Torchwood Episode 212 Recap: “Fragments”

Doctor’s office. Owen meets with a doctor who’s a real McDreary, all gloom and doom about Katie having early-onset Alzheimer’s. Oy. I don’t even know what to say. Granted there’s few diseases one might find amusing, but this one is particularly depressing. This episode is performing the minor miracle of making me feel bad for Owen, something I didn’t even feel when he actually died.

Doc McDreary is surprised Owen’s going ahead with the wedding, given Katie’s prognosis. And I suspect someone working on this show must have been jilted at the altar, because it’s uncanny how many episodes this season are about weddings gone bad. And it can’t be a mere coincidence that Katie looks a lot like the tragic bride that dead-Owen met up on the roof in that one episode; looking back on that now, it makes his efforts to help her all the more poignant.

Given Katie’s the youngest person on record with Alzheimer’s, Owen thinks something else is going on and demands they do more tests. Which they proceed to do … after which Owen and Katie sit on a bench waiting for the results, and she talks about how afraid she is that Owen will leave her. He promises to stand by her no matter what.

McDreary’s Office. Good news! Katie’s got a brain tumor! Which truly is good news because, unlike Alzheimer’s, at least they can do something about it and operate. And given that Katie announces she can’t remember Owen’s name, it seems like a good idea to operate right away. Which they proceed to do …

We get several shots of Owen pacing outside the O.R., and is there anything more exciting than watching somebody standing around waiting? But before I can nod off, there’s some kind of commotion from inside the O.R., and then suddenly standing beside Owen is Captain Jack himself. Jack tells him to prepare for the worst. Rather than calling security like any sensible person would do, Owen decides to barge right in on his fiance’s surgery without even bothering to scrub in.

Inside the O.R., he finds McDreary and his team dead on the floor. Katie’s on the operating table and her head’s been opened up exposing her brain, like Ray Liotta at the end of Hannibel. Except where Liotta’s biggest problem was having bits of his brain sauteed in butter and served on a platter, Katie’s got some kind of tentacled alien inside her head. It’s a totally cool effect, meaning it’s absolutely disgusting.

Jack tells Owen that Katie’s dead, and the thing in her head is an alien life form that, when threatened, emits a fatal toxin. Owen must be in shock, because rather than fleeing, he actually leans in for a closer look. Jack says he wants to take her brain away with him, and Owen counters that he’s going to call the police. So Jack, having learned a thing or two from Alice Guppy, chloroforms him.

Hopsital Room. Owen wakes up asking for Katie, and I figure he’s been retconned, but I quickly see I’m wrong. Because in the next scene, Owen meets with his and McDreary’s boss, insisting an American in an army coat was at the hospital, and that McDreary’d been poisoned by an alien.

How is it possible that Jack, who retcons people for something as minor as getting a glimpse of him on a bad hair day, didn’t bother to slip Owen an amnesia pill for this? Did he switch to that bulk pharmaceutical service and now has to wait to get his retcon prescription filled by mail?

Big Boss Doctor says McDreary died in a car accident and Katie died of a brain tumor, end of story, and he orders Owen to take a three-month leave of absence. I would have been like, “Yes! No work for three months! Daytime TV here I come!” But instead of heading to the nearest Pinkberry to celebrate, Owen goes to a friend in security and watches CCTV tapes, mystified that Jack isn’t on any of them.

Cemetery. Owen stares sadly at Katie’s tombstone. Then he spies Jack in the distance and runs afer him, hurdling over whatever tombstones are in his path. When he gets to Jack, he proceeds to pummel him silly, insisting he could have done something to save Katie. “I really couldn’t,” Jack says, so Owen ceases with the beating.

The two proceed to walk and talk, freely stomping on any number of graves along the way. Owen thinks he’s having a mental breakdown, but Jack tells him that “it’s the rest of the world that’s delusional.” Somehow, I don’t think he’d find that exactly comforting.

Jack tells Owen that his life doesn’t have to end with Katie’s. Instead, he can give him purpose, since he needs a medic with his kind of moxie to come work for him. Owen skeptically asks if this is about “fighting aliens,” and even though Jack confirms this, Owen says there’s no such thing.