"Torchwood: Miracle Day, episode 9: The Gathering"

Starring: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Mekhi Phifer, Alexa Havins


Russell describes this penultimate episode as being very bleak, 
taking place two months after the last episode after Western 
society has completely collapsed. The team is all broken up and 
terrible decisions and bargains are made all around. But he 
promises they will all slowly come together in a "lonely Welsh 
kitchen" for a "last reckoning before the big climax." Which is 
probably why the episode is called "The Gathering".
   Chrissy: I notice you're not even bothering to note that 
    John is still part of these intros.
   Diandra: Eh, he hasn't said much important lately.

Previously, we found out that this whole mess started with the 
three men who were making some deal with the devil over Jack's 
barely conscious body back in the 20s. We focus on each man's 
face as Olivia Colasanto recites their names. Oswald escaped 
from Jilly, aka his handler. And Shapiro broke up the band, 
sending Gwen back to Wales and forcing Esther and a wounded 
Jack to go on the run. Supposedly Rex was staying behind to 
stay on the inside at the CIA, but since his contact Charlotte 
turned out to be a mole, who knows how long that will last.

Two months later. A news announcer in Wales says it is Day 61 
of The Great Depression. The government is calling for all 
overflow camps to stay open and they have gone back to burning 
Category Ones because it was deemed that that was better than 
turning them into Soylent Green. Because it's not like anyone 
is going to starve to death or anything. A man is walking his 
dog down the street when a car comes ripping up and drives 
right through the front of the pharmacy he just walked past. 
Gwen gets out and shoots out the security camera before filling 
a backpack with boxes of drugs from the back room. The man 
wanders in after her and she points a gun at him and threatens 
to shoot him if he doesn't leave right now. He asks if she can 
just spare a couple boxes of Metanec because his wife has major 
arthritis.
   Chrissy: Marijuana.
   Diandra: The UK.
   Chrissy: Oh. Right. You'd think they would suspend that 
    ridiculousness in a situation this extreme.
   Diandra: Yeah...probably not. 

He keeps rambling about how she's afraid to go to a doctor 
because there are these rumors that they're putting people down 
for having a bad back now. Gwen is like 'yeah, yeah, whatever. 
Just get the drugs and go.' He thanks her and runs off with a 
bag full of medicine before the sirens approach. She runs the 
other way, leaving the car.

For the second to last time, we cut to the bleeping credits.

Sometime later, Gwen is getting out of another car in front of 
a row house, pizza boxes in her hand. Some guy watching a 
security feed of the front of the house tells somebody over the 
phone that they can relax because she "just went for pizza".

Gwen plops the boxes on the kitchen table and Rhys starts going 
through the neatly packed drug packages inside, identifying 
which ones go to who because apparently they are stocking for 
several families. He says "Iris" called looking for 
painkillers. Gwen grumbles that Iris thinks she can get first 
dibs when she just has a headache and if she really wants them 
she can pay double. Rhys notes that PhiCorp has the same 
policy. Mum hands Anwen to Rhys and holds out her hands for the 
bottle of diamorphine Gwen got for dad. As they head into the 
basement, mum notes that at the rate dad is going through it, 
this bottle won't last a week. Gwen vows to get more. Yeah, 
that's...not sustainable. Mum says he misses his bed, based on 
the fact that every time they went on a trip he would be happy 
to get back to his own bed at the end of it. I say it's based 
on this because he's still non responsive. Basically, they are 
at the stage of denial people reach when a loved one is in a 
persistent vegetative state. Gwen reminds her that it's not 
safe for him to be in his own bed because the new SS officers 
are doing raids now. Mum gives him the shot and Gwen notes that 
it's basically heroin and back when she was a cop she would 
arrest people for selling it on the street. 

And then we go to Scotland, where Esther is patching up Jack's 
gunshot wound in a shack in the middle of nowhere. Why they are 
in SCOTLAND is anyone's guess. She turns to the IV hooked to 
his arm and promises to go into the village tomorrow to find 
him a steak or something that will build iron. You know, as 
long as they don't start asking her questions again because 
that last guy really spooked her.
   Chrissy: I love when they skip ahead and are forced to 
   backfill exposition. Or rather, I would if they would 
   put random bullshit in there like they used to. "And 
   then I told the alien that I was flattered, but my limit 
   is twelve tentacles..."
Jack points out that they're already in Scotland, so they can't 
go much further north. She insists they can and they will 
continue running as long as it takes. Jack notes that she was 
once scared to leave home. She snorts that that feels like ages 
ago and back then he was the strong one. She eyes the wound 
pointedly and slips away. Jack calls her a vampire. She says 
she thinks of herself as more of a gunsmith because this is the 
closest thing to a weapon they have. She puts a bag of blood in 
a refrigerator with a half a dozen other bags of blood. He 
reminds her that his blood doesn't actually have any magical 
properties. It wasn't what made him immortal, so it can't have 
anything to do with The Miracle/Blessing/Whatever. She shrugs 
and reminds him that they took his blood for a reason and they 
are trying to kill him now for a reason.

