no farting? I like Russell Davies all right, but I'm not going that far. In any case, there are little details all through that ground it considerably, and I appreciate that. Even if I don't really understand a person who wouldn't lay down their life, guts, nards, and powers of speech to make Eccleston happy, because to me that means you might be broken irreparably. Like, within. Was this the last episode this director did? Not a bad sendoff, all things considered. He certainly hits the full-season arc stuff, what little I know about.
The Doctor pulls Indra's body out of the way in the Cabinet Room, asking Harriet his name. "I don't know! I talked to him. I brought him a cup of coffee. I never asked his name..." The Doctor crosses the Under-Secretary's hands over his chest, and sees him off: "Sorry." Back in the main room, the Doctor asks Rose if there are any computer terminals or things they can use to communicate. Rose asks for and receives exposition regarding how the original PM -- whose dead body is still in there as well -- wasn't used as a skin suit because he was too skinny. "The Slitheen are about eight feet; how do they squeeze inside?" Excellent question, Rose. It's the belt-buckle-looking thing around their necks that creates a "compression field," which shrinks them down to the size of an average American and causes the farting somehow. "Wish I had a compression field; I could fit a size smaller," mumbles Rose, and it's not so much this particular line as the jocular, chatty way in which Rose and the Doctor are knocking about the room disregarding the corpses that upsets Harriet so. Rose apologizes, and points to the Doctor: "You get used to this stuff when you're friends with him." Harriet calls this a "strange friendship." Indeed.
The Doctor, sonic-screwdrivering around on a far wall, says the MP's name a few times, as though he's got something on the tip of his tongue: "Harriet Jones...you're not famous for anything, are you?" She laughs grimly, and he keeps trying to remember. Harriet: "Lifelong back bencher I'm afraid, and a fat lot of use I'm being now. The protocols are redundant, they list the people who can help -- and they're all dead downstairs." See, Harriet? Your jokes are even funnier than Rose's. Don't knock the gallows shit 'til you try it. Rose asks if the Protocols maybe contain, "like, defense codes and things?" She hopes to launch a nuclear bomb. Harriet stares at her: "You're a very violent young woman." But Rose protests, "I'm serious! We could!" Harriet says that "there's nothing like that in here," and for a second I thought she was referring to 10 Downing Street and not the Protocols, like she was saying, "No launching H-Bombs at the dinner table. Show some breeding." She explains the dubious concept that the UK nuke codes are "kept secret by the United Nations." The Doctor gets very interested and starts grilling her. Harriet: "Well, the British Isles can't gain access to atomic weapons without a special resolution from the UN." I don't know what she's talking about. Rose: "Like that's ever stopped them." I don't know what she's talking about either. Harriet says that she voted against whatever Rose is referring to, and says that "the codes have been taken out of the governments' hands and given to the UN." I don't know if it's show history or what. Harriet asks whether that's important, and the Doctor meaningfully says, "Everything's important."
Harriet complains that it would be easier if they knew the Slitheen's plans, and then cracks a joke about how she's just throwing around terms like "Slitheen" all of a sudden. The Doctor summarizes: it's just one family, so it's not really an "invasion." They're not looking to create "Slitheen World." They're out to make money. Harriet figures that means assets: gold, oil, water. The Doctor compliments her: "You're very good at this." She blushes, and he wonders again why her name is so familiar. Rose's cell goes off, and Harriet asks a very excellent question, to which Rose responds about how the Doctor zapped it. "Super-phone!" Harriet says that they must be able to use it to call out for help, since he's got all these contacts, and he reminds her that, while his Rolodex is quite full, all his contacts are now dead downstairs, as she said. Rose sees it's a message from Mickey, and the Doctor orders her to tell her "stupid boyfriend" that they're busy. She shows him the phone -- "Yeah, he's not so stupid after all" -- and we see that Mickey's sent her the picture of the Slitheen in Jackie's kitchen.
Mickey and Jackie enter Mickey's bedroom, Mickey acting all stealth and checking corners, and he tries to explain to Rose, "No, not just alien, but like, proper alien, all stinking and wet and disgusting. And more to the point, it wanted to kill us!" Jackie, again: "I could've died!" Can't blame her for being stuck on that, I guess. Mickey waves her away. "Is she all right, though?" Rose asks. "Don't put her on, just tell me." I love Rose. The Doctor grabs the phone from her: "Is that Rickey? Don't talk, just shut up and go to your computer." Mickey reminds him, again, of his actual name, and asks why he should. "Mickey the Idiot." He says that he'll choke before finishing the sentence, but admits that he needs Mickey. Rose just smiles.
