"Torchwood, episode 2x11: Adrift"

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


Okay, so two things. First, if you are reading all of my recaps 
of this show (bless your probably masochistic little heart), 
you will notice I skipped episode ten of this season. It was a 
standalone episode that contributed very little to the overall 
cannon and it is partly for that reason that I decided to skip 
it. Also, and more importantly, I am skipping it because I can. 
Second, Chrissy will not be joining me for this episode, but I 
may patch her in from time to time as we will be keeping in 
touch by text. Here goes nothing.

We open on a bridge at night under a full moon. A very 
androgynous looking young man...I’m pretty sure it’s a man...is 
walking along the bridge all alone. Which last I checked is how 
something like 99.236712% of horror movies start. Also, did I 
mention the full moon? The kid’s phone beeps and he pulls it 
out to read a text message from “mom”, chastising him for being 
a few minutes late. He looks at the buildings nearby, where he 
can clearly see her standing at the window. Way to helicopter 
parent, lady. He texts back “chill :-P” and we see his name is 
Jonah. Mom chuckles and backs away from the window. A gale wind 
kicks up suddenly and he crouches beside the railing, looking 
up as something with lights spirals toward him. And then the 
light and wind disappear and all that’s left is the phone 
sitting on the bridge. Cue the “X-Files” theme. Sorry, 
“Torchwood”. I keep getting those confused.

Day, same bridge. PC Andy (hey, remember him?) is explaining to 
Gwen that the kid was named Jonah Bevin and he was born in 
1993. He points to the house nearby and says that’s where the 
parents live. He gives the parents names and, interestingly, 
they have different names and the kid shares his mother’s. Not 
that I’ve never heard of this happening before, but it’s so 
rare that it’s surprising when it happens. Andy says the kid 
disappeared when he was walking home from football (Americans 
read: soccer) practice over seven months ago. He just 
disappeared and there hasn’t been any sign of him since. Oh, 
Andy, have you been put on cold case duty? He hands the 
evidence bag with the phone to Gwen and says mom saw him just 
before he disappeared and claims there was NOBODY else on the 
bridge. They did the usual search of the house and computer, 
spoke to friends and relatives, yadda yadda, but there have 
been no leads whatsoever. Andy realizes Gwen looks distracted 
and asks if this sort of case is “beneath” her now. She says 
no, she’s just wondering why he wasn’t at her wedding. The 
disaster of a wedding that possibly nobody remembers? 
Wait...have the writers forgotten they retconed everyone who 
was at the wedding already? Ugh. It was TWO EPISODES AGO. Andy 
says he was working – he told her he had to. She says yeah, she 
checked the logs and he had three days off. Stalker. Andy 
grumbles that he just thought, you know...since Rhys doesn’t 
like him... Gwen says Rhys is just fine with him, it’s HIM who 
has a problem with Rhys. Always making fun of his weight and 
such. Andy grumbles that he COULD stand to lose a couple 
pounds. He says he had better things to do than go to her 
stupid wedding. Apparently they had some UST too, because she 
says she thought they had gotten past this and he says he can’t 
just “switch it off”. She says it was three years ago and she 
didn’t realize he still had feelings for her. He says he 
doesn’t and “don’t flatter yourself” and they shove each other 
like kids on the playground.

Anway, BACK TO THE CASE. Gwen says it’s hardly strange because 
teenagers go missing all the time. What’s different about this 
one? Andy says he was the first on the scene and he spent the 
whole night and much of the next day trying to reassure Mrs. 
Bevin. Also, being Torchwood she should already know what’s 
different about this case. He takes her back to his squad car 
and shows her some security footage of the bridge on his 
laptop. He says the camera records one frame every six seconds 
and it shows Jonah moving down the bridge and then a flash of 
light and then nothing. Gwen offers that he could have jumped 
or hidden somewhere because six seconds isn’t an insignificant 
length of time. Andy points out the light coming from just 
above the camera’s frame. It’s only there on that one frame. 
Gwen says it could be a barrage light. Andy begs her to cut the 
bullshit: they both know what happened here. She has no idea 
what he’s talking about. He forwards what looks like a second 
camera feed to forty five minutes later when Jack pulled up in 
the SUV and asks what “Mulder” was doing there then. That’s an 
actual quote. I’m not trying to be cute by mixing them up this 
time.

Back at the hub, Gwen has Tosh looking at the rift monitor for 
any unusual activity around that time. She finds nothing. And 
before Gwen can ask, she also checked the three months on 
either side of the disappearance within a one mile radius of 
that location. Still nothing. 