In Wales, Gwen is trying to do a search on "The Blessing" and 
naturally getting five million hits on religious bullshit that 
has nothing to do with The Miracle. She bemoans the fact that 
Esther isn't here to help her. Because she's such a wizard when 
it comes to research? Were you paying attention in the last 
episode? Rhys sits next to her and, in a somber tone normally 
used for breaking terrible news, says he's gotten a job offer. 
The reason he's not thrilled about it is it is for a guy who 
has a contract with the overflow camps so he'd be handing 
Category Ones over to the people who will probably just toss 
them in ovens. Gwen's face twitches and then she signals that 
she has gotten past the indignant stage right to acceptance by 
now. She says they need the money and it's not his fault they 
are Category Ones. Also, the fact that he's not driving them 
right up to the ovens creates a sort of detachment. She 
realizes the shift in morality and notes that the first time 
the camps were opened the people were indignant. But now 
they're all too busy looking after themselves to muster up the 
indignation again. Rhys suggests that was probably part of the 
plan. Well, it is an accurate prediction of human nature. Gwen 
wonders what the end game of that "plan" is. The lights all go 
out just then and she swears and tosses the laptop onto the 
table. Rhys slides closer and preambles that all those power 
cuts in the 70s led to a boom in population because, you know, 
there wasn't a whole lot else for people to do in the dark. 
Really? You're going to talk about making another child in this 
overpopulated, post-apocalyptic hellhole?
   Chrissy: Remember when she got pregnant in the middle of 
    a culling of the population of children? They always 
    have bad timing.
   Diandra: Yes, but she got pregnant BEFORE that all 
    started. This is different.
Instead of pointing out the irresponsibility of this, like she 
did last season, and the fact that abortion wouldn’t even work 
this time if things get really bad, Gwen just giggles and they 
kiss.

CIA. Rex chews out some poor woman going through a pile of 
papers for dropping one. Because he's still an ass. He finds 
Charlotte at her desk and asks if she's been there all night 
and rhetorically asks if she doesn't have a home to go to. 
Charlotte grumbles that no, actually, she doesn't because "she 
left me. Remember? Because of the hours which you imposed?" Rex 
winces and apologizes. Then he tries to break the tension by 
asking if she could clean up the place a bit as long as she's 
there anyway. She flips him the bird.
   Chrissy: Don't make me like the mole.

Rex goes into Shapiro's office, coughs a bit, and reminds 
Shapiro that smoking inside is STILL illegal. Shapiro blows 
smoke and reminds him that it won't kill either of them. Rex 
says that doesn't change the insurance of the building. Shapiro 
says insurance companies went bust along with the banks. Oh, 
and gas allowances have been halved and Rex is way over his 
limit. Rex asks if he's supposed to walk to work. Shapiro plays 
the 'hey, I don't make the rules' card, along with the 'the 
economy is shit and we all have to tighten our belts' card. Rex 
ignores this and says he has a lead.

Out in the bull pen, Shapiro has joined everybody else to 
listen to Rex give his findings. He found a record of people 
selling tickets to see an immortal man hanging in the cellar of 
a butcher shop. $2 to watch a man die and come back to life. 
Whether it was a miracle or a magic trick, it had to have been 
news and there must have been people writing about it. 
Charlotte pipes up that it coincides exactly with the point 
where the records disappear though. Ablemarch, Costerdine and 
Frines scrubbed all records from that time period. She notes 
that the census data says the population of Manhattan at the 
time was 1,867,000, which oddly is more than live there NOW. Or 
maybe not oddly because they spread out and moved west. But if 
they're looking for descendants currently living, that would be 
six million people they would have to track down. Rex says 
she's looking too close at the FACTS. She should be looking at 
the FICTION. The London office found a short story published in 
1935. It's about blood and Satan and rituals and shit, but it 
has five points of reference that are identical to Jack's 
story, suggesting that the writer may have been one of the 
people who paid to go into the cellar. He puts a picture of the 
writer up on the big screen. His name was Victor Podesta. 
Shapiro concludes that they just have to follow the Podesta 
family then. Rex giddily says it gets better from there. The 
Podesta's owned a grocery store a few blocks from the butcher 
shop and had ties to organized crime. The youngest son was 
stabbed to death in 1927 and nobody ever really tried hard to 
solve the case because...uh...mob crime. But in 1938 the REST 
of the family just disappeared. Both parents, the other son and 
the daughter just dropped off the face of the Earth. He allows 
that they could have just changed their name, but suggests 
maybe the daughter married a member of the three families. 
   Chrissy: That's...quite an assumption.
   Diandra: Oh, NOW you want to question the logic of this 
    show? In the eleventh hour?

Noah suggests looking for the marriage license. Rex reminds him 
that the repository where such things were stored burned down 
in 1965. Which they seem to have concluded was the work of the 
families covering their tracks. Charlotte bemoans the fact that 
this conspiracy reaches back through the entirety of the 20th 
century. Rex says he wasn't finished yet. Go back to the 
unsolved murder of the youngest. He pushes another picture of 
an evidence bag with a knife to the screen and says the 
evidence collected was locked away and promptly forgotten 
about. So they still have the murder weapon with John Podesta's 
blood - and therefore DNA - on it. Charlotte looks nervous. 
Shapiro, excited, orders them to start cross-referencing the 
DNA profile.

Everyone scatters and Charlotte intercepts Rex to offer the use 
of "Jordan" and "Carlyle", who are great at working with 
degraded DNA. Rex says yeah, sure, and runs away. 
   Chrissy: What are the odds he will even remember this 
   when those guys announce that the DNA was "too degraded" 
   or the sample disappears or something?