Mickey and the Doctor talk while Mickey navigates the UNIT site. Things are about to get kind of dumb, but it's okay. The Doctor tells him to enter the password "Buffalo," and Jackie knocks around with some tea and confusion about what's going on. "All the secret information known to mankind," Mickey tells her. "See, they've known about aliens for years, they just kept us in the dark." The Doctor, who's got Mickey on speakerphone, thus has his hands free for a little middle finger: "Mickey, you were born in the dark." Rose is like, "Give it a rest already," and Mickey thanks her sweetly. Some fun, intense 24 music plays here.
Oh! Fucking Hex is coming to BBC America! Watch it! It's a trainwreck! Trust me, you'll thank me. Everybody I know is now obsessed with it. I love it so, so much. I've seen every episode of both series, like, ten times. I could quote entire scenes. It's like Buffy, crossed with 24/7, crossed with any two volumes of the Diaries Of Anaïs Nin, all picked off the shelf while blindfolded and cut into pieces at random and tossed into the air. All the various main characters throughout are amazing; Jemima Rooper's a fucking revelation, Amber Sainsbury is what Charisma Carpenter isn't smart enough to wish she was, and Katrine De Candole from Casanova -- which cast includes someone we might be meeting a bit later -- is my TV girlfriend. That show is my crack. It makes this show look like the plots were factory-tested waterproof, and I'm not joking that I love it -- it's just not that kind of show, the kind that makes a whole lot of sense, or that you'd bother explaining to anybody who came in in the middle, or that you would recommend to your most bookish friends, or anything like that. But it is the kind of show that is AWESOME.
Anyway. Harriet wonders if they didn't hit Big Ben to get the experts together for slaughter, but the Doctor says "that lot" would have gathered "for a weather balloon," and I guess so. How much fun can a bunch of experts in something that doesn't exist actually have, most of the time? Rose offers a line of reasoning: "The Slitheen were hiding. And then they put the entire planet on red alert." And Jackie, ever-supportive, makes fun of her for trying. Rose tells her to go to hell, but Jackie brings up something of an interesting point: "Since that man walked into our lives, I have been attacked in the streets, I have had creatures from the pits of hell in my own living room, and my daughter's disappeared off the face of the Earth." And Rose has to remind her that the last one, at least, got "explained" last week, but Jackie's not having it: "I'm talking to him." She goes off on the same stuff Mickey was saying before, as Mickey and the Doctor are feeling more and more anxious and awkward on either end of this conversation. Jackie rants: "Because I've seen this life of yours, Doctor. And maybe you get off on it, and maybe you think it's all clever and smart, but you tell me...is my daughter safe?" Rose protests that she's fine, and Jackie asks if the Doctor can promise that she really will stay that way. Rose and the Doctor look at each other for a while, and Jackie repeats the question.
Thank goodness for Mickey. He grabs the phone from Jackie, shouting, "We're in!" The Doctor runs around the table and starts giving him instructions: "On the left, there's a tab, an icon with little concentric circles." Mickey clicks, and the Doctor explains that it's listening in on the transmitter from the North Sea ship. "...Now hush, let me work out what it's saying." Jackie's still preoccupied -- "He'll have to answer me one day," like she doesn't already know the answer -- and Mickey shushes her. The Doctor realizes that the message is on a loop, just as the aliens arrive at Mickey's apartment and ring the bell. Mickey tells Jackie to answer, and she points out it's 3 in the morning. "Well, go and tell them that," says Mickey, sensibly enough. She gives him a look, but heads out, and Mickey shakes his head, all, "Blimey!"
