Torchwood Episode 212 Recap: “Fragments”

Mrs. Peabody demands to see the “sonic modulator,” and is clearly impressed with Tosh’s work. Tosh demands to see her mother, who they’ve apparently been holding prisoner, and the thug brings her in. Tosh says that since Mrs. Peabody now has what she wanted, they should let her mother go. But Mrs. Peabody now has big plans for Tosh, given what she’s shown herself capable of.

Tosh asks what will happen if she refuses, and Mrs. Peabody’s response is to put on a headset and turn on the sonic modulator, which lets out a sonic pulse that has Tosh and Mama Tosh clutching their ears in terrible pain. What’s with this show lately and it’s bizarre fascination with painful noises? It’s like the writers’ room must be next to a construction site and they’re being driven to distraction by all that racket.

Just then, a bunch of red-hatted, gun-wielding soldier boys storm in. They subdue Mrs. Peabody and her thug, and drag Tosh away screaming.

Tosh wakes up in a dingy cell wearing a prison uniform in this totally flattering shade of red. She’s being watched via a HAL-like electronic eye, and a voice informs her that she’s being held indefinitely in a UNIT facility, without any rights, legal representation, trial, or communication with the outside allowed.

Tosh asks about her mother, and the voice refuses to supply info. It’s around now that I start to see, for the first time really, that despite the pretty red hats and Martha being on their payroll, UNIT = DICKs.

It’s also around now that I realize Tosh is made of much, much stronger stuff than me, because I’d be blubbering like a baby within five hours tops. Five minutes, actually. But we see Tosh quietly alone in the cell, apparently over quite some time, and rather stoical about it all.

One of the things I loved about this episode was how the back-stories really fleshed out aspects of the various characters’ personalities that had been hinted at before; there always was something tough about Tosh beneath the brainy exterior, and this episode certainly helps fill in some of the rough experiences that shaped her character.

Time passes, and then one day, the door of her cell opens, and standing there is Captain Jack himself. I guess now we know where he got all his decorating ideas for the Mystery Island Bunker.

He and Tosh sit across from each other at a table. He assures her that her mother is safe, plus won’t remember anything that happened thanks to a certain little pill.

Tosh: Who are you?
Jack: Nobody. I don’t exist. And for a man with my charisma, that’s quite an achievement.
Tosh: Are you a lawyer?
Jack: Do I look like a lawyer?

I’d say that depends on the TV show. He certainly looks no less ludicrous than Ally “Shortskirt” McBeal or Denny “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” Crane.

Jack asks her about making the sonic modulator, and she says she just followed the plans. “Yeah, kinda,” he replies, clearly in awe of her skill. He’s particularly impressed because she intuitively fixed errors in the plans. Then he says, “Oh baby, you’re good,” but he gives the line this weirdly lecherous reading, sounding an awful lot like Michigan J. Frog. But she’s not creeped out by him, so long as he can get her out.

Jack tells her he can get her record wiped clean if she comes to work for him, helping “protect people.” She wonders why he’d trust her, and he responds, “Instinct.” But, he warns, it might be dangerous …

Cut to present-day Tosh screaming under the rubble. Gwen is trying to move the slab off her, and Tosh screams, “You’re making it worse!” a line less about this specific circumstance, I think, and more a general commentary about Gwen’s overall impact on her life.

They realize they’re going to need more man-strength to free her, so Gwen says she’s going to find the others. As she readies to leave, she starts stroking Tosh’s arm and calling her “darling,” and I start to worry that Gwen’s now setting her sights on another Hubbie to quench her apparently insatiable libido. If that’s the case, Tosh may soon wish she’d been crushed alive.

In another pile of rubble, we see Ianto trying to claw his way free, and hear Jack calling his name, a nice segue into …

Ianto’s Back-story or “Cruising Jurassic Park”

24 months ago. Jack is in a park at night and being slammed into a tree by a Weevil. Ianto comes up from behind and bashes the Weevil with a stick, giving Jack a chance to spray it and inject it into submission.

Jack thanks this handsome stranger and asks who he is. Ianto introduces himself James Bond-style as “Jones, Ianto Jones.” Even though this encounter involves a snarling monster and a vicious beating, it couldn’t be a more cruise-y setting for a first meeting if George Michael or Al Pacino popped out from behind a nearby tree.