Jilly meets Suit on a park bench. She lights a cigarette and 
complains that sitting in an office "distributing for Harry 
Bosco" isn't exactly the promotion she was expecting. He slides 
closer and hands her an airplane ticket to Shanghai. She snorts 
that that can't be right because China shut its borders the 
second things started going crazy. Suit notes that the family 
gets special privileges. She looks closer at the ticket and 
sees the name on it is "Lucy Statten Meredith". Suit says yeah, 
that's her name from now on. On the plus side, this all means 
the families want to meet her "in person". She gulps and notes 
that it's a one way ticket.
   Chrissy: I would urge her to run now, but I never liked 
   her so...
Suit says they're taking her to "The Blessing" and says goodbye 
with an ominous "we won't be meeting again."

Wales. Gwen is singing "Ring Around the Rosie" to Anwen, which 
is...morbid...when there's a knock on the door. Rhys peeks out 
the window at the cops standing outside and says "it's them". 
Gwen responds by slapping her laptop closed, handing him the 
baby and sticking her head through the door leading to the 
basement to alert her mom, turning off the light overhead. She 
tells Rhys to take the drugs upstairs and flush them and goes 
to answer the door just as the pencil pusher with the police 
escort is threatening to knock it down. He introduces himself 
as "Rick" and asks if he can come in, already pushing his way 
past her. She blocks him and says he needs a warrant. He says 
it isn't necessary because he suspects she may be harboring "an 
unsupported Category One" and the law says that gives him the 
right to just push on in. 

He shoves past her and she rants that she's going to take this 
grievance straight "to the top" because she used to be with the 
police. He mutters that that was a long time ago as he 
understands it. He orders the men to check the rooms upstairs. 
Gwen moans that her father is DEAD and they never got a chance 
to even have a funeral and properly mourn him. "For all I know 
he was just thrown into a furnace still alive." Rhys appears to 
complain about being disturbed in his own damn bathroom. Rick 
notes that he must be the husband and the fact that he and his 
wife never shared a surname says a lot. Yeah, it says they are 
progressive enough to understand that marriage doesn't have to 
equal a woman giving up her entire former identity to become a 
man's named property.
   Chrissy: It's England, dear. They're kind of sticklers 
    for traditions.
   Diandra: Probably why my ancestors left.
   Chrissy: That's why ALL of our ancestors left. Except 
    somewhere along the way, they created a country even 
    MORE stuck in the past. But I think that might have 
    happened more recently.
Rick notes that they're still missing one family member and 
asks where Mary is.

Downstairs, Dad suddenly starts stirring and moaning despite 
being very quiet up until now. Mary goes to cover his face.

Upstairs, Gwen says her mom is out shopping. Rhys, the worst 
spy in the world...
   Chrissy: I thought that was Esther
...keeps looking at the door to the basement and makes Rick 
suspicious.
   Chrissy: Nope. You’re right. Esther has competition. 
Rick opens the door and tries to turn on the light Gwen 
disabled. He asks Rhys why there aren’t any lights. Rhys says 
the whole house needs to be rewired. Rick calls his men to 
bring some flashlights. Gwen, who is probably rethinking all 
her life choices, calmly says all that is down there is rats, 
so they should feel right at home.

Rick goes into the cellar and looks around, but mum and dad are 
in a side closet and she is basically smothering him so he 
won’t make a noise, so Rick doesn’t see anything. Upstairs, 
Gwen subtly grabs a knife from the counter just in case. Rhys 
looks alarmed and she whispers at him to keep his big mouth 
shut. 

Something squeaks and runs past Rick. He flashes the light at 
it and announces as he’s coming up the stairs that it is MICE 
that they have, not rats. He recommends they put out traps. 
Gwen says not to worry, they’ll get rid of the vermin. Quickly. 
She shoos them out the door. Rick stops on the doorstep to 
remind her that until he finds out what happened to her 
unregistered father he will keep coming back. And then he says 
she should take care of her family in the most threatening 
manner possible.

Gwen and Rhys go downstairs and Rhys pulls back the heavy door 
that was hiding her parents. Mary comes out crying that she had 
to hold dad down to keep him quiet and it took all her strength 
and it was awful. Gwen hugs her and promises they’re all gone 
now.

CIA. Charlotte finds Shapiro and Rex in an office and tells 
them the DNA test didn’t return a result. Sure it didn’t. She 
says there is no bloodline on John Podesta on file and she 
tried everything. Sure she did. She walks away and Shapiro and 
Rex exchange a silent look before Rex jumps up to call her 
back. He asks if she can send him the digital format of the 
Podesta file – the short story. She flusters and says it’s not 
worth reading because it’s just pulp fiction. Snuff, really. He 
says do it anyway. She says okay and slinks back to her 
computer.

Gwen and Rhys’ place. A van marked with a bakery logo pulls up 
and a guy hiding his face gets out, lingering long enough to 
show the actual driver tied up in the back. He uses the box of 
various items to hide his face from the people apparently 
spying on them from across the street. Initially, it looks like 
maybe Rhys is using a different strategy to smuggle drugs in, 
and the fact that Mary answers the door and announces loudly 
that the shopping has arrived supports that. But then he walks 
past Rhys on the couch, still hiding his face from everybody. 
Gwen calls to whoever it is to put everything in the fridge and 
she can sort it out later, noting that they’re early. 
   Chrissy: Oh, come on. You were getting so much smarter.
   Diandra: I mean, your husband is still an idiot, but...
Rhys asks if it’s a bit “posh” getting their things delivered. 
Gwen says it’s mum’s thing. She’s cooking for the “club” to 
raise money. Anwen looks back and forth between mommy and this 
stranger like ‘dude, even I know something is wrong here’.

