Warning! The following contains SPOILERS for the Doctor Who episode “The Devil’s Chord.” Check out the episode with a Disney+ subscription and read at your own risk!
Doctor Who kicked off Season 14 with a bang, and between the Space Babies and The Beatles that only sort of resembled the real-life band, viewers met a truly fantastic villain. Jinkx Monsoon’s Maestro made their debut, and despite my suspicions that they’d be playing The Master in disguise, I was wrong. I asked Monsoon about her reaction to the speculation Maestro was the iconic villain and got her honest response on all the theories.
Jinkx Monsoon was gracious enough to speak to CinemaBlend about her performance on Doctor Who,and playing the god-like child of Neil Patrick Harris’ Toymaker. It turned out Maestro wasn’t The Master in disguise, but it showed they were almost more deadly with their command over music, which made The Doctor shiver with fear. It was a character as awesome as the phenomenal performance, but I wondered how Monsoon felt about the world thinking she’d play such an important character to the franchise and got a response from the Season 14 cast member:
That was something I saw a hypothesis of, and frankly, I was flattered. The Master is such an important character. And having been played by one of my favorite actors currently working and of all time Michelle Gomez, you know, I was just flattered to be put in the same category. But I knew that I was something else but something. equally as fascinating.
Extra credit to Jinkx Monsoon for the reference to Michelle Gomez, because I know there are many Doctor Who fans who frequently wonder whether her incarnation of The Master, Missy, will make her way her way back to the Whoniverse. The last we heard about The Master, Toymaker revealed in the 60th-anniversary special that he turned him into one of his gold teeth after defeating him.
Let’s finally put this rumor to bed.
As such, I can see why people assumed The Maestro could be The Master in disguise, as the character is always crafty when it comes to plotting an escape and hiding in plain sight. Remember when Doctor Who fans were blindsided by the insane reveal he was the agent helping The Doctor during Jodie Whittaker’s run?
Maestro, however, is something different, and that’s bad news for The Doctor. The Time Lord confessed to Ruby Sunday that he was legitimately afraid of the villain during their encounter, mainly because he felt he had little chance of fighting off their immense power head-on. Ultimately, he, Ruby and The Beatles were able to banish the evil music maker, but we were left with the tease that there are others equally as strong waiting for The Doctor as part of the Pantheon. Can The Doctor thrive and take on other god-like entities and the mysterious One Who Waits? I guess we’ll find out!
Doctor Who premieres new episodes on Disney+ on Fridays at 7:00 p.m. ET. As the season goes on, stick with CinemaBlend for more speculation about the enemies The Doctor and Ruby will face and hopefully more thoughts about who the mysterious Mrs. Flood actually is.