"Torchwood, episode 2x06: Reset" Starring: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori, Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen Guest staring: Freema Agyeman (damnit) Night. Owen and Tosh are chasing a weevil through a warehouse, doing the two-fisted X-Files maneuver with gun and flashlight because TURNING ON THE LIGHT IS NEVER AN OPTION. The chase is cut short when they find a dead body. Tourist office that we’ve only seen maybe once before. Ianto is flipping through a magazine looking bored when somebody comes in. He barely looks up as he says they’re closing. A hand waves an ID at him and he apologizes and rushes to open the door down into the hub. Inside, Jack is expositing that the John Doe Owen and Tosh found was carrying documentation identifying him as “Meredith Roberts”, which can only mean one of two things. Either the ID doesn’t belong to him or his parents REALLY hated him. Owen announces that there’s no signs of violence on the body so it doesn’t LOOK like the weevil had anything to do with it, but he’s just getting started on the autopsy. Ianto interrupts via intercom to tell Jack that his “VIP visitor” has arrived. Jack runs toward the door excitedly, the rest of the team following in confusion. He arrives at the cog door, which rolls back to reveal...Martha Jones. If you read my recap of “Last of the Time Lords”, you will understand why I spent the duration of the blippy credits face down on my desk, groaning with dread. We come back to Martha burbling about how good it is to see Jack again from inside an enthusiastic bear hug. Jack introduces her to the team. Owen asks if this is a casual visit and she says nope, she’s here to finish his post-mortem on “Meredith”. She breezes past Owen, who frowns at Jack. Jack explains that she’s from UNIT. Gwen, who will apparently be playing the role of audience surrogate today, asks what UNIT is. Jack says they’re “military intelligence”, which, like “business ethics” or “squirrel-proof”, is an oxymoron. Basically, as I said in an earlier review: they are the British military’s version of “X-Files” or “Fringe” division depending on your frame of reference. Chrissy: I thought that’s what Torchwood was. Diandra: Eh. Maybe Torchwood is “X-Files” and UNIT is “Fringe”. Nobody really takes Torchwood seriously anymore. Or, as Jack puts it, UNIT is the “acceptable face” of alien intelligence gathering/fighting. He loudly adds that Torchwood is better looking though. Martha smiles at him like ‘yeah, I missed you too, Boe’ and says UNIT has identified a pattern of mysterious deaths involving toxic shock. None of the victims are connected in any way or fit any sort of profile, but there was a strangely large number of them in South Wales. Jack jokes that she really just came to see him. “Still struggling to conquer your shyness, Jack?” she retorts. Owen, eager to get on with this, asks what sort of pattern they’ve found. She says they WERE being declared suicides or accidents until...she peels back the eyelid on the body to reveal a puncture wound right in the corner of the eyeball. She says it’s from a hypodermic and when they run the victim’s blood they’ll find it full of ammonium hydroxide. Owen says he was JUST about to do blood work when she interrupted. Martha asks if he’s checked the medical records yet. Um, no, he was just about to do that too. She says let’s go do that then, and adds “you never know, Owen, you might learn something.” Owen looks at Jack like ‘great. You found somebody worse than me. Congratulations.’ Tosh searches the Royal Cardiff Infirmary database for Meredith Roberts, noting that there was a crash of the National Health Service’s system recently that wiped out a whole bunch of records. Martha says yeah, all the victims UNIT flagged disappeared from the records. The search for Meredith’s information returns a result of “irretrievable”. Tosh says a simple system crash wouldn’t wipe data this cleanly. She says she’ll dig deeper. Meanwhile, Jack takes Martha back to his office to chat. He asks how her family is doing. Oh, you know, they still have nightmares about that year they were held captive by a megalomaniac who killed millions of people, but otherwise they’re fine. After a little more inane banter, Jack asks “do you miss him?” She immediately says no. He gives her a look and she grumbles yeah, okay, maybe. Sometimes. For a few minutes before she “come[s] to [her] senses.” She says she has plenty of work to occupy her now. Jack says yeah, what’s her title again? Medical Officer? Does this mean he has to call her “ma’am”? She says no, but he does have to follow her orders. He says she could have called him if she was looking for a job. She says she wasn’t, this woman from UNIT just called her one day, explaining that she had been “highly recommended” for recruitment by an unnamed source, which, you know...who else would have done that? Jack smiles fondly and theorizes that the Doctor must have felt he owed her a favor. Realizing that this conversation is precariously bordering on sappy, he changes the subject to the little red caps UNIT members wear, asking if she could get him one for “personal use” because he thinks Ianto would look good in it. Chrissy: And nothing else. Diandra: That goes without saying. Martha makes a “talk to the hand, girlfriend” gesture and says he’s on his own when it comes to procuring uniforms for his little dirty role playing games. She asks if he’s going to give her a tour or what. He stands at attention and salutes her with a sarcastic “yes, ma’am! Whatever you say, ma’am!” She tells him to knock it off. Chrissy: Yeah, save it for Ianto. Apparently Gwen helps Jack with the tour because she sidelines Martha in the middle of it to say “so...you know Jack pretty well then?” Martha says they only worked together for a few days, but they were “pretty intense”. Yeah. Whole years went by for some of them and others were spent on a dying planet somewhere at the end of the universe with a amnesiac psycho. It’s a LONG story. Gwen of course thinks “pretty intense” means they had epic amounts of sex. Martha splutters NO! GOD NO! I would never...NO! “Why? Are you and him...” Gwen mirrors her little “no way in hell” routine, only with a bit less enthusiasm. Martha jokes that they are probably the only two people on this planet who can say this. “I know. What are we doing wrong,” Gwen asks. From around the corner Jack asks if they’re talking about him and they scamper behind him like ‘no! of course not! We were just talking about...um...aliens and...stuff’. Back near the autopsy bay, Martha picks up some metal object and asks what it is. Jack says it’s an alien artifact. Owen grabs it from her and starts twiddling a dial on the side, saying there’s been a lot of debate, but he thinks it’s a medical instrument. Jack says that’s just because he’s a MEDIC. If he was an orchestra conductor, he’d think it was a metronome. Or something. Owen says he calls it the Singularity Scalpel and explains that it “concentrates energy on a tiny fixed point without damaging anything on the way”. Gwen, back at her desk, asks if he remembers what happened the last time he played with that thing. He brushes her off and puts a paper coffee cup on the stand the scalpel was displayed on, crumpling a piece