By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
photos copyright BBC
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
Families can be a burden as well as a blessing; the simplest of actions can result in severe misunderstandings that can cause rifts that last forever. For Jack Harkness in Torchwood, this would come home hard and fast resulting in tragedy that breaks his heart. But of all the villains and monsters Jack has fought never did he think his own brother would be the instrument of vengeance.
In seaon 2 of Torchwood, we meet Captain John. Played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s very own Spike, James Marsters, John is a former longtime lover and fellow time agent like Jack. They shared an intense relationship but in the season’s penultimate episode Fragments, he blows up a building with the Torchwood team inside. They survive but not before he shows Jack his long lost brother, Gray, is alive and well.
Earlier in the season we learned how Jack and Gay’s home of Boeshane Peninsula is invaded by unnamed aliens. Jack grabs his little brother by the hand and runs but they lose each other in the confusion. Gray is presumed dead after a long fruitless search and it tortures Jack ever since that day. Believing John is using his brother to destroy Jack and everything he has built with Torchwood, it is a kick in the nuts when John reveals Gray is behind it all.
They blow up parts of Cardiff and bring the Weevils to the surface plunging the city into chaos. John lets Jack witness this then takes him back to Cardiff befire it was built. There he digs a grave and reveals Gray in the flesh. Jack is shocked and delighted until his brother plunges a blade into his chest. He reveals to Jack that he was taken by the aliens who kept bringing him to the point of death then pulling him back so they could do it all over again. He kept hoping Jack would find him but he never came. John is in fact doing Gray’s bidding against his will, He is strapped to a bomb on a molecular level that Gray monitors. If he does not comply then he will be blown apart. John revela he found Gray in a sea of corpses chained beneath the ruins of a city. As Gray tells Jack he wanted so much to become one of the dead rather than be tortured again and again. He has gone mad, his mind broken so he blames Jack for his fate. Now he will bury Jack beneath the city before it is built where he will forever choke on soil and die for eternity. Cardiff will be Jack’s tomb where he will lie unknown as Gray burns it to the ground over his eternally dying body. In the meantime Gray will destroy what is left of Jack’s life.
However John cannot let that happen, kisses and throws a ring in the hole with Jack telling Gray it is of sentimental value. In reality it is a tracking device. With Jack now out of the way Gray releases John who goes to Gwen for help. The ring emits a signal but they cannot find it. With time running out they discover Jack was rescued by the original Torchwood team, frozen and is in fact in Torchwood itself. Gray just cannot believe how his brother survived but Jack forgives him. Despite Jack searching fruitlessly for him, his guilt for letting go of his brother’s hand drove him every day. Rather than killing his brother, Jack drugs him and locks him in a stasis chamber. His fate is up in the air as as John points out he won’t wake up suddenly regretting his actions and be the perfect brother again.
But little does Jack know that Gray has shot Tosh and taunted as to what she is seeing as she dies as he doesn’t have that experience. This cold delivery is because of his treatment at the hands of the aliens. He has a morbid fascination of what he was denied. Brought to the edge of death, he was always pulled back from its brink yet Tosh is going to die and it makes him curious. To him, she is merely a cog in Jack’s life that needs taken out. Tosh is working with a trapped Owen to stop a nuclear reactor melting down. The only solution os divert the radiation to the control room Owen is trapped in. He freaks out but calms when Yosh tells him he is breaking her heart. Gray doesn’t know this nor would he care about these two or their feelings. Tosh manages to help Owen stop the meltdown but Owen dies in the process. She has been in love with Owen for ages but he never knew until now when it is too late. This is a heartbreaking moment as both of them say their farewells before Owen dissolves in the radiation flood.
Gray’s own thirst for vengeance blinds him to the bonds between the team, his brither and John. His total lack of humanity leaves him oblivious to the fact they will find a way because they love each other. This thanks to the aliens is gone in him so even when Jack forgives him, Gray cannot process it.is all he understands. Death and destruction are all he sees; there is no humanity.
Gray is a victim of bad luck but such is his torment that he blames his brother for it all. Jack never meant to lose him but Gray cannot see that. He waited for Jack to come which was never going to happen. Indeed why did Jack never use the Tardis systems to find him or is Jack lying about searching for him?
Gray is sadly a victim of circumstance and in the first episode of Children of Earth, the Torchwood Hub is destroyed in an explosion. We can only assume Gray died in that blast which may be a blessing in disguise as he could never find his humanity ever again.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 