"Torchwood: Children of Earth, episode 2" Starring: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen, Peter Capaldi, Cush Jumbo, Paul Copley, Susan Brown, Liz May Brice, Ian Gelder Previously on Torchwood...fuck it. This is a continuous five- episode arc. I’m not bothering with previouslies. Day two. Emergency vehicles pull up to the smoking crater that used to be the Torchwood hub. Gwen staggers upright at the edge of the destruction, her POV shot muted as if the explosion left her temporarily deaf. She tries to run into the flaming wreckage and is stopped by emergency responders. She protests that her friends are in there and they have to bodily carry her to an ambulance, kicking and shrieking angrily. Of course this is when we realize that they’re not actually emergency responders because one of them prepares a hypodermic while ordering the other to “hold her down” because their boss said “no survivors”. She bites the one holding her, grabs a fire extinguisher and knocks them both out. Then she sits for a second composing herself and wiping the one guy’s blood from her mouth. Chrissy: Okay, yeah. I’m definitely seeing why you liked her going into these recaps. She grabs both of their guns and when she’s at the door of the van a bunch of red dot laser sights appear on her. She launches herself from the van, firing both guns simultaneously in the direction of the snipers. Then she climbs back in the front of the ambulance and drives off, one of the assassins falling out as she goes. Yeah. She’s basically Jason Bourne now. Ianto wakes up surrounded by rubble because he was just barely clear before the blast. He crawls up to street level and sees another red laser sight. Not having any sort of weapon, he just runs, bullets pinging around him. The sniper gets down from his perch and gives chase, but luckily he went to the Stormtrooper school of target shooting so Ianto gets away. Frobisher house. The girls have stopped chanting and mom is getting them some tea or hot chocolate or something. Frobisher’s phone rings and he announces that he has to get that, but they should just go to bed and try not to worry about the fact that the children were just turned into human megaphones again. It’s boss lady on the phone. She’s standing beside the smoking pit that used to be the Hub. She announces that target one has been eliminated, but they’re still chasing two and three. “We can’t have witnesses,” he hisses. He tells her to not call again until she is standing over their disemboweled corpses. Or words to that effect. Decker arrives at his front door as he hangs up. He says he’s run the translation. Frobisher lets him in after making sure the wife and daughters are upstairs. Kitchen table. Decker hands Frobisher some papers that he says are “instructions” for something the 456 want them to build. Chrissy: Okay, I was just kidding in the last episode, but...we really are ripping off “Contact” now. Diandra: I doubt we can use the backup plan of “the Japanese built one too” this time though. Frobisher puzzles at the lengthy instruction manual and asks why the hell they’re using the children to broadcast the “we are coming” message if they can communicate in this much detail? Decker’s like ‘duh. Because they can and because it intimidates us.’ Chrissy: Also, it’s much more dramatic. I mean, why send an official letter through coded channels when you can hack in to the intercom and declare your intentions to burn down the entire building? Diandra: I’m regretting getting you that copy of “Office Space”. Chrissy: STOP STEALING MY DAMN STAPPLER! Gwen obviously didn’t get very far since she’s pulling up on the other side of Millenium Stadium and stopping the ambulance. The remaining assassin in the back pockets the syringe he was getting earlier and waits for her. She climbs in the back, holds a gun to his head and demands to know who he works for. “NHS,” he offers. Unamused, she fires a shot past his head and screams the question again. Except since it’s a closed space he probably can’t hear her anymore as that should have rendered him deaf in at least one ear. She reminds him that for all she knows her friends are dead, so she has no qualms about shooting him because vengeance. He blurts that he works for the government and he’s just following orders. She says that would put them on the same side. He makes a very poor attempt to stab at her with the syringe and she shoots him in the foot. She demands, over the sound of his screams, to know why the government would try to destroy Torchwood. He whimpers that he really is just following orders so, you know, it’s not like they tell him anything. She hears sirens outside and ditches him. Back at the Crater/former Hub, Boss Lady is barking orders at the gathering emergency personnel and police. This includes Andy so he can pipe up when she tells one of her goons that there are still two suspects in the wind that are to be considered armed and dangerous: Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper. Andy says wait, no...Gwen Cooper isn’t a terrorist. Isn’t Boss Lady anti-terrorism? She brushes him off and orders the goon to raid their homes. Andy repeats that Gwen Cooper is NOT a terrorist. She rounds on him, doing her best impression of a snake, and notes that he probably knows where Gwen lives, doesn’t he? Gwen has apparently already figured out they’ll track her down in this way as she bursts into the bedroom, waking Rhys and announcing that they have to leave right NOW because somebody is trying to kill her and they’ll be coming for him next. Boss Lady’s car. Andy is in the back giving directions reluctantly. Oh, Andy. Gwen is running around searching for keys and yelling at Rhys to get dressed faster. She notices he has a phone and a book in his hand and yells at him that they won’t have TIME to read, and these people can trace phones. He snaps that he’s never gone into hiding before, so HOW THE HELL WOULD HE KNOW? Andy says they’re not going in there guns blazing, are they? Boss Lady asks how far away they are. Two minutes, he grumbles. They start readying their weapons. Gwen’s phone rings. Rhys goes to answer it, ignoring Gwen’s yelps of protest. He says ‘but...it’s just Ianto!’