The Blood Line (TV story)

 was the tenth and final episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day.

Synopsis
The Torchwood team travels around the world on a final, desperate mission; the Three Families are unstoppable unless a terrible sacrifice is made.

Plot
Oswald and Jack prepare for their confrontation with the Three Families. Gwen tells them about when she was a little girl and her father Geraint came home one day. He told them everyone thought he had taken money from his workplace and he wouldn't be getting as much money. Gwen says she ran upstairs and came back with about £2.50. Her father replied, "It's not about the money, it's just that I can't stand anyone thinking I'm dishonest." As she played with him that night, she thought that he was the nicest man in the world. "And today's the day that I kill him."

Now aware that Jack's blood is drawn to the Blessing, the Torchwood team uses small amounts of the blood to determine headings towards the two sites. Rex and Esther contact the CIA for help in infiltrating the Buenos Aires site of the Blessing, while keeping Jack, Gwen, and Oswald's presence in Shanghai a secret. Director Shapiro puts his team on the task. The team includes Charlotte, who surreptitiously reports the mission to the Three Families. A detachment of the Argentinian Army under the command of Captain Federico Santos soon arrives to assist Rex and Esther. While the group is loading up, a Three Families double agent detonates a suicide bomb, making the other soldiers Category 1 and destroying Rex and Esther's supply of Jack's blood. Rex, Esther and Captain Santos survive unharmed. Rex tells Santos to report that Esther and he died in the blast to better allow them to infiltrate the Blessing site.

Director Shapiro realizes the Three Families' mole must be inside his team. He has Noah run a newly developed trace program to track any recent phone calls made using the Three Families' method of avoiding traces. Realizing she is moments from being discovered, Charlotte calmly retrieves a hidden explosive device from a side office, puts it in her purse in the main meeting room and leaves. The explosion 'category 1s' Shapiro and the rest of his team and lightly injures Charlotte, shielding her from any suspicion.

Jack, Gwen and Oswald infiltrate the Shanghai Blessing site and make their way to its exposed face, where they meet the Mother, Jilly Kitzinger and several armed guards. The guards stand down when Oswald reveals he is wearing an explosive vest (at Jack's suggestion). This advantage seems short-lived. A radio transmission from the Cousin at the Buenos Aires site reveals that Three Families' operatives there have captured Esther and Rex, but when Oswald says he didn't expect to leave Shanghai alive, the operatives stand down. After examining the face of the Blessing, Jack and Gwen question the Mother about the Miracle. She admits the Miracle was produced by introducing Jack's immortal blood to the Blessing. This is the first part in a larger plan to take control of the world. By stopping death and destabilizing the economy, the Families are poised to take control of the banks and influence the world's governments. This will lead to a fascist oligarchy which can "decide who lives, how long, where and why."

When Jack moves to open his veins and release his blood into the Blessing, the Mother stops him. This will not undo the Miracle. The original effect required Jack's blood to be introduced at both Blessing sites simultaneously. Since Rex and Esther's supply of Jack's blood was destroyed, there is no way to do this. The Mother orders all of Torchwood killed. Before this can happen, Rex interrupts and claims he still has some of Jack's blood with him — or rather in him. When he arrived in Buenos Aires, Esther helped Rex transfuse almost all of Jack's blood into his body. This did not kill him only because of the Miracle. The Mother counters that reversing the Miracle would require almost all of the blood in both Rex and Jack's bodies. This would likely kill at least one of them once the Miracle reverted. Rex and Jack do not back down. The Cousin shoots Esther and tells Rex that by undoing the Miracle he will now be killing Esther forever. Rex falters, torn by his feelings for Esther, but after reassurances from Jack and Gwen, he rises and opens the wound over his heart, releasing Jack's blood into the Blessing. Gwen shoots Jack through the heart, releasing his blood as well.

The Miracle ends almost immediately, accompanied by an effect which Gwen calls "a breath": all of the world's Category 1 patients regain consciousness for a few seconds, then pass away in the next breath. This includes Gwen's father, who awakes to hear his wife wishing him goodbye over the phone. At the same time both of the Blessing sites begin to shake, making the structure around them unstable. Oswald grabs the Mother and urges Gwen to leave. She does, but as the exit elevator rises, Jack returns to life. A brief struggle ensues between Jilly and Gwen before Gwen incapacitates Jilly and returns in the elevator to rescue Jack. The Mother begs Oswald to let her go, but Oswald proclaims he is happy to die and go to hell, as that is where "all the bad little girls" go. Jack and Gwen flee the facility seconds before Oswald detonates his explosives, destroying the Shanghai facility. The Buenos Aires team moves to leave as well, but before the Cousin can make it out, Rex regains consciousness long enough to grab him and throw him over the edge of the chasm around the Blessing. Rex falls to the ground next to Esther. The two watch each other die, but are rescued by Captain Santos and members of the Argentinian Army. Paramedics immediately start work to revive them.

