End of Days
by Chris Chibnall
All that buildup, for nothing…
Synopsis
Due (presumably) to Owen’s opening of the rift last time, people from other times are being deposited all over the world. The loonies think it is the End of Times as prophesied in many of their various loony books. Jack, being from the future, knows this isn’t the end of the world. (And again we ask ourselves, “Without a Time Lord, is the past/future fixed?â€)
Visions of dead people peoples start appearing to the Torchjwood team, telling them they must fully open the Rift to fix the problem. Bilis Manger from the previous episode provides Gwen with a vision of the future – Rhys will be murdered. She locks him up in Torchwood for his protection, but Bilis (who can materialize at will anywhere in time) arrives and murders him.
Inconsolable, she joins the others in opposing Jack and demanding the Rift be opened. Jack refuses, so Owen kills him.
They open the Rift and everything returns to normal – except one thing. Bilis reveals that he used them to open the Rift and release Aberdon, the Great Devourer who was imprisoned beneath the Rift. Aberdon, turns out to be a Godzilla-sized demon-looking creature whose very shadow drops everyone dead.
Jack (who has again recovered from being dead) reasons that (A) Aberdon devours life and (B) Jack is immortal therefore if he lets Aberdon kill him, Aberdon will be destroyed. And so that comes to pass, but Jack appears to be really, really dead this time.
Gwen waits for days by his corpse to no avail. She kisses him goodbye and he revives afterall.
Jack reveals to Gwen that no visions had come to tempt him to open the Rift, and the only thing that could have tempted him would have been “…the right kind of doctor.â€
Moments later, Jack hears the familiar sound of an unseen TARDIS. With a huge smile on his face, Jack runs to the sound and leaves the Torchwood crew with a mystery: What happened to Jack?
Analysis
This episode rounds out the series with a final, last gasp of total illogic.
The devil (so to speak) in the guise of Manger, tempts each and every member of the Torchwood team into opening the rift all the way. In the last episode, he “engineered†Jack and Toshiko to be sent back in time and then made sure they only sent enough information to partially open the rift. The partially opened rifts resulted in the strange temporal crossovers that begin this episode. Couldn’t he have just arranged for them to open the rift fully at that time?
His argument is, if the rift is opened all the way, everything will return to normal, and, once his nefarious goal is achieved, everything does seem to go back – including Rhys being resurrected, even though his death really had nothing to do with the rift.
There’s a lot of tension between everyone else and Jack, who turns out to be right all along.
The notion that Aberdon would be killed by Jack being immortal is beyond stupid. Perhaps that sums up the whole episode.
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