. She growls and likely inwardly curses herself for probably not the first time for marrying a flaming idiot. But she answers. Ianto is at a phone booth somewhere. He asks if she’s heard from Jack yet. Erm. He was just splattered all across the Hub. He may need more than a few minutes to come back to life this time. Chill. Gwen asks if he thinks Jack really survived that. Ianto says well... “he usually does.” Gwen says she talked to one of the guys chasing them and he said he’s working for the government. Ianto doesn’t think that makes sense. Gwen wants to know how the hell they got close enough to Jack to plant a bomb INSIDE HIM. Ianto says Jack told him Rupesh was there and he was killed so...he must have had something to do with it. Rhys finds the keys under the couch cushions and holds them up triumphantly. Gwen says great, he can take the bag and go get the car ready. Then she turns back to the phone and asks where she can pick Ianto up. He says something, but it sounds like a random jumble of sounds. Chrissy: Sounded Welsh, actually. Diandra: Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what I said. I guess they just determined that they shouldn’t say the name of an actual place just in case somebody is listening. She asks him to remember the last place they had ice cream together. He says he doesn’t eat ice cream because it gives him a headache. She peaks out the window to see the Boss Lady’s truck headed down the street toward the car Rhys just got into. She hangs up, runs outside and fires a couple bullets at the truck before jumping in the passenger seat and yelling at Rhys to drive. They take off in a squeal of tires. Boss Lady asks if Andy believes she’s a terrorist NOW. They start to follow, but all the tires on the truck have suddenly gone flat. Andy points this out and asks what sort of terrorist would just shoot out the wheels. Gwen and Rhys pull into what is apparently some sort of parking lot somewhere and Gwen announces that they need to ditch the car because those guys who are after them can trace it. And they need to keep moving. She grabs the bag he packed and starts power walking away. He runs to keep up, yelping that it might be better if they gave themselves up and tell somebody what just happened. She says she’ll tell somebody when she KNOWS what’s happening, but for now they need to go underground. You know, maybe you could tell Rhys about the whole bomb thing so he can better grasp the urgency of the situation. Just a thought. Rhys says fine, but at least let him carry the bag so she doesn’t have to juggle it if she needs to shoot again. She kisses him and shoves the bag in his arms. Armed men break down Rhiannon’s door and demand to know where Ianto is. They brush past a startled Rhiannon in her bathrobe and burst into the kids’ rooms to scare the shit out of them as well as the parents’ bedroom to find her slob of a husband naked and mostly asleep. Chrissy: Yeah, did we really have to see that? Diandra: Apparently. Ianto is walking near Cardiff castle when a van pulls up and he freezes, panicked. It turns out to be a newspaper delivery van. Once it leaves, he picks up one of the papers and looks at the headline about the “we are coming” thing. Chrissy: And then a little black car pulls up and some guys shove him in the trunk. Diandra: Ha. No. Morning. Mrs. Frobisher is watching the news where somebody is already questioning whether this could all be a way of distracting us from what’s REALLY GOING ON. Yes, every child on the planet is involved in a conspiracy to distract their parents from the real issues by delivering a creepy message at exactly the same time in a language that less than half of them even understand. Sure. Chrissy: Well, it sounds crazy when you put it like that. Frobisher comes into the kitchen and stares at the girls eating breakfast awkwardly for a minute before asking if they can keep their phones on today. “Why,” they ask, annoyed, because of course they do. Chrissy: God, Dad, just because aliens can control us doesn't mean you have to get all hyper and worry about where we are all day! Apparently they don’t really believe anything happened (it’s all a conspiracy!) since the older one jokes about this being a new thing since they were possessed by the “devil”. The younger one reminds him that if phones go off in school they will be confiscated until Friday. Plus one for British schools. American parents would lose their shit if we tried that. Frobisher says just keep them on mute then. Mrs. Frobisher follows him to the door and launches into a rant about how she puts up with all the secret phone calls and emergency meetings because Official Secrets Act, but THIS is about their children. Frobisher says there’s nothing to worry about. She says yes, that’s why he was scared shitless last night. He says yes, well...it’s disturbing, but there isn’t any lasting damage and it could possibly be over now. She says this isn’t a FAD. This happened to the children of some friends of theirs who live in CANADA. It’s not over. He says yeah, well...just make sure the girls keep their phones on and don’t come home alone. He goes back to give the girls kisses on the cheek and the older one notes that it MUST be serious then. They start chanting “we want a pony” in an approximation of the monotone, robotic 456 message and he rolls his eyes and turns to the wife like ‘see? Nothing to worry about. They’re still little shits.’ Alice is listening to a news report about a mysterious explosion in Cardiff bay area last night. Nobody is claiming responsibility for it. Stephen pipes up that that’s where Jack lives, isn’t it? We continue this news report to Frobisher’s office, where Lois watches rescue crews pick through the damage from the blast the reporter says could be felt five miles away. The whole area is sealed off. She goes to her desk and uses Bridget’s log in to look up Torchwood again, checking the pictures in the article against the footage on the television to confirm that it is, in fact, the same area. Frobisher is explaining that Jack Harkness is very difficult to kill. No, not really. He just doesn’t stay dead for long. Anyway, they think it had something to do with the hub, which is why they had to take out the whole location. Turns out he’s talking to the Prime Minister, who says he couldn’t POSSIBLY be alive after that. Frobisher is like yeaaaaaaaahhhh, we’re waiting for verification still. Prime Minister says what about this instruction manual the 456 sent them. It doesn’t seem to make sense. Frobisher says yeah, he doesn’t get it either, but he’s told the translation is right and Decker has a team already started working on it. PM asks if they can see it. Frobisher says they won’t have anything to show until 16:00. PM grumbles about them building something without even knowing exactly what it is. Frobisher wants to know if the 456 contacted any other country. Chrissy: I mean, not that that would be an issue or anything. We didn’t have any sort of exclusivity agreement. Diandra: We can talk to any countries WE want to talk to too. We don’t need their permission. PM says intelligence doesn’t see any sign of it. Frobisher asks how long they can keep this secret because the last message was “we are coming BACK” and everyone is probably wondering when the hell they could have been here before. The PM tries to dismiss him, but Frobisher awkwardly says he just wants the PM to know how grateful he is that he’s trusting him with this responsibility because normally he’s just a middleman in state affairs. PM notes that he won’t exactly be thanking him once he realizes the front line he put him on is the “first to fall”. Boss Lady stands beside the crater while some guys climb in. One of them finds an arm, but assures her that it isn’t attached to a body. Alice is calling Jack’s phone and leaving a worried voicemail for him to call when he gets this message. Chrissy: Which he will as soon as he gets a new phone and reactivates his number. Maybe. Diandra: Once he figures out how to add all the contacts again. Lois closes the files on Torchwood she was looking at when Bridget approaches. Bridget notices the weird look on her face and asks if everything is okay. Lois is like ‘what? I wasn’t doing anything! I mean...nothing is wrong! Why would you think I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing?’ She says the car is waiting for them. Boss Lady calls Frobisher to report that they have an arm, a shoulder and “the remains of a head”. Nothing else. They put it in a body bag, but really all they needed was a grocery bag. Frobisher asks if it’s Harkness. Chrissy: No, it’s some innocent bystander who was caught in the blast. Oopsie. Frobisher tells her to bring whatever they have in and keep it under surveillance. He starts walking with Bridget and Lois trails after like ‘um...so...if I’m not being too nosy here...that name sounds familiar. Is that the guy from Torchwood? The one who was trying to contact you yesterday saying he could help?’ Frobisher says he can’t help anymore. Lois asks if he’s sure because he claimed Torchwood are experts on this sort of thing. Frobisher rounds on her and asks if he really said that. Bridget rolls her eyes and calls Jack an “arrogant sod.” Chrissy: Granted, but that doesn’t make him wrong. Diandra: Although he does tend to do a lot of bullshitting because “expert” is kind of a stretch. Frobisher tells Lois that Jack was in the middle of that bombing in Cardiff, so...you know...he’s basically liquefied. Bridget seems stunned by this. Lois asks her – as Frobisher storms away – if that means whoever did the bombing is behind the children thing. Like they needed him out of the way? Bridget snaps at her that none of this is her job and she should perhaps stay out of it and shut up. Or words to that effect. Ianto has circled back to the crater and watches from a safe distance as they load what is left of Jack into a van. He writes down the license plate on his hand. A black car is parked outside Rhiannon’s place and the agents inside are taking pictures of her idiot husband fixing the door that was broken down last night. He makes a face and grabs the newspaper before