of paper into it. He says he can vaporize the paper without damaging the cup. Jack mutters that this will “end in tears” and guides Martha safely out of the way. Gwen backs away too. The display screen on the device shows an x-ray of the crumpled paper sitting inside the cup and then something on a desk across the room explodes. Ianto, who was just passing said desk, screams and ducks. He glares at Owen, who grumbles that he hasn’t quite gotten the calibration right yet. Ianto dusts himself off and announces to Jack that there’s been another hypodermic-to-the-eye victim, but this one survived even if her medical records have already been neatly wiped. Hospital. Martha draws blood from the woman’s arm as she moans that the doctors said they were finished running tests. Martha says they’re “different”, which...isn’t reassuring. Thankfully, Gwen came along. She calls the woman by her name (Marie) and apologizes for making her go through this again, but asks if she recognized the man who attacked her. Marie says she already gave all this information to the police. Jack says yeah, um...they’re not police either. Marie says no, she never saw him before. Gwen asks if he said anything at any point. No. Martha asks Marie to open her mouth and swabs her cheeks. Um...why are we doing a DNA test again? Marie yelps that he just came at her with a big ass needle and then “my dog bit him and then I kicked him in the nuts.” Jack grins at this more than any man normally would at a story like that. Which probably says more about his enlightened upbringing than anything because it would mean he’s not threatened by a strong woman who fights back against an attacker. Back in the hub, Martha and Owen work together with remarkable ease on the samples. They’re frowning at an image of a slide under a microscope when Owen tries to broach the topic of her history with Jack in much the same awkward way Gwen did earlier. He says they go back a long way, huh? She says well, “forward and back, really”. He asks what brought them together. “Let’s say we were under the same doctor,” she says. Chrissy: Oh, he WISHES. Diandra: They both do, sadly. She changes the subject before Owen tries to ask a follow up question to that. She wonders aloud why the killer is using ammonium hydroxide because that is a REALLY strange way to kill a person. Owen says it’s a pretty gruesome method too as it’s basically like injecting bleach. This leads them both to the conclusion that the killer isn’t just trying to kill them, but scrub out some sort of “evidence” in their bloodstream. Jack’s office, which is filling in for the conference room today for some reason. Jack and Martha reiterate that they currently have one victim and one survivor of these weird hypodermic attacks whose records have been wiped from the NHS in Cardiff, plus several more across the rest of the UK. Martha says they suspect the purpose of the attacks is to destroy evidence of some sort of medical condition they had. Jack orders Gwen and Ianto to investigate the criminal component of the attacks and Martha and Owen to look into the medical component. Then he asks if Tosh has had any luck unearthing the medical records yet. She says no, she has to dig through system memory to find remaining fragments of files, which, you know, is basically illegal since she doesn’t actually have access to those systems. Jack tells her to do it anyway because this isn’t just some lone psycho – it’s a conspiracy. Chrissy: Yeah, Mulder always said the same thing. Diandra: Well, he WAS right in the end, wasn’t he? Later, Tosh is at her computer, informing Ianto that the police are reporting another body in Heath Park that seems to match their victims. So Gwen and Ianto drive out to the park and Gwen marches up to the nearest officer to demand information. He points her to the body of a 20-something guy – Barry - found earlier that morning. Gwen and Ianto kneel beside the body and Gwen goes right for his right eye while the officer adds that the doctor said it looked like... Toxic shock, Gwen interrupts. Back at the hub, she’s telling Martha that since this latest attack happened in the woods they have no witnesses and no security cameras to consult. And according to Tosh Barry’s medical records have already been wiped. Martha says everything about this killing is identical to the others. She thinks Jack is right: it isn’t some random serial killer with a fetish for poking people in the eye with needles, it’s more like selective assassinations. Gwen says yes, but Barry was just a college student. Why would someone want to kill him? “Student loans company,” Martha says completely deadpan. Gwen’s like yeah, okay, ha, but seriously, what sort of condition could all of these people have had in common that somebody would wipe their medical records? Martha says Owen’s trying to figure that out from Marie’s test results right now. Gwen says yeah, but in the meantime they have no idea who the killer will target next because the victims seem completely random AND his kills are accelerating in frequency. Martha is sure they’ll find something. And then because she is also now patched into their communications, apparently, Ianto’s voice suddenly announces in her ear that the hospital is reporting Marie has had some sort of seizure. She runs to get Owen, who has just found some mysterious compound in Marie’s blood. Martha frowns at it and asks if he’s run isoenzyme analysis on it. He says not yet and asks if she thinks it might be parasitic. Martha says it’s possible. Owen says well, whatever it is it must explain whatever is going on with her because he can’t find anything else wrong. Martha scans the rest of the findings and says yeah, she has absolutely no infections or deficiencies and her blood pressure and cholesterol numbers are basically perfect. Owen says yep: “she’s so normal, she’s abnormal.” They go to the hospital and Martha wakes Marie up by shining a light in her eyes and calling her name until she responds crankily (which is completely understandable). Owen tells her that they found something they’ve never seen before in her blood and they think it’s responsible for making her sick. They need to know what’s been going on. She says THEY’RE the doctors, not her. Shouldn’t they know what it is? Chrissy: Hey, nobody ever said they were GOOD doctors. Meanwhile, Barry’s friend is telling Gwen and Ianto that they’ve been friends since their first day of classes. Gwen asks if he did any drugs. The friend says well...he was always pretty careful about what went into his body on account of his diabetes. But once “they” cured him of that he started drinking and doing blow. Gwen says hold up a minute...he was CURED of his diabetes? Ianto says that’s impossible. The friend says all he knows is Barry stopped taking insulin and seemed to be perfectly fine. Ianto goes off to the side to call Owen while Gwen asks who Barry got this miracle cure from. Friend says Barry wouldn’t say, but he was “suddenly flashing a lot of wedge about.” The American meaning of this would probably involve either an impressive amount of muscle (clearly not the case with Barry) or his tendency to try to steal women from guys or generally drive people apart (think “wedge issue”). Since neither of these make any sense, I had to