"Torchwood, episode 1x07: Greeks Bearing Gifts"

Starring: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori, 
Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen

As Chrissy will be unable to join me for this episode, I would 
like to introduce two new women who will help me with the 
recap. On my left shoulder is Id. She is currently dressed head 
to...okay, boob to upper-thigh in leather, her hair highlighted 
with several colors not found on the normal spectrum. On my 
right shoulder is Superego, who is currently dressed in formal 
businesswoman attire.
   Id: At least she’s finally wearing something appropriate 
    for the 21st century. She was still wearing a corset up 
    until a month ago.
   Superego: At least I AM dressed. Which is more than I 
    can say for you.
Okay. Off to a good start. Let’s just begin, shall we?

Cardiff, 1812. A woman in early Victorian clothing (or 
something... fashion is not my strong suit) is leading a man in 
a military uniform through the woods. “This your first time,” 
she asks. She turns around and starts unbuttoning his coat, 
saying her name is “Mary...like the virgin.” 
   Id: See? I told you you can wear those torture devices 
    and still be a prostitute.
   Superego: You would know, I suppose. By the way, how 
    much money do you usually make per night on Hennepin 
    Avenue?
   Id: That depends. Is there a Republican convention in 
    town?
   Diandra: Oh, please. They don’t pick up prostitutes off 
    the street. They arrange to meet male escorts in the 
    bathrooms at the airport.
   Id: That’s my girl!
The soldier hauls off and slaps Mary. She’s like oh, you’re 
religious? He slaps her again. She spits blood, says she’s not 
his “bloody hound”, scratches his face and runs off.

The soldier, apparently pissed off, chases her until she 
stumbles on a pulsing light making loud electronic shrieking 
noises. We don’t see what it actually is yet. The soldier 
arrives to find Mary standing in a small clearing. He aims his 
pistol at her and she just smiles serenely as he fires it. 

I would like to take a moment to read a passage from one of the 
Torchwood tie-in novels (The House That Jack Built). Bear with 
me. “Gwen often moaned that Jack drove like he did everything 
in life; aggressively, theatrically and at enough speed that he 
hoped people wouldn’t notice the rough edges. He had never had 
an accident, but Gwen wasn’t sure why not: he seemed to be 
working very hard at it after all.” So, we’re in the present 
day at what looks like a construction site with tents and 
machinery scattered everywhere and the Torchwood SUV is driving 
up, whipping around a couple corners and squealing to a halt. 
Guess who jumps out of the driver’s side? Yeah. I didn’t 
mention when he took off like a bat out of hell a couple 
episodes ago either. The mark of a good fan fiction writer or 
tie-in novelist? You know your characters. Anyway, while the 
team is piling out of the truck, thanking various deities that 
they’re still alive and stumbling into one of the tents, Mary, 
now dressed in modern clothing, is watching them from the 
sidelines with an evil look on her face.

The team goes into a tent, where a skeleton has been partially 
excavated. Owen checks the body while Jack waves some sort of 
sensor over the device next to it and gets readings of elements 
not normally found on Earth. He has no idea what it is though: 
“could be a weapon or a really big stapler”. Owen identifies 
the remains as female and Tosh judges them to be nearly 197 
years old from how far they were buried underground. Gwen asks 
what killed her. “The stapler?”
   Id: I totally want that on my gravestone. “Killed by a 
    giant Swingline.” Give people something to wonder 
    about.
   Superego: I guess that sounds better than “she tried to 
    pack her own parachute”, which would be my bet for how 
    you’ll bite it.
   Id: You know, in a way that would be even more awesome.

Owen thinks her broken ribs indicate a gunshot wound, but he’ll 
need to take the body back to the lab to be sure. Jack saunters 
away and Gwen helps Owen up over a ridge in the dirt, cracking 
jokes about how easily she can yank him up because he’s such a 
lightweight. He says he’s WIRY, not light and “fat girls go mad 
for it. But I guess I don’t need to tell you that.” I guess his 
gravestone will say “he called his lover fat and she snapped 
him like a twig.”
   Superego: Yes.
   Id: Definitely.
The only reason I mention this awkward flirty banter is because 
Tosh is right behind them, listening to the whole conversation 
and looking uncomfortable. Way to keep it a secret, guys. At 
this rate, Rhys should know by the end of the episode.

So back at the hub sometime later, Owen tells Tosh he kind 
of...sort of...fucked up her computer by kicking out the plug 
while he was tossing a soccer ball around with Gwen.
   Id: Is that what they’re calling it these days?
   Superego: Must you?
   Id: What?
Tosh shrieks that she was running a translation program based 
on every scrap of alien language she could gather, broken down 
into binary threads to look for common derivations. “That’s a 
bit of a mouthful,” Owen mutters. Gwen giggles and says “sorry. 
Private joke.”
   Superego: Ew.
   Id: I would guess it’s also false advertising.
Tosh berates them for being unprofessional. Recognizing that 
she’s right, Gwen scoots away, chastised. Owen says the stick 
up Tosh’s ass has a stick up its ass and marches off to his 
medic bay.