going inside. A card in an envelope falls out of the newspaper. The male hellspawn tells him in passing that it’s probably from Uncle Ianto, but he should keep it quiet because somebody could be listening. Unlike what you just did. So the idiot gives Rhiannon the card and starts ranting toward where he thinks the bugs could be about police states and traumatizing children. Rhiannon tells him to shut up and runs to her room. We see her stare at the inside of the card, where Ianto has written “where dad broke my leg, at noon. Bring a laptop. I.” Jack’s “body” is brought to some sort of bunker and Boss Lady directs the men to put the bag in a cell. Rhys is trying to get money from an ATM. He swears at it and tells Gwen that his account is frozen too. Also, the high tech facility just pinged their location and can see them on the security footage of the ATM. He asks what they’re going to do now. She says they need to get to London because whoever wants them dead will inevitably end up there. Rhys thinks that means they should be on the OTHER SIDE of England at the very least. Gwen says she needs to talk to somebody, but she doesn’t have any numbers anymore. Boss lady goes into a room with a security guard monitoring a camera feed from the room they put Jack in. She asks if there’s any change. How long has it been, exactly? The guy sighs like ‘no, and if you’re going to ask me that every five minutes I will quit.’ Also, can they release Rupesh’s body to his family yet? Boss Lady ignores this, leaning in for a closer look at Jack’s body bag...which is moving. They go down into the cell and the guard unzips the bag to find a skeleton with bits of bloody tissue attached to it, which thankfully includes some closed eyes. Boss Lady rants at him that he was supposed to keep an eye on this thing. She orders him to get it out of the bag and put it in the manacles attached to the wall. Chrissy: No, really, lady. I quit. Boss Lady stomps out to call Frobisher and tell him that they don’t need to wait for the DNA test. It is DEFINITELY Jack. Wanna guess how we know? “Jesus Christ,” Frobisher mutters. Chrissy: Oh, don’t flatter him. Diandra: Although if it takes him three days to come back... Chrissy: No. We’re not going there. Boss Lady says if he can survive THAT, there’s probably nothing they can do to kill him. Chrissy: Strap him to a nuke and launch him into space? Diandra: Yes, because that worked so well with Superman. “I don’t have time to worry about this, Johnson,” Frobisher snaps. Good lord, it took a long time to get her name. Decker meets him and his assistants as they come out of the elevator (oh, right...apparently phones work in elevators in English TV land too) and hands them some hard hats. Frobisher barely acknowledges him and asks what happened to Cooper and Jones. Johnson says um...they’re still working on that, but they flagged Gwen at an ATM. Frobisher says they need the whole team “out of the way by tonight”. Actually, it turns out Decker was giving everyone but Lois a hat, which means she has to stay outside. The camera stays with her as she gets only a glimpse of somebody welding a piece of metal. Rhys is breaking into the back of one of his company’s cargo trucks, which he says is guaranteed to contain food as well as a ride to London. He boosts her in and follows to find her standing in the middle of a shit load of raw potatoes. She says well...it’s food all right. Chrissy: Well, I have it on good authority that they are technically still edible, although they don’t really have the same nutritional content until they’re cooked. Also, they taste like crap. Diandra: That authority being Mark Watney? Chrissy: Too obvious? They climb on top of the crates just in time to avoid being spotted as the driver returns and sticks his head inside to see why there’s a loose strap on the cargo. Rhys asks Gwen for his penknife. She says no, really, they’re not eating raw potatoes here. He says no, now that the driver just re-secured the tie down they’re going to need to cut their way back out. Rhiannon’s husband gathers all the hoodlum kids in the area to go harass the “perverts” who are watching their house. While the agents are distracted, Rhiannon sneaks out to her car with the laptop. Johnson watches the security feed as the body chained to the wall, now mostly covered in skin but still looking like a burn victim, starts shrieking. The guard shivers and says he would have been better off staying dead. Well, it’s not like he has a CHOICE in this. Meanwhile, Rhys is complaining about how uncomfortable the potato crates are. Chrissy: Oh, well, aren’t we a princess? Also, I saw you type “potatoe” and then quickly delete it over there, Ms. Quayle. Diandra: Shut up. My fingers forget if I’m using singular or plural all the times. He asks how Gwen is doing. She says she’s doing just peachy. You know, other than the fact that her best friend had a bomb go off INSIDE him last night and she’s been on the run from people trying to kill them ever since. Oh, and she’s travelling at 70MPH on top of a crate of potatoes and feels like she might vomit. Rhys says motion sickness? Er...well...now is probably not the best time to mention this, but... He has a few seconds of excitement at the news that she’s pregnant before losing his shit that they were just running from people with GUNS who tried to BOMB her and they’re still in hiding. She says yes, well, at least he carried her bag back there. I’m actually not