Man this episode is taking forever. Okay, back and finally bored enough to try and power through the end of this episode so I can get back to Torchwood or possibly Trial of a Time Lord. What I need are some minions who can recap for me like, during football season when I’m too busy/drunk. We get some quick shots of Ping Pong Assault Vehicle 1 cruising through space. The Marshal has brought a long a minion (not Carl) so he can yell at him.

Back on Zeos, Four mutters, “we have several problems.” Romana, arms crossed, looks at him like ‘maybe YOU have problems but my cleavage looks FANTASTIC.’ Four says that Mentalis, the Zeonian AI, is convinced the war is over and is going to self-destruct itself. And even if they prevent that, the Marshal’s on his way in his insane suicide mission and will probably blow them all up anyway. They can’t convince Mentalis to let them use its technology, or give them any useful information. Also Merak is still annoying. On top of this, the most likely scenario according to Four is that Mentalis blows itself at the same time the Marshal shows up, completely obliterating both Zeos and the entire planet of Atrios. Four says that following military logic will always result in things like this, “The Armageddon Factor.” Name of the episode! Drink! Four tells Carl that he, the Marshal, and Mentalis are just puppets acting out a play for the Shadow, which Romana refers to as “the third force.”

Speaking of the devil, we cut to Astra, chained up in her cell. She looks bored. Someone get the girl some comic books or something. And a sandwich. Some of the hooded fake-Zeonians come in and put a control device on her neck. They check that she’s properly under control and since she doesn’t have the screwball, ADD genius-IQ mind of a Time Lord, she’s totally under their power.
“Astra,” says one of the Zeonians, “You are to help me in my quest.”
“Yes.”
“You are to meet your lover.” Creepy pause. “Smile.”
She does. It is hella creepy. Merak is so fucking dead.

Four says their only hope is for Carl and Merak to distract the Marshal so he doesn’t attack and set off the armageddon response from Mentalis. That way Four can do what he does so well and just fuck around with the thing until it breaks. He sends Carl off, but Merak wants to splutter about his damn girlfriend some more. Would somebody throw this kid out the damn airlock already? He’s going to die one way or another, at least this way he’ll stop annoying me sooner.

WAHHHHHH I'M USELESS

Carl yells at him to come get in the transporter thingie so they can go back to Atrios. Just then a Zeonian comes around the corner and shoots Carl, who freaks out and shoots him back. Then he makes an amazing face and screams for Merak. You are all in luck because I finally figured out the screenshot thingie so you can see said amazing face:

OH SHIT

He collapses into the transporter, apparently dead, and is transported back to Atrios in an explosion of rainbows. WHeeeeeeeee! Merak the idiot continues to wander around yelling Astra’s name. Then he sees her ahead of him in the corridor, calling his name. He runs to hug her but it’s just a hologram and his arms go right through it. Merak has an orgasm, waves his arms around, and goes on a massive acid trip in the middle of a soap bubble. At least that’s what the special effects make it look like. What I think they WANTED to look like was Merak falling down a hole into a deep shaft. Let’s assume it was that second one.

Four and Romana are sitting on the floor, getting ready to fuck Mentalis’s shit up. There’s a grinding of motors and Four looks up to see the cameras on the walls, and their various attached shooty devices, watching him. “Uh, K9 … are you sure this is all right?”
“Affirmative.”
“It doesn’t feel … threatened?”
“Negative. Proceed.” Don’t believe him! K9 just wants to see you get shot for once so he can have a good laugh about it with his new AI buddy. Romana wants to know why they’re dicking around on Zeos when there’s no one there, and the princess is obviously being held in another castle somewhere by the Shadow. Four doesn’t really have a good answer other than his desire to completely break this advanced piece of shooty military equipment. He busts out the screwdriver and Romana kind of slowly backs away. Four’s annoyed by her lack of faith in him. He calmly blows the door off the main terminal of Mentalis and pulls the door open, like ‘see?’ and of course alarms start going off. You touched Mentalis in its naughty place! Four dives for cover and hides behind Romana, who’s all ‘what the hell did you do now?’. K9 says he’s triggered the defense mechanism and any further action will cause Mentalis to blow itself up. Oops.

this is my "oh shit" face.

The Marshal continues his approach. With Carl either unconscious or dead, and Merak fallen down a service shaft somewhere, there’s no one to tell him to break off the attack. K9 sends out his little antenna.
“Well?!?!?!” snaps Four
“Assimilating information.”
“Sorry.” he pats the doggy on the head, then two seconds later: “WELL?!?!”
“Hostile craft approaching.” Romana tries to distract me with her boobs but it won’t – okay maybe it’s working a little.

The Marshal is Jing his Ps over crushing Zeos “like a rotten egg.” Um, just to interrupt here for a sec? Crushing rotten eggs is a stupid fucking idea that will backfire in your face and you’ll end up stinky all day. And outside the metaphor, by “stinky” I mean “dead.” Mentalis has detected the Marshal’s spaceship approaching and enters the self-destruct sequence. Four creeps slowly across the room and stands next to Romana, then sort of shuffles up next to her and puts his arm around her waist. Dawwwwwww. Romana leans away a little bit. Heeeeeeee. Suddenly Four gets An Idea and dives for Mentalis’s control terminal. He start dicking around with wires, which is kind of his solution to everything. The shooty camera deals whip around and Romana yells for him to look out, but from where he’s crouched the lasers all hit the terminal and blow it up. BOOM! One problem down, one to go.

MOAR EXPLOSIONS

The Marshall readies all missiles. I’m not even going to make fun of the model effects anymore, just assume when I mention stuff like “missiles” or “spaceships” that they look fucking ridiculous. Down on Zeos, the smouldering terminal of K9′s only true friend in the universe spouts smoke into the air. Something’s ticking. Oh shit. Four blew up the central nerve center but the self-destruct sequence for the entire planet is still counting down. Four kind of stares at the ruined terminal in confusion then suddenly screams “THE TARDIS!” and sprints out of the room. Romana and K9 run after him. Four has decided to jump ship apparently. He rushes into one of the back rooms and gets out the partially-assembled Key. He has Romana put the tracer in the middle and they stare at it excitedly. Nothing happens. Romana asks why nothing is happening, and Four mumbles, “Well … it was just an idea …” He thought maybe they could get the sort-of Key to sort-of work but apparently “it doesn’t work that way.” Romana is totally exasperated.

"You're an idiot."

“If only we had the sixth piece …”
“Or A sixth piece!” Idea! Four says they can just do it the way he does everything – by bullshitting! They’ll make a sixth piece, and use the Key to get the real last one. This idea sounds … not very good, actually.

On the mighty warship Ping Pong, the Marshal is in range and getting ready to fire, when a voice comes on the radio. It’s Carl! He’s not dead! He tells the Marshal to knock it the fuck off. The Marshal, however, has too much of a hardon for the gigantic explosion he wants, and hangs up on him. In the TARDIS, Four wanders out in shirtsleeves and an apron (!!) with the ersatz sixth piece. Romana wants to know what he used and whether it’s compatible and Four wants to know why she won’t SHUT THE HELL UP, WOMAN, AND LET ME DO MY GODDAMN JOB.

DOES TOM BAKER HAVE TO CHOKE A BITCH??????

K9 snippily informs him that the stuff he’s using is totally going to “deteriorate” by which I think he means “explode after a few seconds,” which seems to be the case with every damned thing the Doctor tries to build. Or stands near. Or looks at funny. Anyway, Romana slots the next piece in, and Four hopes it’ll form a little time loop at their present instant and give them some time to work this out. Sure enough, the Marshal yells “fire!” as the countdown on Zeos hits 8, then the two clips loop over and over again as time repeats itself. Neato. Time still works as normal in the TARDIS, which sort of exists in another dimension. Four is incredibly smug about all this, and we get to watch three second clips go over and over again and give the special effects crew a breather. Suddenly Four makes a croaking noise.
“What?”
“I’ve just stopped the universe!” Oh shit! Four looks around, hoping he’s not in trouble. “Well … perhaps no one will notice.” Hee.
“So … at the moment … we’ve got absolute power over everything,” says Romana a little evilly. That is so terrifying.

"We are so FUCKING AWESOME"

Four’s all, ‘let’s run around and put funny hats on everyone! They won’t know what happened! Heeeeeee!’ Okay, no he’s not. K9 tells them that the effect is not going to last very long because Four is a genius, but kind of a stupid genius so his little fake Key piece is breaking down really fast. Specifically, they’ve got a little over three minutes to fix everything. Four sort of deflates after feeling so victorious a second ago. Pouting, he follows Romana out.

NOOOOOOO WHY IT BROKEN

Down in the cells, the Shadow says the since the Doctor has used the Key, it’s now vulnerable and he can get to it. He sends his puppet Astra to go carry out his eeeeeeeevil plot. Then he cackles maniacally. Four and Romana head out again into the corridors on Zeos and elsewhere, Astra and her two Shadow bodyguards stomp prissily around. She finds Merak at the bottom of the well or whatever he fell into. Aw, the poor thing’s bleeding from some cuts and says his leg’s twisted so he can’t walk, but he’s so happy to see her and so utterly and totally about to die. Awwwww. I know I’ve hated on him this episode but seeing him sitting sadly on the floor all beaten up because he just wanted to see his girlfriend again is just so damn pathetic. He’s just so sad and confused. “Here,” says puppet-Astra, “Let me help you…” Aw, bye Merak.

don't you just want to pat his head and tell him it'll be okay?

Romana and Four sit in the Mentalis control room, taking it apart. They’ve bought some time with Four’s little Key trick, but the loop is degenerating and after a couple of repetitions, the countdown moves ahead just a tad. They sit rather dejectedly, sifting through wires, and I don’t understand why they don’t just take sledgehammers and dog-lasers to the entire place – they just want to make it stop working, surely two Time Lords can manage that! Elsewhere, Astra helps a staggering Merak down the corridor, followed by the two henchmen. Poor little puppy, he’s just happy to see her. K9 rolls out in front of the TARDIS and says hilariously “Halt. Who goes there.” Merak identifies himself and is all, ‘look! I SAVEDED her! I’m RESCUIN!’ and it’s so adorable and sad. K9 refuses to let Astra past at first, but Merak says it’s okay. K9 detects the two bodyguards and tells them to take cover while he shoots at them. K9 chases them off, and Astra goes over to the TARDIS and demands to be let in. Merak is kind of sulking because she’s not happy to see him.

"wouldn't you rather hug me than that big blue thing?" "no, now shut up."

He suggests they go back to Atrios where it’s safe but Astra is determined to find the Doctor and drags Merak’s poor limping ass off. K9 chases the bodyguards into a transporter, where they slam the door in his face. “Hostiles repulsed.” he says smugly, “Most satisfactory.” He shouldn’t be too proud of himself though, when the door reopens and a little computery thing is sitting there. It sends out a distress call and K9, who is programmed to respond to those by offering aid, gets in the transporter to try and help. The door shuts behind him. Dumbass dog.

Four and Romana round a corner and run into Merak, who is just giddy and excited to introduce them to Astra. Four asks if he rescued her and Astra interrupts, “I escaped.” Merak sulks.
“Well how did you escape?”
“Through a tunnel of light!” Merak stammers in the background, trying to interject that he DID help, after all, he helped a LITTLE, maybe not a total rescue but he did…. they ask him what happened and he’s forced to say “I fell down … and hurt myself.” Awwwwwwww. Astra does come to his rescue here and say he was shot by a guard while trying to save her, which sounds a bit more heroic than “I fell in a hole and busted my leg.” Romana is bored with this whole conversation and says they should go back to Atrios and fix Merak’s leg, and reunite Astra with her people. Astra tries to get Four to let her go with him back to the TARDIS but he’s not having it. They send her and her sad little boy-hero off and exchange a Look. They know something fishy’s going on, but decide to check out this prison Astra was in first.

K9 has beaten them there, since the transporter trap brought him directly to Astra’s former cell.
“This is not Atrios,” he observes brilliantly, “Neither is this Zeos!” That sounded positively … Homeric, for some reason. “What IS this place?” He trundles off into the shadows to find out. Back on Zeos, Astra helps Merak along, while he tries to act like he’s the one helping her. They round a corner and he collapses in pain. The poor thing actually says, “OWWWW my LEG!” He asks Astra to help him up and she just smirks and tells him he’s going to die. Poor Merak’s eyes go wide as it finally dawns on him. “You’re … you’re not Astra!” The door behind him opens and the hooded bodyguards come out. Nooooooooooo!

oh snap.

They don’t kill him, just follow Astra away as Merak looks on helplessly. Or maybe not so helplessly, as he manages to drag himself along to the door they just came from. Go Merak go! He staggers upright and limps into the transporter room. Random shot of the Shadow laughing maniacally. Okie dokie.

Four and Romana come running out to find K9 gone. Just then Astra runs in screaming and says they’re “after her” and bangs on the TARDIS door. Four’s a sucker for a screaming girl so he opens the door and lets them all in. Four asks after Merak and Astra says he’s safe, he got into the transporter in time. Romana points out that the time loop is seriously falling apart now and they’re running out of time. Literally. Four notices that Astra’s staring fixedly at the Key. “Pretty little thing, isn’t it?” he says casually. She asks what it is and he says it’s the Key to Time, watching her reactions very carefully. He tells her he was hoping she could help him find the last piece of it, but Astra says she has no idea what he’s talking about. He leans in very slowly and carefully and peeks under her collar, seeing the control antenna there. He warns her not to touch the Key or she’ll hurt herself, then rushes off to help Romana drive.

Vworp vworp vworp. The TARDIS remats in the cell on the space station. “Your friends have arrived!” the Shadow tells K9. “We must go and greet them!” He pets the doggie companionably.
“Affirmative … Master!”
Cue evil laughter!

TBC!

Coming up on halfway done! This recap brought to you by the spanking received by the Braves tonight versus the Dodgers. Also, I took screenshots! But they all broke!

Merak is freaking out and asks how the Doctor could be gone when all he did was walk into a room, but Romana says they’ve got got some kind of matter transporter in the hidden panel in the back of the room. “I’ll explain it all to you when I’ve got two weeks to spare,” she tells him. Romana’s switched over into Doctor mode and Merak I guess is going to be her crappy Companion. One reason Romana’s so cool is that sometimes she gets kidnapped and has to get saved, but other times Four gets kidnapped and then she has to put on her big girl pants and be the hero. She grabs Merak and K9 and heads off to get the TARDIS.

