Would you Adam and Eve (Myles) it?

Episode 2.05 'Adam'
Tx: 13th February 2008

Blah. It’s the 21st century. It’s when everything changes and Torchwood is there to mess things up and have sex with aliens.

Gwen and Rhys have sexy giggle fun on the bed and he tells her to go to work. She says coming home to him is the best bit of going to work. [And there was me thinking she preferred having sex with Owen and attempting to glance meaningfully at Jack and being rude to police officers and getting off with aliens. - Carrie]

Torchwood-under-Cardiff. It’s time to do an audit of the unlabelled class D artefacts. Some fat ginger slob says he likes audit time and shoehorns in the fact that he’s been there three years. Gwen comes in and says, ‘Who the hell is this?’ This so called 'Adam' says ‘just cos I said that to you on your first day’ and touches her shoulder. We get lots of flashes of memory of Gwen and ‘Adam’ hanging out with each other. Gwen hugs him and says she couldn’t resist the joke. Tosh is looking good. Very boobsy.

‘Adam Smith’ is creating his own personnel file. Tosh asks what he’s doing in the staff files and he says nothing - he’s working on the rift activity. She asks when this gold box she’s holding came through. 'Adam' touches Tosh and gives her sexy time memories of the two of them. He’s all, ‘a year ago today’ and she’s all ‘you remembered’. I’m all, NO MORE MIND RAPE. Owen sees them, and is all ‘hef hef, kissing at work, hardly appropriate.’ Owen is geeky and shy now, by the way. We can tell this because he is wearing GLASSES. [Lopsided glasses, no less. This show may be many things, but subtle is not one of them. - Steve]

Down in the cells, Jack yells at a weevil. Then sees a kid in a cell. We get the shot of someone’s hand slipping out of another, from when Captain John said ‘I found Gray’. The kid isn’t there when Jack looks again. Gwen comes down and slaps his arse. They playfight and stuff.

Upstairs, Tosh says three days ago there was rift activity but nothing came through. ‘Except me,’ says Owen, and wiggles a screen cleaner mouse toy at Tosh. She says she doesn’t need a rodent watching her while she works, and then says she’ll call it Owen, trampling on her own joke because Torchwood doesn’t trust its audience to get any form of subtlety. [Told you so. - Steve] They talk about how Owen is a pussy.

Gwen goes home. Rhys hugs her from behind. She’s all ‘Who the bloody hell are you then, boyo?’ and wields a knife at him and then calls Jack, all hayulp hayulp there’s a stranger in my house. She points her gun at Rhys and says, ‘You have picked the wrong girl to stalk, mate.’ Rhys is understandably freaked out. [Poor Rhys. He really is the most put-upon fiance in history. - Carrie]

Jack and ‘Adam’ come a-running. Jack says, ‘What’s going on?’ Gwen says there’s a creepy stranger in her house and he’s put photos up! Of the two them! Together! He’s deluded! Jack’s like, it’s Rhys, you retard. Rhys yells at Jack about memory-wiping pills, given that he knows they’ve got them at Torchwood. Although he doesn’t remember the first time that Gwen mind-raped him with that because she felt guilty about sleeping with another man and then telling him about it, and she chose not to give it to him the second time her boss told her to mind-rape her fiancé so he’d forget them. Gosh he’s lucky to have her. Point being, he shouldn’t know about the Retcon pills because they, erm, make you forget. Rhys is like, ‘We’re engaged! You’re wearing my ring!’ She looks at her finger. ‘Adam’ says Gwen should come to the hub and they’ll sort everything out, while Jack stays with Rhys. Gwen says she’ll kill Rhys if he comes after her. Jack says to Rhys they’ll sort it out.

Owen checks her out and finds nothing to show why her memory is missing. We also know he’s a geek because he’s doing doctoring without his LABCOAT, so it clearly comes more naturally. [I am unconvinced he was doing doctoring, if he did not have his WHITE DOCTOR COAT on. - Carrie] ‘Adam’ looks pensive.

Jack films on his mobile. Apparently there are no alien cameras amidst all the exciting alien tech. Rhys talks about when they met etc. Gwen calls him ‘Rhys the Rant’ when he gets stroppy and so on. ‘Adam’ and Gwen watch Rhys on a screen. ‘Adam’ asks if she remembers it but Gwen can’t remember how she felt when these things happened even though the events sound familiar. Adam touches her head. Rhys says he’s going to marry Gwen even if it kills him. Which it probably will. She’ll get, like, intergalactic clap from some alien she fucks and give it to him.

