Torchwood: Greeks Bearing Gifts (Episode 107)

“So I’m shagging a woman and an alien?”
“Which one is worse?”
“I know which one my parents would say.”

We begin in Cardiff, 1812. I know this because in 1812 Cardiff was kind enough to have subtitles telling me so.

We’re in the woods with a prostitute and her John. He’s not making his move and she tries to put him at ease by introducing herself. Her name’s Mary, “Like the virgin.” Really, I was thinking she was more like another Madonna and “Like a Virgin.” The soldier starts slapping her around and instead of taking it, she hits him back and runs for it. Yay! I like Mary.

Before she can get to safety, she’s stopped by a blinding flash in the woods. As the soldier catches up with her, he points his gun at her and asks “Do whores have prayers?” I’m guessing the answer is the same as “does the army have hypocrites?”

As for Mary, she just smiles. I’m guessing the flashing light gave her more than a bit of cheek.

Well, I guess we’re in the time of Torchwood, even though Cardiff isn’t kind enough to give me a subtitle this time. The TT-SUV speeds through a construction site. It reminds me of every construction site I’ve ever seen, as no one is actually doing any work and there are people milling around.

Techno Title.

Inside one of the tents on the site, Jack bemoans how the team always finds alien junk inside, and never a party. Okay, well, I’ll get the tent if the team promises to show up. Although, I respectfully request the Retcon be left at home. I really want to remember what happens at that party.

What they’ve found is a dead body that’s been there for 196 years and 11 months and what may be a ship, weapon, or alien stapler. Considering its size, I think the alien races need to conserve on paper. (And props to Jack for calling Owen “Quincy” when Owen snarks that the corpse is dead.)

Off to the side, Owen and Gwen flirt a little, reminding us that Owen finally got his way in the last episode. While they are trying to keep it to themselves, a quick glance over their shoulders and they would’ve realized Tosh is in earshot.

The flirting continues at the Hub but this time there’s a victim, Tosh’s computer. Considering all they really did was knock out a plug while Owen was trying to prove that real men can bend it like Beckham, Tosh’s response is a little over the top. It’s not as if sports in the Hub are unheard of and yet she’s yelling at them about professionalism. Well Tosh, sweetheart, professionalism includes being able to talk to your coworkers in such a way that I WOULDN’T NEED CAPSLOCK TO WRITE ABOUT IT!

Later on, Tosh is moping with alcohol when she’s approached by the woman from earlier. In case we aren’t clear it’s the same Mary, she’s wearing a picture of the virgin on her t-shirt. Again, you’d think over 196 years she’d get her Madonna’s straight! Mary claims to know everyone about Tosh and proceed to prove it by telling us Tosh’s entire back-story and just leaving little details like the washing detergent Tosh uses to our imaginations. Also, Mary knows about Torchwood due to a disparate group of people on the internet. Oh, so Mary’s met the fandom has she?

Tosh says she shouldn’t be talking to this stranger so we flash forward to the point where she’s probably told Mary everything there is to know about Toshiko Sato, including the bit about the washing detergent. Right now, they’re having one of those drunken philosophical conversations about how every culture wages war and other such things. I’m hoping that some cultures have managed to avoid the plagues of dust bunnies and endless paperwork, otherwise there’s really no hope for the universe, or my living room.

When Tosh has a moment of conscience, Mary distracts her with a present, a clearly alien pendant that allows Tosh to hear people’s thoughts. My favourite thought: “Does coffee count as food if you have sugar in it?” I don’t know about it counting as food, but in my world, it counts as an entire food group. My second favourite: “No way I’m showing that to a doctor!”

Tosh doesn’t find this nearly as humourous as I do, and one guy watching from the bar wonders if she’s having a fit. Except, instead of going to check, he starts musing about whether or not Mary is Tosh’s girlfriend and if he can watch Lesbian sex. Eventually, Mary has Tosh hone in on only her thoughts, which are all about kissing Tosh. With that thought, Tosh freaks out and pulls off the pendant. So let me get this straight, Tosh works for Torchwood but is spazzy when a woman hits on her? Has she even met Captain Jack?

In apology for disconcerting Tosh, Mary offers her the pendant, which is supposedly an heirloom that’s been in the family for a long time. Let me guess, 196 years, 11 months sounds about right. When Tosh balks, thinking she needs to consult Torchwood, Mary laughs as the power of the pendant will be too tempting to share.

Well, Mary’s right because when Tosh goes to work the next morning, she hides the pendant from Ianto and them promptly puts it on as she enters the Hub. I wish she’d hung around Ianto long enough to hear what he’s thinking because I’m assuming after the whole Lisa incident, that still waters run far deeper than we could possibly know.

Owen’s as whiny and horny in his head as he is out loud and Gwen’s having issues with her old friends at the police department and Tosh’s wardrobe. In other words, they’re having the thoughts all of us have but would rather not have someone listen in on. Just as Tosh is about to show them the pendant, both Owen and Gwen think about their affair, silencing her. I know I’m supposed to feel sorry for Tosh as she’s got the world’s biggest crush on Owen, but I wouldn’t want someone invading my thoughts either.