So Gwen goes to ask Jack. Jack says nope, that doesn’t sound 
familiar. Maybe he was going to this coffee shop nearby because 
he does that sometimes. Gwen says a boy disappeared within the 
hour he was there and she thought maybe that’s WHY he was 
there. Jack shrugs and says it’s possible if there was rift 
activity. Gwen says there wasn’t according to Tosh. He says he 
has no idea then and goes to leave, hesitating to ask if she 
wants him to look into it. She says nah, it was probably just a 
coincidence then. He says okay, see ya. “Weevil hunting with 
Ianto!” He grins and runs off. Oh, is that what we’re calling 
it these days?

I just sent that last part to Chrissy and she made an 
incredibly crude comment about the purported size of Jack’s 
“weevil”.

Gwen and Andy meet in a café so Gwen can tell him what she 
(hasn’t) found. He sneers that they’re covering it up then. 
“Should’ve known. Bloody Torchwood.” She promises that if there 
WAS something going on, she would tell him. Andy gripes that 
Gwen used to care about people, but now she’s gotten “hard”. He 
thinks the old Gwen would be asking Mrs. Bevin questions right 
now, but now she’s too BUSY to care about one measly missing 
child. Do you honestly think you can shame her into it, Andy? 
Oh, wait...yeah, you probably can. He “apologizes” for 
bothering her with something that is clearly not interesting or 
weird enough for her and slinks out. 

So of course the next scene has her going to question Mrs. 
Bevin. Mrs. Bevin says Andy told her she might be coming 
around. Gwen is like oh, really? Nice. Didn’t realize I was 
that predictable. She eyes the videotapes scattered all around 
the television and asks if she’s a film fan. Mrs. Bevin says 
no, it’s crowd footage. She’s been recording major sporting and 
music events or anything that draws a large crowd and searching 
for any sign of Jonah. She admits that some days she can spend 
hours squinting at one grainy corner of the screen. “It’s the 
hope that’s killing me.” She thinks he has to be out there 
somewhere and if she could find someone who was in the same 
place... “Do you think I’m mad?” Gwen says no, she thinks Mrs. 
Bevin would make a good police officer. Or PI. Something.

They go to Jonah’s room, which is exactly as he left it. Aside 
from the fact that mom has slept in his bed a few times since 
he disappeared and his pillow is starting to lose his scent. 
Also, she’s been keeping his diary for him. Writing as if she 
were him. “What do you think I did wrong,” she asks suddenly. 
Besides corrupt, like, ALL the evidence? Oh, you mean why did 
he leave. Never mind. She wonders if she was TOO interested or 
not interested ENOUGH or maybe she just wasn’t a good mother 
and he didn’t feel loved and JESUS WOMAN. Freud would have a 
field day with you. And now we get an explanation of the 
different last name thing: “dad” was a six week fling and does 
not, in fact, live with them. Mom thought maybe he would get in 
touch when Jonah went missing and his picture was plastered all 
over television and milk cartons, but nope. Apparently he 
doesn’t care. Nice person. Gwen goes to leave and Mrs. Bevin 
suddenly remembers that Andy tried to find her a support group 
to join, but it didn’t seem to exist. So she created one. She 
hands Gwen a flyer and asks if she’ll come to their meeting. 
Andy will be there. If nobody else. Gwen promises to “try”. 

Rhys is sitting on the couch watching TV when Gwen arrives at 
the flat. She opens with a testy apology for being late and he 
says yeah, no shit, THREE HOURS late. I see we got past the 
honeymoon stage already. She grabs a bottle of wine he had 
sitting out and says they can do it another time, right? He 
says this is already the fourth “another time” and she promised 
she’d cook this time. She’s like ‘I did? Well, that definitely 
doesn’t sound like me’. He asks when they’re going to have 
“this talk”. She offers to do it right now. “Come on. Now is 
good. I’m ready. Babies. Now.” Are...are you saying you want to 
talk about having kids or are you saying you should make one 
right now? And then she immediately sidelines into this new 
insecurity Andy has instilled in her, asking if Rhys thinks 
she’s changed since she joined Torchwood. Yes, you’ve become 
flightier and incapable of answering a direct question. Rhys 
wonders where the hell this is coming from and she tells him 
about meeting Andy. Oh, and he might still be carrying a torch 
for her. Rhys laughs hysterically at this. Gwen tells him not 
to laugh because that’s why he wouldn’t come to the wedding. 
Rhys stops laughing and agrees that it’s tragic. The poor 
bastard. Gwen teases that yeah, Rhys is very lucky to have 
landed such a sexy woman and he would be wise to remember it. 
She unzips her jacket and takes a slug of wine. Rhys says 
so...they’re not going to talk about having kids then? Gwen 
offers to “practice” instead. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. 
You throw up on his clothes and he can keep you awake all night 
screaming at random intervals.

