Torchwood: They Keep Killing Suzie (Episode 108)

~The wearer of the glove can bring somebody back but loses their own life in return.
~How do we stop it?
~We gotta kill her. Suzie’s gotta die.
~Again?

I’m going to let you in on a little recapping secret of mine. I get really stressed out recapping episodes I love. I’m always afraid that I’ll be unable to truly capture the extreme awesomeness of that hour of television. Let’s use this episode as an example. It’s got the return of Indira Varma, aka Suzie Costello. It’s got a race against time to save a member of the Torchwood team. It’s got humour. It’s got suspense. It’s got Gwen with a gaping head wound. What more could you possibly ask for from this show? Okay, unexpected naked Jack would be good but if we had that, this show would’ve jumped the shark, having nowhere to go but down. Oh, that could be seen as a really bad joke, couldn’t it?

Before the episode proper begins, we get flashbacks of the circumstances surrounding the death of Suzie Costello. We’re taken from the suicide of Suzie to another crime scene, where a pretty pissed off looking cop is watching the Torchwood strut.

Detective Kathy Swanson isn’t happy to see them and doesn’t even warm up at the idea of Jack being naked. Of course, the last time I saw this actress, she was playing a tree opposite Christopher Eccleston, so either way, I’m extremely jealous of her place in the Whoniverse.

The real reason she’s not very happy is because she’s had to deal with three murder victims, one the night before and a married couple at the current crime scene. What makes this a Torchwood case as it doesn’t involve aliens, sex or alien sex? The word “Torchwood” is written in blood above the victims.

Techno-title.

Jack kicks the detective’s team out of the room and the detective responds by blaming Torchwood for the deaths because of the way they “walk all over this city.” Okay, so I see her point, but she still wouldn’t win a debate based on logic. As for the team they don’t know if this is the work of an angry human, or angry alien since none of the victims ever appeared on their radar before.

The police can’t identify the DNA of the killer nor can they identify what strange drug he has in his system. While the police can’t, the team can and Owen confirms the killer’s been dosed with Retcon.

Back at the Hub, the team is facing a serious dilemma. They don’t know if the killer was a killer before he was given Retcon or if he became a killer because of the Retcon and they’ve given the drug to 2008 people. That’s a lot of potential killing power and even Gwen is numbered among them. That drug should come with a warning label.

Instead of doing old-fashioned legwork, Gwen has a better idea. She wants to use the glove Suzie used to bring the dead back to life to ask them what happened. Theorizing that Torchwood must do something because innocent people are dying, Gwen thinks the ends justify the means. It’s and idea rejected by both Jack and Owen as it sounds just like Suzie.

Okay, so I’m wondering how they go from “not using the glove because it drove Suzie mad” to “hey that glove is a great idea” in just one quick scene change. We do get the history of the glove – fell through the rift 40 years earlier and lay at the bottom of Cardiff Bay until someone form Torchwood went for a swim to pick it up. Jack always figured somebody ditched it because it was evil. Again, why do they think using it is a good idea?

Owen’s not the least bit concerned about using it now; he instead laments that it never got a cool name. “Risen Mitten,” Ianto suggests. Wait, he uses rhyme when naming things? Hey, so do I! It’s like we were meant for each other!

Down in autopsy, Jack’s the first one to try using the glove. You’d think that a man who can’t die would have extra life to share, but instead of it working, Jack looks more constipated than anything.

After the glove rejects Jack it’s quickly realized that Gwen is the only one who might be able to use the glove (Gwen & Suzie comparison # 2). Jack comments that the glove relies on empathy or compassion and no I understand why Gwen is the only one able to use it. The rest of the team may be awesome, but empathetic isn’t exactly a word I’d use to describe them. The first victim is revived, but doesn’t give them any useful information. He pitifully asks for his mother before slipping back into permanent oblivion. For a moment, Gwen’s certain she can do I again, but Jack convinces her otherwise. Ianto, who has been watching the events with a stopwatch that is about to become infamous in Torchwood fandom, says that the victim was revived for 24 seconds.

Owen snarks that Ianto’s always happy with a stopwatch. “It’s the button on top,” Ianto replies.