Apparently I was wrong about Ianto’s deep thoughts. What’s really living inside his head is a lyricist for an emo pseudo-punk band; because all he can think about is how much pain he’s in.

If Tosh thinks she’s disappointed, it’s nothing in comparison to how sad I am. I was so hoping that Ianto would be thinking about how to sole the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis>Riemann Hypothesis or coming up with a cure for cancer.

In front of Tosh’s house, Mary is waiting to gloat how Tosh didn’t tell her coworkers about the pendant. Mary tries to explain that what Tosh hears are everyone’s very deepest thoughts, things they don’t even know they’re thinking. Like this’ll make Tosh feel better considering she’s just learned the people at work pity her and think she’s dull.

Putting the pendant on Tosh, the couple share dirty thoughts but what good are thoughts if they aren’t acted upon? Well, despite the fact she probably got laid for the first time in months (we know she hasn’t kissed anyone since Christmas) Tosh experiences some morning-after regrets.

Mary doesn’t make it any better by teasing Tosh about her hopeless crush on Owen but she does promise that despite her first day with the pendant, it will get better. She also claims she’s Philoctetes, which gives us the reason for the episodes title but doesn’t explain very much as she clearly hasn’t spent much time alone, despite the whole virgin kick.

Later, Tosh listens in on a crowd of people’s thoughts and they’re just as random as we’d expect them to be but in the middle of people pretending they’re James Bond or thinking about sex (or James Bond thinking about sex) she picks out one not so harmless thought. One man keeps repeating that he’s going to kill “them.” OMGWTF there are giant ants in Cardiff?!?!

Following the man through the streets, we wind up in his home, where he plans to kill his ex-wife and child as well as himself. As the ex-wife and child cower, trapped, Tosh does find some good in the necklace, as she’s able to whack the man over the head just in time.

Considering she just single-handedly saved a mother and child from certain death, Tosh isn’t willing to brag about it when she gets to the Hub. What she does get to witness is Gwen teasing Owen for being 100% wrong about the victim found at the crash site. He thought it was a woman killed by a gun shot. In reality, it was a young (also girly, Owen insists) man who was killed by something but definitely not a gun shot wound.

Usually, I’d wonder why Gwen is being so mean to the person she’s sleeping with, but I’m figuring this is repressed vengeance for all the shit he put her through in the last 6 episodes.

Tosh asks Jack about Philoctetes, claiming it came up in a pub quiz. You know, pub quizzes are a godsend to British television because whenever someone needs to know something and they never want to say why, the pub quiz is the standard excuse. Really, you might possibly need to know about a deserted archer from ancient Greece. Just last week, I was just having an in-depth discussion about Diomedes and Machaon while raising a glass to Dionysus.

At Lunch with Mary, Tosh finally shares her heroic story and Mary rewards her with a kiss. It’s so distracting to Tosh that she misses the obvious probing (not like that) about the alien stapler from the crash site. Clearly, Mary targeted Tosh to try and get info about whatever it is and even makes Tosh feel self-conscious about Jack keeping things from her. This is not the Tosh I know and love so I guess it’s true what they say about love. It makes you stupid.

On to the interesting lesson part of the show: apparently, devil worshippers did a lot of things, sex with animals, plucking out eyeballs but they didn’t remove hearts. I guess they have their own set of morals.

Gwen arrives as Tosh puts on the pendant. Of course this means we’re going to get a lot of thoughts about sex, which leaves Tosh wishing for brain bleach.

On her way to her desk, she passes the alien stapler and is distracted, first by the alien stapler and then by Jack. He confronts her about saving the mother and child asking if she fights crime in her spare time. All I could picture was Tosh drawn like DC Comics heroine. In truth, I don’t think the spandex and pleather needed for a superhero costume would be out of place in Torchwood. Although, what would Tosh’s super-identity be called?

Of course, Jack doesn’t buy her version of events. “When I’m about to murder someone, I’m really careful not to talk to myself about while I’m in the street.” Yeah well, Jack may not but we have to get our fodder for stupid criminal stories from somewhere.

Only as she tries and fails to get Jack to reveal something about the alien stapler (like where to reload the staples?) does Tosh realize something frightening; she can’t here Jack’s thoughts. (Perhaps having all eternity to think about things allows one to give the brain a rest for a while.) As for Jack, it’s pretty clear that he’s aware someone was digging into his head, and he doesn’t even buy Tosh’s lame excuse. “Nice save” he tells her which makes me wonder why he lets her walk away.

Tosh is at home later and I’m wondering how some continuity person didn’t notice that she wore the red shirt to work that morning, and to lunch, and home, but the purple shirt when she was talking to Jack. What, John Barrowman didn’t want any colour competition for the red suspenders?

Tosh is either struck by guilt over listening in on her friend’s thoughts or completely creeped out that Jack’s mind is silent. She’s going to give it to Torchwood. At first, Mary tries to manipulate Tosh into keeping the pendant and when that doesn’t work, then yells at her in a synthesized alien voice. The voice is creepy but her final argument, turning into her true alien form, reminds me too much of the mer-people from Harry Potter to take it seriously.