And then it’s suddenly morning and Gwen is bringing Rhys a 
plate of toast in bed. They wrestle over it a bit as she tries 
to hold it back until he tells her he loves her, but she gets 
distracted by her phone ringing. It’s Tosh. She says she found 
some new data on that night Jonah went missing and she thinks 
Gwen should see it. Gwen says she’ll be right in. Rhys good 
naturedly notes that she’s about to desert him again. She says 
‘yep’ brightly, kisses him and slinks off.

Hub. Tosh says there’s this blip on the system that is so 
barely existent that she’s just been ignoring it. She shows 
Gwen a reading of “normal” rift activity, which looks like 
little mountain peaks interrupting a straight line. Right 
around the time Jonah disappeared, there was a DIP below the 
line showing NEGATIVE rift activity. She says they always 
assumed when that happened it was “residual rift flares” or 
“aftershocks”, but now she wonders if maybe they were wrong. 
“We’ve always believed that things can only come through the 
rift one way. What if we’re wrong? What if the rift doesn’t 
just leave stuff behind? What if it also takes?” Gee, there’s a 
novel thought. It took how many years and episodes to come to 
this conclusion? We know it’s been taking people from as recent 
as the 1950s! Gwen stares at the monitor and asks who else Tosh 
has shown this to. Tosh says nobody because she called Gwen as 
soon as she saw it, but, you know, it could still be just a 
coincidence. They won’t know for sure unless they find other 
cases they can cross-reference it with. Gwen tells her to keep 
it between them for now and runs from the hub.

Gwen looks at a flyer tacked to a board for that support group 
Mrs. Bevin wanted her to come to so we can see that it is 
called “Searchlight” and was created specifically for friends 
and relatives of missing persons. Andy finds her frowning at it 
and asks if she’s looking into the case then. She says yes, she 
hasn’t changed after all, but “I don’t know why I bother. 
You’re so rude.” Andy decides to reinforce this by asking how 
Rhys is. You know, “other than hungry”. Yeah, keep going pal. 
You’re just proving her point.

The board is right outside the place where the meeting is 
supposed to be, but when they go inside they are the only ones 
there besides Mrs. Bevin. Mrs. Bevin groans that it’s just her 
isn’t it? Gwen tries to be optimistic about the odds of other 
people showing up. They sit and Andy waits until Mrs. Bevin is 
out of earshot to mutter that it really is going to be just 
them, isn’t it? And then another couple shows up. And then a 
man dressed like a Sihk. And then at least two dozen other 
people come trickling in while Gwen and Andy move aside and 
gape in shock. 

Gwen apparently makes a run for it and Andy finds her standing 
outside. She says she agreed to help him find one boy, but this 
just got totally out of hand and does he expect her to help all 
those people in there too? Andy says of course not: the 
investigation is still about Jonah and the rest of these people 
have nothing to do with it. Gwen says oh, of course they have 
something to do with it. But, she realizes suddenly, maybe this 
will help: if they can find a pattern maybe they can figure out 
what happened to Jonah. She runs off as Andy splutters and asks 
what the hell she’s doing. “Cross referencing,” she shouts 
back.

We cut right to her sitting at Tosh’s computer, pulling up a 
list of all the missing persons reported in Cardiff over the 
last ten years. She says she’ll go into the personal details, 
but she can give Tosh the times and locations of the 
disappearances so she can see which ones coincide with negative 
rift spikes. Then she can pull up any relevant CCTV footage. 
Tosh asks if they should tell Jack what they’re doing. Gwen 
thinks they should wait until they’re sure. Once they know for 
sure if there is a correlation, they can start looking for 
those people. Or maybe stop it from happening from now on. 
Yeah, um...that’s not how the rift works. Doesn’t anybody 
remember Diane and the passengers on her plane? Oh, who am I 
kidding?

There’s a little montage as they both work on collecting all 
the data and Gwen creates a missing persons wall in the 
interrogation room that includes a map with dots where the 
disappearances happened. They make little cards with 
biographical data and a little box under the words “rift 
spike?” and start marking off the ones that are a yes. Gwen is 
looking at the completely covered walls of the interrogation 
room when Tosh approaches and goggles at the sheer number. Gwen 
says they can tell Jack now.

