The Crimson Horror

[Factory corridor]

(Yorkshire 1893. In a small town perched on the side of a hill, with factories belching smoke down by the river.)

EDMUND: If I have not returned in an hour, you must fetch the police.
EFFIE: Edmund!

(She kisses her husband.)

EDMUND: Don't fret, Effie, my dear. All will be well, but we must get to the bottom of this dark and queer business no matter what the cost.

(Edmund walks to the end of the corridor, where there is a room with a red glow coming through the round window in the door. He goes inside. A door opens behind Effie and a group of ladies in black gowns and bonnets step through.)

EFFIE: Mrs Gillyflower!

(An elderly lady.)

GILLYFLOWER: We have come about your husband, my dear. A tragedy.
EFFIE: My husband?
GILLYFLOWER: Your late husband.
EFFIE: There must be some mistake. My husband is quite well.

(A scream from behind the door.)

GILLYFLOWER: We're so very sorry for your loss.

(Effie screams.)

[Morgue]

(The attendant uncovers the corpse of Edmund. He is frozen mid-scream and staring, and his skin is bright red.)

AMOS: Hell fire. That's put me right off me mash. Another one.
THURSDAY: Another?

(The speaker is the spitting image of the late Edmund, but with a moustache.)

AMOS: He's not the first one I've had in here looking like that. The Crimson Horror, that's what they're calling it.
THURSDAY: I have no interest in the deplorable excesses of the Penny Dreadfuls.
AMOS: Hey, hey. Payment in advance, flower. Taking a big risk, you see, I am. They'll have my vitals for fiddle-strings if they knew I'd let you come to look at one of their precious stiffs.
THURSDAY: This stiff is my brother. I've come up from London to bring him home.
AMOS: Oh aye?

[Conservatory]

(At the back of an elegant house - 13 Paternoster Row, London.)

THURSDAY: Thank you for agreeing to this meeting. I'm told you are the investigator to see if there are strange goings-on.

(The lady of the house is heavily veiled.)

VASTRA: I read of your brother's death. Another victim of the Crimson Horror, I believe.
THURSDAY: So it is claimed. He was a newspaper man. He and a young woman were working undercover. Tell me, madam, do you know what an optogram is?
VASTRA: It is a silly superstition, sir. The belief that the eye can retain an image of the last thing it sees.

(See the Ark In Space. Mister Thursday has taken photographs of his dead brother Edmund's staring eyes. He passes one to Jenny the maid, who hands it on to her mistress. Vastra throws back her veil.)

VASTRA: Good grief.
THURSDAY: Oh, god.

(And faints.)

[Dark room]

(Jenny and Vastra make enlargements of the photographs.)

JENNY: Well, I'll be blowed. I think, madam, that we'd better make plans to head north.

(The enlargement reveals an image of a red-faced, screaming Doctor.)

[Carriage]

VASTRA: According to my research, Sweetville's proprietor holds recruitment drives for her little community. She is only interested in the fittest and the most beautiful.
STRAX: You may rely on me, ma'am.
VASTRA: I was, in fact, speaking to Jenny.
STRAX: Jenny. If this weak and fleshy boy is to represent us, I strongly recommend the issuing of scissor grenades, limbo vapour and triple blast brain splitters.
VASTRA: What for?
STRAX: Just generally. Remember, we are going to the north.

[Chapel]

(The poster advertising the meeting proclaims Mrs Winifred Gillyflower on the Present Moral Decay and the Coming Apocalypse.)

GILLYFLOWER: Bradford, that Babylon of the moderns with its crystal light and its glitter, all aswarm with the wretched ruins of humanity. Men and women crushed by the devil's juggernaut.

(She has a good congregation, who agree with her. Jenny is listening carefully.)

GILLYFLOWER: And moral turpitude can destroy the most delicate of lives. Believe me, I know. I know.

(A curtain is drawn back.)

GILLYFLOWER: Me own daughter, blinded in a drunken rage by my late husband. Her once beautiful eyes, pale and white as mistletoe berries.

(The daughter gets up from a chair and taps her way to a covered board.)

GILLYFLOWER: And what, my friends, is your story? Will you be found wanting when the End of Days is come, when judgement rains down upon us all? Or will you be preserved against the coming apocalypse? Do not despair. I offer a way out. There is a different path. Sweetville!