exaggerating that exchange at all. He yelps that that’s not funny and this changes EVERYTHING. Well, yeah, eventually. But not right this minute because she says they’re “still up the same creek and we need a paddle”. Rhys says yeah, but now there’s three of them in the boat. You know...it probably would have been better if she hadn’t told him and waited until she started showing symptoms. Three weeks is really early and anything could go wrong even if she wasn’t running around under dangerous conditions. There’s a reason you’re supposed to wait to tell people. Chrissy: Yeah, but it’s a TV show. Where you can carry a baby to term in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and it can survive without you. Diandra: Ugh. Don’t get me started on the stupidity surrounding Judith. That’s only on the show by the way. The books deal with that much more realistically. Chrissy: Yes, because that’s what I look for in zombie apocalypse fiction. Realism. Diandra: Shut up. Rhiannon is waiting for Ianto at a picnic table near a playground. Ianto arrives, dusty and dirty but still barely disheveled. She reacts with alarm anyway. He’s looking around suspiciously and she assures him she wasn’t followed. Well, not by the men who were parked outside her HOUSE anyway. He sits and notes that she got his reference. She says yeah, but dad didn’t break his leg on PURPOSE. They’re looking at kids on the swings. He says dad pushed too hard. Rhiannon says he should have held on tighter. But forget about that: how did he come to look the way he does again? Ianto explains that somebody tried to kill him and the people he works with using a bomb and he doesn’t know why. She yelps in alarm and asks what the hell sort of civil servant he is anyway. Chrissy: He works for the post office. Diandra: Pretty sure that’s only a problem in this country. Rhiannon asks if everyone else is okay. He says Gwen is alive but he has no way to contact her. He doesn’t know anything else, certainly nothing about Jack. Rhiannon asks if that’s his boss the one he’s...you know... Chrissy: Engaging in gland to gland combat with? Diandra: ................... Chrissy: What? Ianto says Jack’s fine. He’s...let’s say difficult to get rid of. But he needs to find him. The noises from the playground stop suddenly and they realize it’s because the kids have gone into standby mode again while the 456 prepare transmission. We go back through what looks like the same footage of children in other playgrounds to establish that it’s everywhere. Back on the potato truck, Rhys is talking baby names. He gets as far as announcing that if it’s a boy they should call him “Edward” before the truck suddenly stops because a line of children are frozen in the middle of the street. The message this time is “we are coming tomorrow.” Chrissy: Oh, sorry, we meant tomorrow according to our calendars on Rygelian Five. In Earth time that’s either in five hours or next week. We always mess up the conversion. Bridget relays this news to Frobisher, who says “shit” and grabs for his phone. Clement, meanwhile, is in a pub weirding everyone the hell out. Chrissy: Oh, because that’s the first time they’ve seen a guy act weird? Diandra: Well, presumably he's sober though. Ianto announces that this must have something to do with whatever happened to his people because this is what they were working on when they were blown up. The transmission ends abruptly and the kids go back to their activities as if nothing happened. Clement is told by the bartender what he was repeating over and over. He says tomorrow? She’s sure? Then he makes a face and asks if they can smell that. Chrissy: Hey, he who smelt it... He runs out into the street shrieking that “they” are coming and he can SMELL it. Yeah. This is why you were in the funny farm. Ianto tries to talk to one of the kids on the playground and her mother calls him a pervert and tells him to piss off. Rhiannon hangs up her cell phone and tells Ianto that David and Mischa were doing it too. Duh. She asks what this is all about. Ianto says he doesn’t know yet, but this is what his team does. She begs him to do something about it then. Yeah, he just said that’s what they were doing when somebody tried to blow him up. It’s not like he’s been sitting on his ass twiddling his thumbs. Chrissy: Or sitting on Jack and twiddling something else. Diandra: Is everything a euphemism to you? He says he needs to find Jack first and holds out his hands for the laptop. She asks how the laptop is going to help as she hands it over. He says he took down the number of the van Jack was put in. Rhiannon stares at him like ‘wait...seriously?’ He says with the right programs you can track any vehicle. Then he asks for her car keys. She is less enthusiastic about handing those over, but that’s likely because she’s going to be stranded now. He apologizes, thanks her and runs off. “Be careful,” she yells after him impotently. Lois and Bridget are fielding phone calls. Frobisher tells Bridget to get his children on the phone however she can and then he needs to speak to the Prime Minister. In that order. Before he can walk away, Lois announces that there’s a call waiting for him. He growls at her to take a message. She says it’s the Home Secretary. Also, his wife wants him to call back. He sighs and disappears into his office. The next call Lois takes is from Gwen, calling from a phone booth, demanding to speak to the Doctor. I mean Frobisher. Lois offers to