Date 16th Jan 2008
Cast
At night, a red sports car races through Cardiff, driven by an alien Blowfish. At a crossing, he stops to let an old lady cross the street. The Torchwood van stops and asks the lady if she saw the blowfish. She points them in the right direction, remarking "bloody Torchwood". The team catch up with the blowfish and shoots the tyres, forcing him to leave the car. He flees into a home where he shoots a resident and holds another hostage. The team hold him at gunpoint and the blowfish dares Ianto to shoot him, but Ianto hesitates. A shot is heard, killing the blowfish. When Ianto turns around, he sees Jack, having shot his gun. He greets the team with "did you miss me?" When they returned to Torchwood, the team wanted to know where Jack has gone, where he once again keeps them in the dark. He only tells them that he has seen the right doctor. He then takes Gwen to the side to talk to her about him having seen the end of the world he then shows signs of having fallen for Gwen and jealousy when he realises Gwen is going to marry Rhys because "nobody else would have her" but he covers this up by saying they should go "back to work". However, Tosh notices that there has been Rift activity.
Meanwhile, a man, Captain John Hart walks through the rift at the top floor of a multi-storey car park. He notices a man is held at knife-point, where he intervenes by grabbing the bad guys throat and held him over the edge. The man pleads with Hart to stop, but he says "no" and drops him to his death. Hart then turned to the victim and told him that he was never here, and to go. Hart then goes to a nightclub and told everyone to leave by pulling out two side-arms in front of a bouncer, causing everyone to panic and ran out. Torchwood Three sees the body of the dead mugger on the street and Tosh notices traces of rift energy from his neck. Jack then gets a message on his time device, where a hologram of Hart telling him to come to the nightclub, alone. He does, but the rest of his team follows him in a taxi. When Jack arrives in the club, he and Hart approached each other and kissed, but this is followed by a fight. They then stop for a drink. Hart tells him that the Time Agency is gone, and that he has been to several rehabs for drink, drugs, sex and murder. Hart sees more people and realises that Jack has a new team now, called Torchwood. Jack explains that Hart was his partner. Hart also tells the rest of the team more about Jack than Jack himself said. He then asks the question "What are you doing here?" He then says that it was about time he would ask the question. They enter Torchwood Three station and was checked for weapons, where he had many of them including several concealed knives and pistols. Hart says that there a are several deadly Radiation cluster bombs scattered all over Cardiff that could risk everyone on Earth. Tosh finds the locations of three bombs all over the city. Gwen organises to go in teams of two, Jack and Ianto, Owen and Tosh, and Gwen and Hart. Jack has problems with this and talks to Gwen alone. Gwen explains that she could get to know Hart more and to learn what he is really up to. Jack agrees and gives Gwen three rules on how to handle Hart; he should keep in front of her at all times, never trust him and not to let him kiss her.
The teams splits up. Gwen and Hart are in the container docks. After some flirting from Hart, they find a cluster bomb in a container. However, once she has it, Hart kisses her. Gwen realises that he has paralysed her with the kiss. Hart throws away her phone and tells Gwen she has two hours before her organs shut down and she will die. He then runs away. Meanwhile, Owen and Tosh are in an abandoned building and finds the bomb, but Hart arrives, knocks out Tosh and shoots Owen in the leg. Jack and Ianto are in an office building searching for the other bomb, where Jack asks Ianto out on a date. He explains that John Hart is someone reminding him of his past and wants to be done with him. Ianto accepts. They then split up, while Jack goes to the roof. Ianto hears a noise and then realises it is Hart, holding him at gunpoint. He tells Ianto that Owen and Gwen are in trouble and he gets him to run to rescue them.
Jack finds the last cluster bomb and is confronted by Hart again. Hart wants the cluster bomb, but Jack refuses. Hart wants Jack to join him running the Galaxy. Jack admits he isn't tempted, and throws the bomb over the edge. Hart then pushed Jack off the roof and falls to another of his "Deaths". Hart gets the remaining bomb and tells the "dead" Jack that rehab never worked. He then went back to Torchwood Three. Ianto goes to Owen and helps Tosh dress his wound. They then went to the docks and eventually finds Gwen just in time and injects her with an anti-toxin. Dawn, Hart goes to the corpse of the blowfish, who worked for him and takes out a small pyramid shaped object. He is then suprised to see the rest of the team, holding him at gunpoint, and then realises that Jack is immortal. Hart then tells the truth; there are no cluster bombs, he was looking for a diamond, that belongs to lover of his once, but he killed her. The "bombs" are actually a device, that would lead him to the location of the diamond. However, the woman's hologram says there is no diamond. a device shoots into Hart's chess, where the hologram explains that the device is a bomb that locks into the DNA of whoever killed her and it can't be removed. There is ten minutes until the bomb goes off, but Hart cuffs himself to Gwen. She has a plan that could kill her. Tosh says that the rift from Hart's arrival is still open. Gwen takes Hart there, but Jack and Owen stay behind and quickly works on a solution.
