"Torchwood, episode 1x08: They Keep Killing Suzie"

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

Guest starring: Indira Varma


Previously on Torchwood, Ilsa Pucci (aka Suzie) was driven mad 
by her obsession with figuring out how to bring people back 
from the dead permanently with an alien steampunk glove and 
blew her brains out. 
   Chrissy: You are never going to stop calling her Ilsa, 
    are you?
   Diandra: Did you know John Barrowman was on “Arrow”?
   Chrissy: What does that have to do with this?
   Diandra: For, like, a week every tweet and Facebook post 
    about the show had the words “Captain Jack” in it. I’m 
    just saying: I’m hardly the first person to continually 
    refer to characters by whatever name they had when I 
    first saw them.
   Chrissy: Yes, the difference being that “Human Target” 
    was cancelled after two short seasons and didn’t really 
    have that big of a cult following.
   Diandra: [glares]

The Torchwood van comes screeching up to a crime scene (yes, 
Jack IS driving) and the team is greeted by a pretty cop who 
seems less than happy to see them. She introduces herself as 
Detective Swanson (I almost went through the whole recap 
calling her “Swan” before a fanfic corrected me) and she and 
Jack have the following exchange. 
   Jack: I’m Captain Jack Harkness.
   Swanson [eyeing team up and down]: So I’ve heard. Tell 
    me something. Are you always this dressy for a murder 
    investigation?
   Jack: What? D’you rather me naked?
   Swanson [grumbling]: God help me. The stories are true.
Gwen, always eager to cut the bullshit, asks who the victim is. 
Swanson says there’s more than one. She hands them a picture of 
a crime scene from yesterday where a young, single guy was 
murdered the same way as the couple currently in the house 
behind her. Jack notes the smears of blood that look kind of 
like writing and Swanson is like ‘yeah, that’s why you’re 
here.’ She takes them inside where the bodies are laid out on 
the bed with the word “Torchwood” written on the wall above 
them in their blood. Subtle.

After we come back from the blippy credits, Swanson tells Jack 
they found some hairs from the killer at the first scene and 
the results should be in from the lab soon. Jack thanks her and 
has her clear her people from the room because blah blah 
classified. She snots something about Torchwood acting like 
they own the city and these poor, innocent people seem to be 
paying for whatever they’re doing. “You did this, Captain Jack 
Harkness.” She stomps from the room. Owen says at least they 
can narrow the suspect pool down to “people we’ve pissed off” 
which should include about “oh, four or five million.” “And 
that’s just the humans,” Jack mutters. I believe we’ve 
established that the only species that both kills for sport AND 
is advanced enough to be able to write names in blood can’t be 
anything BUT human. Jack checks in with Tosh, who is searching 
databases out in the van. She says they have no record of any 
of the victims and she can’t find any connection between them.

The team comes back out as Swanson gets the lab results handed 
to her. Suspect is a Caucasian male in his early forties who 
smokes. And the DNA doesn’t match anything on record. Oh, and 
there was this compound they’ve never seen before. Owen, 
reading over her shoulder, perks up at this. He recognizes the 
compound as Retcon. Everyone sort of stares at each other like 
‘oh, shit’ and we cut away before Swanson can ask what the hell 
that is.

Back at the hub, they try to figure out how this person could 
possibly have their custom amnesia drug in his system. They 
must have given it to him at some point. Owen wonders if he’s 
remembering he’s a serial killer or if the Retcon is making him 
into a serial killer. Gwen freaks out a little because, of 
course, they gave her Retcon back when they thought they could 
make her go away. Jack, ever unhelpful, tells her she should 
stay away from sharp objects then. Yeah, she’s coming after you 
first when she snaps, buddy. He asks Ianto how many people 
they’ve given the pill to. “Two thousand and eight,” Ianto 
spits back without hesitation. “What if they all become 
psychotic,” Owen hypothesizes giddily. Tosh asks if he really 
has to sound so happy about that prospect. 
   Chrissy: Yes, Tosh. He’s a jackass.
   Diandra: I think she kind of figured that out when she 
    was reading his thoughts last week.
   Chrissy: Hallelujah!

Jack tells Tosh to cross-reference that list of people against 
the killer’s profile, then tells Gwen and Owen to look for a 
link between the victims. Which Tosh already did and found 
nothing. Or did we forget that part? They start to scatter, all 
except Gwen who asks why they don’t just use the resurrection 
glove to ask the victims. Jack and Owen scoff at the idea of 
using it. Y’know, after it made Ilsa go all psycho and 
everything. She barks that these murders are happening because 
of Torchwood and Torchwood has to do SOMETHING. 

Cut to Jack getting the glove out of storage. He really is a 
pushover, isn’t he? He exposits that the glove fell from the 
rift 40 years ago, where it landed at the bottom of the bay 
until they dug it up. He thinks it wasn’t just lost – whoever 
made it was deliberately trying to get rid of it. Owen muses, 
apropos of nothing, that they never gave it a “cool” name. Tosh 
thought they just called it the Resurrection Gauntlet, which 
sounds perfectly reasonable, but Owen doesn’t think it’s “cool” 
enough. “What about Risen Mitten,” Ianto pipes up. I never 
thought I’d say this, but...shut up, Ianto. 
   Chrissy: At least he’s pretty.
   Diandra: Yeah, no one ever accused Jack of hiring people 
    for their brains.
   Chrissy: Are you saying he’s shallow? No, wait...I just 
    heard myself saying that out loud and realized how 
    stupid it sounded. Never mind.

