Dead Man Walking (TV story)

Synopsis
"I'm bringing Owen back."

Owen has died. Jack decides to return him to life for a few minutes. But no one could have guessed what will happen as a consequence of this decision.

Plot
Owen Harper lays dead of a gunshot wound, about to be opened up for autopsy by Martha Jones back at the Hub. Jack orders the team to do nothing until he comes. Jack enters a strange café, where a girl, about 12 years old, reads tarot. She says to Jack that he owes her a favour. The young girl tells him where to find what it is he is looking for, though as he leaves she is seen holding the Death card.

Jack goes to St. Mary's, an abandoned church where Weevils go to sleep and where they store collected bric-a-brac. He breaks into a safe and retrieves from it a box from it. To the astonishment of the team back at the Hub, it contains a resurrection gauntlet. Gwen objects to what Jack is about to do, reminding him of what had happened before with Suzie. Jack ignores her and hopes to bring Owen back for two minutes or so for everybody to say their goodbyes to him. He resurrects Owen, who is confused and scared. Tosh tells Owen that she loves him, and Jack - after initially upsetting Owen by asking for the morgue access code - tries to prepare Owen for death. The connection is lost, Owen stops breathing, and Jack holds Owen's hand, believing he is dead. We then hear Owen's voice saying that he will need his hand back.

The glove has brought Owen back from beyond death permanently, although unlike with Suzie, there is no obvious source of life energy. No energy is being drained from Jack, as Suzie was draining energy from Gwen, but Owen is getting energy from somewhere. Toshiko tells Owen she didn't mean it when she told him that she loved him and Owen says that this is a textbook reaction to grief, but does not want to discuss it further. He changes the subject and leaves the room.

Owen then finds himself occasionally having visions of himself in a place shrouded in darkness and hearing eerie whispers. He also temporarily loses control of his body during which his pupils turn black and he speaks a phrase in an unknown language. Although he has been put in quarantine, Owen escapes and goes out to a bar in Cardiff, where he discovers that he is no longer able to digest drinks, or get an erection (which depends on blood flow) so he can no longer have sex. He is now the walking dead. All his life processes have stopped.

Jack catches him and they have a bar brawl. When Owen begins to shout that he belongs to Torchwood "special ops", Jack puts on a fake English accent and denies it. This results in them both being put in a police cell. During their time in the cell, to Jack's amused disgust, Owen intentionally vomits up the drinks that would have otherwise been stuck in his stomach (since his digestive processes have now stopped) and starts to panic. He and Jack bond, and Jack reveals that he once dated Marcel Proust and that his immortality, which Owen is coveting in his position, is not the gift that Owen now envies. They then leave after Jack reveals his thoughts on immortality. Once outside they encounter numerous Weevils that chase Owen and Jack until they are cornered on a rooftop. They are surprised that instead of killing them, the Weevils bow to Owen who again temporarily loses control of his body and addresses the Weevils in the same unknown language.

Upon analysis, it is found that Owen's cells are changing slowly, and upon 100% transformation something will take over Owen's body. Research by shows that a similar situation occurred in legend, and that Death itself comes back with the revived and searches for 13 victims whose consumed souls will enable Death to remain in the world; Death would otherwise quickly perish. The story says that 'faith' was what stopped the entity. Believing this legend is in the process of repeating, Owen suggests that he must have his neural pathways closed by being embalmed in order to stop Death from using him as a gateway. During the embalming process, the resurrection gauntlet comes to life and attacks Martha before being destroyed, draining the life from her and reducing her to an old woman. Owen shoots the gauntlet, and as his cells fully change, he loses control again, and the gauntlet transforms into a dust which appears to possess him. He speaks in the same voice as he did when changed earlier, and says 'I will walk the earth forever, and my hunger shall know no bounds' - a phrase attributed earlier to Death itself.