It leads to the conversation with which I started this recap. To be honest, I laughed heartily here and then wondered why Tosh hadn’t gone running for the phone. Of course, Mary feeds us a sob story about her planet was so strict but unlike Tosh, I’ve already made the connection between her and the corpse of the girly-man.

The pendant she’s loaned Tosh is how her people communicated and the alien stapler is really a transporter. Also, Mary wants to head home, hoping there’s a new government and she’s sick of watching people talk. She finds it gross. I guess she’s met al lot of those people incapable of not spitting at you when they talk. If that’s the case, I agree with her.

Poor Mary, she’s like Philoctetes, lost and forgotten except she’s leaving out the part where he committed an offence earning him the exile. That’s the part of the myth Tosh should’ve looked up. Even though Mary isn’t wrong about humanity being a culture of invasion, I’m still not feeling particularly sorry for her.

Alone, and in yet another switch to the purple shirt, Tosh wanders the streets, mind-dropping. In her place, I’d so have made that call to Torchwood by now.

As Tosh is having a nervous breakdown about humanity being like the Weevils, and Jack is perched on yet another high building, Owen’s figured out that Mary hasn’t just been metaphorically ripping people’s hearts out. She’s been actually doing it or he would realize this if he were a member of the audience.

Mary’s not willing to be turned into the Torchwood team, but she’s more than willing to walk in the front door. She does it very artfully as she recites “Kubla Khan” but then comments she may need something to “eat before she heads home. Tosh takes it as the fun connotation; meanwhile we all know it’s literally Tosh’s heart that Mary wants.

Confronting the two women, Jack tells us the story of his friend Vincent and how he has something in common with Alexis from Ugly Betty. Relating this to Tosh, Jack says the whole Vincent/Vanessa lesson taught him to pay attention when friends start acting strange and it’s not as if Tosh is the queen of subtlety.

Jack’s all impressed with Mary’s stapler because it’s really meant for two people / squids / staples. As for Mary, she readily admits that she killed the other guy, who also happened to be her guard and then stole the body she currently inhabits.

The rest of the team, who were skulking around waiting for the best time to have the most dramatic effect, come out of the various places in the hub as Mary finishes her story. Upon arriving on earth, she found a good way of killing people – reaching into their chests and pulling out their hearts, hence the fate of the soldier on Owen’s table. As much as Mary enjoys her new body, someone should tell her that cannibalism isn’t really that good for it. She wasn’t keen on going home until she ran out of places to hide and hearts to rip out. Now that she’s been caught, she thinks it’s time to leave the party.

Mary totally missed the first page of the evil handbook – never tell your entire plan to the people trying to stop you. First of all, the evil person / alien / etc, is usually to busy blathering on about themselves to actually pay attention to the most betrayed person in the room, in this case, Tosh. She’s slipped on the pendant.

Okay, so maybe I was wrong about not reading the evil handbook. One can talk all she likes when she can move as quickly as Mary. Before the Torchwood team can stop her, Mary’s holding a knife to Tosh’s throat.

Owen’s left with a dilemma as Mary offers to trade Tosh for Gwen. Without just openly refusing (which is somewhat kind), he pleads for Mary to put down the knife.

Jack’s the one who finally ends the standoff. Tosh may not be able to read his thoughts but he can communicate telepathically with her. He trades the transporter for Tosh. Smiling, Mary says that Jack smells different and I know I’m supposed to believe it’s because he’s immortal, but really, Mary’s probably just getting a whiff of his 100% successful pheromones.

He not only smells good, and has great teeth (which Jack points out) but also he’s rather handy with his tools. (Take that statement however you’d like.) He’s reprogrammed the transporter to send Mary to the centre of the sun. This is getting to be a habit, killing his team’s significant others. First Lisa and now Mary makes me wonder when Rhys is going to get it.

Later, Owen confronts Tosh about being able to hear thoughts. Usually, I’d say it isn’t the time but she did invade their privacy in the worst way possible and I’m impressed Owen isn’t more pissed. Gwen tries to say that she won’t judge, because or the whole sleeping with Owen but living with Rhys thing. Trying to mend their friendship, Gwen says that love suited Tosh. It gave her a special look.

Sitting in Roald Dahl Plass, Tosh decides it’s best to destroy the pendant. I understand it’s the moral high ground and all, but I still think it’s a stupid decision.

Of course, what would Torchwood be if we didn’t bring things back around to Jack. Tosh wants to know why she couldn’t hear anything. He could sense her but not the other way around. She compares it to him being dead.

She remembers Mary’s comment about the pendant getting to you after a while and how it changes the way one sees people. It did for Tosh, but how could she not expect some change in her life. Didn’t she read the title for the pilot?

As the camera pans across Cardiff, which is, essentially, despite Tosh’s whole world at the moment, we see two things. The first is despite what she’s feeling, it hasn’t changed yet and the second is the preview for nest week’s episode, my absolute, hands down, favourite of the season.

Jack’s not the only one on the Torchwood team that has difficulty staying dead.