Trying again with the second victim, the husband, and Gwen manages to keep him alive for 1 minute and 5 seconds. They learn that the man that killed him was named Max, from Pilgrim and that he was often speaking with a woman named Suzie. Jack realizes they’ve been talking to the wrong corpse.

Tosh has found out that Pilgirm was a religious support group run by the murdered wife. Since all the paperwork was done by hand and photocopied, that’s why there’s no record of them on the web. Gwen also finds something out. The entire Torchwood team knew jack shit about their former second in command.

They’re off to a storage locker containing all of Suzie’s personal items. Gwen’s the only one to comment how sad it is that Torchwood gets to keep everything shoved into a storage locker, but I’m sure they’re all thinking it.

Gwen finds a picture of Suzie and her father, who wouldn’t even know his daughter was dead, since she erased all her files before shooting herself in the head. There are a lot of books in Suzie’s life, including a book of poetry by Emily Dickinson. It’s such a random thing for Jack to focus on that of course we knot it’ll come into play later. Before we get much more info on Suzie, and believe me, I’d have been perfectly happy if they spent the entire episode going through her things, Tosh finds a Pilgrim pamphlet.

Jack pulls Suzie’s body out of the crypt and I’m rather annoyed that someone who shot themselves in the head looks that good. The initial attempt to revive her doesn’t work, so they stab her with the knife (that Ianto christens the “life knife”) she used to kill people with back in the pilot. They justify that since the knife is made from the same metal as the glove, it’ll be like closing a circuit. Somehow, this is supposed to make sense, but I can’t quite work it out. Not that the whole stabbing thing (as she wakes up immediately) is the biggest concern, logistically, in this scene.

She’s not a very cooperative corpse. First, she questions why Jack is alive, considering Suzie had shot him in the head. Next, she’s disgusted to learn “Gwen bloody Cooper” is using the glove. She’s also not happy to be brought out of eternal rest because of Max.

The glove sparks and Gwen is knocked to the floor. Going to take care of Gwen, Owen misses something important, that Suzie isn’t dead.

Jack tries pulling the knife out of Suzie’s chest, but nothing works, they just can’t kill Suzie. (I think that was the alternative title to this episode.)

What I can only presume is supposed to be hours later, we get a shot of Suzie asleep in a wheelchair. We also get a shot of the shot to the back of her head. I so didn’t need to see that. Suzie may be disgusted that she’s still alive, but I’m disgusted by her death all over again.

After Suzie establishes that she scares the shit out of Tosh and Owen, she admits to feeding Max one Retcon a week for two years. She used him to talk over what was happening at Torchwood, only to Retcon him into forgetting. It’s like that Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler flick, just without the funny. She remembers another member of Pilgrim, Lucy Mackenzie, who works at the Wolf Bar. I would’ve found it much more amusing if Lucy had worked at the “Bad Wolf” Bar.

Throughout this interrogation, Suzie keeps accusing Torchwood of bringing her back as a punishment and that everything is always her fault. There’s really only one conclusion to come to at this point.

At the Wolf Br, the team, Gwen complains of a splitting headache. It took me until the third watching to pick up that this is the earliest the situation later in the episode is foreshadowed. Usually, I’m quicker on the uptake but the music in the Wolf Bar is blaringly loud. Suzie is with Tosh at the Hub, watching Owen, Jack and Gwen work there way through the crowd. I’m amused that now she has her head covered.

Tosh blames Suzie for taking some honour away from working for Torchwood. I’m starting to see where Suzie gets this persecution complex from; it’s not as if Torchwood’s history exactly screams honour.

Owen tackles the wrong scary-looking man while the right scary-looking man goes to knife Gwen. Jack takes him down in honour of Ianto, “Risen mitten, life knife and that old classic, stun gun.” Hee!

Max is staring off blankly, when trapped down in the cells, only reacting when someone says the word “Torchwood.” When that happens, he frantically beats against the cell, for 10 seconds. Jack seems to find it a funny party trick, even if it’s caused by Retcon. He’s just worried about the “million more problems on the way” if that reaction is caused by Retcon. Actually, it’s only 2008 more problems if Ianto’s right.

Before heading back upstairs, Owen and Jack really don’t come to any consensus over what’s going to happen to Suzie. I guess they didn’t read the title of this episode.

