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Sleeper is episode 2 of Torchwood series (season) 2.
Snapshot
Torchwood encounters a woman who may be a vicious alien...and she doesn't know it.
Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.
Summary
Scene 1: "Someone's in the living room."
A couple are sleeping in bed in their flat when they hear an intruder. The husband grabs a cricket bat from under the bed and goes to see who is there. The wife calls 999. The burglar deals with the husband and enters the bedroom. The phone line is still open. The audience can't see what is happening, and we suddenly hear the burglar pleading with the woman to stay away from him. Then the crook starts screaming. We see a lamp on the floor.
Scene 2: "A bit weird, this one. Might be one of yours."
Torchwood arrives on the scene. Tosh tells Jack there are two males, one dead one injured. The one who is alive fell out of a fifth floor window onto a police vehicle.. Owen goes with the living victim to the hospital, and Gwen accompanies him. Jack and Tosh go up to the flat. A local police officer, turning the scene over to Torchwood, is of the opinion that the husband did it. He thinks he was looking for trouble: why else would he keep sports equipment in the bedroom? Jack can think of a reason.
Tosh determines that the glass was broken from the inside out. Jack notes that the police believe the stab wounds were caused by "some narrow blade". That doesn't match the cricket bat. There are no other weapons. Jack notes that the husband was unconscious, and Tosh notes that the woman "probably weighs less" than Tosh does.
- "When you fear for your life, you'd be surprised what you can do."--Jack
Scene 3: "The woman...the flat...keep her away from me!"
Gwen is at the hospital interviewing the couple. Owen is swabbing the husband's room. The wife doesn't remember much of the event. Owen thinks the wife did it: he says it's always the one you least expect. Gwen suspects the husband. Owen points out that there is no blood on the couple's hands.
- "So he kills one man, wearing gloves, and then he swallows the murder weapon and the gloves, and then he knocks himself out." -- Owen
Jack calls and tells Owen to stay with the burglar all night if he has to do so, and to keep an eye on the couple. Owen lies and tells Gwen that Jack wants her to stay all night. Gwen asks Owen to get her a coffee first, and he asks for a pound for the machine. There is an electrical failure in the hallway, and Owen makes light of it.
Gwen is staying with the burglar. He wakes up, and she asks him who did it. He tells her "the woman" and then he flatlines.
Scene 4 "We're not charging you with anything. We don't have to."
Back at the Hub, Beth (the woman from the flat) is hooded and shackled. Jack whips the hood off and tells her to tell him everything. She seems bewildered and concerned about Mike (her husband). Jack is grilling her while Gwen stands by. Beth asks for a lawyer.
- "There'll be no lawyer, no phone call. Just us and this room for as long as it takes. Now tell me what happened!"--Jack
Jack shows her picturs of the bodies of the dead burglars. We seethe stab wounds. Gwen asks Jack to leave, and gently asks Beth what happened.
Outside the interrogation room, Ianto ribs Jack about being terrifying. Tosh is analyzing the body scans, and doesn't see anything unusual. She notes a build up of electromagnetic energy around Beth, but can't see how she could be the source. Owen remembers the light going out in the hospital when Beth was there. Jack orders some tests to see "who or what we're dealing with."
Scene 5: "Stop wasting our time. We know you're an alien."
Gwen is showing Beth around the Hub. Owen tries to draw blood, but the needles keep snapping against Beth's skin. Owen tries to cut her with a scalpel. The blade snaps. Owen asks Beth when she was last in hospital. It turns out Beth can't even recall ever being ill. She credits vitamin C.
Jack accuses her of being an alien. She says that she is from Earth, and that there is no such thing as an alien. Jack takes her to see a Weevil, a particularly vicious alien type.. Even though the weevil is behind plexiglas, she is scared of it. Interestingly to Jack, the weevil backs off and starts moaning. When Beth asks why it is doing that, Jack observes that he's never seen it do that before. Beth says she doesn't know why she gives off EM energy and why her skin won't break. She asks how she can prove she isn't an alien.
Scene 6 "Their heads must explode all the time."
Jack has decided to use a mind probe device on Beth. Ianto cautions him, reminding Jack that the last time, it had fatal results. Jack says that the last time, the species had extremely high blood pressure. Tosh cautions Jack to be careful. Gwen objects, thinking it might kill a human being, but Jack overrides her. Beth is strapped into the mind probe chair, and Owen places a helmet on her head. Jack explains that the device will probe into her subconscious mind to get at any hidden memories.
- "Will it hurt?"--Beth
- "Yeah."--Jack
- "Your bedside manner's rubbish."--Beth
- "You should see his manners in bed. They're atrocious. Apparently. So I've heard."--Gwen
- "Oh, they are."--Ianto
When the probe starts, Beth is clearly in pain. While Owen (who is a doctor) monitors Beth's vitals, Jack keeps ordering Tosh to probe deeper. Beth, in agony, maintains her innocence and ignorance. Electromagnetic effects build up, and Owen isn't sure Beth can take any more.
