Torchwood: Cyberwoman (Episode 104)

We begin with an impromptu game of something that looks like basketball and is even played with a basketball, but it isn’t basket ball. I may not be the biggest sports fanatic in the world, but I’m pretty sure the rules expressly forbid playing the game on totally different levels and having a pterodactyl as a defenseman.

Although, I wonder how they managed to get a basketball hoop with their logo emblazoned on it (not exactly in keeping with the whole secret government agency philosophy).

Making a completely illegal shot, which everyone is quick to point out, Owen’s team wins, thus forcing Jack to pay for the evenings alcoholic beverages. I’m a little disappointed in the Torchwood team at the moment and it has absolutely nothing to with their version of sportsmanship. It’s that they can notice Owen’s illegal move of dropping the ball into the net from the second level, but they don’t notice that Ianto looks like he’s three minutes away from a massive coronary. It’s like they don’t care much for the designated tea boy.

On the other hand, I noticed. I totally care.

We’re now in on Ianto’s big secret (we all knew there had to be one). He’s hired Dr Tanizaki to help his girlfriend, Lisa, who is being kept on life support in Torchwood’s basement. She was one of the unknown victims in “Doomsday” and was half transformed into a Cyberwoman.

As we jump into the techno-credits I wonder, as we just learned from Ianto’s ordering pizza, Jack’s complained that his assistant isn’t getting enough vegetables. How can Jack, who lives in the Hub, notice Ianto’s lack of vitamin C intake but totally miss the Cyberwoman in the basement? Another really good question is do I really want to know how Jack notices one and misses the other? Probably not.

Ianto’s not pleased with Tanizaki’s enthusiasm over Lisa. What Ianto wants is for her to be fixed / cured/ brought back to him in such a way that love a marriage is a possibility. What Tanizaki wants is to study her as a specimen. To make the doctor (not the Doctor, that’s a separate species altogether) understand her as a person, Ianto exposits her story. The worked for Torchwood: London, and was only half changed into her metal fetish gear current state when the Cyberman invasion was stopped. It was Ianto, her knight without the shining Cyberman armor, who rescued her.

The story doesn’t work, as Tanizaki estimates, after feeling the skin on her stomach and grabbing her metal boob, that she’s 55% changed but he’s uncertain how Ianto knew how to make a cyber-conversion life support system.

Finally, Lisa awakens. She told him how to do it. Of course, this should’ve been a clue about how much of her mind has been altered by the process, but Ianto’s more worried about her pain. Yes, she hurts, but happy because Ianto brought the doctor to help. She tells me yet another detail to add to my list of why he’s a perfect boyfriend; he always keeps his promises.

Tanizaki get the stats on Lisa: Lisa Hallett, 26, and she’s in constant pain. That is what makes the doctor see her as a person, not an experiment, as he gets to work. The doctor is kind enough to warn Ianto that Lisa may not survive.

While all the drama is happening in the Hub, the rest of the team is getting shit-faced while Jack tells the sexual tales of what sounds like aliens. It could potentially be a really bad blind date, I’m not certain. They get a page about a UFO sighting over Cardiff so now they head back to work. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in Ianto’s master save-Lisa plan.

Back at the Hub, Lisa’s now breathing without the aid of the machines. Celebrations are cut short when Ianto has to hide everything back down in the basement as the team’s coming back in. He can’t even be happy when Lisa’s capable of walking on her own for the first time in over a year.

Not exactly rushing, there’s never really any tension or expectation Lisa and Tanizaki won’t be able to hide in the basement in time, despite what the music and frantic actions try to tell us. Besides, Tosh and Owen are completely distracted by arguing about when Tosh gets to drive the TT-SUV.

Of course, by the time the team gets into the Hub, nothing is amiss, except for Ianto’s demeanor, which everyone neglects to notice. They’re all too involved in the search for the UFO over Cardiff to notice him. In all honesty, it reflects really badly on all involved that they’re all (including our vessel of humanity, Gwen) so blind to Ianto’s obvious predicament. Now before anyone gets all “but we have the advantage of knowing,” Ianto’s efforts at hiding his conflicted feeling have the same level of stealth as a bull in a china shop. Even when Jack actually notices him long enough to ask for coffee, still, no one picks up on how upset my boyfriend Ianto is.

Speaking of things being amiss, Lisa wants to thank Tanizaki for helping her become independent of life support, by upgrading him. Somehow, I think he’d rather just have her gratitude, no present required. The upgrade doesn’t go well as it drains all of the Hub’s power. Now that the team notices.

Making up a quick and totally unbelievable lie, Ianto claims the generator’s been malfunctioning but he can fix it. I mean, I give Ianto a lot of credit, far more than anyone with whom he actually works, but even I doubt that Ianto keeps the generator, one as big to keep the Hub operational, running. Although, I choose to add “handy with household chores” to my list of his perfections.

Horrified at the sight of Tanizaki’s corpse, Ianto doesn’t comprehend, at first, that Lisa’s responsible. It’s extremely sweet that he thinks the best of her but rather naive, considering she now has the electronic voice of a Cyberman.

