Esther Drummond

Esther Drummond was a CIA analyst in the 21st century and a member of Torchwood upon its reformation in 2011.

Biography
She had an elder sister named Sarah. (TW: Dead of Night) Their mother died in 2003. (TW: The Categories of Life)

After discovering the data which the Torchwood virus removed from the CIA database, Esther decided to investigate, as she felt responsible for the injuries her colleague, Rex Matheson, had suffered.

Esther found information about the Torchwood Institute, Captain Jack Harkness, and Gwen Cooper, just as Jack Harkness found her. They were forced to jump from a window to escape a suicide bomber. Jack Harkness told her all about Torchwood before drugging her with retcon. (TW: The New World)

However, Esther continued to research Torchwood, and later discovered that Rex's office was being thoroughly searched. She informed her superior about her continuing research on the Torchwood case, and later discovered that her computer account was subsequently deactivated and that she had a substantial amount of money deposited in her bank account. Understanding that she was about to be removed from the CIA, she barely escaped. Esther tried to inform Rex on their situation, but only managed to gain contact just as he had landed and met his CIA colleagues. She met him, Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper at the airport, and helped them escape after a brief run-in with Lyn Peterfield. (TW: Rendition)

Forced to go on the run with Rex, Esther was forced to join Torchwood and form a new team. She helped Gwen learn American terms and food as she became confused about somethings and needed to lose her non-American terminology to avoid sticking out. Upon sneaking back into the C.I.A., Esther and the team found the director's phone, which had been giving the orders to kill Torchwood's last members along with Rex and herself. She then accompanied the team to a warehouse owned by PhiCorp. Inside were a large stockpile of painkillers. This leads the team to believe that PhiCorp had pre-knowledge of Miracle Day and may have had a hand in bringing it about. (TW: Dead of Night)

The team then decided to escape to LA so that they could infiltrate PhiCorp's facilities there. Esther decided to say good bye to her sister. However, when Esther arrived at her sister's house, she found the place boarded up, and Sarah refused to let Esther come inside or see her neices. Esther decided to call child services to report her sister. She then went to meet up with the rest of Torchwood, but was followed by an assassin. The Torchwood team went to LA, where they began planning to infiltrate PhiCorp. Gwen and Jack broke into the building, where they were followed by the assassin. While Gwen and Jack were inside, Ether called child services and found out that her sister's daughters had been removed. After the assassin threatened to kill Jack and hurt Gwen, Rex saved them, and shouted at Esther for endangering the mission.(TW: Escape to LA)

After the new categories of life were introduced, and the overflow camps were released, Esther realized that the modules were on the plans for the camps, but had been removed from the photos. The team decided to find out what was in the modules, so Esther got an office job in the camp, while Rex was admitted into the camp due to his injury, and new Torchwood member Dr. Vera Juarez used her position on the medical panels to gain access. Once inside the camp, Esther reassigned Rex to category one so that he would be moved to the module. Esther also witnessed Vera arriving at the camp, and saw Colin Maloney leave with her to give her a tour of the camp. When Esther became worried that Vera had not returned, she called her on her cell phone, but the call failed.(TW: The Categories of Life)

When Colin Maloney returned from the tour, Esther asked him where Dr. Juarez was. Colin claimed that Vera had gone home, and had praised his leadership of the camp. Esther attempted to eavesdrop on Colin speaking with Ralph Coltrane but was unable to hear anything. Esther later overheard Colin being informed that Rex had been captured, and attempted to follow Colin as he went to interrogate him. However, the camp had been put in lock down mode, and Esther was unable to follow him. Later, Esther found out where Colin and Rex were, and went there, ignoring the lock down rules. Esther told Colin that he had recieved a phone call and that she could watch the prisoner for him. When Colin asked who was on the phone, Esther claimed that it was Dr. Juarez. Unfortunately, Colin had murdered Dr. Juarez, and was able to tell that Esther was lying. Rex shouted at Esther to run, but Colin attacked her. Esther fought back, and managed strangle him until he lost consciousness. Esther was disturbed by what she had had to do, and went to the next room to speak with Rex. Rex reminded her that she hadn't actually killed Colin, but had simply moved him to category one, and informed her that she would need to retrieve the keys to free him from Colin's pocket. Esther took the keys out of Colin's pocket, but Colin was apparently still in either category two or three. Colin strangled Esther, but was shot by Ralph. Esther freed Rex, and the two of them escaped. (TW: The Middle Men)