After work, Tosh goes to a bar and is staring at her glass of 
wine gloomily when Mary sidles up and starts rambling about 
this guy in the corner who won’t leave her ALONE already. She’s 
avoiding him now by talking to Tosh because otherwise she’s 
afraid she’ll punch him and get barred from the pub and she’s 
already been barred from a couple dozen pubs and she really 
likes this one because they do these nice olives on the tables 
and can she buy Tosh a drink? Tosh blinks at her, dazed, and 
stutters out a protest to the drink but Mary is already 
ordering. “JD and Coke. And Toshiko, what do you want?” 

Tosh, being probably the smartest person on the team, 
immediately points out that she never told Mary her name. Mary 
says oh, yeah, she kind of already knows who Tosh is. “Toshiko 
Sato. Born in London, 1975, moved to Osaka when you were two, 
then back to the UK in 1986. Parents in the RAF, grandfather 
worked at Bletchley Park. University, blah blah. Snapped up to 
government science think tank when you were 20. Recruited to 
Torchwood three years ago.” Tosh is understandably shaken by 
this, but decides to work her way from the most obvious 
security breach inward and asks how Mary could know about 
Torchwood. Mary says you can figure out anything on the 
Internet if you dig deep enough. 
   Superego: If you can wade through all the porn.
   Id: But that’s half the fun!
Also, they picked up some random stuff from police scanners. 
Tosh picks up on her sudden switch to the plural. Mary calls 
them scavengers, but assures Tosh that they’re probably not a 
big group and are in no way organized. They’re just a bunch of 
tech nerds who get lucky and actually find something 
interesting every so often. Tosh looks intrigued.

So sometime later, they’re sitting at a table, drinking and 
Tosh is babbling about how alien cultures are not all that 
different from Earth, which is kind of disturbing since they 
find an awful lot of weaponry. Tosh, you would make a terrible 
spy. “Everything wages war. It’s not just a trait of ours, but 
a trait of existence.” Well, that’s cheerful. But she says it’s 
not all bad. They once found this thing with symbols all over 
it and when Tosh translated them it turned out to be a letter 
to some guy’s family talking about how much he missed them. 
Tosh says it made her realize that “even across unimaginable 
distances, there are fundamentals that stay exactly the same”. 
Like both love and hate apparently. She bemoans the fact that 
she has nobody to talk to about these sort of things because 
the people at work may be nice most of the time but they “don’t 
see it the way I do.” 

She looks at Mary, shakes herself and mutters that she could be 
fired just for telling her this much. Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t 
have had that last glass of wine, Tosh. Mary smiles and pulls a 
pendant out of her purse, urging Tosh to put it on. Tosh, 
obviously a very trusting person, does. She gasps and writhes a 
little as she hears a cacophony of voices. The camera zooms in 
on random people around the bar as individual voices start to 
stand out. A guy convincing himself he’ll still be good to 
drive after one more drink. A woman swearing that if the guy 
she’s talking to tugs at his groin one more time she’s going to 
punch him. “I can hear voices,” Tosh gasps. A guy wonders if he 
hit “reply all” when he sent that e-mail. Mary states the 
obvious: Tosh is hearing people’s thoughts. A guy wonders if 
that cute Asian girl at that table is having some sort of fit 
and if the girl with her is her girlfriend. Tosh stares at him 
as he wanders off into a memory of a friend who once banged two 
lesbians and wonders at the logistics of such an encounter. Not 
gonna happen, pal. Move on. Also? Either those weren’t really 
lesbians or your friend is lying. 
   Id: What? You’ve never pretended to be a lesbian before?
   Superego: Exactly what benefit does lying about your 
    sexuality provide? And before you say it: no, I’m not 
    being a prude. I’m just saying lying about your 
    sexuality to get people in bed is not healthy.
   Diandra: Yeah, I’m with Superego on this one. I wouldn’t 
    pretend to be something I’m not just to get a guy to 
    sleep with me.
   Id: You two are no fun.

Mary instructs Tosh to focus on her voice and try to tune 
everyone else out. The voices start to subside. Then Mary’s 
mouth stops moving and she continues mentally instructing Tosh 
to focus on her thoughts. She says Tosh can focus on one person 
at a time with practice. “What am I thinking?” Tosh moans that 
this is “so hard”. 
   Id: No, not yet.
   Superego: Nobody asked you.
“You’re thinking...” Tosh begins. “That I want to kiss you,” 
Mary’s voice over finishes. Tosh startles and rips the necklace 
off. Mary babbles an apology: sometimes you can’t control the 
thoughts. Tosh says it’s okay, she understands, and asks where 
Mary found this thing because it’s incredible. Mary says it’s 
been in her family a long time and it’s more than incredible: 
“it levels the pitch between man and God.” Tosh tries to give 
it back but Mary insists she keep it. “I’ve kept it too long. 
After a while it gets...You hear too much. It changes how you 
see people.” And yet you *want* her to have it. Red flag, Tosh. 
Tosh says she’ll have to show it to the team. Mary laughs and 
bets she won’t. 

Hub. Tosh enters the tourist office with the pendant in hand. 
She runs into Ianto and instinctively hides it behind her back, 
looking guilty. He doesn’t think anything of it. She hesitates, 
then puts on the necklace and goes down to the main part of the 
hub. The first internal monologue she hears is Owen’s. He’s 
coming up from the autopsy bay and muttering about what could 
possibly create such a perfectly circular wound tract. A wooden 
stake, maybe? Oh, good. She was a vampire. 
   Id: Here’s hoping she isn’t one of those lame, sparkly 
    vampires.
   Diandra: Hey, those started out as a good idea. 
He sees Tosh and his thoughts switch to a sincere hope that she 
doesn’t start yelling about him touching her computer again. 