Jackie answers the door to her policeman -- "Mrs. Tyler" -- and immediately slams it shut again. I love when that happens! She runs in screaming about "the Slickeen!," and Mickey tells the Doctor that they've been nicked. "Mickey, I need that signal," says the Doctor, and Rose indicates that the signal should go fuck itself and Mickey needs to get her mum out of there. Mickey picks up a baseball bat and tells the phone how they can't leave, because it's at the front door and he lives on the third floor in shitty council housing. Outside, the Slitheen unzips, and Jackie and Mickey see the light coming through around the door, and Mickey starts yelling that "it's unmasking" and about to kill them. Harriet worries vocally as the Doctor thinks. He and Rose -- and helpful Harriet -- slowly narrow down the possible points of origin for the Slitheen family, even as the policeman gets nearer and nearer to Jackie and Mickey. "They're green." "Narrows it down." "Good sense of smell," "can smell adrenaline," use "compression techonology" and "slipstream" engines and hunt "like it's a ritual." Harriet points out that "when they fart, if you'll pardon the word," it doesn't "smell like a fart, if you'll pardon the word," and Rose supplies that it's closer to halitosis. Which somehow causes the Doctor to realize that they are involved with "calcium decay," which makes them made of "living calcium" or "hyphenated sodium," and this whole thing is really just embarrassing at this point, and he finally narrows it down to one planet: "Raxacorricofallapatorius!"
Mickey's not feeling too open about congratulating them, as the Slitheen begins coming through the door, and the Doctor tells them to get into the kitchen. They try to bar the door shut with random kitchen stuff, and the Slitheen...continues to be menacing but not actually do anything. Again. Just like in the halls of 10 Downing Street, when they were running back and forth like a Benny Hill sketch for ten years. While the Doctor blathers on and on about nothing in particular except the MacGuffin whatever that resolves this particular plot point. Which isn't all that irritating as a viewer, but is fucking lazy for a writer: "They run and run and run. That's an entire act. Then they talk about how they can defeat the Slitheen that's in Mickey's flat, but I'll fill that bit in later. Something about calcium or something, whatever. I remember in tenth grade something about Hannibal and vinegar, so there you go. Then the Slitheen knocks on the door, repeatedly, for a half hour, but still stays scary. That's the director's problem. But don't worry, I'll add some glitter and sparkle and some sassy, wacky discussions, a bunch of meaningful looks between the Doctor and Rose after every line of dialogue, Jackie whining sixteen times in a row about her daughter being "safe" to the point where she's repeating herself verbatim, and it'll all be very touching and squee-worthy, and that way nobody will notice that this is barely an episode's worth of material, much less two." Which, to be fair, was mostly successful here, and it's not a bad episode, but on paper it's bullshit. Plus, y'know. Farting.
So the Doctor and Harriet are so very much in sync that it almost sells this whole crappy bit, and if you "recombine" calcium with a "compression field," you can use "acetic acid," or "vinegar," just like Hannibal. There's a lot of "Of course!" and "You got it!" between Harriet and the Doctor, a bad trick on the best of days, but one that Davies uses overmuch anyhow. It gives the illusion of cohesion, like you'd feel stupid if you didn't "get it" the way the Doctor and Harriet do, like whenever somebody writes something, a poem or something, on a TV show, and the characters talk about how well-written it was. And then you remember that it was written in reality by the same person making the characters say that, and it's gross. So whatever, Jackie and Mickey go through Mickey's kitchen looking for stuff with vinegar in it. There's a cute point where Rose knows from memory where Mickey's vinegar is, even though he doesn't, that rings very true and sweet. And the Slitheen is still coming. "Gherkins! Yeah! Pickled onions! Picked eggs!" And in the Cabinet Room, the Doctor's like, "You kiss this man?" The Slitheen FINALLY kicks the door down -- now that they've got all their ingredients together -- and they throw vinegar at it, and it explodes, covering Mickey and Jackie with green stuff. On the other end, they sigh with relief and drink some brandy, and Rose asks an Excellent Question which Harriet answers: "Hannibal crossed the Alps by dissolving boulders with vinegar." So you can see how that was a good shorthand between Harriet and the Doctor for what happened : you say "Hannibal," I think "exploding living calcium by throwing brine and gherkins." "You got it!" "Of course! it's brilliant!" Fuck off.
Asquith and Green can feel Sip Fel Fotch Pasameer-Day Slitheen die, and Asquith shrugs that someone must've gotten lucky. "That's the last piece of luck anyone on this rock will ever have," says PM Green, and they head out to face the nation. "Ladies and Gentlemen...Nations of the World...Humankind. The greatest experts in extra-terrestrial events came here tonight. They gathered in the common cause. But the news I bring you now is grave indeed."