take a message. Gwen says she’s with Torchwood and she needs to see him as soon as possible, so...can she set up a meeting? Lois pulls up the file on Gwen on her computer for...some reason while she hems and haws. She says she’s not sure because he’s very busy. Gwen says yeah, no shit, who is this? What happened to Bridget? Lois says um...she’s on another line. Gwen asks if Lois knows what Torchwood is, because if she does she should know how critical their specific skill set could potentially be right now. Chrissy: Thanks. I just heard that in Liam Neeson’s voice. Gwen says they can help, but somebody claiming to be working for the government is trying to kill them. Lois wonders why the government would be trying to kill the people who could help. Gwen says that’s exactly what she’s trying to determine and why she needs to see Frobisher. “You have to believe me.” Lois says she does, really, but... she puts Gwen on hold as Frobisher comes out and tells her to call his wife and tell her he’ll call as soon as he can, but he’s talking to the PM right now. Bridget announces that she’s putting a call from his kids’ school through. Gwen says if Lois is stalling so she can trace the call... Lois interrupts that she’s not. Really. She’ll set up the meeting. Bridget goes into Frobisher’s office to announce that the PM is on his way and he’ll be “there” in ten minutes. Frobisher scrambles to follow her. Gwen and Rhys are sitting in what looks like a fast food restaurant. Rhys asks if they can trust this guy. She says he’s “our man in the government” so if they can’t they’re really screwed. And they have to trust SOMEBODY. Lois comes into the restaurant and, knowing exactly what Gwen looks like, walks right up and introduces herself. Gwen is like um...I said Frobisher. Not the girl who just started working for him. Lois sits down next to Rhys and says um...he’s not coming. And this is probably a horrible mistake. She read the files on Torchwood and some of the things they’ve done...they’re basically national heroes... Gwen interrupts that she’s not signing an autograph or anything and demands to know why she’s not talking to Frobisher right now. Lois says because she’s pretty sure he wouldn’t talk. He’d just kill her. You know, seeing as how he gave the order to have Jack Harkness killed. Rhys mutters that they really are fucked then. Lois lists all the other names on the kill list and asks if Gwen knows any of them. No. Lois says they were all killed on the same day and she did NOT sign the official secrets act to cover up murders and commit a possible treason on day two. “What am I doing here? If you’re the bad guys, why doesn’t it say that on your file? And if you’re the good guys, who am I working for and why do they want you dead?” Rhys says they need to talk more about this, but they’re going to arouse suspicion if they stay here talking without ordering anything. He explains to Lois that they don’t have any money because they used the last of the coins they had to call her. Lois sighs and hands him some money to go order something. After he leaves, Lois says that everyone in the office seems to think that what’s going on with the kids has something to do with aliens. Chrissy: Gee, can’t imagine why. Oh, and by the way, they’re building something big on the top floor of MI:5. Gwen says hold up: what are they building? Lois has no idea, but she thinks they’re getting ready for something. But she repeats that it makes no sense that Frobisher suddenly wants the supposed alien experts out of the way if they think aliens are landing tomorrow. Gwen agrees that something is fishy there, but she’s hoping to figure out what’s going on. She asks if Lois has heard anything about Jack or Ianto Jones. Lois says Ianto is missing and she was told Jack is dead. Gwen grumbles that that can’t possibly be true. Lois says yeah, it’s weird because Frobisher said something about keeping him under surveillance, which isn’t something you normally do with a dead body. Holding cell. Jack has now fully recovered and is screaming at whoever is behind the camera in the cell. We only see him from a distance via said camera’s feed, however, as he is completely naked and censors tend to frown on that sort of thing. Also, I’m pretty sure those words on the feed are covering up just enough of the screen to cover him strategically. Chrissy: Not that you’re looking or anything. Diandra: Kind of hard not to. Chrissy: Sure. He screams at whoever it is to come in here and face him like a man. Chrissy: Oh, you’re going to feel stupid when you see that it’s actually a woman. A hole opens in the ceiling over him and Johnson peers down at him like ‘boo’. He asks who the hell she is and what this is all about. She says since he can’t die it would be “foolish” to tell him anything. Also, since she can’t kill him, she’ll have to settle for “containing” him. She steps back and a truck backs up to fill the entire cell with wet cement. Because we’re really ramping up the morbidity of this season. Ianto is watching from a safe distance, but he’s apparently close enough to hear everything as he looks distraught while Jack screams and splutters. Gwen asks if Lois knows where they’re keeping Jack. Lois says she has a floor plan of the place in her bag. She pulls it out and waits while a waitress delivers Gwen and Rhys’ food before handing it to Gwen. Rhys just descends on his plate like a vulture. Lois says it’s a military compound and it’s where she