So in the conference room, Gwen and Tosh lay out all the 
evidence they have that Cardiff has an unusually high number of 
missing persons and it is tied to the rift. Ianto asks if 
they’re sure this isn’t just a coincidence because, you know, 
people go missing all the time. Gwen says nope, Tosh confirmed 
that all the people on this list went missing at the same time 
as a spike in the rift. Owen asks what they think happens to 
these people. Jack says they would be scattered across time and 
space. He praises Gwen for her work on this, but says he has no 
idea what they’re supposed to do with it. Gwen thinks they can 
find a way to “prevent it”. Jack says okaaaaay, and asks Tosh 
if they can predict when spikes are going to happen. Um...no. 
They happen fast and seemingly at random. Jack says okay then, 
there goes that idea. Gwen yelps that they have a duty to 
protect people. If they had been attacked by a Weevil, they 
would take responsibility. Jack points out that they can CATCH 
a Weevil. Unless Gwen has a practical way of knowing exactly 
WHEN and WHERE somebody is going to be sucked into the rift and 
where they land on the other end then maybe they could do 
something, but... Gwen swallows and says they should help the 
people who are left behind then. Jack sighs and says it isn’t 
their concern because there are some things they can’t fix. 
Gwen doesn’t think that’s an excuse to not even try. Owen 
reluctantly says Jack is right: they aren’t equipped to offer 
counseling and support to grieving families. Gwen thinks 
they’re the only ones who can help because they’re the only 
ones who know what really happened to those people. Jack tells 
her to let it go and stomps off. Ianto follows, muttering that 
he’ll talk to him. Gwen protests at his retreating back that 
they can’t just sweep this under the carpet. Owen offers her 
the Serenity Prayer, in particular the part about accepting 
things you can’t change. He says he’s with Jack on this one and 
leaves the room. Tosh sighs that they did their best.

So Rhys and Gwen are having some sort of picnic lunch under a 
tree somewhere and Rhys is trying to have that debate about 
whether they should have children or not. Except Gwen doesn’t 
want to talk about this right now. “What’s the point? We don’t 
need a talk. It takes two seconds’ thought.” Um...actually, it 
takes two seconds’ action. If all you give it is two seconds of 
thought you’re asking for trouble. Although you would hardly be 
the first or last couple to put so little thought into such a 
major decision. She launches into the ever popular argument 
that her job is not exactly conducive to raising a family 
because, you know, it’s crazy and dangerous and she can’t 
exactly drop life-or-death situations to take a maternity 
leave. Rhys stares at her for a beat and then blurts that 
sometimes she can be real self-centered bitch and he really 
hates her. Yeah, maybe you guys should have ironed this out 
BEFORE the wedding. Just a thought. Rhys goes the route of ‘you 
think you’re so noble saving the world, but who are you saving 
it FOR?’ She tries to answer and he tells her to shut up. “You 
do it so people can live their lives. And there’s nothing more 
important than that.” He thinks if she can’t see that living is 
more important than all that bullshit they’re not going to last 
long together. Although honestly, it’s a goddamn miracle 
they’ve lasted this long already. She apologizes and starts to 
talk in general terms about what’s going on at work. Rhys 
decides he no longer wants to hear about her job. From now on 
they keep work and home life separate. Oh, sure. Because it’s 
not like one of the main problems with these kind of 
relationships on television is the fact that the one with the 
dangerous job can’t talk about their day with their loved ones.

Since the hub is strangely deserted when Gwen goes to talk to 
Jack, I’d say we can assume it’s some odd hour of the night. 
Which would explain why she finds a half-naked Ianto humping 
Jack into a table in one of the side rooms. She laughs 
awkwardly, apologizes and flees the room, giggling all the way 
down the hall.

I sent a screen shot of that lovely little moment there to 
Chrissy. Here is a transcription of the conversation we had 
about it:
   Chrissy: [emoji of two hands with middle fingers 
    extended] I leave you for ONE RECAP. Ugh.
   Diandra: Eh, you aren’t missing much other than that one 
    scene. And I guess now we know who the “top” is.
   Chrissy: Didn’t we already know that? I’m sure Ianto 
    lets him switch sometimes. 

Ianto chases after Gwen, putting his shirt back on as he does. 
She apologizes and babbles that she wouldn’t have just barged 
in like that if she had realized. You know, maybe try putting a 
sock on the doorknob or something next time. Jack trails after 
Ianto and brushes off her apologies with “always room for one 
more. We could have used you an hour ago for a naked hide-and-
seek”. Ianto grumbles that Jack always cheats. 

