"Torchwood, episode 2x05: Adam" Starring: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori, Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen We begin this episode with a fully recovered Rhys wrestling Gwen in bed. And I’m not using that as a cutesy euphemism. She’s fully dressed and he’s trying to wrestle her back into the bed. He teases that she’s really anxious to get back to work, isn’t she? She says the best part of the whole thing is getting to come home to him. He makes vomiting noises. Bless him. Hub. Jack plops a container of “unlabeled class D artifacts” on a table and tells Tosh he needs her to run a full check and Owen can help. Then he turns to some guy we’ve never seen before and says “Adam, I know how much you love audits.” Adam says it has to be done and finishes Jack’s order to go through the investigation reports and figure out when the artifacts might have come through the rift for him. Gwen comes jogging in and Jack says she’s late. She says Paris was lovely, thank you, and how was your holiday? She notices Adam and asks who the hell this is. Everyone but Adam looks confused. Adam says she’s just saying that because it’s what he said on her first day. He puts his hand on her shoulder and we see a bunch of random “old” memories of both of them in the hub, messing around. There’s a pause and she smiles and says she couldn’t resist and leans in to hug him like they’re old friends. Bleeping credits. On one of the computers, Adam seems to be composing his personnel file. His full name is Adam Smith, he was born in 1982 and he was “recruited” into Torchwood in ’05. Tosh appears and asks what he’s doing with his file and he quickly switches windows and claims he was updating the rift activity details. She hands him an ancient looking brick with characters carved all over it and asks if he knows when it came through because it has a “low meson energy reading”. He says he’ll keep looking and touches the back of her neck. She gets a burst of memories of them flirting and making out in a corner of the hub somewhere. She smiles and kisses him. “A year ago today,” he says. She identifies this as the date of their first kiss. Okay, quick poll: how many guys would remember something like that? Owen appears nearby and pretends he’s not gawking at them. Chrissy: Why is Owen suddenly wearing a sweater and thick-framed glasses? Diandra: Because obviously something is rotten in the state of Denmark here. Tosh asks if something is wrong and he babbles that he just wasn’t expecting to stumble upon two of his coworkers playing tonsil hockey AT WORK. Chrissy: Yeah, you might want to stay out of Jack’s office. Like ever. Diandra: Hold that thought. He strips off his latex gloves and sulks off. Holding cells. Janet slams into the glass front of her cage as Jack walks by and snarls. He backtracks to her cage and snaps “save it”. Then he freezes when he sees a small child in the next cell, dressed like a child of Tattoine. We get a brief flash of two hands separating before Gwen interrupts and the child disappears. Gwen, a devious smile on her face, swats him on the ass and asks “did you miss me?” Chrissy: Oh, is it time to review the sexual harassment in the workplace guidelines already? “Were you gone,” he teases and chases her from the room like they’re children on a playground. I would ask when they went from potential love interests to rambunctious siblings, but I’m afraid to. Mostly because I saw an interview with John Barrowman recently where he was telling a story that started “so Eve Myles and I were dancing around the living room stark naked...” with NO EXPLANATION of how this scenario came to be in the first place. Chrissy: What? You’ve never had parties like that with your friends? Back in the main part of the hub, Tosh says there was rift activity two days ago, but nothing seems to have come through. A tiny, stuffed animal peeks around her screen and says “apart from me!” Before we can think this is Adam deflecting attention from the fact that it is OBVIOUSLY HIM by making bad jokes, Owen peeks around the corner and squeaks the toy a couple times. He says it’s a screen cleaner and he thought Tosh would like it. A screen cleaner that doubles as a squeak toy for a very small dog? I don’t quite remember these, but a quick Google search tells me they exist. Also, it tells me I can buy gas masks on e-bay. Because that’s totally what I meant by “novelty screen cleaner”. Ah, Google search. He asks if she likes it in a way instantly recognizable as shy and flirty, which...is totally unlike him. Proving that everything in this episode is alarmingly backwards, she shoots him down mercilessly by joking that the last thing she needs is a rodent watching her work. Chrissy: How would that be any different than usual? Har har...never mind. That’s mean. Actually, that’s exactly what she’s saying because she says she’ll call it “Owen”. Gwen and Ianto watch them go their separate ways and Gwen marvels that it’s like watching a puppy bring her sticks. Yeah, but that would make her the asshole kicking the puppy. Gwen wonders when he’s going to realize he has no chance. Ianto says he’s idolized her for years so he’s probably blind to it now. Adam chimes in that he thinks it’s sweet and Owen seems to be happy. Having a total personality change since the last episode? Yeah, I’m not sure “happy” is the right word there. Night. Gwen goes home and looks around, puzzled. She’s examining some keys at the kitchen counter when Rhys sneaks up behind her. She screams and wrestles free of him, demanding to know how he got in. He frowns and says “with a key”, neglecting to add “because I live here” because she would know that, right? She grabs a giant knife from the dish rack and waves it at him. He says okay, this isn’t funny, what’s going on Gwen? She fumbles her gun from her purse and points it at him, demanding to know how he knows her name. Also, who is he and what does he want? When Rhys doesn’t answer because he’s still trying to figure out what the hell is