Mickey, toweling off bits of Sip Fel Fotch, comes into the room to watch the acting PM. "The experts are dead. Murdered, right in front of me, by alien hands. Peoples of the Earth, heed my words. These visitors do not come in peace." Mickey takes the phone from Jackie and holds it toward the television, telling the Doctor to listen. "Our inspectors have searched the sky above our heads and they have found massive weapons of destruction, capable of being deployed within forty-five seconds. Our technicians can baffle the alien probes, but not for long. We are facing extinction -- unless we strike first. The United Kingdom stands directly beneath the belly of the mothership. I beg the United Nations -- pass an emergency resolution. Give us the access codes! A nuclear strike at the heart of the ship is our only chance of survival. Because -- from this moment on -- it is my solemn duty to inform you. Planet Earth is at war." Sigh. Got it. It's sweet, really, and it's quite earnest, but there's a difference between relevance and weak parallels to current events. You're not lending yourself any gravity with this kind of thing, show. The Doctor is simply flabbergasted that the people would honestly believe the PM telling them about this imaginary threat ("They did last time," says Rose, which: valid), and the Doctor realizes that the Big Ben piece of the mystery -- they went for the huge scary invasion spectacle because when humans are scared, they lash out. Harriet asks an Excellent Question, but the Doctor goes to the metal blast doors and opens them -- and the Slitheen are still standing there. WHY?
"You get the codes, release the missiles. But not into space, because there's nothing there. You attack every other country on Earth, they retaliate, fight back. World War Three -- whole planet gets nuked." Margaret's like, "What of it?" She says that they'll wait it out in the Thames ship, which isn't "crashed, just parked." Harriet supplies another Excellent Question, and Margaret and the Doctor exposit that the transmission from the North Sea is an advertisement for "the sale of the century." The Slitheen want to bomb Earth to hell, then sell the irradiated parts as nuclear fuel for cargo ships. That's very clever, actually. Cool idea. "There's a recession out there, Doctor. People are buying cheap. This rock becomes raw fuel." Margaret calls the Doctor's "cost of five billion lives" a bargain, and the Doctor gives them all the choice of leaving, or having him be...really angry at them, or something. I'm sure he'll pull it out at the last second, but I don't blame them for laughing at him. He intensely closes the blast doors again, and the laughter trails off. He can be kind of scary.
Tom HOTchinson stands on a bridge in the middle of a very empty London: "Yesterday saw the start of a brave new world; today might see it end. The streets are deserted. Everyone's home, just waiting, as the future is decided in New York." Quick shot of the UN building, and then that intense U.S. anchor again, in New York, where it's midnight, talking about how England has provided the UN with "absolute proof" about the WMDs. And honestly, I don't exactly know when this script was written -- could have been in the drawer for years, and I can believe it wouldn't be quite this irritating four years ago. Three. Maybe two. But my good Lord. "And once the codes are released, humanity's first interplanetary war begins." Mickey and Jackie are quite nervous.
Back at 10 Downing Street, Margaret and Asquith precede Green upstairs. He's telling the Sergeant that they're "taking the call" upstairs. Margaret, in the offices, completely crosses the acting line, moaning and shrieking that the phone is "actually red." Which is kind of funny, but only really exciting if you're planning a worldwide holocaust. She makes out with the phone, and Green sits down all excited, tongue hanging out, farting impatiently, waiting for the call.
Jackie instructs the Doctor that she's not entirely in his court yet, but that there's got to be something he can do. Harriet suggests that they "ferment the porch" and create acetic acid that way, but I don't know what she means by "porch." Mickey checks in with the news that all the emergency UNIT numbers are on voicemail, which modern convenience Harriet feels "dooms us all." I bet half her assistant's job is programming her VCR and Sidekick and stuff. Rose wishes for a way out of the room, and the Doctor -- deep in dark thought -- says that there's a way out; there's always been a way out. Rose asks him why they don't use it, and the Doctor strides to the phone, speaking to Jackie now: "Because I can't guarantee your daughter will be safe." Jackie tells him to shove that egg back up the chicken, of course, and he levels: "That's the thing: if I don't dare, everyone dies." Compelling. Rose is like, "Do it." They look at each other a moment. The Doctor: "You don't even know what it is, you'd just let me?" And her answer is simple: "Yeah." I know I said it was trickery, this, to distract from the lack of density in the plot, but that doesn't mean it isn't awesome. They look at each other, and the Doctor weighs his love against hers, as Jackie screams into the phone. "This is my life, Jackie. It's not fun, it's not smart, it's just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will." And Rose, of course, gets that completely, because she's already done this work. Softly, now: "Then what're you waiting for?" He's already made up his mind, and this with breathless worry: "I could save the world but lose you." Wow. That's not very many words for a very large speech. I could learn a thing or two from the Doctor. Rose breaks the long, long stare with a shy smile, and Harriet steps forward: "Except it's not your decision, Doctor. It's mine." Jackie wonders who the hell she is, to even go there. In every episode, somebody asks "who the hell" somebody else is. I wonder if that signifies. Seems unlikely. "Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North. The only elected representative in this room, chosen by the people, for the people, and on behalf of the people, I command you: Do it." The Doctor looks at Rose, and grins. The conversations they have, that we'll never get to hear.