Tosh asks Owen about the big gold box. He hasn’t opened it yet. He’s brought sandwiches. Like Tosh last week! How in-depth and continuity-full. He got her smoked salmon. It’s her favourite. Tosh wants to know how he knows. Tosh wants a beer. Owen is like, crikey, beer? At work? Goodness gracious! [I did like that one of the chief traits of Bizarro Torchwood was everyone having a strange sense of propriety in the workplace. - Steve]

Ianto brings Gwen home. She says, ‘don’t leave me, Jack’. He says she’ll be okay and promptly leaves her. Ianto gives a cute little thumbs-up to Gwen. Jack sees this child again. Oh, it’s a boy. I couldn’t tell before. ‘Can you see him?’ Jack asks. Ianto cannot. There’s been a sighting down a sewer. Ianto wants them both to go, but Jack is going alone.

Tosh gives Owen a beer and tells him to live a little. Her boobs hang out. She says ‘call it a celebration’. She and Adam have been together a year. Her stomach still flips when she thinks about him. ‘Do you know what I mean?’ Owen doesn’t. Tosh says he’ll meet the right girl. Owen asks if she really thinks he looks like a rodent. Tosh says they’ll open the box.

Jack is down the sewers investigating. He turns and sees a man, dressed in like, knock-off Tatooine clothing, all white linen and goggles. The man yells, ‘Get out! Get out son!’ Jack says ‘Dad?’ and runs.

‘Adam’ is there. ‘How did you get here?’ says Jack. ‘I came with you!’ says ‘Adam’ and touches Jack on the shoulder. ‘Oh, of course,’ says Jack. ’What did you see?’ says ‘Adam’. ‘My past,’ says Jack.

Gwen and Rhys. She doesn’t understand how she could forget being in love. [She does it quite often, you'd think she'd be used to it by now. - Carrie] Rhys sees there is no food in, so they pop to the shops.

‘Adam’ goes after Jack. ‘What about the past? Is it your childhood?’ ‘Adam’ gets a bit Counsellor Troi and says ‘I’ve always been here. You can confide in me,’ And, of course, touches Jack on the shoulder. Oh dear. And now we get lots and lots of John Barrowman acting his socks off. It’s not pretty, you guys. ‘It was meant to be buried! Over 150 years ago! Why now?’ ‘Adam’ says that maybe Jack’s subconscious is letting him remember. But Jack, Jack cannot afford to remember. ‘Adam’ looks pissed off and says he can help and gets all hypnotist – where are you, what do you see yada yada yada.

We see young Jack on a beach, on the Boeshae Peninsula his home in the 51st century. Big Jack narrates. They lived under threat of invasion. They thought they’d pass over but they didn’t. ‘Adam’ asks who. The most horrible creatures you can possibly imagine. On Tattooine, erm, excuse me, Boeshae, Little Jack’s dad says to take Gray and keep him safe. ‘My little brother,’ says Big Jack, for the terminally slow-on-the-uptake. Jack’s dad goes to get Jack’s mum. Little Jack and Gray run away. At some point, Little Jack lets go of Gray’s hand. He goes back to find him.

John Barrowman isn’t very good at emotions. I think he’s still acting for stage – where everything needs to be writ large to register across the distance to the audience. But he’s not on stage, he’s on TV, where we have such technological marvels as The Close-Up, so subtlety is rather more on order. Jack ran all the way home! He found his dad’s corpse, complete with bloody chest wound, but looked for Gray for years and never found a body. ‘Adam’ says it wasn’t Jack’s fault. Jack wibbles on about how he let go of Gray’s hand, it was the worst day of my life, I don’t want to remember. (Incidentally, this is a fairly nice indication of how close he was to Captain John, given that Captain John clearly knew all this stuff that Jack keeps really locked away. However, as it’s Torchwood, I think that’s probably coincidence rather than subtle character interplay.)

The box has alien, like, radiation waves or something, wavey wavey alien wavey, on it. Owen says they’re from cross-contamination in the crates. Ianto thinks Jack brought in the special gold box. Tosh says Adam did. Ianto will check his diary. Tosh is surprised he writes about artefacts. He says he does, ‘and other things’ and winks. Ohh, I like dirty Ianto. Hello. [I just like my Ianto, full stop. Bless him and his suits. - Carrie]