Back in the control room, the Marshal is upset because the deal he struck with the mysterious, evil power that speaks to him through an amber skull is not turning out the way he planned. Because those kinds of deals always go so WELL for all parties involved. The skull tells him that the whole war was just a ploy to get the Doctor to show up, and that now he’s here there’s no reason to bother with the sham anymore. It calls the commander “Marshal” in a weirdly affectionate tone of voice that’s creepier than all the evil stuff it was saying before. Marshal interprets this to mean that he can still win. Because he is, as stated before, bugfuck crazy.

Romana and her little crew run back down the corridor to find that TARDIS is for real, legit missing this time. It was apparently feeling lonesome and put-upon under all those rocks and has gone to hang out with Four and the masked Zeons, who look kind of like Henry Killinger from Venture Bros, only less awesome. The Zeons stick a control thingie on Four’s adam’s apple, and the lead Zeon tells him that he’s under their control. “Really?” says Four, pulling off the antenna, “Because of this thing here?” He examines it with interest and the Zeon gargles in fury. They stick him in a little cell, which I have to say shows a lot more respect for Four than most of his enemies show him. Usually they just let him wander around their bases at his leisure. The head Zeon introduces himself as “The Shadow,” and says he is the Doctor’s adversary. Four is like ‘uh, okay…’ The Shadow starts interrogating him about the Key to Time, and when Four says he hasn’t got any of the pieces, the cell electrocutes him. Four keeps lying about where the pieces are, and the Zeons keep assaulting him with bad special effects. They bring out the TARDIS. I really wish they’d tied it up or put it on some train tracks or something. ‘Tell us the truth – or the phone box gets it!’ The Shadow (God what a stupid name) asks if the pieces are in there. Uh, no, they’re in his OTHER time-traveling spaceship, moron. They tell him to open it, and Four sulkily agrees.

Back on Atrios, Romana is getting K9 to break into the teleporter room. Merak’s all worried about the princess, but Romana says they can rescue her too, because the locator stick thingie will lead them to her. Merak snatches it out of her hand as the teleporter door finally opens, jumps in, and closes the door. Then he stands there for a few seconds like ‘magic teleporter room … GO! Uh, open sesame? Giddyup?’ Finally he disappears.

Back on Zeos, the Doctor is happily prevaricating all over the place now that he’s out of the electroshock torture-time booth. The Shadow keeps trying to make him open the door, but he’s one of those impressive, over-dignified villains not at all in the Master-ish vein, and can’t really do anything but stand around looking impressive and ordering people to do things that they’d really rather not do. The Doctor keeps babbling away and pretending not to understand what the Shadow is talking about.

“You are not dealing with a fool, Doctor!” he growls.

“Oh, yes I am,” says Four smugly. Hey, the Braves finally got a hit. Anyway, Four says they can’t get into the TARDIS without him, because it has so many automatic defenses set up.

“Bring me the five segments of the Key to Time or I will destroy you.”

Four is unimpressed. Hey, go on your own wild-goose mcguffin chase, you jerk, this one’s already been claimed. Four’s all ‘ooooo I’m so scared, I’ve never been threatened with being DESTROYED before, not in like, ten minutes at LEAST.’ He continues blowing smoke up the Shadow’s ass, saying he can’t bring the segments outside of the TARDIS or it’ll blow up or something. He’s realized by now that the Shadow has the sixth segment, and I think he’s just stalling until Romana shows up. Unfortunately, he’s expecting an awesome and capable Time Lady with a laser dog and what he’s going to get is a lovestruck doofus with a segment locator, but I’m sure he’ll manage. Right now the Shadow’s going to need his extra-long shovel because he’s in bullshit up to his neck by now, since Four’s trying to get him to hand over the sixth segment. The Shadow says he’ll just wait it out, even if it takes a thousand years. He says he’s been watching the Doctor, and in his “jackdaw meanderings” he’s noticed a “want of patience in your nature.” Stop mocking his ADD! It’s a Gallfrey thing, he can’t help it. Jackdaw meanderings is kind of hilarious though. Four is clutching his metaphorical pearls in insulted rage. He tells the Shadow that “Fools rush in-”

“Exactly.” Bam! Take that, Four. Shadow has a stupid name and a stupid costume but he just totally yanked the rug out from under dear old Four. He tells the guards to leave the Doctor alone. “He will make his own mistake.” I hate to admit it but I’m kind of digging the Shadow right now – I aways love seeing the Doctor get taken down a peg or twelve. Four goes to get back in the TARDIS, but then can’t resist looking around since he knows the sixth segment is somewhere nearby. He starts sneaking around on tiptoe like an idiot. Hee.

Elsewhere, Merak remats in an orgy of rainbows and oversaturated lens flares. He wobbles a little, then starts wandering blithely around the Zeon headquarters with the tracer, looking for his lost love. It’d almost be touching if it weren’t so incredibly thickheaded. Deciding he’s not being quite conspicuous enough, he starts yelling “Astra! Astra where are you!” Hoo boy.

We get a shot of a weird model space station and LOUD ANGRY ORGAN MUSIC informs us that this is an eeeeeevil space station. Inside, Astra is chained to an inexplicably rocky wall, being interrogated by Zeons. The Shadow is torturing her with boring exposition, saying the royal line knows all about the sixth segment, but she won’t tell him. She’s not caving, because Astra’s kind of a tough little bitch, so the Shadow threatens her boyfriend. Astra totally loses her shit. I have no idea how she stays so thin with this constant diet of scenery she’s always scarfing down.

Back on Atrios, the Marshal’s having a fit because his CaRL’s gone missing. He tells the guys in the command room to get his shuttle ready. Apparently he’s taking on Zeos single-handedly. Romana gives up on the teleporter lock and tells K9 to just shoot the damn thing so they can teleport over to Zeos. The CaRL creeps in and follows them. When they come out the other side, Romana has K9 trace the tracer so they can rescue Merak. Carl comes out of the teleporter exit and grabs his glow stick, which I guess is a transmitter, and tries to radio in. His first attempt makes his voice go all squeaky. Dawwwwww. He realizes him com isn’t working and hides when he hears someone coming. It’s Four, who has a look at the floor by the teleporter. “Romana.” he mutters, as though there are footprints there. “Merak. K9.” He says this last one with a tone of intense affection, and goes off following the tracks. Carl follows and attempts to arrest him, demanding to know how he (Carl) got here. Four’s all, it’s not my fault you got in a damn teleporter room, you moron. He explains that they’re on Zeos.

Merak follows the tracer signal to one of Astra’s bracelets, which is lying on the floor. Oh phew, I was worried Astra herself was gonna be the segment and they’d have to blow her up like they did to Kroll. He leans over to pick it up, and Romana jumps out of fucking nowhere and puts him in a headlock. I love Romana. She gets the tracer away from him and performs a Gallfreyan nerve pinch on Merak until he swears to behave and come back with her. Merak explains that the tracer led him to the bracelet and Romana looks intrigued.

(broken)

Elsewhere, Four’s doing his “I am totally inconspicuous” Groucho Marx walk, and, hilariously, Carl is imitating it. That is amazing. He taps Four on the shoulder, and there’s a moment where he keeps looking over the wrong one and Carl keeps unintentionally moving.

“Are you sure this is Zeos?”

“Yes.”

“It’s awfully dusty.” I don’t know why, but that line cracked me up. Carl for new Companion!

“Maybe … the Zeons don’t use it much.” Maybe they are in the Zeonian attics. Four holds out K9′s whistle to Carl wordlessly. Carl stares at him for a minute and then blows it. I think the Doctor just asked you to be his boyfriend, Carl. I think you should accept, you two make a cute couple. This scene is making me laugh so hard for some reason. Maybe it’s the undeniable sexual tension.

(broken)

Four asks him what the Zeons look like and Carl sort of giggles and says they look like Atrosians but with different clothes. Welcome to every alien race of Doctor Who. Four’s all, wait, they’re “not tall, emaciated creatures in black robes?” Apparently someone’s been fucking with him. Carl’s all, what the hell have you been smoking? Every time they move their heads closer together I expect them to start making out. Anyway, Four finds out that they haven’t seen an actual Zeon face-to-face since the war started, nor taken any prisoners. He thinks this is weird, but just then K9 interrupts this romantic moment by driving up on his scarf. K9 says he’s been chatting with the head Zeon, and Four says they’ll have a chat with that guy right after they find Romana and Merak. Carl thinks K9 seems in high spirits, and K9 explains “It is stimulating to communicate for once with something other than a limited and unpredictable organic intelligence.” ICE BURN! Four considers kicking his doggie, then realizes what he just said and asks if the Zeon commander is a computer intelligence. K9 says yes.

Oh man I am so tired of the Marshal. He’s wearing a white cape and talking about the day of retribution blah blah blah go die already. His entire staff seems to share my opinion. “Victory, my people! Victory or death!” I’ll have the cake, please. Marshal hops into a grand ship made of a bottle of soda and three ping pong balls and takes off.

Four explains to Romana that the bracelet isn’t actually the sixth segment, but it’s been in contact with the segment so it’s setting off the tracer. Oops. Things aren’t looking good for the princess. Maybe she’ll blow up into hundreds of tiny princesses. Merak has histrionics about Astra because that is his only defining character trait. He’s worse than that guy on LOST who was always screaming for Waaaaaaaaaaaaalt. Carl tells Merak to pull himself together and exercise a little more self-control. Yeah, you don’t see Carl jumping the Doctor’s bones every five seconds, do you Merak? Because he has more control than- just as I say this, Carl goes “Doctorrrr!” in this high-pitched whiny voice and goes rushing off. Oh my God. Four and Carl, OTP 4EVAH.

(broken)

Ping Pong Assault Vehicle is getting into position.

K9 tells them all to stand aside and wait silently. He does for them the dance of his people, which consists of spinning around making bleeping noises. Um, is now really the time for this K9? “Never seen him do that before,” Four mutters, “That’s not to say, of course, it isn’t normal…” K9 tells him to shut up, in kind of a bitchy tone. He makes all kind of crazy modem-dialing noises at some circuits on the wall. The panel opens and he goes in. They all stand with their mouths hanging open, and Romana posits that it’s a little like bees dancing, a complicated routine to show you’re allowed to go in. “What are bees?” asks Merak cluelessly, and Four nearly kills him, he’s so fed up with Merak’s uselessness.

K9 goes into a little room full of circuit boards and cameras and has a long bleeping conversation with one of the control towers. He tells Four that the Zeon commandant has agreed to meet with him. Four goes in and tells the rest to wait outside, so of course Romana follows him. Four wanders around and decides to invite his boyfriend in, so now they’ve all left Merak outside. I’m sure he’ll come in soon when he realizes the walls won’t listen to him whine about Astra. Four explains to Carl that there are no Zeons anymore, just this “passionless lump of minerals and circuitry.” K9 ought to be getting offended about now. The entire war, Four says, has been automated. Carl pulls out his gun, but a turret on the wall shoots it out of his hand. Oh crap, Merak’s back. Four doesn’t let him get two words out before telling him to put a cork in it. He tells K9 to ask his new friend about princess Astra. K9 says that’s classified and it can’t tell them.

“What about the war?”

“The war is over. Bombardment is over. The next step … is obliteration.”

“Of whom?”

Long pause.

“Everything.”

Heyyyy I’m back. It’s been awhile but in the time I’ve been gone I moved across the country, got a job, learned to play an instrument, and got shitfaced drunk more times than I can remember. So what have YOU done lately? yeah that’s what I thought. I’m finishing Key to Time because the entire cast of Torchwood is annoying me.

So the whole “TARDIS is gone” thing was kind of a fakeout – it’s just buried under the section of ceiling that fell down. I’m sure you’ve been waiting on tenterhooks for six months waiting to find that out, so breathe a sigh of relief. Hi, time tunnel! I’ve missed you! Four and Romana exchange some panicked what-do-we-do dialogue and the doctor-lowercase-d comes rushing down the hall. Four jumps on him, grabs his throat and goes “RRaaauuughhhh!” then realizes who it is and lets him go. Um. Moving right along. Merak! That’s the guy’s name. After six months one tends to forget the random jumbles of consonants the writers use to name their characters. Merak wants to know where Astra is and tells the two Time Lords that he’s in love with her. They sort of look awkwardly off to the side and Four gives him this look like “I am SO sorry for you.” Four realizes that Astra’s probably the person they were talking to on the other side of the door and casually tells Merak that she’s in the irradiated room. He of course freaks out but Four reassures him that the doggius-ex-machina has arrived and can open the door with his lasers.

While K9 does that and Romana keeps lookout, Merak gives Four all the background, saying that he and Astra were trying to make peace with the Zeons and that’s probably why the Marshal wanted to get rid of her – he wants the war to go on. “Well of course,” Four mutters. His type always do. Merak wants to know how long this is going to take and K9 chirps “twelve point two-three seconds!” Merak looks kind of disturbed. K9 finishes breaking the lock and they all go barging into the highly-irradiated zone to find Astra gone. They all sort of hang around in there and chat while K9 has histrionics and finally manages to splutter out “Danger Master! It is dangerous to remain here!” Merak’s found Astra’s circlet on the ground and gets all melodramatic and angsty, saying he’ll stay right here if there’s a chance of finding Astra. Four tells him to stop being such a fucking moron and come on, because obviously she was here but isn’t anymore. Merak, the wind kind of gone out of his sails, stands fingering the circlet and feeling kind of stupid.

Four confirms with Merak that there’s a recycling shaft that runs behind the wall in the room where Astra disappeared, tells K9 to stay behind and keep an eye on it, and then says dramatically, “Well, if there’s no way out there’s only one thing to do!” Romana eagerly asks him what that is because she clearly hasn’t learned yet, and Four says anticlimactically, “Go back the way we came.”

