Characters / Torchwood: Miracle Day

Torchwood

For the Cardiff side, see Torchwood's character page.

The CIA

Rex Matheson

Rex Matheson

Played by: Mekhi Phifer

"What, you mean Wales is separate? It's like the British equivalent of New Jersey."

A hard-boiled CIA agent with zero patience for Torchwood's antics, Miracle Day's weirdness or Jack's... everything. Gets impaled on Miracle Day and has to live on with a giant hole in his heart (literally, and perhaps figuratively). Is very reluctantly roped into joining Torchwood.

• Arbitrary Skepticism: Immortality? Ok. Jack is several centuries old? Ridiculous. He also doesn't believe that aliens are the cause behind Miracle Day, and dismisses claims that Torchwood got their tech offworld.
• Big Damn Heroes He rescues the Torchwood crew not once, but twice.
  I am sick of Torchwood acting like amateur clowns.

• Deadpan Snarker: Rex has some killer lines. Largely due to his exasperation with Torchwood's unprofessional nature.
• Despair Event Horizon: Met when he witnesses Vera's execution in the overflow camps. Exaggerated when Esther is shot, and he has to make the choice to end the Miracle, ensuring that Esther dies.
• Determinator: Have an injury obtained from being impaled in the heart by a pole? No problem, just keep on going and find a way to end the Miracle. Nothing gets in the way of Rex when he sets out to accomplish a goal.

• Handicapped Badass: Rex spends most of the miniseries with a hole in his chest where his aorta should be. Doesn't stop him from running up multiple flights of stairs and playing the action hero.
• Healing Factor: At the end of the series, after having transplanted huge amounts of Jack's blood into himself to reverse the Miracle by introducing Jack's blood on both ends of the Blessing, it appears that he's now gained Jack's immortality.
• Hypocrite: He calls Esther out for visiting her sister in an attempt to say goodbye before the shit hit the fan. Never mind that, not twenty minutes later in the episode, Rex does the exact same thing only with his father. To be fair, however, Rex is trained for this sort of thing, while Esther isn't, and he isn't followed.

• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Emphasis on the Jerk. The Heart of Gold is in there, but it takes the Torchwood crew a bit to actually find it. He's also a casual homophobe, which is a source of endless entertainment for Jack.
  • It finally comes to the forefront when Esther is shot and Rex breaks down, merely asking Jack "What should I do!?", and is almost willing to let the Miracle continue if it means Esther will live. He ends up heeding Gwen's words to end the Miracle, apologizing to Esther, knowing full well ending the Miracle will mean her death.
• The Lancer: Which annoys him to no end. Torchwood's methods are too unprofessional for his taste.
  • But when he sees just what the government is doing to the Category 1s, he finally cuts all ties to them and now officially considers himself a member of Torchwood... at least to a certain degree.
  • By "The Gathering", Torchwood's lack of professionalism has actually become an in-joke between him and the other members. When he quickly finds out where they're hiding due to Gwen's presence, everyone laughs to themselves.
• Manly Tears: Practically his signature move.
• Skepticism Failure: Until the events of Episode 8 occur, when Jack proves beyond a shadow of a doubt it's possible.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
  • An undead man hurling insults at everyone? Hi Owen!
  • For bonus points, he ends up somehow retaining his immortality after Miracle Day ends, so he's now the American version of Jack!

Esther Drummond

Esther Drummond

Played by: Alexa Havins (2011)

"I'm kind of guessing alien doesn't mean foreign."

A CIA analyst whose curiosity attracts too much attention. Is asked by Rex to come help out when things go bad, and soon finds herself in way over her head.

• Action Girl: Averted. She isn't a fighter and it shows. However, she puts up an impressive and surprisingly realistic fight when actually attacked.

• Badass Bureaucrat: As of episode nine, Esther's skills at intelligence analysis qualify as this.
• Badass Bookworm: While not a trained fighter, she manages to put up an impressive fight against anyone who attacks her. Also, she's a CIA analyst and the team's brainiac.
• Break the Cutie: She tried to make sure her sister Sarah's children were taken care of by calling Social Services. Instead of working with her as she had hoped, they had Sarah committed and put the children into foster care. Of course, she only has herself to blame for not seeing it coming, since Sarah had boarded up every window out of fear of the miracle.
  • Now Sarah's trying to get herself set up as a Category 1 so she can die, since she feels she has no soul.
  • Even Better! Sarah also volunteered her kids to be Category 1.
  • And once more! Esther gets fatally shot in "The Blood Line", and there's the Hope Spot of Rex and Jack surviving... only Esther's Killed Off for Real.
• Combat Pragmatist: Justified - since she's not a trained fighter, the one time we've seen her fighting for her life she reacts like anyone desperate would and goes for the eyes, crotch, etc.
• Heroic BSoD: She has a breakdown after seemingly making Maloney a Category 1, which is about as close to killing someone as you can during the time of the Miracle. Made worse when Maloney still tries to kill her.