Owen asks if Tosh and ‘Adam’ are doing anything for their anniversary. Tosh is like, ‘maybe, yeah, sort of’. Owen tells Tosh he’d cherish her if they were together and if it was their anniversary he’d make a big fuss. Because ‘I love you!’ Tosh is like, you love who in the what now? Owen says he’s always loved her. Tosh says ‘Owen’ in a voice full of warning. Owen says ‘You wouldn’t know that unless I tell you, so I’m telling you,’ and that he knows there’s ‘Adam’ but Tosh should give Tosh‘n’Owen a chance. Toshiko ‘n’ Owen. Oh, shit. Toshikowen. They’ve got a portmanteau couple name – they’re so getting together by the end of the series. Tosh is ANGRY. That is completely inappropriate! ‘How dare you! I’m with Adam! And even if weren’t, you’re not my type. And never will be.’ She storms out. Owen gives a tiny broken ‘oh’ and John Barrowman needs to watch Burn Gorman right here on repeat for about a thousand years because that’s how you act. Subtle, small, but totally effective. [Word. I had my issues with this episode, but I thought Naoko Mori and Burn Gorman did a fantastic job in all of their scenes. - Steve]

Rhys and Gwen are in some shop buying stuff for dinner. The cashier boy wanders off on his mobile. Rhys goes off on one. Gwen remembers Rhys the Rant. It’s come back to her! She cries a bit.

Ianto reads his diary. He looks worried. ‘Adam’ is next to him, all of a sudden. Ianto says, ‘The diary – you’re not in it. Why would I leave you out if you’ve been here so long? Like I’m remembering a man who doesn’t exist’. ‘Adam’s’ hand goes all twitchy and blurry. ‘Adam’ doesn’t even try to pretend, and says to Ianto, ‘Cross me and I’ll fill your head with fake memories until it’s on fire.’ He makes Ianto remember murdering a woman. And another. And raping them too, it seems, although that’s never made explicit. But it wouldn’t be Torchwood without casual rape, would it? [Ugh. Gratuitous violence against women. I get that he was trying to convince Ianto he was a monster, but did all of his vicitms have to be helpless females? So gross. - Steve] ‘Adam’ is all crazy and saying stuff like ‘we know the rot in your heart. You crave flesh,’ and putting more and more murder memories in Ianto’s head. It cuts between them in the hub and them at the various murder scenes. ‘Adam’ says ‘Remember it. Remember it. Remember it,’ and tells Ianto that he’s the one that helps Ianto dispose of the bodies and stuff, so that makes them Super Special Awesome Best Buddies. ‘Adam’ kisses Ianto on the mouth, because it wouldn’t be Torchwood without gratuitous same-sex kissing, and says ‘I’d forgotten what a rush it was. Filling in the bad stuff.’ Ianto is in the rain-soaked murder scene rocking and crying.

Jack stands on the roof (where else?) and looks thoughtful, remembering dead daddy. His mummy is sad. Where’s Gray? Jack doesn’t know. Boo hoo, goes mum, my husband and child are dead and I’ve only got the shitty time-travelling promiscuous bisexual son left. Jack wants to know why the memories are coming back now.

Gwen gets in bed in some nice grey pyjamas. It’s a bit of blur but she’s getting there, in memory terms. Rhys says, 'It’s all you’ve got, really, memories’ and that he always worried she just settled for him. She wouldn’t look at him twice now she has her Super Special Awesome High-Powered Job Where She Gets To Fuck Up A Lot And Have Sex With Aliens. ‘Don’t say that!’ says Gwen. He kisses her and asks if she remembers it. ‘No, it felt like the first time. But it was nice.’ He kisses her neck and the get down to some Sexy Fun Time, we assume.

‘Adam’ and Tosh get to have some sex also. And I really really wish Torchwood would think more carefully about these things. In the very first episode, Owen pheromoned a woman (and her boyfriend) to make them have sex with him. Here, ‘Adam’ has implanted all these memories into Tosh’s brain of them being a couple, which they never were. The attitude of the writers is basically, ‘it’s not rape if you make her think she likes it’ and that grosses me out. Anyway, they’re sexing to Tricky, of all things. Who listens to Tricky any more? They stop. Tosh asks what’s wrong? ‘Adam’ asks how far she would you for him, if she would die for him. Tosh says yes, because it was only a few weeks since she was shagging time-travelling frozen boyo and now she’ll say anything to get laid.