Back in the control room the outfits are still silly and the Marshal’s still crazy as fuck. He’s staring into the mirror again and his CaRL whose name I’ve forgotten has to come snap him out of it yet again. The Marshal tells him to go recapture the prisoners but the rather bemused CaRL says they’re actually heading back to the control room so there’s no need. The Marshall tells him to go get the TARDIS and recycle it for scrap metal for the war effort. Wow, I wonder what would even happen if you tried to smash the TARDIS up. Would you end up with tons and tons of material? Or would the entire thing implode into four-space as soon as you breached the hull? It is a mystery. The Marshal goes back to poking at his own jugular and generally going bugfuck insane. He seems to be talking to himself.

In the radiation room, K9 watches as a panel in the wall slides open and a red light shines out. Even my cat barely falls for the laser pointer thing anymore, and he’s pretty stupid, I doubt it’s going to work on K9.

Carl says he’s found the TARDIS, and has ordered it sent to the furnace. Noooooooooooooooooooooo! The Marshal tells him that when the prisoners are caught, they are to be treated civilly – no violence. Carls’ surprised but doesn’t protest.

The panel in the room opens all the way to reveal a weird red hologram that looks like the Autobots symbol. It retreats down the hallway and K9 follows. He ends up on a conveyor belt with a bunch of steel wool and other crap. He’s concerned because it’s getting hot. Wait, was the Marshal talking about incincerating K9 and not the TARDIS? Nooooooooooooooooooooo again!

Romana’s wandering around with Merak close on her heels. He wants to know what she’s looking for and she says she wishes she knew. Maybe a bathrobe to cover that hideous outfit? Or a bra? Because she could use one. She’s explaining the locator thingie to Merak when a couple of guards rush in. Four prevents them from being taken into custody by insisting they take him to see the Marshal immediately, then rushing off ahead. Romana and Merak follow more quietly. Elsewhere, K9 is sulking his little metal ass off and seems to have resigned himself to death. Stupid emo robot.

Four busts back into the control room and bellows “So nice of you to invite us back!” Carl’s not in the mood for his crap and takes him over to chat with the Marshal. Four takes a deep breath and starts unloading the usual affable bullshit before he realizes the Marshal isn’t listening. He gives Carl a look like ‘uh, your Fearless Leader is broken.’ Carl looks a tad embarassed but says that the Marshal is “meditating.” Four’s all, ‘bull shit.’ He tells Carl that their leader is standing in front of a mirror and muttering to himself, clearly he’s gone off his nut, unless maybe he’s a ventriloquist. Carl doesn’t know what that is, so Four starts to explain and says “chap who has a … a dum … a dummy …” he trails off and smacks himself in the head. The Marshal has snapped out of it and turns around creepily. He calls Four “my friend,” and for once it’s the Doctor who’s a little weirded out. The Marshal apologizes for their earlier treatment and says Four’s coming has been “foretold.” Ruh roh. Four looks ready to run for the exit.

“You’ll have to excuse me, this war … this endless war, it occupies all my thoughts …” Four looks very Tennish for a moment and mumbles, “Yes, I know how you feel.” Rare moment of Doctor-PTSD here! Four’s usually good at covering for those. The Marshal says enthusiastically that the Doctor is the key to ending the war, and Four was thinking of something else, snaps out of it and goes “buh?”

The Marshal says the Doctor will lead Atrios to victory, and Four yells “Good-o!” Is … is that a word? The Marshal’s all worked up now and bellows some melodramatic spee`ch about how Four will “free this land, this planet, this Atrios-“ Four interrupts, yelling “this blessed plot!” Oh don’t encourage him! “Yes! This blessed plot, from the terrors of war and the evils of pestilence!” His epaulettes sway dramatically. Four’s all “wooooooo! Yay!Pestilence!” The Marshal actually seems to be taller than Four and is currently intimidating the hell out of him, something else you don’t see often. Four plays along, saying of course he’ll win the war for them, probably hoping an opportunity to bail out will show itself at some point. Carl says they’ve located the Zeon fleet, finally. The new saviour of Atrios collapses bonelessly and gracelessly into the general vicinity of a command chair and mostly misses. The Marshal tells him to watch on the screen, and Four is all, ‘it’s a spinny red light, what exactly am I watching here?’

Elsewhere, K9 finds the temperature “unacceptable” and asks the steel wool for further instructions. He whines for the Doctor. Um, gee, mister super-advanced technology, maybe you could, I dunno, GET YOUR ASS OFF THE FUCKING CONVEYOR BELT? Bad dog.

In the command room, the principal actors have gathered for a group photo. The extras with no lines sit in a row behind them behind a tall counter that makes them look like a bunch of decapitated heads. The whole thing is very weird. The Marshal keeps calling Four “the architect of our victory” and stuff like that, but continues to give the orders without consulting him. He tells Carl to tell the fleet to attack, which Carl does by droning boredly into a microphone, “attack attack attack.” Hee. Carl wants to fucking go home and take a nap. On the screen, some lights move ponderously into view on either side of the screen. After several long seconds, Four’s eyes bug out. I think he just realized those are supposed to be ships. Also, there’s like thirty dots on one side of the screen and on the other – “Six???? We have SIX SHIPS???” Four’s starting to seriously reconsider this whole ‘architect of victory’ thing. Even the best architects need more then two sticks and some cardboard to work with. The Marshal says their fleet runs on hope, or some shit like that, and that winning the war is all worth killing the entire population and destroying the economy. Four’s all, ‘this is literally the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard and I’ve heard DALEKS.’ Ships start vanishing onscreen and the Marshal cheers for the hit. Carl leans over. “Uh, that’s one of ours, sir.” Hahahaha. Four could not be more skeptical of this whole thing if he tried.

Carl and the Marshal have this dirty, dirty conversation right in front of everyone:

“Shall I pull out, sir?”

“Never! Press home the attack!” Close your eyes and think of England, Carl! More ships explode onscreen and the Marshal wants to know why they’re losing. Carl’s all, uh, because we’ve got six ships? Well, three now. The Marshal orders them to disengage. Four is sitting quietly, looking disturbed. The Marshal says Four can see now why they need him. Four’s all, yep, I sure do. Because you’re fucking incompetent. The Marshal wants to know if Four can provide them with a weapon “to wipe the Zeons from our skies.” The Doctor says he has just the thing.

“What is it?”

“Peace.”

“Very funny.”

Four offers a trade: if they bring him the princess Astra, he’ll make them a weapon. The Marshal’s mind seems to have gone to a dirty place judging by the weird grin he has on. Ew, not like that, you prick.

Elsewhere, K9 continues to wail pathetically. Oh you poor dumb dog. You’re lucky you’re on the slowest conveyor belt ever created by mankind, or Atrioskind or whatever.

“Yes, I can do something for you,” Four says in this seductive undertone and now MY mind is going to dirty places (as though it ever left, hah). He says he has the perfect solution – he’ll make Atrios a force field that will be impenetrable – the Zeons can’t get in. The Marshal think that’ll let them attack without fear of reprisal but Four says that it’ll be a two-way force field – the Atriosians can’t get OUT, either. Basically he’s putting the two planets in time-out in opposite corners because they can’t play nice. The Marshal does not like this idea because it doesn’t involve him shooting anything. And without the ability to shoot stuff he’s just a crabby old man in a silly outfit. Well, I guess he could always form a marching band. Those epaulettes are seriously going to waste down in this cavern where no one can see them. Anyway, Four says he can work on the plan but he needs his dog back first. Carl rather sheepishly tells Four that K9’s been incinerated and Four flips out and tears out of the room all “NOOOOOOOOOO MY DOGGGYYYYYYYYYYYYY!” He actually crawls bodily down the conveyor belt trying to grab him just as K9 falls into the furnace. Four then JUMPS IN AFTER HIM. Oh man. That guy sure loves his dumbass dog.

Outside, Romana, Merak, Carl, and the Marshal stand around nervously. Carl says they shut down the furnace but Four’s still totally dead. Romana sort of crosses her arms and neglects to fill them in on Time Lords’ little habit of not-dying like, ever. The Marshal spazzes out a little, nearly falls on Merak, and we can see that the spot he always grabs on his throat has this weird, oogy little antenna on it. Normally it’s covered by his collar. Just then, Four comes busting out the door to the furnace room, at least I assume that’s what happens because the room immediately fills with smoke. Romana’s all, ‘took you guys long enough.’ Four’s all ‘okay then, ready to go? Dooo doop dee doop dee doooooo..’ Carl mutters to the Marshal, “He’s not even singed….” Back in the control room Four flops back into the command chair and plops K9 down on the floor. He tells the Marshal not to worry about it, that they all make mistakes. “Right, K9?”

“Negative.” K9 is totally sulking. Hee hee.

Four tells the Marshal that he’s decided psychological warfare is the way to go, to somehow instill the Zeons with a terror of Atrios so great that they won’t dare attack it. Romana has become his master bullshit-assistant and is enthusiastically backing this idea up, saying it’s the only way to go. Four says he needs to have a chat with a real live Zeonian, to figure out their brain patterns and culture and stuff. The Marshal says they don’t take any prisoners, then they get distracted by another attack coming in. Romana grabs Four and takes him off for a little chat. She tells him that the Marshal totally lost his shit when he thought Four had died, and Four’s all “awwww, how very considerate!” Romana says, “No, because what he said was ‘The Doctor must not die! Not YET!’” They mull this over and she tells him about the transmitter on the Marshal’s throat. They decide that the Marshal must be a puppet, but they don’t know who the ventriloquist is. Four thinks it has something to do with that mirror that’s been oh-so-subtly showing up in every single scene. Really? You think so? Their little pow-wow gets interrupted when Merak starts bellowing about how they’re not finding his girlfriend. Four basically tells him to shut up because it doesn’t matter, she’s probably on Zeos by now. He says they can’t see Zeos from here because he thinks something’s in the way, between the two planets. He sends Romana and Merak to go sneak to the back of the room and check out the mirror.

The Marshal and Carl are arguing, because the Marshal keeps telling him to deploy troops and Carl basically keeps shouting ‘what part of ‘we’re out of soliders’ aren’t you understanding?’ The Zeon forces are advancing and they’re defenseless. Four is trying to work out a plan with the Marshal when suddenly the screen lights up. It’s princess Astra. “People of Atrios,” she says, “Lay down your weapons. Resistance is useless. The Zeons can never be defeated. They have taken me captive. They have sworn to destroy Atrios at all costs. If you love me, my people, save me. Save yourselves. Hand over the Marshal and surrender now. The war is over.” She signs off. The Marshal heads over to consult with his mirror, and tells the Doctor he needs to go to Zeos.

Romana and Merak have found their way into a passage behind the mirror, and ew. There’s a sort of gummy-looking amber colored skull sitting on a stick, staring towards the back of the mirror. They can see out into the control room. The Marshal tells the skull that he did as he was told and sent the Time Lord into an ambush. “TIME LORD??” Romana yelps, “How does he know?”

“My lord,” the Marshal continues, “Once you have the secrets of time, please give me my victory. I have waited so long. Please, my lord!” The skull doesn’t reply because, well, it’s a skull on a stick. It doesn’t even have a lower jaw. Romana and Merak take off to go warn the Doctor.

The man in question is walking down a deserted corridor and wondering out loud whether he’s walking into a trap – he’s found several fishy details in the Marshal’s plan to send him to Zeos. He crouches down and tells K9 in a conspiratorial whisper, “I think one of us is being very stupid.”

“Affirmative.”

But it’s the Doctor so he goes ahead anyway, and finds the sliding panel that Astra was dragged through. K9 runs over his scarf, possibly in an effort to stop him, and he looks a little sulky as he yanks it out of K9’s treads. “Well, K9,” he says sadly, “I hope to see you again soon…” K9 tries to protest, but he goes in anyway, and two masked guys immediately pop out behind him. The door slams shut just as Romana and Merak run in. Romana’s all “Oh noooooo! K9, it was a TRAP!” K9’s all, ‘duh, what was I JUST SAYING?’ and on the other side of the door Four gets grabbed by the masked guys and they all vanish.

More in a day or two!

Rhys and Gwen get ready for bed, and I watched this scene through once with no subtitles and discovered that Rhys hasn’t become any more comprehensible – it’s just way easier when you have the stuff written at the bottom of the screen. I had to go back and do it over with subtitles on. Anyway, he’s moping, and says he’s worried that Gwen settled for him when they first met, and that since she’s basically just meeting him again now, she won’t look at him twice. He leans in suddenly and kisses her, and seems to hope for a few moments that that’ll have fixed everything, but Gwen says it didn’t. “But … it was nice.” She is such a goofball. Rhys sort of snuggles up to her neck, and she says that’s nice too, and Rhys says he knows all the stuff she likes. She makes some sketchy eyes at him. “Remind me some more.” SKETCHYYYYY. We cut from them making out to Tosh ripping off Adam’s clothes. Haaaaa. She flings him down on the bed and he flips her over, then stops her to ask, “How far would you go for me?” Tosh is willing to demonstrate, but he stops her and continues creepily, “Would you die for me?” She nods, and Adam’s all, awesome!

Back at Deep-13, Jack comes in and AHHHHHHH 23! Sorry, there’s a huge number 23 on the wall behind him and it scared the crap out of me. From some dark corner, Ianto says Jack’s name really quietly in this scared little voice. NOOOOOOOOOOOO IANTO I LOVE YOUUUUUU. Why does everyone always break the cute one? Jack jumps a little and then sees it’s just Ianto. The poor little(although I think he’s actually the tallest) thing is slumped down against the stairwell where Adam left him. He tells Jack that he’s a killer and that Jack needs to lock him up. Jack says this isn’t funny, and he needs to knock it off, but Ianto’s serious. He’s all twitchy and jumpy. He says none of the Torchies are safe as long as he’s free, and he’ll turn on them eventually. He’s jumping around like a trapped animal, and Jack grabs him and pulls him close. He calms him down and says something’s happened to him, because Jack won’t believe Ianto’s a killer. Awwwwwwwwww. Jack straps Ianto to a chair – some things never change I guess – and points an alien lie detector at him. He says the light will turn from green to red if Ianto lies. Gareth David Lloyd pulls out his best Hamlet voice for this scene and starts describing the murders in a mix of horror and intense, evil satisfaction. The light stays green. Jack tells him to keep talking but the light just goes on being green. Ianto says this proves it but Jack still won’t believe it. He storms into the main room and sees that there’s new security footage from the cameras. He plays back the clip of Adam torturing Ianto. He frowns and scrolls through until he finds Adam being introduced to Gwen, and he watches her facial expression change abruptly as Adam touches her. He rewinds it and replays it a few times. Jack goes to get Ianto, who jerks away, but Jack firmly steers him into the other room and makes him watch the footage of Adam shoving new memories into his head. They’re digging through records and files and things when suddenly the lights turn on. They both freak out and try hilariously to look casual – Jack grabs a random book and flips through it – but it’s just nerdy Owen in a cute jacket, carrying a big huge thing of white flowers. He eyes Jack a little nervously, then puts the vase down and retreats to his lab.