(The blind woman pulls the cover from an illustration of an ideal community. Factory with two rows of terraced homes, its own chapel and bandstand and gardens. Think along the lines of the original model village of Bourneville.)

GILLYFLOWER: Join us. Join us in this shining city on the hill. (sings) Bring me my bow of burning gold. Bring me my arrows of desire.

(Later, the congregation are queuing up in front of the pulpit.)

GILLYFLOWER: You wish to join us, my dear?
JENNY: If it's all the same with you, ma'am.
GILLYFLOWER: Oh yes, dear. You'll do very nicely.

(Jenny signs the big book.)

[Carriage]

VASTRA: If our stratagem succeeds, Jenny will infiltrate deep into the black heart of this curious place.
STRAX: And how will she locate the Doctor?
VASTRA: To find him, she needs only ignore all keep-out signs, go through every locked door, and run towards any form of danger that presents itself.
STRAX: Business as usual, then.
VASTRA: Business as usual.

[Outside the secret room]

(The blind girl makes her way upstairs with a plate of food and goes to a locked room. She lifts a hatch at the base of the door and slides the plate through.)

ADA: Did you think I'd forgotten you, dear monster, hmm?

(There is a crash and bang inside the room, and she leaves.)

[Outside a house]

(Mister Thursday knocks on the door. It is opened.)

THURSDAY: I have travelled from London expressly to see Madame Vastra. If you'd be so kind as to announce me, my good man.

(He hands over his card.)

STRAX: Whom shall I say is calling?

(Mister Thursday sees who he is talking to, and faints.)

[Drawing room]

(Mister Thursday is lying on a couch, being fanned by Strax.)

STRAX: It asked for permission to enter and then it fell over. What are we to make of it?
VASTRA: I imagine Mister Thursday wants to know what progress we are making. The question is, how did the Doctor's image come to be preserved on a dead man's eye? It's a scientific impossibility. I wonder how Jenny is getting on.
STRAX: If she hasn't make contact by nightfall, I suggest a massive frontal assault on the factory, madam. Casualties can be kept to perhaps as little as eighty percent.
VASTRA: I think there may be subtler ways of proceeding, Strax.
STRAX: Suit yourself.

[Factory]

(Prospective employees both male and female are queuing up. A red-headed woman is talking to Jenny.)

ABIGAIL: I'm dead nervous, aren't you? They have to be sure, you see. Only the best for Sweetville. I hope me teeth don't let me down. I'm Abigail.
JENNY: Pleased to meet you.
ABIGAIL: You're not local, are you.
JENNY: Nah. Up from London.
ABIGAIL: Different here, I bet.
JENNY: Yeah. Like a bleeding horse market. Do you know anyone who's come to live here? In Sweetville, I mean.
ABIGAIL: I had a pal who come here three month back. She wrote to tell me how perfect it all were. Funny, though. I've not heard a peep from her since.
PILGRIM [OC]: Next, please!
ABIGAIL: Hang on, we're moving.

(Jenny steps aside to a door and gets her roll of lockpicking tools out.)

ABIGAIL: What're you doing?
JENNY: Do me a favour. Cause a distraction.
ABIGAIL: What?
JENNY: Swoon. Have a funny turn. Fit of the vapours.
ABIGAIL: Are you crackers?
JENNY: Go on. There's a guinea in it for you.
ABIGAIL: Done.

(Abigail gasps for breath loudly then faints. A crowd gathers around her and Jenny gets through the locked door. It takes her to the factory floor, where the deafening thumps of machinery are being broadcast through three large gramophone horns. There is nothing else here. Jenny sees two men carry a large bottle of red liquid through the room and get into a lift.)

[Morgue]

AMOS: Them new manufacturers can do horrible things to a person. Horrible. I've pickled things in here that'd fair turn your hair snowy as top of Buckden Pike.
VASTRA: You know what I'm looking for.
AMOS: Oh, aye. All them bits found in t'canal. The Crimson Horror.

(He hands over a large bottle half full of red liquid. Vastra throws back her veil with her back to him.)

VASTRA: It hardly seems possible.
AMOS: Eh?
VASTRA: I think, I think I've seen these symptoms before.
AMOS: Oh aye?
VASTRA: A long time ago.
AMOS: Oh aye? How long?

