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Recap / Torchwood S 2 E 11 Adrift

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Gwen and Andy take a missing person search well past the Face on a Milk Carton.

Andy: Listen, I was going to ask...promise me you won't laugh. Have you got any vacancy's coming up? You know, with Torchwood? I was thinking, I'm great to work with...You know, tip 'em the wink?
Gwen: [hesitantly] Maybe, yeah.
Andy fails to become an Ascended Extra. Yet.

A teenager named Jonah disappears, and seven months later, PC Andy calls Gwen to ask if she knows what's going on. Also, he has feelings for her and didn't come to her wedding because of it. But being a regular Welsh lad, he doesn't angst about it and just wants to be mates with her.

After some thorough analysis, Tosh and Gwen realize that the Rift is spiking negatively, dragging people out of Cardiff.

Gwen bonds with Jonah's mum Nicki, instead of being at home with Rhys to talk about baby plans. Rhys is appropriately pissed off, but Gwen continues her investigation and realizes that dozens more people have gone missing recently.

She tries to tell Jack, but he tells her to let it go — there's nothing they can do for those people or for their families. (She also walks in on Jack and Ianto making out. Naked. In the middle of the Hub.)

Ianto wants to help her without Jack finding out, so he lets her know about a lighthouse just off the coast of Cardiff. Andy tries to tag along, but Gwen sneaks off without him and discovers that all of the Rift victims are kept in a locked-down Torchwood lighthouse dungeon. Jonah is there, massively scarred and traumatized, having spent decades elsewhen before the Rift randomly spit him back out in his proper time.

Jack explains that it was the best he could do for the victims. He does care, but he knows that involving the families would be worse than just taking care of the victims and making them comfortable.

Gwen disagrees. She takes Nicki to the lighthouse, and after some initial panic, the woman is reunited with her son. However, it also turns out that the victim spends 20 or more hours a day screaming continuously.

Jonah's mum never wanted that kind of closure, and she makes Gwen promise not to involve any more of the victims' families. Gwen goes home to Rhys for a proper dinner and a proper talk, where she is evidently in a very grim mood. Torn up by the final result of her hard work only making things worse for someone, she can't hold in the anguish and starts bawling her eyes out when Rhys asks what's wrong. Rhys cradles her and soothes the tears away.


Tropes:

  • Ambiguous Situation: Jonah says that after he disappeared off the bay barrage, he woke up in a world full of flames, but he was rescued by a man, who had a "rescue craft", which he thought was a building, but it was also "the last of a burning planet" as the Solar System burned. This carries the strong implication that he landed in Gallifrey, during the Last Great Time War, and he was rescued by the Doctor inside the TARDIS.
  • And I Must Scream: At some point during Jonah's decades-long wanderings, he gazed upon a dark star, the sight of which drives human beings mad. He's only coherent for a limited time every day; the rest of it, he literally screams in an inhumanly piercing voice.
  • Body Horror: The Torchwood Series 2 website's section for this episode had short testimonials from some of the patients. One of them mentions wires going into his body after the Rift transported him.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: Jonah suffered this fate when he looked into the heart of a dark star, which drove him mad and caused him to scream continuously for twenty hours every day.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Some drama could have been avoided if the facility staff had told Gwen the full details of Jonah's condition before letting her show him to Nicki. Or for that matter, if she had asked to know everything about Jonah's case before re-introducing him to his mother. Both sides failed to do due diligence here.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Gwen is on the receiving end of these multiple times in this episode, from Rhys, from Jack, from Andy, and finally from Nicki.

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