Joseph, Margaret, and Asquith stare at the phone. Green finally declares that victory "should be naked," and they all three strip off. Everybody's getting naked. I wish there were a third person in Mickey's apartment; then we'd see some parallel fucking structure. Harriet Jones arrives, finally: strong, the future hope of Cool Britannia. The Doctor admits how much he needs Rose. Rose becomes who she is. And the aliens stop farting. Three is the number for changing, the element that breaks up the binary and creates synthesis. Maybe that's why Jackie and Mickey still kind of suck.
Rose jumps onto the table; it's Go time: "How do we get out?" The Doctor opens up the Protocols and explains that they won't be leaving the Cabinet Room. In New York, the anchor updates us that the Council is finishing up their vote. Inside the PM's office, the Slitheen finish up taking their skin suits off.
The Doctor orders Mickey to keep entering "Buffalo," overriding everything as he hits the various gates. He explains over his shoulder that he's hacking into the Royal Navy, kind of mind-blown at the turn today's taken: "We're in. Here it is, uh...H.M.S. Taurean, Trafalgar Class Submarine, ten miles off the coast of Plymouth." Jackie starts to wig. The Doctor tells Mickey to "select a missile," and Mickey reminds him that they still don't have the football codes: "All we need is an ordinary missile." They pick out their missile, and Jackie -- having rallied -- realizes that she can stop Mickey from doing this. "Do it, then," he says. I do have to say that I love how complex they still get to be with each other. After all the running around and screaming and farting and so forth, it wouldn't have been out of place to have them all snuggles suddenly, and the story resists that. It gives them both more weight. Jackie finally backs down, and the Doctor says, "Mickey the Idiot. The world is in your hands. Fire." And...he does.
Harriet wonders about the blast doors they're behind, tapping on them."Not solid enough," the Doctor admits. "Built for short-range attack; nothing this big." Rose gets her shit together with a swiftness: "All right. Now I'm making the decision. I'm not gonna die; we're gonna ride this one out." She opens up a large cupboard and tells them to use their earthquake readiness skills. "...You can survive them by standing under a doorframe. Now, this cupboard's small, so it's strong." She and Harriet empty the cupboard.
The New York anchor says that the Council has released the codes, and the Slitheen scream at the telephone. Mickey hacks into the missile-interception grid before the Doctor even tells him to. Downstairs, the Sergeant is alerted to the incoming missile, which is on radar everywhere, and soaring over London. He sets off the fire alarms all over 10 Downing Street and begins to evacuate the building. Bursting in on the Slitheen, the Sergeant immediately turns around and leaves, because everybody knows you don't bother naked people in government offices. Too weird. Even if they're eight feet tall and green. Jackie runs out onto Mickey's balcony to watch the missile fly across the sky toward her daughter. It's quite a moment: so believable and understandable, and so touching. It's her best goodbye: awkward, goggling, helpless, desperate. Again.
The Slitheen fight over their skin suits, hurriedly, as the people evacuate. The Sergeant fires into the air, and everybody starts running. He looks up at the sky, and the missile heading toward them.
Rose, the Doctor, and Harriet bundle into the cupboard. The crouch in a corner, the women on either side of him. "Nice knowing you both," says Harriet, and they all clasp hands. As they brace themselves, Harriet shouts, "Hannibal!" It's so cute and weird and off-the-cuff -- don't think for a second you'd come up with a better final shout -- that it kind of redeems the whole stupid "calcium" thing entirely. The Slitheen look up -- "Oh, bollo..." -- and the missile hits 10 Downing Street.
