Doctor Who: Look for the twist inside the twist at the ending of 'The Devil's Chord'

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No, your eyes didn’t deceive you: the final three minutes of Doctor Who’s second episode in the new season, ‘The Devil’s Chord,’ is indeed a full-on musical number hooked around a genuinely terrible pun… but it’s a pun that pays off, for those paying attention for the whole sequence.

Be warned: Spoilers follow for ‘The Devil’s Chord,’ S1 E2 of Doctor Who on BBC iPlayer in the UK, and Disney+ internationally!

After vanquishing the Maestro (Jinkx Monsoon) at the end of the episode with the help of an otherwise despondent John Lennon, the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) tells Ruby (Millie Gibson) that in all of his adventures, “there’s always a twist in the end”… which leads into a full-on musical sequence complete with brand-new song, in which the 1960s come back alive with everyone twisting — of course! — and singing that there is, indeed, always a twist at the end.

There’s more to the song that just the atemporal outfits, though. (Really, those fashions arrived two or three years after the episode’s 1963 setting, let’s be honest. We’ll let everyone involved away with it, though; after all, it’s a musical number.) Because, there really is a twist in the middle of… the twist. It’s very clearly seen that Henry Arbinger (Kit Rakusen) is skulking around, unimpressed by what is unfolding around him… which means that the Maestro really isn’t as gone as it initially seemed. The real question is, will we see her again this season, or is this an open-ended threat that the show can pick up at any point in the future?

The answer to that is, as we all know, to keep our eyes on Doctor Who as the season continues, with new episodes weekly on Disney+, or, in the UK, the BBC.

(And, no, there's no official credit for the writers of 'There's Always A Twist At The End,' but we suspect it's the same people behind the Goblins' song from the Christmas Special: scriptwriter Russell T. Davies and composer Murray Gold, the latter of whom even appears in the episode...)

If you want to start watching Doctor Who and don't know where to start, check out our handy Doctor Who watch guide. Or maybe you're already finished with the show - We've got the perfect Ten shows to watch when you're done watching Doctor Who guide for you too. If you're already heads over heels for the Fifteenth Doctor and want to learn more about the actor playing him, check out what he's been in before here. Or maybe you just need to figure out how the new series numbering is going to work (Are there really gonna be two series 1s? Yes.) - if so, this is the explainer you want.