And so it finally ends- with plenty of spilt blood on the screen, increasing body count and explosions on the opposite ends of the globe. The series finalé of Torchwood : Miracle Day – The Blood Line had bucket loads of rushed plots thrown at us at Mach speed. There were plenty of answers (Yes!), but on the other hand, we were left with a few open ends pointing towards a possible follow up season (Boo!). And in true Torchwood style, we see the departure of one of the key characters, again proving the point that RTD’s pen is the mightiest slasher. The climatic revelations were ridiculous enough to make me pull my hair out, but overall, I must say, that I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it is a pretty solid episode. On the whole, Miracle Day, as a season, was satisfying SciFi telly. But it comes nothing close to the epicness of Children of Earth.

There’s plenty of SPOILERS on the other side of this jump, as we discuss the final episode of Torchwood Miracle Day – The Blood Line.

Picking up from where we left it last week, Team Torchwood is approaching the two ends of the large Vag – aka the Blessing – Gwen, Jack and Oswald in Shanghai, and Rex n Esther in Buenos Aires.

The Coopers:

The opening sequence has a brilliant monologue by Gwen, who talks of her father – Geraint Cooper as the most honest man she’s known of. And she’s on her way to get rid of the “miracle” and hence, get her father killed. It gives an emotional prelude (sort of) to the episode, and even manages to transform Rhys, from last week’s obnoxious brat to this week’s emotional and mature hubby. With help from Gwen’s buddy Andy, Rhys manages to get into the Overflow camps, and sit helplessly beside Geraint in his final moments. And scene!

We’re next off to discovering the Blessing, which is easier to discover than we thought, as Jack’s drop of blood acts like some GPS tracker, as it is being drawn towards the giant hole.

Torchwood on the move:

Gwen, on her mission to find the location of the Blessing, has an encounter with a funny ol Chinese lady, who is exactly how you’d think it in your head, uttering lines like – No, Bad Door, Monsters, Bad place et al. I expected she’d offer Gwen some ‘Special Fry Rice’, but that’d been a bit too racist. So, Gwen experiences the Blessing for herself – she seems to have seen some of her own inner devils and looks freaked out, but we’re never told what exactly happened there. Or maybe I missed it between the loud music of the background score. Gwen gives the green signal to Jack and Oswald to come find her.

In Buenos Aires, Rex and Esther plan on finding the location of the Blessing, with some help from the CIA. Jack says – don’t reveal Torchwood, and Rex agrees instantly. Why? Coz Jack said so, and Rex n Jack have a thing you see. You’ll get to know more later. Rex asks his Boss Shapiro to find some random location, and with help from a Spanish translator, they find a spot which “has no name”. How “family” is THAT! Rex and Esther have absolutely no clue of what they’re gonna do when they reach the spot, but are happy to carry a briefcase full of Jack’s blood (coz Esther thinks its important, or probably Rex does too, from all the fictional evidence that he’s been digging up). That’s all they know, and this is a big flawed plot point IMO. I mean, they risk their lives to get to this place, expecting the “Families” would be there, equipped with nothing but the Blood, having no knowledge of how to use it, and hope for the best. DUMB DUMB DUMB!

And oh, CIA boss Shapiro instructs Argentinian forces to assist Rex/Esther to the spot. Only, they are unaware that Ma’am ‘Mole – Charlotte, has other plans. A suicide bomber takes the blood briefcase, which Esther easily hands over, and blows himself up. So, CIA, Charlotte and hence, the Family, as well as Jack n Gwen now believe that Rex and Esther are done with. Rex figures out this to be the perfect opportunity to get into incognito mode. Woohoo. So now they have no backup either. And they’re still charging towards the Blessing. DUMB DUMB DUMB!

CIA, Charlotte, the “Mole” Willis:

Speaking of dumb, how dumb is the CIA? Rex had warned of the presence of a “mole” in the team. So why the heck do they allow people with cellphones at all? Ok, perhaps Charlotte did hide it in her private dressing. But then, she proudly flaunts the triangle logo on the desk.

Frustrated by the only lead to have blown away, CIA chief Shapiro orders for the new software trace which can traceback the source of the call (which one, I don’t know). Only, he announces the plan loud enough to let know the entire floor. And the tracking algorithm works on a pace which conveniently gives Ma’am Mole to plant a bomb next to the bosses, although it gives him the opportunity to say those famous last words – Oh Fuck! Totally made it worth including Shapiro.