The building explodes in flames. I can't believe they just blew up the Prime Minister's residence. The heroes in the cupboard jostle about, and when it settles, the three of them step out into the smoking ruins. "Maiden Britain," breathes Harriet, who's proving to have quite a gift with the non-sequitur sentence fragments that somehow fit perfectly. The Sergeant hurries over to them, and Harriet -- duh -- flashes her ID at him: "Harriet Jones. MP, Flydale North. I want you to contact the UN immediately, tell the ambassadors the crisis is over and they can step down." She waves him off like a kid, adorably, and he gives in, just as adorably, with a simple "Yes, ma'am." Harriet grouses at the Doctor and Rose about how somebody's got to sort it all out, and remembers that they don't even have a PM anymore. The Doctor suggests that she herself have a go, and she laughs at him, once again calling herself a "back-bencher." Rose says she'd certainly vote for Harriet, who tells them to stop with this foolishness. They beam at her.
Harriet climbs across the wreckage toward a crowd, and the Doctor smiles at her, having finally placed the name. Harriet: "The Earth is safe! Sergeant!" She heads for the cameras and ambulances, and the Doctor spills: "Harriet Jones -- future Prime Minister. Elected for three successive terms: the architect of Britain's Golden Age." "The crisis has passed!" Harriet reports to the cameras. "Ladies and gentlemen! I have something to say to you all! Mankind stands tall, proud, and undefeated. God bless the human race!" The Doctor and Rose fondly watch Harriet taking flight, and turn and walk off quietly.
Jackie devours Rose, of course, and it's very sweet. They both close their eyes, back together again. The Doctor, chuffed indeed, starts up the TARDIS.
Rose watches Harriet's speech, still in replay on TV. Jackie comes in and is affronted: "Who does she think she is? Look at her! Taking all the credit. Should be you on there!" Oh, Jackie. She yells at Harriet on the screen, "My daughter saved the world!" Rose laughs: "I think the Doctor helped a bit." Jackie sits and agrees, and says they should both be knighted. Rose: "That's not the way he does things. No fuss, he just...moves on. He's not that bad if you gave him a chance." Jackie grudgingly says that he's "good in a crisis," and Rose pokes fun: "Oh! Now the world has changed; you're saying nice things about him!" It has. Jackie says that she's got no choice, now that Rose is "infatuated," and Rose is...not convincing in her protest. Why even try? "What does he eat?" asks Jackie, and Rose is like, "Bwuh?" Jackie says that she's planning on making a shepherd's pie, and Rose giggles at her. "All of us! A proper sitdown. Because...I'm ready to listen. I wanna learn about you, and him, and that life you lead. Only, I dunno, he's an alien. For all I know, he eats grass and safety pins and things." Best line of the episode? I think so, personally. I love this scene so much, it's very Queer As Folk. "The Doctor doesn't do boyfriends." Rose rolls her eyes and says that he can handle shepherd's pie. She loves Jackie so, so much: "You're gonna cook for him? He's met his match." Jackie offers to slap her, and heads off to the kitchen, calling back that Rose needs to visit her Gran tomorrow, and to fake up some French because she's been lying that the last year was spent in France. That's so Jackie: lying to relatives while turning out sixteen different versions of a WANTED poster and framing Mickey for murder. Her concept of appearances is really vastly fucked up.
Rose's phone rings, and the screen, cutely, says, "TARDIS." "Right, I'll be a couple of hours, then we can go," says the Doctor. She's amazed that he has a phone, and he Excellent Questions her right back: "You think I can travel through space and time and I haven't got a phone?" He laughs, and the phone he's got is so, so '90s Cube Farm, it's hilarious. He does something to disrupt the Slitheen advertising transmission, and Rose interrupts: "My mother's cooking." He gets very far away all of a sudden, in his face. "Good!" he chuckles. "Put her on a slow heat and let her simmer." Second best line of the episode. Rose clarifies needlessly that she's cooking tea, for them. "I don't do that," says the Doctor. Told ya! Rose says that Jackie wants to get to know him, which is fair dinkum in my opinion, even though this is a story about leaving home. The Doctor protests, she kinda whines, he pulls out the big guns of her ass staying there. Beat. "...But right now there's this plasma storm brewing in the Horsehead Nebula." Rose listens, as the Doctor gets more and more into it. "Fires burning ten million miles wide. I could fly the TARDIS right into the heart of it, then ride the shock wave all the way out -- hurtle right across the sky and end up anywhere!" Rose stares out at the room around her. "Your choice," says the Doctor, and hangs up. Whoa. She thinks really hard, and on the TARDIS, he pauses a moment like he's going to reconsider the shepherd's pie, but shakes it off. I guess the whole "wild and pure" thing is very attractive, but he's also got such a large heart (a pair of them!) that it seems like a strange way of going there.