Also, I happened to freeze-frame on Jack going back into his office, and over (I think) Owen’s desk is one of those grow-your-own kits, but this one says Grow-Your-Own-Therapist. It hasn’t been taken out of the box. Haaaaaaaaaaa. Toshiko sees that the flowers are sitting on her desk and, Owen I love you but white lilies are in rather bad taste, I think. They remind me of funerals. Anyway, he comes in (WEARING A SWEATERVEST) and says they’re an apology for last night, and he still wants them to be friends. Adam watches from his desk, amused. Owen heads back to his lab and Gwen enters. Tosh asks how she’s doing and when Gwen says things are coming back to her slowly, Adam looks very concerned. He gets up to give Gwen a big hug and pulls Owen and Tosh in as well. Jack glowers from behind one of the windows, and Ianto goes by, trying to avoid Adam’s gaze. Adam notices this and chases him down for a quick arm-squeeze, then sends him off to get him a coffee. He plops back down in his desk chair and Jack’s right there to point  a pistol at the back of his head.
“Talk to me, Adam. If that’s even your name.”
The other Torchies try to call Jack off, but he tells them that Adam didn’t exist until two days ago. And in that time he bought Owen and Tosh new wardrobes? Jack says he’s sure because he has concrete memories of Adam, but there’s no emotion attached to them – Adam can only fake events. He also thinks his recent flashbacking has been caused by Adam screwing around in his head. He tells Adam to get up and put his hands on his head – no touchies! Okay, you see that feeling there, Jack? These are called “boundaries.” You can sometimes – and I know this sounds odd – not want someone to touch you. Yeah, I know, it’s all new and different, right? He marches Adam out, but Tosh pulls a gun on him. She tells Jack to stop and screams at Owen when he tries to calm her down. Luckily, Ianto’s there to snatch the gun away. Jack screams at Adam for turning his teammates against each other, but I just lauuuugh and laugh. Because they get along so well when people aren’t fucking with their brains.

Adam flings himself against the walls of his cell, panicking. He begs Jack not to kill him and says he didn’t mean any harm, he just did what he needed to to survive. Jack says he changed them, but Adam insists it was for the better – Owen minus the cynicism, Toshiko plus a spine … Jack says it’s bullshit, and wants to know why Adam picked them. He says it’s because they’re so unique and interesting, and screams that if they kill him they’ll never be able to forget him, and he’ll just go on living in their minds. Jack goes upstairs and calls everyone into the conference room. He says he somehow needs to fix everybody, so they’re all going to have to find some specific memory that defines who they are, some kind of … oh I dunno, touchstone? Constant, maybe? He switches the tv to a soothing ripply screensaver and turns down the lights. He wants them all to say ommmmmmmmmm. No he doesn’t. Gwen finds a memory of Rhys from college. She laughs at some stupid joke he was telling. Owen has gone back to his tenth birthday. This can’t be good. Apparently his mom spent the whole day telling him, “I love you because you’re my son – but that doesn’t mean I have to like you!” Awwwwww sad little TinyOwen. In all fairness, though? I heart Owen too but that doesn’t really mean I like him. Toshiko has picked math club because she’s a big ol nerd who only gets laid if the person she sleeps with dies by the end of the episode. No seriously. Go check. Breaks your heart, really. Ianto has picked … the day he met Lisa. And Ianto beats out Owen in the sad-memory contest by a nose! They find some more and right now they all look like loons because they’re alternating between speaking in internal monologue voiceover and speaking out loud. So Jack (whose memories we don’t get to hear about) is just hearing these disjointed sentences every so often. Oh, and Ianto has decided to really trump it by picking the day he lost Lisa! Then Gwen ruins the scene by saying she loves Rhys, then turning to Jack and saying, “But not the way I love you.” Jack panics and tries to edge away – run, Jack, run! – and hands her a retcon pill and squeezes her shoulder. Toshiko says she knows she’s special, she’s just waiting for someone who can see it, and won’t die by the end of the episode. Jack squeezes her shoulder, gives her a pill too, and says he sees it. Also, he totally won’t die. And that’s the story of how Jack slipped roofies to his entire team and did them all. Er, I mean, now it’s Owen’s turn. Oh, Owen’s not out of the race yet! He’s making great use of his remaining time in the sweatervest and sniffles that he’s saved lives, hundreds of them, but who will save him? Jack says he will. And gives him a pill. This scene is so weird. Oh, damn, Ianto’s fighting hard – he says that coming to Torchwood gave him meaning, then looks at Jack and says, “you …” he trails off and Jack kisses his forehead. I love these two. So much. STOP TRYING TO RUIN MY FAVORITE COUPLE, GWEN!

Jack says the pills will only wipe out the last 48 hours, and Tosh is crying because now she doesn’t get to have had sex, and is also coming to realize that her vagina is apparently deadly. I hope she only uses that super-power for good. Adam is flailing wildly in his cell. Owen takes off his glasses, smiles at Tosh, and downs his pill. Tosh decides to ruin everything by bringing Adam up on the live feed. She says she’s going to lose so much. GOD TOSH SUCK IT UP AND FIND A NORMAL BOYFRIEND OR GIRLFRIEND ALREADY! I want to slap her. Even Jack tells her to snap the fuck out of it already because none of what she’s feeling is real or even consensual. He sits her down and she takes her medicine, then slumps over unconscious. Jack leaves the room and we see all of his teammates slumped over on the table as he walks out the door, and I really wish they’d used that shot in some previews because it lends itself so well to gross misinterpretation.

Jack heads down to say hi to Adam, who isn’t looking so good. Adam begs for mercy and tries to negotiate – he can give Jack back something nice, something that’s a real memory that he’s just forgotten. He says he’ll do this because Jack was the way he got back into the world, and he wants to thank him. Jack closes his eyes and makes his flashback sex-faces, which are so much funnier than Hiro’s timetravel constipation-faces. Also I’m not sure how this is working since Adam isn’t touching him, but maybe that’s only necessary for the fake ones. Jack remembers playing baseball with his dad on the beach. Grey is there. “I’m running for the ball…” Jack says gleefully, channeling a laborador. Then his face darkens. MiniJack sees another boy pick the ball up. The boy says his name’s Adam. MiniAdam wants to know if he can play too, and MiniJack shoves him down. MiniJack’s dad scolds him and says if that’s how he’s going to be like that then they’re going home. Adam’s fucking up Jack’s best memories. MiniJack yells after his dad, saying that they don’t leave yet, that there’s a bonfire and his mom comes and now Adam’s fucked it all up. In the present, Jack sobs and demands Adam give him the old one back. Adam says Jack can’t erase him now, because if he does he’ll also lose all the memories Adam’s inserted himself into – he’ll forget all the good memories of his family. There’s also something about the box they found, and it sounds like Adam stole this good memory from Jack and sealed it in the box? As collateral? I dunno. Jack just says, “Goodbye, Adam.” and takes the pill. Adam collapses, in agony, and slowly and painfully flickers out of existence, and Jack slumps down against the wall.

Next morning, Jack wonders why he’s waking up on a cold concrete floor instead of snuggled up next to Ianto. He heads upstairs and the Torchies are confused because all the security footage and records and everything from the last 48 hours were wiped, and none of them can remember a thing. You didn’t think to like, leave yourself a note, Jack? Also, Owen is still wearing his sweatervest, but no glasses. Jack admires the flowers on Tosh’s desk, and she reads the note. “With apologies and love, Owen.” She’s gleeful, but Owen snorts that someone must be playing a joke on her. “I don’t do flowers,” he says, “And I definitely don’t do apologies.” She’s kind of crushed by this, but he gives her a little smile when he hands the card back to soften the blow. Awwww. Jack heads into his office and takes the box out of its bag, curious. A little piece of it falls on the floor, and Ianto comes in as he picks it up. Jack tells him his diary was in his office and Ianto’s like NOOOOOOOOOMINE and tries to grab it back. Jack hands it over and tells him “measuring tapes never lie.” Ianto cusses under his breath and leaves. Haaaaaaaaaa. Also, I have no idea. There’s a deleted scene on youTube that might explain more. Jack reads the bag and wants to know who the hell Adam is, and Ianto says he has no idea. Jack shrugs and stick the missing piece back into the side of the box, and makes a little gesture like, “ta-dahhhh! …… Magic box!  …… aaaaaand…..go!” but nothing happens. He sighs in disappointment and puts it down. As he leaves, the box opens and he goes back to look. Tipping it up, he dumps a whole bunch of sand out of the box and lets it run though his fingers. He’s totally confused, and finally shrugs and leaves.

Next Time: aliens want our blood! Murders! Exploding abdomens! Conspiracies aaaaaaaaaaaaand MISS! MARTHA! JONES! (although frankly, I love the girl to death, but they bring her back so often it’s not even exciting any more).

credits!

Adam (whose last name is apparently Smith) is stealthily adding his info to the personnel files, so my guess is he only just showed up this morning. Tosh comes in with a nifty little box with a pattern on it somewhere between a maze and a circuit board. She asks if Adam’s been able to figure out anything about it and he says no. Then he reaches out and touches the back of her neck. We see a few quick cuts of things Tosh is fake-remembering, most of them involving her flirting with Adam, and when she snaps out of it she leans in and they make out. I love how on Torchwood powers are only ever used for superficial, selfish ends. It just seems a lot more realistic. I mean, if I could do what Adam can I honestly can’t promise you I wouldn’t do the same damn thing to any hot chick I met. Adam says he’s flattered she remembers it’s the anniversary of their first kiss, and there’s a bang from a nearby desk. Owen is pointedly shuffling some crap around. Oh man, is he going to have an unrequited crush on Tosh? Because that would sort of make my day. Tosh asks if something’s wrong, and in a very not-Owen sort of way, Owen stammers out that he wasn’t expecting that kind of behavior at work, is all. He snaps off his latex gloves bitchily and storms off, doing that barely-repressed-rage thing that nerds do so well. Tosh shrugs it off. I. Love. Nerdy. Owen. Also, as we pan away, Adam does that “I was fake smiling but now that you can’t see me I’m going to GLOWER EVILLY” thing, you know, just in case you weren’t sure by now that he’s tooooootallly eeeeevil. Also, Zachary Quinto does that thing way better. Just sayin.

Down in the cells, Jack stalks past Janet, who snarls at him. “Save it!” he bellows in its face, and stomps on. Oh man. Is this … is this going to be like that Star Trek episode where Janeway and company were all evil? And had awesome hair? Because that is the best episode ever. Although the weird-personality thing makes tons of sense if you consider a person to be the sum of their experiences – if Owen’s life had turned out differently he could in fact have become that nervous little ticking-time-bomb of rage from the previous scene. Sorry, I’m blathering, but this is a fucking cool premise. Mad props to writing staff. All is forgiven. (For now.) As Jack walks away he suddenly sees a little boy in one of the cells, and we get that flash again of a hand slipping away, the one we saw when Captain Hart mentioned Grey. Also, I’m totally naming the kid Harlock because of his ridiculous hair. Gwen comes in and startles him, and when he looks back, Harlock’s gone. Gwen smacks his ass and asks if he missed her, and he laughs and chases her flirtily from the room. Oh dear, they’re a couple. Oh well, I’ll allow it in Bizarro Torchwood. Also, Gwen is being kind of cute and not as whiny as usual. I think we should leave her this way.

The team are sitting around and listening to Tosh talk about Rift activity, when a little stuffed squirrel pops out from behind her monitor. Owen makes the squirrel talk to Tosh in this weird little voice, then asks her haltingly if she likes it. The rest of the team try to smother their laughter at him and it’s clear that this goes on all the time, and I am laughing so hard at Owen right now. This is the best episode ever. But wait, there’s more. “Just what I need,” snips Tosh sarcastically, “Some little rodent staring at me while I work.” It’s so funny but at the same time so horrible and pathetic, and I’m really going to have to put down some cushions or something, because I’m really worried I’m going to actually fall out of my chair. Tosh adds, “I think I’ll name it Owen!” Nerdy Owen is crushed. Tosh smirks and leaves, and Owen hugs his folders to his chest and retreats to his lab to cry for awhile. Ianto and Gwen giggle and she says, “He’s like a little puppy bringing her sticks!” Adam tells them he thinks it’s sweet, and they should lay off. He smirks to himself and stares at the ceiling, trying to think of new twists for this little soap opera he’s created.

Gwen comes home and puts down her purse, and oh man. This isn’t going to be good. She screams when Rhys comes out and gooses her, and demands to know who he is and how he got in. She pulls her gun on him. Rhys is a little worried, but things are way easier now that he hasn’t been retconned – I’m actually really happy they decided to do that, because now that this has happened I’m sure he’s figured something weird happened to her at work and she’s lost her memory. Gwen tells him not to move and calls Jack for help. Rhys is at loose ends here, and looks a little teary, but he’s staying calm. Maybe he figures Jack’s going to fix things. Jack pulls in and comes tearing up the drive, accompanied by Adam, who probably had to invite himself along to fix this little mess. I imagine this power would be cool at first but probably gets really messy really fast. Now there’s three guns pointed at Rhys, who is getting kind of fed up with all this. Gwen says that this guy knows her name, and has put photoshopped pictures of them up all over the apartment, so he’s probably some kind of crazy stalker. “He’s delyuuuuuuuded!” she shrieks, accent cranking up to eleven. Jack wants to know what she’s talking about, since that’s her fiance she’s got the gun pointed at. Oh, so they’re not dating. Rhys wants to know what the hell Torchwood’s done to his fiancee’s brain, and Jack says it’s not their fault. He calms everybody down and tries to get all the guns put away, while Adam watches intensely. Gwen is only persuaded to start believing Rhys when he tells her that he bought the engagement ring she’s wearing. She stares at it in confusion, like she can almost remember. Finally Adam steps forward and gently tells Gwen they’ll take her back to Torchwood and see what’s going on with her head. He leads her off, and Jack assures Rhys they’ll find out what happened and fix it.

