WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Doctor Who: Flux, "Chapter Two: War of the Sontarans," which aired Sunday on BBC.
Doctor Who Season 12 proved to be a massive game-changer for the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) as she learned there was more to her own past than she'd previously known. Not only did she meet an incarnation (Jo Martin) that preceded her known first incarnation (William Hartnell), but she also discovered she's not actually Gallifreyan. Instead, she is a Timeless Child of unknown origin whose genetics were exploited by the Shobogans and the entire Time Lord race was created at her expense. If that wasn't bad enough, she also joined a secret organization called The Division at some point and had all of her memories erased, forcing her to restart her own life from scratch.
With all the different ways the Doctor has been violated by the very people she once trusted, the Doctor has every reason to be shaken by all of these revelations, even angry. However, struggling to piece together her missing past isn't the only problem she's facing. In Doctor Who: Flux, two new enemies from her past have resurfaced to enact their revenge on her: Swarm (Sam Spruell) and his sister Azure (Rochenda Sandall). While the Doctor still has no memory of who they are, their tactics are very familiar.
Since Episode 1 of Doctor Who: Flux, Swarm revealed he has many qualities in common with the Master, the Doctor's self-proclaimed archenemy. Like the Master, he is highly intelligent, patient and meticulous in his planning. He is also skilled at escaping from maximum-security prisons and knows how to rejuvenate his weak body by stealing energy from others. He is also capable of forming psychic links with Time Lords, or at the very least, the Doctor. He is also knowledgeable of the Doctor's history, which gives him a major strategic advantage over her current incarnation. In Episode 2, more of Swarm's Master-like qualities come to the surface when he and Azure arrive at the Temple of Atropos on the planet called Time.
Before their arrival, both the Doctor's companion, Yaz (Mandip Gill), and an observation officer named Inston-Vee Vinder (Jacob Anderson) are mysteriously summoned to the temple. They are both asked to help repair a system that a mysterious group of women called the Mouri are dependent on to function. Both Yaz and Vinder, of course, have no clue what they need to do to repair the system. When Swarm and Azure arrive, not only do they confirm they've been to the Temple of Atropos before, but they also understand what it does and how it works. Taking advantage of the system's weakened state, they manage to gain access to it, which allows Swarm to showcase more of his Master-like talents.
One new ability that's revealed in Doctor Who: Flux Episode 2 is that Swarm's perception of time is not linear like that of humans. He can perceive every timestream at once, which is why he knows who Yaz is without her having to introduce herself. He's also aware of her love for the Doctor, including the fact that she has "WWTDD" written on her left hand. He also knows that it stands for "what would the Doctor do," which allows him to use Yaz as his ace card against the Doctor. After killing two of the Mouri, he forces Yaz and Vinder to take their places. However, since they are not Mouri themselves, their bodies can't withstand the energy needed to sustain and control time, which Swarm is counting on to profoundly hurt the Doctor.
Swarm's actions against Yaz are no different from that of the Master, as he's consistently targeted the Doctor's companions and allies in many of his schemes throughout Doctor Who history. Some of the most recent ones were carried out by Missy (Michelle Gomez) and the incarnation of the Master who served as Britain's prime minister, Harold Saxon (John Simm). Missy was responsible for the death of Clara Oswald's (Jenna Coleman) boyfriend, Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson), and had his corpse converted into a Cyberman. She also cyber-converted the body of the Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney), murdered Osgood and almost succeeded in murdering the Brigadier's daughter, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave). The John Simm Master got even more personal when he got Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) -- the 12th Doctor's (Peter Capaldi) companion -- converted into a Cyberman.
Given how particularly cruel the Master's plans tend to be when he harms the Doctor's companions, the fact that Swarm's current scheme is equally cruel seems to further support the theory he and the Master are one and the same.
To see if Yaz survives Swarm's attack, Doctor Who airs Sundays on BBC.
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