I just asked Chrissy for ideas on how someone could POSSIBLY 
cheat at naked hide-and-seek. She just answered with some 
laughter and comments about how adorably naïve I am, but I 
don’t think she has any idea either because seriously HIDE AND 
SEEK? How do you cheat at that – naked OR clothed? Also, of all 
games you could play naked variants of why would you chose one 
where you spent the majority of the time in separate locations? 
Unless Jack’s definition of “hide and seek” is “I’ll hide 
something on my body and you look for it” which...okay, that 
makes sense. Never mind. Let’s move on.

Jack finally asks what Gwen wanted when she came here. Oh, 
sure...try to remember that NOW. She says um...Jonah Bevin. 
She’s made it her own special project and nobody else has to 
have anything to do with it, but she will NOT be letting it go. 
Jack asks what part of “no” was unclear to her earlier. Gwen 
points out that Tosh and Ianto have their own projects so why 
can’t she do the same? Because you’re not fucking him or in 
desperate need of something to keep you busy so you don’t 
endanger everybody by sleeping with an alien again? Jack tells 
her to let it go. She snarls that she CAN’T. They stare at each 
other for a couple beats and then Jack asks if Ianto is coming 
back inside (heh) and heads back toward the office. Gwen says 
they’re not finished. Jack says yes, they are. But he and Ianto 
weren’t, so, you know, make yourself scarce for a while and 
ignore any noises you hear. Ianto tells Gwen there’s a package 
sitting on her desk and slinks “back inside” Jack’s office to 
try to recover the mood Gwen just deflated. 

Gwen goes to her desk and finds a bag with something that looks 
like a phone in it. She calls Andy, who offers to buy her some 
tea. Because British. 

They meet at the café again and she shows Andy the “phone”. He 
asks if she thinks a GPS device will really help with the Bevin 
case. She’s like ‘a what?’ like she’s never seen one before. 
Andy turns it on and notes that it’s marking a location in the 
middle of Bristol Channel. Then he zooms in and realizes that 
there’s actually a tiny island under the location dot. He asks 
who would be sending Gwen out to Flat Holm Island because it’s 
just deserted “scrubland”. She takes the unit from Andy and 
asks if he could get a refill on the tea. He says yeah, sure. 
In the meantime she can ask herself how she could possibly not 
know what GPS is.

The minute Andy is out of range, Gwen calls Ianto. Thankfully, 
Ianto and Jack are apparently finished since he is futzing with 
the coffee maker and fully clothed. Because Jesus, how many 
times can she interrupt them in one night? She says he left 
that package for her, didn’t he? Jack calls Ianto from 
somewhere off screen and he fumbles the phone for a second 
before innocently saying he doesn’t know what she’s talking 
about. “Ianto, what’s going on?” Jack calls him again and Ianto 
just says goodnight and hangs up abruptly. We cut away before 
he can yell back something like “I said I would untie you in a 
minute! Jesus!”

Andy comes back with the tea and says he knows some people and 
can hire them a boat first thing in the morning to take them to 
the island. She says yeah, or he could get the boat and just 
let her go out there alone and she’ll tell him what she finds 
later. Maybe. Andy says yeah, right. No, he will BE a part of 
this investigation. She grumbles a reluctant okay, but says 
he’ll have to do what she says. He says yeah, sure... um...by 
the way...is Torchwood hiring? Could she maybe suggest him for 
any vacancies? Gwen says yeah, maybe, which is obviously a lie.

Gwen goes home and finds a pile of blankets and a pillow 
sitting in the hall. Apparently this means she will be sleeping 
on the couch.

Morning. Andy is talking to the guy running the little fishing 
boat when Gwen arrives. He says it’s fifty quid for a ride. She 
thinks that’s a bit much and Andy should haggle him down to 
thirty-five. Andy reminds her that they are in the UK, not 
Morocco or whatever other middle eastern or African country 
haggles over the price of EVERYTHING. She sighs and hands him 
fifty to give the skipper, then asks him to get them a couple 
teas from the stand up the pier before they leave. Because, you 
know, English people can’t go more than a few hours without tea 
or they turn to Gremlins or something. Andy sighs and goes to 
fetch her tea. The second he’s out of range, Gwen offers the 
skipper a hundred if he’ll leave right now. So Andy comes back 
just as the boat is pulling away, standing abandoned on the 
dock with his two teas while Gwen shouts apologies. “Yeah, 
right,” he shouts back. 

And we’re sailing toward a tiny island while melancholy music 
plays and shit, when did we wander into an Ingmar Bergman film?