In one scene, Suzie completely manages to disconcert Gwen. I know the woman’s a killer and everything, but she just proved she can kick Gwen ass, mentally, when she has a hole in her head and been dead for three months. There’s only one word for that.

How does she do it? She makes Gwen feel pity for her because of her father. Suzie isn’t sure if her cancer-ridden father is still alive. Next, she bonds with Gwen over their mutual love and hate of the job and finally, makes Gwen feel guilty for replacing her. Not only did Gwen take over her job, but also her place in Owen’s bed. Ouch.

Gwen totally misses that she’s being played. You know Gwen, empathy is good, but sometimes natural suspicion is better in a job like yours.

Just proving the point, Gwen barges into Jack’s office demanding that Suzie be allowed to see her dying father. She blames Jack for putting Suzie in charge of the glove, as if the whole psycho-killing spree was entirely Jack’s fault. As for Jack, he blames Gwen for wanting to bring Suzie back due to some repressed guilt over what happened when Gwen arrived. I blame both of them for being incapable of structuring a logical argument.

The scene serves little to no purpose other than sheer hilarity when Jack tries to distract her with a humourous story about how he had a boyfriend (one of a set of acrobat twins) who used to barge into rooms like Gwen just did. He thinks he should write a book, and include illustrations. So do I.

Jack’s far kinder than me as I would’ve been all, “Chicky, did you forget she wanted to shoot you in the head?!”

They finally come to terms with the real dilemma. What happens if Suzie never dies?

Owen calls Jack into the conference room to show him that the energy flow between Gwen and the second victim, stopped when the victim died a second time. As for the energy between Gwen and Suzie, the flow hasn’t stopped. According to Owen, Suzie is draining the life out of Gwen. I’ve heard of coworkers sucking the life out of an office but literally sucking the life out of someone, that’s a first. My real question here is, why isn’t anyone sharing this with say, Gwen, who might have a vested interest in the outcome?

Despite the fact no one can answer my question, we do get a solution: the one at the beginning of this recap.

Even with Gwen’s over inflated sense of guilt, perhaps she’d think twice about taking Suzie some coffee and cookies, or offering her a road trip.

The pair manages to escape in Gwen’s car before Jack can kill Suzie but it’s not due to Gwen’s stealth (as she’s caught on security cameras). It’s due to a complete and total shutdown of the Hub, trapping the entire team inside and despite the seriousness of the situation, one moment of humour.

I’m just going to say it. Suzie is deliciously evil. I love deliciously evil characters. From the way she’s smirking, we know that she knows the team is trapped inside and that she’s slowly draining the life out of Gwen. This is not a person you’d want to de-friend on Facebook, for fear of some serious retribution.

As Gwen and Suzie drive towards Suzie’s father and Gwen feel progressively worse, the team tries to figure out how Suzie managed to trap them all in the Hub. The only possible solution, Max, the killer in the cells, is a Trojan horse. I guess they didn’t learn from the title of last week’s episode.

Max is reciting a verbal trigger, “Because I could not stop for Death // He kindly stopped for me; // The carriage held but just ourselves // And Immortality.” This means that Suzie planned everything months ago, before Jack killed her. I totally respect her determination and organization. It’s definitely applied in the wrong ways, but I still respect it.

The plan was this: give Max the Retcon and a bunch of subliminal triggers. Three months after he last sees her, he kills the members of Pilgrim to make sure that Suzie eventually would be resurrected.

Now they just have to figure out how to reverse the lockdown. Suzie must’ve installed a failsafe in case she was locked inside.

In the car, Suzie and Gwen have what I feel is the most important conversation of this episode. Despite the fact she’s managed to come back to life – by taking Gwen’s and has the people trying to capture her safely locked down, Suzie quizzes Gwen about Jack’s survival. She wants to understand how she could shoot him in the head and yet he still lives. Frustrated when Gwen can’t explain it, Suzie gets angry that Captain Jack was able to decide whether or not she should live or die, when he’ll not have to face it himself. I can see why she’s angry, but that’s not the reason I think she asked.

I also think she’s angry more at the lack of answers, than anything else. Her search for answers doesn’t stop as Suzie gently probes Gwen about wondering who Captain Jack really is. Again, I think she’s looking for information, not because she ants to bond. In fact, the only true emotion I think she has is when she weeps over the song on the radio, the son her mother used to sing.