heard Frobisher tell them to take him. Gwen ponders how they can get inside. Lois says well, actually, Frobisher just authorized the release of a body...she hands Gwen a file on Rupesh. Gwen isn’t surprised as she figures they must have assumed he was with them. Lois says the undertaker has an appointment to pick him up at 5:30 and she’s guessing it would be easier to get to an undertaker than get inside a military facility, so she mapped the route he will be taking and identified the best spot to intercept him where there wouldn’t be any witnesses. Also, she has the information on the guy he’s supposed to contact once he gets to the compound. Gwen stares at her for a second and says when this is all over she should totally come to see her about getting a job with them. So Gwen and Rhys intercept the van, strip the undertaker down to his underwear, tie him up and leave him in the empty coffin by the side of the road. But since Gwen is a good Brit she assures the man screaming angrily into a gag that she’s sorry but this is all in the interest of national security. The PM arrives at the top floor of the building Lois just told us is MI:5. Frobisher and Bridget meet him and they head for the build site. PM asks if the 456 have made any further contact. Frobisher says no, not since they sent the design for this device. But he has two people on the radio frequency 24/7 sending out messages. PM asks if there are any signs of them approaching. Frobisher says no, but then there wasn’t anything last time either. The PM looks at the giant glass enclosure the workers are building and wonders aloud what it’s FOR. Chrissy: It’s for processing food. Wanna guess what they consider “food”? Diandra: I’ll give you a hint: they call it “soylent”. When Gwen and Rhys arrive at the compound, Rhys is dressed in the undertaker’s clothes. He gives the name of the corporal they’re supposed to meet while Gwen thumbs through paperwork. The soldier who came out to greet them was obviously not hired for his intelligence as he mistakenly hears that they’re here to pick up the corporal and asks when the hell THAT happened. Gwen blinks and says um...no, and reads the “deceased”s name from the paperwork like she’s never seen it before. The guard breaths a sigh of relief and says sorry, the guy owes him money, so... He checks the back of the van and waves them through. They pull up to a building with more guards and Rhys frets that they’re not going to get away with this. Gwen notes that Rhys really shouldn’t be here. He thinks that’s rich coming from the pregnant lady and then says something probably along the lines of “too late to turn back now”, but I can’t be sure. The guard who meets them directs Rhys to the door he can back up to and escorts Gwen inside. She makes awkward small talk about how this place probably doesn’t get many bodies. He says no, but they have three at the moment. Chrissy: Soon to be four once my boss figures out I’m telling you shit. The guard doesn’t think she looks like an undertaker. In fact, she kind of looks familiar... Gwen keeps giving him clipped answers and not looking him in the eye. The guard opens a fire door for Rhys to join them with the gurney. Not being able to make much headway with Gwen, he asks Rhys if she’s always this cagey and also, is she seeing anyone? Rhys has a knee jerk ‘she’s off the market and pregnant and if you so much as LOOK at her I will cut your balls off’ reaction before Gwen can make a ‘shut the hell UP’ gesture. The guard looks back and forth between them for a few uncomfortably silent beats, then notes that they’re a couple. Chrissy: Brilliant guess there, Sherlock. He shakes his head and goes to open the door to a cell while Gwen continues to make “zip it!” gestures at Rhys. Once they’re inside the room, the guard gestures at Gwen and apologizes to Rhys that he didn’t mean any offense, but...you know...can’t blame him for trying. He unzips the body bag and asks Gwen to verify that it’s the right person. Gwen says yep and pushes the button on her pen electronics scrambler. The guard’s walkie comes to life immediately as the guy at the control center asks it everything’s okay because the camera stopped. Gwen waits for him to assure the guy that everything’s fine and he’s just checking the paperwork before knocking him out with the butt of her gun. She grabs the keys from his belt and hands them to Rhys, who goes to unlock the next cell over while she knocks out the other camera in the hall. She goes inside this identical cell and knocks out THAT camera and the guy at the control desk sounds the alarm. Of course, this body isn’t Jack either, and now she’s running out of time and security is coming so she shoves Rhys aside before he can unlock the last cell and just shoots the lock out. “What the hell is that,” she spits as the door opens on a concrete wall. Guards come in and she ducks behind the door with Rhys and opens fire, although I don’t know how long she thinks this strategy is going to work. Guards appear on the other end of the hall, this group led by Johnson who suggests that she maybe put down her guns because she’s just as trapped as the man inside that cell. Chrissy: CLUNK Diandra: Yeah, that was some sparkling dialogue right there. Gwen slowly goes to put the guns down and right at that moment the entire concrete block rips free of the building, being driven backwards on a forklift by Ianto. Gwen and Rhys run out after it in the chaos and jump in the