going on here, she fishes her cell phone out and calls Jack to tell him somebody has broken into her flat. Also he knows her name somehow. Rhys yelps that that’s because he LIVES here and she yells at him to shut up. “Hurry, Jack, he’s a nutter,” she adds before hanging up. Something like five minutes later – probably – Jack and Adam show up. Jack comes charging into the flat, gun drawn, frowns at Rhys and asks “what’s going on?” Gwen, obviously now deep in her hysteria, holds up one of the pictures on the mantle and says this stalker has put up all these pictures of them together and he keeps saying he’s her boyfriend. Jack, gun still raised because you never know when you might be dealing with a shapeshifter or something, says he IS her boyfriend and his name is Rhys. She says she’s never seen him before. Jack says they’ve been together for years and sidles over to her to try to take her gun. She refuses to hand it over because this guy claiming to be her boyfriend tried to grab her earlier and who knows WHAT he’ll try to do next. He IS in a bathrobe, after all. Rhys gets upset and asks Jack what the HELL they’ve done to her. Jack says they didn’t do anything, which...is true as far as he knows. Rhys starts raving about their amnesia pills and floats the whacko theory that Jack is “phasing” him out of Gwen’s memory so he can have her to himself. Sure. Because that’s clearly the only way he could get her away from a stud like you. Gwen yells at Rhys to get away from Jack and Rhys yells that they’re engaged and he bought the damn ring she’s wearing. She holds up her left hand and looks surprised to see the ring. Adam steps forward and offers to take Gwen back to the hub and get her checked over while Jack takes care of things here. Rhys asks who the hell he is. Jack says he’s one of them. Gwen reluctantly gives Jack her gun and tells him not to let this guy go because if he comes after her again, she’ll kill him. Rhys watches her go, crestfallen. Jack says he promises he had nothing to do with this, but he’ll make sure they put right whatever went wrong here. Chrissy: And then Dr. Becket stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished! Diandra: So you are watching those DVDs I let you borrow then? Chrissy: I’m kind of regretting having asked you what you were watching in the 90s because it seems to have prompted you to give me homework, but watching them is actually explaining SO much about you. Hub. Owen declares Gwen doesn’t have any signs of long term damage or “alien intervention”. What would that look like exactly? Long story short: he has no freaking clue why she wouldn’t remember her own fiancé. Adam hovers nearby silently. Gwen and Rhys’ flat. Jack is setting up a camera, pointed at Rhys on the couch. Rhys asks if this is really necessary. Chrissy: Yes. He always films his clients for security purposes. Diandra: I’m going to go ahead and pretend you didn’t just put that image in my head. Jack says she needs to remember him and starts prompting him for details. Where did they meet? College. He starts babbling about how he was drawn to her immediately and not just because of her looks. Although she is very pretty and he would never suggest otherwise and I’M SORRY HONEY! I LOVE YOU! Jack asks about their first kiss as we switch to Gwen watching this footage on one of the hub computers. He says it was in the supermarket when he was gathering ingredients to make her spaghetti Bolognese when he realized that has garlic in it and he couldn’t very well kiss a girl with garlic breath. So he just did it right there in the checkout line. Such a romantic. Adam asks Gwen if she’s remembering any of this. She says sort of, but she seems to have a weird detachment. She can see the memories, but she can’t really REMEMBER them, particularly the emotions that must have been attached to them. Adam puts a hand on her head and says she should believe him when he says that that IS her fiancé and her memory is just playing tricks on her. Because extremely rapid onset of dementia could totally happen to someone that young. Or anyone, really. How long was she gone? A few hours? She looks at the screen where Rhys is finishing by telling Jack that he swore right then that he would “marry this bloody mad woman even if it kills me”. Yeah, well...it just might. No, wait...actually, it DID. Elsewhere, Owen is running some tests on that weird rune box. Tosh asks if he’s figured out what it is yet. He says no, but she should take a look at it because the details are amazing. Also amazing is the effort her shirt is putting into keeping the girls from just tumbling out into the open because YIKES. Owen manages not to ogle the blatantly displayed cleavage as Tosh holds one end of the box, the other end still in his hands. She asks if he’s figured out how to open it yet. “No. Sorry,” he says meekly. “I’m not doing very well, am I?” Chrissy: What the hell did Adam DO to these people? Diandra: Apparently switched their personalities. To this end...she says it’s going to be a long night. He says that’s why he brought sandwiches and hands her a red plastic Tupperware container, prying open his own blue one. He says it’s smoked salmon, because that’s her favorite. She asks how he knew that. He just looks nervous. She says she’s going to need a beer. “What, while we’re working,” he yips. She stares at him and he backs down: yes, of course, that’s not a problem. Why would it be? Bad, Owen! Bad! Chrissy: I never thought I would say this, but...I want the old Owen back. This is just creepy. Ianto brings Gwen back to her flat. Jack sort of intercepts her and she mutters “don’t leave me, Jack.” He promises she’ll be fine and detangles himself, following Ianto out. Outside, Jack asks what that was about. Ianto says all they can figure is “temporary amnesia” and Owen is looking into what could have caused it. He tosses the keys to Jack and starts talking about a new Weevil sighting, but Jack is distracted by the Tattoine kid reappearing next to a nearby streetlamp. “Can you see him,” Jack asks. Ianto’s like ‘who? Where? Why is everybody going crazy on me?’ Of course, again, when Jack turns to look again, the kid is gone. He mutters that he’ll drop Ianto off at the hub and then go check out the sighting. Ianto offers to go with him because “it’s been a while since we went hunting together.” Chrissy: That’s because last time you got distracted and the SUV needed professional cleaning to get the stains out of the back seat. “I’ll be fine on my own,” Jack says. Chrissy: Well, I don’t doubt that, but it’s usually more fun if you have somebody else with you. Tosh comes back with two beers and coaxes Owen into taking one. She says they can call it a celebration because she and Adam have been together one year as of today. To add insult to injury, she sits on the table in front of him so he can get a good look at her legs and cleavage as she marvels at how after a whole year her stomach still flips when he touches her. They’re just SO PERFECT for each other, they just FIT together. “Do you know what I mean?” Yes, Tosh. You could never be satisfied with Owen because he’s not a manly man with a huge dick like Adam. That about summarize it? Owen tries not to stare at her legs and says no, he’s not really sure he does. She assures him that he’ll find the right girl “one day”. He awkwardly asks if she really thinks he looks like a rodent. She sort of chuckles and avoids answering entirely by saying they should get to figuring out this box. Ferret face. Elsewhere in Cardiff, Jack crawls into a sewer and shines his flashlight around a little, calling “come out wherever you are.” This strategy works about as well as can be expected: not at all. He starts going down one of the tunnels and hears a growl behind him. He grumbles that this Weevil picked the wrong day to give him hell. He runs around a corner and freezes when he runs into a man dressed the same way as the kid he keeps seeing. “Get out, son,” the man says ominously. In case we can’t make the connection here ourselves, Jack gasps “dad?” ‘Dad’ yells at him to run and Jack obeys without any further questions, not stopping until he’s back above ground. Adam suddenly appears behind him which is not suspicious AT ALL. He asks if Jack found the Weevil. Jack says um...no and how did you get here again? Adam grabs his shoulder and says he came with him. Doesn’t he remember? Jack frowns and says yeah, of course he does. Adam asks what he saw down there. Jack says “my past”, but does not add that that is nearly thirty centuries in the future and on a completely different planet. Gwen and Rhys’ flat of potentially imploding relationships. Gwen says if what Rhys says is true how could she have just forgotten it? As he has no freaking clue, he just goes over to check the fridge. I’m going to go ahead and assume this is his standard procedure for dealing with his problems. He notes that they don’t really have anything to make a meal out of because he had intended to take her out to dinner. He pours a drink and she just looks at the pictures of them everywhere and fidgets a little. It is now raining as Adam chases after Jack, demanding he explain what that vision of his past was all about. Was it from his childhood? Jack stops walking and Adam grabs his shoulder again. “I’ve always been here for you, Jack. From the very beginning.” Oh, you’re over a century old too? Yeah, red flag. Right here. Adam insists he’s the one person Jack is comfortable confiding in. Yeah, that’s likely. Jack doesn’t question any of this and just moans that he buried this memory over a hundred and fifty years ago and why is it haunting him now? Adam suggests that maybe up until now his subconscious was protecting him from the memory for some reason and it’s just “time” for him to face it because he can’t keep the past out forever. Jack snarls that he can’t AFFORD to remember this and walks away again. Adam doesn’t give up and chases him into what looks like a sports arena, insisting that he can help if Jack would quit trying to run away. Jack caves and closes his eyes while Adam plays armchair psychologist, asking him to describe what he sees. We get a flash of Jack standing on a beach, then a kid standing in exactly the same place so obviously it’s supposed to be a younger version of him. Young Jack runs up a sand hill and looks at the futuristic sand-bleached development in the distance. Present day Jack says this is the Boshane Peninsula, where he grew up in the 51st century. They were under constant threat of invasion and one day “they” followed through on that threat. We see young Jack running, holding the hand of the boy Jack was seeing earlier. Adam asks who “they” were. Jack says they were the “most horrible creatures you could possibly ever imagine”. A race of clones created from a DNA mixture of Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh? Chrissy: You are woefully lacking in imagination. Try Rush Limbaugh and Joseph Mengele. Or maybe Kim Jong Un and the leader of the Boko Harem. Jack says the howls of these creatures always preceded them and we cut back to Boshane where people are running around in terror as a noise follows that I can only describe as “shrieking harpy”. Diandra: Yeah, like I said: Anne Coulter. The man we now know as Jack’s dad tells Jack to run and keep the other boy - Gray - safe. Adam interrupts to ask who Gray is. Jack confirms what is now pretty obvious: he was Jack’s younger brother. In the present, Jack’s face crumples as his younger self begs his father to come with them. Dad says he has to go get their mother and they run in separate directions. As the boys are running, Gray trips and slips from young Jack’s grip. Young Jack keeps running and hides in a twisted knot of tree roots. Present Jack says one minute Gray was holding his hand and the next he just...let go and disappeared. Young Jack turns to find Gray missing and goes running from his protected spot in a futile search for him among the bodies littered over the beach. Present Jack sobs that he thought Gray was right behind