He also praised Clara's plot twist, by stating "The episode’s greatest triumph in this area is what was done with Clara, which is shocking on the first viewing and masterful on a second". Scott Collura of IGN also praised the episode, awarding it a score of 7.8, deemed as a "Good" score. He particularly praised the character of Osgood in the episode and the "refugee subtext", while stating that it "poses some thought-provoking questions". Kaite Welsh of "IndieWire" highly acclaimed the episode, awarding it a grade of A++, the highest grade possible. Calling the episode a "classic", she further said that it "more than lives up to the hype, with some stellar political commentary, brilliant performances and some very creepy child actors". She further praised the episode's political themes by saying "The parallels between immigration debates aren't exactly subtle here, but they're so well-drawn it's impossible to mind". Alasdair Wilkins of The A.V. Club also enjoyed the episode, awarding it a B+ grade. He said that the episode "is methodical in how it paces the setup for next week's story... But no matter, because there are still plenty of some standout scenes here, in particular Hitchley's standoff with his mother in front of the church". He closed his review by saying "the only real questions to answer are does this episode generate anticipation for next week, and does this episode position “The Zygon Inversion” to go to places and explore things it couldn’t reach if it weren’t the back half of a two-parter? I’d say yes on both counts".