And then suddenly the delivery guy is holding Anwen and 
commenting on how pretty she is despite the fact that she’s 
wearing half of her food. Yeah, it’s Oswald. Gwen calmly takes 
the baby from him and marches her into the living room, handing 
her off to Rhys while Oswald rambles about how he realizes this 
is a bit of a surprise, but... Gwen goes back to the sink and 
continues drying dishes while Oswald explains that he was told 
they had some information he needed and apologizes for the 
disguise “but I do have the most recognizable face on the 
planet.” “Not anymore,” Gwen says and swings the now-dried pot 
at his head like a club. He staggers and she hits him again, 
sending him to the floor. Rhys and mum come in to find out 
what’s going on and she shrieks that it’s OSWALD DANES and if 
he touches her daughter again she will kill him.
   Chrissy: This cable network will only allow us to get so 
    graphic in our descriptions, but rest assured that my 
    method of killing you will involve severing your 
    miserable dick off, shoving it up your own ass and then 
    watching as you slowly bleed out.
   Diandra: Best part is that until the Miracle thing ends, 
    that won’t kill you so I get to watch you suffer until 
    you pass out over and over. Or, you know, as long as it 
    takes before you go Category One.
   Chrissy: I wasn’t sure you would go with me on that 
    morbid road at first, but damn. 
   Diandra: You forgot who you were dealing with?
   Chrissy: I guess. That and overestimating any lingering 
    feelings you may have had about your former crush.

Gwen has Mary take Anwen back out of the room so she doesn’t 
have to see what her mother is about to do. She raises the pan 
again and Rhys runs to pull her back, saying he doesn’t want 
her to be arrested for murder. “Thank you, sir,” Oswald says 
from the floor. Without turning, Rhys says they can arrest HIM 
for murder if it comes to that, then turns, grabs the nearest 
object and chucks it at him, screaming at him to TALK QUICKLY 
before he announces his presence to the whole street and brings 
a mob down on him. “Jack Harkness,” he says. “The man who 
smuggled me into this country, they brought Harkness in seven 
weeks ago and they brought him to you. And then you, in turn, 
found him a haven.” He says he paid good money to find Gwen and 
he REALLY wants to see Jack. And it is in her best interest to 
do what he wants because he knows the name of the man who 
created the Miracle.

CIA. Rex is having a little private conversation with Shapiro. 
He says they both know somebody is leaking information. 
Um...based on the way you were looking at each other earlier I 
thought maybe you had figured out who, but I guess I misread. 
Not only does he not know who has been blocking their efforts 
for the past two months, he’s not even sure it’s coming from 
anyone they actually know. It could be “somewhere down the 
chain”.
   Chrissy: Really instills a lot of faith in our country’s 
    agents, doesn’t it?
   Diandra: Not entirely unrealistic though since the FBI 
    sat on a call from a flight instructor who was 
    suspicious of a student who said he didn’t need to know 
    how to LAND the plane. Wanna guess when this happened?
   Chrissy: Sometime in early 2001 at the latest?
   Diandra: Yep.

Shapiro says he wishes he were the leak so Rex could shoot him 
and he could finally get some rest. Rex unironically says he’d 
like that too. Shapiro doesn’t react to that. He just redirects 
back to what Rex is looking into now. Rex says he’s still 
looking into Podesta because anyone who writes pulp fiction is 
likely to keep writing even if they use a different name. So he 
ran the short story through pattern-recognition software – 
hopefully better than the one that kept identifying me as 
Stephen King – to see if there is anyone else out there with a 
matching writing style. He found 320 names. 
   Chrissy: So no, it’s no better than the program you 
   used.
He says this sort of writing is particularly difficult to 
distinguish because it all looks the same. But out of that 
number there were 46 with very distinct similarities. That’s 
worldwide. 22 of them are in the US and 9 in the UK. There’s 
several other countries accounted for and he’s determined to 
check them all out, but those are probably the most likely 
matches. Shapiro says he should probably get started on 
narrowing that list down then. Rex says sure, but he needs to 
make sure this is just between the two of them. Shapiro goes 
off on what seems like a tangent: that the White House is 
announcing that it is stopping all immigration and they are 
getting closer every day to becoming a dictatorship.
   Chrissy: It’s like they could see into the future.
   Diandra: [cries]

Somewhere in Wales, a guy answers a ringing phone. Gwen’s voice 
asks if he can see her car keys anywhere. He frowns and looks 
out the window to find her standing out on the street. He asks 
how she got this number. She says he’s wasting his time because 
whoever he’s working for is after Jack Harkness and “he 
wouldn’t turn up here in a month of Sundays”. Oh, it’s the guy 
spying on her house from across the street. She suggests he 
take the night off. He asks if she thinks they’re stupid. 
   Chrissy: Well...odds are pretty good on this show.
A gun appears behind his head and Jack says well, actually... 
He hands the guy a water bottle and tells him to drink it. He 
promises it won’t hurt him because he’s had it before. He cocks 
the gun and waits for the guy to drink the water and fall over 
unconscious. Then he pauses the camera feed and he and Esther 
go into Gwen’s house.

