March 11: "Adrift" (TW)

Boy, talk about a tearjerker of an episode, huh?

In some ways this is portrayed as something of a conspiracy thriller -- Gwen and Tosh discover that not only are things deposited in Cardiff from the Rift (as we've already known), but sometimes people are taken from Cardiff by the Rift and sent somewhere else.  Except Jack seems oddly reluctant to do anything about it.  Thus "Adrift" spends its time from Gwen's point of view, as her investigation into a missing boy leads her to this discovery.

This storyline is presented in a really nice way, as Gwen (after being confronted by her old police partner Andy about becoming too hard and uncaring) starts investigating what seems to be a slightly odd disappearance that snowballs to become bigger and bigger.  This part is handled very well, as Gwen delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, only to find it gets larger and larger -- the scene where more and more people come to Nikki's "missing persons" support group being a particularly effective moment.  Chris Chibnall also does a good job of casting doubt and suspicion on Jack; Gwen is repeatedly told by him to drop this investigation, which makes us wonder about his motives.  After all, there's still an awful lot we don't know about Jack, and frequently we're not sure why he does things.  Did he therefore know about the Rift taking people and is choosing to cover it up?  It's really well handled, and we can't help but be drawn in.  And balanced against this is Gwen's relationship with Rhys, where he lays into her about forgetting why she's in Torchwood in the first place -- to fight so people can have a normal life.  This is also a highlight of the episode, and Eve Myles and Kai Owen both do a great job in this scene.

The adult Jonah. ("Adrift") ©BBC

But it's when Gwen finally discovers the truth of everything that's going on that things get really good.  We learn why Jack has been so secretive, and what's really been happening to many of those missing people: they have indeed been disappearing into the Rift -- but some of them come back.  Except those that return seem significantly worse than when they left; they're being cared for in a secret facility, and they all seem damaged in some way, both physically and mentally.  They're also displaced in time -- for instance, the fifteen-year-old boy that Gwen is searching for, Jonah Bevan, is now in his fifties and very badly scarred from events he witnessed while on another planet.  These are people that can't be integrated back into society, and so Jack has been keeping them comfortable away from everyone.  But Gwen still wants to try, so she brings Jonah's mother to see him -- and while she eventually is willing to handle his being forty years older and scarred, she can't cope with his constant primal screaming, the result of being driven insane while out in space.  And worse, Gwen has taken Nikki's hope away -- now she knows what happened to Jonah, and that for all intents and purposes she'll never see her son again.  That, for Nikki, is the worst thing.  "Promise me you won't do this to anyone else," she tells Gwen.  "Before, I had the memory.  Whenever I thought of him, I'd see him laughing with his mates, playing football, scoffing his breakfast.  And now I just hear that that terrible noise."  "I thought you wanted to know what happened to him," Gwen replies.  "I did," says Nikki.  "I was wrong.  It was better when I didn't know.  Before you, I had hope."  For all Gwen's efforts, we see that Jack was right after all.

This is an adept, well-constructed episode.  Once again, by focusing on the characters and the people affected by the weird events, Torchwood comes out ahead.  Clearly they've figured out what works best on this show, and "Adrift" is a prime example of this.