(She turns around.)

VASTRA: About sixty five million years.

[Dining room]

(The Gillyflower ladies are eating their soup.)

ADA: I trust you had a pleasant day, Mama?
GILLYFLOWER: Tolerable.
ADA: Will Mister Sweet ever join us for dinner, Mama?
GILLYFLOWER: Mister Sweet is rather tired tonight, I fear.

(His place at the head of the table is set, but vacant. Mrs Gillyflower knocks over the salt dish.)

GILLYFLOWER: Dear me. How clumsy I'm getting.

(She throws a pinch of salt over her right shoulder.)

GILLYFLOWER: To keep the Devil at bay.

(A manservant nods and leaves. Then Mrs Gillyflower sprinkles some salt inside her clothes.)

[Outside the secret room]

(Jenny has taken the lift up to the corridor with the red lit door. There is a rhythmic thumping noise coming from above, so she climbs a spiral staircase to another floor and finds another locked door. The one with the hatch at the bottom. She raises the hatch and a red hand grabs her. She struggles free and the hatch slides shut again.)

JENNY: All right, mate. You just stay calm now. (thump and rattle of chains) I could open this door. Would you like that? (thump) Thought you might. But you and me has got to come to an arrangement. Savvy? (thump) Now, you stand well back, do you hear me? I don't mean no harm to you, but you try anything funny and I'll leave you here to rot. Is that understood? (thump, thump) Right.

[Secret room]

JENNY: Doctor!

(The Doctor has red skin, a gaping mouth, and is very stiff. He is in chains and his clothes are lying nearby in the straw.)

JENNY: What happened to you? Can't you speak?

(His skin is tough as leather.)

JENNY: Right. Right, we're getting out of here.

[Factory corridor]

(Jenny helps the Doctor stagger stiff-legged along the corridor.)

JENNY: Come on.

(The lift comes up.)

JENNY: Come on!

(It is Ada. She hears their footsteps but heads for the stairs while Jenny guides the Doctor into the red glow room.)

[Red glow room]

(Through a window they watch people on a frame being manoeuvred over a large vat of bubbling red liquid, then lowered in.)

JENNY: Oh my gawd.

(The Doctor struggles to point at a row of metal doors behind them.)

[Outside the secret room]

ADA: You are all I have, monster, but all will be well. Imperfect as we are, there will be room for us in the new Jerusalem.

(The door opens under her touch.)

[Secret room]

(She discovers the empty shackles.)

ADA: No. No! Where are you, monster? Where are you?

[Red glow room]

JENNY: What is it? You want to go in there?

(He gets inside the small space. Jenny gives him his clothes, and with groans of pain he powers up the sonic screwdriver. She shuts the door and hides as two men walk past the entrance. A green glow comes from the porthole in the metal door. Then it bursts open and a normal looking and fully dressed Doctor bounces out.)

DOCTOR: Ah! Missed me?
JENNY: Doctor!
DOCTOR: Jenny. Jenny, Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. Just when you think your favourite lock-picking Victorian chambermaid will never turn up. Jenny.

(The Doctor takes her in his arms, bends her backwards and kisses her long and hard on the lips. She slaps his face.)

DOCTOR: You have no idea how good that feels. Right. Mrs Gillyflower. We've got to stop her. And then there's Clara. Poor Clara. Where's Clara?
JENNY: Clara? Doctor, wait.
DOCTOR: Can't. Clara. Got to find.
JENNY: What happened to you? How long have you been like that?
DOCTOR: Days, weeks, don't know. Long story. I'll keep it short.

[The Doctor's story]

(The TARDIS materialises in a cobbled alley, in sepia with tickly music in the background all the way through.)

DOCTOR: Okay, so. Not London 1893. Yorkshire 1893. Near enough.
CLARA: You're making a habit of this, getting us lost.
DOCTOR: Sorry. It's much better than it used to be. Ooo, I once spent a hell of a long time trying to get a gobby Australian to Heathrow Airport.

(That would be Tegan Jovanka.)

CLARA: What for?
DOCTOR: Search me. Anyway

(A woman screams.)

DOCTOR: Brave heart, Clara.

(By the canal.)

EDMUND: It's another one. Don't you see? Another victim. Why won't any one of you listen?
DOCTOR: We'll listen.