look up the British slang meaning which is, of course, money. Because if there are two things people – and men in particular – are good at coming up with an insane amount of slang words for, it is currency and their penises. Chrissy: Well, those are the two things that most occupy their minds on any given day. Ianto tells Owen that Barry was reporting being cured of diabetes. Owen, still with Marie, acknowledges this and goes back to questioning her. He says this could be a matter of life or death: did she ever have a serious medical condition? She chuckles bitterly and says yeah, she knew it was too good to be true. She USED to have HIV. Martha says that’s not possible because she’s completely free of antibodies. Yeah, hi, WELCOME TO THE SHOW MARTHA. Marie says “that’s the Reset”. Martha asks what that is – a drug? Owen asks if it has any other chemical name they might recognize. Marie starts coughing the way TV characters do when they’re about to be diagnosed with cancer. Owen asks where she got this Reset. She says “the Pharm” – a medical research facility. They just gave it to her and paid her a lot of money to keep quiet about it as per the contract. Yeah, um...that’s usually a red flag, dear. Martha asks if she’s saying she was a subject in a clinical trial. One of questionable ethics, yes. Marie starts seizing. Martha holds her down while Owen goes to inject...something into her leg. And then Marie stops struggling and stares blankly at the ceiling while the heart monitor flatlines. “She’s dead,” Martha says. Oh, really, doctor? How could you tell? And then something that looks like a swarm of bees spills out of Marie’s mouth and spreads out into the room, many of them going after Owen and Martha. Owen pounds an alarm and they huddle in the corner, pulling their masks up over their faces. Within seconds, the swarm stops moving and all the little whatever- they-are’s drop. Hub. A blueish scan of one of the “bees” rotates on the screen in the conference room. It looks like a dragonfly had sex with a baby scorpion. Chrissy: And how exactly would they do that? Diandra: Carefully. Martha calls it “alien larvae” that someone was using human bodies to incubate. Owen adds that presumably they left Marie’s body when she died so they could find a new host to continue developing. Luckily, they died before they could use Martha or Owen for that. Chrissy: Yeah...”luckily”. Diandra: Sorry. Poor word choice. Martha thinks it’s kind of cute and wonders what it looks like in it’s next stage. Kind of like a giant wasp that can disguise itself as a human and travel back to the 1920s? Chrissy: That’s...weirdly specific. I assume it’s a “Doctor Who” reference? Diandra: Yes. The episode features Agatha Christie and plays out EXACTLY like an Agatha Christie novel. Chrissy: With giant alien bees. Diandra: Yes. Chrissy: You know...I keep expecting I’ll reach a limit to the weirdness of this cannon, but I’m starting to doubt such a thing exists. We cut surprisingly smoothly (for this show) to the same conference room, only now everybody else is sitting around the table and the image on the screen has changed to a DNA strand. Owen says it’s a molecular model of the “Reset” drug from Marie’s blood. Ianto asks what it does. Owen compares it to a virus program that you run through your computer that searches for whatever harmful programs/files before deleting them. But this thing doesn’t stop at viruses: it goes after toxins and harmful bacteria (making it better than antibiotics which go after helpful bacteria as well) or any sort of mutated cells. Basically it’s like a giant “factory reset” button for the human body. Martha decides this explanation isn’t clear enough and adds that it’s the “ultimate magic bullet”. Yeah, no, we don’t need your help here, Martha. Gwen says it would be the greatest medical discovery in history. Martha says the catch is that it comes with an alien parasite. The healing is basically a side effect because the parasite needs a perfectly healthy host to incubate. Neat, Jack mutters. “So, who runs the Pharm?” Ianto has pulled up their public records, which he says seem innocent enough. They’re a private/public partnership between the government and a “consortium of pharmaceutical companies” for researching and developing biotechnology. Tosh says their IT systems are far more advanced than is necessary for such an institution and they seem to have completely unrestricted security clearance. Which, Martha points out for the cheap seats, means they definitely have the ability to wipe medical records from the national database. Jack asks who runs the Pharm. Gwen, who Ianto gave the file to, reads that the director is named Dr. Aaron Copley. Ianto pulls up the man’s picture and HOLY SHIT IT’S CHARLES WIDMORE RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. Owen says he’s one of the most respected research scientists in his field. He’s Harvard educated and his last job was as a professor there of Molecular Pharmacology. He’s also powerful enough to make a whole plane full of people just DISAPPEAR and stage a duplicate wreck in the deepest marine trench on Earth. Jack notes that he’s kind of “handsome” and since the Doctor isn’t here to tell him to “stop it”, Martha gives him a long- suffering look in his stead. Chrissy: The guy’s old enough to be your father, Jack. Diandra: Jack is old enough to be his OWN great- grandfather. What’s your point? Chrissy: Or apparently his own great-grandMOTHER given all the hints about his ability to become pregnant. I can see crossover potential between this and that weird Ethan Hawke movie. They drive up to a building in the middle of the woods somewhere and are stopped at a security gate. Jack just says “Torchwood” to the guy approaching with a clipboard and the guy nods and waves them through. As they’re driving through, Jack notes that the guy has a gun on his belt. Widmore’s office. Chrissy: They said his name. Is this going to be like Suzie all over again and you’re going to insist on calling him by whatever name he had on another show you loved? Diandra: Who is Suzie? Widmore – affecting a belabored American accent - apologizes for the wasted trip “Mr. Harker” has obviously made. Jack corrects the pronunciation but says “you can call me Jack.” Um...how about no? Widmore notes that he calls himself “Captain” and asks where he parked his boat. Jack laughs and tells Owen that he likes a man with a sense of humor. Even a bad one, apparently. Getting to business, Widmore says he doesn’t recognize any of the faces in the file Jack gave him, which means they had nothing to do with his institute because as director he personally meets with all trial subjects. Yeah, somehow you never have anything to do with any suspicious bullshit that happens around you, Chuck. Jack stands up and starts riffling through the pictures again, explaining that two of these people were murdered and another died of a “parasitic infection of alien origin”. One of them mentioned the Pharm by name before dying. Widmore scoffs at the words “alien origin” and says that’s ridiculous. Owen cuts in then to say that when he was writing his doctor’s thesis, he found Widmore’s work on immunology incredibly helpful. Having greased the skids a little with that blatant sucking up, he says if