In Combat, written by Noel (Doctor Who's Mickey) Clarke, Captain Jack's Torchwood team are hunting for someone who's using the alien Weevils to commit the perfect murder.
Someone’s snatching weevils -- wild alien creatures that have come through the Rift and are hiding beneath the streets of Cardiff -- off the streets. Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and the rest of the Torchwood team know that it can hardly be a coincidence that men are turning up in the casualty wards bloody, wounded and even bitten. It’s only a matter of time before the inevitable happens, and sure enough one of the men dies. “These guys are using weevils to commit the perfect murder,” Jack says.
The team are warned off by someone with money and connections, but Jack responds with, “We’re going to hunt you down and find you.” Their investigations lead them to a property management company handling storage space around the now disused docks.
Alien Weevil Loose in Cardiff
To Toshiko’s horror, Jack prepares a baited trap by releasing a tagged weevil in Cardiff city centre, but the ploy fails, and they simply lose the alien.
Owen (Burn Gorman) is sent undercover to find out who’s behind the violence, despite, or perhaps because he is still grieving over the loss of Diana Holmes at the end of Out of Time. He was brutal in the way he dumped Gwen, and the viewer can’t help but wonder whether her confession of her adultery to her partner is as much about revenge as about contrition.
When Owen’s barely controlled rage erupts into violence in a bar brawl, he attracts the attention of the charismatic but dangerous Mark Lynch (Alex Hassell). Owen learns that beneath the sophisticated veneer of the city’s materially rich, there is a whole sub-culture for men with money and no outlet for their own savagery – but can Owen avoid becoming just like them? More importantly, does he want to?
Noel Clarke Alludes to Spiritually Bankrupt Society
Combat was written by Noel Clarke (Mickey from Doctor Who), and takes a long hard look at a society that at times seems spiritually bankrupt, and at men who have everything they need except a purpose in life and whose rage has no legitimate outlet. This episode felt as if it should have been the emotional climax to the series, and with the image of Owen snarling, top lip curled, weevil-like at the screen, it would have made the perfect cliff-hanger. Sadly, what was to follow blew all the carefully accrued credibility that the series had built up since the low point of the middle episodes of the series.
