Doctor Who Season 14 certainly brought us plenty of questions. The Season 14 finale brought some answers, but not about Mrs. Flood.
At the end of the episode, she stood on top of the flat rooftop in a white coat with a hood, an umbrella, and a bag. There was a Mary Poppins look to her, as she shared that the story of The Church on Ruby Road had come to an end.
Mrs. Flood broke the fourth wall in the Christmas Day 2023 special to ask us if we’d never seen a TARDIS before, making it clear she knows The Doctor. Then it looked like she was one of Sutekh’s minions in the penultimate episode, only to reveal that she would die in the dust as well. Then she was brought back with everyone else, before disappearing and narrating the final moments of the Doctor Who Season 14 finale.
Is Mrs. Flood someone from Classic Doctor Who?
While there was a Mary Poppins look (and we all know Mary Poppins has to be a Time Lord!), the costume Mrs. Flood wore was also reminiscent of a costume from the Classic Who. It wasn’t completely the same, but it matched an outfit Romana wore during the Classic series.
Romana was another Time Lord who travelled with the Fourth Doctor. It’s worth noting that Sutekh also came up at the time of the Fourth Doctor, and we saw the Fourth Doctor’s scarf in that mash of TARDISes in the Season 14 finale.
Romana wore the white cloak with fur hood when she first met The Doctor in the 1978 episode titled “The Ribos Operation.” She would choose to travel with Four, going through a regeneration herself. Then in the 1981 serial “Warrior’s Gate,” she decided to leave Four and face against the Tharil, who enslaved people. She wanted to save them.
Fifteen has always said that he is the only Time Lord. During “The Devil’s Chord” he told Ruby about the genocide of the Time Lords, but what if others have survived? Is it possible that Romana regenerated, and is now living as Mrs. Flood. It would make sense to regenerate into someone older to make it look like she was an unassuming woman.
Where is her TARDIS? How is she getting around? Well, the TARDIS is supposed to change looks to fit in with something in the time period. The Doctor’s has just gotten stuck as a police box, but other TARDISes out there could still glamour. Maybe it’s the bag, bringing that Mary Poppins element to the story. Or maybe she stored it elsewhere and was going to it. She may not even have one considering Romana’s storyline.
Russell T. Davis has used a lot from the classic series in Doctor Who Season 14. With the theories of Susan, The Doctor’s granddaughter coming into the story, it would be a great twist to bring back Romana.