Gwen greets Jack with a hug and he yelps. She says she thought 
he was doing better. He says he is fine. She thanks Esther for 
taking care of him and hugs her too. Then she hugs Jack again, 
babbling about how very much she has MISSED him.
   Chrissy: The arc of their relationship has been all over 
    the place this season.
   Diandra: And better than almost every other season for 
    it.
Gwen directs them to the kitchen and they all go in with 
straight faces. Oswald is still on the floor, his hands tied 
behind his back. He greets Jack with “I was told the correct 
form of address is Captain?” He pointedly reminds Jack that he 
once asked for Oswald’s help and the rest of these people would 
do well to remember that he basically invited him here.

Sometime later, we are at the scene Russell described. Everyone 
is sitting around the table. Except Oswald, who is still on the 
floor. Gwen begins by asking if Oswald really said at the trial 
that that poor girl should have run faster. He says yep. She 
says okay, well...she used to be a police officer and she used 
to work with pedophiles and he isn’t like them. He is an actual 
monster. He says he feels special. Rhys leaves the room before 
he is overwhelmed by the temptation to kill him.  Esther 
reminds everybody that what they need is information and 
prompts Oswald to tell them what he knows. He asks what will 
happen to him after he does that. Rhys calls that they will 
DEFINITELY kill him. Or, more accurately, make him Category One 
forever. Gwen says she hasn’t agreed to anything yet, so if he 
doesn’t talk, she’s calling the police. Oswald is like 
yeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh, I know you’re keeping something from the 
authorities too, making that an empty threat. He says he’s been 
tied up on the kitchen floor all day and he’s not stupid so he 
noticed all the whispering and furtive looks toward the cellar.
   Chrissy: Damnit, Rhys!

Esther says they can discuss whether or not there are any deals 
to be made here later. AFTER they exchange the information they 
have. Starting with him. He thinks for a moment and says 
PhiCorp gave him an assistant named Jillian Kitzinger and he 
has her laptop in that box he brought in with him. Gwen laughs 
and says they raided her information a long time ago, so if 
that’s all he has... He says once he took the laptop, Jilly 
changed all her passwords and accounts. “But I was watching. 
And I know my way around online better than most. I know how to 
keep myself hidden.” So he’s been spying on her for two months. 
And yesterday at noon she dropped off the face of the Earth. No 
trace left. As if she never existed. Jack reminds Oswald that 
he promised them the name of a MAN. Oswald says once he says 
the name he’s at their mercy, so he’s going to have to trust 
them. There was one name that kept popping up since Kitzinger 
was sending him information. Harry Bosco. 

Gwen turns to Esther for more information, but Esther closes 
her laptop apologetically. “You think you’re clever, Oswald,” 
she asks. “Is that really all you had?” She explains that Harry 
Bosco isn’t a person. It’s a process that was created back 
during the Vietnam war when the government realized they didn’t 
want US networks broadcasting feeds directly from a foreign 
source. They put agents in every newsroom to filter the output 
and the best agent was named Harry Bosco. He subtly altered the 
information by giving bad translations, which wasn’t 
technically censoring or changing anything but could have a 
very different effect on public perception. This is what all 
networks do now, one result of which has been that when brown 
people are accused of crimes they are described as “terrorists” 
whereas white people are described as “mentally ill”.
   Chrissy: Or thugs. Or bad hombres.
   Diandra: But White Supremacist groups have some very 
    nice people in them, yep.

Rhys says okay, well...since they’ve dead ended does that mean 
they’re finished with Oswald and he’s free to kill him? Oswald 
sighs and says it doesn’t matter because the name is obviously 
still important. Jilly works in PR. Why would she have anything 
to do with Harry Bosco? Esther sighs and says it’s a good 
question actually. Why would the families hire her for this? 
What do they need her to mistranslate? She opens her laptop 
again to get searching.

Sometime later, Gwen brings them chicken and chips. Because 
fish is too expensive now. Rhys says he has beers. Oswald asks 
for one and Rhys shakes one up and sprays him in the face. Gwen 
ignores this and asks what Esther has found. Esther says Jilly 
processed a clip from a local station in Shanghai, but it has 
three layers of language: the Wu dialect, dubbed in Mandarin, 
subtitled in English. It’s a news clip of a man in a hospital 
with severe burns on half his face. Oswald makes some crack 
about being shocked that none of them speak Chinese. Jack looks 
at Esther and she smiles and says “I know.”

CIA. Rex’s phone rings. Rex answers and completely fails to 
look inconspicuous about hearing Esther’s voice right in front 
of Charlotte. Esther apologetically says she really needs his 
help and there’s nobody else she can turn to. Rex clears Noah 
and a couple other guys out of a small room and asks where she 
is. She says she can’t say, obviously, but they’re safe. Rex 
notes the plurals and says “World War II” didn’t die then. Gwen 
confirms that she’s been trying to kill him for years and Rex 
isn’t that lucky. Rex hears Gwen’s voice and concludes that 
they are in Wales. He marvels at how terrible they are at this 
because he didn’t even need to run a trace.
   Chrissy: This from the guy who asked hypothetically 
    where he could find good drugs in LA?
   Diandra: Shh. Let him have his illusion of superiority.
Esther is like yeah, but you’re not tracing us anyway because 
you wouldn’t do that, would you? Now shut up and help us with a 
translation. You can’t tell anybody why it’s needed. Strangely 
(or perhaps this speaks to a poor understanding of how 
languages and governments work), she specifies that she needs 
someone who speaks Mandarin. I guess in terms of storytelling 
and convenience that is easier than saying they can actually 
find somebody who speaks Wu, but the Chinese aren’t really good 
about freedom of information. In the real world, that probably 
would have been Harry Bosco’d in Mandarin already.