The Families :

Still on the dumb topic, how dumb can these “future rulers of the world” can be? Seriously, they are how you’d imagine cartoon characters planning world invasion would turn out. The only missing thing here is a Dr.Evil laughter track I guess. So, when Jack,Gwen and Oswald turn up in Shanghai, and Rex n Esther get caught in BA, they easily reveal all their secret plan, like it don’t matter at all. Why give the hint of how their master plan could be totally turned into an epic fail? Not only that, if they really wanted the “miracle” to remain everlasting by exploding the whole thing, why wait for it for so long? Why not just do it when the “miracle” was executed? What was all that talk about phase 1 / stage 1 and all? Why wait for Jack or the CIA agents, Rex and Esther to show up?

And even when they could’ve prevented all that Jack and Rex carried out by simply cutting the communication between BA and Shanghai (so that they cannot co-ordinate any action), they kept the line open, possibly for the convenience of the viewers. There’s enough room given for Rex to cry for the loss of Esther, and also for Oswald Danes to play Mr.Expendable with the “Mother” of the Family. Even though Mother Family looked all menacing and shit, giving away orders in Mandarin, she turned out to be yet another dumbfuck. She was easily taken hostage by Oswald, and seemed helpless in front of Jack’s rudimentary plans.

So what is the Blessing after all ?

Ok, this is what I think is the Blessing. It is an entity which the Families discovered somehow after years of calculations, which could only be achieved after the processing speed of microchips achieved a certain level. That explains why it took place in 2011. So, the Blessing is a “territorial” thing embedded deep within the earth, spanning from Shanghai to Buenos Aires. It sort of balances the life span of the planet by calibrating itself to the average age of the people in these two cities, and for some reason, takes blood as the input.

Now back to 1927, when the Families – Ablemarch, Costerdane and Frines discovered Jack’s immortality, they collected blood samples, and fed it to the Blessing, hence, creating a massive morphic field which spread across the world creating the “miracle” of immortality.

So, does this clash with the theory of Jack’s being immortal because he’s a fixed point in time and space. Yes and No. As Jack points out, there’s nothing special about his blood. But the Blessing calibrated itself according to Jack’s blood, thinking the average age of the world to be immortal. But why did it reverse the effect on Jack? Unanswered.

The Grand Plan and Jilly:

The character of Jilly Kitzinger is one of the most amusing ones. She was introduced as the star PR agent, who transformed a demon into a preacher (of sorts). And then the family recruited her to write history by their own terms. The family, clearly being the rules of finance, media and politics, had the grand plan of overtaking on the world by their three tier plan –

a) Make everyone immortal.

b) Create categories, and hence trim the population by deciding who gets to live, and who doesn’t.

c) Plunge the world into depression, take over markets, media and politics and implement martial law.

They already have devotees in different parts of the world, working amongst the top most positions in organisations such as Phicorp and CIA, and people willing to even sacrificing themselves. Dream team for a dictator!

Jilly Kitzinger seems to agree with this vision of the world, and she makes an interesting comment – how different is it from what the world was before? The rich and famous rule the world anyway. There’s a bit a golden Russell T Davies right there, flashing us a reflection of the current state of the world.

Oswald Danes – the most useless dude in the world:

Oswald Danes started off as a menacing character. He’s a pedo, turned prophet and media friendly guy, until the administration turned its back on his face and poo’d on him into Category Zero. I get it that he’s mental, a monster who enjoys his own monstrosity. So when he turned up in front of the Blessing, all wired up ready to torch himself up, he cannot handle himself as the Blessing showed the sins that he has committed. But then soon he gets used to it, and starts blabbering about how eager he is to go to hell. I am not sure I get it completely why he also expects the rape victim to be waiting for him in hell. And I definitely do not get why he agreed for this act of heroism, that Jack Harkness asked him to do, as his means to go. He could’ve done it anyway, or am I missing something?

Nevertheless, I did enjoy the face-to-face between Jack and Oswald, when Oswald asks Jack about his identity. And Jack tells him about him being from the future, and the distant stars and galaxies that he has seen, and in front of all of that, how he has made himself so “small” with his sins. Absolute classic stuff.

