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

Pirelli puts his finger in the bus stop girl’s mouth, and she starts gagging, as one is wont to do when a finger’s thrust down one’s throat — just ask any supermodel who swears they stay thin solely because of their “metabolism.” This girl must have some serious halitosis too, because we see this waft of breath leave her mouth that just makes me think, “Hello? Listerine calling.” Pirelli is thrilled, though, and captures her breath in some sort of bottle.

Back at “Wow! The Electro,” Jack and Ianto go up to the projection room and start questioning Logan, one of many instances in this episode where people happily submit to the Hubbies’ inquiries without asking for any kind of identification or credentials whatsoever. Logan tells them he found a bunch of old footage in the theater basement, but the circus stuff wasn’t on it. “It kind of played itself,” he says, “like it wanted to be seen.” And Jack adds, “like something was trying to get through.” Plus there was fairground music and an iodiney smell that Ianto helpfully describes as “like film itself.”

Tosh contacts Jack on coms (at least she remembers they can communicate with each other this way), and tells him the computer system’s gone crazy. Plus there was a recent peak of rift activity at The Electro, followed by recordings of unusual rift traces at a location nearby. She gives them the location, and they’re off.

Jack and the other Hubbies jump out of the Torchmobile and find the young woman at the rainy bus stop. I call for a musical interlude! Everybody sing along with The Hollies: “Bus stop, wet day, she’s there, I say, please share my umbrella.”

She appears catatonic, and Jack wonders if she’s epileptic. At first, I thought he was joking and this was this episode’s lame attempt at humor. Because seriously, with all the freaky rift activity going on, his best guess is epilepsy? Like maybe she popped through the rift from the Mary Hart Galaxy? Owen points out that she shouldn’t really be alive, given she’s got a heart beat but isn’t breathing. Plus she’s got a pretty severe case of chapped lips.

Inside an empty café, a waitress cleans up for the night, when Pirelli comes to the door. She tells him they’re closed, and his trampy companion says, “Make her cry … I want to drink her tears.” Somebody’s been watching old episodes of Buffy and Angel, because that’s so something Drusilla would have said. And since we don’t know this tramp’s name, I’m going to call her Drusilla from now on (see Sweeney/Veronica explanations earlier). Anyway, Pirelli, finger, mouth, etc. etc. just like before.

Hospital. Owen and Jack are alone in a room with the catatonic bus stop girl. Because hospitals have no issue whatsoever about letting random people hang out unattended with the nearly-dead crime victims they’ve brought in.

Owen goes over her symptoms, which are supposed to be fairly serious. But given it pretty much boils down to her having been “sucked dry,” I find the whole thing hilarious and can’t stop laughing.

He’s like, “Look at her mouth. She’s got no saliva! Dry as a bone!” and I’m like, “Tee hee.” And he’s like, “You know when a spider sucks the liquid out of its victims? This is a bit like that except they left her partly alive,” and I’m going, “Bwa ha ha ha ha.” And then he’s like, “She couldn’t cry if she wanted to, poor kid. She’s got no tears,” and I’m rolling on the floor going, “Stop it Owen! You’re killing me.”

Just then, Ianto bursts through the door with the sucked-dry café waitress on a gurney, saying, “There’s been another one,” and I’d love to know how he even found out about this victim, not to mention knew exactly which part of the hospital he could find Jack in. He’s with a nurse who has no problem answering any and all questions about the victim and allowing total strangers to stay as long as they like. I understand that even though we didn’t see it they’ve probably pulled their Torchwood credentials to get this carte blanche treatment, but if that’s the case, then Jack’s whole “outside the government” opening spiel about how covert they are is pretty meaningless.

Owen checks her out and says that she’s brain dead but still somehow “with us.” Jack responds, “some part of them has been taken elsewhere,” leading Owen to reply, “That’s impossible” — a phrase that should never be spoken by anyone working at Torchwood for any reason ever, because the whole point of the show is all this “impossible” stuff happening all the time, what with the space-time rift and all. And as a walking dead guy, Owen of all people should know this. Jeez.