The Torchwood team finds itself against its first non-alien threat yet!... Faeries.
The episode opens with nice old lady Estelle finding a hidden grove and taking some snapshots of what very much appear to be faeries. It's only after she walks away does their true monstrous form become apparent, but only to the audience.
Cut to a young schoolgirl named Jasmine waiting after class. When her stepfather is late picking her up, she decides to walk and is rather conspicuously tailed by an unsavory character. His advances are derailed by the girl's little faerie friends. While he makes his escape, he finds himself continually tailed by these friends, and begins to cough up rose petals. He eventually turns himself in to the police, but to no avail, as he's later found dead inside his cell. Also, Jack is lying on his bed shirtless, thinking about his time in the war. Since he's previously established that he doesn't sleep, one has to assume it's a hobby.
Torchwood is called in on the unusual death. Jack recognizes the culprit and contacts Estelle. The two reminisce about Estelle's history with "Jack's father" and discuss her fascination with faeries and the photographing of them. Gwen dismisses the idea that real faeries could be involved. Jack is more concerned with the fact that Estelle seems to think they're benevolent. Jack's suspicions are confirmed when Estelle is later found dead drowned by a severely localized rainstorm. It is, of course, revealed that the one who loved Estelle all those years ago was Jack himself.
Meanwhile, Jasmine's mother and stepfather are continually concerned over her antisocial behavior and not having any friends, hobbies, or interests outside of playing in the garden with her imaginary friends. An altercation with school bullies causes a severe windstorm that Torchwood picks up on and gets Jasmine's name. Jasmine's stepfather, taking a heavy dose of "jerk", decides to fence up the garden that Jasmine plays in, and even slaps her around when she protests. Naturally, the faeries take umbrage at this and their attack begins just as Torchwood arrives on the scene. The stepfather is killed by the faeries and Jasmine escapes into the garden.
Jack explains that Jasmine is a "Chosen One" to the Faeries, a human child to be taken by them and made one of them. The Faeries are ancient creatures that have considerable power over time and reality. In Jack's past, his entire company of soldiers under his command was killed after accidentally killing a "Chosen One", and the Faeries promise much worse should Jasmine be denied to them. Jack allows Jasmine to be taken, claiming he had no choice in the matter.
Thus, the Faeries get off scot-free, three people are dead, one woman is now without a boyfriend and daughter, and everyone gives Jack a proper glare for doing, well... jack-all. Torchwood literally did nothing to influence the episode's events in any way. Oh, and there's a little bit at the end where Gwen expands one of the Cottingley Fairy photos
and notes that Jasmine appears in it as a Faerie.
Written by PJ Hammond, best known for Sapphire and Steel.
Tropes
- Affably Evil: The Fair Folk, or at least the one that "speaks" through Jasmine, are remarkably polite and soft-spoken.
- Agent Scully: Gwen doesn't believe in the Faeries and believes that there is a scientific explanation for them, at least in the first half.Gwen: Anyone could have made this circle.Jack: Why do you keep doubting me? I spell out the dangers, you keep looking for explanations.Gwen: That's what police work's about.Jack: This isn't police work.Gwen: All right then, science.Jack: It's not science.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Gwen is initially derisive of the idea of real fairies, and remains an Agent Scully for the first half of the episode.
- Asshole Victim: Mark Goodson, the paedophile. Roy the stepfather was a little ambivalent at first, but all bets are off once he smacks Jasmine and calls her a "little bitch".
- The Bad Guy Wins: The Faeries get what they want, murder several people along the way, and Torchwood can't do jack about it.
- Big "NO!": Gwen lets out a slightly small one when Jack gives Jasmine up to the Faeries. Lynn howls two of them when she hits her Rage Breaking Point a few moments later.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Roy is implied to be an In-Universe case. Besides Lynn being unaware of how bad he really is towards her daughter, there's a lot of people gathered at their barbeque and he does manage to come off as quite charming when he makes a speech (less than two minutes after he's just slapped Jasmine painfully hard and called her a little bitch where no-one could see or hear).
- Blatant Lies: Jack finds a photo of "his dad". No one really buys this.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Faeries being former human children who chose their next Chosen One among other human children, their morality can be resumed to "protect our new friend at any cost and make sure nobody knows too much about us".
- Borrowed Catchphrase: The tenth Doctor's "I'm so sorry" is picked up by Jack at the end. No one seems to be buying it.
- The Chosen One: The Faeries apparently have "Chosen Ones", children that are considered suitable candidates to take into their "Lost Lands".
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The Faeries make you choke to death on rose petals. After torturing you for a while, it seems.
- Creepy Child: The Fair Folk seem to have turned Jasmine into this. Apparently, she doesn't watch TV, read, play with her doll, talk to her mother and stepfather, or even laugh much, instead preferring to spend her time with the Faeries.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Jack, who is revealed to have once seen his entire squadron die right in front of him.
- Decoy Antagonist: The creepy man in a car outside school in the first five minutes of the episode turns out to be nothing to do with the eventual supernatural threat.
- Downer Ending: The Faeries get exactly what they want. Poor Lynn is out one boyfriend and one daughter, and everyone's pissed off with Jack.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Upon seeing his Old Flame Estelle dead, Jack declares that he needs a drink.
- The End of the World as We Know It: The Faeries implicitly threaten this if they don't get what they want.
- The Fair Folk: The antagonist for this episode. Jack describes them as "part myth, part spirit world and part reality jumbled together, mixed with old moments and memories". The most interesting bit seems to be that they are, in fact, not alien. They've been living alongside humanity since the beginning.
