Torchwood Episode 208 Recap: “A Day in the Death”

Eventually Owen is able to gently prod Parker into giving up the helmet. But first, Parker asks him to promise that he’ll come back and tell him all about the aliens, so he can have hope there’s something out there besides the darkness. Owen agrees, and Parker promptly starts hacking away like he’s going to cough up a hairball. Owen tries to revive him with oxygen, but he starts flatlining. So Owen tries to do mouth-to-mouth but realizes he can’t, what with his personal air tanks now permanently running on empty.

Up on the Roof, Owen tells Roofie that he had no breath to give Parker. I’m wondering why a millionaire with all this fancy medical equipment and a security squad on staff didn’t bother hiring a 24-hour nurse service, but what do I know. Owen tells Roofie that being unable to help this dying man was the “final straw” that led him to want to end it all.

Back in Parker’s Room, Tosh asks Owen what the bicycle helmet is doing. Now it’s emitting a pulse of light and making whale noises, making it less bicycle helmet and more like a fancy noise reduction machine you’d buy from Sharper Image to help lull you to sleep.

Tosh says energy levels are off the chart, like it’s going to blow. Owen says no worries; he’ll just hold it to his chest and try to absorb it. Tosh tells him he won’t survive, and he reminds her for the gazillionth time he’s already dead.

Then he makes his goodbyes, telling Martha she’ll be perfect to take his place, and snarking to Gwen and Ianto that “It’s been fun. Mostly.” Then he apologizes to Tosh. She says she loves him. He grabs the device to his chest, as the lights and whale noises crescendo.

Up on the Roof, Roofie demands to know what happened. Owen says that even though life seems like it’s all just darkness, “sometimes it’s not.” He proceeds to remove the glowing alien device from his backpack. She asks what it is. He explains that back in the 70s, NASA sent probes into space, with messages and pictures and music. This, he says, is the reply, although he doesn’t know what it says. Fortunately, I do. It says, “Please take us off your mailing list. We get enough spam as it is.”

Owen tells her it “sang to him,” and that it’s an example of “light in the darkness,” how sometimes things do get better.

We cut to Owen seeing Martha off, along with the rest of the team. As her services are no longer required, she’s leaving town. For those of you keeping track, she spent one episode totally kicking butt, followed by an episode where she was an elderly damsel in distress, culminating in an episode where she did diddly squat, a progression that, if you ask me, says a lot about how things work on this show.

Martha fondly embraces Owen, then frostily embraces Gwen. Then she approaches Jack …

Martha: Well, it’s been interesting.
Jack: Oh, it’s been fun. You know it has.

Then she thrusts her tongue down his throat, and when she comes up for air, she laughs and says, “Well, everyone else has had a go.” Jack chuckles politely, but nobody else finds this remotely funny, although I found it freaking hilarious. Jack tells her she can come back any time she likes, and she says, “Maybe I will. One day.” Say, when ratings start to tank mid-fourth-season.

Afterwards, in the Torchwood lounge, Tosh and Owen sit side by side. She asks him to promise her that he’ll talk to her whenever things get bad. He opens up to her and says he’s scared, particularly that if he closes his eyes, he’ll be “trapped in the darkness.”

He takes her hand. And I figured she’d then immediately push it off, run from the room, and try to pick up the first guy she sees who’s totally wrong for her, because now that Owen’s being so nice, it would only make sense for her to utterly lose interest in him.