Once they arrive at the car park, quickly followed
by Jack and Owen, who inject Hart with the DNA of all Torchwood members,
that will temporarily confuse the bomb. The bomb releases itself and
they throw it through the rift, and just as it exploded, they are
shifted back in time to the same moment Hart once arrived. Hart, impressed
agrees to let Gwen go and reluctantly agrees to go back home. Before
he disappeared, he says "By the way, I found Gray". Jack,
shocked, is asked who 'Gray' is. He just says that it's nothing.
Analysis by Cuisle Hi, kids, did you miss me? YES! But just let me get my hormones under control and I’ll get on with writing a review of the first episode of the second series of Torchwood. The opening, pre-credits scene is like an episode all by itself. All the regular cast are chasing an alien – a blowfish in a sports car, armed and dangerous and high on drugs. A blowfish that knows that Jack is missing, and thinks that makes the team weak. Wrong. They were doing just fine without him, as Gwen emphasises throughout the episode. She dives straight in after the credits, giving out orders to the team and giving Jack hell for not telling them where he’d gone. Well, he couldn’t, could he? He’s been to the end of the world.
Then enter Captain John Hart, an arrogant SOB. Remember when we first met Jack back in 1941, and how annoyingly arrogant he was? John Hart is a million times worse. He is totally unlikeable, even if he is ‘hot’. He’s like all of Jacks’ worst characteristics distilled. And yes, him and Jack once had a thing, and maybe more than a thing. But for Jack that’s all in the past. And he doesn’t need him messing up his city. I’m not going to mention that kiss. Because the one thing Torchwood is meant to do is make things like that commonplace. There’s nothing remarkable about two people who once had a thing kissing for old time’s sake. I DO think that Jack should have thrown the first punch afterwards. I don’t know why, but I think he should have done. If I was directing that scene he would have done. In fact, I would have had Captain John floored with that first punch and made an end of it. Because he annoyed me so much I really wanted Jack to have the upper hand. This was one scene, I think, that should be cut down a bit for the pre-watershed version. Sex and violence in the sense of the one leading to the other maybe isn't something children should be picking up on. Adult viewers, hopefully, would see the difference between the unusual love-hate relationship of Jack and John and domestic violence.
What was important about this story was the way the team pulled together. The strength they have all gained through NOT having Jack to lead them shines through. Ianto, even if he was uncertain about shooting a blowfish who has a Human shield, didn’t hesitate to go to the rescue of his friends. When Captain John has Gwen in the unbreakable cuffs and a timebomb ticking away, they don’t hesitate about helping her. Their solution was a brilliant one. Incidentally, I’d like to know who else’s blood they have in the fridge. They’ve all grown. Most especially Ianto and Gwen. Gwen isn’t the new girl any more. She’s the leader. Even when Jack comes back she asserts herself, still. He may have a hard time putting her back in her place. But something told me that he LIKES to see her asserting herself. Ianto isn’t the teaboy, now, if he ever was. He’s a real team member. AND he has a date with Jack. I can’t imagine what film the two of them would go to see that would be more interesting than real life. But perhaps they won’t care.
Captain John left a nasty little emotional time bomb to mess up Jack’s life. Who is Gray? My suspicion is that he’s somebody from the family Jack must have had once, the part of his life that has been closed for so long it REALLY hurts to open it. I wish they hadn’t done that. Really, Jack needs to stabilise his life, consolidate that relationship with Ianto and settle down to running Torchwood again. This is going to unsettle him, and it isn’t fair. But narrative causality never is. Were there any bad points to the episode? I'm not particularly enamoured with James Marsters, or his character, despite the build up. I could have done with less of him on screen. But that’s just personal. I didn’t think there were any obvious flaws in either the plot, the direction, or the photography.
But… The sort of critics who always like to rip Doctor Who and Torchwood apart are going to hate it. They won’t like the extra level of humour that it has this season. They won’t like the darker parts. They’ll rib the Star Wars homage, even though that wasn’t even remotely important. It was a throwaway line. They won’t like the sexual innuendoes. They won’t like Ianto’s choice of tie. Some people pick holes just for the sake of them. For those of us who love Doctor Who and Torchwood, it was an amazing treat. Bring on next week.
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