They Keep Killing Suzie
by Paul Tomalin & Daniel McCulloch
An old “friend†returns to Torchwood.
Summary
A psycho killer is on the loose and his calling card is the word “Torchwood†written in the victims’ blood.
Chemical analysis of trace evidence from the killer reveals he has previously been given Torchwood’s memory erasing drug. Worried that the drug might begin inducing psychosis on the thousands of people they have administered the drug to, they break out the gauntlet that can bring a dead person back to life for 2 minutes. Their hope is for the victim to identify the killer.
The glove works better with some people than others. The previous glove operator had been Suzie, the Torchwood member who Gwen replaced in the pilot episode. Suzie had become obsessed with the glove, perhaps even possessed by it, and had begun murdering people so that she could practice bringing them back with the glove.
Gwen attempts to use the glove and gets some limited success, and she improves with each attempt. The trail obtained from the resurrected victims leads squarely back to Suzie. They resurrect Suzie, but instead of lasting only 2 minutes, she does not return to death, but stays, rather zombie-like but fully aware.
She explains that she’d been using a guy she met at a religious group as a sounding board – someone to talk to. After she’d talk to him, each week, she’d erase his memory. They find him and lock him up in the Hub.
Meanwhile, Suzie convinces Gwen to take her to see her dying father. Gwen’s compassion gets the better of her and she takes her, against orders, out of the Hub. Just as she does, the Hub goes into complete lockdown and everyone else is trapped inside.
Owen has worked out that Suzie is sucking the life out of Gwen to bring herself permanently back to life. Before she died, Suzie prepared a contingency plan. She planted post-hypnoptic instructions into the killer’s brain which caused him to start his murder spree and attract Torchwood’s attention. She planted clues so that she would be the person they’d need to interrogate and would be forced to revive her. She also planted a suggestion in the killer’s mind that caused him to recite poetry in the Torchwood cell. The poetry activated a hidden lockdown program that locked everyone into the hub.
The Torchwood team finds an override and starts the chase.
Suzie reveals her true colors when they arrive at the hospital. First, Gwen collapses with a headache. Suzie explains that she’s slowly being “shot through the head†(Suzie shot herself in the head when she committed suicide.) and then she proceeds to murder her father.
Capt. Jack arrives just in the nick of time, shoots Suzie, has the glove destroyed and the day is saved once more.
Analysis
This was an interesting episode. In general, I enjoyed it. The characters worked well together, and, for perhaps the first time, they all participated as a team, even Ianto.
The crux of the episode was the unbelievable (and I use that word with precision) machinations that Suzie put into motion before her death in the pilot.
If you can buy the notion that she programmed someone to become a killer, setup to specifically get caught and then recite a particular poem that was programmed into the computers to initiate a complete lockdown. If you can buy the fact that Suzie made sure the clues were there so that Torchwood would be forced to resurrect her. If you can buy the fact that she would plot and waste all this effort for 2 extra minutes of life (because she obviously hadn’t figured it out how to make it last when she killed herself in the first place)… well, if I were able to buy all those things I’d have only one thing to say:
Suzie was Torchwood’s one kick-ass member and I’m surprised they can function without her.
In a way, it’s be a nice character developing situation for Gwen. Gwen should really, really feel inadequate about now. She’s not a boil on Suzie’s butt.
That’s only if I bought the premise. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stretch my disbelief that far. While I might have bought the poetry computer shutdown, the ISBN restart sequence was stupid.
While maybe I could believe that Suzie sucked the life force out of Gwen, I’m not going to buy that Gwen is slowly forming a bullet hole in her head. Either you have a hole in your brain, or you don’t. There’s no “half a hole†when it comes to a bullet in the brain.
The “payoff†for this episode is, of course, the opportunity for someone who is alive to ask someone who has been dead what it’s like. They neatly circumvented it in the pilot by making the resurrections so short and traumatic that they never go anything useful out of the victims. There’s no avoiding the questions in this episode, though.
Death is nothing, says Suzie. There is nothing more than life. Well, nothing, except something moving through the darkness.
Russell T. Davies is an atheist1, so it’s no surprise that Torchwood universe would take the non-existence view of death. But… if there’s nothing… there’s nothing “moving through the darkness†Movement requires the passage of time, which is more than nothing.
These problems aside, the mystery (far-fetched though it was) was engaging and unravelled nicely as the story progressed.
Captain Jack mystery puzzle pieces of the week: Something in the dark is coming for Jack. Jack has a penchant for games two men play alone with a stopwatch.2
1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_T_Davies – I’ll take Wikipedia’s word on this one.
2I can only assume that’s a British joke that doesn’t translate well.
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