him and he didn’t notice he had let go and he ran all the way home where he found his father’s body just outside the door and it’s ALL HIS FAULT. He says he looked for Gray for years and never found the body. Adam says it wasn’t his fault. Jack yells that it IS because he LET GO OF HIS HAND and it was the worst day of his life and he doesn’t want to remember it. He storms off and Adam just kind of stands there awkwardly. Hub. Tosh says according to the “molecular breakdown”, the “alien artifact” is made out of wood. Owen suggests maybe it fell in the crate by mistake and picked up the meson energy from the other artifacts surrounding it. Tosh thinks that’s a stupid idea and Owen immediately agrees. Ugh. Ianto recalls Jack bringing it in. Tosh says no, she remembers Adam finding it on an excavation a few months back. Ianto says he’ll go check “the diary” because he always likes to make a note of the interesting things. Tosh is like ‘really? You write about this stuff in your diary?’ “Among other things,” Ianto says with a wink. I really hope he keeps that under lock and key because there’s probably some entries in there that are worthy of Colt magazine. Chrissy: How do you know the name of a porn magazine for gay men? Diandra: How do you know that’s what it is? Chrissy: Touche. Let me guess: it was for research purposes. Diandra: Of course. Chrissy: Right. Ianto leaves and Owen awkwardly notes that they’re done for the night. Tosh gives a distracted agreement while checking her phone. Owen asks if everything is okay. She says yes, she’s just wondering why Adam hasn’t called yet. Owen says oh...well, I’m sure he will. “I know I would. If it was our anniversary.” You know...because I’m sentimental like that and I LOVE YOU AND I WOULD WORSHIP THE GROUND YOU WALK ON. Ahem. Or, you know, words to that effect. Tosh kind of brushes him off like ‘oh, that’s sweet’. He says no, really. REALLY. “I would never let you out of my sight.” Okay, now we’re bordering on creepy. Possibly headed for serial killer territory, in fact. Owen blurts that he loves her and then looks everywhere but at her and bites his lip nervously. Apparently he was hoping she didn’t really hear it because she freezes and says “what?” and he shrugs and says oh, well, now that it’s out in the open: “I love you!” He says he always has since they started working together and he “aches” for her. “Physically, when you’re in the room, I just want to reach out and touch you.” Okay, no. This all probably sounded better in your head, but here in the real world it sounds like “I’m going to lock you in one of my cryogenics coffins so I can keep you just like this forever and ever!” Chrissy: Or just keep you wrapped in cellophane in a warehouse somewhere far away where nobody can hear you scream for help. Diandra: That’s...weirdly detailed. Chrissy: You’ve never seen “Dexter”, have you? Diandra: Who? Chrissy: Never mind. Just keep recapping. Tosh tries to interject, but Owen keeps barreling on that he can’t keep this secret any longer and his mother always told him to “seize the day” so he’s going to carpe him some diem. Well, that’s nice. Did your mother also teach you about restraining orders? He says he knows she’s with Adam, but he just KNOWS that they would be AMAZING together if she would just come to her senses and give him a chance. Tosh just glares at the far wall for a few uncomfortable seconds before saying that that was totally inappropriate and how dare he? She is with Adam and even if she wasn’t “you’re not my type. never will be.” She storms out the door, leaving Owen to do his best impression of a kicked puppy. A potentially psychotic kicked puppy. The other newly turned dysfunctional couple is at the store. Gwen suggests that maybe she should be alone tonight. Rhys is having none of it because for all he knows she’s just going to keep losing memories and forget who SHE is too. Like that book where that middle-aged woman kept waking up thinking she was a child or something. I seem to have forgotten her name. Chrissy: Christine. Diandra: Yes, I know sweetie, we’ve known each other since high school. Chrissy: [sigh] Never mind. She thinks that’s ridiculous because she KNOWS who SHE is. She also recognizes the whole Torchwood team so it’s not like she’s losing everything from a particular time period or anything. He rambles that she’s not the only one who’s lost something because she was his best friend and the love of his life and she just POINTED A GUN AT HIM and accused him of stalking her. He goes to check out and the cashier walks away suddenly to take a phone call. He snaps and starts raving about how the guy is ignoring him when he KNOWS he’s ready to check out and kids these days are just such assholes and he’s never coming back to this overpriced place again. He turns around when he realizes Gwen is giggling and she says he always rants like this when he’s driving or in a queue or one of those obnoxious automated bots answers the phone call to customer service. She starts crying. He takes her hand, tells her it’s okay and they leave. Hub. Ianto is sitting on the couch in a very dim, very blue light, flipping through some sort of book or journal. He sets it on the table, sighs in frustration and leans back on the couch, revealing Adam suddenly sitting beside him despite the couch being empty a half a second ago. Here’s your sign. Ianto jumps off the couch, startled, and points at the book he was just reading. It’s his diary, he says, and he made no mention of Adam at all in it even though he’s talked about everyone else. Adam picks up the diary and walks toward Ianto, backing him up a few feet. Ianto asks why the hell he would neglect to mention someone who has been around for three whole years. “Like I’m remembering a man who doesn’t exist.” At this, Adam drops the diary and his hand does a funny little jittering motion like an analog television that’s not quite on the right frequency. Ianto watches him stabilize it with his other hand like an antenna and asks what the hell he