Exit Wounds (Torchwood)

"Exit Wounds" is the thirteenth and final episode of the second series of the British science fiction television series Torchwood, and was broadcast on BBC Two on 4 April 2008.^[1] It marked the final appearance of Burn Gorman as Owen Harper and Naoko Mori as Toshiko Sato, with both characters being killed off at the end of the episode.

In the episode, Gray (Lachlan Nieboer), the brother of the alien hunter Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), punishes Jack for abandoning him long ago by having Jack buried underground in the past. Meanwhile, Gray has also ordered the detonation of bombs throughout Cardiff, leaving the remaining members of Jack's team of alien hunters in Torchwood preoccupied with saving Cardiff.

Plot[]

Synopsis[]

After regrouping from Captain John Hart's bombing attempt in the previous episode, the Torchwood team splits up to investigate four instances of Rift activity. Captain Jack Harkness returns to the Torchwood hub to find John waiting for him, who then shoots him; though Jack's immortality eventually revives him, John strips him of his weapons and chains him up. When Jack revives, John takes him to the top of Cardiff Castle and instructs the rest of Torchwood to watch as he systematically detonates several bombs across the city. John then transports himself and Jack to Cardiff in 27 A.D., where John explains that he was forced to do what he did by Jack's brother, Gray, and has been forced to wear a bomb and surveillance equipment on a wristband molecularly bonded to his skin. Gray arrives and drives a blade through Jack, and while Jack is recovering, forces John to dig a grave for Jack. When Jack recovers, Gray explains his hatred for Jack for leaving him behind, and tells Jack that he will be buried alive for eternity due to his immortality. As they begin to fill in the grave, John drops a ring into the grave, claiming sentimental value and love.

In the present, Gwen, Rhys and Andy help to organise the police to maintain order in the city while the rest of Torchwood attempts to repair the damage. Detecting Rift activity at the Hub, Gwen heads there to find John waiting for her. John convinces Gwen he was blackmailed, and shows that his deal with Gray is complete as the wristband comes loose, a large amount of his flesh sloughing off with it. John tells Tosh to search for a signal from the ring that he placed in Jack's grave, but they are unable to find it. The team learns that the Turnmill Nuclear Power Plant will soon go into meltdown, but that Gray, having returned to the present, has released Weevils which block access to the plant. Owen, whom the creatures have worshipped since his return from death, is able to enter the plant untouched while Tosh helps him with the plant's control system via radio. Whilst Rhys and Andy help keep attacking Weevils at bay at the Police Station, Gwen, Ianto and John are able to sedate three attacking Weevils and drag them down to the holding cells. Once in the cells, though, they are locked in by Gray. Gray then shoots Tosh, mortally injuring her, as she attempts to help Owen avert disaster at the nuclear plant.

As Tosh crawls along the floor to recover her communicator, a rhythmic banging is heard throughout the Hub. Gray investigates it and finds its source is the Hub's morgue, and that inside one compartment is Jack, alive. Jack reveals that he was discovered by the 1901 Torchwood team and urged them to keep him in cryogenic storage until this specific time. Jack then apologises to Gray and asks for his forgiveness but Gray refuses, forcing Jack to sedate him. Jack is able to free the other trapped Torchwood personnel. Meanwhile, Tosh has been able to regain the communicator despite losing much blood, and tells Owen how to vent the system into the control room to avoid the meltdown. Owen successfully completes the procedure, but before he can make his escape, a power surge triggers the lockdown mechanism and Owen is trapped, sealing his fate. Unaware that Tosh herself is dying, Owen rages at his impending second death until stopped by a sobbing Tosh, who tells him he's breaking her heart. Owen calms and the two share memories and a tearful farewell. By the time Jack and the others find her, Tosh is too far gone to be saved and Owen has been consumed by the radioactive coolant.

Jack places Gray's body in cryogenic storage. John questions Jack's decision, asking if it wouldn't be better to just give Gray the release of death that he craved but Jack refuses, stating there had already been too much death. John promises to stay on Earth and leaves, passing along his condolences. As Ianto completes the close-out procedures for Owen and Tosh, he discovers a final message from Tosh which confesses her love for Owen as well as thanks Jack for all her wonderful experiences and her hope that she'd done some good. Gwen, after seeing the message, believes she cannot go on, but Jack consoles her, telling her this is only a beginning.

Continuity[]

• A Hoix creature from the parent series Doctor Who in its 2006 episode "Love and Monsters" appears in this episode. This is the first time it is named onscreen.
• Owen refers to his status as "King of the Weevils", first mentioned in "Dead Man Walking" and foreshadowed in "Combat".
• When Owen Harper and Toshiko Sato are discussing their early days together, Tosh describes pretending to be a medic in Owen's second week, to cover for him having a hangover. Owen asks if this was "the space pig" incident, referring to Naoko Mori's appearance as Doctor Sato, a presumed pathologist in the Doctor Who story "Aliens of London".
• Paul Marc Davis, who plays the Cowled Leader, previously played the Futurekind Chieftain in the Doctor Who episode "Utopia" and the Trickster in The Sarah Jane Adventures story Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?. He is the second actor to appear in all three series, the first being Paul Kasey.

Production[]

Cast notes[]

This episode marks the last episode starring Naoko Mori as Toshiko Sato and Burn Gorman as Owen Harper. In the Torchwood: De-Classified television special that covers this episode, Burn Gorman jokingly remarks that Owen will transform into the "King of the Weevils" if he isn't truly dead.

References[]

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Torchwood

• Exit Wounds on Tardis Data Core, an external wiki