Gwen Cooper

Gwen Elizabeth Cooper was a member of Torchwood Three in the 2000s and 2010s.

Leaving her job as a police officer, Gwen accepted Jack's offer to join Torchwood and eventually rose to second-in-command and, for a short while, leader of the group. She had an affair with Owen for a time before her marriage to Rhys and mourned him Tosh and Ianto after their deaths. She eventually chose to restart Torchwood, rebuilding the Hub and working with Jack and Colchester.

Gwen left to start a new life with Rhys and Anwen after her possession by Ng, having totally lost control and killed her mother and slept with Jack.

Childhood
Gwen was born in Cardiff (AUDIO: Night of the Fendahl) on either 5 May or 16 August 1978 to Geraint and Mary Cooper. (TV: Something Borrowed, Children of Earth: Day One, The New World) Her birth was influenced by the Fendahl to be the perfect host, (AUDIO: Night of the Fendahl) also looking identical to her ancestor, Gwyneth, due to spatial genetic multiplicity. (TV: Journey's End)

When Gwen was a girl, she gave her father £2.50 after he was accused of stealing money from his workplace, but he told her that his problem was with people thinking that he was dishonest. (TV: The Blood Line) Her grandmother gave her a toy monkey that she named Bonzo after the famous gorilla. (PROSE: Bay of the Dead) She suffered from car sickness and felt nauseous in the back of an old Vauxhall Royale on a family day-trip to Carmarthen. (PROSE: Border Princes)

Gwen had a friend called Janice, whose brother had a pet rat called Fang. (AUDIO: Love Rat) She once did a school project on the Cottingley fairy photos as a child. (TV: Small Worlds)

As a police officer
Gwen went to college where she met Rhys Williams, a fellow student who fancied her from the moment that they met. (TV: Adam) The two began dating and Rhys took her for a picnic on their first date to a beach which he did not realise was a nudist beach. (AUDIO: The Sin Eaters) She first kissed him in a supermarket after nicknaming him "Rhys the Rant" due to him wittering about sharing a kiss after eating garlic. (TV: Adam)

Gwen attended Hendon where she trained to become a police officer, (PROSE: Slow Decay) joining South Wales Police. (TV: Everything Changes) As a junior police officer, she stood in the doorway of a house in Butetown to stop anybody but the police and coroner from entering the scene of an old man's suicide. She remembered the metallic smell of blood coming from inside, along with the sounds of her colleagues attempting to unstick the man's body from the bath. Soon after, she had a nosebleed after being hit in the face by a doped-up young man at a squat in Ely. (PROSE: Slow Decay)

By March 2005, Gwen was partnered with Andy Davidson. (AUDIO: One Rule) Andy fancied Gwen, although she spurred his advances and thought of him only as a friend, and he often criticised Rhys for his weight. (TV: Adrift) She was also partnered with Jimmy Mitchell on late night patrols, (PROSE: Another Life) with whom she would often share chips at three in the morning. (PROSE: Slow Decay)

She lived with Rhys in a flat in Riverside (TV: Everything Changes) whilst her parents lived in Swansea. (TV: Something Borrowed) She did not believe in aliens, with Rhys explaining away alien incursions by saying that they were the work of terrorists and psychotropic drugs in the water supply. (TV: Everything Changes)

Joining Torchwood
At John Tucker's murder scene, Gwen witnessed Torchwood's use of a resurrection gauntlet on the victim and was later saved from a Weevil by the group. Jack Harkness gave her a tour of the Hub before retconning her, although her memories began to return after she saw an artist's rendering of the life knife that she had seen in the Hub. Returning to Roald Dahl Plass, she encountered Suzie Costello and witnessed Jack's resurrection and Suzie's death.