Autopsy bay. One of the victims is strapped to the table. How 
do they keep getting coroners to release bodies to them? Jack 
hands Ianto a stopwatch and puts the glove on. He warns them 
that the most time they’ve ever gotten out of it is two minutes 
and that was when Ilsa was using it. She had a lot more 
practice. He thinks he can get them thirty seconds. Eh, Ned 
could usually get all the information he needed in under a 
minute.
   Chrissy: Oh, dear God, let’s not bring another short 
    lived show into this.
   Diandra: A show about a guy who brings dead people back 
    to life so he can find out who killed them? Yeah, we’re 
    already there.

Tosh starts recording and Jack touches the guy’s forehead and 
makes a face like he’s having an orgasm or something. Gwen asks 
how the glove works. He says something vague about reaching 
into the darkness for dead people, then shrieks and yanks his 
hand away, ripping the glove off. He says he was never good 
with the glove and tries to hand it to Owen. Owen reminds him 
that they all tried it at one point and it only ever responded 
to Ilsa. Guess where this is going? Yep, Gwen points out that 
she hasn’t tried it yet and offers to give it a shot. Jack 
hands it to her and rambles about how it works on empathy or 
compassion or some bullshit so she should just be herself 
because she’s clearly the most compassionate member of the 
team. She puts her gloved hand on top of the guy’s head, gasps, 
and he immediately springs to life and starts screaming for 
help. Jack leans over him and asks if he saw who attacked him. 
“Who are you,” the guy yelps. “Where am I? I want my mum!” He 
continues begging to see his mother for a few seconds until he 
flatlines. Gwen insists she can bring him back again and yells 
at Jack and Owen when they try gently to get her to let go. 
Jack finally gets her to snap out of it and a tear falls down 
her cheek as she backs off. Ianto announces she got twenty-four 
seconds. Owen grumbles something about Ianto and his 
stopwatches and Ianto says something about the “button on the 
top” that...I don’t...what? Moving on.

Victim number two. Gwen puts her hand on his head and mutters 
something about being able to feel a connection going from her 
heart to the glove. The dead guy gasps awake – much quieter 
than the last one – and Jack has apparently decided that 
barking orders at him won’t work this time as he acts all sweet 
and gentle as he asks the guy who attacked him. “Is my wife all 
right,” the guy asks. Jack says they’re “looking after” her. 
All the guy can remember is the killer was “that man” who 
“belonged to Pilgrim” and his name was Max. And he had a knife. 
Tosh frantically plugs this into her computer and asks Jack to 
get a description. Owen yelps that they’re losing him. The dead 
guy babbles that there was this woman the killer was talking to 
all the time and she would know who he is. Her name was Ilsa. 
And flatline. “One minute, five seconds,” Ianto mumbles. Owen 
tries to dismiss that as a coincidence because there must be 
lots of women named Ilsa. Yeah, and all of them have access to 
Retcon. Genius. Jack says as much: only one of them could be 
connected to this case in particular.

Some time later, they regroup in the conference room. Tosh 
hands Gwen a flyer identifying Pilgrim as a sort of “religious 
support group” that holds regular debates about the meaning of 
life and the existence of God and basically sounds like a class 
in comparative religion. She says the group is so small there’s 
no record of them anywhere but it was run by the wife – victim 
number three. Owen thinks it can’t possibly be Ilsa because she 
wouldn’t go for that crap. Gwen asks if any of them would know 
for sure – were any of them really *friends* with her? Owen’s 
like er...no. She was pretty much a loner. Jack admits Gwen has 
a point and announces that it’s time they got to know Ilsa a 
little better.

So they...go to a storage facility somewhere. “Have I got this 
right,” Gwen says by way of explanation. “When I die, you get 
to keep all my possessions? My whole life’s gonna get stashed 
in a locker?” “Rules and regulations,” Jack answers 
cryptically. Sure. Tosh waxes existentially about how we humans 
are all just a pile of personal effects in the end as they poke 
around. Gwen zeros in on a picture of Ilsa with her father 
within seconds and asks if he’s still alive. Tosh says they 
don’t know. Gwen asks how they contacted him to tell him his 
daughter died. Tosh says Ilsa wiped her records before she ran 
off so they couldn’t retrieve her contact information. And you 
couldn’t look it up? You have a picture and a last name. How 
hard could it be? Tosh unearths one of the Pilgrim flyers and 
hands it to Jack. Deciding that this is definitive proof of the 
dead guy’s story, Jack declares that it’s time Ilsa came back.