Jackie brings some tea into the living room, speaking to Rose, and notices that she's gone. Jackie heads up to her bedroom, where Rose is packing, talking -- this is actually the part that got to me, for some reason -- about how she's got a "bottle of Amaretto from New Years Eve." Something about her wanting to impress the Doctor, or making the best of what she's got, and wanting everything to be perfect, so that she can keep a piece of her daughter there, or annex the Doctor and make him hers too, so that Rose won't really be gone, and a little bit of shame at her circumstances, because she's a widow in the council estates who worries constantly about money, and this is just like Rose leaving Jackie for Hollywood, to make a life for herself, because what Jackie can provide is not enough. And the best she can do is fucking Amaretto. But parenting is first draft, and Jackie has no way of knowing that every single child worth her salt has to make this jump, so to Jackie it's just an indictment, and she wants to dress it up so pretty, like a pretty Sunday dress from the Filene's sale rack, to be at least the equal of this wonderful separate life she'll never get for herself, or really be a part of, and that makes me incredibly sad. And it makes me love her very, very much.
"I was wondering whether he drinks or not," says Jackie, watching Rose pack, already knowing she's lost. "Yeah, he does," says Rose, still packing, upper lip stiff indeed, like she's angry at the clothes. For a scene they've done in like every episode, this is really quite touching. I wish the whole story were one episode, because the interpersonals are really good in this story, and the only reason they're overbalanced is because of the needless complications of the plot arising from making it a two-parter, so it seems like it's coming out of nowhere, when really -- if you're into this kind of thing -- it's the heart of both episodes. Jackie watches Rose, and begs, "Don't go, sweetheart." Rose turns and looks at her. "Please don't go," says Jackie. ...And Rose keeps packing. Just because this is the way the story goes doesn't mean she's not being a dick: it's part of the process. I don't think I've ever been more appalled than by the behavior, for example, of Angela Chase, but that is how this story goes.
Mickey sits on a garbage can near the TARDIS with a newspaper. It's getting late. The little boy who spray-painted the TARDIS is cleaning it off again. Weird. I guess it's just so we'd remember that it was there. The Doctor comes out of the TARDIS and thanks the kid, and says that if he does it again, he'll get it. The Doctor approaches Mickey, who says, "I just went down the shop. And I was thinking, you know, like the whole world's changed. Aliens and spaceships all in public. And here it is." He shows the Doctor the newspaper he's reading: "Alien Hoax?" Both Mickey and Rose have said that: "The whole world's changed." And I guess that's why we came back to the estates for this story -- because it has. Mickey's exasperated that people are calling it all a "hoax" when they saw what happened. "They're just not ready. You're happy to believe in something that's invisible --" Oh, snap! America, you just got served! "--but if it's staring you in the face -- nope! Can't see it! There's a scientific explanation for that: you're thick." I think really a healthy mix of both is called for. Mickey laughs and says, half-questioning: "We're just idiots." Doctor gives him a shock: "Well, not all of you." Mickey's posture improves a bit. The Doctor gives him a "present": a virus Mickey can use online to destroy every mention of the Doctor: "I'll cease to exist." Red flag, but I'm not sure how. The Doctor loves history, knows it's the measure of existence. Remove his impact on this world, and he won't only cease to exist, he'll never have existed, in the record. Seems like that would look even more final to somebody in his circumstance: Earth itself is a largish blip anyway. Sounds, though, like it suits him just fine.