With a spot in Torchwood vacant, Jack offered her a job, which she accepted. (TV: Everything Changes) She told Rhys and her parents that she was working with special ops, mostly doing admin such as filing, (TV: Day One) and received gun-training from Jack. (TV: Day One, Ghost Machine)

Early career
On her first day at Torchwood, Gwen accidentally released the Sex Gas from a meteor and felt personally responsible after it entered Carys Fletcher to feed on the male orgasm. She willingly offered herself to the gas as she thought that she could fight it better than she could, allowing Jack to trap it in a portable prison cell where it died. (TV: Day One) She retrieved the quantum transducer from Bernie Harris and saw her future self saying "Owen" with her hands covered in blood, later stopping Owen from killing Ed Morgan only for him to impale himself on the knife she was holding. (TV: Ghost Machine) Gwen and Owen passionately kissed whilst hiding from Lisa Hallett, whom they both helped kill. (TV: Cyberwoman)

Gwen tried and failed to stop Jack from handing Jasmine Pierce to the Fairies as their "Chosen One". (TV: Small Worlds) She and Owen went to Newton House to investigate an archaeological dig (AUDIO: Hidden) and kissed again near Brynblaidd, where she was shocked by the the cannibals' motivations. She began an affair with Owen (TV: Countrycide) as she could not share her extraterrestrial experiences with Rhys. Tosh learnt of the affair through the telepathy pendant. (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts)

Three months after joining Torchwood, Gwen used the resurrection gauntlet to bring back Suzie to solve a series of murders and, unknown to her, her life force began transferring to Suzie. She was close to death when Tosh destroyed the gauntlet, breaking the link and saving her. (TV: They Keep Killing Suzie) She was the only one to hear Eugene Jones's ghost and, with his help, found out why he died and was, as his last act before moving on, saved from an oncoming car by him. (TV: Random Shoes) She helped Emma-Louise Cowell adjust to life in 2007, letting her stay at her flat and causing tension with Rhys, (TV: Out of Time) and finally called off her affair with Owen, confessing her indiscretions to Rhys before retconning him. (TV: Combat)

Gwen discovered half of Tosh's equation to open the Rift after Tosh and Jack were trapped in 1941 (TV: Captain Jack Harkness) and was convinced to open the Rift further after Bilis Manger killed Rhys. She stayed beside Jack's body after he was killed by Abaddon, kissing his dead lips before he was finally resurrected. Soon after his recovery, Jack vanished, (TV: End of Days) leaving the team behind to chase after the Doctor's TARDIS. (TV: Utopia)

Jack's absence
Torchwood continued to operate in Jack's absence, with Gwen becoming leader after Tosh, the longest-serving member, deferred command to her following exposure to an alien artefact. (PROSE: Kaleidoscope) Gwen, Owen, Tosh and Ianto were sent on a "wild goose chase" to the Himalayas by to keep them from being a threat to his plans. (TV: The Sound of Drums)

Gwen and Rhys went out for Valentine's Day. (AUDIO: Dinner and a Show) He proposed to her and she accepted, later saying that she did so because nobody else would have her. (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)

After Jack's return
Jack rejoined Torchwood during an altercation with a Blowfish. Whilst Gwen was pleased, she was angry with him for leaving them. She went looking for a canister with John Hart and was twice put in danger by him; firstly with paralysing lip gloss and secondly by handcuffing her whilst he was threatened by a DNA bomb. She had a message for Jack when she thought she was going to die, but she was saved before relaying it. (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)

Gwen was sympathetic towards Beth Halloran and realised that she faked being taken over so that Torchwood would shoot her. (TV: Sleeper) She saw ghosts at St Teilo's Hospital and realised that Tommy Brockless had to return to 1918 to close the time shifts. (TV: To the Last Man) She was also almost killed by Vic Royce, who was under the influence of an alien computer. (AUDIO: Everyone Says Hello)

Having reason to believe that he was working with Vic and Dale and profiting from the Cash Cow, Gwen finally told Rhys about Torchwood. She was hesitant to allow him to help Torchwood, not wanting to put him in danger, and later refused to retcon him and take the experience away from him. (TV: Meat) She forgot about Rhys due to Adam Smith's memory manipulation but was able to rediscover her feelings for him. Despite this, she told Jack, before taking retcon, that she did not love Rhys the same way that she loved Jack. (TV: Adam)