Hub. Ilsa’s body is laid out on the autopsy table and everyone 
is trying very hard to act busy and NOT look each other in the 
eyes. Gwen finally asks if they’re all locked away in cold 
storage after they die. “Rules and regulations,” Jack repeats. 
Gwen refrains from slapping him with the metal glove she’s 
sliding on. Tosh mutters an apology that she “can’t look her in 
the eye” and slinks back to her computer a safe distance away. 
Gwen touches Ilsa’s forehead and we get a couple flashbacks of 
the night she killed herself, but she stubbornly refuses to 
come back to life. Jack brushes Gwen’s hair back and looks 
worried. She says Ilsa’s too far gone – all she’s getting is a 
few memories. Jack says that’s it then, they’re out of options. 
Owen says well, there’s still the knife Ilsa used to kill those 
people which coincidentally is made of the same metal as the 
glove. Really? Was this mentioned before or did the writers 
just fart that little detail out at the last minute when they 
were writing this episode? Tosh gibbers something about how 
that might close the circuit. Jack points out that the knife is 
a murder weapon and Ilsa is already dead. Gwen says they’ll 
have to kill her again then.

Plan B. Jack cuts Ilsa’s arm with the knife while Gwen tries 
the glove again. She says she got a brief spark, but no dice: 
he’s going to have to do it “properly”. Jack gives Owen a look 
like ‘really? I have to do this?’ He sighs and stabs the knife 
into her chest. Ilsa gasps awake instantly. Everything spins 
crazily while Jack tries to get her to focus on him. 
Unfortunately she is completely disoriented and confused about 
where she is, why there is a knife in her chest and how the man 
she shot in the face is now standing over her. She finally 
focuses enough to wonder who is using the glove. Gwen mutters 
an apology. “Wouldn’t you know it,” she grumbles. “Gwen bloody 
Cooper.” Ianto announces that it’s been thirty seconds already. 
Jack asks if she remembers a man named Max, who she gave Retcon 
to. They need to know his last name and how to find him. Ilsa 
is pissed off that they brought her back from the dead for this 
because Max was just some “loser”. She stutters a little and 
Owen announces they’re losing her. Gwen barks at her to stay 
where she is because she REFUSES to lose her this time. Jack 
tells Gwen not to force it but she’s just as stubborn as last 
time until she collapses backward away from the autopsy table. 
Owen catches her and Jack yanks the glove away with a snippy ‘I 
told you so’. Owen declares her okay and asks Jack to help him 
move her. “It’s the glove,” Jack says. “I told you, they get 
hooked.” Owen’s like ‘yeah, yeah, now shut up and help me.’ 
“Um...excuse me,” Ianto pipes up, looking between the stop 
watch and the monitors. “I’m still counting.” Because according 
to the vitals, Ilsa isn’t dead – just unconscious. Owen runs 
over to check himself, although any idiot can see her eyes 
rapidly moving under her eyelids. Jack gets up and rips the 
knife from her chest. Owen shakes his head and announces that 
she’s still breathing. “No stopping her. She won’t die.”

Sometime later. Apparently they’ve decided to prop Ilsa up in a 
wheelchair in the interrogation room so they can keep asking 
her questions. Her head is lolling on one of the handles and 
the camera pans around to show the bloody mess the bullet she 
blew through her head left behind. “How long’s it been,” she 
slurs as Jack sits across from her. He says three months. She 
whines that she just wants to die and why can’t they leave her 
ALONE? Jack says it’s not exactly up to them, apparently. She 
asks how long she’s going to have to stay like this then. Fuck 
if they know. She picks her head up and asks if she can see her 
father. Jack just says no, but apparently Gwen can’t leave it 
at that and blurts that they wiped her records and had no way 
of contacting him. Ilsa concludes that he never even knew she 
was dead then. Gwen feebly points out that she isn’t anymore. 
“This is sick,” Ilsa spits. “You started it,” Jack says. Oh, 
that’s real mature, Harkness. He spreads out a bunch of 
pictures on the table and asks again how they find Max because 
they think the Retcon she gave him for whatever reason 
triggered some sort of psychotic break and he’s killed three 
people so far. 

Owen’s voice comes in over the intercom to ask how much Retcon 
she gave him. Ilsa looks at the camera in the corner and 
sidesteps the question. “You scared to face me? What about 
Toshiko? Is she still here?” Tosh, sitting beside Owen, just 
stares at the monitor and doesn’t move a muscle. Owen says yep, 
she’s here, now answer the question. She sighs and says she 
gave Max one pill every week for two years. “What the hell did 
you do that for?” Jack splutters. Ilsa says that she needed 
someone to talk to about Torchwood because she was going crazy. 
So to (finally) answer Jack’s question: she doesn’t know his 
last name because all they ever talked about was her and her 
crazy ass job. “It’s all my fault, isn’t it,” she says, her lip 
quivering a little. “It never bloody stops being my fault. 
Can’t you just let me die?” But Jack is apparently not falling 
for this ‘poor little me’ act because he’s chuckling and saying 
she’s not getting off that easy.
   Chrissy: Not usually, no.
   Diandra: The woman has a hole in her skull. Let’s save 
    the perverted humor for now, shall we?
   Chrissy: Says the woman who thought Ianto should jump 
    the man who killed his girlfriend the previous week.
   Diandra: That’s not...okay, fine. Point taken.
She sneers that he did warn her, then turns to Gwen and adds 
“he said this is the one job you can never quit.” Gwen retreats 
back into the corner. 

