Retro Recaps: Torchwood 1.08 “They Keep Killing Suzie”

Hi, Torchwood fans! I’ll be taking over for Stephens for the next two weeks, I’m quite excited! For this episode, we go all the way back to the premiere – remember Suzie? Technically Gwen’s predecessor, Suzie became a little obsessed with a glove that could bring people back from the dead – she was killing people to get a chance to use the glove, and wound up killing herself. The glove was put away under lock and key, and Suzie’s body stored in Torchwood’s morgue, along with who knows who else.

This episode, we’re starting with murder! Well, we’re starting with Jack being flirty, but that’s hardly newsworthy. Three murders – one man, killed yesterday, and a couple, killed today. The couple’s murders are quite grisly, and “TORCHWOOD” is written in their blood above the body. The detective at the crime scene blames Torchwood for the murders. Jack seems a bit shaken. Tosh can’t find a link between yesterday’s victim and today’s, nor a link between any of them and Torchwood. They do have some of the killer’s hairs, and the profile tells us that the killer has ret-con in his system – the key ingredient in the amnesia pills Torchwood uses. Jack directs Gwen and Owen to find out more about the victims, and Gwen suggests they ask the victims, using the glove from the first episode. Owen and Jack both think this is a bad idea. Gwen feels responsible for the murders, and this convinces Jack to break out the glove.

He uses it – he wasn’t as good as Suzie was with it, and can’t get a connection. Gwen has a go at it, with Jack telling her that the glove uses empathy, or compassion – should be right up Gwen’s alley! And, indeed, dead dude #1 wakes up as soon as she touches the glove to his head. I say “glove” but it’s really more of a gauntlet, like from a suit of armor. So the dead guy’s come to, but is too busy yelling to get any information out of him. Gwen’s a natural with the glove, but is also immediately too into it. She tries again with the second victim, and Jack straight-up lies to him, getting the word “Pilgrim” out of him, and the name Max. Max, it seems, was always talking to Suzie. According to Ianto’s impeccable stopwatch-using skills, Gwen got the glove to work for a minute and five seconds, so well done there!

Tosh has information about Pilgrim – it was a religious debating society/support group, run by the 3^rd victim – the wife of dead dude #2. Gwen finds out that no one really knew Suzie, whether she’d be part of a group like that. So, time to find out more about Suzie! All of her things are in a storage container, property of Torchwood. Gwen’s increasingly concerned with her coworkers’ lack of knowledge and concern for Suzie, but more importantly, while Jack flips through an Emily Dickinson book, Tosh finds a flyer for Pilgrim in amongst Suzie’s things. Looks like we’re gonna wake Suzie up! (Wait, is Suzie named Suzie because of “Wake Up, Little Suzie”?? I wouldn’t put it past the writers.)

Anyway.  Waking up Suzie. Tosh can’t take it, and leaves. Gwen uses the glove, and has flashbacks to Suzie’s death, but not enough to wake her. Owen suggests they try using the knife, to kind of complete the circuit. The knife, if you remember, was what Suzie used to kill people – it came with the glove. Ianto has nicknamed it the life knife. Jack tries to give Suzie just a nick, but that doesn’t work, so he stabs her with it, while Gwen’s got the glove in position, and indeed, HEEEERE’S SUZIE!

Suzie freaks out a bit, and lets slip that she killed Jack. Jack pushes Suzie for information, but it’s too much for the glove, and Gwen kind of gets shocked and pulls away – but Ianto realizes Suzie doesn’t die again when the connection’s broken. She’s just unconscious, which is soon remedied. Jack takes her down to one of the cells for questioning, and lest we forget, the entire back of her head is blown off. Jack explains the situation – this Max fellow has killed three people, so what does she know? It seems Suzie gave Max an amnesia pill once a week, every week, for two years – the overdose seems to have caused the psychosis that sent him on a killing spree. Suzie is bitter, Jack is trying to get her to help. Suzie says there’s someone missing, who attended the Pilgrim meetings – Lucy McKenzie, who worked at a club. So Jack, Gwen and Owen head to the club, while Tosh and Suzie stay behind at the hub, and try to work out their, well, issues, what with Suzie being a murderer and all. Suzie’s put on a headscarf, hiding the gaping hole in her head.

