Torchwood Episode 209 Recap: "Something Borrowed"

Flashback to the shape-shifter chase. In an isolated clearing, the shape-shifter, now in a new shape, lunges at Gwen, and starts gnawing on her arm like a dog stuck with a pale, scrawny, surprisingly tasteless bone. Before it can move on to the main course, Jack blows it away in a fountain of black blood.

Beep beep beep. Gwen’s alarm goes off at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday. She wakes up and gazes at her wedding dress hanging across the room with this goofy “I’m the luckiest girl in the whole world” look on her face. As she gets out of bed, she looks down to see that her stomach has ballooned, which is not surprising, because a night of wings and beer always makes you bloated.

She stands up and looks in the mirror, and she’s clearly pregnant. They should totally have called this episode “She Woke Up Pregnant!” which is the title of the best Lifetime movie ever, starring L.A. Law’s Michele Green as a woman who is impregnated by her dentist during root canal. I highly recommend it.

Owen arrives and listens to Gwen’s stomach with a stethoscope, declaring she’s pregnant and full term. She wonders how that’s possible, and Jack alludes to “immaculate conception.” Someone at BBC America with a sense of humor clearly engineered it so this episode would air Easter weekend.

Jack explains that some aliens impregnate by passing on eggs via biting. Ah yes, the ever-popular alien/mutant/demon pregnancy storyline! Totally a classic. My first introduction to it was the TV miniseries V, followed by Rosemary’s Baby, and of course, Angel, when Cordelia gave birth to a fully-grown Gina Torres, each of them awesome in its own way. So if this show is going to dip into the cliché well, I’m glad it’s going to be one as entertaining as this, rather than, say, the Grim Reaper.

Owen and Jack assure Gwen they’ve dealt with this situation before (Ianto, triplets, lactating — long story, total mess, don’t ask!) and they have some machine at the Hub that will take care of it. She’ll be feeling fine and fetus free after a few days of bed rest. I’m disappointed, because I was really hoping she’d actually give birth to an alien and have to raise it as her child. I’d give just about anything to see her reading “Goodnight Moon” to a snarling, fanged, diapered alien tot. Not to mention breastfeeding it.

Throughout their pep talk, Gwen is pretty distraught, and as she pushes past Jack to go vomit, he looks at Owen and gives this “Aren’t women crazy?” eye roll. She comes out of the bathroom and starts furiously eating pickles, something I’ve never seen an actual pregnant woman do. I have a friend who judges actors by how realistically they’re able to eat, and as much as I think Eve Myles is actually pretty good in this episode, this is just about the most unconvincingly eaten pickle I’ve ever seen.

Gwen argues that she can’t go back to the Hub because she’s getting married in five hours. Jack tells her she can’t go through with it right now, but she insists, first raising the cost of the event, then admitting that she’s already put Rhys through so much she can’t postpone their wedding on top of it. I don’t know that making him walk the aisle in front of everybody he knows with an obviously knocked-up fiancé is going to make him feel much better, but she’s blindly determined to stick with this dunderheaded plan.

Jack tells her she’s not thinking straight, and she screams, “DON’T BRING MY BLOODY HORMONES INTO THIS!” And with all the terrifying situations that Jack’s willingly put himself in, there’s no way he’s going to take hormonal Gwen on and he pretty much caves to her demands.

Gwen calls Rhys, and we see him waking up from a drunken coma, surrounded by so much bachelor party paraphernalia I wouldn’t be surprised if we see chicks, guns, fire trucks, and Adrian Zmed nearby. Gwen tells Rhys she needs to see him, and he can hear in her voice that it’s fairly serious.

The Hub. Owen breaks the news to the Hubbies that Gwen’s planning on going ahead with the wedding. Jack says it will be fine so long as she doesn’t go into labor at the altar; Rhys might not be so thrilled if she gives birth to “a razor-toothed monster that eats half his family.” Hey, look on the bright side; there’s just as much chance it will start with Gwen’s family.

Jack says they need a better idea about what they’re dealing with, so Owen needs to do an alien autopsy on the dead shape-shifter. Meanwhile Ianto gets the best work-related job ever of going shopping for a new wedding dress to fit Gwen’s new plus size. And I pity any young woman who has the misfortune of grabbing the same off-the-rack dress as Ianto. It could get bloody.