Jack tries to get Ilsa to focus again. She finally looks at the 
pictures of the members of Pilgrim spread out on the table and 
notices that one girl is missing. Blonde girl. Lucy Mackenzie. 
She worked at a club. Jack asks which club. Ilsa sits back 
again, moaning that she’s so tired. Jack starts shouting at her 
that Max is killing every member of Pilgrim so they need to 
FIND her, damnit. “Wolf Bar,” Ilsa finally mutters. Gwen runs 
out of the room.

Wolf Bar club, presumably. Jack, Owen and Gwen make their way 
through a sea of gyrating bodies (which is presumably somewhat 
of a distraction for Jack).
   Chrissy: Somewhat?
Gwen complains that she already has a raging headache and this 
music is NOT helping. Ilsa, slouched next to Tosh back in the 
hub with a scarf wrapped around her head, tells her that’s the 
glove. “It gets inside your mind.” Gwen’s like yeah, yeah, 
whatever, does she see Max or Lucy yet? Ilsa squints at the 
monitors, which is showing a hidden camera feed of the inside 
of the club and says not yet. Wait...where is the camera? Did 
they already introduce the contact lens cameras and I missed 
it? 
   Chrissy: I remember something about hidden cameras in 
   contact lenses, but I might be thinking of one of the 
   “Mission Impossible” movies.
Jack “repeats” a description of Max as a forty year old over 
six feet tall with dark hair and a tattoo down his left arm. 
Owen watches a dark haired guy with a giant tattoo on his left 
arm go past and mutters “that narrows it down.” 

Back in the hub, Ilsa notes that Tosh isn’t even looking at 
her. “Not like you to be so judgmental.” Um...it isn’t? Tosh 
sneers that it wasn’t like Ilsa to go on a murder spree, but 
here we are. She says she’s done some stupid stuff (yeah, 
recently too), but what Ilsa did brought disrepute to the whole 
of Torchwood. And what Ianto did nearly brought the destruction 
of the entire human race. What’s your point again, Tosh?

Owen locates a guy he thinks matches the description, but Ilsa 
can’t see anything through the crowd on his camera feed. Then 
he sees Lucy, who Ilsa does recognize. Unfortunately, so does 
the guy and he starts heading for her. Jack comes out of 
nowhere to help Owen tackle the guy to the ground, at which 
point Ilsa sees him on the monitor and yelps that they’ve got 
the wrong guy. Meanwhile, the real Max is charging at Gwen with 
a knife, but she’s too spaced out to notice. Ilsa yelps a 
warning to her...seriously, how are these camera things 
working? Gwen isn’t even facing that direction. Jack runs over 
to disarm him and drops him with a tazer. The crowd around them 
goes silent and stares at this man in funny clothes who just 
knocked a guy the size of a truck unconscious. “That one’s for 
Ianto,” he says, waving the stun gun, then goes to cuff the 
guy. Gwen dazedly thanks Ilsa for saving her life. Ilsa says 
maybe she came back for a reason. 

Hub holding cells. Owen and Jack are trying to talk to Max, who 
looks like he’s in a trance. Owen rattles off his name and 
address and his parents’ names and gets no reaction whatsoever. 
Then he informs him he is in the Torchwood facility and Max 
launches at the glass, snarling and growling like an enraged 
gorilla. Apparently, Owen’s done this before because he tells 
Jack to keep watching and counts to ten, at which point Max 
stops raving and sits calmly again. Jack’s like ‘huh...it’s 
like he’s reacting to the word Torchwood...’ and Max starts 
banging at the glass again. “Thanks, Jack,” Owen snots. Jack 
“apologizes” and tells Owen to let him know what the “scans” 
say. Owen asks what they’re going to do about Ilsa. Jack 
doesn’t have a clue. And if I had a dollar for every time I had 
to type that... He asks what Owen thinks he should do. Owen 
says it’s his call. Well, this is going nowhere. Jack mutters 
“Torchwood” one more time as he walks out because apparently he 
enjoys being a dick.
   Chrissy: Being?
   Diandra: Shut it.

Ilsa is back in the interrogation “room” with Gwen, the scarf 
on her head looking less half-ass-mummy and more half-ass-
Muslim-headdress. She’s still trying to get someone to let her 
see her father. Gwen tries to negotiate: if she tells them 
where he is they could bring him in. Ilsa grumbles that she’s 
not letting him anywhere near Torchwood “if he’s still alive”. 
Gwen asks why he wouldn’t be. Because he has cancer. Gwen 
offers to contact him herself. Ilsa’s like ‘oh, yeah. That 
would be smashing. Hi, you don’t know me but I just thought you 
should know your dead daughter sends her regards.’ Or something 
like that. They’re silent for a beat. Then Ilsa asks if Gwen is 
enjoying the job and they both launch into exclamations about 
how it’s the most batshit insane job that is both the best and 
the worst they’ve ever had. Then Ilsa gets all mopey about how 
she used to think she was indispensable but they went and 
replaced her with someone better. “You got that glove working 
better than I did.” Gwen protests that it was luck. Ilsa says 
no, the others like her better too. I’m sorry, is the loner who 
turned murdering psycho actually surprised by this? Gwen argues 
that she has her own function in the group and she’s NOT just a 
replacement. “Have you slept with Owen,” Ilsa redirects. Gwen 
gulps and takes a long swig of water. “There you go, replaced 
me completely.” Wait, when was that established? 
   Chrissy: What is WRONG with these women that they keep 
    being drawn to OWEN?
   Diandra: Maybe it has something to do with attraction to 
    bad boys?
   Chrissy: We are talking about Owen, right?
   Diandra: Compared to straight-laced Ianto and Captain 
    Boy Scout...he kind of is.

