The maggot isn't the only one sneaking up on Jo. Hinks comes in and gets got by the maggot instead of her. The maggot then escapes, leaving only a trail of green slime behind. The Doctor and Professor Jones team up to analyse it, while Jo asks them stupid questions on behalf of the audience.
The Brigadier has been ordered by Stevens to blow up the mine, although it is the sort of thing he would have probably done anyway. The Doctor tries to change Stevens's mind, but it seems to have the opposite effect on Stevens and he says
"You have convinced me that you are an arrant sensation monger, a political hothead, and a scientific charlatan. Giant maggots indeed!"
Elgin comes in with Mike Yates, who are both pretending to side with Stevens for now. Yates isn't wearing his uniform, because he is in disguise as a civilian and is pretending to have come from "the Ministry." So a bit like the disguise the Master used back in The Dæmons, I think?
Back at the mine, Jo says to the Brigadier
"No, no, you can't."
Or at least I think that's what she says, after all Jo has been insubordinate to her commanding officer already in this story. The Brigadier proves that he can when he does blow the mine up.
Back at the Nuthutch, the Brigadier protests that, despite all the evidence to the contrary so far this season,
"I'm not such a dunderhead as you all seem to think."
because he has arranged for Mike Yates to infiltrate Global Chemicals. However, he soon undermines (so to speak) his statement when he follows it up with
"We'll see no more of those creepy-crawlies, you mark my words."
Even the incidental music knows how to react to this, giving the Brigadier a 'wah-wah-wah' in response.
Maggots are getting inside Global Chemicals. Elgin sees them and tells Stevens, mistaikenly thinking that Stevens will want to do something about it. Stevens takes out the headset and says
"Don't worry. I won't hurt you."
in a sinister manner that means he means the opposite of what he said. We don't stay to see what happens next, but we can all guess it means Elgin is about to get hypno-eyesed.
The mine being blowed up utterly fails to stop the maggots escaping, and soon they are all over the ground. The Brigadier and Benton surround them with UNIT soldiers.
They try shooting the maggots, but the Brigadier is once again left disappointed. The Doctor thinks the solution will be found in the "oil waste" produced by Global Chemicals, which he and Jones believe was the cause of the maggots' "atavistic mutation."
The only place they could get some of the waste would be from the Global Chemicals base, but even Mike Yates (who is still there and managing to avoid suspicion so far) can't sneak any out for them. He warns the Doctor they have increased security, but the Doctor is still determined to stealth in.
He disguises himself as a milkmanny to get past the guards - pretty simple stuff compared with that time he invented the Trojan Horse stratagem. When they finally realise the milkmanny is the Doctor really, he hides in a cupboard where he changes into another disguise.
At the Nuthutch, Jo is helping Jones do science on the maggot slime when she does another clumsor and knocks fungus all over the experiment. She then decides to go out and try to capture a maggot on her own, which can't possibly be a bad idea, mew.
The Doctor, now disguised as a cleaner, meets up with Mike Yates. After a bit of komedy banter based around the Doctor's choice of disguise, Yates tells the Doctor that everything important is on the "top floor" of the base, and so is the mysterious boss who, Yates has found out, Stevens "takes his instructions from."
Jones discovers that Jo's clumsorness has accidentally (and very conveniently) revealed the cure for turning bright green and ded. The Brigadier, having failed to blow up the problem earlier in the episode, decides that where he went wrong was in not blowing it up enough. He is going to get the RAF to bomb the maggots back into the egg stage. But both Jones and the Brigadier's sub-plots will have to wait for the next episode, because meanwhile...
The Doctor follows Yates's directions to get to the top floor. There he finds a control room, full of '70s-looking computers. He hears the voice of the mysterious boss.
"Who are you? Where are you?"
he asks, obviously confused that it hasn't turned out to be the Master who was behind it all. Viewers in 1973 may have been similarly expecting this to be the twist, given that it was the Master who was the baddy in the two previous season-ending stories, both by the same writers. Instead the Doctor gets the response
"You disappoint me, Doctor. I should have thought you'd have guessed. I am the boss. I am all around you."
"Exactly. I am the computer."
This is a great cliffhanger. The Doctor may be in no immediate jeopardy, but the revelation by itself is strong enough to take us into the end credits.
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