Gwen calls hello from her desk too, while her inner monologue 
is ranting about “Sergeant Giving-It-All” and “should put a 
weevil in his bathroom.” I assume that’s Jack she’s pissed at? 
Tosh clears her throat and says she has something to show them. 
Owen says sure and thinks “please don’t make us sit through 
another slideshow about the Incas or whatever it was.” Gwen 
asks if she has time to pee first and thinks Tosh’s jean and 
boots combination is so not fashionable anymore. Tosh falters 
and starts telling them about this thing she found when she’s 
interrupted by Owen’s inner monologue wondering what she’d be 
like in bed. 
   Id: Considering the whole stick up the ass thing? She’d 
    probably be into some really freaky shit.
   Superego: Republican convention?
   Id: Oh, yes. You don’t even want to KNOW what gets some 
    of those guys off.
   Superego: You’re right. I really don’t.

Tosh looks really flustered now. Her eyes bug out as Gwen 
starts playing with her hair and realizes that she can still 
smell Owen on her after that shag they had in his car this 
morning and what is Tosh looking at her like that for? “You 
okay, Tosh,” she asks out loud. Owen, meanwhile, is remembering 
when Gwen did that thing with her tongue and wishing he had 
worn different pants because the scrubs don’t hide anything and 
now he’s going to have to sit down “until this subsides.” Gwen 
asks what Tosh wanted to show them anyway, but her mind is 
wandering to whether or not she and Owen could sneak down to 
the vault. “No, I couldn’t have sex in front of a Weevil,” she 
thinks. Tosh stammers never mind, it’s just that she found this 
article and she’ll bring it in tomorrow. She darts away before 
she can hear any more details. 

Sometime later, she’s sitting in a back office or something 
fiddling with the necklace still around her neck when Ianto 
wanders through, cleaning up. “Can’t keep his bloody hands to 
himself,” his inner monologue grumbles. “One of these days I’m 
going to pop him one right in the teeth. Course, it would be a 
terrible waste of a gorgeous smile. And those lips...I bet 
they’d look fantastic wrapped around my–“ OW!
   Superego: Are you done writing fan fiction now? Can we 
    get back to the recap?
   Diandra: [rubbing spot on her neck where Superego 
    slapped her, pouting] Fine.
“I can’t imagine a time when this isn’t everything,” he 
actually thinks. “The pain’s so constant [...] Feels like this 
is all I am now. There isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t hurt.”
   Id: I like Diandra’s version better.
   Diandra: Thank you.
Ianto smiles at Tosh and says he was about to brew a pot of 
Jack’s “industrial strength” coffee and would she like some? 
She stutters out a no, thank you and rips the necklace off the 
minute Ianto turns his back.   

Tosh is less than thrilled to find Mary sitting outside her 
house when she gets home that evening. Mary asks if she told 
them. Tosh says no through clenched teeth and storms inside, 
leaving her front door wide open. Mary wanders in after her and 
asks what made her change her mind. “You listened to them, 
didn’t you?” Tosh fishes the necklace from her purse and flings 
it at Mary, demanding to know why she gave it to her. She cries 
that she heard what the people who are supposed to like her 
really think of her. Actually, they were mostly thinking about 
themselves. Except for Owen, who is a jerk anyway. Mary says 
they do like her but people are complicated creatures. She 
admits she should have warned Tosh because it’s not like just 
reading someone else’s diary. She hesitates as she sees a 
picture of Tosh with Owen on the fridge. Oh, Tosh. Poor girl. 
“The stuff you’ve been hearing, it’s so deep, so personal, 
stuff they’re not even aware they’re thinking.” Tosh highlights 
the dangers of such a power: “you think you know someone, then 
suddenly you see them for real and they’re bastard little 
kids!” Well, to be fair, Owen and Gwen were kind of like that 
anyway. Ianto wasn’t though and, while hearing the depression 
he tries to mask is disturbing, it hardly warrants this 
reaction. In fact, it kind of makes you look like the bastard 
little kid, Tosh, for not trying to talk to him. 

Anyway, Mary says not everything and everyone is like that and 
puts the necklace around Tosh’s neck. We don’t hear what she’s 
thinking, but Tosh grumbles that it’s “not exactly pure.” Mary 
shrugs and says at least her thoughts are consistent without 
any hidden agenda or anything. “What you’re thinking now, 
that’s pretty graphic.” Mary smiles. “That wasn’t my thought. I 
wasn’t thinking anything.” Tosh is like ‘what about that one’ 
and Mary says yep, that one’s hers. “I um...certainly seem to 
be enjoying myself,” Tosh mumbles. Mary smiles wickedly. “You 
would. You will.” Tosh kisses her.

