Doctor Who "Rosa"

notes:

* i'm not crying, YOU have custard in your eyes

* the Doctor: i'm the Doctor! and these are my three! we're human beans!
Ryan: so close...
Doctor: i figured since jellybellies are beans...
Graham: so close, Doc.
Ryan: cooler when i said it.
Doctor: you know, Graham, you're the first person EVER to call the Doctor Doc.
Graham: you like it?
Doctor: not really. makes me feel like a Dwarf, the useless one, Sleepy.

* Rosa Parks: okay, before we get to the heavy Civil Rights stuff, can we just gab sister to sister? that is one HOT earcuff you got on, woman!
Doctor: i know, right?
Rosa: *tilts head* it is just so feminine.
Doctor: yeah. i still have no idea how to be a woman but i instinctively recognized i needed some bling for my ear here.
Rosa: holla at me if you ever need me to sew something on that for you.
Dcotor: thanks, fam. the chain on it keeps getting wrapped around telephone poles.

* the Doctor gets on top of the bus and starts singing "Come together...right now...over me..."
Yas: we'll work on the song for the ending.
Graham: i know why there's so much focus on a bus, hint-hint...
the Doctor points to her shapely nose.

* bus driver: get to the back of the bus!
Rosa: you know i can take you, nigga. right? like i can physically take you in a fight. i was raised on barbrawls, son, bare fists and sewing needles for fingernails, blood.

* Doctor: i'm detecting a lot of arc energy.
Ryan: IRON MAN!!!

* neanderthal: stop clutching my white wife, blackie!
Ryan: i'd sock you but i use my sock for better things.
Graham: that's my grandson.
neanderthal: you Brits are fucked! no wonder we left!
Graham: you realize that was a temporary restraining order, right? the Queen can rescind the piece of paper anytime she wants! you should drink more tea, it'd calm you down.

* waitress: *twang* we don't serve your kind round these parts.
Doctor: is it the ear cuff? you think i'm gay, don't you?
Graham: whatevs as the kids say. your slop isn't worth these prices. i thought we were actually at a Frontier stop at Disneyland when i saw the prices.

* Whitey Wizard: the TARDIS must be going-out-of-business, i can't open its door.
Doctor: i got it from Sears.
Whitey: no matter, i will liquidate all of history to suit my ends like a sale. damn! my toy gun says Fisher Price, i thought it was a Swedish label like IKEA. like Isla Fisher.

* Doctor: what's the combination for these locks?
Graham: the password is password. what's that buzzing sound?
Doctor: this sonic screwdriver can be ANYTHING. including my trusty vibrator.

* Doctor: whoa, mack! slow down, jack! move your face away from mine! i can feel your stinky breath on my lips and it's hot and i don't want it to be!
Whitey Wizard: you like my beard?
Doctor: dammit, you're hot as hell but you're racist so *she closes her eyes and plugs her ears* la la la la la la i can't hear you! can't hear your racist words!
Whitey: look into my eyes.
Doctor: NO, they're dreamy! seriously tho, are you a male model or something?
Whitey: yeah, probably.

* Doctor: you are quite the strange monster-of-the-week.
Whitey: all Monsters on all shows are metaphors for the evil of Man.
Doctor: let's see i mean you're this white very-young man who has already committed atrocities that only the likes of old-geezer dictators would have the time to collect the kills. and are you human or an alien?
Whitey: that's the central question of our time...
Doctor: cos you were banished to a maximum-security prison in space? where all manner of atrocities are visited upon you happily and gleefully from the public. you are made to undergo banned surgical procedures to keep you from orgasming every time you kill. or forcing you to wave hello every time you see a black woman and her white husband walk down the street. or something? do i have that about right?
Whitey: right is the only way.
Doctor: but did you genocide whole swaths of fellow Earthlings or aliens? aliens who were black? don't tell me you're young Hitler and this was just your appetizer and this is another Hitler-as-a-baby conundrum again.
Whitey: oh baby this is getting me hot.
Doctor: don't do that.

* Yas: so what are we supposed to do together just the two of us holed up in a bathroom hiding from rampant systemic societal racism?
Ryan: what any young able-bodied hot-blooded Americans uh Brits would do together in a  curtainless shower and bidet.
Yas: we are proper fit and are gonna kiss in the last episode of this series, ya reckon?
Ryan: aye. but who's gonna kiss whom first? who's gonna take charge? i swear i've only looked at your arse by accident cos it was so big when you were walking down the street in front of me that one time.................................it's gonna be you of course, you're gonna kiss me first...
Yas smiles sexily.

* sheriff: not all sheriffs in Alabama are racist...but we are all white...
Graham: don't care had sex.
Doctor: kindly remove your hand from off my Gallagher-sweatered shoulderbone, Companion!
Graham: can i call you Doc when we're doing the S and the M?
Doctor: safe word? i'm new to all you blokes and your sick games. how bout i paint the word on the motel wall like i'm Banksy. i AM Banksy by the way.
Graham: oh yeah? prove it!
the Dcotor shreds Graham's bus-driver license in her portable paper-shredder on her ear cuff.