Gwen met and befriended Martha Jones when she joined the team in investigating the Pharm. She and Ianto captured the assassin Billy Davis and infiltrated the Pharm, where she saw the Mayflies and witnessed Owen being shot and killed by Aaron Copley. (TV: Reset) She looked into Death and learnt about its previous manifestation in the 15th century (TV: Dead Man Walking) and helped investigate Henry Parker. She apologised to Tosh for not making her a bridesmaid. (TV: A Day in the Death)

On Gwen's hen night, she was impregnated by a Nostrovite and tried to call off the wedding, but Rhys refused, later using the singularity scalpel to kill the creature within her. She almost kissed who she believed to be Jack before learning it was the Nostrovite mother and, after the service, seemed to find closure with him. Due to the Nostrovite, Torchwood retconned the guests. (TV: Something Borrowed) She and Rhys went on a ten day honeymoon to Cuba and chose to keep her maiden name. (PROSE: Skypoint)

Gwen helped with Owen's Church of the Outsiders project by finding Andromeda Ross, daughter of Steve and Val Ross, who manipulated her into taking her to the Hub where she could open the Rift, and took her to Whitecliff afterwards. (AUDIO: Believe) She helped defeat the Night Travellers (TV: From Out of the Rain) and later embarked on her own project after learning of the disappearances that included Jonah Bevan. She located Jack's facility on Flat Holm and took Nikki Bevan there to be reunited with her son, but chose not to do so for anybody else due to the effect that it had on Nikki. (TV: Adrift)

Whilst Jack, Tosh, Owen and Ianto were caught in an explosion, Gwen was delayed and was thus able to help them with Rhys. (TV: Fragments) With Rift activity detected around Cardiff, Gwen went to police headquarters where she directed them to deal with Gray and John Hart's mass bombings, also helping subdue the Weevils. She was trapped by Gray before being rescued by Jack, too late to save Tosh who had been shot and Owen who was destroyed in Turnmill Nuclear Power Station. (TV: Exit Wounds)

The Torchwood trio
The deaths of Owen and Tosh had a profound impact on Gwen, to the point that she questioned whether it was worth Torchwood continuing. (TV: Exit Wounds) She suffered nightmares in the weeks that followed (PROSE: Bay of the Dead) and was still emotionally unsteady several months later. (AUDIO: Lost Souls) She kept a photograph of her fallen friends at her workstation which she greeted in the morning (TV: Children of Earth: Day One) and went on holiday to Tenerife where she was, according to Ianto, "up to her neck in piña coladas". (AUDIO: Expectant)

Gwen, Jack and Ianto were in the Hub when the Earth was moved into the Medusa Cascade by the Daleks and helped out with contacting the Tenth Doctor using the tower. When she saw the Doctor, she remarked that he was "a bit nice" but thought that he would be older. She and Ianto tried to hold off a Dalek invading the Hub despite knowing that they could not win, planning on going down fighting like Owen and Tosh had. (TV: The Stolen Earth) However, they were saved by Tosh's time lock which froze the Dalek and locked them in, later helping the Doctor by opening the Rift Manipulator to allow him to use it as a "towrope" to return Earth to its proper place. (TV: Journey's End)

On the night of the All-Night Zombie Horror Show, Gwen and Rhys found a zombie eating their neighbour Betty Prudom's cat. They met Jack and Ianto at St Helen's Hospital where they learnt that Leet had created the zombies to search for his life-shell and that they were controlled by coma patient Oscar Phillips. When Oscar awoke, Gwen tried to stop him from jumping to his death, but Jack held her back. They went to his funeral and laid snowdrops on his grave. (PROSE: Bay of the Dead)

Whilst dealing with a giant alien octopus, Gwen was called by Andy and agreed to meet with Luke Palmer, who had asked to speak with Torchwood. This made Torchwood aware of the Good Thinking virus which Gwen later contracted, shooting Rhys under its influence. She took Rhys to Cardiff Castle and riled the people to gain access to the Provictus vaccine, unaware of its true purpose. Gwen was later cured and Frances Godalming and the minister thwarted. (AUDIO: Outbreak)