Aaaaand we cut to Tosh sitting in bed, covers gathered under 
her armpits, staring into space like ‘what the fuck did I just 
do?’ 
   Id: A very beautiful woman. If you were a guy you’d be 
    bragging by now.
   Superego: Have you never heard of safe sex? They barely 
    know each other!
Mary comes in, wearing a bathrobe, a glass of some sort of 
liquor in one hand and a cigarette in the other, complaining 
about Tosh not having any ashtrays, so she’s using what she 
thinks is an egg cup. She sits on the bed and Tosh abruptly 
moves to the edge of the bed, turning her back on her. Mary 
asks if she’s freaking out a little, but doesn’t seem very 
interested in easing her discomfort any. She sees the birthday 
card on the dresser and notes that it’s a long ways from Tosh’s 
birthday. She opens it to find it signed by Owen. She 
laughingly says that’s the same guy from work whose picture is 
on her fridge, right? “I don’t want to get in the way of 
anything.” Isn’t it a little late to think about that? Tosh 
says there’s nothing to get in the way of and storms from the 
room, covers still clutched tight around her. Okay, I don’t 
have the same grudge against Owen that Chrissy does, 
but...Tosh, honey? He’s a jerk and he’s currently sleeping with 
a woman who already has the world’s sweetest boyfriend. He’s 
not worth it.
   Superego: What about Ianto? Isn’t he single?
   Diandra: Yeah, but Jack is sort of moving in on him 
    already.
   Id: Oh, psssh! I’m sure he wouldn’t say no to a 
    threesome.
   Superego: I’m not talking about mindless sex, you hussy. 
    I’m talking about meaningful relationships. A concept 
    you obviously are not well versed in. 
   Id: Don’t call me a hussy, you priss.
   Diandra: OKAY! Let’s move on, shall we?

Mary asks if Tosh wants to talk about it. “It’s okay. Wouldn’t 
be the first time I’d been a rebound shag.” Tosh reemerges 
dressed in her own robe and says she’s not. “Nothing’s 
happened. Nothing will ever happen. One of the delightful 
things I found out thanks to your bloody pendant.” Well, you 
had to learn Owen is a jerk sometime. Obviously his blatantly 
jerk-like behavior wasn’t enough to clue you in. Mary says the 
pendant isn’t all bad. Tosh doesn’t know what good could 
possibly come from it, but Mary insists she find out. “You need 
to go somewhere public, somewhere crowded. It will find you.” 
Tosh finally explodes at her. Where did she get this thing? Who 
is she anyway? Is Mary even her real name? Mary says okay then, 
she can give her another name: Philoctetes. 
   Id: That’s what she said.
   Superego: Oh, grow up!

So the next day Tosh is standing in the middle of a crowded 
square and she puts on the pendant and staggers a little as a 
couple hundred voices crowd her head at once. She closes her 
eyes until the voices all fall away and she can focus on one at 
a time. A woman is pondering faking a hand injury to “explain 
why the signatures don’t match”. A guy is thinking he needs to 
be more careful because his wife is starting to notice he’s 
stretching out her clothes. Oy. Tosh giggles at this one. Then 
she gapes at a woman basking in the fact that she has had six 
cigarettes today and every one of them was post-coital. 
Um...it’s what, mid-afternoon at the latest? Yikes. 
   Superego: She never said she was having sex with 
    different people.
   Id: She never said she wasn’t.

This goes on for a while, Tosh giggling at the silly and 
embarrassing things she’s hearing spill from people’s 
subconscious’s. And then a guy carrying a bag that looks 
suspiciously like it contains a rifle thinks “I’m gonna kill 
them. I’m gonna kill them, lay their bodies out afterwards and 
lie down next to them. So I’ll have to do myself lying down.” I 
guess it’s lucky he didn’t plan this out before he left the 
house. Then he’d probably just be thinking really depressing 
thoughts and we all know how Tosh reacts to THOSE. Tosh follows 
the man, who continues to think about some “Lawrence” guy who 
has forced him to do this by “trespassing”, but she keeps being 
interrupted by other people’s thoughts as she pushes through 
the crowds.

House that is soon to be a crime scene. The man arrives to find 
a kid so totally engrossed in his video game that he can’t be 
bothered to even say hi. In other words, it’s his perfectly 
normal preteen son. A woman calls from the kitchen that she 
wants him back by six “and I mean SIX this time”. She rambles 
on about a wedding present and the kid wanders in to announce 
that he doesn’t WANT to go because it’s “boring”. She tells him 
to take his stupid game that Lawrence bought him that he hasn’t 
taken his eyes from since. The bitter ex (because that is 
obviously what he is) quietly takes his rifle out of its bag as 
mom continues rambling about how thoughtful Lawrence is and 
lady you REALLY need to learn to read people better. She 
screams and grabs the kid when she sees the gun. He loads it 
calmly, rambling about this chalet they had on an island once 
that was full of spiders and she called him a “hero” because he 
wasn’t afraid of them. Anyway, it’s a perfect memory in his 
twisted little mind because they were happy and together and he 
forgives her for dumping him for this Lawrence guy because once 
he kills them all they can be together forever. He is 
disturbingly calm in his psychotic break. And then Tosh appears 
behind him, whacking him over the head with a golf club she 
picked up somewhere. “You’re okay now,” she tells the 
hysterically crying woman.

