Wait, have I done this already?
Some time ago, I told you why I liked Cass, the doomed pilot of the freighter that crashed into Karn in “Night of the Doctor.” Today I’m going to tell you why I like Cass, the no-nonsense second in command (and then first in command once her CO gets murdered by angry ghosts) of the Drum in “Under the Lake” and “Before the Flood.” In an egregious violation of the One Steve Limit, this is in fact the fourth Cass to appear on screen in Doctor Who. There are also two Cassandras. While it is perhaps possible that all six of these people are a single entity, it wasn’t very likely and we didn’t expect it. This Cass is not only the only one of the six to make it to the end of the episode alive, she’s also the only inhabitant of the Drum to have no last name. Or possibly no first name, as Cass is a perfectly cromulent last name and everybody else goes by theirs. For simplicity’s sake, I am going to assume her full designation is Commander Cassandra Casseiopeia Cass, until someone can get me some official source saying otherwise.
Now that that’s settled, let’s talk about Cass herself. Cass is second in command of the Drum after Moran, as I’ve said, part of the military team assigned there, but in no way fits the trope of military blowhard. Rather, she’s observant, intelligent, willing to take direction but also able to make her own decisions, and fiercely protective of the people under her charge. She’s cool and canny, but never presented as cold. Cass is allowed to have all the emotions, from concern to her crew, to anger, to fear (and, incidentally, the only really good scream of the episode), to affection and love - and the all-important role of calling out the Doctor (and, increasingly, Clara) on their respective BS. She doesn’t fangirl or squee like O'Donnell - she’s a lot more restrained and serious - but still very warm, especially with people she’s clearly close to, like Moran and like Lunn. The Doctor calls her the most intelligent person in the room (after himself) which is pretty high praise, especially since his first reaction was “who is in charge so I know whom to ignore.” Cass is in charge, but the Doctor knows better than to try to ignore her, and in fact relies heavily on her instincts and observations across the episode. She’s the one asking the good questions and providing the good answers, while also doing her best to safeguard her people and being a generally good leader. I don’t know that we’ve seen a military commander this on top of things since Lethbridge-Stewart was a Colonel.
She’s also, incidentally, completely deaf. And more than that - Cass is not only the first deaf character we’ve ever had on Doctor Who, but Sophie Stone is also the…I think second deaf actor on the show. So Cass is a deaf character played by a deaf actress kicking ass and taking names in a story that is not about deafness. She’s not an archetype of deafness or some sort of morality play, she’s a complete person who is also deaf. Which is not to say that her deafness is separate from who she is, which is another easy storytelling mistake to make - it’s definitely part of her character but it is by no means all of her character. We don’t know, of course, whether she’s deaf or Deaf (because the story is not about deafness) and I’m far too tertiary to the Deaf community to be confident making those sorts of claims anyway, but for what it’s worth it’s never treated as a problem to be solved. (I’m just going to use the little d across the board, and hope I do not offend.)
My impression, admittedly as someone who is not part of any of the relevant communities, is that Cass’s deafness is extremely well-treated in the episode. Sometimes it’s an advantage, as when it turns out Cass is better at reading lips than the others due to a lifetime of practice (and note that she still makes mistakes), sometimes it’s a disadvantage, as when she and Clara lose each other in the hallway because it doesn’t occur to Clara to stay in visual contact. Sometimes it’s just there, as when Cass is banging on the chair to get the attention of the others, and other little moments that are not foregrounded at all, but just internally consistent. It’s played for laughs, with gags around translation and bilingualism (treating BSL as a language proper, which of course it is, rather than just a cypher of English), and for drama in that excellent scene where ghost!Moran is coming up behind her dragging the axe, but she doesn’t hear him (although we do). Horror, tragedy and comedy are all made of the tension between what the audience knows and what the characters know, and that whole sequence is just really amazingly cool and effective, from the way they cut out all the sound when we have the close ups on Cass to the fact that we know he’s right there and she doesn’t, to reaching down and feeling the vibrations in the floor. And note, she’s endangered, yes, but she doesn’t end up the victim, she figures it out and runs, and she’s the one who finds Clara again and grabs her hand, pulling her to safety along with her. Even running for her life from an axe murderer, Cass immediately takes charge of the situation and protects the people under her care.
As an aside, another thing I like about Cass is that she’s…not fast. She doesn’t participate in the ghost-trapping run, presumably because she’s (a) in charge and (b) not much of a runner. And she and Lunn are clearly the slowest two people on the base, as evidenced by the fact that they are the ones who get trapped on the wrong side of the base. Lunn also doesn’t outrun the ghosts fast enough to get out of sight. Lunn is not very fast either. But that’s my point - it’s a consistent piece of characterization that has nothing to do with the fact that Cass is also deaf. It’s almost as if real people can have multiple non-interacting properties of their existence.
Speaking of Lunn - how easy would it have been to make Cass the one who is immune to the ghosts? But no, the episode is set up in such a way that the trap is purely visual, making Cass just as susceptible as everyone else. Disability Superpower deftly avoided! Lunn is the one who’s immune instead, and the reason for that is down to Cass’s quick thinking and spot-on intuitions about the danger of the writing on the wall, and the fact that she’s very protective of him generally speaking. And as for that… so on the one hand, the romance kind of comes out of nowhere, but no more so than the pairing between Bennett and O'Donnell. (Is there a reason everyone worthwhile in this story has double letters in their names?) On the other hand it’s really incredibly sweet, and is another aspect of the narrative treating Cass as a character rather than a caricature. And it’s interesting that while we can look back over the story and see tons of examples of Cass being protective or concerned for Lunn, there are next to none the other way around - and that is because Cass is almost never in danger. Cass is always the rescuer, never the victim, and Lunn, for his part, is allowed to be vulnerable. The power dynamic between the two of them is…really unexpected. Sometimes Lunn is treated as just an extension of Cass (even to the extent of some jokes about which one of them he is speaking for) but she is careful to let him make his own decisions, even when she disagrees with them - and this is why he has to make the first move romantically as well. Cass is definitely the one calling the shots, and Lunn wouldn’t know toxic masculinity if it bit him in the face, and more power to them both for that.
Cass is overall a really excellent, really well rounded character in her own right, and excellent representation on top of that, and she is treated respectfully by the characters and the narrative. After Moran is killed, her authority is unquestioned (except by Pritchard, but that’s due to his own self-importance and not anything to do with her). She makes decisions and takes responsibility for them - both the decision to go and the decision to stay later on. No one talks over her or attempts to put words in her mouth, and she in turn notes and considers what other people have to say, without overriding them or asserting her authority unnecessarily. She pays attention and figures things out, notices what needs to be noticed, does nothing rashly but everything decisively. Cass is great - really and truly great. And she’s allowed to be fully a person, an end in herself, not a means to someone else’s ends. A credit to the name of Cass.
