Cardiff goes blind.
There's a hunter out there in the darkness. With no escape, and the screaming getting louder, Jack Harkness and Yvonne Hartman each set out to save the city in their own ways.
Yvonne and Jack are organizing the Torchwood vault, and Yvonne advises Jack that he talk to Ng, whom he has been avoiding like the plague since Gwen left. Orr and Ng hear a strange noise, and then Yvonne receives a voicemail from Andy saying the city has gone blind and there are car crashes and panic.
Yvonne makes her way to Ng and Orr in the center of the Hub, where Orr has determined the entire city is blind. Jack brings her a pair of Night-Vision goggles, and she's called by Andy, who's being chased by a paranoid mob that believes the police can see. Elsewhere, a woman taking her baby through the city on a stroller is killed by a monster who echoes the sound around her. There's a barrier of darkness surrounding the city, and as some people try to push through, they are killed by the creature. In the Hub, Jack has the goggles working, and Yvonne goes out searching for Andy when Ng notices the sound at her station is echoing. Orr grows razor sharp teeth because of... something nearby. Colin is lost and stuck inside a church and calls Jack, and Jack goes after him, feeling he owes him for Colchester's death. Orr is feeling the creatures' urges as well, and tells Ng to run. Ng senses someone else's presence; God is standing nearby in the dark, silently. Ng begs to not be left alone. Jack rescues Colin from the church, where the crowd attacks him. Jack helps him escape but his goggles break. Yvonne and Andy determine the creature is responsible for the darkness, and is using that to make its hunt easier. Jack and Colin get to Ritz Tower, Colin's home, where Jack reveals that he got them there using nothing but his sense of direction. Yvonne and Andy, in a car, find the creature, which is made of such darkness it cannot be seen with the goggles. She directs Andy to shoot it through the car window, but he cannot see. They switch between the googles while driving so Andy can shoot the creature and so Yvonne can drive. Yvonne and Andy break and enter into an electronics shop and find strobe lighting. In Bute Park, the creature confuses the people with sound and begins devouring them. Andy realises that Yvonne used him to put the people there as bait. Jack stays with Colin. Yvonne uses unwitting Andy as bait and kills the creature, ending the darkness. Jack tells Colin he thinks he has become mortal again since Colchester's death. Andy convinces Yvonne to have a moment of vulnerability, and she takes off her goggles and is just like everyone else. She kisses him. Meanwhile, Colin and Jack begin kissing as well, when Mr. Colchester appears, yelling, "HARKNESS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY HUSBAND?!?!"
Tropes:
- A Day In The Lime Light: Andy Davidson gets his largest role in the series yet, one that's only going to increase. Also Colin's largest role in the series so far.
- The Bait: Yvonne Hartman has to lure the hunter in to kill it. What does she do? Risks Andy and many other innocent people's LIVES.
- Good is Not Nice: Yvonne Hartman places herself solidly into anti-villain protagonist here, she may be trying to save the city, but she goes about it in a quite wicked way.
- Foil: The entire episode (besides the plot) is about foils - Jack Harkness, his usual right good self, risking his (which he believes is now mortal) self to save one man, versus Yvonne Hartman - who wants to save the entire city via less than good methods.
- Dark Is Evil: Andy insists it's not as such, but the general reaction the city has to the darkness is that of chaos and disarray.
- Nothing Is Scarier: SOMETHING is making noises in the dark and drawing people into their deaths.
- Absurd Phobia: Yvonne Hartman - the most professional and scary woman in Torchwood... is afraid of the dark. Although in this particular case, it might be justified.
- Becoming the Mask: Because of Orr's empathic abilities as a psychomorph, they become what the monster fancies. Which incidentally gives them much of the monster's feral instincts.
- Super-Senses: The creature hunting in the dark hunts with echolocation and by drawing the blind in by repeating the noises nearby.
- Mama Bear: A woman is drawn in by the crying of her child, echoed by the creature, yelling that nobody better hurt her child. Not realizing it is the creature, she is eaten alive.