And then I guess she just leaves the hysterical woman and her 
now-traumatized son with no further explanation or something 
because we’re back at the hub now. This show does not do 
transitions between scenes well. Owen is throwing things at 
Gwen from his medic bay because she’s singing about which bones 
are connected to which and annoying the crap out of him. Jack 
is taking pictures and laughing, which prompts Owen to pelt him 
too. Tosh enters, smiling, and asks what’s going on. Gwen says 
Owen just finished the post mortem on the body they brought 
back from the dig site. The one that Owen said was a woman who 
died of a gunshot wound. Well, apparently he’s had to “tweak” 
that assessment a little. Because it turns out that HE died of 
something they haven’t identified yet that was most definitely 
NOT a gunshot wound. Yeesh. 

Gwen continues to tease Owen about getting his medical degree 
from a box of cereal or something while Jack wanders away to 
call somebody. Tosh follows him and asks – totally oblivious to 
the fact that he’s already got the phone to his ear – if he 
knows anything about Greek mythology. He says yeah, a little. 
She asks if he’s heard of Philoctetes because “it came up in a 
pub quiz.” Oy. Yeah, let’s forgo the use of actual research 
involving encyclopedias, databases or the INTERNET – any of 
which I assume you could have done yourself – and just ask 
Jack. That makes all sorts of sense. Jack looks skeptical, but 
recites that Philoctetes was an archer in the Trojan war who 
was marooned on the island of Lemnos. How he knows this off the 
top of his head is anyone’s guess, but I’m willing to chalk it 
up to immortals acquiring a shitload of random trivia over 
centuries. PS - Philoctetes was also one of the men inside the 
Trojan horse and may or may not have been the guy who killed 
Paris (via an arrow to the eyeball). Want to know how I found 
that out, Tosh? I LOOKED IT UP. 
 
Café. Tosh has just finished telling Mary about the angry ex 
husband she thwarted. “You were right about the pendant,” she 
says. “It can be used for good.” Mary leans over the table and 
kisses her and presumably every straight male in the viewing 
audience pitches a tent.
   Superego: Didn’t we go over this before? Why does two 
    women kissing turn men on? 
   Diandra: The same reason two men kissing turns me on. 
    It’s hot.
   Id: What she said.
   Superego: That’s...not an answer. Although it does 
    explain a lot. Why is watching two people who are 
    batting for the opposite team you personally are on go 
    at it such a turn on?
   Diandra: Because the human body doesn’t give a goddamn 
    what’s real and what’s fantasy? I don’t know. I have no 
    problem with men getting turned on by lesbians. What I 
    have a problem with is people who can’t distinguish 
    reality from fantasy and people who exploit that by 
    lying about their sexuality. 
   Id: But what if they’re not pretending and are 
    legitimately bisexual, as these two women apparently 
    are?
   Diandra: Then all bets are off, yes.
   Superego: Why are we arguing about the psychology of 
    relationships between fictional characters anyway?
   Diandra: You started it. Would you rather discuss the 
    fact that the lead actor for this show is gay and I 
    feel like I have to douse my head in cold water every 
    time he kisses another guy?
   Superego: Why bother? We’d probably just repeat this 
    whole conversation.
   Diandra: Exactly.
   Superego: I...*sigh* Fine. You win.

Mary asks what’s going on with the thing they recovered from 
the building site. Tosh has no clue – she says Jack is dealing 
with it and he hasn’t said anything about it yet. Mary teases 
Tosh about doing secretarial work which is obviously beneath 
her and muses on how strange it is that her boss is being so 
secretive and basically she’s obviously trying to plant doubts 
and paranoia in Tosh’s mind. And sweet, unsuspecting Tosh is 
falling for it.

Tosh goes back to the hub and finds Owen fretting over the 
corpse. He’s thinking the “gunshot wound” is actually the 
result of some sort of ritual. Maybe. He’s just guessing 
really. She hands him a cup of coffee and he calls her 
“gorgeous”, which makes her blush a little. He says he’s 
researching devil worship from that time to see if there’s any 
mention of cutting out hearts. “They ate eyeballs, they drank 
blood, they had sex with animals, but they did not pluck out 
each other’s hearts, ‘cause, obviously, that would have been 
weird.” Tosh points out that the killer is obviously no longer 
a threat to society or anything so why is Owen obsessing over 
it? More importantly, why is he debating such a terrestrial 
explanation for a body that was found next to a piece of alien 
tech? I know the serial killer cannibals threw everyone for a 
loop, but really. He waves at the wound and asks if it reminds 
her of anything. She shrugs and says it kind of looks like the 
aftermath of that scene in “Alien” where the creature births 
itself from some poor guy’s chest. And even though that is 
probably more likely than devil worship given the nature of 
this show, he declares that unhelpful and shoos her out. 

She starts to leave, then hesitates and puts the necklace on. 
Owen’s thoughts are throwing up random theories about the body 
and complaining about the amount of sugar in his coffee. Then 
Gwen comes in and Owen is like ‘don’t look at her. Don’t look 
at her.’ “What’s the matter with him,” Gwen thinks. “Why isn’t 
he looking at me?” Owen tells himself not to think about the 
way she puts her hand on his lower back and in his hair and 
he’s going to need to sit down again soon. They are actually 
having a conversation at the same time they’re doing this, but 
hell if I know what they’re talking about because I’m too busy 
laughing/groaning. 
   Id: That’s okay, it’s boring anyway. 
Gwen is like ‘he’s ignoring me. That’s okay. It’s not like it 
was going to last anyway. Who am I kidding? This is a good 
thing. WHY ISN’T HE LOOKING AT ME?!’ “I think my desk is on 
fire,” Tosh mutters and runs from the room. Nobody notices as 
they are too busy worrying about each other.

She finds the “stapler” lying on a table somewhere and stares 
at it until Jack bounces into the room like ‘guess what!’ She 
looks startled as he babbles about this interesting 
conversation he just had with a detective who has “the biggest 
hands I’ve ever seen.”
   Id: Well, you know what they say about a man with big 
    hands...
   Superego: Does everything have to be about sex with you?
   Diandra: Oh, come on. It’s Jack. Why else would he note 
    the size of a guy’s hands?
Anyway, what was really interesting was the guy’s story about 
how Tosh single-handedly rescued a woman and her son from her 
deranged ex-husband. Tosh is like yeah, um...I was going to 
tell you about that, really! Jack is like oh, really? When? She 
says it had nothing to do with work so she didn’t think it was 
relevant. Then why would you tell him in the first place, Tosh? 
Keep your stories straight! Jack says the guy they arrested 
said she was tipped off when she “heard him muttering to 
himself”. She’s like ‘yep, sure did!’ Jack says that’s weird 
because “when I’m about to murder someone I’m really careful 
not to talk to myself about it while I’m in the street.” Hold 
up...what? Is this a scenario you are actually familiar with 
Jack or are you being hypothetical? 

Jack starts futzing around with the stapler and Tosh uses the 
opportunity to change the subject. She asks if he’s going to 
dismantle it. He says it’s “ongoing” and basically dismisses 
her. She starts to walk away, then apparently realizes she’s 
still wearing the pendant. She touches it and tries to hone in 
on Jack’s thoughts. Crickets chirp. A tumble weed blows around 
a little. Actually, Jack looks startled and turns to face her 
as she stares like ‘WHY THE HELL AM I HEARING NOTHING?’ He asks 
if he has something on his face or something. She mutters that 
she just zoned out for a second and she better do something 
about that fire on her desk and runs off.

That night, Mary drops a bag of food on Tosh’s table and Tosh 
greets her with “I’m giving them the pendant.” Because it IS 
worse than reading someone’s diary and it’s making her feel all 
dirty and wrong –
   Id: And NOT in a good way!
- and like she’s SPYING on her friends. Mary snots that they 
can’t be good friends the way they pity her. I thought we’d 
been over this already. Tosh doesn’t fall for it. Mary gets 
twitchy. Tosh assures her that although they may want to talk 
to her they’ll be more interested in the pendant than her. She 
picks up the phone to call Jack and Mary shouts at her in a 
layered, demonic voice to put it down. Tosh blinks at her. 
Mary’s like okay, I guess I’ll have to show you and light 
starts streaming from her face and she turns into a glowy 
purple alien with tentacles where her hair should be. “This is 
why you can’t tell them,” Mary’s Voice Over of Bleeding Obvious 
Statements says. Tosh, not at all disturbed by this, bless her, 
reaches out curiously and touches Alien Mary. “Who are you,” 
she gasps. Mary’s voice over (apparently the mouths on this 
species are purely for decoration) says she’s still the same 
person. Then she transforms back into human form. “So, I’m 
shagging a woman and an alien,” Tosh says after a long pause. 
“Pfffffttttt. Amateur,” Jack would probably be saying if he 
were here. Mary asks which is worse. Tosh mutters “well, I know 
which one my parents would say.” Yes, both. Equally. Once they 
finished freaking out about the fact that aliens are real.

Tosh wants to know what else Mary is keeping from her because 
she’s read her thoughts and still didn’t see this coming. Mary 
babbles about how much freedom people have on this planet 
because hers sounds like the dystopian future from “1984”. Any 
form of dissent results in death or “transportation to a feral 
outpost.” The pendant, she says, is how her people have 
communicated for centuries. She thinks oral language is so 
archaic and icky. And yet knowing every single thought results 
in that dystopia you were just describing, doesn’t it Mary? 
Hello? She says the “stapler” is her transporter and she needs 
it back if she’s going to get home. Because while the world she 
left was shit, after 200 years it’s bound to have had at least 
one revolution. Tosh asks why nobody has come looking for her. 
Because why would a race that is familiar with space travel 
worry about one missing creature? Or because Mary says she’s 
been forgotten “like Philoctetes”. Tosh offers to bring her 
into Torchwood and help her get home. Mary scoffs that that’s 
hardly ever priority one when dealing with alien life forms. 
Standard procedure would involve poking and prodding and 
shoving her in a cell until they can figure out what to do with 
her. “You’re not interested in understanding alien cultures. 
It’s just as well you haven’t got the technology to reach other 
planets yet. Yours is a culture of invasion.” Wow. That’s...a 
completely accurate and unflinching observation on human 
nature. Nice one, writers.

The following two scenes are randomly intercut together and, 
while I’m getting TIRED of cobbling bits and pieces of scenes 
that are all out of order into something resembling a coherent 
narrative, it is impossible to make any goddamn sense of this 
show otherwise sometimes. We’ll start with the one that 
actually seems to be progressing the plot in some sort of 
direction.

Owen is still trying to figure out what killed the 200 year old 
John Doe and running searches on some sort of databases. He 
finally finds a case where a woman was found with exactly the 
same sort of wound - her heart missing. Then he finds a few 
more people. All from time periods between the 50s and 70s. The 
scene keeps randomly cutting away to shots of Jack standing on 
a rooftop somewhere for NO APPARENT GODDAMN REASON until Owen 
finally finds something, mutters “that’s impossible”, calls 
Jack and says “you need to see this.”

Meanwhile, Tosh is wandering the streets again, listening to 
random bullshit spewing from people’s subconscious minds and 
getting frustrated and ripping the pendant off. And then some 
unidentified time later (or earlier, who the hell knows?) she’s 
crying to Mary about how TIRED she is of this. She can’t forget 
the things she’s seen after she takes the pendant off. It’s 
like a curse and it’s RUINING her LIFE and blah blah blah blah 
blah blah blah I’m bored. This scene serves no purpose until 
the end when Mary announces that Tosh needs to get her into 
Torchwood. Wait, what? When did we do a full one-eighty? Huh?
   Superego: I think maybe you should lay down for a while.
   Diandra: I don’t...but the...whyyyyyeeeeeee...

So Tosh brings Mary right into the hub. Because this is totally 
a good idea. Tosh stares at the now-empty table where the 
“stapler” once was, stutters something about how Jack must have 
taken it somewhere and tells Mary to wait in the main level 
while she gets it. Mary grabs Tosh, strokes her face and, in 
her best seductress voice, tells her to hurry because she’s 
going to have to make a long journey and “I may need something 
to eat before I go.” Oh, ew.
   Id: Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
   Superego: Oh, shut up.
   Id: You know, I’m getting tired of you always trying to 
    boss me around.
   Superego: And I’m getting tired of you always acting 
    like you were raised by WOLVES.
   Id: Really? That’s the best you can do?
   Diandra: STOP IT. BOTH OF YOU.

Jack appears on a catwalk overhead, “stapler” in his hands. 
Once he gets their attention he starts a story about a “friend” 
of his who seemed like a perfectly regular guy until he 
disappeared for a couple months and came back as a woman. Long 
story short: ever since then he’s been a little nervous anytime 
a friend of his starts acting stranger than usual (this is Jack 
we’re talking about...let’s assume “normal” is a relative term 
used in conjunction with anyone in his orbit). Jack introduces 
himself to Mary and – in a bad Southern accent – notes that 
she’s “not from around these parts.” He holds up the stapler 
and asks if Tosh knows what it is. Tosh recites that it’s a 
transporter and Mary was a political prisoner who was exiled on 
Earth (which is apparently considered a feral outpost on her 
planet). 
   Superego: Pretty accurate description, actually.
Jack says that’s partly true and asks Mary if she wants to tell 
Tosh the rest. Mary just smirks at him like “I can think of 
about twelve different ways to kill you without using my 
hands”. Jack says it’s a two man...er...alien transporter, 
designed to transport one prisoner and one guard. “Wanna tell 
us what happened to the guard, Mary?” Mary doesn’t even 
hesitate or try to lie: “I killed him.”

Flashback to 1812. Mary in her alien form is floating around in 
a clearing in the woods when the real, original, HUMAN Mary 
stumbles in and the alien possesses her pretty much the same 
way the pink smoke sex addict alien did a few episodes back. 
The holier than thou soldier who was trying to kill her comes 
charging in as she’s marveling at her new human body. He shoots 
her, but the bullet does fuck all. In response, she punches her 
fist through his ribcage and rips out his heart.

As present day Mary has been telling this story, Gwen, Ianto 
and Owen have been trickling into the hub, surrounding her, 
Jack and Tosh. Owen says she’s been ripping people’s hearts out 
ever since, and not at all in the figurative sense – hence all 
the bodies with weird puncture wounds and missing hearts. Mary 
shrugs that she needs to *eat*.
   Superego: Go back to what she said to Tosh a minute ago. 
    Still think that was a come on?
   Diandra: Oh. Oooooohhhhhhh. 
   Id: I liked it better as a come on.
She keeps rambling about how the forest disappeared a few years 
later and the transporter was buried beneath the city but she 
wasn’t exactly in a fired up hurry to go back to her planet and 
she knew she was safe as long as she knew where it was. Tosh 
puts the necklace on for...some reason. She hears Gwen 
marveling at how goddamn creepy Mary is. Owen is noting that 
she’s not even scared of them. She just keeps rambling on like 
she adores the sound of her own voice. “I’m gonna go for it 
now,” he thinks and Tosh screams at him to stop. Mary responds 
by zipping over to Tosh at inhuman speed and using her as a 
shield. Damnit, Tosh! You’re supposed to be the smart one!

There’s some frantic shouting and Mary demands that Tosh tell 
them to give her the transporter. Owen wishes at least one of 
them was armed, Gwen notes that the knife has notches that will 
totally rip Tosh’s throat out if they don’t stop her and Ianto 
just thinks “not again. Please, God, not again.” Mary addresses 
Owen: offering to exchange Tosh for Gwen if that’ll work 
better. Then she waits for him to think something along the 
lines of “no, anyone but Gwen” and asks if Tosh heard him. 
“That’s what they think of you. That’s who you’ve been working 
with all these years.” Yes, we’ve already been over this. But 
since they are not currently the ones threatening to KILL her, 
I’m not really sure what revisiting this idea is supposed to 
accomplish. She starts blathering about how she’s DIFFERENT and 
what she and Tosh have is REAL, but Jack suddenly butts in, 
mentally instructing her to stay still until he gives her the 
order. Then he offers to swap Tosh for the transporter. 