is. Adam grabs him by the lapels and slams him into the nearest flat surface, threatening to fill Ianto with all sorts of horrible false memories if he tries to cross him. The Exposition Fairy does a sudden drunken fly-by and whacks him on the back of the head, forcing him to awkwardly add “because that’s how I exist.” Ianto shakes him off and demands to know what he did to Gwen. Adam says memory is a tricky thing – it turns out feeding memories of him INTO her caused some others to become accidentally erased. Because the human brain is just a glitchy hard drive, apparently. Chrissy: Warning: memory full. Permission required to delete all birthdays to make room. Diandra: But I’d really rather delete that annoying Meghan Trainor song... Chrissy: Invalid request. That’s staying in storage forever. Diandra: How about that one time when I embarrassed myself in front of a whole group of... Chrissy: Nope! Forever! FOREVER! Mwahahahahaha! Adam says this is a necessary side-effect of what he has to do to survive. Ianto stupidly threatens to tell Jack and Adam grabs his head and feeds him a memory of murdering a woman. Ianto gasps and groans and sinks to the floor, sobbing that he didn’t DO that. Adam says sure he did and feeds him memories of killing a few more women. “My diary,” Ianto gasps. That’s right: remind Adam of the evidence he needs to get rid of. Brilliant. Adam says “all human record is a lie. You twist it into what you want to believe.” Is that like an extension of history being written by the winners? Because...yes, actually. He keeps adding details to the “memories” of Ianto the Serial Killer, claiming he’s the one who always helped Ianto get rid of the bodies. Then Adam kisses him and gushes about how he’d almost forgotten what a RUSH it is to feed bad memories into people like this. Then he pats Ianto on the head and leaves him alone with a memory of sitting next to a dead woman in a rainstorm. He wails. Elsewhere in Cardiff, Jack is apparently still going over that memory of finding his father dead. His mother comes running out, verifies that dad is, in fact, dead, and cries before hugging young Jack. Her relief at seeing one of her children still alive is short lived though since she immediately asks where the other one is and Jack is like ‘ummmmm...I don’t know?’ She wails and adult Jack asks nobody in particular why the hell he’s being tortured with this shit again NOW. Gwen and Rhys’ flat. Gwen crawls into bed in a room that has far more pink in the décor than it seemed to earlier. He asks about the status of the memories she seemed to be recovering earlier. Gwen says it’s “a bit of a blur”, but she seems to be coming back to normal. Rhys suddenly becomes philosophical, saying all we really have are our memories. He says he always worried that she was only with him because she had “settled”. He thinks if she’d met him for the first time now at this point in her life she wouldn’t even have given him a second glance. Chrissy: And they say women are the more insecure gender. He kisses her and asks if she remembers that. She says no, it felt like the first to her, but...it was nice. They grin at each other like idiots and she “shyly” asks him to “remind” her some more. And if you’ll excuse me, I have to go slap Christine, who has responded to this by dancing around the room singing “Like a Virgin” with the misheard lyrics “touched for the thirty-first time”. Chrissy: Oh, you wouldn’t dare. You love me too mu-OW! Elsewhere, Adam and Tosh are ripping each other’s cloth-OW! Chrissy: [sits back down, grumbling unintelligibly] There. We’re even now. ...clothes off. Actually, she’s mostly ripping his clothes off and then throwing him on the bed where they roll around for a little bit before he suddenly freezes and stares at her. She asks what’s wrong. “How far would you go for me,” he asks. Chrissy: Dude, if this is your way of asking if I’m into anal... Diandra: Pfft. Like she wouldn’t be? I mean, it’s always the ones who act all innocent and repressed who are total freaks in the bedroom, right? For all we know she has whips and chains hidden away somewhere in that super clean apartment. Tosh reaches for his pants, but he stops her, insisting he needs to know. “Would you die for me?” Realizing that he’s one of those really twisted people who gets off on blood letting or erotic asphyxiation or some shit, Tosh throws him out of bed and runs away screaming. Oh, wait, no. She just says yes and goes back to trying to choke him with her tongue. Chrissy: I thought we just established that she would totally be into that shit. Diandra: Apparently. Hub. Jack finds Ianto curled in a ball at the foot of some stairs, looking traumatized. He whimpers that Jack should really lock him up in the vaults or something because he killed three women. Jack thinks this is the most demented prank Ianto has ever pulled. Ianto sniffles that he’s totally serious: he watched the life drain from their eyes as he strangled them. He jumps and looks around like a frightened labradoodle and insists that Jack lock him up before he tries to kill one of the team because NONE OF THEM ARE SAFE. Jack grabs him and pulls him into a hug. Chrissy: And then tears all his clothes off and has sex with him right there on the main hub floor because all this talk of killing people is just SO HOT...oh, wait, that’s Tosh. Diandra: Well, Jack would be the perfect candidate to experiment with some of the more dangerous stuff since you wouldn’t have to worry about going too far. If he chokes to death he’ll just wake up again in a couple minutes. Chrissy: Why do I suspect there is a whole genre of fanfiction devoted to this? Diandra: Maybe. I don’t know. Pretty sure all of the more twisted stories I read featured the Master, not Ianto. Chrissy: Ah. Naturally. So Jack hauls Ianto into his office and connects him to some sort of lie detector that uses alien tech and indicates whether or not someone is lying by flashing either a green or red light. Ianto babbles about how good it felt to wrap his hands