there WERE a drug that could basically perform a factory reset on the human body he would know about it, right? Widmore says yes, but there is no such thing. Jack chuckles and says he once had a boyfriend whose nostrils flared when he was lying too. Chrissy: He once told me I was the biggest he’d ever seen. His nostrils flared. I dumped the bastard. Widmore gives him an unimpressed look and announces that he’s late for a meeting. Jack says they’ll just have a look around then. Widmore says fine, but they’d be confined to the standard PR tour because the research areas are classified and off limits. Jack says Torchwood usually goes wherever they want because normal clearance levels don’t apply. Widmore says their clearance doesn’t work here and they can ask Whitehall if they don’t believe him. Jack says he had a “bad experience” with a politician recently so he doesn’t really listen to Whitehall anymore. Chrissy: Is he referring to the Master or somebody else? Diandra: Who knows? I don’t know how he keeps track of all these relationships he’s always mentioning. Widmore calls to have somebody escort them back to their car. “So much for the polite approach,” Owen mutters as they get back in the SUV. “We need to turn this place over.” Jack consults his wrist strap and says this facility has the highest concentration of alien life on “this side of the rift” according to the readings. Then he notes that the color of the security guards’ uniforms is completely unflattering on the woman standing beside the car. Because why not? Hub. Tosh tells Jack that she’s not getting into the database and if she keeps trying “with a brute force approach” they’re going to notice somebody is trying to get in. Jack just says he NEEDS a way in, damnit. Ianto announces from a station over in the corner that he has the results of that search and sends it to Tosh’s computer. Tosh opens a page about The Pharm and announces that Ianto is brilliant, then tells Jack and the other team members trickling in that The Pharm is still (or perhaps again) looking for volunteers. Gwen thinks one of them should go undercover. Chrissy: I have a couple suggestions. Jack poo-poos that on the grounds that they don’t know enough about the way the organization operates so any number of things could go wrong. Martha suggests sending in a medic because they would know what to look for. Chrissy: YES! Listen to the woman! Owen says he can’t because he’s already been to the facility so they would recognize him. Chrissy: DAMNIT. Martha’s like yeaaaaaah, I wasn’t referring to YOU Mr. Self Centered. Jack says no, uh-uh, not gonna happen. Martha says come on “I’ve been in worse places and you know it.” Jack looks around at the rest of his team and caves rather quickly. Owen sidelines him on his way back to his office to protest this plan. Jack argues that Martha is “more than capable” and he would rely on her “if the world was ending. In fact, I did.” Argh. This again? Listen: she’s a soldier. Which basically means she’s good at taking orders. She’s brave, but basically all she did during the Year That Never Was is hide from The Master and convince a few groups of people to restore The Doctor so HE could save the world. As I mentioned before, she has the POTENTIAL to be a strong, badass woman, but she spent 95% of her time acting all fluttery around the Doctor, who she chased after like a lovesick puppy. I feel like people who rave about how awesome she was as a companion keep attributing badass traits that are just not in evidence. Ianto lays out the building plans for the Pharm for Martha to review, which for whatever reason they are doing in Owen’s autopsy bay. He says based on what Jack and Owen saw during their visit, the main house has Widmore’s office, the research suites and housing for clinical trial subjects. The buildings behind it are restricted and surrounded by fences and heavily armed guards and Jack is pretty sure it’s where the alien life readings were emanating from. But Ianto says Martha doesn’t need to go anywhere near them because she’s trying to get herself entered as a clinical trial subject and figure out what’s going on in the part of the main building Widmore didn’t want Jack to see. Ianto tells her not to try too hard to get accepted or draw too much attention to herself. “Be invisible,” she concludes with a wistful smile. “I can do that.” The only other time I saw this episode was before I ever attempted to watch “Doctor Who”, so I didn’t notice just how freaking many references they managed to drop in here. Chrissy: How did you manage to follow this at all if you didn’t know who Martha was? Diandra: I’m really good at not caring if I don’t understand everything. Chrissy: Huh. That...actually explains a whole lot about you. Ianto says once she’s in, she can gain access to the Pharm’s IT system and turn off the firewall and whatever other security protocols they have so Tosh can get in. Then she should just get out. No risks. Martha calls it “industrial espionage” and says it’s very “civilized”. And then as long as she’s on the subject of what is and isn’t well-mannered behavior, she mentions that Jack wants her to get one of those little red caps for Ianto. Diandra: *headdesk* Ianto says oh, uh...really? Um, well...”red is my color.” He goes to walk away, but she just has to press the issue. She asks if she’s right in assuming that the two of them are...and she waggles her eyebrows suggestively instead of just saying it. “We dabble,” Ianto says. Sorry, what the hell does that mean in this context? You occasionally give each other hand jobs before going back to work? Martha grins and asks what Jack’s “dabbling” is like. You would think Ianto would be the kind of person who would be reluctant to entertain this completely inappropriate intrusion on their sex life by someone who is – to him – a complete stranger. You would apparently be wrong. “Innovative,” he says after a moment of thought. “Bordering on the avant garde.” Martha says oh, really? Ianto stares into the distance dreamily like uh-huh...sorry, what was I saying? Chrissy: I believe you were about to explain why you were walking funny last Tuesday. Diandra: And why you needed two quarts of ice cream with chocolate syrup and a 100 foot extension cord. Chrissy: And a bicycle pump. Diandra: And a car battery. Jack’s office. Ianto gives Martha her fake ID with the name “Samantha Jones”. Tosh says communicating will be tricky because for all they know the whole place is wired, but Jack wants to monitor her at all times, so... She hands Martha a contact lens case. To save time, we just cut to her POV after she’s already put the contacts in so we can see the surveillance-like readout around the edges. She puts her hand in front of her face, sees the image mirrored on Tosh’s computer screen, and blurts “oh, I’m a camera!” “As Chris Isherwood once said to me when we were cruising the Kurfurstendamm,” Jack retorts. Okay, Russel T. Davis is just screwing with us now. Chrissy: Only now? Owen rolls his eyes. Tosh types on her keyboard and the words “u look we c” appear in the bottom corner of Martha’s vision. She explains that they will only work when she’s wearing them because they are powered by body heat. Owen suggestively says that means she’ll have to wear them EVERYWHERE. Martha