Tuesday 16 September 2008

Torchwood Series 2 Episode 13 - Exit Wounds

It was a decent enough ending to the series but, as always, it didn’t stop me having a few gripes with the story! This final episode sees the long-awaited introduction of Jack brother, Gray.

It seems however that Gray hasn’t forgiven his brother for losing his grip, during the flashbacks in ‘Adam’. In these, Jack and Gray’s home world was under attack from an ‘unknown alien race’ and as they where running away, Jack lost Gray’s grip and apparently, Gray spent most of his life imprisoned. Now, Gray has set a number of ‘traps’ around Cardiff to keep the team busy, whilst Captain John lures Jack back to the hub, where he and Gray take him prisoner. And speaking of even more prisoners, we learn that it is John, not Gray who is forced to work with the other.

Jack wakes up to find himself in Cardiff – in the year AD 27. Gray buries him as a ‘foundation stone’ and claims that Jack’s immortally is a ‘curse’ and that Jack will spend ‘every death thinking about what he has done’.

John suddenly has a change of heart, when he returns to the present and once he is free, he works with the Torchwood team, in order to bring down Gray’s reign of terror. Jack meanwhile is dug up by the Torchwood team of 1900 and asks them to freeze him because there are two of him, shagging around, in that time period.

Back to the future where Gray sets up a nuclear reactor to blow up and as Tosh tries to stop him – he shoots her. When Owen gets to the plant, he learns that he can stop the meltdown but at his own risk. Tosh, despite bleeding to death, helps him from the hub and after a tearful goodbye, they both die. The reactor room blows up with Owen inside it and Tosh dies in the arms of Jack, who has returned from the freezer. It’s a beautiful scene that would have had some fans crying.

Jack has one last showdown with Gray and as Gray refuses to forgive his brother, Jack drugs him and freezes him.

It’s a breathtaking episode that does have its questionable points. Tosh’s appearance in ‘Aliens of London’ was briefly explained, very poorly though. I also didn't understand Gray's motive, it seemed a little bit childish to me. If someone had made me lose my brother's grip and imprisoned me, I would want revenge on the ones who had chased me, not my brother. I thought that was the main reason that let the episode down.

8/10

Well it's goodbye Owen and Tosh, there is also no more Torchwood until 2009. Let’s hope the mini series, ‘Children of Earth’ will be the start of a new and improved era for Torchwood.

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