What an ending. Wow, just wow.

This story starts off with a bang (pun intended) with the explosion at the academy, a set piece that's done brilliantly. Insurgency showed us the lives of those at the academy, and how it's all coming to ruin, now Imperiatrix doubles down on that. We get a brilliant peek into how most gallifreyans feel about Romana at the moment before the explosion through the use of a reporter talking about what's just happened, a great way to bring together the threads from Insurgency.

The different responses to it as well and the politicing that comes from it, everyone trying to spin it their own way, is great. Darkel is genuinely vile, saying the explosion wasn't a major incident because it was aliens affected, not gallifreyans, but it's just so so good.

I hadn't really gone into it before, but John Leeson does an incredible job in these stories, sleeper star of them to be honest. The difference in his voice when he's playing Pandora-K9 as opposed to regular K9 is just great... And now he's gone (not really but still). K9 is dead, and K9 is allied with Pandora :CCCC

Aftermath of Andred's unceremonious death is also just superb. In Insurgency you're almost starting to like him again, it seems like there's a chance his relationship could be fixed, which makes Leela's response all the more heartbreaking. Her talking to his body, vowing revenge, just, god, it really does just hit. That's the scene that brings this up from a 9 to a 10 for me.

And Lalla Ward's Acting here. It's just spectacular. I think Romana's heel turn to becoming imperiatrix could have felt out of nowhere, even with the setup and stakes against her, but Lalla Ward ***kills*** it. The Fury of a Time Lord is a phrase that's usually only really applied to The Doctor, but seeing it channeled through someone else here it spectacular.

The twist about who was behind the bombing was also fun, and the way it's done. It's right there in your face at the start of the story, but you don't think about it for even a second until it's brought back later.

Narvin is great here as well. They talk about it in the interviews as well, but yeah, you can really tell, especially in this story, where his loyalties lie. He hates Romana, but his loyalty is to Gallifrey, and Romana is what's best for it at the moment. He risks his life to save her despite some of this mess being his fault, and it's just brilliant.

And then that cliffhanger. A Gallifreyan civil war. Romana 1's reappearance as Pandora.

Bring on Season 3!