Jack’s office. Jack is making serious faces at a piece of paper 
when Gwen bursts in noisily. “I had a boyfriend who used to 
walk into rooms like that,” he mutters without looking up. “The 
Grand Entrance. It got kind of boring.” Oh, please. You just 
can’t stand somebody being a bigger drama queen than you. Oh, 
he’s still talking. He says he put up with the guy because he 
was one of a pair of twin acrobats. I’m not touching that one. 
   Chrissy: That’s what he said. 
   Diandra: No, I doubt it.
Seriously, are these lines ad-libbed or did the writers have a 
competition going? Gwen is pacing in front of the desk, saying 
nothing, so he continues yammering about how he should really 
write that book and maybe illustrate it and he can keep talking 
aaaaaaaalllll day here. “Takes me a while to piece things 
together,” Gwen finally spits out. She rambles about how he put 
Ilsa in charge of the glove but did he ever bother to ask 
questions about her father? Did he know he was giving a device 
capable of resurrecting the dead to a woman whose father was 
slowly dying? The lightbulb finally goes on over Jack’s head 
and he realizes she’s suggesting Ilsa’s half-mad obsession with 
it was his fault. He says she always blamed herself for Ilsa’s 
death because she was there and happened to benefit from it and 
now she’s managed to completely resurrect her. “We’re both 
responsible. Now what the hell are we going to do with her.” 
You’re just looking for somebody to tell you what to do here, 
aren’t you Jack? Gwen asks what happens if Ilsa *never* dies 
and it’s just her and Jack for all of eternity. “No way,” Jack 
spits quickly. “I wouldn’t wish that on her. I’d sooner kill 
her right now.” Gwen asks if he thinks he could really go 
through with it. Uh, Gwen, honey, have you not been paying 
attention? He says hell yes, he could. Absolutely. Yep. He 
might just enjoy it, in fact. Owen’s voice comes over an 
intercom somewhere to ask if Jack could please come to the 
conference room for a second because there’s something he needs 
to see, like, now.

Everyone but Gwen gathers in the conference room so Owen can 
show them the footage of Gwen’s attempts to resurrect people, 
which he ran through some sort of filter that turns the picture 
night-vision-goggle green. Something that looks like an arc of 
electricity forms between her and victim number two. It cuts 
out just before he dies again. Then Owen switches to footage of 
Gwen resurrecting Ilsa. The arc is brighter and Owen says it’s 
still there and it’s getting stronger along with Ilsa, who is 
somehow literally draining the life force out of Gwen. 
Because...just go with it okay? DON’T QUESTION THE WRITERS!
   Chrissy: You’re learning.
Jack babbles something about the give and take of life energy 
that means in order to bring somebody back, someone else must 
die. Okay, did “Pushing Daisies” steal their ENTIRE premise 
from this episode? Tosh asks how they stop it. Jack says they 
have to kill Ilsa. Back to that, are we? Owen asks who will do 
it. Jack immediately volunteers, of course.

Meanwhile, Gwen is breaking Ilsa out. Because she may have a 
big old empathetic heart, but she balances it out by being 
stupid and wreckless. So by the time Jack comes charging in 
with pistol at ready, Ilsa is nowhere to be found. He orders 
Tosh to find Ilsa and Gwen RIGHT GODDAMN NOW. She pulls up 
several surveillance feeds around the building until she finds 
Gwen loading Ilsa into her car. They start heading for the exit 
when the power goes out and all the doors lock. Jack starts 
calling for Ianto, who is already wielding a giant flashlight. 
Er...that didn’t sound right. 
   Chrissy: Yes, it did. He has a very impressive 
   flashlight. I’m sure.
Jack asks what happened. Ianto, confused, says he thought Jack 
was responsible for sending them into lockdown. Oh, and it’s a 
100% lockdown so there’s no way to reverse it. Oh, how 
convenient.

Gwen exposits that she’s taking Ilsa to see her dad, but that’s 
IT. Because this is crazy enough. “Jack’s not stupid. He’s 
gonna catch us.” Are we sure about that, Gwen?