Gwen checks the location on the GPS again and heads for a 
lighthouse that seems to be abandoned. She climbs a giant 
spiral staircase to the top and finds a giant stone sundial 
with the names of the team members written next to a few 
numbers around the circumference and a series of magic mirrors. 
No, not really, but wouldn’t this make an awesome crossover? 
It’s an ISLAND. 

Anyway. 

There’s a few houses in the distance and Gwen is pouting in 
their general direction when a couple people march a third 
person whose head is covered with a blanket down a small 
footpath below. She frowns and then jolts when she sees Jack 
walking a few yards behind them. She runs back down the stairs 
and along the path until she comes to an old war bunker. She 
goes in and waves her flashlight around a while before finding 
an intercom. She pushes the buzzer button a couple times before 
a woman answers “who are you?” She says Torchwood, gives her 
access number and claims to be with Jack. The woman mutters 
that Jack is supposed to warn them when they’re going to have 
visitors. Gwen chuckles like ‘yeah, he does that’. A kind 
looking black woman opens the nearby door and agrees, but adds 
that he knows they always forgive him.

Gwen follows the woman down a hallway that looks like part of 
an abandoned medical facility. There are rooms marked with 
little chalkboards as “Jules” and “Alice’s room”. They pause at 
some sort of main room where several people are watching TV. 
One woman gets up and walks past them, fidgeting with her hair 
and generally looking like your average patient in a mental 
ward. The nurse – because that’s obviously what she is – asks 
if this is Gwen’s first time here. She asks because she says 
the first visit is always particularly “difficult”. She asks if 
Gwen is looking for anyone in particular. Gwen says yes, but 
doesn’t give a name. She just looks at all the plaques as they 
continue down the hall and asks how many people are here. And 
one of the names is “Sayeed”. Seriously? Okay, careful with 
that one. He’s a soldier and he might be particularly 
susceptible to PTSD. Whatever you do, don’t give him anything 
that could conceivably be used as a torture instrument.

Through the crack in one door, Gwen sees a man sitting on a bed 
crying hysterically. She asks the nurse if he’s okay. The nurse 
shrugs that they do what they can for him. The name on the next 
door is “Caroline”. Gwen notes this and then goes to ask the 
nurse why these people are here before suddenly having a flash 
of all the people she and Tosh identified as possible victims 
of the rift. Alice, Sayeed, Caroline... “Oh my god,” she moans. 
“They’re here.” She demands that the nurse tell her just what 
is going on here. The nurse is saved from her potential fit of 
righteousness by Jack showing up suddenly and telling “Helen” 
he can take it from here. “It was Ianto, wasn’t it,” he directs 
at Gwen. She starts backing away from him and screeching for 
him to stay away like maybe she thinks he’s conducting some 
sort of Nazi experiments on people or something. I mean, 
really, Gwen? Shouldn’t you have put all of this together by 
now? No, apparently not, because she shrieks that these are the 
people who were taken by the Rift and “why are they here? what 
have you done?!” She trails off as she realizes that the room 
she has backed in front of belongs to “Jonah”. “He’s been here 
all along,” she murmurs. Jack says it isn’t that simple and if 
she would just let him EXPLAIN instead of flying off the handle 
like she always does... She demands that Jack open that door 
NOW. Jack clenches his jaw and goes to swipe a card in the 
lock.

Gwen creeps into the room hesitantly and finds a bald man 
sitting on the end of a bed. She says she’s looking for Jonah 
and asks if she’s in the right room. Oh, good lord, woman, I 
thought you were getting smarter. The man takes a couple raspy 
breaths and stands, moving closer so we can see that the entire 
right half of his face is scarred like he was in a horrible 
fire or chemical accident. He says he is Jonah. Gwen – 
apparently determined to play clueless here – apologizes that 
she must be in the wrong room because Jonah Bevin is fifteen. 
Jonah says yes, that’s him and asks who she is. She introduces 
herself, says she’s with Torchwood and asks what happened to 
him. He says the last thing he saw was a light and then he woke 
up surrounded by fire. A man pulled him out and took him to a 
hospital to treat the burns. It took him a while to realize the 
“hospital” wasn’t a building but a rescue ship fleeing a 
burning planet. “We watched the solar system burn.” Gwen 
stares, wide eyed, and a tear falls down her cheek. She 
apologizes for what happened to Jonah. “Can I trust you to tell 
the truth,” Jonah asks. She takes his fidgeting hands and says 
yes. He asks if he’s really home. She says yes and she’s here 
because his mother is still looking for him. He’s amazed to 
hear she’s still alive. Because, you know, he’s probably in his 
sixties. Gwen says he’s only been gone seven months. Jonah 
moans that he tried for so long to get back and asks if Gwen 
can bring his mother to him. 