* Ryan: don't let them win, that's what nan always said.
Yas: smart woman. let me beat the shit outta them next time, i'm trained in such matters. we had a black Leader named Obama, that's proper change.
Ryan: keep the change, i want to be a millionaire. i'm a celebrity get me off this island.
Yas: slumdog. no one knows what the next 50 years will bring...
Ryan: let's not think about that, i want to just think of the last Leader, i want to remain in my nostalgia bubble. and that game show with the British librarian lady, remember her?
Yas: you are my weakest link and i love you.
Doctor: i think that's cool that you kids refer to the American President as the World Leader. even though technically I am the World Leader.

* Ryan: okay, this looks really bad, but i'm not stalking you. one day i will be your first Instagram follower.
Rosa: you know how to save coffee? mine always tastes like tea.
Ryan: what's with the smoking punch? i knew it, this secret meeting is a coven, you're all witches!
Rosa: nah, it's just that Halloween is comin' up close...
Ryan: whoa! who is this? let me shake your hand firmly with my bad hand...
Rosa: that's Martin Luther King. NOT Martin Luther.
Ryan: i knew i should have paid attention to American history in my British school.

* Ryan: blood, this is the end of the line for you. you're living in the past.
Whitey: no, apparently i'm living in the future. history is not made bigly, it's made in small gestures. i just need a nudge in my right direction.
Ryan: the arc-energy of history is long, but it bends towards justice.
Whitey: then how do you explain this current administration? my side won.
Ryan: look, let's just see how the Midterms shape out...

* Doctor: CONGRATS, pet! you've won an all-expenses-paid trip to Pat Sajak's mansion in the Hollywood Hills! take a break and breather from these insane times we're living in now.
busdriver: don't you mean Hollyweird? i don't trust a man named Pat, that's a woman's name.
Doctor: Elvis will be there! he won't be singing, he'll be eating your wife's lunch, but he'll be there.
driver: i'll be sure to make the little woman pack a lunch of peanut-butter-and-fried-banana sandwiches. hey, don't tell the missus but i like dressing up in Neil Diamond's clothes. Neil is my favorite Elvis impersonator.
Doctor: that's not Neil, dear, that's just women's clothes. that's not pants, that's a glittery bodice.

* Ryan: anything bite?
racist busdriver: get those teeth away from me, boy!
Graham: you know there's a nice cute lesbian woman who comes to fish here every afternoon about this time right where you're squatting.
Ryan: Rachel Maddow is proper fit.
driver: oh fuck that, you can have the lake! i'm gonna squat on this sit-in!

* Ryan: hey angry old white people walking down the street! wouldn't you rather want to take a bus to the concert? here's the flyer i'm fucking Graham Norton now, mad.
couple: what's the concert?
Ryan: Elton John!
couple: eh.

* Whitey: luckily, this laser gun of mine doubles as a fidget spinner.
Whitey accidentally shoots himself out of existence.
Ryan: finally i'm alone, now i can sneak the Doctor's sonic into my pocket. i use it as a vape cig, shh, don't tell anyone, kids.

* Rosa: i sewed the first American flag. i invented the computer. i didn't complete college like Bill Gates. but you don't read about that in your history books.
Yas: i want to run the world.
Rosa: like Madonna?
Yas: no, like President World Leader.
Rosa: what are you?
Yas: OTHER like you. i'm a cop.
Rosa: the fuck!? why!?

* Doctor: i'm afraid we have to stay onboard the bus and witness history.
Graham: i really just wanted to drive this bus.
Rosa: don't you cops have something better to do? like voter suppression in the Deep South. you're gonna pay for your sins, you're gonna be parodied on The Boondocks someday.
cops: just following our Nazi orders, ma'am.
Rosa: imma stick my sewing needle up yo dicks.
Doctor: don't worry, Rosa, the minute they cuff you i'll cuff them with my ear cuff.

* Doctor: Rosa Parks changed the universe, there's even an asteroid named after her..........there's an asteroid named after Whitey Wizard, too, the one that destroyed the dinosaurs...

* i never knew Who used to be educational. it would have been nice to get the ol' tv-on-a-rocking chair wheeled out in front of my '80s Catholic grade school and watch Doctor Who instead of class one rainy Friday afternoon.

* you know, i'm surprised by how much this episode affected me, the more i thought about it the next day. i thought it would be cheesy, and the gospel-tinged "And We Rise Up" song at the end starts off cheesy, but it got to me. welling. willing. and i'm not even black. but i've always been mistaken for black so i do feel like i'm de-facto in the struggle to save humanity from the forces of evil, you know?

* call me sexist but this wouldn't have worked with someone other than Jodie. i mean imagine the exact same story and exact same cast but with Capaldi. see? there's something ineffable about maternal energy.

* yeah, that "And We Rise Up" song, i knew it was familiar and familial, i knew i heard it before. and boy was it effective as the end-credits scroll stinger song. from that short-lived NBC series Rise about that teacher who gives up his soul and fame and fortune and showers to instill a hardline belief into the hearts of faltering theatre geeks at a football high-school. got to me. i guess that series failed long before it should have cos nobody took that guy from The Office seriously and were wondering where the laughs were hiding. he's really pushing hard with the grimdark, now trying to be Kiefer. there's only one Kiefer, one man with that name in this entire earth. we're all waiting to laugh when Kiefer Krasinski sets off that bomb.