Torchwood Episode 213 Recap: “Exit Wounds”

Cut to an empty, grassy field in the light of day. A screen shot informs us it’s 27 A.D. Wikipedia informs me that that’s the same year John the Baptist baptized Jesus, and I’m sure that’s just coincidental.

We see Jack, at first flat on his back, and then he gets up, using his arm to shield his eyes from the sudden sunlight. Spike approaches, saying, “We’re safe,” only to have Jack’s response phrased in the form of a fist to the face.

Jack demands to be taken back, but Spike explains they had to get this far “to escape the trigger signal.” He shows Jack what appears to be a wristband that’s grafted to his skin, explaining that it’s both a detonator as well as surveillance monitor that tracks his every word and move.

Jack: You’re a walking bomb! …
Spike: He has me doing everything I’m told. Because if I don’t … Boom! I’m not my own man. I thought you’d see that. But, oh, no! You’re so self-obsessed you thought I’d want to blow up your stupid city. When I could be experiencing 17 simultaneous pleasures in the Lotus Nebula.

So there you have it … Spike’s not a lovelorn gay psycho or megalomaniacal supervillain; he’s just a spineless hedonist being forced to carry out some other psycho’s orders. Now go back and rewatch his earlier scene with Jack in the Hub, and you can see how he was trying to communicate that to Jack all along.

And as far as the identity of said controlling psycho … well, Jack obviously isn’t so quick on the uptake this episode or he would have figured it out as soon as you and I did. So when Spike spies someone approaching and tells Jack to run away, he instead turns around and happily greets long lost little bro Gray.

The thing about grown-up Gray? He’s smoking hot. Like Viggo-Mortensen-wrestling-naked-in-Eastern-Promises hot. He’s also really, really, really evil. Like he goes to hug Jack, saying, “I always knew we’d find each other again,” and then proceeds to stab him. After Jack collapses to the ground, Gray tells Spike to get a shovel. Uh-oh. This can’t be good. Bad, Gray! Bad, bad, bad! But hot, hot, hot!

Police station. Gwen is propped up on a box or something addressing the troops who, bizarrely, are actually listening to her. What kind of Keystone Kops does Cardiff employ that when their leadership is taken out their inclination is to turn to a former employee who just happened to be in the building?

Gwen: This was a targeted attack designed to cause maximum panic … This is where we find out how good we really are. Cover the whole city, knock on doors, check on people, tell people that they are safe and that it is being dealt with.

That’s her big plan? The city’s on fire, God knows what other threats are still out there, and she’s suggesting knocking on doors?! Does she think she’s leading a pack of Girl Scouts? Meanwhile, the police extras totally overplay the one scene their given, nodding their heads so enthusiastically and so primed for action you’d think they’d just heard the St. Crispin’s Day speech.

Meanwhile, at Server Central, whatever Tosh is doing to try to get the servers on-line isn’t working. Some screen somewhere in the room is flashing “Meltdown Alert,” and I should point out that throughout this episode, we keep getting helpful updates like this on various unidentified screens, like the team has started carrying around a newly-found alien artifact called the “Exposition Explaininator.”

Tosh and Ianto realize that if they can’t fix the server remotely, they’re going to have to go to the plant themselves, something that could very well spell suicide. True, it’s not as heroic as Gwen’s own Operation Ring Doorbells, but Tosh and Ianto are willing to head to the plant to see if they can do something as comparatively easy as stop a meltdown.

Back in 27 A.D., Spike is helpfully getting Jack all shackled up, just like old times, except that this time there’s a third party involved and not in the usual good way.

Jack tells Gray that he never stopped thinking about him and searched for him for years. For those of us who’ve spent the better part of this season trying our best to kill brain cells, this entire exchange is helpfully interspersed with reminder flashbacks from the “Adam” episode where we saw what happened to ’lil Gray and Jack on Tatooine.