(They walk and talk on the way to the Sweetville main gates.)

EDMUND: Mrs Winifred Gillyflower. An astonishing woman. Prize winning chemist and mechanical engineer. So why
DOCTOR: Why has she decided to open up a match factory in her old home town.
EDMUND: And no one who ever goes to live there ever seems to come out.

(They go to the morgue.)

EDMUND: Same as the rest. All dead from causes unknown and their flesh glowing.
AMOS: Like something manky in a coal cellar. They keep turning up in t'canal. The Crimson Horror.
DOCTOR: Ooo, good name. Hey, that's good, isn't it? The Crimson Horror. I wonder what it is. Do you know the old Romany superstition, Clara? That the eye of a dead person retains an image of the last thing it sees. Nonsense, of course, unless the chemical composition of the body has been massively corrupted.

(Clara uses the Doctor's magnifying glass to look at the face of Mrs Gillyflower in the dead woman's eye. The Doctor touches her skin and the red comes off onto his white glove. He uses someone's chemistry lab.)

DOCTOR: Wow, this is nasty. An organic poison. A sort of venom. And you think it's connected to Sweetville?
EDMUND: I do.
DOCTOR: Well then, we need a plan.

(They visit Mrs Gillyflower at home.)

GILLYFLOWER: Doctor and Mrs Smith. Oh yes, you'll do very nicely.

(The Doctor does his best Michael Palin as a Yorkshireman accent.)

DOCTOR: Oh, grand. Smashing. Eh, the missis and I couldn't be more chuffed, could we, love?

(Mrs Gillyflower leads them down the row of terraced homes.)

GILLYFLOWER: Sweetville will provide you with everything you need. You won't have to worry about a thing ever again.
CLARA: The name, Sweetville.
GILLYFLOWER: Yes?
CLARA: Why not name it after yourself. After al, it's your creation.
DOCTOR: Gillyflowertown. Gillyflowerland. You could have roller coasters.
GILLYFLOWER: It is named in tribute to my partner.
DOCTOR: Your late partner?
GILLYFLOWER: No, my silent partner. Mister Sweet likes to keep himself to himself. Shall we move on?
DOCTOR: Who lives here?
GILLYFLOWER: Oh, names don't matter here. All you need to know is we only recruit the brightest and the best.

(She opens a front door to reveal a single living room. The man and woman are seated at a tea table, under a giant bell jar. A pump is providing air into in. Then her army of men and women come for the Doctor and Clara. They get knocked out and dunked in the red liquid, except the Doctor wakes up just as he is going under. Later, Clara is with the other women.)

GILLYFLOWER: Like pretty maids all in a row. The process improves with every attempt. Mister Sweet is such a clever old thing. Oh, into the canal with the rejects, Ada.
ADA: Yes.

(But one of the rejects takes Ada's hand.)

ADA: Ma.

(Ada shackles the Doctor in the secret room.)

ADA: Sometimes the preservation process goes wrong. Only Mister Sweet knows why, and only Mama is allowed to talk to Mister Sweet. But if you're very good, you can stay here. You'll be my secret. My special monster. Shush.

(And there he stays until Edmund, another living reject of the process, bursts in. Which is why his image was in Edmund's eye.)

[Factory]

DOCTOR: Poor Edmund must have come looking for us and then fallen into a vat of the pure venom. Or was pushed. Didn't stand a chance.
JENNY: What is that stuff, though?
DOCTOR: Deadly poison. And Mrs Gillyflower's been dipping her pilgrims in a dilute form to protect them. Preserve them. Process didn't work on me. Maybe because I'm not human. I ended up on the reject pile.
JENNY: Preserve them against what?
DOCTOR: Well, according to her, the coming apocalypse.
 (The Doctor makes the universal cu-koo gesture.)
JENNY: When the End of Days is come and judgement rains down upon us all.
DOCTOR: What?
JENNY: Nothing.
DOCTOR: No, no, no. What?
JENNY: Something Mrs Gillyflower said. One of her sermons. Madame will come looking for me. We'd best get on.
DOCTOR: Yes, Clara. Got to find Clara.
JENNY: But, Doctor. Clara's dead. Isn't she?
DOCTOR: It's complicated.

[Corporation Way]

(Strax is driving the carriage when the horse decided to stop.)