The 456 incident
In September 2009, Gwen witnessed the first stopping of the children, later finding out about and visiting Clement McDonald at Digby York Hospital who told her that she was pregnant. Checking to see if this was true at the Hub, Jack found that he had a bomb inside of him, telling Gwen and Ianto to flee before it detonated. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One) Gwen escaped and went on the run with Rhys, escaping to London to meet with John Frobisher. They were instead met by Lois Habiba who informed them of Frobisher's role in the bombing and planned for them to free Jack from Ashton Down. Posing as undertakers delivering Rupesh Patanjali's body, they infiltrated the base but were cornered by Johnson before being saved by Ianto, who created a path using a forklift and allowed them to escape with Jack. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Two)

Gwen, Rhys, Jack and Ianto set up base at an old Torchwood One storage facility from which they witnessed the return of the 456. She gave the Eye-5 contact lenses to Lois, allowing them to witness the negotiations, and later convinced Andy to release Clem from jail and brought him to the base. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Three) Using the Eye-5s and sending Rhys away with the recordings, Gwen convinced Lois to stand up to COBRA and blackmail them into allowing Jack and Ianto to take over, resulting in Ianto's death. She went to Thames House once it was safe and wept by his body. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Four)

Having failed to stop the government from handing over the children, Gwen decided to instead fulfil a promise to Jack by protecting David and Mica Davies, Ianto's nephew and niece. En route, she strongly implied to Rhys that she was going to abort the pregnancy, due to the dangerous world they now lived in, but later recanted her statement and told Rhys she never seriously considered the option. They ran away with the children staying with Rhiannon and Johnny Davies in an attempt that proved fruitless, ending up with only one child after the others were caught. Fortunately, Jack was able to destroy the 456. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Five)

After Torchwood's downfall
After the 456 was defeated, Jack left and told Gwen that he was going travelling. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Five) She was declared dead as a result of the 456 Regulation. (TV: The New World) In March 2020, they went to meet Jack on a hill, not having seen him in six months, and she handed him his vortex manipulator which he used to run away into outer space. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Five)

Gwen gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Anwen Williams, (COMIC: Shrouded) and let Mary see her granddaughter on the day she was born. She went into hiding with Rhys and Anwen for the next year, living in a house by the beach. (TV: The New World)

Miracle Day
Gwen, Rhys and Anwen returned to Cardiff after Geraint was taken to St Helen's Hospital following a heart attack and were told of the Miracle by Andy, something that Rhys convinced her not to investigate. Shortly after returning home, they were visited by Agent Rex Matheson and were saved from a helicopter attack with Jack's help. With Jack, they escaped to Roald Dahl Plass where Matheson and the police extradited Gwen and Jack to the United States (TV: The New World) whilst Rhys and Anwen were sent home. Aboard the plane on the way to the US, Gwen had to quickly make a cure for Jack after he was poisoned with arsenic by Lyn Peterfield. Upon landing, Rex learnt of the CIA's true motives and went on the run with Gwen, Jack and Esther Drummond. (TV: Rendition)

The new Torchwood team located a PhiCorp warehouse with stockpiled drugs, leading them to believe that PhiCorp might be behind the Miracle. (TV: Dead of Night) They went to Los Angeles where Gwen and Jack tricked Nicolas Frumkin into giving them what they needed to get access to a PhiCorp installation and infiltrated the building in disguise. After stealing the information and almost getting information from an assassin before Rex shot him, Gwen was called by Rhys and learnt that her father had been taken to an overflow camp. (TV: Escape to LA)

Gwen returned to Wales and broke into the camp with Rhys, posing as a nurse, but failed when Geraint had another heart attack and was reclassified as Category 1. After Rhys informed Gwen that the modules were for "burn victims", Gwen realised that the true purpose of the modules were to cremate Category 1 individuals. (TV: The Categories of Life) Rhys managed to get Geraint out in his truck whilst Gwen blew up the modules. She returned to the US and received a message on the Eye-5s, being told that Mary, Rhys and Anwen were being held hostage and that she should hand Jack over. (TV: The Middle Men) For Anwen, she knocked Jack out and took him in the car to the given destination where they met Olivia Colasanto, (TV: Immortal Sins) who took them to Angelo Colasanto and learnt of the Three Families. She was deported by Allen Shapiro when Jack refused to tell him what Angelo's null field generator was. (TV: End of the Road)