• Kill the Cutie: Nicest, most likeable character in this entire series. Of course she was going to get killed off.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Jack gives her this... only for it to mean literally nothing after she joins the team anyway.

• The Smart Guy: Being an analyst, Esther is more than qualified to be the brains of the team.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Toshiko with a touch of early Gwen.

Other characters

Vera Juarez

Dr. Vera Juarez

Played by: Arlene Tur

"Looks like someone changed the rules. Miracles got... easy."

Rex's doctor, whose first instinct when Miracle Day happens is to join as many medical panels and discussion groups as possible. Realises soon enough that talking won't save the world, and joins Torchwood.

• Fake Guest Star: She plays a much bigger role than Rhys in a few of the episodes, but is still billed as a "special guest star."

• Jumped at the Call: When the new medical system finally gets to be too much for her to handle, she joins Torchwood.

• Only Sane Woman: She is getting increasingly fed up with the chaos resulting from the overburdened medical care system. It backfires when an Obstructive Bureaucrat, cutting corners to save money, shoots her to prevent her from ratting him out. Then he puts her into one of the incinerators and burns her.

• Tsundere: "Stupid Rex, it's not like I like you or anything..."
• Vasquez Always Dies: Spicy, tough, no-nonsense, ambitious, determined? Yep. Of course, her counterpart Esther dies as well. So Vasquez just dies first.

Oswald Danes

Oswald Danes

Played by: Bill Pullman

"She should have run faster."

A convicted child rapist and murderer whose execution happened to take place on Miracle Day. Decides to manipulate the media and secure his freedom.

• Afterlife Avenger: In his last moments before blowing himself, the villains and the Blessing up, he brags about how he will chase his victim in hell.

• Dark Messiah: There are hints of it in episode 3, but he really skyrockets into it in episode 4.
• Deadpan Snarker: Oswald has some of the best lines in the series.
• Death Seeker: Jack suspects this of him, but Oswald seems content to stick with PhiCorp and his growing popularity. As it turns out, he does want to die - so that he can chase his victim into Hell.

• Easily Forgiven: Subverted. At the start of the series he's one of the most reviled men in all of America, even the police want to kick his ass. Then he cries on TV and people tweet with the hashtag #forgive so much it trends and apparently that means he's been redeemed. "End of the Road" makes a distinction here: as a celebrity, people idolize him. As a man, they still hate him.
• Expy: He was one part Freddy Krueger, and another part Hannibal Lecter. And it shows.
• Faux Affably Evil: Danes could give his Expy Freddy a run for his money. Pullman managed to create a friendly persona for Danes before reminding us why exactly this guy was evil incarnate.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Twice. He seemed to show some interest in reforming himself towards the middle of the series, and starts self-"medicating" to try and adjust himself to society (by hiring a hooker and trying to have a proper date). Unfortunately, he gets venomously made fun of for it, and violently storms off. Later he aligns himself with Torchwood, but the Blessing shows him his "true self", at which point he drops his remaining denial.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: To the point where Jack looses track.
• Hidden Badass: Managed to shadow (ie: stalk) Torchwood while on the run, and manages to overpower and tie up a delivery driver and hijack his van in order to get to Gwen.
• Manipulative Bastard: He easily is able to sway crowds of people during his sessions.
• New Era Speech: This is what PhiCorp hired him for.
• Obviously Evil: You mean the murdering pedophile is a villain?
• Off on a Technicality: He goes free on the technicality that his failed execution constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

• Villain with Good Publicity: Offered to him by Jilly. He turns it down, at first, but after some police brutality decides it might be a good idea. Unfortunately for him, that popularity was engineered to be temporary, which he finds out to his later horror.
• Villainous Breakdown: Appears to have suffered one live on TV. He goes through another one in the season finale upon seeing the Blessing. This was brought on because the Blessing, when seen in person, shows someone their true self.

Jilly Kitzinger

Jilly Kitzinger

Played by: Lauren Ambrose

"Frankly I think if the Devil himself were to walk this earth, he'd need representation."

A mouthy PhiCorp PR woman with impossible amounts of lipstick and her conscience very neatly tucked away. Thinks she can cope with Oswald Danes.

• Deadpan Snarker:
  Oswald: Get me a girl.
  Jilly: How old?
• Devil in Plain Sight: You mean that the aggresive, fast talking woman who dresses in red, wears a ton of red lipstick, and is a redhead to boot works for the bad guys?
• Even Evil Has Standards: She admits to Danes in "Escape to L.A." that while she'll willingly represent anyone, he disgusts her.
  Jilly: Personally? It's your hands. I can't look at your hands without thinking about what they did.