STRAX: Horse, you have failed in your mission. We are lost, with no sign of Sweetville. Do you have any final words before your summary execution? The usual story. Fourth one this week, and I'm not even hungry.

(Strax hefts his honking great gun.)

URCHIN: Sweetville, sir?
STRAX: Do you know it?
URCHIN: Turn around when possible. Then, at the end of the road, turn right.
STRAX: What?
URCHIN: Bear left for a quarter of a mile and you will have reached your destination.

(Strax invites the boy, whose name we have already guessed, to join him.)

STRAX: Thank you. What is your name?
URCHIN: Thomas, sir. Thomas Thomas.
STRAX: I think you will do well, Thomas Thomas.

[Sweetville]

JENNY: Are we talking about the same person? About that Clara? Doctor!

(He runs over to a house and looks inside.)

DOCTOR: I couldn't see much from where I was, but I think she survived the process. She must be here somewhere.
JENNY: But Clara died. The Ice Lady? Doctor.
DOCTOR: Well, it's er, it's complicated.

[Terraced house]

(The Doctor bursts in to find Clara in a bell jar with another man. He breaks it with a chair.)

[Secret room]

(Ada is still sobbing over her missing monster.)

GILLYFLOWER: What is the meaning of this?
ADA: Oh, Mama, I have been foolish. I have formed a sentimental attachment.
GILLYFLOWER: An attachment? To whom?
ADA: A young man. Unlike the others, he survived rejection. He must be strong. Worthy of salvation.
GILLYFLOWER: Wrecker. Berserker! You have loosed a reject onto the outside world.
ADA: I have disappointed you.
GILLYFLOWER: My plans must be accelerated. Nothing must interfere with the Great Work.
ADA: But please say there is still room for me in your new Eden, Mama. Promise me that.
GILLYFLOWER: I'll set my pilgrims onto him.
ADA: No!
GILLYFLOWER: Kindly do not claw and slobber at my crinoline. You know I cannot bear to look at sick people.
ADA: Promise me you will not abandon me, Mama. Promise me that.
GILLYFLOWER: Do you not yet understand? There can be no place for people such as you. That only perfection is good enough for myself and Mister Sweet. The bright day is done, child, and you are for the dark.

[Red glow room]

(They have put Clara into a metal cubicle.)

JENNY: Can she be revived, like you were?
DOCTOR: I hope so.

(Pilgrims enter.)

JENNY: Doctor.
DOCTOR: Oh, great. Great. Attack of the supermodels. Time for a plan.
JENNY: Nah, Doctor. This one's on me.

(Jenny removes her bonnet and dress to reveal a tight all leather outfit. She deals with the three male pilgrims in three moves.)

DOCTOR: That is a plan.

(More pilgrims advance, with rounders bats.)

DOCTOR: Okay, time for a new plan. Run!
STRAX [OC]: Sontar ha!

(Enter Strax, in his Sontaran armour, firing his honking big gun. The pilgrims flee. Vastra is close behind with a sword.)

VASTRA: Let's go.
JENNY: No, ma'am. We're not escaping. We've got to help the Doctor with Clara.
DOCTOR: Long story.
STRAX: What now, madam? We could lay mimetic cluster mines.
VASTRA: Strax.
STRAX: Or dig trenches and fill them with acid.
VASTRA: Strax! You're overexcited. Have you been eating Miss Jenny's sherbet fancies again?
STRAX: No.
VASTRA: Go outside and wait for me until I call for you.
STRAX: But madam, I
VASTRA: Go!
STRAX: I'm going to go play with my grenades.

(Strax leaves.)

DOCTOR: Okay, I think she's about done.

(The Doctor opens the cubicle.)

DOCTOR: I know who you think she is, but she isn't. She can't be.
VASTRA: I was right, then. You and Clara have unfinished business.

(Clara falls into the Doctor's arms.)

DOCTOR: There, there. Hello, stranger.
CLARA: Doctor.
DOCTOR: Ah ha.
CLARA: Hi. What's going on?
DOCTOR: Oh, haven't you heard, love? There's trouble at mill. She's a lizard.

