Torchwood Episode 210 Recap: “From Out of the Rain”

Logan decides to edit out the Pirelli clip, but just as he’s about to, the window behind him crashes open. When he gets up to close it, the film re-spools itself, then runs out of the machine entirely. But Pirelli is still on the screen. I know it’s supposed to be spooky, but any scares involving machinery and technology just don’t do it for me, like all those J-Horror movies where cell phones and videotapes and fax machines are supposed to be so terrifying. I prefer my scares to be more old school — mummies, monsters, maniacs, that kind of thing.

Meanwhile, at the Hub, Jack hears something strange. He runs to Tosh and asks her if she heard a pipe organ. She says no. Then he wonders where Ianto is, because he’s certain Ianto would know if there’s a circus in town, what with his knowledge of everything going on everywhere. Plus his rarely acknowledged obsession with dwarfs.

Tosh tells Jack that Ianto’s gone to the movies with Gwen and Owen, and the thought of the three of them out together just boggles the mind. It would be like a date where each of them is the third wheel. But it sounds like it’s technically a work outing, since they’re going to the opening of a new cinema in a building with a record of rift activity. Or at least that’s what Ianto claimed. Personally, I’m guessing he was looking for an excuse to play hooky and go see 10,000 BC again to stare at all the early-man abs. Jack rushes out to find him.

Out on the street, the three unlikely amigos of Gwen, Owen, and Ianto, are walking in a torrential downpour. And even though they seem to be able to whip out some scanner, or singularity scalpel, or rift activity locator whenever the situation calls for it, none of them could be bothered to bring an umbrella.

Owen gripes about trekking through this weather just for a night at the cinema, and Ianto says it’s not just a cinema, it’s “The Electro!” They stop in front of it, and Gwen gives this orgasmic “Wow!” like they’ve just come upon Machu Picchu or the Taj Mahal, when in reality it’s a rather ordinary-looking warehouse-type building with slightly interesting lighting in front.

What’s Gwen doing there, anyway? Given she just got married, it might be nice for her to actually spend some time with her husband. Or is it that, as happens with so many couples, they came back from their honeymoon sick of the sight of each other?

Meanwhile we see Jack speeding along the Cardiff streets, and there’s this intense music playing, all to convey the urgency of his asking Ianto if he knows of any circuses in town. Wouldn’t it be easier just to phone him? Or use those ear communicator thingies they’re never without? I mean, they use those things for everything. It’s like, “Tosh, monitor local activity,” or “Owen, get to the hospital,” or “Ianto, scratch my balls.” But it’s more dramatic for Jack to go see Ianto in person, so ear communicator thingies and cell phones are conveniently forgotten.

Inside the theater lobby, the Mom and Pop proprietors of the new Electro are griping about how their “stupid bloody son” hasn’t shown up yet with the film.

We cut to Logan running with the film canister out of his little editing room and through this huge, empty warehouse. Sigh. Another frakking warehouse? How much enormous, vacant real estate is there in Cardiff, anyway? It’s one thing for every Weevil out of the rift to find a warehouse to call home, but it seems a bit excessive as a club house for some nerdy kid with a movie hobby. But it looks cool as he runs through it, and in this episode in particular, looking cool trumps things like coherence and logic.

Back in the lobby, Pop Electro greets the Hubbies, who on the way into the theater have apparently passed via the rift through the Blowdryer Galaxy, because after that torrential rain they’re barely damp and Gwen’s hair is pretty much dry and styled.

Ianto says he used to go to The Electro as a kid with his father, the one who, as we learned last week, spent his days eyeing the crotches of customers trying to guess sizes. Gwen wants to know where the popcorn and ice cream are, because like all newly married women, she realizes she can now let her looks go without worries.

Owen breaks the bad news that there are no snacks, since it’s supposed to be “educational.” So educational, in fact, that after the movie, audience members will each be expected to write a 10-page essay on why, even without the threat of supernatural circus performers from beyond, this whole dopey cinema restoration venture is doomed to failure. For one thing, everybody knows movie theaters make all their money on the popcorn.