Meat (TV story)

"Imprisoned, chained and drugged. Welcome to Planet Earth"

- Jack Harkness to the Cash Cow

Meat is the fourth episode in the second series of Torchwood.

Synopsis
Gwen's fiancé, Rhys, discovers the truth about Torchwood and helps the team as they investigate a mysterious alien-meat supply. Will Rhys go too far? And can Torchwood save the alien from being used as cheap meat?

Plot
Rhys Williams is out driving when he is telephoned by a work mate to inform him that one of their firm's lorries has crashed. He drives to the site of the crash and see that one of his employees and friend has died. Torchwood appears on the scene and Rhys spots Gwen amongst them.

The Torchwood team confiscates the meat that the lorry was transporting when they suspect it of being alien. Gwen recognises the lorry as one from Rhys' firm. Back at the Hub, Toshiko rings Rhys' office for information pretending to be the police. At home Rhys texts Gwen asking for her to come home. He attempts to get her to confess to being at the crash site but she is evasive.

He sees Gwen meeting up with Jack near the invisible lift in Roald Dahl Plass and follows her to a factory. While there he is captured by a group of men and taken into the factory. Jack and Gwen see this and mistake his actions for collaboration. The men show Rhys that they have captured a live "space whale" (nicknamed the "cash cow" by its captors) which is the source of the meat and which continues to grow despite them cutting chunks of its flesh away while it is still alive. In an act of self-preservation, Rhys agrees to replace his dead employee for the men.

Back at their flat, Rhys and Gwen argue over her being at the crash and Gwen admits to the nature of her work for Torchwood. Rhys is disbelieving until she shows him around the Hub. With Rhys' help the team manages to inflitrate the factory so they can free the alien creature. The team hides in one of Rhys' vans and Rhys drives them to the factory where the team sneaks in.

They locate the creature and plan to stun gun the men and sedate it so they can move it back to the Hub until the Cardiff spacetime Rift reopens. Meanwhile, the men have captured Rhys & Ianto. They confirm that the creature is sentient, but the men discover them and in the fights Rhys is shot. The creature becomes distressed and Owen can see no other option but to euthanise it when it poses a threat to them by struggling. They are able to stun the men and feed them amnesia pills. Back at the Hub, Owen patches up Rhys' wound and Jack orders Gwen to give Rhys a pill too. She finds that she cannot bring herself to do so and Jack relents, disappointed about this but is unwilling to fire Gwen and face losing her from the team.

Cast

 * Captain Jack Harkness — John Barrowman
 * Gwen Cooper — Eve Myles
 * Owen Harper — Burn Gorman
 * Toshiko Sato — Naoko Mori
 * Ianto Jones — Gareth David-Lloyd
 * Rhys Williams - Kai Owen
 * Policeman - Colin Baxter
 * Ruth - Patti Clare
 * Vic - Garry lake
 * Greg - Gereld Carey
 * Dale - Matt Ryan
 * Dave - Andy Watts

Story notes

 * Coincidentally, the episode aired for the first time in Canada at the same time as a tainted meat outbreak in that country was causing mass recalls and deaths.
 * The theme of humans exploiting alien life forms would be touched on again only two episodes later in Reset, as well as in the Doctor Who episode Planet of the Ood, which aired a few months later.
 * Ianto shows a reaction to the exploiting of the defenseless alien and his endangered teammates; violently attacking the meat-traffickers, slamming one with a door, and stun-gunning another one on the head as he says "Pray they survive".
 * This is another episode where Jack and Ianto's relationship is shown, when Tosh tells Owen to go out with someone he works with Ianto and Jack share a look that implies that's what they are doing. Also prior to this, Jack is seen staring at Ianto intentivley.

Ratings

 * Unofficial Overnight - 2.9 million viewers

Myths
to be added

Filming Locations
to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * Rhys' stated ignorance of alien life appears somewhat anachronistic given that the episode takes place at some point after the events of DW: The Runaway Bride, The Christmas Invasion, which made the presence of alien life widely known to the populace of Great Britain. It has been widely suggested that such incidents, like the Battle of Canary Wharf have been chalked up to mass hallucination by mainstream opinion (TW: Everything Changes). Rhys may likely subscribe to this opinion. Even knowing that aliens do exist, one would still find it unexpected to discover that his fiancee fights them on a regular basis.

Continuity

 * The last living "space whale" appears, also in an exploitive situation, in the Eleventh Doctor's second adventure: "The Beast Below." Based on its size, the space whale in this episode was a baby.

DVD releases

 * This story along with the rest of Torchwood Series 2 was released in a complete series boxset in 2008.