No Ianto’s really conflicted. He still wants to help Lisa be restored to her former state as a human, but he’s now afraid for his coworkers upstairs when she says she can “take care of them.” Poor Ianto, I’m starting to wonder if they’d even notice he was missing but he still cares enough to try and keep everyone safe. He wants to fix everything for everyone. He wants all for the best for the best of all possible worlds, but like Voltaire proved, it’s impossible.

He needs a hug. I’m offering.

The UFO just turns out to be an alien out for a pleasure ride. Damn Sunday drivers! When the power flickers again, the team looks more frustrated than worried.

Only once Jack can’t raise Ianto (not like that!) on his Wrist-Assist, does everyone start to worry. Of course, poor Ianto is nearly having a breakdown and trying to move Tanizaki’s corpse. (At least he has experience with hiding Torchwood-based deaths.) He’s a little busy to answer a page which, rightly, he might believe will have something to do with when the coffee is ready or if he’s fixed the generator.

The power drain is caused by Lisa, who’s giving herself a power boost, now that she’s free of life support. Up in the Hub, the team’s identified two human signals in the basement. Assuming they’re under attack, Jack orders everyone into battle positions. I laugh when Gwen looks confused as to what exactly that means. I think she must’ve missed a section in the Torchwood training manual.

Gwen and Owen head down to look for Ianto but find the storage room with Lisa instead. As for Ianto, he’s apologizing to Tanizaki’s corpse. Upstairs, Jack and Tosh discover that not only have they lost contact with Gwen and Owen but also whatever is happening, according to the recovered CC-TV footage, Ianto is in on it.

Recognizing the cyber-conversion unit, Owen looks like he needs a change of underwear. The audience is scared more because Lisa’s nowhere to be seen, but at least for the team they now have power and communication. What they don’t have is an explanation or Ianto.

Apparently, they also suffer from a lack of peripheral vision, as Lisa sneaks up behind Owen and knocks him out. Is it wrong that I really don’t feel that badly for him? As for Gwen, she only has time to tell Jack they’re under attack, before she’s disarmed and Lisa tries to upgrade her.

Jack’s taken aback by the whole Cyberwoman thing and doesn’t manage to get a shot off before Ianto tackles him. Usually, when two hot men wrestle like that, I’d be all “woot!” but I’m too drawn into the tension the first time I watched it to notice.

In order to save Gwen from her conversion, and not the religious kind either, all power is cut to the base. Now they’re all locked inside. Plus, Jack’s mad, Ianto’s sorry. Gwen is confused and there’s an S&M Cyberwoman in two inch heels stalking them.

All in all, this is not Torchwood’s best day.

Jack is stuck carrying an unconscious Owen out of the basement. He also has to keep a gun trained on Ianto because he’s confused as to what his role is in all this. It’s a good thing Jack can multitask.

As soon as they’re back upstairs at the Hub, Jack gives several. The first is that he wants Tosh to somehow get them into the weapons storage. The second is for Ianto to get on his knees. The third is for Gwen to go with Tosh. The problem is that no one leaves because they all want to watch.

Jack is mad and he wants answers about the Cyberwoman in Torchwood. Despite all of Jack’s raving and ranting, Ianto so takes this round in the verbal debates. “Like you care! I clean up your shit, no questions asked and that’s the way you like it. When did you last ask me anything about my life?”

Ianto thinks Lisa can be saved and that Torchwood owes her to try. Jack doesn’t because he doesn’t think there’s any “her” left to save, no matter how moving Ianto’s protestations of love are.

“Haven’t you ever loved anyone?” Ianto begs Jack, and then begs the team to let him try to talk to Lisa.

Speak of the devil, here’s Lisa now! Except the problem is that she’s no longer Lisa, she’s human point 2. She finds any humanity left in her body “disgusting.”

She even has a new definition of “being together” with Ianto. She wants her brain transplanted into his body so that they are one. It’s a strange concept but proof that she’s still got some humanity. She prefers the idea of her brain being transplanted into an entirely human body rather than his brain being transplanted into her cybernetic one. Philosophically, it’s an interesting talking point but for Ianto, it means that Lisa no longer understands what it is to truly love someone.

Thus Lisa tries to kill him. Jack orders everyone out of the Hub before Lisa can kill anyone else but Gwen is frozen in place. In the first truly decent thing I’ve ever seen him do, Owen distracts the Cyberwoman long enough to let Gwen escape. I guess the thunk on the head did him some good.

They regroup upstairs and Jack gives Tosh orders, and a neat lock-cracking device, to get them some power from the tourist office. He sends Owen and Gwen off to find weapons. As for Jack, he’s the man who can’t die, and even though Gwen is the only one who knows this, it still makes him the perfect distraction for Lisa. It’ll confound her to keep trying to delete a person who can’t be deleted.

After the second deletion attempt, Jack stays down, and in fear, Tosh is able to open the Hub’s main door, a door that I don’t think anyone could’ve opened without one hell of an adrenaline rush.

Lisa’s now locked in the Hub but so are Jack, Owen and Gwen. The latter pair decide the only way to hide is in a cubicle in the autopsy room. What’s that I smell in the air? Is it sexual tension? Isn’t being stuck in small spaces followed by witty banter in a life-threatening situation just formulaic for sexual tension?