says she’ll have to remember to close her eyes when she’s doing some things then. Chrissy: I really hope this isn’t the week you get your period. Diandra: Okay, ew. Chrissy: I’m just saying...YOU try unwrapping those things with your eyes closed. Tosh says in case of emergency, the lenses can “communicate with your sensory-neuro receptors” and they can bypass the auditory system to speak to her. So...send signals directly into her brain? That’s not creepy at all. Martha asks how they can do this without risking the signals being intercepted. Ianto says it’s alien technology (because what else would it be?) that “exploits a solution to the EPR paradox.” So...technically it doesn’t exist because of quantum entanglement? I don’t really get that and I strongly suspect the writers don’t either. Chrissy: It’s alien technology. You don’t need an explanation. Just assume it’s a somewhat nerdier explanation than “it’s magic!” Apparently Martha gets this explanation as she just says “oh, quantum entanglement of remote particles? Okay, cool.” Jack brags that Martha is completely brilliant. Oh, since WHEN? And when does a med student – assuming she went back to that after her years traveling through time and space - find time to learn that shit? Chrissy: *That’s* the part of this you’re questioning? Diandra: Well, no. Not the only part. But isn’t it kind of like a carpenter knowing all about mechanical engineering? Lion’s den. A doctor is explaining to Martha – as she fills a vial of blood – that they will be taking two blood tests so they can run one over night. She asks “Samantha” to tell her about the places she’s been to recently. Martha rambles about having a “great” time in North America, France, Germany and Australia. She neglects to mention that this was in an alternate timeline where those were all under the dictatorship of a crazed Time Lord. Also, that brief period where the hospital she worked at was located on the moon. The doctor asks about third world countries. Um...does England in the time of Shakespeare count? How about that Silo at the End of the Universe? That was probably just as disease ridden as a third world country. The doctor specifically mentions Africa and Latin America. Martha says no, but she’ll probably get around to those eventually. Well, I guess your “cross the globe” tour missed a few places then, didn’t it? The doctor says that could be a bit of an issue for them because there could be some “unexpected side effects” if she had some sort of rare tropical disease. Tropical diseases? No. Previously unknown space viruses or diseases that haven’t been seen in the past half century? Maybe. Martha says that won’t be a problem and she is very aware of health issues. The doctor gets an odd look and the team back in the hub project a “danger” symbol onto her contacts. “My mum’s a nurse,” she covers lamely. Widmore enters the room to do his promised meet and greet with new guinea pigs...sorry, research study volunteers. The doctor introduces them and he looks at her file, noting that she’s a postgrad student while Jack instructs her, via Tosh’s slow typing, to get close to him. Widmore asks what she’s studying. She says creative writing, which is why she needs the money. Heh. Which writer threw that in? Widmore says she should understand that they have a LOT of applicants, so, you know, they’ll let her know if they even have a spot open for her. Jack has Tosh tell Martha to make sure she doesn’t lose him, so he’s most of the way out the door before she gets up and blurts that there’s something she forgot to mention and they’ll find out about it when they do the blood test. Widmore comes back and everyone exchanges vaguely alarmed looks. She says she had a hepatitis infection (from that one time when she was a maid during WWI). She’s fine now, but it stays in the blood right? So she’ll never be completely free of it. In the hub, Owen concludes that she’s bluffing because she knows this is her ticket in. Widmore confirms this by saying that this changes everything and is she available to start right now? He hands her a confidentiality agreement to sign and Owen gleefully announces that she’s in. Jack thinks this is an excellent opportunity to quote Chris Isherwood again to say the trick isn’t getting IN, it’s getting OUT. Oh, stop showing off. Chrissy: You do remember who you’re talking about here, right? Martha signs the papers and asks what sort of drugs they need her to take then. Widmore spews some bullshit about the variety of drugs they have and says she’ll be getting a full briefing once they “finalize the program” and get her informed consent. The team watches as she is guided through a maze of hallways to her room and Owen says they should let her settle in because it’s going to be a long night. Sometime later, Owen is sitting by himself at the monitor when Tosh brings him some tea. She notes that he and Martha are getting along well. “Yeah, you know me - Mr. Sociable,” says Captain Irony. Tosh notes that she’s very beautiful and Owen, apparently still in sarcastic mode, says oh, really? I hadn’t noticed. Tosh thinks she’d be a perfect match for him since they’re both doctors. He dismisses this since she’s only interested in work. Also, “if I tried anything with her, I think Jack would have my kneecaps.” Martha can do her own kneecapping, thank you very much. Chrissy: Well, Jack can still hold him down for her. Tosh starts working at another computer and Owen asks whatever happened to that pool tournament she talked about a couple episodes ago. She tries to explain that she was never TRYING to organize a tournament. He doesn’t get what she was trying to do then, so she has to spell it out for him: “it was supposed to be a date”. He stares at her like ‘a what now?’ and says um...really? You and me? A date? Seriously? She babbles that she thought if they could just spend some time together outside of work, like for one evening... “All right,” he interrupts. She stares at him, wide eyed, and asks if he’s being sarcastic right now. Or polite. Or something. He’d totally stand her up, right? He acts offended and says he’s saying yes. “One date, see how it goes, which might be nowhere.” Well, that’s optimistic. Tosh is perfectly fine with this, even when Owen warns that he’s not going to stop flirting with other women. He turns back to his computer with the excuse that they should really go back to focusing on Martha right now because, you know, work. Chrissy: I can’t decide if that was just awkward or the beginnings of a slow motion train wreck. Diandra: I prefer to think of it as the writers realizing that these two are never going to find anybody else to form a stable relationship with, so we might as well pair them up and see if it sticks. “Samantha’s” room. Martha is laying on the bed fully dressed and it’s dark outside. How long was she laying there with nothing to do? Apparently, she decides to do something right at the moment Owen and Tosh refocused on her mission. She checks her watch and sneaks out of the room and winds her way around a bunch of hallways and down some stairs. She finds a locked door marked “Administration” because really? We didn’t think it would be that easy, did we? Jack wanders over to watch the contact lens feed with the newly formed