In his lab, Nerdy Owen shines a light in Gwen’s eyes and says he can’t figure out what’s going on. Adam watches in mock concern. Back at Rhys’ place, Jack is setting up a video camera. No, not like that! He just wants Rhys to make a video so Gwen can watch it and try to remember. He asks Rhys how they met, where their first kiss was (in line at the supermarket – hee), and so on, while Gwen watches the feed back in Deep-13. None of it seems to be ringing any bells. Rhys is getting all choked up and it’s really touching, but Gwen says she doesn’t feel anything for him. Adam pats her hand pityingly and says probably her mind is just playing tricks on her, but that Rhys really is her fiance. Down in the lab, Nerdy Owen (it’s really impossible for me to think of him as just Owen, it’s so weird) is running the little maze box through a little MRI or something, and Tosh comes in and asks how he’s getting on. He says not so well, actually, and they may have to stay all night. But luckily he’s brought … sandwiches! He’s trying so hard to be casual about it, and tosses one over to Tosh but ruins it when he says “smoked salmon … that’s your favorite, right?” She wants to know how he found that out. Ooops. Poor Nerdy Stalker Owen. He’s got no good answer for that, and she says she’s going to get some beer. Owen continues talking long after she’s left, ignoring him completely, and he sighs and stares at the table.

YayyyyyyyIanto! We haven’t seen much of him yet, but he is wearing all black, which is promising. I hope it’s the Badass sort of all-black and not the Emo kind. He leads Gwen into her apartment, and Jack and Rhys look up nervously. Or is it guiltily? How long were they in there with the camera? Okay, anyway, Gwen clings onto Jack and begs him not to leave her, but he tells her she’ll be fine and gently unhooks her fingers from the Coat of Awesome, which she is wrinkling. He firmly puts her hands away from him, and this is how Jack-Gwen should always work out in my opinion. No, bad Gwen! No jumping up! Down, down Gwen! Jack leaves, and Ianto gives her a little thumbs-up before following, so we still don’t know if Bizarro Ianto’s a super-secret ninja mercenary, but I can keep hoping, can’t I? Ianto tosses Jack the keys and says there’s been a weevil sighting, but Jack’s had a sighting of his own, since Harlock’s standing right on the sidewalk. Jack stares at him in horror and asks if Ianto can see him too. Ianto says no and starts seriously considering getting the keys back because Jack is clearly in no state to drive. Jack says he’ll drop Ianto off and go find the weevil himself. Ianto tries to dissuade him, but Jack says he’ll be fine.

Back in the lab, Tosh and her breasts offer Owen a beer. She sits up on the table and crosses her legs and hi there, Tosh’s thighs! Long time … never seen, actually. She clinks her bottle against his and says they’re celebrating because she and Adam have been together one year today. Owen nearly swallows his own tongue. Tosh, you are such a bitch. I kind of love it. She goes on and on about how wonderful Adam is and how great they are together and then adds, “know what I mean?” Owen fidgets with his beer and says no, actually, he doesn’t. Tosh grins evilly and says he’ll meet the right girl one day. “Yeah,” he mumbles, “Er … Tosh. Do you … do you really think I … look like … a rodent?” Sad Owennerd is sad. Bitchy Tosh ignores the question and says they need to get to work. Sad Owennerd is even sadder.

Jack is down in some sewers, looking for the weevil. He hears some splashes and follows them, but it’s just another ghost, this one a man with black goggles around his neck. “…Dad?” Jack says. Jack’s dad tells him to get out while he still can, and yells, “RUN!” Jack runs. Right into Adam. He’s confused, but Adam says, “I came with you, Jack … remember?” He touches Jack’s shoulder, and he does remember. He’s still really shaken up, and Adam seems genuinely worried when he asks what Jack saw. “My past,” Jack says ominously.

Casa de Awkward. Gwen and Rhys sit on the couch and make awkward conversation. She still won’t let him touch her, and he finally gets annoyed and gets himself a drink.

Jack and Adam. Adam pursues Jack through the rain like a jilted girlfriend, and really seems to want to know what’s up. “What do you mean your past? Is it your childhood?” Jack turns around, and his face is scary. Adam puts a friendly arm on his shoulder and reminds Jack that he’s always been there for him. Jack sniffles and says he buried those memories 150 years ago, and as he says this he starts to sound more like himself and less like the more spineless, emotional, anger-management-needing Bizarro Jack. He whirls away from Adam, who keeps following him. Jack says he can’t afford to remember what happened, and Adam is seriously frustrated. He glowers after Jack and keeps following, begging him to confide in him. They finally stop on a basketball court and Jack gives in. He closes his eyes and makes some sex-faces and I laugh. Aaaaaand FlashJack! Awwwww it’s baby Jack! This is gonna be pretty much straight recap for this scene, since it’s super-depressing and also it’s Jack’s damn backstory, which we’ve never heard before.  MiniJack runs along some sand dunes, and climbs up one to see a big futuristic city on the horizon (Jack is from the future, if you didn’t know, time-traveled back to Earth’s past and has lived forward at a normal rate from there). Also, I’m assuming for now that these particular memories are real. In a sort of trancey tone, he tells Adam that he grew up in the 51st century, and there was an invasion. We see kids in beige-colored outfits and black goggles running over the dunes. In the present, Jack is starting to lose it. We can hear kids screaming, and Jack’s dad tells him to go and take Grey with him. Harlock is Grey, ps, so I’m sticking with his real name from here on. That is some spectacular hair, though. I make fun only because I am jealous. MiniJack takes Grey’s hand, and their dad screams for them to run. In the present, Jack breaks down crying. He says Grey’s hand slipped out of his and he didn’t even notice. In the past, MiniJack dives for cover, realizes Grey isn’t with him, and runs back out to see the beach covered in bodies. Present Jack is sobbing. MiniJack runs all the way home to find his dad dead. Jack sobs that he never found his brother, not even a body. He walks away from Adam, absorbed in his own massive trauma.

Back on base, Owen’s getting some trauma of his own. Tosh snarks that the box they’ve been obsessing over is made of boring old wood, and Owen says maybe it got mixed in with other stuff by mistake and picked up the radiation they’ve been detecting that way. Tosh snots that that’s a stupid idea, and Owen stares at the table, stammering an apology for being so idiotic. Ianto gives Owen a pitying look and says he saw Jack bring it in, and Tosh corrects him and says it was Adam. Ianto gives her a look that makes me think maybe he’s immune to Adam’s little mind tricks. Awwww, no Bizarro Ianto. He says he’ll go check the logs. He leaves Tosh and Owen alone. Noooooo. I’ve gotten over the funny a little bit and now I’m starting to feel really bad for the poor guy. Which is weird because I don’t feel bad for Tosh, but Owen’s just so much more adorable. Maybe seeing a girl be this pathetic offends my women’s-college sensibilities. Tosh sighs, and says Adam hasn’t called her back yet. Owen shoves his hands in his pockets and says, if it were him, he’d never forget to call. Especially on their anniversary. He chuckles nervously and says, “In fact I would … ah … cherish you.” Ohhhh it’s so painful. Tosh sort of laughs at him and he continues, “In fact I wouldn’t let you out of my sight because in fact Tosh, I ah …” DON’T DO IT “love you.” NOOOOO. It sort of slips out and he looks panicked. “There, now I’ve said it! I love you!” He giggles with a slight note of hysteria. Tosh looks like she just found dog poo on the bottom of her favorite shoes. Owen starts stammering on and on about how he aches for her and she tries to interrupt but he plows on and I am kind of falling in love with Owennerd here. He is so desperately pathetic. He keeps rambling on and on, and then quite abruptly runs out of momentum, trails off, and mutters, “oh. God.” Heeeeeeee. Tosh is so full of rage right now. Owen watches her in terrified silence, then squeaks, “say something?” She does that slow head-turn that means some bad shit is about to go down, and hisses, “That … is … completely inappropriate!” She rounds the table in fury and bitches him out, saying she already has a boyfriend, and even if she didn’t she would never, ever go out with him. She storms out, and Owen stares at the floor for awhile, mouth moving silently. “oh.” he says, very quietly. Owen, you can have all of Ianto’s trauma-hugs for this episode, okay? Come and let me make you some tea. And stop snivelling, you’re getting that adorable little cardigan all snotty.

Gwen and Rhys are out getting some groceries since they’re out of food at the apartment. Rhys is telling her she’s lost her mind, but he’s lost his girlfriend, and wondering who’s worse off. He heads for the checkout, and the cashier gets a call on his cell phone and walks off. Rhys throws a fit, and tosses some money down on the counter, shouting, “Oh, here, I’ll help meself, keep the change! And buy some spot cream while you’re at it!” It’s more joking than actually angry, and Gwen starts giggling. Then suddenly her face goes blank. “Rhys the rant,” she says suddenly, “Always. When you’re in a queue or you’re driving … or … when you’re on one of those automated phone-thingies …” she bursts into tears, and Rhys takes her hand and says it’s okay. She seems to be getting some of her memories back. Awww, that’s adorable, they’re like Desmond and Penny only less likeable.

Down in the darkened lounge, Ianto is getting some alone time with his diary. He looks deeply disturbed, and leans forward, thinking. When he leans back again, Adam is beside him. “What’s wrong?” he asks, and Ianto jumps a mile. “My … diary.” he says haltingly, “You’re … not in it. Everyone else is.” Scratch my theory then. He says he has memories of a guy who doesn’t exist, and suddenly Adam’s hand starts flickering like the image on a tv. Adam looks furious and grabs at his wrist until it stabilizes. “What are you?” Ianto gasps, and Adam flings him against the wall. “Cross me,” he snarls, “And I will fill you full of memories that will set your head on fire. That’s how I exist.” Ianto wants to know what Adam did to Gwen, and he quite cheerfully explains that there’s only so much storage in a person’s head, and sometimes putting more stuff in wipes some old stuff out. He grabs Ianto’s head suddenly. “Remember this.” Ianto convulses in pain. “I know you didn’t mean to kill her. But you just couldn’t help yourself. Remember this–”
“I didn’t do that!“
“Oh yes you did.” We see clip after clip of Ianto hunting women down and strangling them. Ianto fights to hang on, gasping out, “my … diary …” but Adam just grabs him companionably by the neck and says “Human record is a lie. You make it what you want to believe. But we know the truth, don’t we?” Ianto screams and begs for mercy. Okay, Owen? I’m gonna need some of those hugs back now. “I help you dump the bodies,” Adam tells him, “It’s me you call.” He kisses Ianto hard on the mouth and snuggles him close. “You know,” he tells him, “I forgot what a rush it is – feeding in the bad stuff.” Ianto clings to him. Caps of sad are insufficient. Adam drops Ianto to the floor, where he absolutely loses his shit and just starts screaming.

tbc

Down in one of the labs, Owen has pulled up a computer-generated image of a giant manatee-looking thing. He watches it spin around and around and around, and Tosh comes in. Owen says the manatee is a projection he made of what the alien looks like. Tosh says it’s cute, and that Owen’s just a big softie at heart, and she reaches out one hand to touch his shoulder and nooooo but she loses her nerve and doesn’t. Again, good instincts of self-preservation, Tosh. Augh, what is with the horrible relationship issues this season??? Not that there aren’t usually issues. I mean, I enjoy most of the issues, but no more Gwen-Rhys, Owen-Tosh, and FOR GOD’S SAKE no more Gwen-Jack. I cannot take it. Tosh has made him some sandwiches. Wait, what’s that noise? Admiral … Admiral Ackbar? What’re you doing on the skylight? I can’t hear you, Admiral, it’s a what? A crap? A flap? Oh, never mind, I can’t hear him, and neither can Owen because he goes to accept them, but then hands them back and tries to get Tosh to do his homework for him. Good boy. Also? Cheese and pickle sounds like the best sandwich ever. Owen refers to Rhys, who is still hanging around, as “another big lump out of his habitat.” Tosh just pouts and spews emotional trauma all over the lab, then asks Owen to have a game of pool sometime. He says sure, and he’ll see when everyone else is free. Haaaaa. Also, I refuse to believe that Owen’s dense enough not to have noticed that was a date proposal. I think this is about as polite a refusal as Tosh is going to get out of him, and I really wish she’d give it up. It’s pathetic to watch. Owen and his gay shirt take the sandwiches and run. Tosh’s head explodes. Out in the main room, Rhys and Gwen are chilling on the couch, but the conversation is just the same one they’ve been having and is boring so I’m skipping to the part where Rhys worries about leaving Gwen alone with “all these sexy young men,” though he probably doesn’t think any of them are as sexy as his Secret Boyfriend Dav. I should write more about Secret Boyfriend Dav, they mention him a lot. Anyway, Gwen says he’s the only sexy young man for her, and kisses him while staring at Jack. Ew. Jack looks as grossed out as I am, and he and his excellent-looking pulp “Avengers in Outer Space” take off for another room, possibly to throw up.

The BBSUV drops off Rhys and Jack at the Harwood’s office. Rhys runs in to grab his coat and a coffee, and Jack follows to lay some serious innuendo on the unsuspecting secretary, saying he should get a  job with her and asking if maybe she could “fit him in.” Oh Jack, I’ve missed you. The poor unsuspecting secretary says she’d be delighted, and that training “takes four weeks, and then you can go long-distance!” Jack is having wayyyyy too much fun and leans in to tell her in her ear, “That won’t be a problem.” The secretary is all turned on and he winks at her. He seriously just made that lady’s day. Jack Harkness, spreading love and joy and inappropriate comments all over Britain. Probably a few space-diseases as well. Rhys and Jack hop in one of the trucks and chat about Gwen as they drive. Rhys gives him some shit about hiring Gwen and putting her in danger, but he seems to have accepted things the way they are. He does tell Jack “I wish you were a bit uglier.” Jack laughs and Rhys asks if he’s gay. Ohhhhh, there isn’t really a word for what Jack is, boyo. It’d take too many hyphens, for one thing. Also, the scene abruptly cuts off after that line with no reaction shot from Jack, which, what the hell? I at least wanted to see his face while he tried to figure out the answer to that one. Did John Barrowman keep laughing through the takes or something? Feh. Anyway, they pull the truck in somewhere and Gwen’s waiting for them. Apparently they’re loading the Torchies into the back of the truck and sneaking em in Trojan Horse style. Owen helps Tosh in, Ianto hops up, and Rhys kisses Gwen before she gets in. Jack pauses for a second, waiting for his kiss, but doesn’t get one and hops in last. Awwwwww. Also? Four Torchies stuck in a small enclosed space in the dark for a long space of time? I hope Rhys doesn’t try to investigate any mysterious thumping noises he might hear coming from back there. Just sayin.