Meanwhile, Tosh is yelping that they’ve lost all power AND all 
connection with the outside world. Jack asks how much longer 
Gwen has before this voodoo meld between her and Ilsa kills 
her. Owen says no more than two hours, which...how long has it 
been already? How could he possibly...you know what? Fuck it. 
Tosh says they need to figure out how Ilsa could possibly have 
caused a lockdown. She’s been declared dead for quite a while 
so it’s not like she still has access to their computer system. 
And obviously Gwen would not have given her access as she’s not 
a *complete* idiot. 
   Chrissy: Are you sure about that?
Jack suddenly remembers there’s one other possible variable and 
he and Owen run down to the cells where Max is mechanically 
reciting the Emily Dickinson poem about “because I could not 
stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.” Jack concludes that 
Ilsa programmed this as a “verbal trigger” that, when repeated 
a certain number of times, shut everything down. Which means 
she had to program it a long time ago before she died. Okay, 
wait a minute. She patiently fed a guy Retcon for years and 
programmed him to go insane at the mention of the word 
“Torchwood”, knowing somehow that this would cause him to 
commit crimes that would be brought to the team’s attention at 
which point they would have to use a combination of the knife 
and glove to resurrect her for questioning. This would, of 
course, bring her back to life indefinitely by draining the 
life from whoever managed to get it work. Then, naturally, the 
team would bring her human guinea pig into the hub where he 
could trigger a lockdown after giving her just enough time to 
escape. Either this is the most convoluted crap the writers 
have concocted so far or Ilsa is the ultimate goddamn evil 
genius. SERIOUSLY, WHO THINKS LIKE THIS?
   Chrissy: Judging by “The Dark Knight”? The Joker.
   Diandra: Right. Perfect analogy. A plan so unnecessarily 
    convoluted that it only works if EVERY SINGLE DETAIL 
    goes exactly as anticipated.
   Chrissy: Made for an awesome movie, though. 
   Diandra: *sigh* Yeah.

Back upstairs, Jack, Owen and Tosh give the condensed version 
(that Ilsa programmed Max to begin a sequence of events three 
months after she died that would force them to resurrect her), 
completely ignoring that there are several details she couldn’t 
possibly have accounted for unless she was omniscient. Tosh 
concludes that she must have created some sort of failsafe – 
you know, like someone who creates a supervirus designed to 
wipe out the human race would create an antidote. Because 
apparently the one part of her plan that could have gone wrong 
was the lockdown happening too soon without giving her time to 
get the chick she barely met before she died to smuggle her 
from the building.

While they’re working on figuring that out, we go back to Gwen 
and Ilsa. Gwen notes that Ilsa is looking a little less like 
death warmed over. Ilsa gives Gwen a VERY SIGNIFICANT look as 
she says “it’s all thanks to you”, which Gwen naturally 
completely ignores. Ilsa finally asks Gwen how the hell Jack 
was able to recover from a gunshot wound she distinctly 
remembers putting in his head. Gwen, who is starting to look a 
little woozy, mumbles that he’s never really explained it fully 
to her but something that happened a long time ago made him 
immortal. Sort of. Ilsa sneers that he thinks he can make 
decisions about whether she should be allowed to live.

Back in the hub, Ianto announces that he has been able to get 
phone reception by using the water tower in the middle of the 
floor as a relay. However that makes sense. Don’t look at me, I 
have no idea what’s going on anymore. Jack grabs the phone 
eagerly, then realizes he has no idea who to call. 

At the police station, Detective Swanson’s phone rings. “Better 
not be wasting my time,” she grumbles by way of greeting. Jack 
says actually, he was kind of hoping she could help them out. 
She scoffs at the idea of Torchwood coming to her for help 
because they usually just do whatever the hell they want. Jack 
lamely tries to beat around the bush for a while before finally 
admitting that they’re kind of...um...locked in. “Just a bit.” 
Swanson becomes amused. “Locked in where?” “Um, in our own 
base. And it’s not funny.” Swanson clearly disagrees and waves 
somebody else over while she asks what she’s supposed to be 
able to do to help them. Jack says they need a book of poetry. 
Also, did he mention this is totally not funny?

Meanwhile, Gwen attributes her wooziness to night driving and 
turns on the radio, which happens to be playing an old song 
Ilsa’s mom used to sing to her. She bursts into tears and Gwen 
starts getting misty eyed.

Back at the station, Swanson has gathered everyone around the 
phone, which is now on speaker, and asks if Jack could please 
just repeat that one more time. “We’re locked in our base and 
we can’t get out,” Jack says testily. They all giggle and 
Jack’s like ‘okay, did we get that out of our system now? 
Because one of us is going to be DEAD in a couple hours if you 
don’t help us.’ Swanson shoos everyone away and picks up The 
Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, which she apparently had 
some lackey go buy from somewhere while she was taunting Jack. 
She asks what she’s supposed to do with it. Jack says she 
should find the one that goes “I could not stop for Death” and 
read the next verse. Is her Internet broken? Why did she need 
to go buy the whole collection of poems that are part of the 
public domain and therefore available for free online? Are 
these people completely computer illiterate or is it just the 
writers?

