Torchwood Episode 211 Recap: “Adrift”

The Hub. Tosh tells Gwen there was no rift activity on the barrage the night Jonah went poof. When it comes to these Tosh-Gwen interactions, am I wrong to continue detecting an almost overpowering undercurrent of resentment, jealousy, and hostility? And is it wrong to enjoy it as much as I am? So, for example, Gwen asks, “Have you tried — ” and then Tosh snaps back that she already ran checks on a more extensive time/distance range, and her tone of voice totally says, “Don’t tell me how to do my job, beyotch.”

Jack’s Office. Gwen asks Jack about being on the barrage that night, and he claims that if he’d been there it was only to visit a cute little coffee shack nearby. And how suspicious is that excuse? After all, why would he need to visit a coffee shack when he’s got a trained barista like Ianto on hand who’s only too happy to froth his cream whenever he’d like?

When Gwen mentions a missing kid, Jack says he only would know about it if there’d been rift activity and otherwise can’t help. Throughout this scene, he’s looping a belt through his pants, and it made me realize that there’s been many, many scenes this season where he’s doing this. Spoiler — the mystery of why Jack’s pants constantly need to be readjusted right in the office is finally explained later in this episode!

But here’s a clue: Jack says he has to leave to go “Weevil hunting with Ianto.” Normally I’d say that’s obvious code for sex, except I think with the two of them, they actually do go Weevil hunting. Which gets them all worked up for sex the way most couples use wine, hot tubs, and Cinemax After Dark.

Cut to a random café. Gwen tells Andy that Jack’s appearance at the barrage was just a coincidence, and Andy accuses her of being part of a cover-up.

I know a scene of two people chatting in a café isn’t exactly thrilling, but there’s this bizarre effort here to drum up excitement by filming it like it’s the last scene of The Sopranos, with everything getting all foreboding every time a new customer comes in like somebody’s about to get wacked. Or in this case, Gwacked.

Andy says that since Gwen joined Torchwood, she’s gotten “hard,” and she seems to take this weird sense of pride in it, like he’s making some comment about how all those Pilates classes have paid off and not talking about what a cold beyotch she’s become.

Andy claims she “used to care” and “be bothered about people, no matter who they were or what they did.” If he’d been watching this show all along, he’d realize the only way Torchwood has changed her is by making those very qualities even more extreme and more dangerous to everyone around her. Andy says the old Gwen would have gone to see Jonah’s mother in a flash.

Cut to Nikki Bevin’s doorstep (and thank you IMDB for telling me how to spell “Nikki” — I love you IMDB, truly I do!). Andy’s guilt trip has paid off in spades, and Gwen’s done exactly what he wanted her to do all along and gone to see Jonah’s mother.

I’m pleased to say that grief and worry haven’t messed with Nikki’s fashion sense, because she’s remarkably well put together, answering the door in a perfectly coordinated outfit and enormous arts-and-craftsy necklace. I’m actually distracted in all of Nikki’s scenes in this episode by the endless supply of slab-like artifacts she sports around her neck, which all look alien in origin to me. Whatever unexplained phenomenon this episode winds up being about, I’m sure that those necklaces are somehow behind it.

Nikki says Andy mentioned Gwen would be by to offer her unique area of expertise. And even Gwen knows she has no area of expertise whatsoever, so she says she’s really just there to offer “a fresh eye.”

Her fresh eye notices there are all these videotapes cluttering up the place. My fresh eye notices that this makes Nikki the last person on the planet to still use a VCR. Nikki explains that the tapes are of crowd footage and that she searches them looking for a glimpse of Jonah. She says sometimes she thinks she sees him, only to check again and realize she’s wrong, and it’s pretty heartbreaking when she adds, “It’s the hope that’s killing me.”