The Torchies pass around flashlights and start loading their guns and getting ready. Jack is doling out assignments but Gwen once again has to make everything ALL ABOUT HER. Rhys looks determined and pulls the truck into the parking lot at the warehouse and sends the two workers outside off on errands. I’m actually super proud of Rhys this episode. As much as I can’t respect him because he’s still with Gwen, I think he’s an okay guy, and for a non-Torchie he’s actually performing really well under pressure. Oh, I’m sorry, right. Snark filter back on. Rhys chats with the Scruffies while the Torchies vanish off into the warehouse. Ianto and Owen walk through a little hallway full of gross, bloody spaaaaaaace meeeeeeeeat and Ianto says, “Mmmmmm!” Owen gives him a death glare. You’re just mad because he’s winning, dear. Jack and the girls head into the big room and see the creature for the first time. They stand there with their mouths hanging open while we zoom out and out and out, until they’re just little tiny figures on the floor, and still less then half of the creature is in the frame. Jack seems to be rethinking his brilliant “bring it back home” idea. They spot a worker standing in a little sort of tunnel or mine into the side of the thing, hacking away at it. The monster is whimpering, and it’s really upsetting. The guy pulls out a few blocks of meat and loads them onto a hand truck. When he goes by, Jack tazes him into unconsciousness and they come forward to look at Blobulous a little more closely. “Imprisoned, chained, and drugged,” Jack mumbles, “Welcome to planet Earth.” A gigantic, foggy eye opens up, and Tosh whispers that it heard them – it must be sentient. They go over to investigate the huge, gaping hole in the thing’s side, and Gwen and Tosh have to stop several feet away. Jack, getting misty, walks right up and touches the thing’s side gently. “What have they done to you, my poor friend?” he says softly. I also love John Barrowman for being able to deliver corny lines like that in a voice that makes me tear up.

Elsewhere, Owen takes out another worker, then sighs in exasperation and grabs the unconscious guy’s ass. Has it really been that long, Owen? Oh, he pulls a gun out of the guy’s waistband. “Everyone,” he says quietly into his mike, “they’re armed.” Gwen whispers Rhys’ name and I so do not care. Ianto runs around in some stairwells. Outside, Rhys is getting jumpy as the scruffy workers load up the truck with spaaaaaaace meeeeat. I’m … not sure they have an exit strategy here. A nerdy-looking bad guy rolls up on a bike, and they yell at him for being late. He says he was getting more painkillers for Blobulous, since it’s in so much pain. They scoff at him for being a baby, and tell Rhys they’ll load up three more bags and then send him off. Rhys fidgets nervously. Inside, Owen rummages through some shelves of chemicals, and a few floors down, Ianto’s just been busted. “Hellooooo!” he calls to the bad guy, souping his accent up to truly adorable levels. He rifles his pockets, saying he has a form – oh here it is. If by “form” you mean “tazer” and by “here it is” you mean “I’ma shock you with it.” I loves me some badass Ianto. He catches the unconscious worker and, looking grim, drags him off into another room. Owen, you’ve got some serious catching up to do. Outside, Rhys is supposed to have left by now and hops in the truck. But one of the workers has spotted Ianto pulling his Hamlet routine again and calls the boss on a walkie. The boss punches Rhys out before he can get away, and Gwen is whining again. SHUT UP. She tells Ianto to go check if Rhys is clear yet. Ianto’s all, oh yeah sure, and by the way, I’m fine, thanks for asking. He heads back upstairs and is promptly surrounded by guys with guns. I hope Gwen’s happy now. If Ianto gets so much as a bloody nose out of this Gwen is dead to me. Well, dead-er. The scruffies decide to tie up Rhys and Ianto and lock all the doors. Owen watches from behind some shelves and slips away. “They’ve got Rhys and Ianto,” he says quietly into his mike, and Gwen flips out. I want to shoot her. Shoot her all kinds of dead. Luckily Jack grabs her by the arm but neglects to actually taze her ass. Dammit, Jack! The scruffies drag Ianto and Rhys into the big room and hold them at gunpoint. Vic, the nerdy guy with the bike, tries to stop them. I knew I liked that guy. A scruffy points his gun at Rhys and yells for their friends to show themselves. Time for Gwen to fuck everything up. She comes out and surrenders, and Ianto stares at her in horror. She gives up her gun. Damn it Gwen.

Gwen says she’s the only other one, but another worker has spotted Tosh and Jack. Now that Gwen’s fucked everything up they’re outnumbered, so they have to come out with their hands up too and drop their weapons. Hmmmmm, Owen may be able to pull this off with a daring solo rescue. Because that … would be so in character for him. Right? Ahem. Jack starts speechifying at the scruffies (and Vic, although he’s a tad scruffy himself) that they’ve found a sentient creature and they need to stop torturing it. Vic is horrified. It turns out the speech is mostly to distract the guys with guns while Ianto peels the ropes off his wrists. I was wondering why he was making such weird faces, but sometimes you just never know with Ianto. However, he’s not fast enough, as Head Scruffy fires at Gwen. Rhys, of course, takes the bullet, and Ianto takes Scruffy down. I wonder where Owen is. Probably halfway back to Cardiff by now, the cowardly bastard. And chaos! Jack whips out his gun, but Ianto’s fighting with Scruffy and Jack won’t risk hitting him. Meanwhile, Blobulous is getting more and more riled up, as the painkillers start wearing off. It’s howling and straining against the cables tying it down. Ianto’s kind of getting his ass kicked here, and Scruffy finally points the gun at him and fires. Click. Phew. Scruffy runs off and Jack shrieks for Ianto to follow him. Ianto gives him a look like, are you fucking KIDDING ME? Jack tries to call up Owen on the com, and says they need him to get the painkillers down there quickly to sedate Blobulous. Owen’s doing what he does best, namely mixing random shit together to see what happens. Vic comes running in the door and Owen flips out and grabs him, but Vic says he wanted nothing to do with the whole thing, and that if the creature’s woken up, it’s too late to sedate it. A hand appears over his shoulder, and it’s holding a tazer. Night, Vic! Ianto pops around the corner and tells Owen to hurry the hell up. I love Ianto. The other two scruffies are in the office, trying to get away with the money, but Ianto comes busting in the door in full-on Terminator mode and shocks the hell out of one of them. From the angle, it looks like he got him in the balls. That’s cold, man. The other guy goes for a gun but Ianto calmly kicks it out of his hand and presses the barrel of the tazer to his forehead. “Pray they survive,” he hisses, and pulls the trigger. Then he stomps back out. Oh my God. I’m calling it for Ianto right now. Also, watching that scene again because OH MY GOD.

Owen has ditched the stuff he was mixing and grabbed a different bottle with what looks like a biohazard symbol on it. “Change in plan,” he mutters to himself, and rushes into the big room. He stops almost immediately when he sees the huge mound of alien he’s dealing with, and looks ready to run right back out, but gets it together and tells Blobulous he’s sorry. He fills a big syringe with stuff from the bottle and slams a dose into the thing’s neck. It starts screaming and Jack yells at him for making things worse. Owen just ignores him and runs back for another dose. He gives it another hit, this time in the nose, and the creature’s thrashing weakens. Owen staggers back and says it’s working, and a horrified look comes over Jack’s face.
“What did you do?” Owen gasps that it was a mercy killing. Then he does this weird spazzy thing with his hand. I’ve watched it three times but I still have no idea. Jack sighs and looks sick. Maybe you shouldn’t’ve put the guy who voted to kill it in charge of the dangerous chemicals, Jack. He walks over and puts his hand on the creature’s head, looking into its eye. Gwen has Rhys cradled in her arms and has been shrieking at him this whole scene but I’ve chosen to ignore it up until now. She’s telling him it’s going to be okay, just keep your eyes open and keep breathing… we watch as the creature’s eyes close. Owen checks on Rhys quickly and the creature lets out a particularly pathetic whimper. Owen stands up suddenly and walks up to it, his arms out. “I … I’m sorry.” he stammers, “I’m so, so sorry.” He staggers a little, and Tosh comes over to him. He grabs her hand convulsively and pulls her to him. The three of them stand there and watch the creature die. Dammit, Torchwood, why are you so depressing?

Even more depressing, Rhys has survived. Owen’s patching him up, and from the ramp Ianto tells him, “Next time? Let her take the bullet.” Hear, hear. Jack tells him they retconned all the Scruffies, and Rhys is annoyed that they’re not going to court. Jack points out the relative infeasability of trying trying to charge someone with alien kidnapping and torture. Rhys asks what happened to the creature and everybody looks sad. Jack says they incinerated it. Then he takes Gwen aside and says they’ll have to retcon Rhys, too. Gwen says she’ll take the pill and give it to him at home. Jack is pissed because he knows she’s lying but can’t really do anything about it, so he hands over the pill and Cardiff’s Unhappiest Couple leave. Rhys tells her that getting shot in the chest made him really want an ice cream, so they head down to the waterfront, where Rhys unintentionally guilt-trips her by telling her how he won’t be able to look at the world the same way any more. He marvels at all the “worlds and planets and stuff spinning out there,” and says he wants to know all about it and about all the aliens. He says he’s even warmed up to Jack. Just then his cell rings – it’s Secret Boyfriend Dav! Rhys proves where his loyalties lie by walking a little bit off to talk to his real sweetheart. Gwen looks at the retcon pill and sulks, because Rhys will never love her as much as he does Secret Boyfriend Dav.

Back in Torchwood, Torchies do Torchie stuff. Suddenly Gwen barges in and screams that she won’t retcon Rhys. The other Torchies give her the stinkeye and say she has to, but she keeps yelling that she won’t lie to him anymore. Jack storms in and she says they can’t understand because they don’t have anyone they care about outside of Torchwood. She says Rhys was really brave and heroic and she won’t take that away from him, and threatens to quit if they make her do it.  Jack looks upset. He says that she can’t just go back to her old life, and she says she won’t care. Jack says he would. I can totally buy that Jack cares about Gwen a lot, but in a not-sexual way, so that’s how I’m choosing to interpret this because otherwise I’ll want to kill someone. He lets her go, and says to give Rhys his love. She leaves and the other Torchies glare at Jack. He ignores them and goes to his office to sulk, and also to watch Gwen and Rhys on a hidden camera, because Jack is adorable but still a total creepster. Gwen and Rhys have another oogy kiss, and Jack just sighs and stares off into nothing.

Next Time: OWEN IN A CARDIGAN! AND NERD SPECS! He wins this episode already. Also he tells Tosh he loves her, Jack has a little brother (and also MAJOR ISSUES), and Ianto apparently likes to kill people. Sweet.

credits!

Jack seems to have been hoping for a shipment of beefcake, and is understandably disappointed. He pokes at some of the big bloody hunks of meat with his boot, and observes there’s no bones in them. Owen gets the unenviable task of taking a sample, so he disgustedly chops off a porterhouse-sized hunk of nastiness and chucks it in a box. Ianto says the trucks belongs to Harwood’s, and Gwen says Rhys works for them. There’s an awkward pause, then they all pile back into the BBSUV, Gwen still not having seen Rhys standing on the other side of the tape. He stares after her, and the impending awkwardness is making me itchy. Rhys hops back in his car and tries to follow the SUV, but the police stop him. Yeah, you don’t wanna be anywhere near that thing once it’s got up to speed, mate, trust me. Rhys pounds his steering wheel in frustration.

Back in Deep-13, Owen is wearing a cute, shiny-green apron and fooling around with the chunk of meat, saying it’s definitely alien, and whoever’s smuggling it around isn’t doing it by accident, as some of the passes and things have been faked. Gwen is pissed off that Rhys has to be involved, and Jack says she can take herself off the case if she wants, but she refuses, because that will prevent her from interfering in every tiny aspect of the case for the rest of the episode. Tosh pulls up the Harwood’s website and they all sit around and listen to the utterly awful jingle again. They start making plans for the investigation, and Gwen is already jumping down the throat of anyone who dares to even suggest implicating Rhys. I break out in hives. This is gonna be a loooooong episode. Gwen calls up Rhys’ office but lets Tosh speak to him, saying it’s the police. She does not, however, refrain from hovering around irritatingly in the background. Rhys says the order was placed by some guys called Harris and Harris – Harwood’s is just a trucking company. He’s annoyed to find that H&H didn’t leave any contact information or any way of getting in touch, thereby making Rhys look super-dodgy. They hang up, and Ianto crows that he’s found the truck on CCTV. He’s ridiculously excited about this, but is interrupted by a super-weird, swoopy shot of Owen staring intensely at the slab of what I’ve decided to refer to as Spaaaaaaaace Meeeeeeeeat. He says it’s totally from an alien, and the Torchies are horrified that people in Wales have been eating the stuff for months. I resist making a crappy-British-food joke here, but I can’t promise there won’t be any Sweeney Todd references as this thing goes on. Owen says it looks safe as far as he’s concerned, and Gwen asks if he would eat it. Ianto comes running in, possibly to see if they’re all going to get drunk and play “Will Owen Eat It,” but it turns out the pizza’s arrived. Damn. Maybe later. He says he’s gotten Owen’s fave, the meat lover’s special. Owen looks sick.

