Warning: Spoilers ahead for Doctor Who season 15, episode 4, "Lucky Day."Doctor Who's Doctor-lite episodes, Jonah Hauer-King's Conrad Clark makes his debut as a problematic podcast host with a secret agenda.

At first, Ruby's attitude towards Conrad is very professional, if not a little wary of sharing secrets about the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa). Eventually, the pair become an item, although Conrad's deceptive motivations are very far from romance. While the twist that Conrad is actually the episode's primary villain is well executed, taking both Ruby and the audience by surprise, "Lucky Day" provides a subtle clue in its opening moments that foreshadow Conrad's ruse.

Doctor Who Season 15, Episode 4's Opening Scene Tells You Conrad Can't Be Trusted

Conrad's mother warns the audience about the coming twist regarding her son

As part of their efforts to give the Vindicator all the data it needs to help the TARDIS return to May 24, the Doctor and Belinda (Varada Sethu) land on the human homeworld in 2007 at the beginning of "Lucky Day." The only character they're shown to interact with is a much younger version of Conrad, who sees the TARDIS appear out of nowhere and interacts with the Doctor and his companion. When he returns to tell his mother about the encounter, she says, "How many times, Conrad? Enough with the lies."

Although it's tricky to pick up on this at the time, given the context of the exchange, Doctor Who is laying the groundwork for Conrad's larger storyline.

Because the audience knows that Conrad is telling the truth, they immediately side with the young character and become frustrated with his mother doubting him. However, Conrad's mother seems to reveal that Conrad has a history of deception, which is exactly what the entirety of the present-day scenes in "Lucky Day" are based around. Although it's tricky to pick up on this at the time, given the context of the exchange, Doctor Who is laying the groundwork for Conrad's larger storyline.

Conrad's Tragic Past Perhaps Explains Why He Craves Power

Ruby's boyfriend-turned-adversary didn't seem to have a good childhood

In isolation, the sentiment uttered by Conrad's mother doesn't sound all that unreasonable. Then, when the fact that she hits him as she says it is taken into , Doctor Who starts to paint a sad picture of Conrad's early home life. The exact nature of the "lies" he has told his mother before isn't shared, but Conrad may have long been dismissed for reasonable points of view or experiences that his mother just doesn't agree with or believe. If so, then years of this could have contributed to why Conrad turned out the way he did.

Conrad's conspiracy theory movement is called Think Tank, and his podcast is called Lucky Day.

To reclaim the attention and power he feels he lacked as a child, it's not unreasonable to assume that Conrad started to tell taller and taller tales as he grew up, and eventually found a community of people who bought into his conspiracies. Receiving praise and generally positive for his new approach to "the truth" quickly turned toxic, and he became the leader of a movement that revered his destructively alternative way of thinking. This isn't confirmed in Doctor Who's "Lucky Day," but it is something Ruby Sunday raises as a possibility in the episode.