Jack comes home to the base. Ianto says ‘Jack’ in a hoarse voice and says, ‘Put me in the vaults. Lock me up. I killed three girls.’ Jack is like, nuh-uh you did. Ianto’s like, I totally did and I liked it. Jack’s all ‘what happened to you?’ and gives Ianto a hug. Ianto whispers, ‘I’m a monster.’ [I was actually quite moved at this bit, despite Captain Jack's ever-present sense of omniscience. - Carrie] (It was sweet. Gareth David Lloyd or whatever his name is does good scared-sad.-Joel)

Jack gets some alien tech lie detector, with the incredibly sophisticated technology of a light bulb that changes colour when someone is lying. Seriously. Ianto is all, I had my hands on her through and it was awesome. The light stays green. Ianto says it must be true, then. Jack says he doesn’t believe it and wants to know about the second girl..’ Ianto is all, she tried to run but I was too quick and something in me wanted to kill. The light stays green. Jack still doesn’t believe it.

Jack goes and looks at some security footage. We get some big flashes of ‘Adam’ saying ‘remember it’ to Ianto, and making out with Tosh, and Gwen’s ‘who the hell is this’ bit. Just in case we didn’t realise what he did yet. He TOUCHES them and that’s how he IMPLANTS MEMORIES. [OH! IT IS ALL SO MUCH CLEARER NOW! THANK GOODNESS FOR THE TOP-QUALITY SCRIPTWRITING FITTING THESE JIGSAW PIECES TOGETHER! - Carrie] Jack shows Ianto the footage. They run about a bit. [We should maybe get a macro for that. - Steve]

‘Adam’ has no blood sample in the Torchwood blood sample carousel. And thereby we learn that there is no problem that cannot be solved by the fact that Owen keeps a few vials of blood in the fridge. ‘Adam’s’ personnel file is okay, but was updated 24 hours ago. The lights go off. It’s all scary. It’s Owen with flowers, though. Then Tosh and ‘Adam’ come in.

Owen apologises for the night before and says that as long as Tosh is happy, it’s okay. He asks if she [I]is[/I] happy. Gwen turns up. Her memories are coming back. ‘Adam’ demands a group hug. A moment later, Jack puts a gun to ‘Adam’s’ head and asks who he is. Everyone’s like ‘ZA?’ ‘Adam’ tries to touch him but Jack says nuh-uh missy, my pants are staying on this time. Or something. Everyone’s like, what’re you doing Jack, leave ‘Adam’ alone. [And Jack tells 'Adam' that he thinks he's part of his team but has no feelings for him - "no pride". Yes, for pride is the overriding emotion I would have when surveying Team Torchwood. - Carrie] Tosh pulls a gun on Jack. Ianto disarms her.

Jack takes ‘Adam’ down to the cells and is like ‘ZOMG! You disturbed memories!’ ‘Adam’ is like ‘I had to do this to live! But I helped you. You’re remembering stuff. Owen is nice now, and Tosh is a slut, and everyone likes a slut more than a boring little maths girl. Okay, Ianto thinks he’s a serial killer now, but you know, that’s got to be better than just making the tea.’ [Captain Jack has his arms folded and eyebrows narrowed. He is thinking. - Carrie]

‘Adam’ says, ‘I was in the abyss or something for ages! But I liked your tasty tasty memories. That’s why I came. Torchwood folk have such interesting lives, and such tasty memories. Specially you, tasty immortal Jack brains.’

Jack is like, ‘Torchwood are the best at killing the aliens!’

‘Adam' is like, ‘Noes! You always remember who you kill.’ [This causes Captain Jack to pause in his walking away from the cell, and gaze into the distance AS IF THINKING. - Carrie]

In a boardroom, Jack puts on the magical hypno-screen of hypnosis and tells Tosh et al to go back to who they are, some key memory that defines them.

Gwen remembers seeing Rhys in the uni canteen.
Owen’s 10th birthday, with his mum screaming ‘You’re my son so I love you but I don’t have to like you!’ [Aw. This was sad too. I don't like Owen, obviously, but it is nice to see him have a backstory rather than just being a horrible sex-obsessed DOCTOR. - Carrie]
Tosh is like, yay maths.
Ianto remembers meeting his Robot Bikini Girlfriend.
Owen, 16, his mum packs his bags.
Gwen in supermarket with Rhys.
Tosh remembers buying a flat but no flatwarming because she had no-one to invite [Poor Tosh. She has the biggest flat in the world, full of Ikea furniture, but not even that can make you happy. - Carrie]
Ianto is like I was super-sad when my Robot Bikini Girlfriend got covered in barbecue sauce and eaten by our pet pterodactyl.
Gwen is all, 'the way he looks at me sometimes'. She says, ‘I love him. But not in the way I love you.' and looks at Jack. [Is she telling Jack she's in love with him? - Carrie] (I think so. She's a bit of a cow, really. You're engaged and he's boinking Ianto. Leave alone.-Joel)

Tosh remembers knowing she was special, waiting for someone to see it. Jack says, ‘I saw it.’