• Jumped at the Call: A dark example, when representative of the three families in Shanghai offers her the vaguely ominous job of "Writing History" she gladly and immediately accepts.
• Karma Houdini: Sure, she ends up on the run from the CIA, but she escapes and gets recruited to work for the Families directly.
• Lady in Red: Her outfits usually involve a lot of this color, plus her hair and very prominent lipstick. It conveys her aggresive and amoral aproach to most endeavors, and is very notoriously absent while in disgrace in her final scene.

• Meaningful Name: Her alias under the Families is Lucy Staten Meredith.
• Mook Promotion: She starts out as just another pawn of the Families via PhiCorp, but she impresses them enough that they let her in on their secrets and make her a part of their plans.

• Not Quite Dead: She trips during the escape from the Shanghai facility and is apparently caught up in the explosion. She actually makes it out without a scratch, going how by she looks not long after.
• Opportunistic Bastard: An opportunist, fast talking PR rep, she was mostly concerned with getting work. She represented the evil cooperation and the crazy murderer/child molester even she admitted was off putting, but her loyalties lie with whatever will get her to the top. Before approaching the murderer, she approached a doctor working with the heroes for the exact opposite goals.
• Perky Female Minion: To PhiCorp. And then to the Families.
  Vera Juarez: This is disgusting.
  Jilly Kitzinger: I KNOW!!
• Villainous Breakdown: After getting screwed over and slapped around by Oswald Danes, Jilly starts screaming and beating on him before abandoning him in a rage. She tried to give up on PhiCorp and turn her attention on less demeaning aspirations, but that led to becoming a recruit of the Three Families.

Angelo Colasanto

Angelo Colasanto

One of Jack's many ex-lovers. He met Jack in 1920s New York, and the two of them were bootleggers together.

• Et Tu, Brute?: Jack's reaction when Angelo betrays him.
• Immortality Seeker: After Jack left him. He does everything to keep himself alive through human technology in a bid to see Jack one last time. When Jack reunites with his former lover, he discovers how desperate and futile Angelo's treatments were. He became very old and eventually reached a decrepit state where his brain shut down and he became a vegetable, robbing him of that chance to get closure, with his body sustained by sheer luck, beyond even the limits of life support machines. Had the Miracle not happened when it did, his body would have already perished.
• Kiss of Death: Jack discovers Angelo in his old, comatose state and gives him a kiss, which has the unexpected side effect of negating the Blessing's gift of immortality on Angelo, because Jack's own undying factor got reversed. This causes Angelo to finally pass away.

• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A very big mistake. After Jack and Angelo stopped the Trickster's Brigade from using an alien parasite on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, soldiers ambushed the duo and assumed they were up to no good. Angelo saw Jack die once from a shot to the head and spent a year in prison due to being misinterpreted as a war criminal. When Angelo found Jack unscathed and waiting for him, he freaked out and believed this was the Devil. Angelo stabbed Jack, then witnessed his revival. Astonished, he showed this ability off at a butchery, where people kept killing him, and Angelo unwittingly caused the Three Families to seek out Jack as the source of immortality. Once Angelo tried to redeem himself, Jack jumped off a building and severed all ties with him.
• Timeline-Altering MacGuffin: Played with. Jack's future knowledge of the 20th century functioned like one. Angelo used this information to become wealthy, found a wife and had children and grandchildren.

The Three Families

The Three Families

"We are everywhere. We are always. We are no one. And soon the families will rise."

• Affably Evil: The finale shows Cousin and Mother to be the epitome of this. Mother is courteous, and speaks wonderfully of Jack and the Blessing. Cousin speaks with a tone that makes him seem like a preacher. Both of them constantly speak in nice, calm tones, with smiles on their faces... even as they explain their plan to take over the world, and rid the world of the weak, sick, and the poor.
• Ancient Conspiracy: Dating back to about the mid-1920's, give or take a few years.

• Mysterious Past: Jack had dealings with them in the past, though the reference is vague enough that even he doesn't seem to remember the incident. It turns out that it has to do with three businessmen who offered to buy him when his immortality was discovered by a butcher.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Even at the end, their ultimate goals are still not very well-explained.
• Time for Plan B: Their reaction to the "Miracle Day" plan failing is to prepare to activate "Plan B"
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Or rather Triangle Symbol Within a Cellphone Connection.
• We Are Everywhere: Yet at the same time are "no one". Which is actually correct: Since the three men they are descended from had over a thousand descendants (whose names have been wiped out), they are no one, and they have spread throughout the world, so they are everywhere.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Poor Ellis Hartley Monroe.

---