Gwen spent two months at home with her family, robbing pharmacies for medicine for her father, who was hidden in the basement. Oswald Danes visited looking for Jack, who returned to Wales with Esther. With Oswald's information, they worked out the Blessing was connected to Shanghai and Buenos Aires before the police returned to the house and found Geraint, taking him away to the modules. To end the Miracle, Gwen, Jack and Oswald went to Shanghai (TV: The Gathering) where they located one end of the Blessing and where she prepared to shoot Jack so that his blood would undo the Miracle. Although it would mean the deaths of her father and Esther, who had been shot by the Cousin, she shot Jack whilst Rex removed his bandage at the Buenos Aires end, ending the Miracle. She escaped with Jack and Jilly, whom she had to fight in order to get Jack in the lift.

Gwen, Jack and Rex returned to the US where they attended Esther's funeral, after which Rex was shot by Charlotte Wills. Gwen watched as Rex, having gained Jack's immortality, came back to life. (TV: The Blood Line)

Post-Miracle
Following the Miracle, Gwen, Rhys and Anwen spent a brief period in Washington DC. She began suffering migraines due to a psychic link to an alien cuckoo and used the link to find it after Rhys was taken by Lucas Avery. She ended up in what she believed to be a hospital, but which turned out to be the same building that Rhys was in. She managed to escape from the cuckoo and rescued Rhys. (AUDIO: Army of One) Andy called Gwen for help with his Yasmin Kahn case. (AUDIO: Fallout)

Gwen, Rhys and Anwen returned to Wales and lived with Mary in Swansea. She began to miss her life with Torchwood and, unbeknownst to her, the Helix Intelligence within the Earth was amplifying these feelings, causing her to develop a psychosis. Jack returned to deal with the crisis and took Gwen aboard the Ice Maiden. Gwen refused to be left out of the mission and accompanied him to a mountain in Peru where he planned to sacrifice himself to heal the Helix Intelligence. Gwen took his place and was pulled into the mountain. She was aboard the Ice Maiden two weeks later where she was reunited with Jack. (PROSE: Exodus Code)

In 2015, Gwen received a phone call from Bryn Offa Nursing Home warning her about Jack. She and Rhys travelled to North Wales where they were reunited with Jack in the body of an old man, Griffith, and learnt of the Evolved, who also switched Anwen and Elunedd's minds for a time. They managed to resolve the situation and bid farewell to Jack. (AUDIO: Forgotten Lives)

Rebuilding Torchwood
In 2017, Gwen became aware of temporary holes in spacetime that caused alien phenomena in Cardiff and went out to deal with them. She contacted Roger Pugh to gain planning permission to rebuilt the Hub as part of the rebuilding of Torchwood and, to get his support, made him join her during a day's work to show how necessary Torchwood was. She was successful. (AUDIO: More Than This)

Gwen travelled to Talmouth as nobody had heard from the town in some time and she suspected alien involvement. She learnt from James that the town had been decimated in three days and of the Darkness, whom she fled from with Rhodes. The Darkness taunted Gwen and Rhodes and tried to get them to open their eyes, to no avail. (AUDIO: Made You Look)

After escaping a cataclysm, Gwen and Rhys travelled home and were, unbeknownst to the both of them, manipulated by an entity in the backseat which put them in a loop. She worked out that something was keeping them from remembering and that it was sat in the backseat, after which she crashed the car to try to kill it. (AUDIO: We Always Get Out Alive)

Gwen became the acting head of Torchwood Cardiff. She and Rhys planned a weekend caravanning in Newport, where she was reunited with Hollis, who had travelled from the Ice Maiden to take her to Jack. On the boat taking them to the Ice Maiden, Gwen and Hollis came under attack from ninjas on jet-skis. (COMIC: World Without End)

Jack rejoined Torchwood, having been dumped by the Ice Maiden. (AUDIO: Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy) They were later joined by St John Colchester, a civil servant that was sent to assist in the reestablishment of the organisation. (AUDIO: Changes Everything) Gwen sent him to investigate the Committee at a retirement home on Cathedral Road. (AUDIO: The Torchwood Archive)