cab of the forklift, Gwen firing at the armed tactical team giving chase. They don’t get very far before Rhys yelps that they’re going to catch up. She has Ianto stop so Rhys can jump in a tanker semi parked nearby. He drives it into the middle of the road outside of the compound, blocking their pursuers exit, and runs back to the forklift while Gwen shoots the tanker and it explodes. Okay, well. That works, I guess. Johnson calls Frobisher as the forklift drives away to announce that Jones and Cooper stopped them at a roadblock. Also, they have Jack. Frobisher reminds her that “if he talks, we’re in deep, deep shit.” Ianto pulls next to a car parked at the edge of a cliff and tells Gwen to go get it started because they only have two minutes. Gwen and Rhys scurry to the car while he raises the cement block over the edge of the cliff and drops it. It shatters into chunks on impact. Chrissy: Because it was actually hollow on the inside. Diandra: Apparently. Ianto jumps in the car and they drive down to the bottom of the canyon or quarry or whatever this is just as Jack gasps awake and stands to greet them, covered in dust, the newly detached manacles and nothing else. He’s like ‘so...what’s everybody else been doing while I’ve been regrowing my entire body, being buried in cement and broken out again by a ridiculous stategy ripped from a Loony Toons cartoon?’ Rhys tosses Gwen his coat, which she holds out to Jack while looking everywhere but down and fills him in on the ‘it’s happening tomorrow’ development. Her strategy of not looking proves difficult as Jack staggers past her, snatching the coat and just slinging it over his shoulder. Chrissy: First of all, thank you, show, for making up for the image of Rhiannon's husband's bare ass earlier. Second...I notice Ianto is just smiling back there. Diandra: They’re ALL trying very hard NOT to smile because, as John Barrowman is fond of pointing out: he was actually naked in this scene and they were not warned about that. Chrissy: Yeah. Somehow I doubt it’s anything they hadn’t seen before. Diandra: No, but you can see the increased struggle to not laugh as he gets closer to them because he had maxi pads strapped to his feet so he could walk on gravel. To the sound of various news reports whipping themselves into a frenzy over the added knowledge that whatever is happening is happening “tomorrow”, Frobisher, Bridget and a couple random women enter the room where Decker and the crew are removing the last of the plastic sheeting protecting the furniture set up around the glass case. Decker and some doctorish looking woman give Frobisher and Bridget a demonstration of what the thing does. They seal it tight and open a valve that pumps it full of a mixture of Nitrous Oxide, Hydrogen Chloride, Nitrogen, Fluoride, Nitrogen Cyanide, Acetone and...something I can’t make out. Chrissy: I’m impressed you got that much, really. “In short,” he concludes. “Poison.” Frobisher asks if that’s what the 456 breathe. Decker says yeah, maybe. Or they might eat it for all we know because we know absolutely nothing about them. Chrissy: Unlikely, but it might season and tenderize their food. Diandra: Moo. Bridget asks if it’s possible they could work out what sort of creature could thrive on gas with that sort of composition. Chrissy: No, but we can guess what sort of hellhole the planet they came from looked like. Diandra: Exactly. Decker says eh, maybe if they had all the time in the world, but... Frobisher says okay...now what? Decker says it’s not just the tank they built according to the 456 specifications. The whole room is laid out in the way they instructed. He looks around and suggests it looks like an “ambassadorial suite”. Or a “throne room”. Or...you know...a slaughterhouse. Chrissy: Oh, so you can see it? Good. I thought maybe you were building something some aliens ordered you to build without considering the possibility that the giant glass case filled with poison gas could be used for killing humans. Diandra: Nah. I'm sure we can trust a species that uses our young to convey their peaceful message of WE ARE COMING. Bridget asks how they’re supposed to “arrive tomorrow” if they need to be inside that thing. Decker has no clue. Chrissy: We’re going to put that on his tombstone. Bridget asks who else knows about this thing. Frobisher shrugs and says for all they know the 456 have sent the same instructions to every other country in the world and everyone else is keeping just as quiet about it as they are. Decker notes what Rhys and Gwen figured out earlier: all indications are that they’re specifically targeting Britain. He prompts Frobisher to explain to Bridget why that might be. Frobisher glares at him and slinks away. Decker steps up to the now completely smoke filled case and we get a long, lingering look at it before we go to the end credits. Chrissy: You know, I'm starting to see why Stephen Moffat might have wanted to ignore the fact that Frobisher looks exactly like the Doctor even if he acknowledged a previous appearance on "Doctor Who". There really isn't any way to fanwank this so it makes any sort of sense. Diandra: Well, also there's the fact that spin offs can usually be ignored by the "mothership". Although "Doctor Who" did sort of acknowledge this season when David Tennant was doing the Doctor's goodbye tour. Chrissy: Ugh. This is why I try not to think too hard about stuff. Diandra: Oh, is that the excuse you're using now? Chrissy: Watch it.