- For the Evulz: Jack claims this as the Faeries' motivation. Still, the only deaths we see are those protecting their Chosen One and a possible case of He Knows Too Much. However, they can be reasoned with and appear to have a sense of morality (e.g. they did not attack Jack when his unit ran over a Chosen One, knowing that he had no part in the events). They do also reassure Jack that they will not harm Jasmine.
- Glacial Apocalypse: The Fair Folk threatened to turn the world to ice if they didn't get the child they wanted.
- He Knows Too Much: Seems to be the only reason the Faeries killed Estelle, since she didn't present a direct threat against Jasmine, but was looking into them. Either that, or because she was connected to Jack, whom they couldn't kill but could torment.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Jack prevents the so-called "fairies" from destroying the world by allowing them to take away a perfectly-willing little girl as one of their own, in front of her mother's eyes. Both the mother and the rest of his team are livid towards Jack as a result, with him reasoning "What else could I do?"
- Imaginary Friend: Jasmine's mum and stepfather think the Faeries are nothing more than Jasmine's imaginary friends and would rather prefer if she got real friends. They end up being mistaken.
- Invincible Villain: The Faeries being a strange mixture of myth, spirit world, moments and memories alongside reality, they are unstoppable, even by Torchwood. The best thing Jack can do is negotiate with them without the guarantee that they will keep their promise.
- Jerkass: Roy is a Wicked Stepfather, and then there's Jasmine's two school bullies and the pedophile. The Faeries give all of them what they deserve.
- Karma Houdini: The Faeries end up getting everything they want and departing, as they're too powerful for Torchwood to do anything else.
- Karmic Death: Roy and the pedophile were both Asshole Victims, but in the pedophile's death, a Faerie killing him also becomes this when you consider that all of the Faeries are created from children taken away to the Faeries' realm.
- Kick the Dog: Roy taunts Jasmine by telling her that her father left when she was a baby because he didn't want to deal with her.
- Kids Are Cruel: Some of Jasmine's classmates bully her, presumably because Loners Are Freaks. Jasmine herself smiles when she sees the Faeries attack people, doesn't grieve in the slightest for her admittedly Jerkass stepfather, and cheerfully abandons her mother forever to join her friends, unable or unwilling to conceive how this might affect Lynn. Then there's the Faeries themselves...
- Man Bites Man: Jasmine bites her stepfather for preventing her from playing with the Faeries in the forest.
- Monochrome Past: The event involving the death of Jack's squadron in 1909 is depicted in sepia tones.
- Mundanger: The creepy man hanging around in a car outside the school is not the episode's Monster of the Week or anything to do with the Faeries. He's a paedophile out to kidnap and sexually assault Jasmine.
- My Grandson, Myself: Because Jack doesn't age anymore, he passes himself off as his own son.
- Natural Disaster Cascade: Jasmine warns Torchwood that if the faeries (who have already demonstrated Weather Manipulation) don't get their Chosen One, they can use their powers to kill all life on the planet."If they want to, they can make great storms, wild seas, turn the world to ice. Kill every living thing!"
- Our Fairies Are Different: The whole premise of the episode. Jack spends most of the episode trying to convince everyone around him that this is the case, and it's the reason Estelle's Wrong Genre Savvy ends up getting her killed. Our fairies are... goblin-esque, vaguely demonic immortal time-benders who don't appear on any kind of surveillance equipment, weaponize weather and enjoy murder by flower petals. Fun.
- Past Experience Nightmare: Jack has a nightmare of the time in 1909 he saw his entire squadron die at the hands of the faeries.
- Personal Raincloud: A tragically literal example. Estelle gets directly rained on and drowned by the Faeries while the weather all around her house is completely clear.
- Pinball Protagonists: The faeries drive the plot. Torchwood don't manage to stop them, slow them down, or make much difference to events at all.
- Psychotic Smirk: Wicked Stepfather Roy has one when he sees Jasmine is about to discover she's been fenced off from the Faeries' forest. He gets his just deserts a few minutes later.
- Rage Breaking Point: Tragically deconstructed with Jasmine's mother at the end. After breaking down over her boyfriend's gruesome death, it's arriving too late to watch the Faeries take Jasmine away to their realm forever that makes her hit this point. She charges at Jack, the one who let the Faeries take Jasmine, in an utter rage, but she ends up screaming and bawling her fists uselessly at his chest before she breaks down wailing against his chest.
- Shaky P.O.V. Cam: Most of the Faerie attacks are of this nature.
- Slasher Smile: Jasmine pulls this off to creepy effect several times when her Faerie friends are making Asshole Victims out of her tormentors. Especially notable is the one she gives when her stepfather gets a deep throating to die for.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Jasmine's mother hits her Rage Breaking Point when the Faeries take Jasmine away, but all of her strikes at Jack's chest are quite weak, and she quickly breaks down against his chest, screaming horribly in grief as Jack holds her.
- Was Once a Man: Jack reveals that each and every one of the Faeries was originally a child, all from different time periods, who became a Chosen One like Jasmine.
- Weather Manipulation: The Faeries can cause very specific Weather Dissonance when they want to, and it's ultimately how Torchwood tracks them down.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- A lot of this is implied in Jack's reaction to the Faeries' last attack. They look on as Roy is killed and seem to be powerless to stop Jasmine's abduction.
- While not said out loud, both Jasmine's mother and the team's expression simply imply this when Jack lets the Faeries have Jasmine.
- Wicked Stepmother: Roy is a male stepfather version, although it's unclear if he and Jasmine's mother are actually married. Around Lynn he just seems to be aloof with Jasmine, but in actuality he's a straight-up bully towards Lynn's daughter who enjoys belittling her and barring her from the forest with a fence to hurt her feelings.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Estelle thinks she is in a fairy story. Too bad she's in actually a gritty Darker and Edgier alien monster-fighting series which kills off an average of three random bystanders per episode.