“What do we do?” Gwen whispers. Apparently aggressively make-out is the answer.

Speaking of foreshadowing and sexual tension, Jack revives Ianto. I literally explode from the hotness.

In what has to be the number one reason ever to turn off one’s cell phone. Gwen and Owen’s hiding place is given away by Rhys calling. This gives Owen an excuse to feel Gwen’s ass as he searches her pockets for the cell phone, and Gwen one hell of a guilt trip. Nothing says guilty more than having one’s boyfriend call them moments after they just passionately kissed another man.

While Rhys is drunkenly asking Gwen to tape a reality television program, Gwen and Owen are fighting for their lives with medical equipment. When Lisa makes a move for Gwen, for the second time this episode, Owen does something gallant to protect her. Of course, that’s if one can call stabbing a Cyberwoman “gallant.” And then the whole thing is ruined when they bicker about Owen’s hard on. Nothing ruins gallantry more than uncontrollable behaviour more associated with pubescent boys.

As Lisa isn’t so easily taken out by a shiv to the gut, Jack tries another tactic. He sprays her with “Barbeque Sauce.”

Owen and Gwen have to hold a devastated Ianto from stepping in to save her. As Tosh manages to get the invisible lift working, Lisa is devoured by the pterodactyl. The “Barbeque Sauce” is how it identifies its food.

Once on Roald Dahl Plass, Jack and Ianto go at it (not like that), only to be stopped by Gwen.

Tosh also offers Ianto some hope as she’s tricked the timer for lockdown. That means the power is back on and they can go back in.

Just in case anyone was wondering about the timeline of events, the pizza Ianto ordered at the beginning of this episode arrives. Either this episode is taking place in real time, or someone’s getting their order for free. Lisa lets her in and then promptly abducts the pizza delivery girl. I guess Lisa could survive the prehistoric bird eating her organs, how very Prometheus of her.

Ianto makes it back to the Tourist Office before everyone else, swearing to go into save Lisa and threatening to shoot anyone who would stop him. Sadly, Ianto doesn’t know he doesn’t have it in him, but Jack does and disarms the younger man, ordering him not to save Lisa but to kill her.

What’s interesting is that Jack seems to be angrier about Ianto keeping secrets than anything else. This from the man who hasn’t told anyone other than Gwen he can’t die, but yet he’s mad about Ianto’s girlfriend in the basement? (Girlfriend in the Basement so sounds like the name of an underground punk band, doesn’t it?)

Ianto challenges him, “You like to think you’re a hero, but you’re the biggest monster of all.” Ouch.

Jack gives Ianto 10 minutes to go and finish the job himself. Somehow, I think even Jack knows that Ianto’s still going in with the intention to save her instead of killing her, but Jack lets him go anyway. It’s almost as if he needs to disprove Ianto’s opinion of him. Okay, so I’m trying to make this not completely horrible. So sue me.

In the Hub, Ianto sees the abandoned pizza and bloodstains everywhere. Also, there’s another power drain so he’s off to where it all began, in the basement. On the floor are Lisa’s body and the end of all of Ianto’s hopes.

Suddenly, the pizza girl is there, complete with scar in her forehead indicating brain surgery. She’s claiming she’s Lisa. Again, the human part of Lisa’s brain found the only way it could to be human again, the basest of all survival instincts. Ianto was right all along; the conversion was never complete. A true Cyberwoman would see returning to human form as a downgrade.

“You’re not Lisa,” Ianto pleads. The new Lisa takes it to mean he only loved her for her body, but that’s not his meaning at all. Lisa had her mind so messed up by the cyber-conversion that it saw killing another person and taking the body as a viable alternative. His Lisa could never have done such a thing, no matter how romantic as story this new Lisa weaves about how much he loves her.

He breaks down and cries, holding the new Lisa: the messed up mind inside of the stolen body, still trying to hold off killing the little spark of her left. He tries again to kill her, but lowers the gun.

As Ianto’s lost about what to do, the new Lisa falls in a hail of bullets. Owen, Gwen, Jack and Tosh all fired for him.

As Ianto looks at the team, Gwen can’t look at him, but the rest can. He kneels beside Lisa, the original Lisa and does what he should’ve done in Torchwood One, mourns her.

Later, I’m not sure how much later, Ianto’s back. He’s clean and pristine in his suit and returns to his duties, saying nothing. After all that, Ianto’s still back where he started, cleaning up.

Gwen’s with Jack up in his office, watching Ianto. She’s sure Jack would never shoot him, but Jack’s response isn’t reassuring. He neither confirms nor denies it. I find this last conversation strange as it turns from Ianto, who is either the most stable person ever or is going to have emotional issues requiring years of therapy to sort out, to Jack’s inability to die. Usually, Jack’s musings on potentially dying, and how that makes him feel alive, are interesting to me. This time around they’re not, for one simple reason.

And we end, with Ianto, ever the steadfast, loyal Ianto, cleaning up Torchwood’s shit. You’d think they’d at least give him a day off.