Death escapes from Owen and heads to a hospital, being drawn to those close to death, and begins taking their souls. Martha is also brought to the hospital in her heavily aged state, where a nurse says that as her red blood cell count is low and as she is over eighty, her chances of survival are slim. The team evacuates everyone from the building while Death, after taking twelve souls, chases after a young leukaemia patient who had been accidentally left behind. Owen saves the child and helps him and Tosh to escape. Ianto, who is waiting with Martha, explains to the team that the 'faith' which defeated Death before was in fact the resurrected child, whose name was Faith. Owen then realizes that he himself is the only one who can fight Death as he is already dead and therefore has nothing to lose. After kissing Tosh (and stealing her alien lockpick device), Owen locks the other members of the team out of the hospital and begins a brawl with Death, eventually consuming its energy and forcing it back into the darkness.

Upon returning to the Hub, Martha explains to Owen that now the energy keeping him 'alive' is dissipating but could take an unknown amount of time to do so, anywhere between 30 seconds and 30 years. Jack explains to Toshiko that you can never defeat death, only escape it. Owen asks Jack to let him work again, as by doing his job as a doctor he can try and repay the lives of those lost when Jack brought Owen back.

Cast

 * Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
 * Martha Jones - Freema Agyeman
 * Gwen Cooper - Eve Myles
 * Owen Harper - Burn Gorman
 * Toshiko Sato - Naoko Mori
 * Ianto Jones - Gareth David-Lloyd
 * Rhys Williams - Kai Owen
 * Young Girl - Skye Bennett
 * Weevil - Paul Kasey
 * Nurse - Joanna Griffiths
 * Jamie Burton - Ben Walker
 * Hen Night Girl - Lauren Phillips
 * Angela Connolly - Golda Reshhuevel
 * Hospital Patient - Janie Booth
 * Policeman - Rhys Ap Williams

Story notes
to be added

Ratings

 * Official BARB rating - 3.31 million viewers

Myths
to be added

Filming Locations
to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * Why would Jack need to bring Owen back for the alien morgue if Torchwood had the device that can unlock any lock in under 45 seconds? He needed an excuse for bringing him back. The alien morgue may also have been an exception to this device.
 * Death had claimed 13 souls as it killed Jack when Owen changed and released it. Jack is seen reviving in the SUV. Death should have not been able to have been stopped by Owen as it had killed 13 times already. It didn't steal Jack's soul, merely one of his infinite number of lives.
 * When Owen flashed to the darkness we are able to see that there is a source of light as we can see him. There is also a source of gravity as he is standing and able to move about freely. And finally there is an atmosphere as you here sound. What we see is Owen's perception.
 * If Owen is dead, how was he able to drink the beers? When Owen was brought back he still had the chest wound from where he got shot; so how come the alcohol didn't just seep out of the wound? Given that he could move and speak, it seems he still has muscle control, making swallowing possible. As for the wound, there is no guarantee that it pierced his food pipe or stomach, so the beer wouldn't necessarily leak out. It is later established he can't digest the beer and he has to stand on his head to expel it back out of his mouth.
 * Owen was able to fight death, because he was dead. Jack was also at the hospital, so why did Owen not get jack, locks tosh and the others out and both jack and owen fight death? Even if Owen had thought of it, there wasn't sufficient time - nor would he necessarily have thought that Jack would be invincible to Death.
 * When Death begins to possess Owen during his embalming process, Cybermen schematics are clearly shown hung up on the wall. Why does Torchwood have Cybermen schematics in their autopsy room? It has been repeatedly noted that the Doctor is not always there to defend the Earth. After the Battle of Cannary Wharf, it would be logical to keep a blueprint of the layout of the Cybermen should they begin another invasion.

Continuity

 * The Resurrection glove last appeared in They Keep Killing Suzie; this episode features the second glove of the pair, obliquely referenced by Ianto in the earlier episode. This second glove is also destroyed.
 * Owen last displayed a connection with the Weevils in Combat.
 * The Weevils recoiled in the presense of a Sleeper agent in a similar way to Owen. (TW: Sleeper)
 * This episode, Reset and the following episode, A Day in the Death, all take place within a period of about three days (based upon dialogue in the third episode).
 * It is odd that Jack, being the head of Torchwood, would not be in possession of the morgue access code. However, the events of Exit Wounds provide a convincing reason for why Jack was not allowed to have the code. It's possible, though unlikely given the extremely limited time Owen was thought to have, that Jack brought it up just for the purpose of conversation.

DVD releases

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