Torchwood Episode 207 Recap: “Dead Man Walking”

In the morgue, Jack and Martha ready syringes with fluid the exact tint of a certain delightful tropical cocktail I’ve been known to enjoy. Meanwhile, Gwen helps ready Owen down in the conference room, asking him if he’s sure about this.

Owen: I can’t sleep. I can’t drink. I can’t shag. They are three of my favorite things.

Well, I’ll give him this; those sure make “raindrops on roses” and “bright copper kettles” sound like relative crap.

Owen says he’s not the same since he was brought back and he doesn’t want to be like whatever he’s becoming. Gwen grabs him in a bear hug and weeps. After a moment, he says, “I’m ready,” because he’d rather be embalmed alive than prolong a hug with her another minute.

Owen does the dead man’s walk through the vault and the Hub, and it’s filmed in such a way to look just like, well, Dead Man Walking. Between this and the “Sleeper” episode’s electric chair, this season has had so much capital punishment imagery it’s like the entire show has been relocated to Texas.

In the morgue, the Owen Scanner reads 95%. He urges them to start the embalming, but they’ve no sooner begun the injections when the Resurrection Glove makes a leap for Martha. Jack pulls it away and then it quickly scuttles around on its fingertips, like it’s looking to get back in its box before Morticia and Cousin It get back.

Even though they possess countless forms of alien weaponry inches away, Ianto’s instinct is to grab a broom-handle-like stick in his hand, like he’s Betty Rubble and just jumped on a chair after seeing a mouse. And because this show hasn’t ripped off the Alien movies quite enough, we next see the glove fly through the air and grab hold of the front of Martha’s face. She screams, and after much struggle, they pull it off her. Then Owen blows it to smithereens.

Then they all see Martha’s face and gasp. Jack says, “It’s the glove! It did this to her!” If you’re wondering what the glove did that was so horrifying, the answer is it gave her a lousy make-up job. You always hear these special effects, behind-the-scenes shows carry on about the time and effort to age actors, and the results always, always look fake. For the life of me, I don’t understand why they don’t just grab some old actress from central casting and say, “Oooh, look, it’s old Martha.” We’d get the point.

Just then, the Owen Scanner reaches 100%, and Owen himself starts with the ink eyes and “walk the earth” speech again. This time, though, he screams in pain as black smoke shoots out of his eyes and mouth. The smoke swirls once around the room while everybody gapes at it. Then …

Then there’s this totally bizarre edit where all of a sudden Jack gasps awake in a car, like the entire series up until now has been one long dream and now Patrick Duffy’s in his shower.