around that woman’s throat and choke the lift out of her. The light stays stubbornly green. Because it’s not a lie if you honestly remember it happening. Jack says he doesn’t believe it and prompts Ianto to keep going. Ianto says the second woman tried to run and plead for her life, but the monster in him just WOULD NOT be silenced. It should be noted that he’s been crying through this whole process. Jack growls that this is NOT him and turns off the machine, storming out. He pulls up a security feed of the hub on one of the computers and sees Adam explaining to Ianto how all human history is a lie and prompting him to REMEMBER while touching his head. He flips to another video of Adam talking to Tosh about their one year anniversary and touching her neck after asking if she remembers. Wheels spin frantically behind his eyes and he opens a video of Gwen demanding to know who this joker is back at the beginning of the episode and suddenly “remembering” after he touched her. Jack flashes back on Adam touching his shoulder earlier and prompting him to REMEMBER how Adam came to be there. He yanks Ianto over and shows him the video of Adam forcing these fake memories on him. They run around searching for further evidence of Adam’s non- existence. Jack can’t find his blood sample among the vials they keep filled with blood from all the team members. Ianto finds everything in order in Adam’s electronic personnel file...which was updated twenty-four hours ago. The hub lights come on and Owen stumbles in, placing a flowering plant on Tosh’s desk before cowering away into his morgue. Jack slips back into his office as Tosh and Adam come in behind him. Tosh is sniffing at the flowers when Owen slinks back to apologize for everything he said last night. He says he doesn’t want to jeopardize their friendship. He just wants her to be happy. Er...she is happy, right? Tosh admits that she thinks “the world of” Owen, but...yes, she’s completely and utterly in lust...sorry, love...with Adam. Apparently it’s morning and everybody is trickling in because Gwen comes in next and Tosh turns to ask how she’s doing. Gwen says her memories are starting to come back slowly and Rhys thought she shouldn’t come in today, but... Adam says they can watch after her and pulls her, Tosh and Owen into a group hug because that’s not suspicious at all. He pulls away when he spots Ianto trying to sneak by and touches his arm as he asks if he’s okay. “Listen, I could murder a coffee,” he adds. He sits at “his” desk and Jack, who has been watching all of this from his office, suddenly appears behind him and puts a gun to his head. While everyone splutters and tries to figure out if he’s lost his marbles, he explains that whoever or whatever this guy is, he’s been feeding himself into their memories by touch. He didn’t even exist until two days ago. Owen calmly explains that they’ve known Adam for years and he’s a part of the team like maybe they think Gwen’s crazy meltdown has rubbed off on Jack. Adam says “come on” and reaches for his arm and he pulls back and says no, he’s not doing that shit again. Adam indignantly insists that Jack recruited him three years ago. Jack explains something that seems to be a realization he’s had in the past few minutes: when he thinks of his team, he sees Adam alongside the others, but his presence doesn’t have any emotions attached to it. He doesn’t feel any sort of connection or friendship despite supposedly being able to confide everything to him. Gwen brings up the “you’ve just forgotten him like I did my fiancé” theory and Jack says he should have known right there that something was wrong. They tried to brush it off as stress, but it was really Adam messing with her memories. He grabs Adam by his shirt front and hauls him from his chair, growling that he’s taking him to the vault. Tosh pulls her gun and orders Jack to let him go. Gwen and Owen try to calm her down and Jack stops frog marching Adam to explain that he’s not going to hurt Adam, he’s just locking him up in the basement next to Janet and feeding the key to the pterodactyl. Or something like that anyway. Ianto sneaks up behind Tosh and wrestles the gun from her. She screams and sobs Adam’s name as Jack continues taking him down to the vault. Basement cells. Adam plasters himself against the glass front of the cell and begs Jack not to kill him. He says he had to “become part of your memories” to survive but he didn’t mean to hurt anyone. No, you just traumatized a perfectly sweet man into thinking he was the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper. Oh, but we’re ignoring that and focusing on the positive things he’s done like helping Jack remember who he was and removing Owen’s cynicism. Chrissy: “Cynicism” being a fancy way of saying “balls”. Whatever. He’s happy and selfless and much easier to get along with. And Tosh has more self confidence than ever. Jack stops him before he can paint himself into a corner by bringing up Gwen and Ianto. He asks why Adam chose them. Because you’re parked on top of the rift in space and time and therefore are a giant magnet for supernatural bullshit? I mean, that’s just a guess, but... Actually, Adam says it’s because they all have such “unique” memories. Especially Jack. Chrissy: Well, that’s what happens when you time travel from a distant future planet and live over a century as an immortal. Diandra: Yes! You finally got the backstory sorted! I’m so proud of you! He presses his hand to the glass like he just wants to reach out and TOUCH Jack so he can get another glimpse of his fascinating mind. Chrissy: Marking the only time anyone has ever actually wanted Jack for his brains. Jack presses his hand to the other side of the glass over Adam’s and congratulates him on finding the one group on the planet who make a living out of wiping out aliens like him. Adam snarls that Jack can’t shoot him because they MADE him and they’ll always remember what they destroyed. Jack hesitates, but then just walks away. Conference room of philosophical