Ruby’s neighbor, a certain Mrs Flood, is definitely very strange in the last episodes of Doctor Who. And notably: she knows what a TARDIS is. There are 3 hypotheses about his identity. Spoilers for episode 7.
Doctor Who has certainly solved a mystery (the identity of Susan Twist), but there are still many more. Starting with Ruby’s origin story: who is her mother? But another identity is pending, namely that of Mrs. Flood. This one is the neighbor of Ruby’s family and the strangenesses about her accumulate.
During the Christmas Special, Mrs Flood took everyone by surprise at the end of the episode when she broke the fourth wall by declaring: ” What, you’ve never seen a TARDIS before? “. The character then returned, like a harmless neighbor, until this episode 7 (on Disney+) during which she seemed to understand what was happening. But who is this woman?
She’s a Time Lady: Susan
Since Mrs. Flood knows what a TARDIS is, the most likely hypothesis is that she is part of the people of Gallifrey: she would then be a Time Lady. But, due to regeneration, she could be a character we already know. The Master is a possibility, except that the clues point to a slightly more original plot twist.
Everything suggests that Mrs. Flood would be Susan: the Doctor’s granddaughter. In the first place, because the latter is surprisingly mentioned several times during this season – in the London of episode 2 and during this episode 7, when the Doctor thought that Susan Triad could be his family. Her granddaughter could finally be there, but even better hidden, since Susan would therefore have regenerated, in addition to being older.
Fans have even spotted hidden clues in the dialogue. Starting when the Doctor explains regeneration to Ruby, and describes it as the ability to escape death, but also to “hide”. Mrs Flood had uttered a similar sentence shortly before.
She is linked to a traveling companion
There is another hypothesis: Mrs Flood is not linked to the Doctor’s family, but to the family of the traveling companions. Some fans think it could be an older version of Clara Oswald, since the latter is not only one of the few traveling companions still alive, and owns a TARDIS. Not to mention that Internet users have noticed a match in the clothes.
Others are based more on his last name. This is not the first time that water appears in names, at the heart of a twist: River Song was the daughter of Amy Pond. In fact, the word “Flood”, which can designate a flood for example in English, seems to be from the same lexical field. Could this be a reincarnation of River, who survived her death? A child of Amy and Rory?
This hypothesis remains much less probable than Mrs Flood as Time Lady, or at least a little more far-fetched.
She would be a simple herald
The most vague possibility would be that Mrs Flood is simply one of Sutekh’s heralds, since episode 7 teaches us that the god has several. This would explain why Mrs. Flood suddenly looks very somber in Ruby’s grandmother’s room; that she refuses him a cup of tea (who does that?); and that she seems to know what’s going on by declaring “He’s not waiting anymore” about Sutekh.
This cannot be ruled out. But it would certainly be a little disappointing, since the character would quickly be evacuated, without involving a major plot twist concerning her.
If she is not a herald, it is not said that the mystery will be resolved during this episode 8, where the Doctor and Ruby will already have a lot to deal with Sutekh and while there also remains the question of the mother by Ruby. Perhaps, however, everything is linked.
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