In Shanghai, Jilly meets a white guy at what looks like an 
airport restaurant. She says he must be her breakfast meeting 
and introduces herself...as Jilly. He says no, her name is Lucy 
and she’s already failing at this. She stares, makes fish 
faces, debates leaving and finally sits down and asks why they 
went after HER. He says she’s a storyteller. Everything about 
her “tells a story”, which he says in a way that clearly 
suggests he means she is loud and noticeable. He says they’re 
kind of good at keeping quiet, so they figured they needed to 
consult an expert. She asks what his story is then. He says 
he’s just the latest chapter in the epic of the three families. 
One family is in charge of politics, one of finances and one of 
the media. But that’s all history. The most interesting part of 
the story is about to come. Jilly is like ‘okay, captain 
cryptic, does that mean you’re about to go public with 
something about the Miracle?’ Do they want her to mount a 
campaign? Prepare speeches? He laughs and says she’s thinking 
too small. They need her to write history. Her lips twitch and 
she says she can do that. He compliments her on her recovery 
from that initial fumble. He tells her to stay in her hotel and 
wait and when she’s ready she will be taken to the Blessing. He 
adds offhandedly that he hopes she survives.
   Chrissy: Hahahaha did I say I hope you survive? What I 
   meant to say was the Families are totally going to have 
   you whacked after they’re done with you.
She asks what he means by that. He says well...sometimes the 
Blessing kills people. Duh. But, you know, either way she won’t 
be seeing him again, so toodles.

So, back to the video. The English subtitles say the man is 
saying he’s sorry, repeatedly. “I’m sorry for my mother. I’m so 
ashamed. But it’s a godsend that my life was saved.” Esther 
says this was filmed before the Miracle happened and he died 
two days later. Not from his injuries, though. He went nuts and 
burned down the whole hospital. Jack asks if Rex got that 
message, specifically the part about “godsend”. Rex says yes, 
his translator says that word was actually “blessing”. Rhys 
notes that that doesn’t mean anything because anybody would say 
something like that after surviving a fire. Rex asks if 
somebody could shut “the husband” up for a second while he 
finishes. That’s the Mandarin translation. But they did 
actually manage to find somebody who could run the translation 
of both the Mandarin AND the original Wu dialect. He did say 
those words, just not in that order. He said “the Blessing 
saved my life.” Esther, Jack and Gwen all realize this means 
the Blessing is actually IN Shanghai. But how do they get there 
with the borders shut down and all the world authorities going 
Gestapo? Rhys snorts and asks if they’re being serious right 
now. He argues that the video was broadcast to the Chinese and 
there’s a LOT of people over there who had to have seen it. 
Esther says the video was only transmitted once and then 
scrubbed out of existence. Rhys argues that just because he 
said it doesn’t mean the Blessing is actually IN Shanghai, 
using the bulletproof argument that he can talk about Jesus 
without actually being in Jerusalem.
   Chrissy: Difference being that The Blessing is assumed 
    to be an actual thing in a physical location, whereas 
    Jesus is an ephemeral construct based on someone who 
    lived a couple thousand years ago that can be anywhere 
    and everywhere at once.
   Diandra: Might want to be careful who you say that to in 
    this country.
   Chrissy: What? The part about Jesus being a man and not 
    an actual deity? Yeah, I’m Jewish.
   Diandra: I know. I don’t believe he actually walked on 
    water either, but I love you and I don’t want to see 
    you beaten to death by some religious nut.
   Chrissy: Oh, he could have walked on water if it was 
    iced over. Or possibly the Dead Sea. 

Gwen points out that they went through a lot of trouble to hide 
the clip for it to be meaningless. Also, shut up. She turns to 
Esther and points out the impossibility of trying to get into a 
country with closed borders that withdrew from the UN. Rex says 
he could get them in if he posted it as a full-scale mission, 
but that would kind of blow their cover. By the time they got 
there everybody would be gone. Oswald pipes up that they could 
take a slow boat. Rex asks who that was. Gwen yells at Oswald 
to shut up, then says it was nobody. Just Rhys practicing his 
American accent. She asks if Esther can find any open ports. 
This gets Jack thinking about a guy he once knew...
   Chrissy: It was very easy to get into his open port if 
    you know what I mean.
   Diandra: I would have said he could open ports like 
    nobody else, wink wink, but that works too.

Esther interrupts to ask who would burn down a hospital and 
why. It turns out the report of how he died was mistranslated 
too. The report says “medical facility”, but she just looked up 
the address and realized it was actually a blood bank. Gwen and 
Rex wonder why this keeps coming back to blood. Esther asks Rex 
to run a search on that and cross reference it with Kitzinger. 
She has another clip in Spanish and there was another blood 
bank destroyed in a fire in Buenos Ares the day before the one 
in Shanghai, all of which was less than a week before The 
Miracle.
   Chrissy: Oh my god, she’s actually showing a spark of 
    competence.
   Diandra: Must be time for her to die.
Rex dives for the file he was working on about John Podesta, 
which says he died in Argentina. He gives an abbreviated 
explanation to the people who haven’t been following this part 
of the investigation: “I think he was in the cellar with Jack.” 
Gwen asks what Argentina has to do with anything if the 
Blessing is in Shanghai. Rhys, bored and ignored, is playing 
with a globe for no apparent reason when he suddenly realizes 
something. Just as Rex is suggesting that The Blessing isn’t a 
location but a ritual that happens in both cities at once, a 
SWAT team blasts through the front door and all hell breaks 
loose.