[Factory corridor]

VASTRA: My people once ruled this world, as well you know, but we did not rule it alone. Just as humanity fights a daily battle against nature, so did we. And our greatest plague, the most virulent enemy, was the repulsive red leech.
DOCTOR: Ooo, the Repulsive Red Leech. Nah. On balance I think I prefer the Crimson Horror. What was it, exactly?
VASTRA: A tiny parasite. It infected our drinking water. And once in our systems, it secreted a fatal poison.
DOCTOR: If it's been hanging around, lurking in the shadows, maybe it's evolved. Or maybe it's had help.
CLARA: Doctor, I've been thinking. The chimney
DOCTOR: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Way past that now. Yucky red parasite from the time of the dinosaurs pitches up in Victorian Yorkshire. Didn't see that one coming.
CLARA: Yeah, but the chimney
DOCTOR: But what's the connection to Mrs Gillyflower? Judgement will rain down on us all. An empty mill.
CLARA: A chimney that doesn't blow smoke.
DOCTOR: Clever clogs.
CLARA: Missed me?
DOCTOR: Yeah, lots.

[Boiler room]

DOCTOR: She's going to poison the air.
JENNY: How?

(A pilgrim pulls a lever. They are looking at the base of a rocket.)

CLARA: With that, I should think.
DOCTOR: And there's the poison. All right, gang, I've got a plan.

(They stand up and something metal clatters. They duck down as the pilgrims turn towards the sound.)

DOCTOR: Shush. Okay.

(Mrs Gillyflower pulls out the stops on a small pipe organ then presses a lever. The contraption turns to present a control board to her.)

[Secret room]

(Ada is still crying in the corner when the Doctor and Clara enter.)

ADA: Who is that? Who is there?

(The Doctor takes her hand and runs it over his face.)

ADA: You. It's you. My monster. You've come back. But you're
DOCTOR: Warm. And alive, thanks to you, Ada. You saved me from your mother's human rubbish tip. Now then, what's wrong?
ADA: She does not want me, monster. I am not to be chosen. Perhaps it was my own sin, the blackness in my heart that my father saw in me.
DOCTOR: Ada, no. That's nonsense. Stupid, backward nonsense, and you know it. You know it.
CLARA: What is it?
ADA: Who is that?
CLARA: I'm, I'm a friend. A friend of his.
ADA: Then you are fortunate indeed. It isn't good to be alone.
DOCTOR: Now, Ada, I need you to tell me something. Who is Mister Sweet? Ada?
ADA: Oh, dear monster
DOCTOR: Please, tell me.
ADA: I cannot. Even now, I cannot. I cannot betray Mama.
DOCTOR: Well, come with us, then. There's something you need to know.

[Drawing room]

(This is where the control mechanism is.)

GILLYFLOWER: Oh, you do seem to keep turning up like a bad penny, young man.
DOCTOR: Force of habit.
GILLYFLOWER: Can I offer you something? Tea? Seed cake? Oh, a glass of Amontillado?
DOCTOR: No, thanks. We've had a skinful already, as you might say.
GILLYFLOWER: Ha, ha. Very funny.
DOCTOR: Yes. I'm the Doctor, you're nuts and I'm going to stop you.
GILLYFLOWER: I'm afraid Mister Sweet and I cannot allow that.
DOCTOR: Ah, yes. Would it be impolite to ask why you and Mister Sweet are petrifying your workforce with diluted prehistoric leech venom?
CLARA: So when do we get to meet him, this silent partner of yours? Why's he so shy.
GILLYFLOWER: Mister Sweet is always with us.
DOCTOR: You seem to have a very close relationship, you and your pal.
GILLYFLOWER: Oh yes, Doctor. Exceedingly close. Symbiotic, you might say.

(She opens the top of her dress to reveal a large red leech attached to her skin. Meanwhile, the pilgrims continue to load bottles of venom into the rocket.)

CLARA: Doctor, what is it?
GILLYFLOWER: A survivor. He has grown fat on the filth humanity has pumped into the rivers. That's where I found him.
DOCTOR: Very enterprising.
GILLYFLOWER: His needs are simple, and in return he gives me his nectar.
DOCTOR: Mrs Gillyflower, you have no idea what you are dealing with. In the wrong hands, that venom could wipe out all life on this planet.

(Mrs Gillyflower holds out her hands.)

GILLYFLOWER: Do you know what these are? Ha, ha! The wrong hands.

