Azal uses the power of CSO to become giant again. Bok comes to life again and pewpewpews Yates's gun - presumably Bok can't make him disappear because he's a regular character. Jo gets captured and Yates gets knocked out by some cultists.
Outside, even though the Doctor is aware that they're "facing the greatest danger the world has ever known," he still takes the time to answer Miss Hawthorne's question:
"But your car? How did you make it move by itself?He shows them the remote control, and Benton exclaims
"Science, not sorcery, Miss Hawthorne."
"I'll be blowed."
It's time for some more exposition, as the Doctor explains to the villagers how the Master's "sorcery" is also science.
"Well, the emotions of a group of ordinary human beings generate a tremendous charge of psychokinetic energy. This the Master channels for his own purpose."Well that's her put in her place then. I'm only surprised the Doctor didn't tell her to get out of his eyeline while he was at it, mew.
"But that is magic. That's precisely what black magic is!"
"No, Miss Hawthorne, I'm afraid not."
Yates escapes from the church and reaches the Doctor with news of what has happened in the cavern. The Master has decided to sacrifice Jo instead of his cock (lol) so has made her dress up in his idea of a proper sacrifice costume. He also sends Bok out to stop the Doctor or anybody else from coming to the cavern.
The Doctor's device finally makes a hole in the heat barrier to let the Brigadier and the rest of UNIT through. At the same time it also gives Azal and Bok sore heads. After all the UNIT mannys are through the barrier, the machine blows up with the sound of a stock thunderclap, which makes this scarier than it needed to be but may be a subtle indication that Azal was responsible.
The Doctor runs past Bok before he recovers from his headache. As soon as the Doctor arrives in the cavern the Master says
"Ah, Doctor, I've been expecting you."
and there's not a longcat on the shelf wouldn't volunteer to be his cat at this most Bond-villainesque of lines, purr.
The Brigadier has been trying to get into the main plot for four whole episodes, and he finally arrives to deliver the most iconic moment of his career. Yates demonstrates how Bok is standing guard and will disappear anything that comes too near, to which the Brigadier says
"Yes, I see what you mean. Never mind, we'll soon fix him. Jenkins!"
"Sir?"
"Chap with the wings there. Five rounds rapid."
Somewhat less iconic is what happens next, as the rest of the UNIT mannys all try to shoot Bok, with the same lack of effect as Jenkins's effort. Benton blows Bok up with a bazooka, but Bok reforms himself like a bargain-basement T1000 by means of reversing the film footage.
The Doctor tries to bluff Azal that he has a second device ready to give Azal another headache, but Azal sees through this immediately. The Master tries to order Azal to kill the Doctor, but Azal says
"I command. I do not obey."
He's a bit like a cat really.
Next the Doctor tries to persuade him to
"Leave humanity alone. Just go. You've done enough harm."Oops, the Doctor's argument seems to have backfired. Azal should have given knowledge to Cats instead of Man(nys), we would have used the power wisely: to make more Blakes 7 of course.
"We gave knowledge to Man."
"You certainly did. Thanks to you Man can now blow up the world and he probably will. He can poison the water and the very air he breathes - he's already started. He can..."
"Enough! Is Man such a failure then? Shall I destroy him?"
Azal decides to give his power to the Doctor anyway (because he is like a cat) but the Doctor doesn't want it (because he is also like a cat).
When the Doctor turns him down, Azal decides to give his power to the Master. But first he decides to kill the Doctor with his lightning, like he's the Evil Emperor at the end of Return of the Jedi. Jo tries to self-sacrifice, and this confuses Azal so much that he blows himself up.
Confused Azal is confused.
The Doctor explains that "Azal couldn't face an act as irrational and as illogical as [Jo] being prepared to give up her life for me," and "all his power was turned against himself. You might say he blew a fuse."
This is the most oft-criticised part of The Dæmons, that this resolution to the plot comes out of nowhere, and I have to agree that there is a lack of any foreshadowing that this was all that was required to defeat the baddys. However there is a certain logic and internal consistency to it, in that Azal (and the alien Dæmons in general) have been presented to us as the inspiration for all the evil demons in mannys' legends, and so it makes a kind of sense that they would be overcome by a good and noble act that is the opposite of what their legendary counterparts might do.
It's just a shame that the Doctor's explanation - the one given on-screen - doesn't say anything like this.
Everybody in the cavern runs outside before the church runs out of ontological inertia and blows up in sympathy with Azal. Bok turns back into a statue and the Brigadier realises that he has come all this way to accomplish basically bugger all.
Benton captures the Master for a moment, but he gets distracted and the Master tries to get away in Bessie. But, as has been established twice now over the course of the story, the Doctor can take control of Bessie using his remote control - nobody can complain that wasn't properly foreshadowed!
The Doctor says
"I want to deal with him later."
(Was this the line that launched a thousand ships?)
The Master replies:
"Do you, Doctor? You always were an optimist, weren't you?"
Even captured, he's still the coolest character in this season. The villagers boo him as he is being taken away by UNIT soldiers, but you can tell they don't mean it really.
Time for a komedy end bit: Miss Hawthorne asks Benton to "do the fertility dance" with her, and I'm sure that this is both literal and a clear euphemism at the same time. Jo asks the Doctor to join in the dance too, which at least could be interpreted a bit more innocently if you were so inclined. Then Mike Yates realises that this means the only named character left for him to dance with is the Brigadier, and with a 'what the hell, nothing ventured...' attitude asks
"Fancy a dance, Brigadier?"
"It's kind of you, Captain Yates, but I think I'd rather have a pint."
which is a diplomatic response, and doesn't close the door on Yates completely. The Brigadier came all the way to Devil's End for some action, after all...
What's so good about The Dæmons?
While Roger Delgado as the Master is certainly still a contributing factor to the greatness of The Dæmons, he can't be given the cat's share of the plaudits in the same way as he can for most of season eight so far.
This is because The Dæmons is very much an ensemble piece, with the various plot threads shared between members of the 'UNIT Family' with everyone getting to do something. As well as the Doctor and Jo, we have Yates and Benton acting like full Doctor Who Companions for much of the story, contributing both on their own and as part of the group. This approach to the main characters in the story culminates with the Brigadier - arguably the least well-served for things to do out of the regulars - achieving an absolutely iconic moment for his character.
The Master, meanwhile, is kept separate from the rest of the UNIT Family (which he has earned his honorary place in by his being in all the stories of this season, which is more than Yates or Benton can claim) for most of the story, only sharing three scenes with any of them, and only two with the Doctor (these are: the scene where Yates and Jo get captured; the climactic confrontation with Azal in the cavern; and the scene of his getting captured in Bessie).
Up until this point he had plenty of scenes, but they were shared either with villagers and henchmannys to begin with, or Azal once we passed the middle of the story. What it means, though, is that this is the first Master story where he at no point teams up with the Doctor, however briefly. Perhaps this is for the best - after all, the Master offered the Doctor "a half-share in the universe" when they last met, so it could well be the writers thought they could not top that here. But it seems to me a shame that they didn't manage to make it five out of five.
The complete UNIT Family will be together only once more after The Dæmons, in season nine's final story The Time Monster. While a very fun story in its own right, it doesn't have the same level of memorable moments and iconic status as The Dæmons, which is why I would consider this story the archetypical example of the UNIT era.
Scary face!
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