The Doctor pops up in Lindy’s Bubble to warn her about the creatures, but Lindy doesn’t want to know, and blocks him. Ruby has better luck getting through, showering Lindy with compliments until she agrees to look beyond the Bubble, where she sees a co-worker’s wiggling legs disappearing inside one of the creatures as he’s consumed whole.
Yet when Lindy finally switches off her Bubble and comes face to face with the monsters, they ignore her, and the Doctor wants to know why. Lindy calls up her “mummy” back on Homeworld and Ruby instantly recognizes her — as will the show’s regular viewers: She is played by the actor Susan Twist, who has been making mysterious cameo appearances throughout the episodes. But the Doctor extinguishes any hope that her significance will be explained just yet. “We’ll save that for later,” he says.
Back in her Bubble, and terrified, Lindy gathers her dwindling circle of friends. A monster gobbles up one of the group while the others watch in horror, and Lindy begrudgingly gives the Doctor the floor. He explains that there is a river running beneath Finetime that they can use to escape, but Lindy’s Dot glitches when he tells her where the access point is. “You still have battery problems?” Ruby screams, in comic disbelief.
Lindy wobbles out into the world once more, and is rescued from walking right into a monsters’ trap by Ricky September (Tom Rhys Harries), a top influencer and heartthrob. She is naturally thrilled to be in Ricky’s orbit, but when she gushes, “I thought this was the worst day of my life, but maybe it’s the best,” Ricky points out that the creatures are still eating people alive. The exchange is played for laughs, but foreshadows darkness to come.
After charging their Dots, the pair escapes underground, where Lindy reconnects with the Doctor and Ruby. Soon, the Doctor realizes that the monsters are working their way through Finetime’s residents in alphabetical order, by last name — and Lindy Pepper-Bean is next on their list. The Dot has become sentient, the Doctor has worked out (though how is never quite explained), and after years of listening to Lindy and her friends vapidly yapping, it has turned on them. First, it created the monsters. Now, it just wants destruction.
