Who—or what—is “The Blessing” and what has it to do with Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman)? Those questions may indeed hold the key to the entire conspiracy in the Starz series Torchwood: Miracle Day.
This week’s episode “The Middle Men,” has the Torchwood team continuing to work largely independently of each other. Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) is sill in Wales, trying to extract her father from an “overflow camp” in Wales, where he is designated “Category 1.” Category 1 is very bad; it means you are “dead,” at least on paper, and what happens to “Category 1s?” They are apparently incinerated—alive.
Ex-CIA agent Rex Matheson (Mehki Phifer) still haunts the San Pedro camp, where he has infiltrated as a Category 1 during last week’s “The Categories of Life.” He is recording his experiences, trying to get it all on the record. Meanwhile, also at the camp, Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins) also tries to acquire information on what is going on inside the camp, playing dangerously with the creepy commandant Maloney (Marc Vann). She and Rex barely escape with their lives (for whatever lives are worth these days) and a lot of first hand knowledge about what exactly transpires in the camps.
Captain Jack Harkness, the only mortal man left in the world, continues to play a bit out of his element while seeking the truth behind the miracle. Although Jack is a pro at chasing aliens and alien technology; he's brilliant in oh-so-many ways, this is not necessarily his forte. Government-industrial conspiracies are not what he really does, and he's forced to play on foreign turf and in a venue very unfamiliar. As he tells Rex and Esther, Torchwood is not used to fighting politicians, and he’s right. He badly misreads Oswald Danes in “The Categories of Life," for example.
Appealing to Danes’ better angels (as it were), Jack badly overestimates any sense of humanity the child murderer may have. And this week he plays his cards only a little more cynically in acquiring information from PhiCorp’s CEO Stuart Owens (Ernie Hudson), believing the man to be at the core of the conspiracy.
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Article comments
1 - Kate
This season of Torchwood has been really slow, especially compared to Children of the Earth. I was glad that this episode sped things up a bit more.
I keep thinking that the entire miracle was designed to make Jack mortal. Maybe the people behind this want him dead. But of course we all know that that is not going to happen. :)
The last part of this episode was brilliant. I'm very excited to see how it will play out next episode!
2 - Sherry
I agree with Kate, this episode was an improvement. I liked the scene with Jack and Ernie Hudson's character.
I also liked the scenes with Rex, but can't believe he wouldn't have known better than to just trust that guy. Nice to see they let Esther get up from that computer.