Later, they’re all chowing down, and oh. My. God. Ianto, in a bid to out-cute Owen’s little apron from earlier, is trying to win back my affection by tucking a fucking enormous napkin into his collar. It’s working. Gwen says she’s going to run home for a bit and check on Rhys. “Good idea!” says Jack around a mouthful of pizza, “Find out how much he knows!” Gwen says that’s not what she meant, and goes off in a huff. Damn, my hives are back! I must be allergic to predictable and stupid plotlines. Jack throws down his crust in disgust, and the other Torchies look awkward. Well, Owen and Tosh just more awkward than usual. Ianto continues to be cute.

Ugh. Hang on while I go get some rash cream. Okay, here we go. Gwen comes in to find Rhys all depressed. He tells her about the accident and that one of his drivers died. He says the police have confiscated the contents of the truck, and asks whether she knows why. Gwen opens her eyes big and says she doesn’t deal with traffic accidents, and doesn’t know anything about the case. What follows is a super awkward and tense conversation where they’re both pretending everything’s fine, but Rhys is convinced Gwen’s trying to pump him for information, and Gwen’s too dumb to notice how wound up he is. She kisses him bye and says she has to go back to work. Once she’s out the door, Rhys looks grim and grabs his keys, following her. He pulls up outside of the fountain that hides the entrance to Deep-13 and sees Gwen meeting with Jack. She assures him that Rhys has no idea what’s going on, and Jack’s in a goofy mood, and offers her his elbow so he may “accompany her to the slaughterhouse.” Rhys glowers. Then, this happens.
Gwen: Have you ever eaten alien meat?
Jack: Yeah, once.
Gwen: How was it?
Jack: Well … he seemed to enjoy it.
The look on Gwen’s face is priceless. Rhys is pissed that not only is Gwen lying to him and hanging with sketchy Torchwood, but has chosen this weirdo over him. Don’t hate Jack because he’s beautiful, Rhys!

Ianto and Owen are already at the warehouse they’re checking out, and Rhys follows as Jack drives Gwen over. At this rate he’s gunning to get shot in the head. Ianto and Owen continue to duke it out with adorable outfits. Owen and Ianto walk around, trying to find a way in, while Jack and Gwen sit in the car doing fucking nothing. Rhys watches from some distance away (STALKER) and calls Gwen’s cell. She hears it ringing and quickly turns it off. Rhys explodes with rage. Jack and Gwen hop out of their car and Rhys hops out of his. Jack spots Rhys and they hide, watching him. So now they think Rhys is involved, all because Gwen can’t answer her damn phone.  Elsewhere, Ianto asks Owen if he brought something to deactivate the alarm. Owen goes all Rambo on him and shoots the alarm until it dies. “That’s … one way of doing it,” Ianto mutters. The rest of that sentence, which is “if you’re a scrawny little twerp who feels the need to overcompensate for something” is left unsaid, because Ianto is, if nothing else, a polite little butler. A white car pulls up and the bad guys get out and confront Rhys, who is wandering around. Jack sees this and decides Rhys is totally one of them. Gwen tries to run to Rhys but Jack grabs her and pins her to the wall. I really want Rhys to walk in on this. Owen and Ianto have just managed to kick in the door and are standing there all Charlie’s Angels when Jack tells them to stand down and retreat. Disappointed, they close the door again and leave. Awwwww, I’m sorry, boys. The sketchy guys take Rhys off into the building. They walk through a room full of cubes of spaaaaaaace meeeeeeat, and the guy in charge, who is kind of a ratty-looking guy with a scruffy beard, tells one of the butchers to come with them, and bring a cleaver. They put Rhys in an office, and he haltingly tries to explain that he’s the manager at Harwood’s. Just when I’m getting fed up with Rhys for being an idiot, he decides to tell them that the truck driver told him what was going on. Thinking he’s in on everything, the Scruffy Trio ask him about the accident. Rhys says he took the contents of the truck and had them incinerated, so they don’t need to worry about evidence. He says that now that the driver’s dead, maybe he should be the new liaison for the little operation. Wow, I didn’t know Rhys had it in him. Also, judging from the butcher standing behind him with the meat cleaver, what’s in him could very soon be all over the floor if he fucks this up. And of course the Scruffs ask him exactly what he knows. Crap. Bye, Rhys. Rhys says that he knows they’re cleaning up old meat and reselling it. His bluff fails, but the Scruffs don’t kill him, they just take him back for a little exposition in the warehouse.

They bring Rhys into a huge room, where something is wailing like a cross between the world’s largest cow and a sperm whale. Rhys walks over to a weird, CGI lump that’s taking up most of the room, and the lump opens an eye as tall as he is. The thing wails some more, and the Scruffies tell Rhys that they have no idea what it is, but they’ve been cutting chunks out of it for awhile now and it just keeps growing them back. Rhys throws up, and we zoom out to see some kind of huge, limbless lump of a creature like something out of Lovecraft. Only without tentacles. Probably the Scuffies chopped em off for jumbo-sized calamari. Jack and Gwen watch as Rhys comes back out, acting all buddy-buddy with Mister mcScruff. Jack thinks they’ve seen enough and leads Gwen off.

And we finally get the fight! Yes! Thank God! I hope they split up forever and Rhys goes and finds some nice normal girl who won’t taser him. When Gwen comes home he starts screaming at her, saying he knew she was at the crash site and the warehouse, and wants to know if she’s fucking Jack. I’ma answer that last one: NO PLEASE GOD NO. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Gwen goes cold and tells him he wouldn’t understand, and that he needs to trust her, but Rhys has had his fill of bullshit. He wants to know why she’s even marrying him if she can’t tell him anything about anything, and asks if he’s “just an old habit you can’t be arsed to break?!” Bin. Go. He forces her to admit that the police job is a cover story, and asks if there’s anything in her life that’s true. Gwen goes for sap: “Us!” Rhys does me proud and laughs in her face. He tells her he wants the truth and Gwen finally screams, “I catch aliens!” Rhys is pissed because he thinks she thinks he’s an idiot. And he’s right, but not for the reasons he thinks. Gwen collapses in a chair and looks like she’s going to be sick. They’ve both stopped shouting. Rhys looks her in the eye and says, “Prove it.” I like new Rhys.

Down in Deep-13 things are tense. Well, except for Jack and Ianto making googy eyes at each other. Jack says no one’s ever had a significant other find out before. “Mainly because we’re all sad and single,” Tosh mopes, and Ianto snorts to himself because he’s totally not. Owen chimes in to tell her to speak for herself. The saddest thing is that she totally is. Sad, sad, single Tosh. She says that maybe they should only date people who know about Torchwood, and Owen, missing the point entirely, snots that that’d mean they could only date each other. He wanders off and Tosh sucks down some wine like it was apple juice. That’s the ticket! Jack continues to make googy eyes at Ianto and says nothing. Hee. Outside, Gwen is helping Rhys up onto the paving-stone that’s really the elevator. I’d also like to note that even though they’re supposed to be invisible, you can see their reflections in the fountain. So whatever. Gwen says the elevator is “too complicated to explain,” because, “we don’t know how the fuck it works” doesn’t sound terribly impressive. She stands next to him and they start descending. The CGI guys get to trot out another huge background of the Hub and that fucking pterodactyl shows up again. Am I the only one who hates that damn thing? The Torchies all watch from various corners, looking rather ominous. Ianto is sort of half-hiding behind a wall, and Owen has busted out a v-necked shirt for the occasion that makes him look gayer than Jack. Ianto, you’re going to have to top that so I’d get on it now. There are introductions, followed by a long silence where no one’s really sure what to do. SO ITCHY! Rhys asks them if they really catch aliens, and Owen tries to give him the reader’s digest version of the whole Rift deal, then smiles stiffly. They really should’ve let him hang out in his lab, he’d be so much happier without having to interact with other human beings. Rhys says they seem like some kind of weird cult, and why can’t they be alien catchers AND a weird cult? Gwen tells him to tell the Torchies about what he saw in the warehouse, and Rhys gives a quick description of the alien and looks all proud of himself, like “I’m helpin!” Owen says the thing was probably aquatic, and has beached itself in Cardiff somehow. They wonder how this huge thing got into the warehouse and Rhys chimes in again to say it was originally smaller, but kept growing and growing. He is gleeful to be like part of the team. Dawwwwww. Tosh is excited about this magic meat-beast, and says they could feed the world with it. Yeah, with the still-living flesh you’ve scraped painfully from the boneless sides of some horrible Cthulhu-beast! Good luck sleeping at night, you big weirdo. Snarky Ianto mutters that they could release a single.

Jack tells them to get back on track and switches gears suddenly, telling Rhys they could’ve fixed this by now if he hadn’t blundered into the warehouse and fucked everything up. He also calls Rhys “Mister Caveman,” and Gwen giggles a little before stopping herself. Oh Gwen you are such a bitch. Rhys snaps back that Jack should try to work with him instead of getting all puffy-chested and showing off.
“Do I show off?” Jack asks Ianto.
“A bit.”
Rhys gets right up in Jack’s face and says that he didn’t fuck things up, in fact he’s found them a way in because now he can be their inside man, “but if you can’t handle it, Big Boy, then you can STUFF IT!” Jack stares at him for a second or two and then turns to Gwen and says, “This is quite homoerotic…” Gwen quickly intervenes before her fiance has anything violated that he doesn’t want violated. Gotta watch that personal space, Rhys. Gwen says she doesn’t want Rhys putting himself in danger, and Jack calls them all into the conference room. Rhys tells them the layout of the warehouse, and Gwen says again that he can’t come. She and Rhys start yelling at each other, and Owen smiles and mutters, “oh, lovely. A domestic.” I love him. Jack says they’re going in, and Gwen can opt out if she wants – Tosh backs him up on this idea – and says that she’s more vulnerable because she loves Rhys. “He’s not going in there without me.” Oh how touching. The other Torchies are staring at the table and looking uncomfortable. Awkwardness continues in part 2! tbc!

In the conference room, Jack briefs everyone. During the time shift, Tommy has to be in the hospital, ready to step through into 1918, where his life can continue as normal as though Torchwood had never kidnapped him. Jack says he’ll be like a thread stitching time back together. “A stitch in time,” mutters Tommy thoughtfully. You’ll remember this was the name of Bilis’s store, so maybe he’ll be back! So excited! Jack holds up a weird astrolabe-looking thingy (with NO BLUE LEDS like omg) and says Tommy can use it to close the rift back up behind him. So, basically it goes like this. If you’re Tommy, you go to war, get hurt, and end up in hospital. Mulder and Scully come kidnap you and you get frozen for 90 years, then you turn around and come right back to a few minutes before they kidnapped you, maybe a few months older than you ought to be because of the whole freezing unfreezing thing. Then you head off to find your lost girlfriend and try not to go totally crazy because of all the insane shit you just went through. Okay? Okay. Jack brings Toshi up to his office for a Special Chat and leaves Ianto to have some alone time with Tommy.

Jack’s Special Chat amounts to this: according to the file, when they bring Tommy back, he’ll still be suffering from shell-shock (or maybe just got some new shell-shock from Torchwood fucking around with his life so badly), which in 1918 was interpreted as “cowardice.” Three weeks after returning to his own time, Tommy will be executed by a British firing squad. That … may be the most depressing thing I’ve heard in weeks. Also? WHY ARE YOU TELLING TOSH THIS?! Tosh says that you can’t shoot somebody for having PTSD, and Jack is like, uh, yeah you totally can. And they did. Over 300 of them. Damn, Britain. Jack says she’ll have to go with Tommy, and shows her a sketch that came with the letter. It looks a lot like Tosh. Also, this episode would be way cooler (and creepier) if the letter had come already open, and they’d recruited Tosh years ago just because they knew she was the girl in the picture. Come on, show! That would’ve been awesome! Can you imagine how messed up she’d be if that had happened and she found out about it? Anyway. downstairs, Ianto has pulled some boxes from storage: they’re Tommy’s uniform coat and jammies, what he was wearing when Mulder and Scully abducted him. Tommy seems weirdly tense at seeing them again, but all he says is he’s surprised they haven’t been eaten by moths. Ianto kind of looks at him like he’s waiting for Tommy to strip and put them on right now. Hee. “So I’ll be saving the world in some pygamas?” asks Tommy. Hey, man, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. The Doctor pulled it off nicely, and that without a hand too! Also I just realized that I’ve been writing pygamas the British way my entire life, and that’s why spellcheck always dings it. wtf. (The American spelling is pajamas with an a). Jack tells Tosh she can do this, and she wants to know if Tommy knows he’s effing doomed. Jack says no. Toshi wants to know what to tell him if he asks, and Jack seems to have just realized that maybe telling her wasn’t exactly the smartest idea ever. Ya think? They all head into the main room, and try to figure out what Tommy should do for his last few hours in modern times. Tosh comes in and basically announces to the room that she’s going to bang him. So. Awkward. They send Tommy off to Tosh’s place and then stare at each other uncomfortably.

Tosh and Tommy come in to her place and chat awkwardly for a bit. Then they make out and luckily we cut away before having to see them have awkward weepy issues-laden sex. Thanks, writers! Instead we get to see Jack doing paperwork, which would be my pick any day. Oh, hi Ianto. OMG. IS THIS THE SCENE? I’ve been waiting all season to see this clip of Ianto and Jack macking it that I saw in some fanvid on youTube. Yessssssss this is totally it. Ianto stands awkwardly by the stairs and asks if Jack would ever go back to his own time. Jack asks if Ianto would miss him, and he sadly says yes. Awwwwwwwwwwww. Jack says he’s moved around so much he doesn’t really belong anywhere anymore, and he wouldn’t trade being in Torchwood for – oh, screw it, who cares, because Ianto’s about to jump him for the single greatest makeout session I have ever seen on tv. Yessssss! Then we ruin it by cutting to Tosh and Tommy. NOOOOOO! They’re lying in bed, and man that’s a whole lotta pasty-white skin on screen there. Maybe you should’ve hit the beach once or twice while you were here, Tommy. Not that I’m one to talk. Ahem. Toshi is being all weird and dramatic, and Tommy just tells her he wants to know if they find his body. She looks even more guilty. She nods. Tommy puts on a brave face for her, but when he looks away you can see he’s upset. Dammit, show. We could’ve had Ianto and Jack doing it but noooooooooo, we had to have more of Tosh’s damn ISSUES.