Jack and Oswald cower by the sink, their hands raised and their 
backs to the men with guns. Rhys takes off for the cellar. 
Esther puts the laptop away and Gwen reaches for her hand. And 
then Rick comes back in the house. Really, aren’t there better 
things you could be doing with your life, pencil pusher? He 
asks who these new people are. Jack, in a somewhat better 
accent than he had last time a cop did this, says they’re just 
visiting from London. Rick says whatever. Anybody who can 
physically walk out of the house is of no interest to him.

Rhys emerges from the cellar and looks surprised to see Rick. 
Rick is like ‘what were you doing down there? You know what? 
Never mind. I’m just going to go see for myself.’ He rambles 
about how in the old days you would use dogs to sniff out dead 
bodies, but these days that obviously doesn’t work so they use 
an app that gives thermal readings instead.

It turns out Mary isn’t in the basement because she tries to 
come back into the house just then and is stopped by officers 
outside.

Oswald is chuckling at the irony that he is supposed to be the 
most wanted man on the face of the planet, but these guys are 
busy searching for somebody else.
   Chrissy: Trust the American to wonder why it isn’t all 
    about them.
   Diandra: Dear world: we’re sorry.
   Chrissy: Well, some of us. The ones who didn’t vote for 
    the “America first and fuck the rest of the world” 
    party.
Jack mutters that if Oswald doesn’t shut up he’ll gladly point 
them in his direction. Oswald says he can’t because then they’d 
ask who JACK is too.

Downstairs, Rick’s phone identifies a heat signature behind the 
door/fake wall and he calls his men down. Gwen follows the two 
officers and watches as they tear down the barricade. Lest we 
think Rhys was doing something clever and actually figuring out 
a way to hide her father better instead of just calling Rick’s 
attention to the cellar again like a colossal idiot, dad is 
still back there where mom left him. He moves around a little 
and Gwen points and says ‘see, he isn’t dead’ like any grieving 
family member justifying keeping their loved one on life 
support just a little longer. Rick, unaffected, says he’s 
Category One. Gwen resorts to begging and crying.

Sometime later, dad is taken out to an ambulance while mournful 
music plays. Rick makes a crying Mary sign off on this and says 
he’s sorry for her loss. Mary kisses her husband goodbye and 
runs back in the house. Jack joins Gwen on the doorstep and 
asks what she wants to do now. “Go to Shanghai,” she growls. “I 
don’t care if we have to walk. I will travel the whole bloody 
world to put this right.

CIA. Rex asks Shapiro for permission to “go off grid”, but says 
that even if he doesn’t get permission he will have to do it 
anyway. Shapiro says yeah, sure, but what if he needs backup on 
whatever this is he’s doing? Rex says IF he does, he will 
contact Shapiro directly. “Because if we’ve got a mole I can’t 
risk anyone finding this out.” He says this could be it though. 
The Blessing. Shapiro wishes him luck and he runs off.

Jack has thought of a way to get them to Shanghai. Back in the 
old days Torchwood found a secret trade route for alien 
artifacts coming from China. They closed it down, but it’s 
still used for arms deals. Esther isn’t so sure they should be 
trusting arms dealers. Gwen is like ‘whatever, I will trust 
serial killers at this point. Just tell me how to find them.’ 
Esther brings up Buenos Ares again. Which city should they be 
going to? Rhys says both. He holds up the globe he was playing 
with, puts each index finger on one of the cities and flips it 
over repeatedly to show that they are on exact opposite sides 
of the planet. Yeah, remember when Sister Sarah was talking 
about falling right through to the other side of the Earth and 
I said hold that thought? This is why.
   Chrissy: I’m impressed that you actually remembered that 
    would be relevant.
   Diandra: I’m not TOTALLY senile, you know.

Esther jumps and starts tapping away at her computer again, 
verifying that they are, in fact, at exact opposite ends and 
don’t just seem like they are on a cheaply printed globe. Jack 
adds that they are both major population centers as well. 
Oswald chortles that the expression IS count your blessingS, 
plural. Everyone ignores him. Esther pulls up the PhiCorp logo 
again, which is a spheroid with a line through the middle of 
it. They had a clue right there all along and they didn’t see 
it.
   Chrissy: Not surprising for her, but...
This still doesn’t explain what it is, exactly, so Jack says 
they still need to go find out in person and there shouldn’t be 
any difficulties getting into Argentina. Esther is like yeah, 
but what if they need to be in both cities at the same time? 
She calls dibs on Buenos Aires, he takes Shanghai. Oswald asks 
if they’re taking him on this mission. They all say no quickly. 
Oswald reminds Gwen that she can’t just let him go free and she 
can’t have him arrested because he knows too much. Rhys says he 
can stay with him right here. Oswald says yeah, that’s the 
thing. She knows if she leaves them alone together, Rhys will 
kill him and she doesn’t want her husband to become a murderer. 
Gwen is like yeah, fucking fine.

So Gwen, Jack and Oswald arrive in Shanghai in a truck via arms 
smugglers. Esther just waltzes into the Buenos Aires airport 
with a carry on bag and meets Rex, who holds up a steel 
briefcase. He says the only way to get “this stuff” through 
security was to put it in a diplomatic bag. She hugs him and he 
grumbles about her starting with the “hugging shit”.
   Chrissy: Don’t make me like him. That just guarantees 
    he’ll die.
   Diandra: Um...
He says he’s running the op undercover, but “if anybody checks 
the embassy notifications, we’re screwed.”