The Doctor: "You're right. I am dangerous. I don't want anybody following me." Jackie and Rose come out of the flat and toward the TARDIS, black flies a-floating in their Chardonnay, and Mickey asks the most Excellent and Apposite Question: "How can you say that and then take her with you?" The Doctor looks him in the eye: "You could look after her. Come with us." Mickey starts to stutter: "I can't. This life of yours...it's just too much, I...I couldn't do it. Don't tell her I said that." Bad. Worse: Jackie says, "I'll get a proper job. I'll work weekends, I'll pass my test, and if Jim comes 'round again, I'll say no. I really will." That's not how parenting works. It's so sad! She's such a fucking fuckup! Rose tries to explain that it's nothing to do with Jackie: "I'm traveling, that's all. And then I'll come back!" Jackie reminds her of the safety issue, and Rose tries it simply: "Mum, if you saw it out there...You'd never stay home." Girl, she knows. That's the worst part of all. If Rose did something crazy like...become the British Britney Spears, say, or marry a ninety-year-old redhead TV presenter, Jackie could go along, like all the pop-star parents there are. But this...it's a wonderful brilliant life that by definition cannot include her. And the really bad part is, there's no bad guy. It's not like Rose is telling Jackie to fuck off; she's just choosing something better, and her mom can't come. I wonder how parents v. non-parents react to this line of inquiry. It's kind of killing me. The Doctor rips on Rose's luggage's quantity and size. Rose: "Last time I stepped in there, it was spur of the moment. Now I'm signing up. You're stuck with me." She smiles and laughs, but it's true. The moment she and Mickey and Harriet and the Doctor agreed to fire on Downing Street, she stopped being a tourist. And the neat thing there is that they both realized it, at the time, and that's really rare. The whole world is changing.
As Jackie looks the Doctor up and down -- wouldn't you? Especially if he was leaving? I'd take some Polaroids -- Rose asks Mickey to come with them. Mickey gestures to the Doctor, who jumps in, all bluster: "No chance. He's a liability, I'm not having him on board." Wow. It's funny that he's proving how much he loves her -- and Mickey -- by openly lying to her and being a dick about this. Rose protests that they'd be dead without Mickey this week, and the Doctor puts on his resolved face: "My decision is final." It's just because the character is underwritten and bluntish that I don't key in as strongly on this -- I imagine, reading the script, you'd picture him as the hottie football hooligan door, six-eight with a buzzcut. Does that make sense? The baseball bat, and the weirdo sexist shit at the beginning of the series, and the whole "my boyfriend is made of plastic" thing plays into a stereotype that is completely different from Mickey's actual energy. Laddish, White Vannish. Scottish. And that's not Mickey, because the Mickey we see is lithe and cheeky and smart and jumpy, not bulky and well-meaning. But given a chance, I'd say that you could lay his relationship down to Jackie's and see some parallels: Rose is leaving him behind, only instead of leaving for a new life, she's leaving for a new man. Mickey, on the page and on the screen, gets their relationship better than anybody else, I wager, at this point, because he kind of loves the Doctor too, and for the same reasons -- which would make him a good Companion! -- so his journey here has been no simpler. Rose is reaching for a life they both deserve, but he's still too scared to do so as well. Rose apologizes to him for the Doctor's brusque refusal, and they kiss.
Jackie rounds on the Doctor: "You still can't promise me. What if she gets lost? What if something happens to you, Doctor, and she's left all alone standing on some moon a million light years away -- how long do I wait then?" I don't want to find out. But this show doesn't seem to shy away from doing awful things to lovable people, so I wouldn't be surprised if this actual scenario plays out at some point. The plottiness is tight enough already for that to be a possibility. Rose comforts her mum, reminding her that it's a time machine: "I could go traveling around suns and planets and all the way out to the edge of the universe and by the time I get back, yeah? Ten seconds would have passed. Just ten seconds." But the privilege of children is not realizing the problem there: she won't be just ten seconds older. She puts her arms around Jackie and smiles sweetly: "So stop worrying. See you in ten seconds' time. Hmm?" No goodbyes this time, note. I love that.
Rose and Jackie embrace, and Rose and the Doctor board the trusty TARDIS. Mickey gives a small wave, and Rose shuts the door. Mickey and Jackie stand very still, as the TARDIS fades away. Jackie looks at her watch. "Ten seconds." Jackie turns back to the flats, I'm sure with Amaretto on her mind, and Mickey settles back in on top of his dustbin, with his newspaper. I wish Jackie would invite him up.