so that finally happened.
I am totally 100% fine with this.
In that finally Amy and Rory are gone, and they actually had one of the nicer exits in Who history, and at least they got a happy ending. Because even though I had a shit-ton of issues with them and their relationship and their characterization throughout the show, I still wanted them to have a fitting exit. Which they had.
Even if it still doesn't make an awful lot of sense. The tombstone still existing, one last survivor Angel, okay, whatevs.
The thing that doesn't make this at all sad or tragic -- as I'm sure Moffat was intending and a lot of the Pond stans will feel -- is that Amy and Rory have been preparing to leave the Doctor and have a real, average life for the entire season. They've had years canonically to adjust to living a more ordinary life, and while Amy loved the Doctor and didn't want to leave him, I think that was more because of her motherly instinct and long history with him. She didn't want to fully abandon the Doctor because she knew how bad things could get when he traveled alone; she wanted to have adventures with him every time he popped back up because she felt that doing so was protecting and helping him as much as having fun for her own sake. And he's literally been a part of her life since she was wee. It can be hard to move on and say goodbye for good to someone who has been there (more or less) since you were a child.
As for River's goodbye to Amy: I almost got more verklempt over that than anything, because this episode really highlighted how hard it is for River to be in love with someone as impossible as the Doctor. She totally supported Amy's decision to go back in the past to be with Rory, because she knew her mother and father could have the sort of life and marriage that she'll never be able to have with the Doctor. They could grow old and die together, share their lives completely. And just as the Doctor lamented that he could never have such a life in "The Family of Blood/Human Nature" two-parter, that's also true of River.
When the Doctor healed River's wrist and kissed it, tho. ;___;
River in THAT DRESS, HUMMANA HUMMANA.
Rory's acknowledgement that he died a lot, lol.
The whole opening with the private eye was grrrreat. That guy had a very J.R. Bourne face, me gusta.
So much pretty cinematography, but I feel like the camera never lingered long enough for us to fully appreciate it. That short moment when Amy and the Doctor are about to go into the TARDIS and are standing on the rocky tideline -- GORGEOUS.
That's pretty much all of the feels and thoughts I have on this right now, after just finishing it the one time.
NOW BRING ON THE ERA OF OSWALD AND THE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL.