"Torchwood, episode 2x01: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang"

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


And we’re back to the slightly less crazy spin-off of Doctor 
Who for another season. And I do mean slightly because we open 
on a little old lady waiting to cross the street when a guy 
with a fish for a head pulls up to the light in a convertible. 
She crosses in front of him and stares as he drives away. The 
Torchwood SUV pulls up seconds later and Gwen sticks her head 
from the passenger window to politely ask if she’s seen a 
blowfish driving a sports car by any chance. The lady points, 
Gwen thanks her and they drive off. “Bloody Torchwood,” the old 
lady grumbles.
   Chrissy: Wait...since when do people off the street know 
    about the super secret British X-Files division?
   Diandra: I’m guessing since time fell apart and a giant 
    devil creature went stomping down the streets of Wales. 
    You can only retcon your way out of so much.

In the backseat, Tosh pulls up some sort of DNA analysis of the 
humanoid blowfish on the computer screen and announces that 
this species is not on record yet, but is some sort of “land 
fish”. “All I’m saying is: you are speeding and there are 
children,” Gwen says calmly. Owen posits that if there are 
children on the road after midnight maybe they’ve “got it 
coming”. Yeah, I’m with Owen on this, Gwen. You’re not in 
America. Kids in the UK should know not to play in the middle 
of the street at zero dark thirty. Also, you didn’t complain 
this much when Jack was driving. They all discuss the fact that 
it is armed and they’re not sure what they should do when they 
catch it. Tosh thinks Jack would know what to do. Awful lot of 
faith you have in the guy who nearly got you stranded in 1941, 
Tosh. Of course, she only says this for the sake of catching up 
the audience, prompting Owen to point out that Jack isn’t HERE 
now, is he? 

They catch up to the sports car and chase it for about a minute 
before Owen makes Gwen take the wheel so he can climb halfway 
out the window and shoot at it. He hits one of the back tires 
and the car swerves. 
   Chrissy: I’d say it fishtails.
   Diandra: Yeah, I was trying to avoid making a joke that 
    lame.
By the time everybody comes to a stop (right in the middle of a 
suburban area) and the team surrounds the vehicle, the fish is 
gone. Gunshots come from one of the houses nearby. They run in 
to find Blowfish Boy holding a gun to one of the house’s 
occupants’ head. Gwen shoves a second woman (based on the ages, 
let’s assume she’s the mother of the hostage) behind a wall to 
safety and Owen kneels to help a man bleeding from his abdomen. 
Tosh points some sort of doohickey at the Blowfish, which can 
apparently read his vitals from a distance, and says he has 
elevated levels of adrenaline mixed with three grams of 
cocaine. Except instead of acting paranoid and crazy, he 
decides to very calmly spew some more exposition just in case 
there are still some new viewers who aren’t fully caught up. He 
calls them teacher’s pets, but notes that “teacher” seems to 
have abandoned them and they’re trying SO HARD to act all grown 
up and like they know what they’re doing. He very clunkily 
identifies them as the doctor, the bleeding heart, the 
technician and the office boy “promoted beyond his measure”. 
Minions, all of them, totally lost without their “Master”. Do 
us a favor and DON’T call him that when he gets here. 
   Chrissy: Yeah, only Ianto is allowed to call him that.
   Diandra: Actually I was assuming that it would either 
    stoke his already inflated ego or trigger some sort of 
    PTSD since he spent the last year being repeatedly 
    killed by a guy who called himself “Master”, but I 
    guess that works too.

Blowfish Boy seems to have determined that Ianto is the one 
with the clearest shot at him, so he starts taunting him 
specifically. He darts his head back and forth and asks if 
Ianto thinks he has good enough aim to hit him and not the 
hostage, assuming he doesn’t kill the hostage himself before 
Ianto has a chance to fire. And then there’s a gunshot and the 
blowfish’s brains splatter all over the wall behind him. Ianto 
looks at his gun, baffled, then turns to see Jack RIGHT behind 
him, gun raised, like there’s no way in hell he could have made 
that shot without clipping part of Ianto’s ear. Everyone else 
stops what they were doing to gawk at him. “Hey kids,” he 
grins. “Did you miss me?”

And we cut to the blippy credits before we can find out how 
awkward things could get if the answer is “no”.

Back at the hub, Tosh is verifying with the rift monitor that 
there haven’t been any more fish-headed psychos falling through 
lately. Ianto is tracking down the owner of the stolen car and 
Owen is making sure Fish Boy didn’t have any sort of genetic 
mutations or space viruses or whatever bullshit that could 
contaminate the general population. They are all reporting 
these things to Gwen, who has obviously become the leader in 
Jack’s absence (because unlike most Americans, the British 
don’t balk at having females in charge even if their government 
is just as fucked up anyway). Jack watches from the sidelines 
as she instructs Tosh to add whatever Owen is finding to the 
database and orders Ianto to “deal with” the body (prompting 
him to make a bad joke about sushi). Jack kind of proudly notes 
that they’ve done well without him. Gwen, who has apparently 
been ignoring him, shoves him against the nearest wall and 
wails that he LEFT THEM. “We knew nothing, Jack!”
   Chrissy: Well, I highly doubt his presence would change 
    that any.
   Diandra: Har har. I thought you were going to go easy on 
    Gwen now?
   Chrissy: I’m trying, but it’s going to take a while to 
    adjust.

Tosh asks where he was. Jack just gets a dreamy smile and says 
“I found my Doctor.” “Did he fix you,” Owen asks. 
   Chrissy: No, but not for lack of trying on Jack’s part. 
    Oh, wait, did he say “fix”? 
   Diandra: Yeah, he didn’t do that either.
Jack brushes it off with some crack about not messing with 
perfection and everyone holds in the groan that that deserves. 
Ianto asks meekly if Jack plans on going back to him. “I came 
back for you,” Jack says, belatedly adding “all of you”. 
   Chrissy: Yeah, some more than others. 
Before anyone can call bullshit on that, Tosh’s computer starts 
beeping a rift activity alert and they all run off. We focus in 
on the autopsy table where Ianto has apparently just left Fish 
Boy lying on the slab so we can see the little blinking red 
light in his pocket that nobody else apparently noticed.

On a roof somewhere in Cardiff, a guy in a Napoleonic-era 
jacket saunters out of a ball of light and looks around like 
he’s not quite sure what century this is.
   Chrissy: Spike! It’s Spike!
   Diandra: Yeah, I didn’t watch that show.
   Chrissy: You weren’t watching “X-Files” until about 1999 
    either. Just what WERE you watching in the 90s?
Somebody nearby screams for help and he swaggers over to the 
end of a car park where a brutish looking guy has another guy 
bent over the hood of a car. He has a knife to his throat 
though, so it’s not really as fun as it sounds.
   Chrissy: Yeah, I kind of got that from the way the guy 
   was screaming for somebody to help him, actually.
He tells...hell, let’s just call him Spike until we find out 
who he really is...to back off or he’ll cut the guy’s throat. 
Spike, obviously stuck in a rut when it comes to characters on 
cult paranormal shows, says ‘eh, whatever. I don’t care. So 
what artery would you recommend severing for optimum blood 
letting?’ The victim squeals and the perp says he’s not 
bluffing. Spike tuts that the perp has gone and given himself 
away because only someone who doesn’t really mean it would say 
something like “I’m not bluffing”. Then he grabs the perp by 
the neck and lifts him over the edge of the parking ramp so 
he’s dangling, like, six storeys in the air. The guy shrieks at 
him to stop and Spike just blankly says ‘uh...no’ and lets him 
splatter all over the ground below. Then he grabs the former 
victim and growls that he was never here. Yeah, I’m pretty sure 
nobody would believe him if he told this story anyway. In fact, 
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want anyone to know HE was there 
because it would be kind of hard to explain the DEAD BODY to 
the authorities.

Spike grumbles that he’s thirsty and we cut right to him 
walking into a bar/club thing. He pushes a button on a wrist 
strap watch thing similar to Jack’s and the music coming over 
the speakers stops. He orders everyone to leave. Except that 
pretty girl over there. And that one over there. And, oh, that 
guy over there is cute. Basically he’s the evil version of Jack 
for those of you still trying to catch up. Everyone just stares 
at him like “I think he’s had too many already” and the 
bouncers arrive to try to throw him out. He pulls out two 
handguns and singsongs “did I mention I’m armed?” Everyone runs 
out the door immediately because this is not America where some 
yahoo would have tried to draw another gun and turn this into a 
shootout.

Back on the pavement below the car park, Tosh is waving some 
sort of scanner over the dead perp while various people mill in 
the background. I’m going to guess this is where they were 
headed in the last scene because she announces there are traces 
of rift energy around the guy’s neck and shoulders. Jack 
concludes that he was grabbed and pushed. Owen assumes this 
means the killer is potentially humanoid and bipedal. Gwen asks 
if there’s any other alien “tech” involved, but Tosh can’t see 
anything. Jack thinks they should head back to the hub. Gwen 
notes that he’s trying to take charge again already. “I was 
hoping for a little power struggle resolved by some naked 
wrestling,” he says to her already retreating back. “I thought 
we weren’t talking about that night,” Ianto doesn’t say.
   Chrissy: Pity.
   Diandra: I know, right?

Jack’s wrist strap beeps when he goes to reach for the door on 
the truck, startling Ianto, who notes that it has never done 
that before. Jack pushes a button on the strap and a hologram 
of Spike appears in front of them, beaming out of the watch 
exactly like the Princess Leia message at the beginning of 
“Star Wars”. He mutters that he got Jack’s “answering machine”. 
“What can you be doing that’s more important than me?” I’m sure 
the suggestive wording on that was unintentional. 
   Chrissy: This is still Jack we’re talking about, right?
   Diandra: Yeah, probably not then.
He says Jack’s probably found that body by now and sorry about 
that, but, you know, whatever. “Bill me for the cleanup.” Then 
he tells Jack to trace the coordinates on this transmission and 
meet him there. “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” 
he adds in a squeaky voice, then looks over his shoulder and 
disappears. Well, at least they acknowledged it. Jack orders 
the rest of the team not to follow him, then makes that 
impossible by jumping in the truck and taking off while they 
stand in the middle of the street like ‘what the fuck! That’s 
our ride!’ Owen grumbles that he just came back and he’s 
already keeping shit from them. Tosh offers to track him with 
the apparently all purpose device she has and Ianto runs off to 
call a taxi.

Jack arrives at the bar – which is called Bar Reunion because 
fuck subtlety. Spike is sitting in front of a row of shot 
glasses when he hears (or senses) Jack. Jack comes through a 
set of swinging doors at one end of the room and Spike stands 
to face him at the other end, unbuckling the flaps keeping his 
guns secured in their holsters. Yes, in case it wasn’t clear, 
we are doing an homage to every western film ever made. They 
march toward each other, glaring, and stop when they’re inches 
apart, just staring at each other for a couple beats. Then, to 
almost nobody’s surprise (at least not to mine because this is 
Jack), they kiss.
   Chrissy: And a large portion of the Whedonverse fandom 
    was just vindicated.
   Diandra: See? I told you Angel/Spike would totally work!
   Chrissy: More likely Spike/Xander.
   Diandra: Who?
   Chrissy: Oh, honey...just...do us a favor and don’t even 
    try, okay?
   Diandra: Is this going to be like that time you made a 
    “Firefly” reference and got all upset because I had no 
    idea what you were talking about?
   Chrissy: Oh, look, you got the name of the show right. I 
    think you called it “Dragonfly” last time.
   Diandra: Whatever. I’m a selective nerd, okay?
   Chrissy: HODOR!
   Diandra: Is...is that a Joss Whedon thing too?
   Chrissy: Yeah, you’re selective all right. Remind me 
    never to bring you to conventions. 

The guys attempt to suck each other’s faces off for about a 
minute before Spike pushes Jack away, then hauls off and decks 
him. Jack staggers a little, smiles and punches him back. They 
then proceed to throw each other violently around the bar for 
the next couple minutes or so while “Song 2” plays. Yes, there 
is a reason this episode is called “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang”.

Meanwhile, in the cab, Tosh announces that she’s seeing reports 
of a disturbance at a bar right next to the current location of 
the SUV on her little computer/scanner/all purpose tech gadget 
thing. Gwen says tell the police to back off – they’ll deal 
with it. Um...I wouldn’t go in there if I were you. I’m just 
saying...this love/hate thing could easily swing in the other 
direction quickly and somebody could be naked and splayed out 
on the bar by the time you get there. What the hell am I 
saying? Does somebody have a camera?
   Chrissy: There you are. I was worried for a second.
Owen cuts to the chase and asks who the hell that guy in the 
hologram was. Ianto grumbles that Jack certainly looked like he 
recognized him. Oh, honey. You can’t be jealous of all of his 
former lovers. Tell you what, why don’t you forget that Jack 
has bedded more people than a cheap prostitute at a Navy port 
and he can forget that your former girlfriend was a psycho 
terminator who tried to perform her own brain transplant? Tosh 
wonders why he wouldn’t let them go with him. Gwen gripes that 
that’s just typical Jack behavior. He’s always running off 
without them and refusing to tell them shit. Hell, they don’t 
even know his real name. Or when or where he’s from. Silence. 
“It is more fun when he’s around, though,” Ianto says and 
everyone quickly agrees. 

Back in the bar, Jack and Spike are still throwing each other 
around and the fight ends abruptly when they both think to draw 
their guns at the same time. “You’re putting on weight,” Spike 
sneers as they circle each other. “You’re losing your hair,” 
Jack retorts. Okay, girls, that’s enough. You’re both pretty. 
Spike asks what the hell that coat is that he’s wearing. 
“Captain Jack Harkness,” Jack says because it’s been a while 
since he’s had a chance to introduce himself to somebody. “Note 
the stripes.” “Captain John Hart, note the sarcasm,” Spike/John 
spits back. Jack says hey, he EARNED his title by working his 
way up through the ranks. You’d think he’d know better than to 
give somebody that kind of opening.
   Chrissy: Actually, he’s kind of well known for his habit 
    of giving men an opening. 
   Diandra: [gets up and leaves the room]
   Chrissy: Where are you going? Was it something I said? 
    Should I keep recapping?
   Diandra: [returns with an open bottle of wine] No, I 
    just realized I’m going to need this. So as long as 
    we’re apparently going down this rabbit hole: how big 
    an opening do you suppose John needs?
   Chrissy: Doesn’t have to be too big. I’m sure John’s 
    clever enough to figure out a way to slide in there.
   Diandra: Uh-huh. Well, this particular opening is very 
    well used so it shouldn’t be a problem.
   Chrissy: Hmm...maybe a little TOO well used. Kind of 
    worn out, in fact.
   Diandra: Yeah. Are we done here?
   Chrissy: Things a bored housewife says.
   Diandra: Okay, seriously, I’m starting to forget how we 
    even got here.
   Chrissy: Where? I was talking about the giant opening to 
    a well-used joke. It’s not my fault you’re trying to 
    make it sound all dirty.

Jack says he actually earned his title by working his way up 
through the ranks. “I bet the ranks were very grateful,” John 
deadpans.
   Chrissy: Well, he went through a couple of them kind of 
    fast...
   Diandra: OH MY GOD STOP.
John says he needs a drink. “I thought you’d never ask,” Jack 
whines like OH THANK GOD MY BACK IS KILLING ME! They grab a 
couple bottles and John starts slugging at his like he’s 
determined to drain the whole thing in one breath. Jack gives 
him a look very similar to one I’ve seen Chrissy give me when 
we’re recapping. “So, uh...how was rehab,” he asks. John stops 
slugging the hootch long enough to correct that it was rehabs, 
plural. As in drinking, drugs, sex, gambling, binge watching 
episodes of “Game of Thrones”. You know, all the addictions. 
Also, he went to rehab for murder, which is apparently a thing 
wherever they came from but which he says is ridiculous because 
“the odd kill, who does it hurt?” I assume you’re looking for 
an answer beyond the obvious here? Jack asks if he’s clean now. 
Well, aside from that guy he threw off the roof, all the shots 
he’s downed since he got here and that one weird rash...yep. 

Jack asks how the Time Agency is doing these days. John gets 
quiet and says oh, Jack didn’t hear then? It’s been shut down. 
“There’s only seven of us left now.” Then he gives Jack a 
longing look, softens his voice and says it’s good to see him 
again because it just hasn’t been the same without him. Jack 
knows better than to fall for this though as he leans closer 
like he’s going to kiss John and then stops and says John needs 
to leave now because “I don’t want you on my territory.” John 
scoffs that there was a time when Jack couldn’t get enough of 
him on his “territory”. 
   Chrissy: Yeah, well, that territory belongs to Ianto 
    now. You’ll need to ask his permission from now on if 
    you want to do any exploring.
   Diandra: Actually I think it might be more like 
    Antarctica in that several countries laid claim to 
    different parts of the territory and the convergence 
    point is considered international.
   Chrissy: I...lost you at some point during that analogy. 
   Diandra: That’s okay, I’m not even sure what I’m saying 
    anymore.
   Chrissy: God, we’ve barely even started and this recap 
    has already gone off the rails. 
   Diandra: Yep. Imagine what it’ll look like once this 
    wine kicks in.

John senses somebody else behind the doors and around the 
corner and picks up his gun again to fire a couple warning 
shots. He yells at whoever it is to come out and Gwen, Ianto, 
Owen and Tosh come out with guns drawn. Jack immediately yelps 
that everything’s okay and gestures for them to stand down. 
John thinks it’s cute that he has a team now and Tosh is really 
pretty but Jack really should have a blond(e) in the group. 
“God, he’s worse than Jack,” Owen mutters. You got that just 
from that one line? John asks if the team has a name. Jack 
spits “Torchwood” at him and John frowns like that’s a TERRIBLE 
name, who came up with that? Jack introduces them all by full 
name and tells the team that he and John go way back. To the 
future, possibly. John clarifies that they were partners...in 
more ways than one. “It was two weeks,” Jack grumbles. John 
says yeah, two weeks trapped in a time loop so it was actually 
five years. “It was like having a wife.” “You were the wife,” 
Jack argues. They play a short round of ‘no, YOU were!’ ‘no, 
YOU were!’ and then John finally grins that he was a GOOD wife. 
“I bet you were,” Tosh blurts and when Owen looks at her like 
‘what the hell?’ she’s all ‘what? He’s cute!’  Jack finally 
decides they’ve gone through enough of this bullshit and asks 
what John is doing here. John sighs and flips open his vortex 
manipulator strap. Tosh notes that it’s the same as Jack’s. “A 
little smaller,” Jack says quickly. “But lasts much longer,” 
John retorts. 
   Chrissy: God, it happened ONE TIME! Let it go!

John sighs that any time two Time Agents are in a room together 
it always comes down the size of their wrist straps. Don’t have 
any female Time Agents then, I take it? Owen asks what a Time 
Agent is. John is like ‘oh, he hasn’t told you anything about 
his past? Well, then, allow me to not tell you anything 
either.’ He projects a hologram of some sort of device into the 
air in front of him and starts talking about this woman he was 
working with. They were both shot and as she was dying she told 
him about these “radiation cluster bombs” she had been working 
on that got caught in a rift storm and wound up here. He says 
they need to be neutralized before the radiation breaks down 
the canisters and “infects” the whole planet. Jack asks what 
John is getting out of this scenario. “Dying woman’s wish,” he 
shrugs. Yeah, I’m pretty sure even everyone in the room who 
DIDN’T spend five years sleeping with you can call bullshit on 
that one. If nothing else, they can probably see the disbelief 
all over Jack’s face. John quickly adds that he doesn’t know 
where the canisters are so he’s kind of hoping they can provide 
some knowledge of the area to assist. Tosh says she can run a 
scan for radiation surges when they get back to the hub and 
cross-reference it with rift activity. Oh, stop trying to 
impress the guy. John asks if she’s the brains AND the beauty 
of the group then. Yes. Jack – hackles clearly raised - gets 
all up in John’s grill and growls that if they do this it will 
be on condition that John leaves once the job is finished. 
“Does this mean I get to see your house,” John asks, grinning.

Cut to John staring at Millenium Stadium, several feet from 
Jack who is near the waterfall. “You live in a sculpture,” John 
asks. “Could you be any more pretentious?” Jack points at the 
sidewalk square with the invisible lift and barks “get on”. 
   Chrissy: Probably not the first time he’s heard that.
   Diandra: You could at least buy me dinner first!
John grudgingly steps on the indicated spot and asks if the 
rest of the team isn’t allowed to use this entrance. Jack says 
it’s the “tourists” entrance. Before I can come up with a 
clever response to that, John does it for me: “I remember the 
last time you said that.”
   Chrissy: And you charged me the tourist rate to use it 
   too!

We are spared a response from Jack as the chunk of sidewalk 
starts dropping. John scans the hub as they’re lowered in and 
notes that Jack’s interior decorating skills haven’t improved 
any. “What is this? Sewer Chic?” The rest of the team meets 
them at the bottom and Jack asks John to turn over all of his 
weapons before he can go any further. John hands Ianto two guns 
and a sword. Jack prompts him to hand over the rest. Gwen – 
consulting a scanner – calmly notes that he has a pistol 
strapped to each leg, a laser knife at his elbow and 17 small 
explosive charges in the lining of his coat. John says those 
must’ve slipped his mind and hands them over, including a gun 
that looks like a girl’s toy.
   Chrissy: We need to talk about the kind of toys you had 
    as a child.
   Diandra: I’m just saying: it’s teeny and it appears to 
    have a glittery handle. 
   Chrissy: That’s more the kind of thing Bree Van De Kamp 
    would keep in her purse for emergencies.
   Diandra: Who?
   Chrissy: Oh for God’s sake. Just picture him as a bitchy 
    suburban redhead.
   Diandra: Oh, the chick from “Desperate Housewives”?
   Chrissy: You know who she is, but you don’t know her 
    name?
   Diandra: I kind of scrubbed most of that show from my 
    memory. I still have a knee-jerk desire to beat 
    Lynette’s husband with a baseball bat every time I see 
    his face, though, so I’m not sure it was entirely 
    successful.

Sometime later, Jack is trailing after Gwen as she’s marching 
down one of the hallways. She asks what the hell this 
compulsive liar is doing in the building anyway. Jack thinks 
there’s “the tiniest one percent chance” that John is actually 
telling the truth for the first time ever and the city is in 
danger. Gwen asks what this whole Time Agent thing is about 
because he never mentioned it. Jack brushes it off as being “in 
the past”. She says oh, right, I forgot the rule where you know 
everything about me, but I’m not allowed to know anything about 
you. Jack goes on a long-winded excuse about how it doesn’t 
matter because who he is NOW and what they do here NOW is what 
is really important and what he is most proud of. “Then why did 
you desert us,” she blurts. 
   Chrissy: Because he just can’t resist a cute guy with a 
    time machine and a big screwdriver?
   Diandra: The Eleventh Doctors’ is bigger. Also the 
    Twelfth’s.
He stares at her, and she judges by his complete lack of 
response that it’s safe to keep pressing. She begs him to just 
TALK to her - tell her where he went and what happened. He 
sighs and finally vomits up this non-answer: “I have died so 
many times. Been dragged back into life like being hauled over 
broken glass. I saw the end of the world.”
   Chrissy: So not all that different from your average 
    week.
   Diandra: That’s what I’m saying.

He says it doesn’t matter because after it was over he knew he 
belonged here. “What kept me fighting was the thought of coming 
home to you.” It’s not really clear if he’s still referring to 
all of them or just coming on to her, but since he ends the 
statement by running his fingers down her arm and taking her 
hand it’s probably safe to assume the latter. His face freezes 
as he feels the ring on her finger. “What’s this?” She says 
it’s an engagement ring and gives him a funny little wide-eyed 
look like she’s just realizing this herself. “You’re getting 
married?” She pulls her hand away and says yep, Rhys finally 
asked her “while you were away”. Jack makes fish faces for a 
second, then steps back and crosses his arms in a blatantly 
defensive posture, noting that she obviously said yes. “Well, 
no one else will have me.”

Okay, can we talk about this for a second? First of all: that’s 
a terrible reason to get married. Seriously. Get some self 
esteem. Second: where is this jealousy/sliding doors scenario 
coming from anyway? I know they kind of sort of tested the 
waters on a relationship between Jack and Gwen, but it never 
really went anywhere. And the season – which she spent half of 
banging Owen - ended with him kissing Ianto. Are we supposed to 
think this was some sort of great missed opportunity now? And 
finally: I know the crossover Year That Never Was plot is kind 
of a long story, but that was the weakest, most blatant 
redirect EVER and I have to believe if it wasn’t for the whole 
“oh, yeah, I’m engaged now” distraction she would totally have 
called him on that bullshit.
   Chrissy: Shhhhh...drink your wine.

Apparently the answer to my second question is “yes” because he 
congratulates her, kisses her on the cheek and lingers there 
for several long seconds while she looks like she’s trying not 
to melt into a puddle on the floor. Then they stare at each 
other for a few more seconds before he mumbles that they should 
get back to work and slinks off. Seriously, are the writers 
experimenting or something?
   Chrissy: Have you been watching this show? They’ve 
    clearly been “experimenting” all along.
   Diandra: Yeah, I meant with story ideas, not drugs.
   Chrissy: Oh. Yeah, that too.

Situation room. Tosh is showing everyone the blinky dots on the 
map where she found three possible canisters. John thinks 
that’s perfect as there are six of them to investigate, so they 
can pair off. Jack snaps that HE will be giving the orders 
here, thank you very much. “Oh, god, not this again. I already 
let everyone believe I was the wife of our relationship, but 
now I have to be a docile little submissive too? NOT BLOODY 
LIKELY. We all know which of us is wearing the pants here,” 
John says in the little alternate scene I have going in my 
head. Actually, he just snits “well, give some, big boy.” Gwen 
fends off the potential pissing contest by saying that John is 
right, actually. “Sorry, em...do you prefer John or Captain?” 
Predictably, he says the pretty lady can call him whatever she 
damn well wants and he won’t complain. Okay, Princess it is. 
Gwen says Tosh and Owen can take one of the canisters, Jack and 
Ianto will take the second and she and Princess will check out 
the last one. Jack starts to object, but Gwen pointedly asks – 
in a very quiet voice – if he has a problem with this 
arrangement. He looks at her, looks at John, laughs and says 
no, knock yourself out. 

Everyone starts to scatter, but Jack orders Gwen to stay back 
because he needs to have “a word” with her. John asks if he can 
stay and watch because he loves it when mommy and daddy fight, 
I guess. Jack points at the door and hisses at him to GET OUT. 
Gwen mirrors Jack’s posture exactly and they wait for John to 
vacate the room before Jack asks what the hell she thinks she’s 
doing here. Gwen thinks if she flirts with John a little she 
can get him to drop his guard and then she can figure out what 
he’s really doing. Jack sighs and admits that this is smart, 
but no, she should let him handle this one. 
   Chrissy: And by handle we mean...
   Diandra: Well, obviously having been “married” to him 
    for five years means Jack probably has more experience 
    when it comes to handling John.
   Chrissy: That wasn’t an answer.
   Diandra: Really? I thought it was. Let me rephrase. He 
    “handled” John for five years, so I would think he 
    should know exactly how to do it to make him squeal. 
   Chrissy: Oh, good, the wine is starting to kick in.

Gwen argues that John knowing Jack so well could be a 
disadvantage, actually, and she can handle this just fine since 
she’s been team leader for however long they think Jack has 
been gone thank you very much. Jack caves, but says there are 
three rules. “1. Don’t believe anything he says. 2. Always keep 
him in front of you...”
   Chrissy: But it was so fun when he was behind you!
“And 3. Under no circumstances let him kiss you.” Kay, so 
you’ve already broken at least two of those yourself since he 
got here. Are we relying on her ability to do what you say and 
not what you do? Gwen scoffs at the idea that she would 
actually try to kiss that snake. “Has he gotten to the no 
kissing rule yet,” John calls from the next room. “He only 
invented that because he wants me all to himself.” Gwen just 
marches over and orders him to stay in front of her as they 
leave.

Docks. Gwen and John peek into a couple shipping containers and 
John asks if she’s sure they’re in the right spot. She points 
out that the containers are always being moved around, so they 
have no idea where the EXACT one is anymore and there are 
probably hundreds of them, so... She strikes up idle 
conversation about the woman he made this promise to – how did 
he know her again? He says she was his lover. He makes 
appropriate pained faces. She asks if they caught the person 
who shot her at least. No, because John shot her. Probably. He 
makes more pained faces and asks if they really have to talk 
about this right now. She apologizes. The possibly fake tension 
is broken by her cell phone ringing. It’s Rhys, rambling 
excitedly about the manager’s position he landed. She says 
that’s fantastic. John gets close to the phone and makes 
obscene noises. “Oh, yeah, baby, you’re fantastic too!” Rhys 
looks unamused and asks who the fuck that was. Gwen reassures 
him that it’s just some idiot she works with. Um...okay, seeing 
as how you already had an affair with one of your coworkers and 
another one is basically a walking bag of hormones I’m not 
exactly sure how that’s supposed to be reassuring. Rhys asks if 
she’s coming home before breakfast. She says no, it looks like 
it’s going to be an “all-nighter”. 
   Chrissy: Yeah, it really sucks. Or blows, depending on 
    preference.
   Diandra: Luckily, I have a professional working under 
    me. It will be very hard, but I’m sure we’ll be able to 
    keep at it until the job is finished even if it takes 
    all bloody night. 
   Chrissy: It might get kind of messy. It’s kind of a 
    slippery one. Real tough to get a hold of.
   Diandra: But don’t worry, if it gets out of control I 
    have handcuffs. Okay, ta! Dinner’s in the fridge. Love 
    you!

Well, that escalated quickly. What were we talking about again? 
Oh, right. Recap.

Gwen says she’s proud of Rhys and she loves him and then hangs 
up, at which point she realizes John has disappeared.
   Chrissy: Damn Rhys always messing things up.
   Diandra: Well, she did sort of turn her back on him for, 
    like, a second there. You’re right, he is a real 
    slippery one.
   Chrissy: Yeah, you go ahead and pretend that’s what we 
    were talking about back there. Sure.
She calls his name a few times, looks up and down the rows and 
then pulls her gun just as he sneaks up behind her. She whirls 
around and points it in his face and he yelps “woah! Little bit 
jumpy there?” She tells him to keep in front of her. This 
again? I thought we established it’s more fun when he’s behind 
you? John bemoans the fact that she’s so untrusting, but since 
her boss is Jack it’s probably a good thing. “Once a conman 
always a conman.” She waves her flashlight in his face and asks 
what the hell that’s supposed to mean. Need it put another way? 
A tiger don’t change his stripes, Freckles. Sometimes it’s 
easier living the lie. Play long enough, you never change the 
stakes: the house always takes you. Old con men never die, 
their smile just fades away. It’s two in the morning and I 
don’t know nobody.
   Chrissy: Okay, you can stop now.
   Diandra: Oh, good, I think I just sprained something in 
    my brain.
   Chrissy: I’d say you broke it, actually.

John gives her a “oh honey” look and says “just don’t rely on 
him, Gwen. There’s a lot about him you don’t know.” Oh, well 
played, sir. Use her lack of knowledge to convince her he can’t 
be trusted. Classic con artist move. Brilliant. He throws open 
one of the container doors and the canister is sitting right in 
the middle of the mostly empty container. “Is that it,” Gwen 
asks. No, it’s a different suspicious looking canister that is 
somehow placed perfectly in the center of a large shipping 
container that has supposedly been moved repeatedly. This one 
contains antimatter. See the little routing tag attached to it 
that says it’s supposed to go to Vatican City?
   Chrissy: Seriously, you need to stop going for record 
   numbers of pop culture references when you do recaps.

She runs over and picks up the canister. He follows, throws her 
against the wall of the container and kisses her. She shoves 
him away and asks what the HELL he thinks he’s doing. He laughs 
that he’s just celebrating which, where he’s from, is 
indistinguishable from potential sexual assault. And before 
anyone accuses me of exaggerating, she immediately starts 
staggering and falling to the ground like she’s been drugged. 
He points to his lips and says “paralyzing lip gloss.” Oh, and 
it’s possible Jack was the one who taught him that trick. But 
don’t worry, it’s harmless. Unless of course nobody finds Gwen 
within two hours in which case she’ll either die or become a 
permanent vegetable. He takes her phone and goes to leave. Then 
he stops to toss this little bit of random cattiness back at 
her: “he won’t stay with you. He and I shared something.” Yeah, 
body fluids, mostly. Jealous much? He closes the door and 
chucks her phone as far as he can throw.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Cardiff Owen and Tosh have arrived at 
some sort of warehouse. Tosh tries to turn on the lights, but 
they don’t work. You know why that is, Tosh? It’s because this 
show is influenced by “The X-Files”, where nobody ever bothered 
to turn on the damn lights. They just ran into the dark rooms 
with their flashlights because the prop department spent good 
money on those things and BY GOD THEY WERE GOING TO USE THEM! 
By the way, the warehouse is approximately two football fields 
long and packed full of shit. I don’t know why this is a 
problem since, unlike the shipping containers, it’s unlikely 
the canister has been moved since they got its location, but 
since when has that sort of logic applied to anything in 
Whoverse? Owen bemoans the bullshit their lives have become. 
Tosh sympathizes that they should be out having fun at this 
time of the night. “Bet you’d normally be out on the pull,” she 
says.
   Chrissy: Depends on who’s pulling what.
   Diandra: Yeah, supposedly it means something more 
    innocent than that, but since we’re talking about a 
    culture that uses “how’s your father” as a euphemism 
    for sex I’m not sure I believe anything they say.

And on that note, I’m just going to transcribe the rest of this 
exchange because it’s so BRITISH that I’m not sure I can 
accurately summarize it with the actual intentions behind it 
intact.
   Owen: Oh, bollocks to that. Talk about diminishing 
    returns.
   Tosh: I’m not with you.
   Owen: Well, you know, I’ve done all that, ain’t I? 
    Where’d it get me? No, you know, I need a proper woman, 
    you know? Someone I’ve got something in common with, 
    you know? 
   Chrissy: So either he’s ready to settle down and marry 
    or hookers just don’t do it for him anymore.
   Diandra: See, my problem is that I’m not sure how much 
    of his character arc has been swept under the rug here. 
    He was never a player, was he? He had two girlfriends 
    last season: Gwen and Diane. He couldn’t “settle” with 
    the first because he was the other man and he mourned 
    Diane so hard he tried to kill himself so he wouldn’t 
    have to deal with the pain anymore.
   Chrissy: I worry about you sometimes. You put way too 
    much effort into trying to figure out the definitive 
    cannon you seem to think the writers are operating 
    within – as opposed to just making shit up as they go 
    on a weekly basis, which I’m pretty sure is what 95% of 
    television writers do.

Tosh says he’s right: it’s difficult finding people they have 
anything in common with. Oh, so this is the “nobody understands 
me and the hell I go through for this job” trope seen so often 
in American cop/lawyer/government/spy shows. Before they can 
continue this conversation any further, Owen finds the canister 
up on top of a shelving unit. John shows up suddenly and 
congratulates the team on their success. Tosh startles and 
fumbles for her gun, demanding to know where Gwen is. John 
headbutts her and she crumples to the ground with blood pouring 
from her face. John points...somebody’s gun at Owen, telling 
him not to move or Tosh gets it. Owen touches the com link in 
his ear (because those things don’t work unless you do that, 
you know) and mutters “where the hell are you, Jack?” In a 
completely different part of town if he’s following the plan 
you all made earlier. 
   Chrissy: With Ianto, so, you know...they might be a 
   little distracted.
Doesn’t matter because John says he muted the system the second 
they left the hub. He gestures at his wrist strap to explain 
how that’s possible. He orders them to hand over their phones. 
“You touch her again and I will kill you,” Owen snarls before 
sliding his over. John looks back and forth between them and 
pulls a large cricket bat off a nearby shelf before advancing 
on Owen, debating out loud which is better: “the efficiency of 
a gun or the brutality of wood”. Owen tells him to just get it 
over with and stop teasing.
   Chrissy: Oh, like he’s never heard that before.
And barely one beat later John points the gun in his direction 
and fires. 

But before we can figure out what just happened there, we check 
in with Jack and Ianto, who are at some sort of office 
building. Jack starts rambling about how he LOVES these places 
because they “exotic” to him. He waxes romantic about office 
romance and photocopying body parts and hey, as long as we’re 
here... Ianto interrupts him before he can derail any further 
to say that the canister is supposedly 200 feet above ground 
level which means it’s either on this floor or the roof. Jack 
stares at him like ‘well, that was a buzzkill’. He watches 
Ianto poke around a bit and asks how he’s doing. “All the 
better for having you back, sir,” Ianto says like a good little 
drone. Jack asks if maybe he could drop the “sir” now. Really? 
I would think you would like that part. “I mean, while I was 
away I was thinking maybe we could...you know...when this is 
all done...dinner...a movie...” Ianto stops pacing and looks at 
him. “Are you asking me out on a date?” I assume you’re asking 
out of shock that he would choose now as a good time to do this 
and not actual uncertainty because that was the least subtle, 
most awkward way he could have put it without resorting to the 
sort of stuff you’d find in a sexual harassment video. 
“Interested,” Jack asks in a ‘not that I care or anything 
because I TOTALLY don’t’ sort of tone (so fake indifference 
basically). Ianto sighs sure, as long as it’s not in an office 
because that’s just weird and “some fetishes should be kept to 
yourself.” Doing it at the office, really? That’s the line 
you’re drawing? I mean, I could see if he was suggesting 
bending you over one of the desks and spanking you with a 
ruler, but photocopying his junk sounds pretty harmless. Does 
this rule out sexting? Or, you know...coping a feel back at the 
hub, which is basically an office?

Ianto volunteers to search this floor (“don’t want you getting 
over excited”) while Jack checks the roof. Jack heads for the 
door (note who’s suddenly giving the orders here...I might have 
been wrong about which one would be bent over the desk) when 
Ianto stops him to ask why they’re helping John anyway. Jack 
says John’s a reminder of his past that he would like to get 
rid of. Oh, and he kind of lost track of where they ended up 
here so was that a yes on the date? Ianto is like ‘oh, for 
god’s sake yes, I’ll be your boyfriend, now GO LOOK FOR THE 
DAMN CANISTER.’ Jack leaves with a grin.
   Chrissy: Yes, sir!
   Diandra: So new theory: John may have been the “wife”, 
    but he was also the boss.
   Chrissy: Definitely.

There’s a brief little montage of Ianto poking around on and in 
desks and Jack pacing on the roof before an elevator dings. 
Ianto jumps and pulls his gun, creeping slowly down the hallway 
outside to the elevator with the doors wide open. John comes up 
behind him and puts a gun to his head, ordering him to get in. 
He takes Ianto’s gun and says his friends are all bleeding 
and/or dying and he should have JUST enough time to save them 
if he’s really fast. Ianto tries to use his com to call them 
and John repeats that he’s blocked their “primitive” 
technology. He backs Ianto into the elevator, says “come back 
up here, I’ll shoot on sight” and pushes the down button. “Why 
are you doing this,” Ianto asks because it’s standard procedure 
when dealing with raving psychos. John rambles about there not 
being a meaning for anything because humans are just a cosmic 
accident, but they keep trying SO HARD to explain shit anyway. 
I should probably point out that he keeps calling Ianto “Eye 
Candy” and he’s rubbing the gun along his cheek like it’s his 
dick instead of just a symbolic extension of it.
   Chrissy: How this for a fetish, pretty boy?

So Ianto lets the doors close and races to the SUV when he hits 
the ground floor, peeling out in a squeal of tires. 

Meanwhile, Jack is bent over picking up the canister he found 
when John shows up. “Rear of the Year, 5094,” he mutters, 
staring at Jack’s ass. So not only are we still objectifying in 
the future, we’re doing it indiscriminate of genders. Great. 
Why don’t you just go over and slap him on the ass while you’re 
at it?
   Chrissy: Because he would actually like that.
   Diandra: You know, I heard how stupid that question was 
    as it was coming out of my mouth, but by then it was 
    too late to stop it.
Jack’s phone rings and he fumbles to look at it, but John takes 
it out of his hand, saying it’s just the “cute boy ringing to 
warn you about me.” Jack starts to make an impotent threat 
about what he’ll do if John has harmed any of his people, but 
John interrupts to point out that they’re a pretty bunch, but 
dumb as rocks. “You used to have better taste.” “Doesn’t look 
like that from here,” Jack sneers. John orders him to hand over 
the canister. Jack thinks it’s hilarious that John needed help 
to find them so much that he made up some “cluster bomb” 
bullshit because that’s clearly not what these are. John thinks 
it should be humiliating that Jack fell for his “scam” and got 
all his dim little friends to do most of the work. “Is that 
what you wanted,” Jack asks. John says no, what he wanted was 
for Jack to come to the dark side. Er...his “senses”. He thinks 
Jack will run off with him and they can go back to whatever 
they were doing before. “How can you stay tied to one planet 
when there’s thousands of worlds sparkling with wonder? We 
should be up there, among the stars...claiming them for our 
own.”
   Chrissy: Or, you know, conning the inhabitants of 
    distant worlds and “claiming” each other when we get 
    back to the ship.
   Diandra: Or conning each other and claiming the 
    inhabitants depending on the planet.

Jack seems to actually consider this for a moment, but says he 
can’t. John doesn’t understand this as he doesn’t know what 
could POSSIBLY be keeping Jack on this insignificant little 
planet infested with dumb, ape-like creatures. Jack thinks John 
was never really very good at that whole temptation thing 
because it’s not working. In fact, it’s just highlighting that 
he has moved on with his life while John is stuck on the past. 
John gives up and orders Jack to hand over the canister. Jack 
throws it over his shoulder and off the building and says 
“whoops!” John responds by shoving him over the ledge with an 
echoing “whoops!” Which is pretty extreme since he doesn’t know 
Jack will just bounce back to life.
   Chrissy: Damnit. Another six months of rehab.
Some minutes later, John exits the building, picks up the 
canister, and swaggers over to where Jack’s body is draped over 
a bench, spine broken at nearly a right angle. In a massive 
understatement, he admits that rehab didn’t really work. He 
takes Jack’s wrist strap and fingers his lips with an 
expression that might be a little bit regret.

Tosh is helping Owen patch the bullet wound in his side. She 
wonders aloud why John didn’t kill them. Owen grunts that he 
either got what he wanted or underestimated them. That looks 
like a pretty not-even-close-to-being-fatal flesh wound to me, 
so I wouldn’t brag too much, Doctor. Ianto arrives, gun waving 
frantically, and Tosh asks if he’s heard from Gwen.

We cut to them all arriving at the docks and searching shipping 
containers at random. Ianto complains that there’s too many and 
they’ll never find Gwen. He tries calling her phone again, 
which they locate wherever it landed in the completely wrong 
direction. Owen concludes she must have dropped it and starts 
searching nearby. Luckily, Tosh really is both the brains and 
the beauty of the group and she suspects this might be one of 
John’s tricks. She pulls out her flashy computer thingy and 
says she can triangulate the position of Gwen’s last call. This 
takes approximately five seconds and they go running back to 
the right row of containers, finding her in the first one Tosh 
opens. Owen checks her vitals and hands Ianto a q-tip to take a 
swab of her mouth, which Tosh runs through the all-purpose 
machine because of course she can. She could probably run a 
full medical diagnostic, hack into MI-5 AND make a cup of tea 
with that thing. And of course it takes seconds to determine 
what drug Gwen has been given because it operates via the same 
magic technology cops use all the time on American television. 
   Chrissy: I found a fiber! It came from a fabric that was 
    only ever manufactured at this one specific plant and 
    it has traces of poop from an insect that can only be 
    found in this one nearby location this time of year!
   Diandra: Gee, it’s like you’ve seen this sort of thing 
    before or something.

Before we can find out if Gwen is going to make it (really on 
the edge of my seat over that one), we cut to John who is 
opening the three canisters on one of the tables in Owen’s 
autopsy bay. He pulls out three triangle wedges, then fishes 
(heh) the blinking thing out of Blowfish Boy’s pocket. It’s 
also a triangle. He goes to place it in the center of the other 
pieces, but is interrupted by the arrival of the team, all 
noisily cocking their weapons and taking aim at him. He 
grumbles something about them being pretty AND resilient. Well, 
to be fair, you only actually tried to kill two of them and you 
really half-assed it in Owen’s case, so... Gwen spews a bad 
line about how he can do whatever he wants to try to defeat 
them, but they’ll just come back stronger. 
   Chrissy: I think the “writer” of that line was paid in 
   bananas.
“Well,” John says. “I think you ought to know that your boss is 
splayed out on the...” He trails off as Jack comes into the 
room behind them.
   Chrissy: Eh, Jack is always “splayed out” somewhere. 
   Nobody worries about that anymore.
John notes that Jack could really make a fortune with that 
little party trick. He asks how it works. “I can’t die,” Jack 
says simply, which technically isn’t true. He can’t STAY dead. 
He dies at least once per episode. John asks what the cost of 
an ability like that is: the agony of being brought back to 
life, plus finding out he’s still on this godforsaken mess of a 
planet. Jack thinks these people and this planet are worth 
coming back to, actually. 

Gwen interrupts this bullshit to ask what was in the canisters. 
John sighs and says the woman he told them about was actually 
in possession of an incredibly rare and valuable diamond. The 
second he caught her, she generated a rift storm. Tosh reminds 
him that he said finding the canisters was a dying woman’s 
request. John says yeah, well, she WAS dying actually. Because 
he shot her. WHAT DID I SAY? He says he’s thinking they can do 
a 50/50 split. “Or if anyone fancies an orgy...” Wait...what 
are we talking about here? That segue makes no sense.
   Chrissy: That’s because you have a boring imagination.
   Diandra: My imagination is just fine, thank you. I just 
    don’t see how he made that sideways leap in 
    conversation unless he’s one of those people who is 
    just CONSTANTLY thinking about sex. Hmm, nice 
    jewelry...take your clothes off. I’m kind of 
    hungry...wanna fuck? 
   Chrissy: Here, let me explain it to you. See, he has 
    this appendage that – like most males of the species – 
    does all of his thinking for him...

We cut back to Jack’s office for some reason. Jack is lounging 
in his chair while everyone hovers around the desk. He orders 
John to open the...whatever that thing is. John bemoans Jack’s 
rudeness (not even so much as a “please”), but grudgingly 
places the triangle pieces around the blinking triangle. This 
triggers another R2D2 style video, but this one is small. A 
fair-skinned black woman appears on Jack’s desk and 
congratulates him on traveling several galaxies for this. 
“Except, there’s no diamond. Only this.” She turns to the 
triangle device, which pops open and a disk flies out and 
hovers in the air for a second before attaching to John’s 
chest. She explains that this little explosive device is 
designed to latch on to the DNA of the person who killed her 
and detonate after ten minutes. Oh, and don’t bother trying to 
remove it because it’ll just explode faster. “Goodbye, lover. 
See you in hell!” 
   Chrissy: Is it wrong that I kind of like this woman?
   Diandra: Nah.

Ianto calmly pulls out a pocket watch and starts timing. John 
shrieks at them to get it off him. Gwen asks Jack how big this 
explosion would likely be. Jack calculates that based on the 
size of it and the technology...it would be ”big”. Well, that’s 
helpful. Owen thinks they should get him out of the city. Or 
just look for the toggle switch on the side of the bomb that 
turns it on and off because apparently that’s a thing. Oh, 
wait...that particular bit of stupidity came from Stephen 
Moffat, not Russel T. Davis. Never mind. John begs Jack to help 
him. Jack wonders why the hell he would want to do that. John 
punches him, grabs Gwen and somehow manages to cuff them to 
each other. He says the cuffs are made of some sort of 
indestructible super-steel that can only be opened via a 
specific key that he proceeds to swallow. He says the team had 
better come up with a solution now if they don’t want Gwen 
blown up with him. Owen asks Jack if shooting him would stop 
the bomb. No, apparently it only reads DNA – it doesn’t 
distinguish between a live target and a dead body. By the way, 
John says the offer for the orgy still stands “especially now 
that I’ve got the cuffs out”.
   Chrissy: I have minutes to live...wanna take a ride on 
    my Spike?
   Diandra: Okay, now you’re just being gross.

Gwen asks if Tosh has perfected the rift predictor program she 
was working on and if there’s any activity in the next five 
minutes. Her plan is to throw them both into the rift to 
minimize the damage when the bomb goes off. John realizes this 
plan would kill both of them anyway and splutters that she’s 
bluffing. “Try me,” she growls. Tosh, checking her computer, 
announces that the rift in the car park where John first 
arrived is still active. Gwen grabs John and starts dragging 
him out of the hub. Tosh and Ianto follow them. Everyone is 
yelling. Jack goes to follow, but Owen grabs his arm and pulls 
him toward the autopsy bay where he pulls out a bunch of what 
looks like blood samples and passes them to Jack, who 
does...something with them. Obviously he knows what Owen is 
planning because he says this had better work. “Trust me,” Owen 
replies. Oh, sure. Because if you can’t trust the guy who shot 
you in the last episode before unleashing a giant demon 
creature on the citizens of Wales, who can you trust?

SUV. Tosh is yelping that she can’t find the frequency of the 
explosive device so she can’t figure out a way to jam the 
signal. Oh, so there are limitations to your magic technology 
then? Ianto is yelping that they only have five minutes left. 
Gwen, driving one handed, asks what the hell happened to Jack. 
John is like ‘see? I told you he was unreliable!’ You have five 
minutes to live and you’re still playing this card? That’s 
dedication. He looks at the people on the sidewalks as they 
sail by, muttering that he thinks he’s starting to see what 
Jack sees in this planet. “She’s beautiful. He’s stunning...” 
Gwen asks if he has an off switch. He thinks it’s hilarious 
that she wants him to control his overzealous libido now that 
he only has five minutes to live. “Oh, that’s gorgeous!” 
“That’s a poodle,” Gwen snarls. 
   Chrissy: Okay, if Martha Jones made Gwen look smart, 
    then John makes Jack look like a choir boy.
   Diandra: Or at least a little more discriminating. At 
    least he limits himself to bipedal life forms.
   Chrissy: As far as we know anyway.

They arrive at the car park with less than a minute to spare. 
Gwen drags John out of the car and he chortles “oh, I do love a 
woman who’s rough!” The ball of light John came out of at the 
beginning of the episode reappears and John changes his tune, 
yelping frantically while Gwen drags him toward it 
determinedly. At the last second, she turns and says “tell Jack 
I...” But before she can finish, Jack and Owen screech up in a 
flashy sports car. Jack tackles them to the ground and injects 
something directly into John’s chest a la “Pulp Fiction”. The 
claws keeping the bomb attached to John retract and it clatters 
to the ground. Ianto counts down the final five seconds as Jack 
picks up the bomb and chucks it into the ball of light. They 
dive back to avoid the ridiculous, low-budget explosion and 
suddenly it’s night time. Gwen asks what the hell just 
happened. Jack looks at his wrist strap and says the rift has 
reverted back to the moment John first came through it for some 
reason. The next couple lines make no sense as they seem to 
contradict each other. Gwen says it’s like John was never here. 
Jack mutters “great, now we’ve got to avoid ourselves.” 
Seriously, what? If you undid the last however many hours, why 
would you need to avoid other versions of you that have no 
reason to exist because none of the things that happened in 
those hours actually happened? Am I losing my mind here?
   Chrissy: Well, when you put it that way...
   Diandra: Oh, shut up.
John explains that it’s a temporal displacement. So...all of 
that still happened, but you all had to travel back several 
hours for some reason even though it changes nothing? What? 
Why?
   Writer #42: Eee! Ooo! Ooo! Eeeeeeee! *flings poop*

Gwen asks what was in the syringe. Owen says they mixed DNA 
samples from all five members of Torchwood and injected it into 
John’s heart and instead of clotting his blood – because what 
are the chances all six of them including John have the same 
blood type – it just corrupted his DNA long enough to confuse 
the bomb. Well. Guess now I know where they got some of the 
writers for “Arrow”. If anyone needs me, I’ll be over in the 
corner slamming my head into a wall repeatedly until I forget 
enough about how science actually works that this starts to 
make sense. John notes that this means there’s a bit of all of 
them inside him right now. Because OF COURSE HE DOES. 
   Chrissy: Hardly a first for him, I’m sure. 
   Diandra: I don’t...I just...this is exhausting. Are we 
    done yet? 
   Chrissy: Pretty sure he said those very words too.
   Diandra: *sob*

Jack repeats that he wants John to leave. Gwen points out that 
they kind of have to get out of these cuffs first and that 
might involve some very unpleasant digging for the key later. 
John’s like ‘or I could do this’. He reaches into his mouth, 
makes a few gagging noises and produces the key. He says it’s 
an old Artesian trick that involves being able to store things 
in his throat lining. “It has a lot of uses.”
   Chrissy: As does the suppressed gag reflex I just 
   demonstrated. Just ask Jack.

He sort of apologizes to Gwen. And by sort of I mean he 
explains that this was a means of survival and “no hard 
feelings...Well, not in that sense.” Gwen, bless her, smiles 
sweetly and then decks him hard enough to send him crashing to 
the pavement. 
   Chrissy: Okay, I’m ready to love her now.
   Diandra: Told you.
Ianto mutters “remind me not to get on your bad side.” Jack 
laughs, then holds out his hand pointedly until John gives him 
back his wrist strap. “Definitely bigger,” he says because 
apparently he’s forgotten the conversation earlier where John 
conceded this, but pointed out that it has a tendency to go off 
quicker before anyone is ready for it. John kind of sidles up 
to Jack and says if Jack is looking for a new team member he 
could...”No,” Jack interrupts. “Really? I could...” “No.” 
“But...” “No.”
   Chrissy: Oh, look who finally learned a new word!
   Diandra: Oh, he’s used it before. Just never when sex is 
    involved.
   Chrissy: You think sex isn’t implied here?
   Diandra: Good point.

John sighs, kisses him one last time and swaggers over to where 
the glowing ball was. He pushes a couple buttons on his wrist 
strap and, as he’s disappearing, says “oh, by the way, I meant 
to tell you...I found Gray.” Jack looks startled. Gwen asks who 
that is. Jack continues to stare at the spot where John was for 
a few seconds, making aborted noises, before saying “it’s 
nothing. Let’s go back to work” and leading them all back 
across the roof.
   Chrissy: I assume you don’t want to make the obvious 
    joke about Christian Gray here?
   Diandra: Who?
   Chrissy: Are you pretending you don’t know who that is 
    so you don’t have to comment or because you’re hoping 
    if you ignore it you can pretend that book doesn’t 
    exist?
   Diandra: Yes.