couple. Chrissy: Is that whipped cream behind your ear? Diandra: And where’s Ianto? You didn’t leave him tied to the bed again, did you? Martha looks at a keypad next to the door and Owen asks if Tosh can get them past it. She says oh, yeah, that’s easy, Martha just has to get her face close to it and Tosh will use the lenses to hack the VHF synergy or whatever bullshit the writers just made up. Tosh runs a program that works out the code for the keypad and feeds the numbers to Martha to enter seconds before a guard comes down the hall, just missing her. Inside the office, Martha sits at a password protected computer and stares while the team debate whether Tosh can help her hack in. Jack thinks they don’t have time. Tosh walks Martha through a few steps that will authorize her to access the computer remotely and Martha watches as the login screen scrolls through possible passwords and lands on one even faster than the key pad outside, which...given that it is alphanumeric and the pad outside was just numeric...should have taken longer and been a whole lot more difficult, but okay. Gwen wanders over to watch as Tosh starts pulling open files. Martha sits back and reads for the benefit of the audience. The Pharm calls the parasite the Mayfly. Gwen says they’ve never seen anything like it before. Jack wonders what Widmore is doing with it. He picks up a microphone and tells Martha that now that they can download the files remotely, she doesn’t need to be in there. So, you know, run. Meanwhile, Tosh patches some of the downloading files over to Gwen’s station so she can help. Gwen opens a file marked “covert” and finds all the trial subjects for Reset. Well, that’s an airtight system they have there. Martha is winding back through hallways when a woman announces over the PA that there has been a breakout in Zone A and all patrols should use extreme caution because the escaped “creature” is dangerous. Martha finds a window and peeks at the guards running around outside. Owen types a flashing “get to safety” message on the contacts like duh. She just smiles at his silly concern and climbs out another window. Gwen calls Jack over to see the list of clinical trial subjects. It is, of course, all the dead people whose records have been erased. She pulls up a line that says “executive action: BD”. Either Gwen clicks on it or we just cut to later after they’ve identified the initials as “Billy Davis”, who has a security rating of “ultra”, which is, I assume, just above “super” and just under “ultramax”. Jack says “executive action” is an old CIA term for “assassination”. Um...sure. That’s one way of using it. Most people just say “assassination” or “terminate” or “kill” or something these days though because any term with “executive” in front of it generally refers to the President. You know, since he’s the head of the executive branch. Sorry, why is a British organization using outdated American terminology? Chrissy: Because it sounds cool, okay?! Diandra: Oh. Well. Why didn’t you just say so? Personally, I’m disappointed they didn’t use the opportunity to say “EXTERMINATE”. Chrissy: .........why would they do that again? Diandra: Hang on, I’m just going to add “Daleks” to the list of all things “Doctor Who” I have to catch you up on before the next crossover... Jack concludes that the Pharm has their own hitmen on the payroll, which, you know, is weird for a medical research facility. What? I’m pretty sure any big corporation in the states does that. We KNOW they have their own lawyers and spies. Gwen points out a name she doesn’t recognize: Elin Morgan. She hasn’t been reported missing or found dead yet. Jack tells her to take Ianto and go retrieve her. Martha is running around on the grounds when she comes to a heavy, barb-wire topped fence with a security code entry at the gate. She ducks out of the way as some armed guards run up to it, the people shouting through their walkies saying helpful things like “don’t approach it” and “stun and sedate only” and “highly dangerous”. They claim to understand, but then they completely fail to make sure the gate is secure after they go through it and Martha is able to run in before it closes. Chrissy: See, this is why they didn’t get those jobs working perimeter at Jurassic Park. Diandra: Oh, yeah, because the guys they DID get were SO much better. Owen is fretting that she’s running right toward danger because who knows what these Pharm people are capable of if they have their own death squad. Jack frets alongside him because he’s the one who sent her in there in the first place and the Doctor will never forgive him for this. Well, I’m assuming that last part. There’s a growling sound behind Martha and when she turns to look the feed from her contacts shorts out abruptly. Tosh starts typing frantically, theorizing that it could have been a radiation surge. Meanwhile, Martha yelps and fishes the contacts out, flinging them away. And then probably wishes she was still blinded because a fully formed version of one of those alien bee scorpions the size of a 4x4 is barreling down on her. She ducks behind some trash cans as the guards chase it down the alley and around the corner. Then, like the complete moron the writers keep claiming she isn’t, she comes out and just stands there staring at the security guards until one of them hits her in the neck with a dart. Tosh announces that she can’t get the feed back. Well, no, if it’s dependent on body heat she would have just disconnected it. Owen says they have to get in there. Tosh says with all the security swarming around, going in there would only put her even more at risk. She tells him to give her thirty minutes to get the signal back. Then they can talk about doing something potentially stupid. Jack promises once again that Martha is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Except for those times when the Doctor needed to save her ass, but let’s not talk about those. Either way, she’s been in worse problems than this. Torchwood SUV. Gwen has a GPS location on the hitman’s mobile phone, which...I don’t know when or how that happened. They’re trying to beat him to Elin’s place. Elin’s flat. Elin is sleeping when the assassin just walks into the room with a hypodermic in one hand and an aerosol spray in the other. She wakes up, rolls over, and gets a face full of whatever is in the spray, which apparently paralyzes her instantly. He goes to inject the hypodermic into her eyeball and is approximately a millimeter away when Gwen blasts through the door with gun drawn, screaming at him to put his hands up. Ianto comes in after her and tazes the assassin unconscious before getting on the Bluetooth to announce to Jack that they have Billy Davis and he might be able to help them get in to the Pharm. Meanwhile, at the Pharm, Martha has been strapped to a table crucifix style. Widmore comes into the room and she starts ranting that they need to let her go because she’s here as a volunteer and they can’t treat her like this. She didn’t do anything! She just got bored in her room and decided to wander around when that weird bug thing attacked her. On the other side of a barbed wire fence that is practically plastered with “keep out” signs? Yeah, nice try. Unfortunately, they aren’t quite that stupid. Widmore says she