Ianto, my boyfriend and handy guy to have around in a crisis, has used the water tower to as a relay to get cell phone reception. I’m wondering if they’re moving away from the “tea-boy” persona and making him Torchwood’s equivalent of Q.

They call Detective Swanson, who finds it hilarious that the supposed crème de la crème of agencies has gotten themselves locked in their own base. In fact, it’s so hilarious, that before she’s willing to help them, she makes Jack repeat their situation to everyone in her office. Usually, I would be annoyed at a minor character potentially causing a life threatening situation for one of the lead characters, but I can’t judge Detective Swanson. Given the same set of circumstances, I’d so do the same thing.

After her laugh, Detective Swanson is stuck reading the complete works of Emily Dickinson. I’m glad she had her fun, because that woman was no laugh riot.

In the car, we get yet more proof that the Doctor is the only lonely God in the Whoniverse because Suzie assures Gwen that nothing happens after you die. There’s only darkness. Of course, she only tells Gwen that after Gwen drones on about the type of heaven I was taught about in Sunday school. I think there’s a word for that.

“We’re just animals, howling in the night ‘cause it’s better than silence,” Suzie explains is the meaning of life. It’s poetic, and I’m wondering if it isn’t a thought once had by Emily Dickinson. To make Gwen’s night even happier, Suzie tells here that there is one thing in the dark, “and it’s moving.” I’m assuming she doesn’t mean moving as in dancing to “Mr. Roboto.” I’m guessing it’s more a creature hunting its prey sort of deal.

It’s obvious that Detective Swanson’s been reading the book for a while, as she’s frustrated and depressed by its contents. Yeah, well, try being forced to analyze it in a 3000 word paper in third year university; then she’ll understand true pain.

Fortunately, Tosh comes up with an idea that quickly works. Instead of the poems, she tries the ISBN number, which is 0196600585. You know I did a search on that ISBN number and look what I came up with:

The ISBN, despite it being the wrong number for the book, works and the team is off to save Gwen.

Speaking of Gwen, she and Suzie are now at the father’s hospital. A hospital is a good place for Gwen as she’s, as Suzie puts it, “getting shot in the head, slowly. Believe me, it hurts.” Well, Suzie would know, wouldn’t she?

Gwen writhes in pain on the floor, as Suzie awakens her father, just to make sure he knows that she was the one who killed him. There’s some repressed rage there that I want to know about! This so isn’t fair; the Torchwood writers make a character with such complexity, that’s capable of surprising me with everything she does, and she’s only in two episodes of the season? Is there a campaign for “They Keep Killing Suzie: The Sequel?” I don’t care if it becomes as prolific as Nightmare on Elm Street, I want more Suzie Costello!

As Jack and Owen close in on Suzie and Gwen, Suzie calls to taunt her former boss. She’s well aware that the glove is killing Gwen and saving her. It puts an entirely new spin on why she took the glove home in the pilot.

She won’t listen to any appeals. Suzie Costello is just too determined to live. She even appeals to Jack’s not so subtle affection for Gwen. If Gwen’s dead and Suzie is the only thing left of her, then how could Jack kill her? As the conversation veers into right and wrong and Suzie’s inherent belief that she’s completely worthless, I’m not distracted at all. I still recognize the most important part of the scene.

Tosh has figured out that Suzie is heading to Headley Point, to escape on a ferry. Since, according to Owen, Gwen has “minutes” left, it’s a good plan because maybe amongst all that self-loathing, Suzie realized that if Gwen was dead, Jack wouldn’t kill her.

I’m guessing timelines aren’t Torchwood’s strongest point because within those “minutes” Gwen has left, the sun rose. It reminded me of that scene inThe Truman Show where Christoff says “Cue the sun” and suddenly the town is lit. Why? I find the whole sun being up thing just as creepy. In my opinion, this is a confrontation that should’ve taken place in the dark.

Gwen’s practically out of it as Suzie drags her from the car towards the ferry. What’s interesting is that Suzie says that they’ll both keep running “you an me” which makes me wonder why she’s taking Gwen with her in the first place. If Suzie really believes that she’ll be all that’s left of Gwen a few minutes, she doesn’t need the shell along for the ride.