(She goes to the control panel and pulls a lever. Red lights come on all the way up the factory chimney. Young Thomas Thomas points them out to Strax.)

DOCTOR: Planning a little fireworks party, are we?
GILLYFLOWER: You have forced me to advance the Great Work somewhat, Doctor, but my colossal scheme remains as it was. My rocket will explode high in the atmosphere, raining down Mister Sweet's beneficence onto all humanity.
CLARA: And wiping us all out. You can't!
GILLYFLOWER: My new Adam and Eves will sleep for but a few months before stepping out into a golden dawn. Is it not beautiful, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Now, tell us about Ada, Mrs Gillyflower.
GILLYFLOWER: What?
DOCTOR: Your daughter. You do remember your daughter? Tell us about your daughter.
GILLYFLOWER: How can you speak of such trivia when my hour is at hand? The child is of no consequence.
DOCTOR: Is that why you experimented on her?
CLARA: Experimented?
DOCTOR: The signs are all there. The pattern of scarring. You used her as a guinea pig, didn't you.
CLARA: God.
GILLYFLOWER: Sometimes sacrifices must be made.
DOCTOR: Sacrifices?
GILLYFLOWER: It was necessary. I had to find out how much of the venom would produce an anti-toxin to immunise myself. Don't you see? It was necessary!
ADA: Mama? Is it, is it true?
GILLYFLOWER: Ada.
ADA: It is. It's true. True.
GILLYFLOWER: Ada, listen to me.
ADA: You hag! You perfidious hag! You virago! You harpy! All these years I have helped you, served you, looked after you. Do they count for nothing, nothing at all?

(Ada starts slashing at her mother with her white stick.)

GILLYFLOWER: No, stop. Stop.

(Clara runs forward.)

DOCTOR: Hang on, I've got a sonic screwdriver.
CLARA: Yeah? I've got a chair!

(Clara smashes it into the control panel, with a satisfying shower of sparks.)

GILLYFLOWER: No!
DOCTOR: Yeah. That worked. I'm afraid your rocket isn't going anywhere, Mrs G.
GILLYFLOWER: Please, come to me, Ada. Oh, my child. You have always been so very useful.

(Mrs Gillyflower puts a small revolver to Ada's head.)

DOCTOR: No, Mrs Gillyflower.
ADA: Please, Mama. No more. No more.
GILLYFLOWER: And now, if you'll please forgive us, we must be going. It is long past Ada's bedtime.

(Mrs Gillyflower forces Ada out of the room and locks the door behind her.)

DOCTOR: No, no, Clara. If we follow straight after her, she'll shoot Ada on the spot.
CLARA: She wouldn't.
DOCTOR: She would. Chairs are useful.

(He pulls the chair out of the panel and uses it to break the window.)

[Factory]

GILLYFLOWER: Come along, Ada. Don't dawdle.
ADA: Please, Mama, stop.
GILLYFLOWER: Has the venom been loaded?
PILGRIM: Yes, ma'am.
GILLYFLOWER: Then heaven awaits you.

[By the rocket]

(Mrs Gillyflower drags Ada up the staircase encircling the rocket. The Doctor and Clara run through Sweetville and get to the bottom of the stairs.)

GILLYFLOWER: Stop!
DOCTOR: Just let her go, Mrs Gillyflower. Let Ada go.
GILLYFLOWER: Secondary firing mechanism, Doctor. Mister Sweet and I are too smart for you, after all.
DOCTOR: Just let your daughter go, Mrs Gillyflower.

(Ada gets free and stumbles down to the corner between the Doctor and Mrs Gillyflower.)

GILLYFLOWER: Ada!
ADA: Shoot if you wish, Mama. It is of no matter, for you killed me a long time ago.

(Mrs Gillyflower shoots at the Doctor, making him retreat.)

GILLYFLOWER: (sings) I'll labour night and day to be a pilgrim.

(The Doctor gets to Ada as Mrs Gillyflower pulls the lever and the rocket's engines ignite. He shields her with his body as it takes off, with so little flame as to not even singe any of them as it passes mere inches away.)

GILLYFLOWER: Now, Mister Sweet, now the whole world will taste your lethal kiss!
DOCTOR: I don't think so, Mrs Gillyflower.

