Combat (Torchwood)

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11 – "Combat"
Torchwood episode

Owen discovers a group that is using Weevils for its own purposes.
Cast
Guest stars
Production
Writer Noel Clarke
Director Andy Goddard
Script editor Brian Minchin
Producer Richard Stokes
Chris Chibnall (co-producer)
Executive producer(s) Russell T. Davies
Julie Gardner
Production code 1.11
Series Series 1
Length 50 mins
Originally broadcast 24 December 2006
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by →
"Out of Time" "Captain Jack Harkness"
IMDb profile

"Combat" is an episode in the British science fiction television series Torchwood, which was broadcast on 24 December 2006.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

Weevils are being abducted by humans. As Owen goes undercover to find out who is committing these crimes, he meets Mark Lynch. Facing demons of his own, Owen gets sucked into the fightclub-like subculture of which Lynch is a part. Owen is shown to have no fear of death, though he is rescued by Jack.

[edit] Plot

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Jack chases a Weevil through the side streets of Cardiff. He passes the restaurant where Gwen and her boyfriend Rhys are having an awkward dinner — something that has been happening more often. Gwen is relieved when Jack comes by and despite Rhys's protests, joins him on the hunt. The two follow the Weevil into a multi-storey carpark where they are startled to see it being herded into a white van by ski-masked men with cattle prods. The van drives off, leaving the two Torchwood Institute officers wondering who they were…

Back at the Hub, Ianto reports elevated numbers of injuries at hospitals that resemble Weevil attacks. Jack also notes that the Weevils seem to be gaining an immunity to the "anti-Weevil spray" that Torchwood has been using. Tosh is running a programme to trace the van.

Meanwhile, Owen is not answering his phone. He is at a bar, still despondent over Diane Holmes's leaving, and soon gets into a fight with the jealous boyfriend of the barmaid he is talking to. Owen makes short work of the boyfriend and continues drinking. At the Hub, Tosh lets slip to Gwen about Owen's affair with Diane.

In the basement cells, the captive Weevil that Torchwood has been studying is on its knees, moaning. Jack tells Ianto of Owen's theory that the Weevils share a low-level telepathic connection. If so, that may mean that it is feeling the pain of other Weevils. Tosh tracks the van to a warehouse on the Cardiff docks.

The next morning, Jack and Tosh search the now empty warehouse, and find a man's body there, mauled and bloody from Weevil-inflicted wounds. Jack picks up the corpse's mobile phone when it rings, and a distorted voice warns him not to interfere in things he does not understand. Jack replies that they are going to hunt them down, and the call ends. Jack tells Ianto to trace the calls on the phone but the records have been wiped.

Owen is called back to the Hub to do the autopsy on the corpse, identified as Dan Hodges, a software salesman. Owen confirms that Hodges was killed by a Weevil, but observes the presence of bruises on his body, as if he had been punched around by humans before the Weevil attacked. Jack theorises that someone is using Weevils to carry out murders that cannot be traced back to humans.

After Gwen breaks the news of Hodge's death to his wife and child, she asks Owen about Diane. Giving a brusque non-answer, he then breaks off his affair with Gwen. Back at the Hub, Tosh notes that the van went straight to the warehouse, so they knew it was empty. Therefore, the group either owned the warehouse or had a contact with the estate agents, Lynch Frost. As the only one who has not been seen by the group, Owen is assigned to go undercover as a salesman seeking to set up in Cardiff.

Owen goes to see Mark Lynch, and places a device on his computer which will allow Torchwood to monitor the computer's activity. He asks Mark about the warehouse on the docks, but Mark lies that it has already been sold. Mark offers to talk about other possibilities with Owen over a drink later. After Owen leaves, Tosh monitors Mark checking out Owen's story on the Internet, where he finds the fake website that Tosh has created.

Jack and Ianto go to the hospital to speak to a patient with injuries that might be Weevil-inflicted, but he refuses to talk, saying that "they" will kill him. Jack decides to take a desperate measure: they will release the Weevil they have in captivity (which he calls "Janet"), plant a tracking device on its clothes and then see if it will be picked up by this mysterious group. Tosh and Ianto have grave reservations about letting it loose in the city, but Jack assures them they will be with Janet each step of the way. They do so, and watch Janet being captured.