Possession
Jack was dumped by the Ice Maiden and St John Colchester joined Torchwood. (AUDIO: Changes Everything) At some point, Gwen was possessed by Ng and when Mary noticed that something was off with her, Ng shot her. (AUDIO: Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy) Rhys was concerned by Gwen’s lack of mourning. (AUDIO: Orr)

After splitting from Ng, Gwen decided to leave Torchwood and start a new life with Rhys and Anwen. (AUDIO: Herald of the Dawn) However, she first attended Colchester's funeral. (AUDIO: Future Pain)

Alternate realities
In an alternate timeline in which John Hart took control of the Torchwood Institute and became King of the British Empire, he personally recruited Gwen Cooper to replace the late Toshiko Sato at Torchwood Cardiff. She was killed on a mission when John threw her into the path of a man-eating alien. Her husband, Rhys Williams, confronted John and threatened to expose his disregard for human life to the press, only to be murdered by the king. (AUDIO: The Death of Captain Jack)

Donna's World
In an alternate reality, Gwen and Ianto, working as a part of the Torchwood team, sacrificed their lives to save the Earth from the Sontarans' plan involving ATMOS. (TV: Turn Left)

Personality
As a Torchwood operative she provided an essential foil to Captain Jack, although her personal agenda sometimes interfered with her duties. Her actions and decisions were sometimes guided by her desire to protect her live-in boyfriend, and later husband, Rhys. She had a brief, disruptive affair with another operative, Owen Harper, and according to him was capable of sexual techniques which at first caused him extreme pleasure, but later bored him. (TV: Countrycide, Combat) She also shared sexual tension with Jack, but in the end remained true to Rhys. (TV: Something Borrowed)

Gwen had a strong will- she suffered an awful lot during the events of Miracle Day, the most obvious being her father falling into a vegetative state and kept alive only by the Miracle, but despite this she remained determined to bring death back to the world. Her will was especially shown when, after Esther was shot, she remained unflinching and still ended the Miracle, having already accepted that her father would die. However, she was clearly saddened by Esther's death, judging by the fact that she attended her funeral. (TV: The Categories of Life, The Blood Line) She was also fiercely proud of her Welsh heritage; when a CIA agent insulted her for being English, she retorted that she was Welsh and punched her out cold. (TV: Rendition)

She was always friendly and related well to people, a trait that she had picked up as a police officer, and the one that caused Jack Harkness to recruit her to Torchwood. (TV: Everything Changes) Unlike other members of the team, she was sympathetic towards the victims of alien incursions and did her best to ease the pain felt by their families. She would sometimes go so far as to reveal Torchwood secrets. (PROSE: Another Life, Slow Decay, TV: Adrift)

Gwen was aware that she was often overprotective of Rhys and even treated him like a child on occasion. She put this down to the fact that he hadn't had the same number of life-threatening experiences as she had and was therefore more likely to make mistakes. (PROSE: Bay of the Dead)

Gwen was fond of lasagne (AUDIO: Everyone Says Hello) but hated the taste of peaches. (PROSE: Exodus Code)

Gwen believed that flying was two moments of terror and hours of boredom. (AUDIO: Fall to Earth)

She had poor knowledge of the Welsh language. She, however, knew the translation of the Welsh text on Wales Millennium Centre, knew one or two words which her nan had taught her and was capable of pronouncing Welsh place names, such as Ystradgynlais. (AUDIO: Forgotten Lives, PROSE: Another Life)

Behind the scenes

 * Eve Myles initially appeared on Doctor Who as Gwyneth in the 2005 episode The Unquiet Dead. When she was later cast as Gwen Cooper, Russell T Davies denied that the two characters were related, just that they had similar names and the same actress — in fact, he didn't consider the names Gwen and Gwyneth similar. In the fourth season finale, Journey's End, the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler notice the resemblance between Gwen and Gwyneth. Gwen states her family roots in Cardiff date back to the 19th century. Russell T Davies explains, "It's not familial as we understand it. There's no blood tie. Spatial genetic multiplicity means an echo and repetition of physical traits across a Time Rift." This means that although Gwen may be a physical "copy" of Gwyneth, she isn't the same person.