We cut to Gwen sitting out on a hill overlooking the coast. 
Jack sits beside her and explains that there were only two 
people like Jonah when he first took over Torchwood. They were 
being kept in the vaults. He thought they could be better cared 
for here. He told the staff of this new facility he created 
that they were test subjects of experiments gone wrong. Because 
that wouldn’t make them wonder if you’re a monster. Gwen asks 
how many of them there are. He says last count was seventeen. 
The number of cases accelerated in the past year especially, 
which he attributes to the rift “trying to correct its 
mistakes” by spitting back the people it took. Not all of them 
though. Probably because some of them died immediately upon 
landing inside a star or in the middle of space or something. 
Gwen says he can’t keep hiding them because they have families 
who deserve to know what happened. Jack says um...yeah, those 
families that ARE still living would probably rather think they 
had died than find out they were spirited away to some hellish 
planet that nearly killed them and possibly tortured by Daleks 
or some ancient warrior race. Or, you know, words to that 
effect. Gwen says Jonah asked her to bring Nikki Bevin to the 
island. Jack says no. Absolutely not. Nope. Not happening. But 
of course this is Gwen and she doesn’t take no for an answer, 
like, EVER. Jack asks how the hell she thinks she can explain 
to Mrs. Bevin that her son aged forty years in seven months. 
Well, once you explain the whole “rift in time and space” 
thing, the rest is pretty easy. Gwen thinks they don’t have the 
right to keep it from her. They “owe her the truth”. Then she 
dives right below the belt, asking if he would want to know if 
someone he loved had been taken from him. He’s been alive for 
centuries, you think that hasn’t actually happened? She touches 
his hand and says pretty please and he probably caves like a 
house of cards because we all know she can walk all over him.

So Gwen goes back to the mainland and visits Mrs. Bevin, who 
starts babbling about having another meeting of “Searchlight” 
on Tuesday. Um...yeah, that’s another thing. Do you trust her 
to not blab to all those other people or were you thinking of 
telling all of them too? Just how slippery is this slope? Gwen 
says she found Jonah. Nikki, reading from her posture that it’s 
bad, sits so she can better receive what is no doubt an account 
of how he died horribly. Gwen says um...no, he’s...okay...um... 
Nikki asks if she can see him. Gwen says yes, but...she takes 
Nikki’s hands and says there are things she needs to tell her 
first. 

Sometime later, Gwen calls Andy, who immediately threatens to 
hang up on her. She begs him to please listen because she’s 
with Nikki right now and she found Jonah. “Where,” Andy asks. 
Gwen says she can’t tell him. So WHY THE HELL DID YOU CALL HIM? 
Andy justifiably tells her where she can get off. She says 
she’s told Nikki all about Torchwood and what they do and she 
just needs Andy to verify that it’s true and she isn’t a raving 
lunatic. Andy is like ‘oh, sure, good little lapdog that I am, 
I’ll just do whatever you ask whenever you ask even though you 
totally take advantage of me’. He says she never even 
considered recommending him to Torchwood, did she? She says no, 
she didn’t. He purses his lips. She asks if he’ll tell Nikki 
she can trust her now so they can fix this. Oh, sure, since you 
asked so nicely. Why not? Gwen hands the phone to Nikki, but we 
don’t see what Andy says. Although since there’s less than ten 
minutes of episode left and the next scene has Gwen and Nikki 
sailing toward the island I assume it wasn’t “ignore the crazy 
bitch”.

Helen escorts them to Jonah’s room and swipes her key card. 
Gwen hastily reminds Nikki that she isn’t going to recognize 
him at first because he’s aged and he has scars and... Nikki 
says she knows and it doesn’t matter. She has to see her son. 