doesn’t owe any loyalty to Torchwood, especially since Jack sending her here was criminally reckless. Martha pretends to have no idea what he’s talking about. Jack who? What sort of wood? Widmore dismisses her pathetic attempts at lying and says Torchwood is a completely irrelevant minor nuisance, but he’s really glad they sent her to the Phram because her test results are really...special. Before we can find out what sort of bizarre mutation she has from traveling through spacetime, let’s go back to the Hub. Billy is groaning in pain and complaining about his guts. Neither Jack or Owen finds this the least bit alarming. Jack offers Billy exactly one chance to confess and Billy tells him to go fuck himself. Jack escalates immediately to the hardball plan, which involves Ianto bringing in a Weevil that is chained so that it comes just short of biting Billy’s face off. Billy shrieks and caves almost immediately, swearing to tell them anything as long as they get that thing away from him. Chrissy: That THING is named Janet and she has FEELINGS, asshole. Diandra: Yes, she has feelings of rage and hunger for meat. Ianto uses a spray similar to the one Billy had to herd the Weevil back in her cage. Billy babbles a whole lot of stuff we already know: he works for the Pharm and they’ve been giving people a Reset drug that had the nasty side effect of deadly parasites. He was killing people who were dying anyway – getting rid of them before the deadly symptoms became known to the public. Pharm. Widmore asks “Samantha” if she knows what lymphocytes are. Martha gives a watered down explanation of some sort of white blood cell. Widmore says yeah, well, she has lymphocytes they’ve never seen in a human body before. The nurse who was doing Martha’s intake earlier, who is now hovering in the background preparing a syringe, says her lymphocytes and possibly other cells have mutated. Martha asks how the hell that could happen. Widmore says exposure to radiation not found on planet Earth. Oh. Oops. He says they’ve dealt with aliens before, but they’ve never come across a human who shows signs of having travelled through time and space. Really? You haven’t run across ONE of the two dozen or so former companions crawling around the UK? And I’m just guessing that number as a conservative estimate of the ones that are still living and not, you now, trapped in a different timeline or parallel universe or some bullshit. He pulls up a chair beside her and asks how that’s possible and what she saw out there. Instead of telling him to go play peak-a-boo with a weeping angel, she stubbornly continues to play stupid. Fine, Widmore pouts. WHATEVER caused the mutation has given her a “uniquely effective” immune system. He rambles that they’re developing a drug that’s going to be a miracle cure for cancer, AIDS and any other human disease. Yeah, I saw that movie. The only survivors were Will Smith and, like, one Hispanic lady. Unfortunately, they’re still working the bugs out of it (rim shot), so he wants to see what her messed up immune system does with the “imperfections” in the drug. The nurse attaches a bag of fluid to a stand over Martha’s head and she makes fish faces at it and yelps that she is NOT taking that drug as the nurse goes to insert the line. “But you volunteered,” he menaces without the slightest trace of subtlety. Chrissy: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to DIE! Mwahahahahaha! Diandra: Actually, I think the more appropriate image here might be a guy with a handlebar mustache tying a screaming woman to a train track. Chrissy: How old ARE you? Hub. Jack is explaining to Billy that he is going to get them into the Pharm. Billy says yeah, sure, but his stomach is literally KILLING HIM HERE. He starts gasping and coughing blood. Owen fumbles for something on his crash cart while Jack yelps at him to DO SOMETHING. Owen, apparently deciding that Billy will make a perfect test dummy for the device he was showing Martha at the beginning of the episode, aims it at his stomach and fiddles with the dial until an image of a writhing alien scorpion baby appears on the screen. He swears he has the calibrations right, which I’m pretty sure is what he said last time. Predictably, it doesn’t go any better this time. In fact, the scorpion dragon baby blasts directly from the guy’s middle in a fair approximation of John Hurt’s death scene in “Alien”. Jack orders Owen to “deal with it” and frets over Billy’s no- doubt dead body like maybe he can still salvage this. Owen grabs what looks like a giant pair of tweezers, picks up the still squirming, cat-sized alien and dumps it into a plastic tub, saying the guy must have breathed in the larvae when one of his victims died and “this could have been me. Or Martha.” Chrissy: Yeah, stop reminding us. It’s just cruel. Martha is now writhing on the table, seemingly insensate. The nurse says she’s given her twice the “critical dose”. Widmore says that means the larvae are incubating. The nurse asks if Widmore is sure about this because her immune system is clearly reacting. Widmore, who has never let the possibility of getting blood on his hands deter him, tells her to stop acting like a pussy because they’re making HISTORY here. Or something like that. Back in the main part of the hub, Ianto is passing Tosh’s desk when she flags him down to ask what he’s done with Billy’s body. Ianto says he was just about to dispose of it. She says she’s thought of a way they can still use him to get into the Pharm. She shows him something on her screen and he makes a face and says “oh, you are warped on the inside.” Chrissy: Yes, we already established this in the last episode. Oh, right. You don’t remember. Diandra: Even if he could, he was too busy agonizing over the whole Jack the Ripper thing. She chipperly says she’ll take that as a compliment. Yeah, you would. So the team drive the SUV into the compound by remote from the back seat, with Billy’s corpse propped up in the driver seat. Luckily, the guard wasn’t hired for his brains as he doesn’t try to ask any questions even though Billy is staring straight ahead vacantly with his mouth hanging open. Chrissy: I don’t know. That might say more about Billy than anybody else. Billy flops over onto the steering wheel when they stop and everybody piles out. Jack orders Tosh, Gwen and Ianto to check “zone A” where the giant dragonfly scorpion was and takes Owen with him to rescue Martha. They burst into the room she’s being held in and find Widmore just standing over her watching one of the alien parasite babies writhe on a nearby monitor. Jack holds him at gunpoint while Owen runs to Martha, muttering “tell me that’s not Reset”. Widmore says she’s the only subject who has ever survived the larval stage and rambles about how fascinating these alien creatures are because they “practice sibling cannibalism” in utero and only the strongest survive. Um...newsflash: so do many Earth creatures including humans. Well...maybe not cannibalism per se...more like absorption. Ask any woman who has had the number of children she’s carrying suddenly decrease from one ultrasound to another. Anyway, he’s eager to find out what happens in the next stage. Chrissy: We recreate that scene from Prometheus? Diandra: Oh, ew. Please don’t. Owen begs him to