Sunday 11 September 2011

TV Snark - Torchwood Miracle Day Episode Nine


The penultimate episode, the one before the last one, finale-eve. What happened? How will everything tie together? Will anyone die? Will Jack die from his gunshot wound? That was a good cliffhanger wasn't it? I hope they come up with a good way out of that. Let's find out...

2 MONTHS LATER

Oh bloody hell.

Yes two months later and Gwen is ram-raiding a chemist's shop (which looks a lot like an American pharmacy rather than a British chemist, looks like the American crew did the set design for a scene set in Wales). She wears a balaclava until she shoots the shop camera and then takes it off. This is despite there being a witness stood right outside the shop. Clearly the balaclava removal is so that the audience know it's Gwen but it's such a 'TV' thing to do, it shatters the moment. Gwen threatens the old man witness but he politely asks her to steal some painkillers for him so she obliges. Gwen then drives home with her ill-gotten gains where she distributes them to the locals.

Over in Scotland, Jack and Esther are hiding out. Jack's still got a poorly treated gunshot wound but is in no danger of immediate death. So there's the cliffhanger from last episode, neatly dumped in favour of moving the plot along. It's like one of those cliffhangers from an old Republic serial from the 1940s where you know the hero will survive the cliffhanger.


Although in this case I couldn't find the resolution to this cliffhanger so maybe Spy Smasher died. I haven't really proved my point here, have I? Still, that clip was fun wasn't it?

Back in Washington DC, Rex is back with the CIA and running an investigation into The Families. Seems that the null field has been forgotten about in the last two months along with Rex's suspicious behaviour when Jack escaped the CIA's clutches. The CIA can't find The Families on Google so they have no idea where they are, but Rex has found a short story published in 1935 that seems to be based on Jack's adventures in the butcher shop. While Jack was being repeatedly killed, someone was selling tickets to see the undying man and one of the people who saw Jack's repeated resurrections eventually wrote a fictional account. The author's family suspiciously disappeared a few years after the story was published and Rex thinks they may have joined The Families (it's a bit of a leap). The author had a brother who was stabbed to death and the knife is still held in evidence with DNA all over it. Rex thinks that the CIA can obtain the DNA of one of The Families. Traitor Lady recommends a team to perform the DNA test while she does her best not to look incredibly shifty.

Jilly meets up with the agent of The Families where she is told to fly to Shanghai. The agent then says that they will not meet again. That love affair is dead before it starts. Awww.

Back in Wales, Gwen's house is searched by the local Witch Finder. He stalks through Gwen's home in search of her dying father. He's unsuccessful in his attempt to find Gwen's dad because he's hidden behind a wall. He must be having the time of his (un)life living in a damp cellar while constantly suffering from a heart attack. The Witch Finder hisses and creeps off, vowing to find Gwen's dad.

Back in Washington, rather unsurprisingly the DNA search hasn't found anything. Rex decides he wants to read the short story now (I thought he'd already read it so he could find the link in the first place). Traitor Lady manages to act extremely suspiciously during the act of forwarding on a PDF.

Over to Wales again, and Oswald Danes infiltrates the Cooper household. The paedophile goes straight for the Cooper baby so we get the sensationalist money shot of Danes holding a baby. Gwen beats him with a saucepan until Rhys stops her and then Danes can finally explain what he's doing. Seems Danes knows who is behind The Miracle...

Rex has decided to use magic writing analysis software to spot patterns in the short story and now he's going to travel the world visiting authors who wrote structurally similar stories during the 1930s. I think there's a flaw there...

In Wales, Jack triumphantly returns from Scotland and removes the policemen who were spying on the Cooper family by making them drink a bottle of Retcon. Danes then reveals the name of the man behind The Miracle - Harry Bosco. Unfortunately Harry Bosco is an American goverment term used to control the message broadcast by the media. It seems that Jilly was part of the Harry Bosco process but she has now disappeared. They find a Chinese news video on Jilly's stolen laptop but they don't have anyone who speaks Mandarin. For some reason they think it's a good idea to contact Rex in the CIA and ask him for a translation, rather than go to a local college or similar place with Chinese language tutors.

Eventually the video is translated and they find that the person in it says, "The Blessing saved my life." They also discover that the man in the video burned down a blood bank, there is another video on the laptop from Buenos Aires that reports about a blood bank. The police then smash down the door as the team start to figure things out.

The Witch Finder appears and reveals that instead of using a sniffer dog, he has a thermal imaging app on his iPhone. WHY DIDN'T HE USE A SNIFFER DOG OR HIS IPHONE THE FIRST TIME HE SEARCHED THE HOUSE THEN? The iPhone does the job and he finds Gwen's father hidden in the cellar. Gwen's dad is taken away in an ambulance to be burnt. Cue sad music.

Rhys points out (using an inflatable globe) that Shanghai and Buenos Aires are on exact opposite sides of the Earth. SCIENCE. Torchwood then decide to split between the two locations to investigate both sites. Jack, Danes, and Gwen go to Shanghai and Esther and Rex go to Buenos Aires. Danes gets to ride along because Rhys can't be trusted not to kill him while they're away.

Jilly wanders around Shanghai until she meets a mysterious woman with 80s shoulder pads. Jilly is taken into a facility that leads to well... a giant fanny. Seriously.

I think this show just hit... rock bottom.
The crack goes all the way through to the other side of the Earth, so I guess the Earth is hollow now?

In Shanghai, Jack's wound reopens and his blood crawls across the floor as if drawn by something...

NEXT EPISODE: It all ends. Blessed release!

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