Owen says, ‘Who’ll save me?’ Jack says, ‘I will.’ [Captain Jack is the SAVIOUR OF US ALL. Hallelujah! - Carrie]

Ianto is like, coming here gave me meaning again, after my Robot Bikini Girlfriend got turned into a Robot Bikini Girlfriend, also I could hide her in the basement. Oh, also Jack. Jack gives him a forehead kiss. And we still don’t know how Ianto went from ‘I’ll never forgive you for killing my Robot Bikini Girlfriend’ to ‘Mmm, sexy fun time with Captain Jack.’ SRSLY. Perfect place for an onscreen explanation, and do we get one? We do not. THIS FUCKING SHOW. - Steve]

They all, except Jack, take mini-Retcon pills that will wipe out the last 48 hours to go back to who they were. (So it’s okay that Tosh got raped – she won’t remember it!)

Adam's in the cells getting all fuzzy.

Tosh says, ‘I’m going to lose so much.’ Jack says, ‘None of it was real.’
Tosh – ‘I loved him! And he loved me.’ Jack says, ‘He forced it on you. You have to let it go.’ And I can’t even go into the whole ‘he forced it on you’ when they totally glossed over the rape aspect.

Tosh, weeping, looks at the cctv of ‘Adam’ in the cells and cries goodbye. [Dear Torchwood, please stop trying to make us have woobie feelings over rapists. It is really, really sick. Cordially yours, Steve] They all take their pills and go sleepybyes on the table. Jack goes down to the cells.

‘Adam’ says, ‘I know what it’s like not to exist. Please don’t send me back.’ And now I just want to go down the Descartes route, but I won’t. Adam’s like ‘I can help you find good memories. I can help you get a good memory before I die.’ Jack is like, ‘Why?’ ‘Adam’ is like I was in the void and you gave me tasty memory dinner nom nom nom. So I say thank you by gives you tasty memory.

Jack remembers playing on the beach with his dad. Jack and dad and Gray are there. Adam asks if Jack is there. Jack goes to get his ball, that’s gone over a dune. There’s some boy there called Adam. He wants to play too. Young Jack says no and pushes him. Dad comes over the dune with Gray and tells Young Jack off for being a meanyboots. Young Jack is like, no! He shouldn’t be here! So Dad and Gray stomp off. Jack is all, it wasn’t supposed to be like this! We played till it got dark! In memoryland, Young Jack says ‘You did this! You made it happen.’ ‘Adam’ says the box contains his last good memory, of Jack playing with his dad. If Jack kills him now, he’ll lose it forever. Jack takes the pill. ‘Goodbye Adam.’ Adam has a spazzy fit on floor and disappears. Old Jack in memoryland is like ‘Come back! It wasn’t like this!’ I didn’t quite understand that sequence. Guys? [Right, watching it again. As punishment for deadifying him, Adam is destroying Jack's last good memory of his dad and his mum and his little brother. All the soft focus sandstorm stuff is just Torchwood's attempt to be artistic and creative with the concept of memory, as far as I can work out. - Carrie]

CARDIFF! Jack wakes up by a cell, all confuzzled. He goes upstairs and they’re all like why have we lost two days? Jack doesn’t know. For some reason, all the security footage is wiped. That makes no sense. Causing ‘Adam’ to cease to exist wouldn’t cause him to cease to [I]ever have existed.[/I] Especially as Owen’s flowers are still there, so the events of the past two days still did happen. Also, they could have written themselves a note, or made a little video or something. Stupid. [And it didn't really make a lot of sense regarding how he got there in the first place. If he only existed in their memories, did he suddenly appear because one of them randomly decided to remember a weird creepy mind leech out of nowhere? - Steve]

Anyway, they find Tosh’s flowers. The card says ‘love and apologies, Owen’. Owen’s like nah mate, not me, and gives Tosh a weird little smile.

Jack has found Ianto’s diary. He says, ‘for the record tape measures never lie’. So, Jack and Ianto spend their time measuring their cocks and seeing who can jerk off the fastest by timing it with a stopwatch. I was about to say, ‘What are they, twelve?’ but I don’t think anyone of any age does that.

Jack finds the gold box. A piece falls out. He slots it in and the box opens. It’s full of sand. [Because it was AT THE BEACH. Where his dad WHO IS DEAD and also NO LONER EXISTS was. - Carrie] Barrowman does some quality smell the fart acting.

End of.

Next week: Miss Martha Jones. She’ll whip this fucking rabble into shape, you mark my words.