Several months later, Jilly Kitzinger meets the Blue-Eyed Man at a familiar park bench. When she pleads that she has no place to go and no life to live, he offers her a chance to participate in the Three Families' "Plan B", then departs. After some delay, Jilly follows. Elsewhere, Gwen, Rhys, Jack, Charlotte and Rex attend a funeral for Esther. Afterward, as Charlotte is leaving, Rex receives recovered data from Noah's computer. He finds the phone trace indicating that Charlotte is the mole. When Rex tries to stop her from leaving, Charlotte shoots him and is almost immediately gunned down by other agents. Jack and Gwen rush to Rex's side, only to find him without a pulse, dead, but seconds later Rex gasps and regains consciousness. As he opens his shirt, his wound heals presumably due to a side effect from a combination of traces of Jacks blood and Inverting of The Blessing. The others look on amazed. Rex yells at Jack "What did you do to me?"

Cast

 * Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
 * Gwen Cooper - Eve Myles
 * Rex Matheson - Mekhi Phifer
 * Esther Drummond - Alexa Havins
 * Rhys Williams - Kai Owen
 * Oswald Danes - Bill Pullman
 * Sarah - Candace Brown
 * Sandra Morales - Noemi Del Rio
 * Mary Cooper - Sharon Morgan
 * Geraint Cooper - William Thomas
 * Charlotte Willis - Marina Benedict
 * Noah Vickers - Paul James
 * Allen Shapiro - John de Lancie
 * Sgt Andy Davidson - Tom Price
 * Blue-Eyed Man - Teddy Sears
 * The Mother - Frances Fisher
 * Captain Santos - Benito Martinez
 * The Cousin - Chris Butler
 * Jilly Kitzinger - Lauren Ambrose
 * Little Girl - McKenzie Applegate
 * Female Soldier - Veronica Diaz
 * Sandra Morales - Noemi Del Rio
 * Young Male Soldier - Fernando Fernandez
 * Chinese Woman - Cici Lau
 * Category One Nurse - Laura Waddell

Story notes

 * This episode begins with a monologue by Gwen Cooper. Children of Earth: Day Five, also the final episode of a season arc, began in the same way. The key difference is that in the earlier episode Gwen is recording a message when she speaks; in this episode, although it is filmed as a monologue, Jack is visible in the background. She is actually speaking to him.
 * Also as in Children of Earth: Day Five the Doctor is mentioned, and the epilogue takes place some time after the resolution of the story (though likely not as long as in Day Five).
 * The Australian broadcast ended with the caption "Jack will be back in January 2012." This led to rumour that Series 5 would air only a few months later, however there has been no commencement of production of a new season as of January 2012. The caption referred to "Jackfest," a month-long event on UKTV Australia.

Ratings

 * UK Final: 5.13 million

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors

 * On several occasions the reflection of the green screen can be seen on the knife Jack is holding.
 * The CIA software states that Charlotte's phone was last used on 9/9/11 at 12.49. This would have been 1.49pm in Buenos Aires, after the explosives sealed off the Blessing.
 * When looking at his phone after Esther's funeral, Rex is holding it vertically when facing the camera, but horizontally when the camera is looking at the screen.
 * The footage of Shanghai, China before the scene where Gwen searches for the alleyway was actually shot in Hong Kong.
 * When Jilly meets the Blue-Eyed Man again, a boom mic can be seen.

Continuity

 * Jack mentions the Silurians and the Racnoss as possible explanations for the Blessing. The Silurians had lived underground for millennia (DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians et al), and the Earth was initially formed around a Racnoss nest, which was at the centre of the planet. (DW: The Runaway Bride)
 * When Jack reveals to Oswald that he is from the future, Oswald guesses that he knows if they make it through this day, only to be told by Jack that "the future can change". The fact that "time can be rewritten" has been a theme in recent Doctor Who. (DW: Forest of the Dead, Flesh and Stone, A Christmas Carol, Let's Kill Hitler)
 * Gwen says that the Blessing may be the most terrestrial thing Torchwood has encountered. However in the first-season episode TW: Countrycide, Torchwood encountered humans responsible for what they believed to be 'aliens' when investigating several disappearances. That episode stands as the first and (as of 2011 only) episode in the history of the Doctor Who franchise to feature no science fictional elements of any kind.
 * The CIA trace to find the mole states the phone was last used on 9th September 2011, meaning part of this episode occurred on the same day the episode was first broadcast, just like DW: The Big Bang. This theory is strengthened by the fact that a lot of references were shown (mostly outside episodes) claiming "Death Ends 7.8.11", which was the U.S. broadcast date for the first episode.

Timeline

 * This story takes place after TW: The Gathering
 * This story takes place before TWA: Army of One

Home video releases
This episode was released worldwide in a box set containing all ten episodes of Torchwood: Miracle Day. In the United Kingdom, it was released on Region 2 DVD and Region Free Blu-ray on 14 November 2011. In Australia, it was released in Region 4 DVD and Region B Blu-Ray on 1 December 2011. In New Zealand, the same sets were released on 7 December 2011. In North America, it was released on Region 1 DVD and Region Free Blu-Ray on 3 April 2012.