Torchwood S 3 E 5 Day Five - TV Tropes

Gwen wonders why the Doctor isn't saving them. She concludes that he must be turning away in shame, seeing what the Earth is about to do.

Many children are going back to school now, not knowing that they'll be carted off by the busload. Gwen and Andy visit Ianto's family to tell them of his death, and to let them know not to let any of the neighbourhood's children out of sight. Ianto's sister and her husband quickly round up the neighbourhood's children and guide them into a large empty shed. Gwen by now is considering whether she's going to abort her unborn child, since it should not grow up in this kind of world.

UNIT discovers that the 456 don't need children — children just feel good. They're literally getting high off of huffing small kids.

The military starts to hunt down children that didn't go to school. The children hidden in the shed are found, and Gwen tries to escape with them, but fails. Andy finally realises that something horrible is going on, takes off his jacket, charges into action to protect the children... and is promptly beaten to a pulp by the military.

The government needs to present itself as victims rather than villains. To achieve this, Frobisher is ordered by Green to publicly appear as a father whose children were taken unexpectedly by the 456. Frobisher asks Bridget Spears to retrieve a package for him.

Bridget Spears visits Lois, who has been put in a jail cell. She tells her:

He always worked hard. I don't think that's valued enough these days, hard work. And he was a good man. I want you to know that. John Frobisher was a good man. Because when the history of this is written, they'll talk about the ministers and the soldiers and the things with numbers for names and I think people will forget how very good he was. I want you to remember him like that. If ever you think of John Frobisher, just remember that it wasn't his fault.

Frobisher goes home, kisses his wife and two daughters, unwraps the package to reveal a gun, and closes the door behind him. Four shots are heard.

With Johnson's help, Jack meets Dekker and tries to figure out how to hack into the 456's frequency. They can kill the aliens by powering up the radio system through a child. Any child. But it would have to be right now, and the one they use won't survive it. And the only child in the entire facility is Steven, Jack's grandson. He makes the most devastating decision of his life. Steven is hooked up to the machine as the center of the resonance while all the children in the world start to scream, the 456 all across the sky explode, Steven dies and Alice utterly breaks down.

Prime Minister Green is quite happy with the cover-up and merrily prepares to blame the USA for everything. That is, until Spears reveals that she's wearing Lois' lenses, and has recorded the whole thing. Home Secretary Denise Riley MP will make sure that Green's actions will be made public.

Alice sees Jack. She can't bear to look at her father, and simply walks out of his life forever.

Six months later. Gwen is still very pregnant. She and Rhys meet up with Jack, who has been Walking the Earth. However, the Earth is too small to make him forget what he did, and he says his goodbyes and beams up into space. There are several hints of his former Torchwood colleagues' themes as he remembers each one who died, deciding that Torchwood is now gone, and it is time for him to go. Jack signals for a cold fusion cruiser to take him away from the Earth via teleport, and Gwen starts sobbing very heavily in despair. Rhys embraces her as tenderly as he can and tells her they should go home. She tries to smile back at his affection and the two head back to their own lives.

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Gwen: (voice quivering) ...Are you ever coming back, Jack?

Jack: What for?

Gwen: Me. It wasn't your fault.

Jack: I think it was.

Gwen: No.

Jack: Steven and Ianto and Owen and Tosh and Suzie and all of them, because of me.

Gwen: But you saved us. Didn't you?

Jack: I began to like it. And look what I became. Still, I have lived so many lives. It's time to find another one.

(He touches a button on his bracer.)

Gwen: (tearing up) They died, and I am sorry, Jack, but you cannot just run away. You cannot run away.

Jack: Oh yes, I can. Just watch me.

Tropes:

• Bearer of Bad News: Gwen ends up being the one to tell both Rhys and Ianto's family that Ianto is dead.
• Bittersweet Ending: Very heavily on the Bitter side for the heroes as whilst the 456 are defeated, and the children are saved from being turned into a Fantastic Drug, Jack had to kill his own grandchild to do so, and is haunted with guilt enough to leave Earth, ending Torchwood for the time being.
• Breaking the Fellowship: Between Owen and Tosh’s deaths last series, Ianto’s death last episode, Gwen being pregnant, and Jack leaving Earth, it’s safe to say that Torchwood has been terminated for now.
• Caught on Tape: After Greene smugly states his intent to blame the Americans for the whole 456 incident, Bridget reveals that she has been recording him the entire time using the Torchwood contact lenses and intends to release the footage on to the public.
• Continuity Nod: Gwen tells Rhiannon that Ianto had told her of his father being a master tailor, something previously revealed in "Something Borrowed". Unfortunately, it is also revealed that Ianto wasn't being entirely truthful with that claim.
• Death of a Child:
  • John Frobisher kills his two young children in a Pater Familicide, believing that to do otherwise would be dooming them to be taken by the 456.
  • Jack kills his young grandson Steven to stop the 456, as a child was needed as a transmitter to produce the needed signal.
• Despair Event Horizon: Jack has been hit heavily by Ianto's death in the previous episode, and according to Word of God, it was what put him into a state where he would willingly sacrifice his grandson's life. The sacrifice itself manages to push Jack further past the horizon, to the point where he eventually leaves Earth altogether to run away from the guilt.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: To Rhys' anger, Gwen briefly considers aborting her baby, not wanting it to grow up in a world where the Government can give up children to a Fate Worse than Death. Eventually, she does decide against it, and tells Rhys that she wasn't really being serious about getting rid of it, knowing how much it would hurt him.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Whilst the 456 are a horrific alien race, as it is revealed that they're threatening Earth for a drug fix, humanity isn't much better, willingly sending over 10% of the Earth's children and turning it into a eugenist's program. Gwen, pondering about why another alien (The Doctor) who usually shows up to help Earth hasn't this time, concludes that even he must be horrified by the degree of depravity that humanity is capable of.
• Offing the Offspring: Jack is forced to kill his own grandson Steven to stop the 456, as he was the only child available in the facility and there was no time to find another for the solution he intended to use.
• Pater Familicide: Upon being told that he has to give up his children to the 456, Frobisher grabs a gun and shoots both them and his wife dead. Then, he shoots himself.
• Sadistic Choice: Jack is faced with either killing his own grandson or letting him live, but at the cost of allowing the children to be taken by the 456, as the children were already being rounded up and there wasn't any time to get another child. Jack reluctantly settles for the former option.
• Skewed Priorities: Johnny is more concerned about the whereabouts of his car than the fact that his brother-in-law has just died.
• Smells of Death: Despite the fact that Thames House has been given a spray of disinfectant, the smell of the bodies of people killed by the 456's virus still lingers in the building.

  Dekker: Disinfectant doesn't work. You can still smell it. There were bodies lying ten deep around those doors.

• Sound-Only Death: Frobisher and his family's deaths are not actually seen - the audience only sees Frobisher enter his daughter's bedroom with his family present and close the door before they hear the fatal gunshots.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Gwen notices that during this potentially catastrophic event, at no point has The Doctor from the parent series shown up to help out. She concludes that it's because even he must turn away in shame at the horrific actions that humanity has committed.
• Time Skip: After the 456 are defeated, the episode jumps forward by 6 months to show what Jack, Rhys and Gwen have gotten up to since.
• Walking the Earth: Jack decides to explore the Earth after the 456 are defeated in an attempt to get away from the guilt of his actions. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as he believes that the planet is too small to make him forget what he did and he instead chooses to leave the planet altogether.

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TORCHWOOD STATUS:

TERMINATED

...For now.

• Torchwood S 3 E 4 Day Four
• Recap/Torchwood
• Torchwood S 4 E 1 The New World