The issues continue as Tosh wakes Tommy up the next morning. It’s time to go. Torchwood stomps heroically into the hospital with all kinds of boxes and equipment. Owen’s looking a little less impressive and stompy than usual because they’ve given him a toolbox that probably weighs the same as he does. Gwen’s carrying hers with no trouble, but Owen’s kind of a tiny little bugger isn’t he? Out in front, looking brave and heroical despite the jam-jams, is Tommy. Jack apologetically tells him they’ll have to bail when it happens, and he says he understands. They start seeing ghosts, and Tommy’s losing it a little bit. His memories are getting all screwed up, and he can hear Mulder talking to him back in 1918. Freaking suddenly, he runs out of the room, Tosh on his heels. She and Jack corner him in a small room and Tommy loses it completely, ranting about how he’s always being shuttled off to do someone else’s dirty work, risking his life for other people without having any say in it. He throws the rift key to the ground and collapses against the wall. Jack tries to get him on his feet but Tommy’s fucking had it. Jack leaves him alone with Tosh, telling her she has two minutes to get him back on task. Tosh tries to tell him he’s going to be a hero, but Tommy doesn’t want any of that if it means going back to the trenches. Suddenly, the ripping noise shows up again. Light pours into the room, and Mulder and Scully are suddenly there. Tosh gives Tommy the speech from the opening, and tries to make him take the rift key back. Suddenly resolute, Tommy grabs it and stands up, telling Mulder and Scully to go and take him from the ward upstairs. Then the light comes back, blinding everybody. And we’re … back in the present? Wait, I thought I had a handle on how this was working but now I’m confused. Tommy and Tosh say their goodbyes and she kisses him. Tommy doesn’t even close his eyes or care, so way to fail on that kiss, Toshi. Call Jack in here, he’ll show you how a proper “goodbye forever” kiss goes. Oh I see, there was a few minutes’ respite so that when Tommy goes back up to his bed he won’t run into himself leaving with Mulder and Scully. Tosh sees him off and cries. I fail to care. Tommy steps through the rift and is back in 1918, hating his life. The Torchies are trying to come down the hall but Toshi chases them off, screaming “Go! Go!”

Back in 1918, Tommy has screwed up his timing (maybe if Tosh didn’t suck so bad he would’ve hung out a little longer in the present) and very nearly runs into himself leaving. Luckily, Mulder has the sense to distract the Tommy from the past so he won’t see himself coming in the other door. The nurse puts him back in bed and Tommy is really not happy with the way this is turning out. I don’t blame him. Down in Deep-13, a silent alarm detectable only by my closed-captioning is apparently “blaring.” The Torchies rush around all pissed off that the time shift isn’t fixed yet. In fact, it’s getting worse because Tommy hasn’t pushed the button. Ianto rolls his eyes, and Jack volunteers to go back and give him a proper goodbye kiss this time to snap him out of it. Owen says not to bother because he has an idea. Uh oh. As with all Owen’s ideas, this one involves injecting people with stuff. Somehow he’s going to inject Jack with stuff that will … let him communicate with Tommy telepathically? Or something? I don’t know. Anyway, they’re gearing up to jab Jack when Tosh volunteers to do it. They all stare at her like, “but … you suck. Also, you screwed this up once, if you were any good he’d’ve pushed the damn button by now.” But they relent and strap a bunch of weird shit to her head, inject her with something, and tell her not to fuck it up. Again. Tosh blacks out. Back in 1918, the hospital is shaking and people are screaming. Tommy hears someone calling his name and DAMMIT, I’ve managed to keep from making a “Tommy can you hear me” reference so far but I’ve just had it. It turns out Tommy hasn’t pushed the button because he’s reverted to his 1918 memories. He doesn’t know who Toshiko is. She gently tells him that he’s holding a key, and he needs to use it. Tommy says he’s scared, and that he’s a coward. Toshi interrupts to tell him he’s no coward. “You’re my brave, handsome hero,” she says, and she needs him to save everybody. He holds the key up and turns a little dial on the side. That golden swirly Rift stuff comes out and the time shift closes. Toshiko thanks him and he smiles. Toshi come to in the present, crying.

Later, Toshi’s putting Tommy’s things away in a box, when Owen comes in. Oh noooooo, we’re not pushing this, are we? First Gwen and Jack, now these two? Owen stands in the doorway awkwardly, starts to talk, can’t bring himself to do it, and leaves before she notices him. Good instincts, Owen. She heads outside and Owen does come up to her. Dammit! He tells her she saved the world, and she says she didn’t do anything, it was all Tommy. “Let’s hope we’re worth it,” she says bitterly, and walks away. Owen stares at the river and sulks. Well, that was uplifting. I advise rewinding to the kiss scene and watching that a few times to improve your mood.

Next time: Torchwood’s investigating alien meat trading, and Rhys is one of the suspects. Also, giant eyeballs!

credits.

We get a longish sequence of Tosh getting ready in the morning, and really I could not care less what she eats for breakfast or what her bathrobe looks like, but there must be some Tosh fans out there somewhere who are enjoying this. Anyway, her calendar has the date – the 20th – circled in red. She seems happy about something. Down in Jack’s office, he’s showing her a picture of the soldier, Thomas Reginald Brockless (“Tommy,” Ianto corrects him), who he says is twenty-four years old (“depends on how you work it out,” Ianto interrupts again). Jack tells Gwen Tommy was born in 1894, and he and Ianto leave, calling for Owen. Gwen’s face nearly slides off her head as she attempts to do some mental math. There’s some quickfire exposition as they get Tommy out – he’s been frozen in the vaults for about 90 years, longer than anyone but Jack can remember, and every year or so they have to drag him out and unfreeze him for a day or so to “make sure he still works,” as Owen says. Does that include testing for … full functionality? I guess we know why Tosh was getting all dressed up. Anyway, Jack says they’re going to need him some day. Oh come on, Jack, you’re such a packrat. Always keeping frozen soldiers around just in case they “might come in use someday.” Owen does some weird stuff to shirtless Tommy, and there’s a tense moment while he checks for a pulse and they all worry that this’ll be the time they can’t bring him back. Owen grabs some paddles and shocks the hell out of him, and we learn that Tosh doesn’t understand that “clear!” means “get the fuck out of the way whilst I play with this very dangerous electricity!” Tommy comes to, freaking out, and Toshiko calms him down, but not before he fucking clocks Owen in the head. Haaa. “Is it time again?” he asks Toshi, “Blimey.” He … doesn’t have much of an accent, does he? I dunno, words like ‘blimey’ just don’t sound right without a real, thick, down-and-dirty London-style accent. Tommy asks for a cup of tea, and Ianto breaks off making flirty eyes at him to go get food.

They chow down in a scene lasting all of five seconds in which Tommy compliments Tosh’s dress, makes fun of the pants she’s wearing underneath, and wishes miniskirts would come back in style. Aaaaaand scene! Later, Owen finishes up some medical tests, and Tosh apologizes that they stick him with needles and stuff every year. “Once a year for you, every day for me!” he jokes. Back in his office, Jack is explaining the situation to Gwen. He says a time rift opened in the hospital in 1918, and the past got weirdly interleaved with the future. Somehow, in the future Tommy stopped it, and now to prevent a time paradox they need to make sure he’s here in the future so he will … have been there at the time of the shift to stop the thing … he’s already stopped. In the past. All caught up now? Good! Jack gives her a little cookie tin or something with the case notes in it. Gwen goes to open it and hilariously can’t get the top off. She’s embarrassed. “Okay … it’s stuck.”
“No,” says Jack mockingly, “It’s locked.” Tommy and Tosh come by to say hello, and Gwen wants to know whether she can have a pretty frozen boy of her own. Jack says this one belongs to Tosh. They go off for their dinner-and-a-movie date, which is in … Norway? Oh, this is just some place in Cardiff commemorating some explorer from Norway who left from here to explore the Antarctic. And who apparently died by the time he got there. Point taken, show, but thanks for ruining it. They chat a little awkwardly, and Tommy rags on Tosh for never doing anything with her life. She tries to defend herself by saying Torchwood takes up all her time, but Tommy is frankly having a more interesting time in his one-day-a-year allowance than she is. Back in the office, Ianto and Gwen look at old pictures of Torchies past. Gwen comments that they’re all very young, and Ianto says that Torchies tend to die young. “Nothing changes,” he mumbles, and Gwen looks troubled. She heads off to St Teilo and tells Ianto to stop moping around. You’re not the only one who wishes they were off with the unfroze soldier, dearie. In a bar, Tosh and Tommy are playing pool. According to the blackboard, Tosh is playing “home” and Tommy’s “away.” Cute touch. He asks if she’s got a boyfriend yet and we get it show, Tosh’s life is sad and pathetic. Don’t make me start drinking this early in the night. She asks if he’s ever had a girl, and he says yes. Tosh: “What happened?” Um, let’s see, there was this war and Tommy got frozen and now it’s 90 years later and she’s totally dead. Moron. Awkwardest date everrrrr.

Gwen wanders down the hall of updated St Teilo’s, which seems to be abandoned or just not in use. The lighting and stuff is very creepy. She wanders down one of the long wards and a guy on crutches, right leg amputated below the knee, is watching her. Gwen calmly says hello, but he just stares. She keeps trying to talk to him, but he starts crutching forward determinedly. Gwen backs away slowly, trying to figure out if he can see her or is just wandering at random and happens to be following her, but eventually fear takes over and she panics, screaming. The ghost vanishes. Gwen looks a little embarrassed that she hasn’t got better self-control by now, and keeps walking around, looking for more ghosts. The lights start flickering again, and just as Gwen’s starting to get wound up there’s a loud bang. She whips around to see some construction workers watching her in amusement. Way to be a wuss, Gwen. Later, she’s come back with Jack and tells him the hospital is condemned. Jack says all the psychic trauma has charged the building up in some way. He crouches down and starts rambling about how awful the war was. I get distracted because John Barrowman is just so goddamn pretty. Gwen waits patiently until he snaps out of “back in my day” mode. That was a nice story, grandpa. Now let’s go get you a nice bowl of mush. And maybe a pretty tea-boy.

Back in the bar, Tommy is ordering drinks when the news comes up on the tv. Tommy watches some scenes from Iraq and gets all misty-eyed, saying WWI was supposed to be the “war to end all wars,” and in the end it was all for nothing. There’s a downer of a moment and then he smiles at her. She says what, and Tommy says he’d do anything for Tosh. “All you’d have to say is, ‘Tommy, you’re my brave, handsome hero, and I need you!’” Dawwwwww he is so cute. He says anything she needs at all, all she has to do is call, and he’ll come running – and suddenly he cringes. His head hurts. They’re tearing down the hospital. Jack and Gwen (in a different wing, I assume) are wandering around in the dark. Jack wanders off on his own with a huge flashlight. From behind him he hears someone singing, “Tick tock, wind up the clock. Large and small, I like em all …” It’s not, unfortunately, Bilis, but some old guy in a wheelchair being pushed by a nurse. The nurse tells him to shush but he persists, “Tick tock, wind up the clock and I start my day over again …” Jack watches them go past, apparently oblivious to him, and wonders why he’s never allowed to sing on the show. I hear you, man. Owen is watching the rift activity back at base, and calls Jack to let him know he’s seeing some weirdness. Jack replies that he is aware of the weirdness, and checks on Gwen. Gwen has decided the room she’s in isn’t nearly spooky enough, and she’s decided to switch on some flickery lights to get the proper sort of mood. She cranks the dial to “maximum creepiness,” and it’s like goddamn Kingdom Hospital in here. Right on cue, a guy slumped over in a chair appears ahead of her. A nurse comes out from behind Gwen and tells the soldier he can go now. He heads off and the nurse turns the corner, then scares the shit out of me by leaning back and staring at Gwen. The nurse screws up her courage and steps forward, calling hello. Gwen ignores her, thinking she’s interacting with something back in her time, until the little nurse steps right up to her and says, “I see you!” Gwen freaks the fuck out, and the nurse starts chasing her down the hall, screaming “You shouldn’t be here!” until the lights flicker again and she’s gone. Gwen is like, oh for three here on the ghost-interaction scoreboard. We hears screams suddenly, but it’s just Tosh running down a dock while Tommy chases her playfully. He picks her up on his shoulders like the big loveable doof that he is, then puts her back down when she starts squealing.

They stare at each other for a second, a little breathless, then Tommy darts in and gives her a quick kiss. Tosh looks vaguely pissed, and Tommy’s hurt. She says “thanks,” and now he’s really hurt. Tosh? Again, this is why you NEVER GET LAID. Because you suck. I officially don’t feel sorry for you and your sad-sack ways anymore. Tosh lays some bullshit on him about age differences and stuff, and for chrissakes Tosh, the guy gets to come out once a year, and arrrrrrgh I’m not even getting into this. Tommy echoes my sentiments a little more nicely by calling her a daft lass and asking what goes on in her head. She gives up and kisses him back. She asks what he wants to do now, and he says, “Well, we could go back to mine, but there’s only room for one and it’s bloody freezing.” He eventually talks her into letting him come over to her place, and rushes off, all excited to get laid (Don’t get too worked up, dude, I’m pretty sure it’s nothing special. There is however, a super-kinky tea-boy who might be more than happy to oblige…) and Tosh’s cell rings. Tommy jumps up and down at the end of the dock all, “Come on! Sex! And nakedness and I wanna go nowwwwwwww,” but Tosh just looks solemn.

Back in the conference room, Jack is telling them that the hospital being demolished is going to trigger the time shift. Some of the Torchies are still confused about the whole concept, so Jack prepares a helpful demo. “Linear time!” he says, displaying a piece of A-4. “Screwed-up time!” he crumples it into a ball and throws it at Owen. Jack breaks them up and sends Toshi and Owen off to the hospital to monitor rift activity. Also to talk about issues, as we see when Owen starts cautioning Tosh about getting too close to Tommy. “You’ve fallen for him, haven’t you?” he asks, surprisingly gently. She says she doesn’t have to pretend around Tommy, and she can be herself, which, buh? Anyway, Owen hems and haws a little and finally manages, “I just … don’t want you to get hurt. That’s all.” Owen’s figured out what we all have by now which is that Tommy’s totally going to die. This awkward moment is conveniently interrupted by Gwen, who sends Owen scurrying down to the radiology department.

tbc.