Max tries to attack Gwen, but Suzie alerts her, and Jack tasers him instead. So now Suzie’s saved Gwen’s life.

In the cells, Max is refusing to answer questions. He does, however, go into 10-second rages, triggered by the word “Torchwood.”

Somewhere else, Suzie’s pressuring Gwen to let her see her father, who has cancer. Gwen offers to contact him on Suzie’s behalf, but that’s it. Suzie and Gwen have a moment, commiserating about the job, and Suzie talks about how much better Gwen is at the job than Suzie was. Gwen says she’s not a replacement, but Suzie counters with asking if she’d slept with Owen. Apparently, Suzie did too.

Gwen goes to Jack, who, out of nowhere, spins us a classic Harkness tale involving twin acrobats, because why not. Gwen fumes that Jack made a mistake in giving Suzie the glove, calling him out on his lack of compassion. Jack counters by saying they’re both responsible. Gwen’s worried that Suzie’s going to be undead forever, when Owen calls Jack away. He has some footage from the operating room, and long implausible story short involving energy and life forces, Suzie is sucking Gwen’s life out of her. Gwen’s got about two hours left. Jack decides that Suzie needs to die. Again.

While that’s happening, Gwen goes to see Suzie, and silently suggests they go for a road trip. The rest of the team figures this out, but just as they’re about to stop them, Torchwood goes into lockdown. Outside, Gwen and Suzie – who’s been gradually regaining color, for the record – get into Gwen’s car. Inside, everything’s shut off, and no one knows how it happened. They go down to the cells, and Max is sitting there, repeating Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” and Owen and Jack figure out that Suzie programmed the hub to shut down based on the verbal cue of that poem. This leads Jack to believe that Suzie planned all of this from the beginning, programming Max as a time bomb in case of her death.

In Gwen’s car, Suzie asks about Jack dying the night Suzie died. Gwen says yes, it happened, Jack can’t die. And then they wonder who Jack is. Don’t we all.

Ianto’s got cell phone service! Go Ianto! Jack phones the detective who first handled the murder cases – who was not the biggest fan of Torchwood to begin with. Jack asks her for help. Meanwhile, Gwen’s getting tired. Suzie hears a song on the radio and starts to cry. Jack gets the detective to look up the Dickinson poem, after the police station has a laugh about Torchwood being trapped in their own base. In Gwen’s car, they talk about what death is like – Gwen thinks of a white light and her grandmother, but Suzie tells her there’s nothing. The point of life is the little things. Also, it’s not just nothing. There’s something in the darkness, hunting you. Great!

Meanwhile, with help of Gabby the detective, we get Torchwood’s hub unlocked! Gwen and Suzie are at a hospital, and Jack rushes over there. Gwen wheels Suzie into what we can assume is her dying father’s room, and Gwen seems to experience getting shot in the head in slow motion. Suzie gets out of the wheelchair, wakes up her father, and promptly kills him by removing his oxygen tube. She says that was worth coming back for.

It’s Gwen in the wheelchair on the way out of the hospital, and Suzie’s wounds have completely healed. Suzie calls Jack, and Jack promises to kill Suzie if Gwen’s dead once they get to her. Suzie says that life is all there is, and she wants to stay alive. Also, Gwen’s better than she is, and Suzie was never any good. She then hangs up the phone, and makes for a ferry. Gwen’s barely conscious. Jack and Owen pull up at the dock, and Owen says Gwen’s gone. Jack shoots Suzie, a lot, but she seems to be hanging on. Jack orders Tosh to destroy the glove. Suzie says there’s something moving in the dark, and its coming for Jack. Tosh shoots the glove, destroying the connection between Gwen and Suzie, and Gwen gasps back to life.

We get a sad song I don’t recognize, and then everything’s calm and quiet back at base. Ianto, it seems has taken care of Suzie’s body and returned it to its compartment in the morgue. He comments that they’re going to run out of space one day, and I wonder for the upteenth time WHO IS IN THE REST OF THE MORGUE?!

And best of all, Ianto informs Jack that he’s still got the stopwatch, and there are lots of things one can do with a stopwatch. Jack says he’ll send the others home early.  :-D

He also says that the days of resurrecting things are over, but Ianto doubts it. Gloves, he says, come in pairs.