Doctor Who Series 8 Episode 5: Time Heist Recap With Spoilers

The episode begins with the Doctor trying to convince Clara to go somewhere with him, but she already has plans to meet Danny Pink for a date. Clara is on her way out the door when the phone on the TARDIS begins to ring. The Doctor answers the phone and he and Clara suddenly find themselves at a table with two strangers, The Doctor gripping a memory worm. Everyone is confused, but a recording plays back all four of them describing themselves and stating that they agreed to the memory wipe of their own free will.

A recording of a figure calling himself The Architect fills the four of them into the fact that they have signed on for a job breaking into the bank of Karabraxos, the most secure bank in the universe. The Architect tells them that they are already on the planet, which is a crime. A team starts banging on the door to take them into custody. The architect gives them a key.

The team of guards contact a Mrs. Delphox, who sent them to take the Doctor and company into custody, but the guards touched the memory worms and forgot what they were doing.

The Doctor takes charge of the situation and questions him and Clara’s two companions. One is a cybernetically enhanced hacker and bank robber, the other a mutant shape shifter. The mutant takes the form of a bank employee and the team walks in. The Doctor wonders where the TARDIS is and why he isn’t using it to rob the bank. They are noticed and the bank goes into lockdown. An alien creature in a prison straightjacket is escorted in by guards. The Doctor doesn’t know what it is, but Mrs. Delphox calls it The Teller. It sniffs out criminal intent in people. He finds someone who is “guilty” in the bank and melts the person’s brain.

The Doctor’s team enter a safety deposit box room. Mrs. Delphox is informed that the guilty man they caught earlier was not their true target. The Doctor realizes that they’re meant to blow up the floor in the safety deposit room. None of them are convinced they survive and begin doubting the Doctor, but the Doctor notes that there must be something extremely worthwhile in the bank for them to all have signed on for the job.

The bomb they were given shifts the molecules of the floor and they go inside. They find a case left by the Architect, which suggests that the Architect broke in prior to this excursion. The hacker opens up the case and they find some objects they don’t recognize. The hacker’s batteries are being drained, so he interfaces with a console in the bank. The hacker tells Clara the he is able to delete his own memories. He deleted his friends and families in order to protect them when he interrogated in prison.

The mutant calls the Doctor out for lying about not knowing what the objects in the case were. He says they’re an exit strategy, of sorts. They come upon cells and find the guilty man from earlier chained up with his caved in brain.

They crawl through the vents and end up in the room were the Teller is kept in a case. The Teller awakens and the Doctor tells them not to move, that the Teller is dormant in force hibernation. They need to keep their minds blank so that the Teller doesn’t latch on. The Teller wakes and they try to run, but the Teller has gotten ahold of the mutant. She asks for one of the “exit strategies.” She asks the Doctor to kill the Teller, but he says he can’t make that promise. The mutant uses the exit strategy to kill herself.

The remaining three go further into the bank and find another case from the Architect. Meanwhile, Mrs. Delphox releases the Teller into the tunnels. The hacker interfaces with the Architect’s case, downloading info on how to break a vault’s encoded locks. The Teller is locking onto them. The Doctor leaves the Hacker with one of the exit strategies and they all split up.

The hacker sets the vault to unlock and runs. Clara sense the Teller and tries to keep her mind clear. Clara tries to run by it, but the Teller locks onto her. The hacker downloads the memories of all the greatest criminals of history in order to attract the Teller’s attention. The Teller comes for him and he uses the exit strategy.

The Doctor and Clara return to the vault and find that it has failed to unlock. The Doctor investigates and finds the last lock still in place. Mrs. Delphox receives a report of a solar storm interfering with the bank’s system. The Doctor realizes that, in order to time the heist with the storm, the Architect must have sent them backwards in time from the future. The vault opens.

The Doctor realizes that the storm is also why he couldn’t’ use the TARDIS to break in. They begin searching for the items that got everyone on board for the mission. The hacker wanted an item capable of rebooting any system. The mutant wanted a gene suppressor. The Teller catches up with them before they can find what they came for.

The Teller brings them to Mrs. Delphox. Mrs. Delphox tells two guards to dispose of them and then leaves with the teller. The guards are revealed to be the mutant and the hacker. The exit strategies were actually teleporters. The Doctor gives them their items. They begin making their way to the private vault where the item the Doctor was to be paid with is stored.

The Doctor and Clara enter the private vault, where the find Karabraxos. Mrs. Delphox is a clone of Karabraxos. She tells Delphox to send down the Teller and then that she is fired. The Doctor realizes something and gives Karabraxos a note that has the TARDIS’ phone number and tells her that he’s a time traveler. The storm begins shaking the bank. Karabraxos takes certain select items and leaves. The Doctor notes that there are 6 teleporters. The Teller arrives and locks onto the Doctor. It jogs the Doctor’s memory.

He remember answering the phone on the TARDIS. It’s Karabraxos. She asks the Doctor to help him with one of her many regrets. The Doctor organizes the heist. He was the architect. He planted the cases when he could still use the TARDIS. He realizes he was here to free the Teller, but could only do so after Karabraxos left. The Teller opens a cell to find his mate. The mission as never a bank heist, but a rescue mission for the Teller’s species.

The Doctor brings the Teller and his mate to a place of solitude and then celebrates with the rest of his heist team on the TARDIS. The Doctor drops them off, one at a time, Clara lastly in time for her date with Danny.