While we’re wasting time trying to hunt down the text of a poem 
I found in seconds by searching Google, let’s check in on the 
car. Ilsa is looking healthier and Gwen is looking increasingly 
pale and exhausted. Gwen finally appeases her morbid curiosity 
and asks what happened to Ilsa when she died. Ilsa asks if 
she’s religious. No, not really. Scratch that, does she believe 
in heaven? Gwen says she doesn’t know, but she’s always sort of 
believed in the whole ‘walking into a white light where 
everyone you’ve ever loved is waiting for you’. Ilsa scoffs and 
Gwen asks what’s “out there” then. The truth, Gwen. The TRUTH 
IS OUT THERE! “Nothing,” Ilsa says. “Just nothing.” Gwen asks 
what the point of “it all” is then. Ilsa posits that there 
isn’t a point, really. “We’re just animals howling at the night 
‘cause it’s better than silence.” Well, that’s... depressing. 
She says she used to think there was something more to it 
because why else would aliens give a rip about this 
insignificant little planet? Then she realized it’s just 
instinct that drives them toward similar creatures because it’s 
comforting to not be alone. Gwen says so you’re just alone in 
the darkness after you die? Ilsa says no, you’re not *alone* 
and that’s why she wanted to come back. “There’s something out 
there. In the dark. And it’s moving.” Are we sure she didn’t 
end up in the wrong place?
   Chrissy: What makes you think that would be the “wrong” 
    place? You just said she’s an evil mastermind and she’s 
    killed at least three people. More if you count the 
    ones she programmed Max to slaughter.
   Diandra: Good point.

“Parting is all we know of Heaven and all we need of Hell,” 
Jack says to the ceiling. Oh, we’re on a new poem already? 
Okay. I guess that sort of justifies buying the whole 
collection, but still: they’re all online. There are at least a 
dozen websites with everything Dickinson ever wrote. This is 
not that difficult. It doesn’t work, so Swanson recites the 
next one: “success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er 
succeed. Christ she was a bundle of laughs.” Really? You didn’t 
get that from the one about death? Nope. It’s not that one 
either. Tosh has a sudden idea: maybe if words caused the 
lockdown, numbers can reverse it. She suggests they try reading 
the ISBN. Also, she’s going to try typing it into the non-
working keyboard because the membrane underneath it might 
recognize the code. 

Okay, I just spent the last five minutes digging around in the 
liquor cabinet and trying to open a miniature bottle of 
flavored vodka with my teeth. Because it is becoming clear to 
me that the only way this episode is going to make any goddamn 
sense is if I kill a few brain cells with alcohol first. For 
the record: it turns out I don’t like whiskey. 
   Chrissy: Terminators, fairies and aliens and THIS is 
    what sends you over the edge?
   Diandra: Does it make sense to you?
   Chrissy: No, but I’ve kind of gotten used to it. Here, 
    hand the whiskey over.

Swanson reads off a number and, naturally, this stupid idea 
actually works, although I don’t know how because the ISBN she 
read belongs to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (yes, I 
actually looked that up). But let’s assume for sanity’s sake 
that this is like the generic “555” phone numbers on American 
shows that don’t actually exist and the fact that it’s real is 
a total coincidence. So I guess Ilsa just memorized the number 
of that particular edition and Swanson’s lackey just HAPPENED 
to pick up the same edition and...oh, fuck this. Tosh traces 
the tracker on Gwen’s car and Owen and Jack take off in the 
SUV. Owen guesses Gwen has only 40 more minutes to live. Oh, 
please. Like anything is an exact science here. 
   Chrissy: Actually, I’m pretty sure it isn’t any kind of 
   science.
Apparently Jack is still patched in to the precinct, because he 
asks Swanson to order the roads cleared for them, which she 
does.

Hospital. Gwen wheels Ilsa into a room where a man is on life 
support. She starts to stammer that she’s not exactly feeling 
well, then grabs her head and shouts in pain. Her hand comes 
away bloody. Ilsa says oh, yeah, sorry about that, but “you’re 
getting shot in the head. Slowly.” She pulls off her scarf and 
notes that her head wound – and accompanying entry wound in her 
chin - is almost completely gone now and she’s feeling much 
better. Gwen flops to the floor in the corner and sobs. Ilsa 
gets up and hovers over the man who is obviously her dad, 
calling him and urging him to wake up. He opens his eyes and 
looks...less than happy to see her. She rips his oxygen tube 
out...or not because there is no tube and I’m not sure what 
idiot on this show doesn’t understand how life support works. 
“What are you doing,” Gwen yelps as Ilsa’s dad gasps and 
flatlines. Ilsa admits that she just wanted to send the asshole 
into the darkness herself. I guess we can blame him for how she 
turned out, then?

Jack’s still speeding along, following Tosh’s directions, when 
his phone rings. “Did you like the poem Jack,” Ilsa sneers. 
She’s back in Gwen’s car, only now she’s driving and Gwen is 
slouched in the passenger seat looking pale. Jack tells her 
that the glove is killing Gwen in exchange for keeping Ilsa 
alive just on the off chance she didn’t know that one little 
detail. Of course she did. Because she could run circles around 
any given Bond villain. Jack pleads with her to stop. Ilsa 
would rather live and thinks it’s a totally fair trade. Jack 
says okay then, they’ll just have to keep following the tracker 
on Gwen’s car and if Gwen is dead by the time they catch up, 
he’s going to kill Ilsa. She asks if he would really follow 
through on that now that “there’s a part of her that’s now me” 
and she’s all that’s left of Gwen. Jack totally evades that one 
and asks why the hell Ilsa is doing this. “Because life is all, 
Jack,” Ilsa wails. “I’d do anything to stay.” Jack returns to 
impotent pleas for her to stop. Ilsa rambles about how Gwen is 
so much better than her and kudos on finding her. Then she sobs 
some more, apologizes and hangs up. Luckily, Tosh says she’s 
headed for the coastline where one of the ferries goes out to 
the islands so she should be slowing down soon. Owen says they 
only have a matter of minutes left, but I suspect he’s just 
making it up as he goes along.
   Chrissy: No, honey, that’s the writers doing that.
   Diandra: Right. I need more vodka.