The Climax Part 1:

We have a showdown of sorts with yelling from the two ends of the Earth. In the Red Corner, (y’know China likes Red Lanterns) we have Jack ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of greater good, coming into terms with his mortality. But Gwen decides that he shouldn’t commit suicide, so plans on shooting him right through his fancy jacket.

And in the Blue corner (by default, that’s what Buenos Aires gets), Rex, fresh after the loss of Esther, and Gwen’s motivating speech reminding him of the bigger picture, is all ready to go topless and bare it all, I mean his wounded chest. Oooh…whaa!!! The family had reminded that the miracle could only be reversed if Jack’s blood could be splattered into the Blessing from both ends. Smartass Rex knew there was something about Jack’s blood and so agreed to be a carrier himself. The miracle saved him from dying, and hence, when Rex tore open his wound, and Gwen shot Jack in the back, blood splattered in slow motion and hit the Blessing. As you would expect, the villain’s lair has to self-destruct now. Oswald has the key to that destruction, and he kindly allows Gwen to escape.

The best part of this part of the climax has to be Gwen vs Jilly combat. Jilly gets a taste of Gwen’s badassery as she gets totally smacked down. And oh, since the miracle has been stopped, Jack is back to normal i.e. immortal. Jack and Gwen escape, and so does Jilly.

Cue sound.. Gwen’s voiceover – Everyone who’s been Category 1 passes away simultaneously.

In BA, Rex, even after having blood being churned away from his gut, manages to get the bald Family guy (see what I did there 😛 ) thrown into the pit of the Blessing. And Argentinian health support arrives to help Rex and Esther.

The Climax Part 2:

Gwen, Rhys, Esther’s sister and her children, Jack and hold on.. Rex attend Esther’s funeral. Sob Sob! But wait, there’s more. Ma’am Mole – Charlotte Willis is also here. So no one in CIA found out about her. And just when Gwen starts asking how Rex survived Climax part 1, Rex cuts her conversation, trying to find out the mole on his phone, and discovers its Charlotte. Charlotte runs, Rex follows and being the cocky dude that he is, yells out loud – Charlotte!! Charlotte!! Charlotte fires, and gets shot multiple times by some suited guys (possibly fellow CIA). Gwen and Jack are all sad to see Rex die after all that they’ve been through. And then, the moment to close it all down – What! What! What!!!!

Rex is bloody immortal. All that blood transfusion has now turned him into immortal as well, since probably the Blessing now thinks of Rex to be Jack as well. Hmm!!! Massive question mark. So Jack has finally got his Immortal Bro in the form of cocky Rex who’s going to annoy him until eternity.

Just for fun, I thought I’d include this pic which I found on Reddit 🙂 [ via ]

Final answers:

So, we did get a lot of answers from the final two episodes. We know how the miracle was caused, and how it was caused. We know quite a bit about the families, but again, there is an open ending left for them to pick up Plan B in the future.

The Chinese dude (liaison to the Phicorp CEO) who committed suicide, possibly because he saw the blessing and did not like what it showed it to him. As the geeky hipster dude said in Episode 9, the Blessing could kill you.

Having said that, how does Phicorp fit into all of this? Probably, just a large pharmaceutical company, one of the many giant organisation which the family uses to spread its reach into the grain of the society.

Oswald Danes – This is a dude that just doesn’t add up all the publicity that he’s got throughout the series.

The Blessing – It could be some sort of alien technology really, which is embedded into the earth’s core somehow, and has been there even before man evolved into man. So would that be alien or terrestrial?

Again, what happened to the Alpha plate that Jack stole from under Angelo’s death bed?

Episode rating: 5 Blessings out of 5

I am glad that this has finished and that I can sort of relax for now. But then, how will my Friday nights be without Torchwood. Even though this series created a whole lot of uproar amongst fans about how slow some of the plot points are etc, and some going to the length of describing the first 6 episodes as – “What if nobody could die”, without those six episodes exploring “what if nobody could die?” we wouldn’t have been able to understand why this situation was so unbelievably horrible that our characters were willing to sacrifice their loved ones to restore normalcy. Really, if the had skipped the first half, the same reviewers would have been saying “why were they so determined to end the miracle? I don’t think they set up the ramifications of the situation well enough…” Whatevs! Yes, some of the plot elements could have been handled in a more rushed manner, but given that 10 episodes, on the whole, provided some awesome reason to look forward to awesome scifi every Friday night, gives me enough reason to classify this as an absolute solid one!