Torchwood Episode 209 Recap: "Something Borrowed"

We open with a scene we’ve already seen, the one from this season’s first episode when Gwen breaks the news to Jack about her engagement and he actually seems to care. You know, the one that brought me to the brink of barfing.

But I actually don’t mind this remembrance of things past, because I believe this episode pretty much puts the final nail in the Gwack coffin. It’s also among the more funny, campy, scary, and utterly entertaining episodes they’ve given us. But then again, ever since I conned my mother into letting me stay home to watch Luke and Laura by swearing it was for a school project, I’m a sucker for wedding episodes, the more disastrous the better.

Back in the present, we cut to a crowded disco-like bar on a TGI-Friday night. We see two buxom harpies drunkenly cackling like they’re one witch short of being the opening scene of Macbeth. Oddly dressed in matching red shirts and cowgirl hats, they’re talking about Gwen, and how it’s the ceremony she’s supposed to be late for, not her “hen do.” Heh heh. “Hen do.” A phrase I’d think ideal for describing The View, but here clearly Cardiff terminology for “bachelorette party.”

Gwen shows up, and the Harpy Twins let out a drunken “Wooo!” and sing about how “she’ll take it up the aisle.” Classy broads, those two. I don’t know what I was expecting friends of Gwen to be like, but it definitely wasn’t this. Before she joined the police force, did Gwen work at Hooters? Anyway, Gwen apologizes for being late, blaming it on work …

… and we flash back two hours earlier. Gwen is running into a public lavatory. Owen contacts her on coms to warn her “this thing eats people,” making me think she’s in pursuit of a man-eating toilet, and how freaking cool would that be? Drawing her gun, she sees a man exiting a stall and apologizes, although I don’t know what she’s got to be sorry for since he’s the one who didn’t even flush.

He turns toward her, and his eyes go red and he grows these fangs and claws and then quickly lurches toward her. It’s pretty much the same kind of monster effect we saw in 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead, with those new and improved super-speedy zombies who are so terrifying that even the cameraman shakes and we can barely see what’s going on.

Gwen shoots, and the guy runs up the stairs (without washing his hands — slob!), leaving a trail of black blood for her to follow like in the gorier versions of Hansel and Gretel. Gwen contacts Jack and tells him it’s a “shape-shifter,” but she thinks she knows where it’s headed.

Back in the present, at the bar, more boozing, more cackling, and then a guy dressed as a cop approaches and asks for Gwen. In a remarkably fast striptease, he undoes his whole outfit with just the pull of a single velcro panel, revealing his hot pink nut sack. The casting is pretty dead-on here, because like every male stripper I’ve ever seen, he walks that fine line between sexy and sleazy.

In the ladies room, we see Gwen and the Harpies washing up, and I’m wondering what went on with that stripper that they’d have to scrub their hands so thoroughly immediately afterward. Then they notice a tell-tale bandage on Gwen’s arm. She tells them it’s just a scratch. But she lies!