Also lucky for them: Ilsa seems to have bonded with Gwen 
because when she gets to the pier she takes the time to haul 
Gwen out of the car and drag her toward the ferry with promises 
that if they keep running “he won’t hurt us.” That or she’s had 
a psychotic break, which is entirely likely. Gwen collapses and 
Jack and Owen arrive to find Ilsa hovering over her, calling 
her name and apologizing. She sees the guys running toward her, 
kisses Gwen’s cheek and starts running. Jack literally jumps 
over Gwen’s unconscious body and clumsily points his gun at 
Ilsa, who has stopped running for some reason. This whole scene 
is very awkwardly staged is what I’m saying. Owen kneels beside 
Gwen and says he thinks they’re too late. Jack asks Ilsa if 
Gwen will live if he kills her. Ilsa repeats her theory that he 
can’t because “I’m the last thing left of Gwen Cooper.” That 
really doesn’t make any sense in this context, but then I would 
be surprised if any of this demented plot made sense at this 
point. “Can’t you see it,” she asks. Jack says nope, not at 
all, and shoots her. Everyone kind of hesitates while Ilsa does 
a faceplant into the ground until Owen announces that nothing 
happened. Ilsa starts chuckling as she realizes she can no 
longer die. Jack puts four rounds in her back and she just 
rolls over and smiles up at him, blood everywhere. “It’s all 
your fault, Jack,” she says. “You recruited me.” Jack has a 
sudden realization and orders Tosh to destroy the glove because 
it’s keeping Ilsa and Gwen connected. 

In the hub, Tosh yelps “Ianto, armaments, Code 5!” Apparently 
Ianto knows what this means because they both take off running.

Jack shoots Ilsa again, which seems senselessly violent since 
he obviously knows it’s not going to do anything. Ilsa just 
giggles, calls him “captain, my captain” and tells him what she 
told Gwen about the thing in the darkness that’s moving. “It’s 
coming, Jack Harkness! It’s coming for you!”

Ianto tosses a gun to Tosh and she shoots the glove. Ilsa 
spasms and Gwen gasps back to life in Owen’s arms. We hover for 
several beats on Jack’s angsty face and Owen and Gwen’s 
traumatized ones while sirens wail in the distance and a 
mournful song plays.

And then we have a weird little scene back in the hub where 
Gwen is talking to the others when Jack comes through the door 
and they pause to share a SIGNIFICANT GLANCE while the singer 
continues singing about love and how she’s “found the one I’ve 
waited for”. Right. Because they weren’t sure which way the 
romantic pairings on this show were going to play out in the 
beginning. Jack goes over to the morgue, where Ianto is making 
notes on a chart over Ilsa’s newly returned corpse. “One day 
we’re gonna run out of space,” he notes morosely. “If you’re 
interested, I’ve still got that stopwatch,” Ianto non 
sequiters. Jack blinks at him, confused. Ianto smirks and notes 
that there are “lots of things you can do with a stopwatch”. 
Okay, I love you, Ianto, but NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO MAKE WEIRD 
OVERTURES TO YOUR BOSS. Of course, this is Jack we’re talking 
about, so he smiles and says he’ll send everyone home early and 
meet Ianto in his office in ten minutes. He starts to leave, 
but Ianto suddenly remembers his professional duties and asks 
what he should put on the death certificate since, you know, 
she died, like, three times. “Death by Torchwood,” Jack 
replies. Ianto offers to put a lock on her drawer just in case 
she comes back to life again. Jack says nah, that won’t happen 
again. At least until the zombie apocalypse, anyway. “The 
resurrection days are over, thank God.” Ianto warns that he 
shouldn’t be so sure because, you know, “that’s the thing about 
gloves. They come in pairs.” Then he goes back to scribbling on 
the clipboard while Jack frowns and slowly walks away.

   Chrissy: I refuse to believe that this is how their 
    relationship is going to start. I’m going to go ahead 
    and assume you were right and they started sleeping 
    together before that episode about the fairies even 
    though it was immediately after the girl Ianto was so 
    in love with died.
   Diandra: Yeah, I’m pretty sure the writers have already 
    forgotten about that plot device already. Now they’re 
    just throwing stuff at the wall to see what will stick 
    for next season.
   Chrissy: Oh, are we almost done with this season 
    already?
   Diandra: No. 
   Chrissy: Tease. Are we at least done with Suzie now?
   Diandra: Who?
   Chrissy: [sigh] Ilsa?
   Diandra: Oh...yes. We can go back to focusing on Jack 
    flirting with everybody and Gwen screwing Owen behind 
    her boyfriend’s back.
   Chrissy: Yay.