ramblings. Jack says our memories are what define us and when Adam changed their memories he changed who they ARE. Jack thinks he can help them get back by finding a memory that defines each of them. If he’s wrong, the worst that can happen is Adam will have spent an hour or so pacing one of the cells next to Janet. He pushes a button on the television control and the screen switches from surveillance footage of Adam to a watery screensaver. The lights dim and he starts talking about taking them back to their lives before they all met like he’s trying to hypnotize them. He asks where they are and there’s a pause before Gwen’s voice over says she’s in the college cafeteria and Rhys is with her telling stupid jokes. Rhys’ voice asks what you call a tortoise with no legs. “Right where you left it.” Oh, wait...sorry, I botched that. Actually, he asks where you’d FIND a tortoise with no legs. It doesn’t matter, it won’t come when you call it. Damnit. Owen’s voice over recalls his tenth birthday when his mother spent the whole day yelling “I love you because you’re my son, but that doesn’t mean I have to like you.” Wow. Just...yikes. Tosh is remembering being in math club because of course she is. And Ianto is remembering meeting Lisa but NOT how their relationship ended with her as a bloody half- terminator freak show. Back to Owen, who is remembering his mom packing his bags for him at sixteen, which he apparently thinks is nice and not a way for her to get him out of the house as fast as possible. Back to Gwen, who seems to be remembering the supermarket proposal Rhys was describing earlier. Back to Tosh, who remembers her first flat when she didn’t have a housewarming party because she didn’t know anyone she would actually want to invite. Chrissy: Yeah, she and Owen really are perfect for each other. Back to Ianto, who actually is remembering how Lisa died. Jack is looking at him like ‘really? This is the only relationship that defines you?’ “I love him,” Gwen blurts, then looks at Jack and adds “but not in the way I love you.” Chrissy: Okay, hold on now. [whistles] Back up the truck for a minute. Um...what? Diandra: She loves him like the Doctor loves Donna? Chrissy: Who’s Donna? Diandra: Oh, we really need to get to the next crossover. Suffice it to say: she is the best Doctor’s companion ever. Jack hands Gwen a pill and strokes her cheek as he walks behind her around the table. There’s a bunch of cheesy nonsense as Jack walks around the table responding to the fragments of thought everyone is blurting before handing them their pills. The last one is Ianto, who is finally focusing on his relationship with Jack and how coming to Torchwood gave his life “meaning”. Jack kisses his forehead and puts the pill down in front of him. He goes back to the head of the table and explains to everyone that these are short term retcon that will just make them forget the last forty-eight hours. Awesome. You going to give one to Rhys too or are you just going to deal with him worrying about his fiancée forgetting this whole bizarre episode later? Ianto takes his pill eagerly, followed by Gwen and – after a shy smile at Tosh - Owen. Tosh leaps for the remote and switches the screen back to the feed of Adam. “I’m going to lose so much,” she moans to Jack, crying. Chrissy: The good news is: you won’t remember ever having had it. Diandra: Mostly because you didn’t. Jack says as much. She insists that they love each other and it’s “no different” than a real memory. Jack cups her face and says Adam forced himself on her. Er...not exactly territory I was hoping to go into with this recap. Sorry. Jack says she has to let the manipulation go. He puts the pill in her hand and stands by her, rubbing her back as she takes it. She mouths a goodbye to the screen and puts her head down on the table. Jack rushes to catch Gwen as she slumps, setting her head on the table and walking away, leaving them all asleep. Basement cells. Adam is slumped on the bench when Jack approaches and announces that he’s the only one left. Adam pants that he knows what it’s like to not exist and he’s begging Jack not to send him back “there”. How can any being with self awareness be conscious of non-existence? Somewhere, Descartes is spinning in his grave. Dear Russel T. Davis: BACK AWAY FROM THE CRACKPIPE. Jack says he has no choice and shows Adam his own retcon pill, explaining the plan already in motion for no apparent reason. I mean really, does he need to know exactly how you plan to wipe him out of existence? Adam spews something about Jack not being able to wipe out the bad memories because Adam didn’t plant them: they were actually his memories. “But what about the good times, Jack? What about the last good memory of you and your dad?” Jack says that’s “lost”. Adam offers to help him find it as his last act before dying. Jack asks why he would want to do that. Because it’s the oldest stall tactic in the book? Adam rambles about how beautiful this world is and how incredible it was to see after being in the void for so long. “You gave me that. Let me do this for you.” Okay, first of all...he didn’t give you anything. As Jack pointed out earlier, you forced yourself into their memories. You weren’t invited. Second...I forgot what my second point was. This premise is so batshit nuts that I’m not sure I can make sense out of it anymore without heavy duty pharmaceuticals. Chrissy: Fairies, sex demons, terminators, the devil and all that bullshit that was going on in those “Doctor Who” episodes and you think THIS is crazy? Diandra: Well...all that stuff was clearly nuts too, but I was a psych major. Memory and brain function/malfunction are kind of my wheelhouse. Jack hesitates because of COURSE he’s falling for this bullshit. “Come on,” Adam goads. “You want this.” Chrissy: Hey, no fair using his own lines against him! Diandra: Especially since Jack is probably biologically incapable of saying no. Jack closes his eyes and we flash back to Boshane Tattooine while he describes what he’s seeing. Young Jack