Everybody else is mentally freaking out and the closed caption 
guy gets confused and calls Ianto “Jack” briefly. Mary tosses 
Tosh aside and grabs for the transporter. She hesitates a 
moment to note that Jack smells different than the rest of 
them...“what are you?” “I don’t know,” he says. The transporter 
makes a swoopy electronic noise and Jack is like ‘oh, yeah, by 
the way? I fixed it’ and jumps back before it lights up like a 
disco ball. Mary gasps and turns into a ball of light or 
something that floats into the air and disappears. Tosh blinks 
and asks if he just sent her home. Jack says nah, he reset the 
coordinates for the center of the Sun. “You killed her.” “Yes,” 
he snaps and stomps off while Tosh sniffles and tries not to 
cry...too much.

Sometime later, Tosh comes up on Gwen and Owen having a 
whispered argument. Gwen “innocently” asks her how long she’s 
been able to hear people’s thoughts. A couple days, Tosh 
mutters. “What did you hear,” Owen blurts. Tosh says it was a 
lot of noise and emotions and references to things she didn’t 
understand. Oh, and some stuff that wasn’t her business. “No, 
it wasn’t,” Owen snots and storms off. Okay, why are all the 
guys being assholes suddenly? Gwen smiles guiltily, points out 
that they can’t really take the moral high ground here (though 
that obviously doesn’t seem to be stopping Owen from trying 
anyway) and tries to make excuses. Tosh stops her and 
apologizes for invading everyone’s privacy. Gwen kind of 
brushes it off and says it should be a wake-up call for her. 
She should stop now while she still can. “But I won’t. What 
does that say about me?”
   Id: I think it says more about Owen’s talents, really.
   Superego: No. It doesn’t. I don’t care if she stopped 
    loving her other boyfriend, she should have the decency 
    to break up with him, not go behind his back.

Tosh says she’s not in a position to make judgments about Gwen. 
Gwen says exactly: neither is she. “Don’t let this put you 
off,” she adds. “The last couple of days you’ve had this look 
about you. Love suited you.” 
   Diandra: I think I’ve discovered her problem. She can’t 
    recognize the difference between love and lust.
   Superego: Obviously.

Night. Tosh and Jack are sitting by a fountain outside and Tosh 
is marveling at the pendant. “It could be the most powerful 
piece of technology we’ve ever found.” Didn’t you say that with 
the thing that could see through time? How many times do we 
have to have a conversation about the dangers of having too 
much power? She asks what they should do with it. “Your call,” 
says the guy with way too much confidence in her moral compass. 
She drops it on the ground and crushes it with her boot. What 
happened to filing it away in a safe somewhere with all the 
other shit that comes through the rift? Jack just smiles, so I 
guess he doesn’t care anymore. She finally asks why she 
couldn’t read Jack’s mind when she was wearing the pendant. 
Jack says he doesn’t know, but he could feel her trying. “But I 
got nothing,” she insists. “It’s like you were, I don’t know, 
dead.” Jack stops smiling. Okay, I know technically he’s not 
“immortal” per se because he dies all the time and is 
resurrected, but...what? You know what? Cool as that reveal 
might be, I’m not even going to bother analyzing it any further 
because I’m pretty sure something will contradict it in a 
future episode. 

He tries to deflect by ordering her to have that report she was 
supposed to be working on on his desk by tomorrow morning, but 
it doesn’t really work because he’s not really sure what he’ll 
do about it if she doesn’t finish. Tosh lets it slide because 
she has another question. When she asked Mary why she gave her 
the pendant she said it was because “it gets to you” and 
“changes how you see people” and how is she supposed to deal 
with what she heard now? Jack spews some drivel about how there 
are things people are not meant to hear, but she only got a 
snapshot. She says she doesn’t just mean what she got from the 
team: she means the implications of human nature in general. 
Jack just pets her hair, wipes away a couple of her tears and 
walks away. Gee, that’s helpful.
   Superego: He’s a man. They tend to react that way when 
    we cry.
   Id: Really? They usually give me money first. After they 
    put their pants back on.
   Superego: You know, you need to see a shrink if that’s 
    usually how your sexual encounters go.
   Id: Oh, you know I’m kidding. Usually he’s the one 
    crying.
   Diandra: Aaaaand, on that note...

   [Id and Superego disappear as Chrissy comes in the door]
   Chrissy: I’m back! Did I miss anything?
   Diandra: An alien in the body of a woman from the early 
    1800’s gave Tosh a pendant that let her read people’s 
    minds, slept with her and then died when Jack 
    programmed her beaming device to send her into the Sun.
   Chrissy: ...okay.
   Diandra: So basically Tosh had a dead girlfriend of the 
    week and she knows about Gwen and Owen now. Everything 
    else will probably be rendered meaningless five 
    episodes or so from now. 
   Chrissy: So I didn’t miss much.
   Diandra: Not really. Oh, I also discovered that my 
    Superego sounds an awful lot like you.
   Chrissy: I’m not sure if I should be flattered or 
    disturbed.
   Diandra: You’re welcome. On to the next episode?
   Chrissy: Yes, I think so.