put a stop to this. Widmore says he can’t because he doesn’t know how. Zone A. The rest of the team burst into a warehouse full of barrels and what looks like a couple cryogenic pods. Widmore’s nurse is doing something with a jar that was apparently connected to one of the pods when Gwen screams at her to stop and put her hands over her head. She does and Tosh creeps closer to get a look at what’s in the pod. She gapes in horror, but before we can see what it is, we cut back to Widmore’s lab, where the alien demon “baby” is visibly writhing around in Martha’s abdomen. Owen moans that it’s killing her. Jack tells him to stay calm and think because there must be something they can do. Owen turns to his bag where the singularity MacGuffin is just sitting on top like WHY DO YOU KEEP CARRYING THAT THING WITH YOU? Seriously, you never had it before and it never worked so far. It turns out the thing in the pod is a Weevil. Widmore’s nurse explains that this is what The Pharm does: farm “exotic chemical products” from captive aliens. Ianto asks what they hell they could possibly get from a Weevil. The nurse says pesticides and “a quite powerful chemical defoliant.” But the Weevils aren’t their main focus. They’re pretty sure they’re going to get a Nobel from their work with the Mayfly, which, obviously they think they can develop for human use as the ultimate cure for everything. She indicates a pod where the fully grown “mayfly” is being kept and it thumps the glass with its insect legs sluggishly. Ianto moves away to report to Jack on the captive aliens in Zone A and Gwen makes sympathetic faces at the mayfly, which mirrors her head tilt and whacks the glass where she goes to press her hand. Like your average caged animal basically. Jack tell Ianto to order Tosh to do a full shutdown and declares the facility a “torture chamber”. He looks at Widmore pointedly and Widmore sighs and says he’s not going to debate medical ethics with him. Or, you know, any ethics at all. Jack says they’re the ones who turned these creatures into parasites. Widmore says that’s because they didn’t understand how they reproduced, but they tried to limit the damage. The people who died were going to die anyway, so it was worth the sacrifice for science. Um...some of them maybe, but I’m pretty sure you can live a significant number of years with diabetes and hepatitis. He says Jack should understand since he’s involved in alien research. Jack protests that this is nothing like what he does. Yeah, he just keeps the Weevils locked in cells and occasional uses them to torture OTHER people. He repeats that he’s shutting the place down. Widmore scoffs that he can’t. Jack is like ‘oh, yeah? Watch me.’ He says they’re in control of the computer system and they’re currently wiping out all of their records. Widmore calls this cyber-terrorism. Jack says oh, yeah, and they’re going to trip all the fire, radiation and biohazard safety systems so basically the whole thing will go into lockdown and flood with water and gases to try to flush out whatever it thinks is there. Widmore points out that this would kill the aliens. Jack says they’re already dying, so it would basically be a mercy killing. Touche. Also, potentially hypocritical. Widmore yelps that they’re on the same SIDE. Jack says no, he just fights hostile aliens. He compares what Widmore does to slavery and war crimes. They are interrupted when Martha starts having a fit on the table. Jack holds her down and asks Owen what the hell he’s doing. Owen, fiddling with the singularity scalpel, insists this is the only way and he thinks he finally understands how it works. Chrissy: That’s what you said last time. Diandra: But see, he was using it on a guy who didn’t matter. Now that he’s using it on an important character, it HAS to work. Chrissy: Since when is Martha important? Diandra: You know, I honestly don’t know. Owen yells that he’s ready and Jack jumps back, barking at him that he’d better be SURE this will work this time because he could kill her. Chrissy: Oh, but she’s already dying, right? So it would be a mercy killing. Diandra: Nice. The writhing bug disappears from the screen suddenly and Martha sits straight up, staring straight ahead, then flops back down and the monitor next to her flatlines. Jack and Owen look horrified for a moment and then she starts coughing and moaning. Jack pulls her up and they run out the door. I’m guessing this is one of those times when the previews for the episode promised a major character would die and this scene played out as a sort of a teasing mislead. Chrissy: Wait, what? Someone other than Jack is going to die? Diandra: Did I not mention that before? Oops. My bad. The rest of the team are escorting the nurse... somewhere... outside when Jack and Owen emerge, Martha half draped over Owen, who is cheerfully prescribing for her a few days of bed rest, “preferably under my supervision.” Oh, leave the suggestive bullshit to Jack, would you? Martha groans that she has a boyfriend. Yeah, well, he just made a date with Tosh. Clearly exclusivity in relationships means nothing to him. Chrissy: Well, he never actually promised exclusivity. In fact, he specifically warned that he would continue to date whoever he wanted. Diandra: He said flirt, not date. Owen, not easily deterred, asks if this boyfriend has saved her life like he just did. She says um...yeah, actually. Chrissy: She’s not still talking about the Doctor, is she? Diandra: I hope not. Also, he’s doing a lot of bragging about saving her life considering the last person he tried that method on died spectacularly. Chrissy: He’s a guy. If it goes right, it’s what they meant to do all along. If it goes wrong, it’s either fate or someone else’s fault. Diandra: Oh, do all guys do that? I thought it was just Republicans. They pause outside the SUV while Tosh gives the command for the facility to shut down via the laptop she’s juggling. Alarms go off and a voice orders everyone to evacuate the facility. And then Widmore shows up, waving a gun and spewing clichéd lines about them mistakenly thinking he would actually let them leave after they destroyed everything he worked for. Yeah...why did we just let him wander away in the first place again? Owen steps in front of Martha and starts creeping toward Widmore with hands raised, babbling that Widmore really doesn’t want to do this and he’s a scientist, damnit and blah blah. Widmore blinks at him and just shoots him point blank in the chest. Jack whips out his gun and shoots Widmore in the forehead. Martha, Tosh and Jack descend on Owen. Jack keeps yelling at Owen to stay with them and look at him while Martha fumbles for some sort of syringe, which she injects into the other side of his chest. But Owen just goes still, staring wide-eyed at nothing in particular. “He’s dead,” Martha whimpers. Chrissy: Are you shitting me? I know I’ve basically hated him from day one, but just as he was slowly redeeming himself they suddenly kill him in the last two minutes of an episode without any warning? Diandra: Yes. But keep in mind that they killed Rhys once and found a way to bring him back. Also, Burn Gorman is still credited as being in every episode for the rest of this season. Chrissy: This is going to get really weird, isn’t it? Diandra: Going to?