Jonah is sitting with his back to the door. Nikki calls his 
name and then immediately panics and tries to flee when he 
stands up and turns around. Because I guess whatever explaining 
Gwen did didn’t really sink in. Gwen blocks her and swears that 
this is Jonah. “THAT is not my son,” she yelps and tries to 
shove past Gwen, babbling that they’re all SICK and this is 
some twisted game. “Did you fix my wardrobe door,” Jonah calls 
over her shrieking. He describes the wardrobe they bought and 
put together themselves and says the bottom hinge kept coming 
loose and she said she would do something about it. She refuses 
to look at him still so he starts listing other things he 
remembers. “Every evening you’d buy a bottle of beer. You’d let 
me sneak one sip. Just the one. Don’t want to get a habit for 
it. You got two alarms ‘cause you always sleep through the 
first.” Well, honestly, who doesn’t do that last one? “You talk 
about the day when you can earn decent money and afford 
yourself some decent make-up.” Really? Of all things, you’re 
going to blow your money on face paint? “You won’t buy me a 
double bed because you don’t understand what I need it for.” 
Um...yeah, or she didn’t want to encourage you to bring girls 
for “sleepovers” because TEENAGE BOYS CANNOT BE TRUSTED. “When 
I ask you why you haven’t got married, you say you’ll never be 
lonely because ‘I’ve always got you’.” And now they’re both 
crying and she’s slowly moving back toward him as he babbles 
that he tried for YEARS to get back home and he’s sorry he was 
late that night. She touches the scars on his face and they 
hug, sobbing and it’s all very emotional. 

And then Helen comes in to say they have to leave now. Nikki 
says what? No, she’s taking him home. Gwen says no, she can’t 
just take him out of this place. Nikki babbles that she KNOWS 
how to take care of her own child and she can tell other people 
he’s her father or something. Helen says they can’t let her do 
that. Meanwhile, while everyone has been distracted, Jonah has 
fallen back to sit on his bed. Gwen notices he’s shaking. He 
says “it’s started again” and Helen explains (thought not 
really) that he’s going on a “downswing”. Nikki asks what she’s 
talking about and reaches for Jonah. Helen says they’ve only 
seen him in one of his good moments, which get shorter every 
day and suggests it would be best if they left. Nikki is still 
insisting she’s not leaving because she’s done a full one 
eighty twice in the past five minutes. Helen warns them to get 
back then and herds them toward the door. And then Jonah 
screams in a high pitch banshee shriek for a solid minute and 
Nikki and Gwen cover their ears and retreat. Gwen’s voice over 
explains that before the rift spat him back onto Earth Jonah 
“looked into the heart of a dark star” and was driven crazy. 
Now he does this for twenty hours straight (which...you’d think 
his voice would give out long before that).

One week later. Gwen is visiting Nikki again. She says the 
nurses agreed to allow her to visit. You know, for the few 
hours a day when he is responsive and not screaming. Nikki says 
um...no. Also, she wants Gwen to promise she won’t do “this” to 
anybody else. Because at least before she could remember Jonah 
as a happy kid and now she knows that he’s actually a 
hopelessly damaged victim of some bullshit so horrifying that 
he spends his days emitting a vocal-chord-defying, never ending 
scream. Gwen mumbles that she thought Nikki just wanted to know 
what had happened to him. She says she did, but she realizes 
now that she was better off not knowing because at least before 
she had some hope to cling to. Yeah, foolish, potentially 
destructive hope if you couldn’t find a way to move past the 
loss. Really, it’s a lose-lose situation.

We get a sad little montage of Gwen taking down her victim wall 
intercut with Nikki boxing up Jonah’s things and the 
surveillance tapes she was watching in a desperate effort to 
find him (which, again, I can only assume would have become an 
even MORE consuming obsession if she hadn’t been told the 
truth). Gwen hesitates on Jonah’s file, wistfully petting the 
picture of fifteen year old Jonah. Nikki hesitates when she 
finds a sweatshirt that still smells like him and buries her 
face in it, sobbing. Jack watches from the hallway as Gwen 
shoves all the files in a cabinet in the basement somewhere and 
sulks off. He wisely decides not to try to speak to her.

Gwen and Rhys’ place. Rhys arrives to find Gwen lighting the 
candles on a romantic little dinner setting with wine and 
flowers. He smiles and asks if this is an apology then. Gwen 
says tonight they’re going to talk about whatever HE wants to 
talk about. Kids, the future, his crap day at work, whatever. 
He picks up on the fact that she’s gotten very quiet and looks 
like she’s barely holding it together and sweeps her into a hug 
so she can cry on his shoulder. He pulls her over to the couch 
so they can sit with her half-curled on his chest, kisses her 
forehead and invites her to tell him everything from the 
beginning. Yeah, I know we’ve said it before, but seriously, 
she doesn’t deserve you, Rhys. You are the sweetest, most 
understanding man in the world and she has been bipolar at 
best, a lying adulterer at worst. Why do you put up with it?

The camera pulls away and we fade to black as Gwen slowly tells 
him about Nikki and the son she lost seven months ago.

Well. Good as that episode was – and it really was one of the 
best of the series so far – it really wasn’t very fun to recap. 
I’m sorry. I did my best. Let’s hope the next one is better.