The team are soon dispatched to various locations where rift activity has been detected. Gwen (Myles) visits the police station, which has been overrun with Weevils. Tosh (Mori) and Ianto (David-Lloyd) investigate a disturbance at the central server building, where they easily deal with a group of alien specters resembling the Grim Reaper. Owen (Gorman) finds a creature called a Hoix at St. Helen's Hospital and takes care of it with a sedative. Meanwhile, Jack returns to the hub, where John surprises and incapacitates him.

After setting off a few more strategic explosions in Cardiff, John disappears with Jack into the year 27 A.D., where he explains that he's only a pawn. His Time Agent wristband device has been bonded to his skin, making him a walking bomb and forcing him to do the bidding of the real culprit, Jack's brother, Gray. He has a score to settle with Jack for leaving him to be captured and tortured by aliens as a child, and is willing to destroy anyone who stands in the way of his vengeance. Before the episode is over, some of the season's secrets will be revealed, but the cost to the Torchwood team will be great.

A dark ending for a dark season

In its second season, Torchwood continued to experiment with tone, but the writers seem to have learned that creating mature stories means more than just having the characters have lots of sex. This year has considered more mature themes, such as death, loss, revenge and taking responsibility for the consequences of difficult choices, and this episode encapsulates all of those elements into a single story.

Marsters' Capt. Hart has a lot of potential as a character, but the show hasn't really figured out how to maximize that in his two appearances so far. Buffy fans may recognize a resemblance to Spike, and John has a similar function in Torchwood. A rogue who is out for himself above all, he is never fully committed to the side of good or evil, but the torch he carries for the central character tends to inspire him to work with the team rather than against it. While the Torchwood writers seem to understand that dynamic inherently, they are unable to keep Hart from becoming much more than a bystander in the second half of the finale. Here's hoping that the writers will be able to make up for that in season three.

Another minor problem with the episode is the character of Gray. His unmitigated hatred toward Jack isn't quite justified in the scope of the narrative. He tells tales of alien torture, but the audience isn't really given any indication of the extent of it, nor why it is that he blames a single, natural childhood response—Jack's letting go of his hand—for his years of suffering. He may well have legitimate motivation, but it's not provided effectively enough to explain his actions satisfactorily. The show may not be through with him yet, though, and it will be interesting to see if there's more to his story.

Perhaps these issues with the ancillary guest stars are due to the fact that writers spend more time focusing on the main characters in the script. Following on the backstories provided in the previous episodes, there are some nice moments of character development here. The final moments of the episode are the most moving of the series to date, but they leave a lot to be resolved in season three. The feeling as the credits roll is reminiscent of the end of The Empire Strikes Back, with the characters battle-weary and emotionally drained, but resolved to face a dark, uncertain future together.