The TT-SUV pulls up and Jack and Owen get ready for the final confrontation. Suzie asked the wrong person if they were capable of killing her. One of them clearly is ready to send her back to the dark.

Gwen finally falls, not responding to Suzie’s questions. Finally, I think we see the real Suzie here. Her voice changes from the plotting nastiness it was earlier to much more child-like. She takes the time to apologize to Gwen for what she’s done, even though Jack and Owen are racing up behind her. She gently kisses Gwen goodbye, but not what we’d usually expect from Torchwood, it’s more the goodbye kiss one would see at a funeral before the casket is closed. Suzie Costello isn’t evil; she’s a terrified child.

Once she’s made what she sees as amends, Suzie keeps running; her regret at Gwen’s death is overtaken by her fear of the dark.

Owen stops to help Gwen, and Jack is the one pointing a gun at Suzie. He doesn’t take the shot, but instead asks Suzie if he can bring Gwen back by killing her – as Owen thinks they’re too late. Still using the argument that she’s all that’s left of Gwen, she asks Jack if he can see both of them in Suzie. Her voice has changed back to the plotting smirk of earlier so Jack fires.

He’s still hoping killing Suzie will bring Gwen back and at the same time, he didn’t fire until he was sure there was nothing of Gwen in Suzie. That moment of doubt, of hesitation tells me so much more about the character than anything else he’s done all season. It’s from this point forward I believe, no matter what he said, he couldn’t have killed Ianto in “Cyberwoman.” He was worried for Tosh and Ianto in “Countrycide” but hid it for the sakes of Owen and Gwen. No matter what shit Owen will pull for the rest of the season, Jack will forgive him. In other words, Captain Jack Harkness loves his team (not like that! Okay, not like that in this case). I didn’t even need to see “Last of the Time Lords” to know who he would choose, the Doctor, or his team.

As if to prove my point, he sounds panicked when Gwen isn’t revived after killing Suzie, again. No matter how many times Jack shoots her, Suzie won’t die.

It isn’t until Suzie a taunt Jack about the one to recruit her, that Jack connects the dots. He orders the glove be destroyed.

“O captain, my captain,” Suzie taunts him. You know, Suzie may be all levels of complexity and evil, but she knows how to pick extremely appropriate poetic quotations. She could’ve recited the whole poem and it would’ve been relevant to the situation in which they find themselves.

She’s clearly confident that Jack’s new plan won’t work. “Do you want to know a secret? There’s something moving in the dark and it’s coming, Jack Harkness; it’s coming for you.” It’s interesting that her last gasp effort at getting Jack Harkness to allow her to live is by using her greatest fear. Although, he has billions of years before he has to worry about it.

Tosh destroys the Risen Mitten, and Suzie dies. I’m saddened, even though Gwen suddenly revives. As Owen holds onto her, Gwen looks terrified. I wonder if she got a glimpse of the dark. Almost instinctually, Owen holds her tighter, to comfort her.

As for Jack, he’s left with the corpse of Suzie and considering his nearly immortal nature, it’s rather symbolic.

Back at the Hub, Owen and Tosh tend to Gwen while Ianto puts Suzie back in the crypt. Jack’s grateful, as he feels he should be the one, since he killed her, twice and all. It really a sweet gesture on Ianto’s part as I’m sure Jack would never admit otherwise, that he really couldn’t face preparing the body a second time. Also, Jack’s quite maudlin over the day’s events. First, they nearly lost Gwen, and then Suzie, a second time, and he’s afraid they’ll run out of space.

Considering Ianto’s job is to feed and clean up after everyone – essentially, the caregiver, he definitely takes his job dedication to a whole new level. He mentions that he still has the stopwatch. Apparently, there are many things you can “do with a stopwatch” all of which involve the rest of the team “going home early” so Ianto can “meet” Jack in “his office,” in "10 minutes."

There’s one last piece of business before they can get down to “business.” Ianto needs to know to put on the death certificate, since she had “quite a few deaths in the end.” I know Ianto meant that literally, but it could easily be taken as psychologically and emotionally too.

“Death by Torchwood,” Jack says. I’m not entirely sure that’s accurate, but now I’ll never know.

Ianto, bless him, gives me hope. Even though the Risen Mitten was destroyed, he reminds Jack that gloves usually come in pairs.

Awesome. I can hope.