Amy's FINAL Choice: My Thoughts on 'The Angels Take Manhattan'

If you haven’t seen the fifth episode of series seven yet stop reading! Right now! Seriously…if you’re still reading you obviously didn’t listen to me. Oh well your funeral. As River would say…SPOILERS.

So I just finished ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’ and to the surprise of many I’M NOT DEAD. I am a huge HUGEEEE fan of the Ponds, and I was honestly terrified at how I would handle their exit. But luckily Moffat is FUCKING BRILLIANT and gave us a perfect ending for the Ponds. Yes…the ending was bittersweet…but it tied in with all the themes we’ve seen throughout the Ponds’ history in the show.

There have been many themes in Doctor Who since Moffat took over. One of those themes has been Amy’s inability to stand still. Series 5 clearly showed us Amy has a bit of a problem with commitment. Which is understandable if you think about it - I mean, the only thing she ever committed herself to never held up its end of the bargain…What is the kid supposed to think? Anyhoo, because of Amy’s inability to commit she keeps running away – away from her life at home - away from Rory Williams.

Rory Williams, sweet Rory Williams, the boy who waited. As we’ve seen time and time again, Rory’s love for Amy is unbreakable.  However, due to Amy’s apparent commitment phobia, her love has always been more questionable. One of the main reasons I LOVED ‘Amy’s Choice’ is because Amy finally chooses Rory. Yes the Doctor is exciting. Yes she’s been waiting for the Doctor her whole life. But she belongs with RORY and she finally figures that out.

This episode kind of felt like ‘Amy’s Choice 2.0,‘ but not in a bad way. Again Amy has to make a choice…and again she chooses Rory…and it’s absolutely brilliant. In fact, she chooses Rory twice this time: once when she throws herself off a building with him and again when she lets herself get zapped back in time just so she can live out her days with the man she loves. As Mels said in ‘Let’s Kill Hitler,’ it’s always been them two, and this episode allows us to find out that it always will be them two, literally for as long as they live. It’s so beautiful, romantic, and true to character. And considering Mels is River Song, it makes sense that when Amy wants to leave at the end, River urges her to go. She knows her parents belong together, and even though the Doctor is screaming for her not to, Amy has to make that final decision…the decision to blink.

The theme with the Angels has constantly been “don’t blink.” The fact that blinking was how Amy “solved her problem” speaks volumes. We’re so used to blinking being a horrible, HORRIBLE thing in this show. Having encountered the Angels early on, Amy is deathly afraid of them and knows better than anyone to NEVER blink. But when it comes to Rory not only will she blink- she’ll do it willingly.

Something I thought was interesting about this episode was the fact that Amy encountered the Angels before. If I remember right (and please correct me if I’m wrong) Rory, never experienced the Angels first hand. Yes he saw them in ‘God Complex,’ but I’m not sure how much he was told about them at the time, and during that point they were only a projection. He was probably the character that knew the least, so naturally the Angels went after him (not to mention he’s prone to death so why wouldn’t they go after him).

Sidebar: I LOVED WHEN RORY MENTIONED THAT HE ALWAYS DIES. THAT SO NEEDED TO HAPPEN. I LOVE YOU MOFFAT. End sidebar.

Another thing I thought was interesting was that we find out why that random scene in ‘The Eleventh Hour’ exists. When we originally watch ‘The Eleventh Hour,’ towards the very end, we hear the Tardis noise and see a young Amelia sitting in her garden the morning after she waited all night, looking up and smiling. At the time I assumed it was a dream – her doctor finally coming back for her. But in this episode we find out he did come back when she was little, again, he just didn’t stay. His future self visiting her was very reminiscent of when his future self visits her at the end of Series 5. Remember…he reboots the universe…goes back in time…and goes to talk to her in that ANGELS episode (coincidence? I think not!)?? I just thought it was very fitting that it happened again (also explains why she was so sure he was coming back some day…I mean he went there TWICE…TWICE).

Anyhoo, the way this episode tied up the Ponds' storyline could not have been better in my opinion. This series has really shown us how strongly the Ponds are attached to the Doctor and vice versa. They would have kept living a split life unless something happened to sever that connection. This ending allowed that tie to be severed, while still allowing the Ponds to be happy…just in the past. Yes now they won’t have iPhones…but at least they’ll know to buy Apple stock, which hey, probably would make them a lot of money.

Now before I finish I also want to say, I can see why people wouldn’t like the way this ended. They might feel it was cheap. A cop out. A way to dispose of the Ponds without killing them. And yes…it was a way to dispose of the Ponds without killing them…but why does that make it a bad thing?  Yes in a sense this was a “happily ever after” but we’re allowed to get those every once in awhile. Amelia Pond is after all the name of a fairytale character.

What did YOU all think of the episode?? Did you love it? Hate it? Chime in below!!