Owen and Mark are having drinks at the bar when the jealous boyfriend from earlier shows up with a friend. Mark and Owen beat the other two up, and Mark notes Owen's brutality with interest. The two go back to Mark's place, where he remarks about Owen's anger and tells him that he is not the only angry and frustrated man out there. They may be successful, but success is not worth having in itself; there is much more to life if he knows where to look. He tells Owen that something is out there, in the darkness, and it is coming…

Gwen confesses to Rhys that she had an affair with Owen, but at the same time slips him an amnesia pill so she can get his forgiveness without him remembering any of it. However, Rhys just calls her a selfish bitch and passes out before Gwen can hear what she needs from him. She goes back to the Hub, finds nobody there, and has a quiet cry.

Owen finds a locked door in Mark's flat while pretending to look for the bathroom. Picking the lock, he enters and finds a Weevil, chained to the ceiling. Mark enters, and tells Owen that they found the Weevil on the streets and do not know what it really is — some think it is an experiment gone wrong, a mutant, or an alien. Mark himself believes that it is the future of mankind, when all that is left is their rage. He then reveals that he has known all along that Owen was a plant, and that Hodges was not murdered: he was one of "them". Mark offers to show Owen what is going on.

Jack, Tosh and Ianto find that the tracking device has been left on a fence in an alley. At the Hub, Gwen hears Hodge's mobile phone beeping; it is a text message containing a postal code. She tracks it down to one of Lynch Frost's properties and informs Jack, who swings by to pick her up.

Meanwhile, Mark has taken Owen to the building in question, where dozens of men are gathering. As they walk through, Owen sees them brawling with each other in side rooms. Mark says that is just the "warm up"; this is a place for men who are trying to find meaning in life, in reducing themselves back to the basics. The main event is inside, where the men go inside a cage to fight a Weevil, in this case Janet. Most people stay inside until they ask to be let out, but Hodges did not. Mark thinks he just did not want to live enough, and by the time they got to him it was too late.

Owen has had enough and says he is putting a stop to this. Mark pulls a gun on him and tells him to get in the cage. Owen stares him down and makes a counter-offer: put down the gun and he will go in the cage willingly. Mark does so, and Owen heads for the cage, almost eager to get in. He faces Janet, who stares at Owen with a wary gaze as it circles him. Owen just stands there and smiles.

At that moment, Jack and the others arrive. Jack fires a shot in the air, which sets Janet off — it attacks Owen, biting his neck and chest. Jack shoots Janet in the arm, sending it scurrying away from Owen as Gwen gets him out of the cage. Jack tells the other men that it is all over, and orders them to go home. Mark is awed by the fact that Owen showed no fear, and steps into the cage himself, facing Janet. Jack raises his revolver, asking Mark what he is doing. Mark simply replies, "It's over." Jack then lowers his gun and turns away, as Janet leaps at Mark, killing him.

At the hospital, Owen tells Jack that he did not want to be saved. For those few seconds in that cage, he had felt totally at peace — until Jack and the others blundered in. Owen asks if Jack believes that he always knows best. Jack just tells Owen to be back at work tomorrow.

Returning to the Hub, Owen goes down to the cells to see the two captive Weevils. They growl at him, but Owen bares his teeth and hisses back in a Weevil-like manner. At that, both of them moan, backing up and cowering in in the corners of their respective cells. Owen smiles.

[edit] Continuity

  • When Mark Lynch searches the Internet for information on Owen, he uses a search engine called search-wise.net. While the site actually exists, it was created specifically for use in television programmes and films. Search-wise.net was also seen in "Rose" where Rose Tyler uses it to search for the Doctor.
  • Mark tells Owen that "Something's coming. Out there in the darkness, something is coming." Suzie Costello says something similar in "They Keep Killing Suzie", mentioning something moving in the darkness beyond death and that it is coming for Jack. The Tenth Doctor made a remark about something coming from the darkness at the end of "Fear Her" and so did a Toclafane in "The Sound of Drums"

[edit] Outside references

  • This episode has elements in common with the novel and the movie Fight Club, particularly in the dissatisfaction Mark feels about modern, success-driven society and the creation of an underground group where comparatively affluent young men can work off aggression.
  • As Janet is captured, Jack says to Tosh, "The Weevil has landed", a reference to "The Eagle has landed", a phrase used by astronaut Neil Armstrong to announce the touchdown of Apollo 11's Lunar Module, the Eagle, on the Moon's surface on July 20, 1969. The phrase was subsequently appropriated by author Jack Higgins for his 1975 World War II-era novel The Eagle Has Landed.

[edit] Production

  • Noel Clarke, who wrote this episode, is better known for playing Mickey Smith in the 2005 and 2006 series of the revived Doctor Who. He is the first actor with an ongoing role in Doctor Who to write a televised episode of a Doctor Who-universe production (although a previous Doctor Who actor, Ian Marter, wrote novels based upon the series after his tenure on the show).

[edit] Music

[edit] References


[edit] External links

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