An alert beeps on Charlotte’s computer back at the CIA. She 
clicks on it and it says “person of interest” is connected to 
“Buenos Aires”. She sneaks off to contact the spinning triangle 
people.

Jilly is dropped off in an alley somewhere in Chinatown, LA. 
Oh, sorry...”Shanghai”. A guard waves her through a gate to a 
courtyard in front of a warehouse where Frances Fischer is 
waiting for her. “You must feel terrible,” Frances greets her. 
Jilly says she’s fine. Frances says no, she isn’t because the 
Blessing has this effect. “You’re scared...your skin feels just 
a little too tight. There’s something just out of the corner of 
your eye you can’t quite see.” Jilly is like okay, except for 
that, yes. Frances says you never get used to it. She invites 
Jilly to come with her by her actual name of Kitzinger. Jilly, 
finally getting it right, corrects her that it’s Meredith. 
Frances says she really doesn’t give a shit what sort of 
subterfuge game “the men” have her playing. She holds Jilly’s 
arm like she’s trying to form an instant bond because girls 
have to stick together or something and says she thinks that 
feeling is the Blessing trying to communicate somehow. Jilly is 
like ‘wait...it’s alive?’ Frances shrugs and says they don’t 
really know WHAT it is, but it definitely does something to the 
people who are in its presence. They have a theory that it 
somehow reflects the person who is looking at it.

A guard shows them through another heavy door and into an old 
fashioned elevator that goes deep underground. Jilly looks 
increasingly nauseous while Frances rambles about how some of 
the people who have looked at it have killed themselves. And it 
turned out each time that happened, the person “was hiding 
something vile”. She finds it wonderful and exciting and is 
highly anticipating what it might do to Jilly.
   Chrissy: You just met her and you’re already rooting for 
    her to kill herself.
   Diandra: You’re surprised?
   Chrissy: No.

Another guard lets them out of the elevator and Jilly stumbles 
open-mouthed down some metal stairs to a catwalk overlooking a 
giant cavern in a wall of what looks like organic rock that 
seems to be sucking material from its walls into itself. 
Basically, it looks like a giant stone vagina.
   Chrissy: Or a sarlaac.
   Diandra: Is that from Firefly?
   Chrissy: Star Wars, sweetie.
   Diandra: Oh. Is that that worm thing that lives in a pit 
    in the desert?
   Chrissy: Yes.
   Diandra: No, this doesn’t look like that.
   Chrissy: You don’t know what’s in that cavern.
   Diandra: It’s not that.

Frances asks Jilly what she sees. Jilly grins and whispers that 
she was right. She looks down and asks how far down the 
Blessing goes. Frances says all the way to the other side of 
the Earth.

On the other side of the Earth, Esther’s phone rings. It’s 
Gwen. Esther announces that they are in some sort of warehouse, 
so...you know...same old same old. Gwen says that’s nice 
because THEY are in a hovel owned by gunrunners. With a guy who 
raped and murdered a child. We see Oswald crashed on a bunk bed 
and Jack sitting on the other side of a small table. Esther 
tries to look on the bright side. Considering they are on other 
sides of the planet, their phone connection is fantastic. 
   Chrissy: Also, I saved 15% on my car insurance by 
   switching to Geiko. Shut the fuck up, Esther.
Esther says she has started looking for the Blessing, but since 
they are in the two biggest cities on Earth it’s going to 
be...uh...challenging. She suggests Gwen start with the family 
of the guy who burned down the blood bank and she’s going to 
check local libraries. Gwen tells her to look after the 
“weapon” because “Jack’s blood has got to be important.” Esther 
opens the case so we can see it contains all the blood bags she 
was filling earlier. They both agree that if either of them 
finds anything they will immediately call the other.

As Gwen is hanging up, Jack goes to lift a duffel bag and 
groans, grabbing his side. Gwen snaps at him for claiming he 
was all better when he CLEARLY isn’t. She helps him onto the 
other bunk bed while he babbles apologies. She opens his shirt 
to find the bandage totally soaked through with blood and 
mutters that if she had known about this, she would never have 
let him come on this mission. Yeah, hence why he didn’t tell 
you. Jack defends himself by claiming it just got worse when 
they arrived. She touches the wound wrong or something and he 
yelps. The two of them are distracted by a conversation about 
whether or not Jack is dying and just how TIRED he is of 
fighting right now. Oswald is the only one who notices the 
blood dripping from the discarded bandage seems to be 
deliberately rolling into the shadows in the corner. He pipes 
up that he’s never been to China before, so he doesn’t know if 
this is normal, but...what the hell is that? Jack heaves 
himself upright and they all stare at a droplet rolling across 
the floor. “No wonder it’s killing you,” Gwen mutters. She goes 
to the wall the blood is gravitating toward and opens the 
window, concluding that it is “pointing the way” to the 
Blessing. 
   Chrissy: Yeah, somewhere in that big metropolis we can 
    see from this window. That’s helpful.
   Diandra: Shh.

She turns to Jack and says pointedly that the Blessing is 
“calling” him. Jack gulps and we smash to black.
   Chrissy: Okay, well...hopefully all the questions are 
    going to be answered in the next episode because I’m 
    still not sure how a “giant stone vagina” is causing 
    the Miracle or how the families are connected to it 
    or...
   Diandra: Why there are polar bears on the island?
   Chrissy: Haha. Just shut up and start the next episode.