(The Doctor snaps his fingers. Jenny and Vastra appear, in pilgrim clothes, holding a bottle of venom.)

GILLYFLOWER: Very well, then. If I can't take the world with me, you will have to do. Die, you freaks. Die! Die!

(Strax points his honking big gun down the chimney.)

STRAX: Put down your weapon, human female.

(Mrs Gillyflower shoots at Strax. He returns fire, sending her tumbling over the railing to the floor two stories below.)

DOCTOR: Ouch.

(The leech detaches itself from her, and drags itself across the floor by its suckered forelimbs.)

GILLYFLOWER: No. No. Mister Sweet, where are you going? You can't leave me now, Mister Sweet.
CLARA: What's it doing?
DOCTOR: It knows she's dying. She's no longer of any use to it.
GILLYFLOWER: Mister Sweet. Ada?

(Ada taps her way down the stairs.)

GILLYFLOWER: Ada. Are you there?
ADA: I'm here, Mama.
GILLYFLOWER: Forgive me, my child. Forgive me.
ADA: Never.
GILLYFLOWER: That's my girl.

(Mrs Winifred Gillyflower dies. The rocket explodes in the sky.)

JENNY: What will you do with that thing?
DOCTOR: Take it back to the Jurassic era, maybe. Out of harm's way.

(Ada taps her way across the floor until her stick finds something squishy. She smashes the leech to smithereens.)

DOCTOR: On the other hand

[Alleyway]

DOCTOR: Right. Right, London. We were heading for London, weren't we?
CLARA: Was there any particular reason?
DOCTOR: No. No. Just thought you might like it.
CLARA: Yeah. Maybe had enough of Victorian values for a bit.
DOCTOR: You're the boss.
CLARA: Am I?
DOCTOR: No. No. Get in.

(Clara enters the TARDIS. The Doctor walks back to Ada and the Paternoster Gang.)

DOCTOR: Now, Ada, I'd love to stay and help clear up the mess, but
ADA: I know, dear monster. You have things to do.
DOCTOR: And what about you?
ADA: Oh, there are many things a bright young lady can do to occupy her time. It's time I stepped out of the darkness and into the light.
DOCTOR: Good luck, Ada. You know, I think you will be just

(He kisses her cheek.)

DOCTOR: Splendid. Well, thanks a million, you three, as ever. Have some Pontefract cakes on me. I love Pontefract cakes. See you around, eh, I shouldn't wonder.
JENNY: But Doctor. That girl, Clara. You haven't explained.
DOCTOR: No, I haven't.

(He goes to the TARDIS.)

DOCTOR: Ah, look at the muck in here. Right!

(He goes into the TARDIS. Strax takes the bottle of venom from Vastra.)

STRAX: Another one for the vault.
THURSDAY: Ah, there you are. I called to see whether there had been any progress.

(The TARDIS dematerialises. He faints.)

[Maitland home]

(Clara enters.)

CLARA: The boss. Yep, that's me.

(Outside, the TARDIS dematerialises.)

CLARA: I am the boss.

(Then she spots the laptop that the children have left open. On the screen are photographs of her and the Doctor from their recent adventures. 1983 Firebird - the Russian Submarine, the haunted house.)

ANGIE: It's you, isn't it. It's from the seventies, but it's definitely you.
CLARA: Of course it's not.
ARTIE: And that's you too, from 1983. I found it at school.
CLARA: No, that's just someone who looks like me.
ANGIE: And that's someone that looks like your boyfriend.
ARTIE: Is he an alien?
ANGIE: Why would he be an alien?
ARTIE: The chin.
ANGIE: And the time travel?

(Angie clicks on a third image, of Victorian Governess Clara.)

CLARA: That's not right.
ANGIE: You were in Victorian London.
CLARA: No, I was in Victorian Yorkshire.
ANGIE: How come you didn't tell us?
ARTIE: Time travel, that's so cool.
ANGIE: Can we have a go?
CLARA: Can you have a what?
ARTIE: We want a shot at the time machine.
CLARA: No, no, no, no. Listen
ANGIE: Okay. Or, we'll have to tell Dad that our nanny's a time traveller.

Transcript originally provided by Chrissie. Adapted by TARDIS.guide. The transcripts are for educational and entertainment purposes only. All other copyrights property of their respective holders.

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