and his dad are playing something that looks a lot like baseball because of course they are. They’re American. Chrissy: Unless it’s actually Cricket. I’m not sure I would recognize the difference. Diandra: It’s just as boring but the rules make even less sense. Also, they’re American so let’s assume it’s baseball. Dad says one day Jack isn’t going to want to play with his old fart of a dad anymore. Jack insists that will never happen because he’s, like, ten. Gray comes running up, yelling that mom said he could play too and Jack, like the perfect television sibling who bears little resemblance to anybody in actual reality, picks him up in a sort of hug and swings him around happily. Chrissy: We’re sure this is an actual memory and not a dream, right? Diandra: No. They resume playing, but Dad immediately whacks the ball over the hill and Jack has to go running for it. Adult Jack’s face falls as young Jack goes over the hill to find a boy he doesn’t recognize tossing the ball into the air menacingly. Because he has obviously never heard of “The Kite Runner”, he runs up to this kid and asks who he is. The kid says his name is Adam and asks if he can play too. Yep, Adam is worming his way into Jack’s memory because Jack was stupid enough to fall for whatever backup plan he’s trying here. Chrissy: Wait...if he does this by touch, how is he doing this from the other side of the glass? Diandra: Oh, NOW you want to ask questions?! Young Jack shoves Young Adam to the ground. Dad and Gray come up over the hill and Dad asks what the hell Jack thinks he’s doing. Adam says he just wants to play. Dad says that’s fine. Jack says no, this kid doesn’t belong here. Adam goes to introduce himself and Jack shoves him away before Dad can shake his hand. Dad scolds him and helps a suddenly adult Adam up, announcing that if Jack is going to act like this then they’re going home. He and Gray walk away and Jack, who has suddenly morphed into his adult self like Adam, starts yelping that this isn’t how the memory is supposed to go. He turns back into his younger self (what is the point of going back and forth like this? I’m getting whiplash!) and sneers at Adam that he ruined it. In the cells, Adam corrects that he made it happen. Jack opens his eyes and begs Adam to give him the real memory back. Adam says yeah, sure, but only if Jack lets him live. Okay, you won’t remember any of this anyway, right Jack? TAKE THE DAMN PILL AND STOP THIS NONSENSE. Adam exposits that that gold box they’ve been fretting over contains his “last good memory”. This one with Jack and his family. Because he’s a part of it now and he’ll always live as long as Jack remembers this. No, it’s not making any sense to me either. Jack’s face goes blank and he reaches for the retcon pill. Adam starts screaming that if Jack takes it he’ll lose everything Adam has given him. Well, yeah, I’m pretty sure that was the whole point. Apparently Jack had blocked all the bad memories of his childhood because Adam says this includes all memories of his father, who will effectively cease to exist in his mind. I’m...not really sure why that would be true. It’s not like he never had the memories, they’re just buried somewhere. Any psychologist could probably do what Adam just did without all the manipulation. Jack doesn’t care. He says goodbye and takes the pill. Adam immediately drops to the ground screaming and fades out of existence back to a place that is apparently a philosopher’s nightmare. Jack slumps to the ground and falls asleep against the glass. Morning. Or afternoon. Sometime later anyway. Jack wakes up and looks around with only a little confusion. I’m not sure if that’s intentional, but he seems to remember that someone was in that cell and is relieved to find them gone. Upstairs, everyone is at their work stations trying to figure out how they have apparently lost two days. Chrissy: Bachelor party? St. Patrick’s Day? Diandra: Or if we’re pulling events from your history: really wild pride event? Chrissy: Oh, is that why they won’t let me ride on the GSA float anymore? Tosh announces that the security footage and any other record of anything that might have happened in the past two days has been wiped. “What have we been doing?” Chrissy: And more importantly, should we be tested for anything? Apparently I misread that look earlier because Jack says he has no idea what happened. “Great,” Owen mutters. “That’s two days of my life that I’ll never get back.” Chrissy: And now you know how the rest of us feel about any time spent with you. Jack notes the flowers on Tosh’s desk and says it looks like she has a secret admirer. Tosh fishes the card out and reads “to Tosh, love and apologies, Owen.” Owen scoffs that somebody must be “winding [her] up” because he doesn’t “do” flowers and he sure as hell doesn’t apologize. Chrissy: I take back what I said earlier. Can we go back to nerdy, meek Owen? Jack’s office. Jack pulls Adam’s ornate MacGuffin box out and a piece falls off. He’s inspecting the tiny chunk when Ianto comes in, responding to some sort of call. Jack holds up Ianto’s diary and says he found it. Ianto grabs for it, embarrassed, and mutters that he’s been looking for that. He starts to slink away, but Jack, who has been smirking basically since Ianto came in the room, says that for the record “measuring tapes never lie.” Chrissy: Although it does sound more impressive if you’re using metric measurements. Ianto rolls his eyes and goes to leave again, but Jack calls him back, holding up the bag that the box was in so we can see that it is marked “Adam’s property”. He asks who Adam is. Ianto doesn’t know and probably doesn’t care. Jack tries to wedge the piece back into the box and, when nothing happens, shrugs and puts it on his desk. He is almost out the door when the box slides open. He tips it upside down and sand flows out of the otherwise empty compartment inside. He ponders this for a moment before the scene fades and we are given a preview of next week’s episode guest-starring (sigh) Martha. Damnit.