When they returned to their base, Esther tried to comfort Rex about Vera's death, and asked if he had tried to contact her family. Rex pointed out that he hardly knew Vera and asked Esther to drop the subject. Soon afterwards, Esther noticed that the eye-5 contact lenses had been activated. Esther looked through the text messages that had been sent to the lenses, and realized that Gwen's family had been kidnapped and that she had been forced to take Jack to the kidnappers. Esther and Rex followed Gwen and Jack until they arrived at their meeting place with Olivia Colasanto in addition to contacting Andy Davidson and asking him to help Gwen's family. Esther and Rex both pointed guns at Colasanto and her men, and forced them to surrender. However, they were persuaded to go with her anyway as she was taking them to the one man who knew the true nature of the miracle.(TW: Immortal Sins)

Olivia took them to Angelo Colasanto's house. Upon arriving there, Rex asked Esther to stay outside and to keep an open cell phone line. While everyone else went inside, Esther researched the families and was surprised to find that nobody existed with any of their last names. While she was waiting outside, Brian Friedkin arrived and pointed a gun at her. Fiedkin, along with several other CIA agents, brought Esther inside and arrested all members of the Torchwood team, and everyone who was working for the Colasanto family. Friedkin then took Rex out of the room, and before long the eye-5 system was activated to show Friedkin admitting that the families owned him. Allen Shapiro soon arrived and arrested Friedkin and everyone working with him, as well as Olivia Colasanto. Shapiro took over operations at the Colasanto house, and put the CIA in charge. Esther was then able to webchat with her CIA colleagues, and was informed by Charlotte Willis that her sister had been committed. Esther spoke to her sister on the phone, and found out that she was planning to transfer to category one. Esther tried to talk Sarah out of this, but she wouldn't listen, as she believed that her body no longer contained a soul. Ether decided that the best way to help her sister was to try to end the miracle. Shapiro became more interested in the Colasanto's when Angelo became the first person to die since Miracle Day. The CIA's priority then became to discover how Angelo had died. Esther then realized that there wss something under the floor where Angelo's bed had been. After Gwen was deported, Jack admitted that it wa a null field generator, which had cancelleed out the morphic field that was preventing death. Jack persuaded Esther and Rex that it would be dangerous to allow the CIA to obtain the null field generator, and convinced them to help him escape. Esther was planning to stay with Rex and the CIA after they helped Jack escape, but Jack was shot so Esther was forced to go with him. Unfortuanetly, Esther had no idea how to help him.(TW: End of the Road)

Esther spent the next two months helping Jack recover, and the two eventually ended up in Scotland. Esther collected Jack's blood, as she assumed that it must be somehow relevant to the miracle. Eventually Gwen contacted the two and informed them that Oswald Danes was at her house, and wanted to speak to Jack. Esther and Jack went to Wales, and met with Oswald. Oswald informed them that he had stolen Jilly Kitzinger's laptop, and that she was working for a man named Harry Bosco. Esther laughed, and explained that Harry Bosco was a process rather than a person, and that Jilly's job was to mistranslate things for the families. Torchwood managed to find some of the reports that Jilly had mistranslated, but as none of them spoke Chinese, Jilly sent them to Rex to have the CIA translate. Torchwood then determined that the Blessing was in Shanghai and Buenos Aires. Esther then went to Buenos Aires, where she met up with Rex. (TW: The Gathering)

Esther and Rex secretly switched Rex's blood for Jack's and called for army support. Rex's wound started to bother him due to the transfusion. Esther was climbing into a truck that was to take her and Rex to the Blessing, and handed the case with Jack's blood to a soldier. Esther then went to help Rex with his wound, and one of the soldiers blew up the truck. Esther and Rex pretended to have become category ones in the explosion to trick the Families, and proceeded to infiltrate the blessing. Unfortuanetly they were captured upon entering the Blessing.

The Family members at the Buenos Aires side of the Blessing took Rex and Esther to see the Blessing, where they were allowed to talk to Jack, Gwen and Oswald who were at the Shanghai end. Jack decided to reverse the Blessing by feeding it his mortal blood, but was informed that his blood would have to be put into both ends of the Blessing.

Rex then revealed that he had Jack's blood in him and he and Jack decided to sacrifice themselves to end the Miracle. The leader of the Families in Buenos Aries shot Esther to try to force them not to, as ending the Miracle would mean allowing her to die. However both men, encouraged by Gwen and Esther, decided to go ahead and succesfully end the Miracle. Rex killed the leader and they were rescued by the army. However, while Rex survived, Esther did not. Unlike many people, Esther recieved a full funeral. (TW: The Blood Line)

Behind the scenes

 * During pre-production of Torchwood: Miracle Day, this character's name was reported as "Esther Katusi". This was due to the original profile of the character as a non-Caucasian; the casting of Alexa Havins resulted in the character being renamed. (DWM 427)