Beth collapses. She revives in a trance-like state. Her right arm becomes alien-like. Jack seems satisfied to be right. Tosh remarks that the memory was so locked away Beth couldn't have known about it. When Jack begins asking Beth questions, she repeats the same thing over and over in an alien lanquage. Jack says it is her "name, rank and serial number" and that's all she'll say.
Jack knows who she is. He orders the probe switched off, and Beth returns to normal, both mentally and physically. She has no recollection of the interrogation.
Scene 7: "What makes us human? Is it our minds, or our bodies?"
Jack knows she is a sleeper agent for a group known as Cell 114. Not much is known about them, since there are few survivors. They infiltrate a society, using agents who are given false memories. The agents do not even know they are aliens until the group is ready to invade. Jack says that she must have reverted briefly in a life and death situation. Tosh has determined that Beth is projecting a false image. She also comments on a force field around her she's discovered, which explains Beth's invulnerability. Jack decides Beth should be told, and they show her video of the interrogation. Beth is convinced, and horrified that she killed the burglars. She begins to question who she is. Through the plexiglass of Beth's cell, Gwen reassures her. She tells Beth that her love for Mike is real. Gwen asks Jack if he can fix her, make her human. He tells her there is nothing. Sometime she will activate and send the intelligenc she has gathered back to her home planet, and Beth will disappear. Beth asks if they are going to kill her. Gwen says, "No! Of course we're not." Jack stares at Gwen. Beth protests:
- "I won't do anything. I'm not that person!"--Beth
- "I'm sorry, but you are."--Jack
Jack coldly leaves the room. Beth begins to sob as Gwen looks on sympathetically.
Scene 8: "We can't let her go. She's too dangerous."
The group is discussing what to do. Tosh suggest using alien cryogenics to freeze her. She believes she can deactivate the transceiver inside Beth, so the aliens wouldn't know what happened. Jack says she'd have to completely disappear...no chance to say good-bye to her husband.
Scene 9 "That's not a promise I can keep."
As Beth is being led down a corridor, the alien persona begins to assert itself. She has memories of killing the burglars, and sees images of mushroom clouds. Owen prepares to put her into suspended animation. She asks Gwen to kill her if they can't keep her from becoming the alien. Gwen protests, so she asks Jack, who gives his word not to let her hurt anyone.
Tosh fries the transceiver, but lets Beth know it will also deactivate the force field. Beth says she doesn't want to be invincible any more. Tosh deactivates it, and Owen sedates her for the freezing.
Scene 10: "David, you're scaring me."
A couple we haven't seen before is joking and laughing. Suddenly, the husband (David) stops still. His arm becomes like Beth's was under the probe. We hear a beeping noise. As he heads out, the woman keeps calling his name. He checks his watch, and comes back and snaps her neck.
Outside, an EMT is working on a patient when his arm also transforms. He walks away.
A mother is walking her baby in a buggy. Her arm activates, and she abandons the baby, who rolls into the street. We hear a crash...
Scene 11: "She has some other agenda."
Back at the hub, Ianto is padlocking the freezer (number 007) when Beth is being stored as Gwen looks on. WE see inside the vault as Beth's eyes open. The power begins going haywire in the hub and an alarm goes off. Jack demands to know what is happening. Gwen spots on a monitor that Beth has left.
In assessing the damage, they realize that only the lights had turned off. She didn't damage anything. Her implant should have given her the information necessary to destroy the computer system. Owen realizes that her zero vital reading was a fake...that all of her readings were being manipulated by her implant. That's why the power is affected when she is upset: her equipment requires the energy to make Torchwood's machines read her the way an upset human would read. Jack is convinced that the transceiver is disconnected: if she'd been activated, she would have killed all of them (well, except for immortal Jack, one assumes).
Scene 12; "Whatever happens, just know that I love you."
Beth is visiting Mike at hospital.
- "Listen, you know I love you, don't you." - Beth
- "Of course I do. I love you, too." - Mike
- "Do you promise?" - Beth
- "Why?" - Mike
- "I have to be sure. I have to go away." - Beth
Beth explains it's for Mike's own good. If she doesn't, she might end up murdering Mike.
Mike doesn't understand and pleads with her not to leave. They hug, and he says he won't let her go. We hear the beeping. Beth's arm has transformed, and she has stabbed Mike. Hysterical, she calls for a doctor and frantically pushes the call button. Jack and Gwen enter with drawn guns. Jack says they have to contain her. They help her out of the room as the medical team arrives.
Scene 13: "Please, don't hurt my children!"
At another home, there's a quiet little domestic scene going on. Dad asks the older sister how school was, and she is teasing her brother about having a girlfriend. Mom is there, too. The doorbell rings, and Dad goes to answer. It's the killer alien David. He asks if the man is Patrick Grainger, and then kills him. David also kills the mother, in front of her children.
Scene 14: "They're putting all the pieces in place."
The EMT is now driving a fuel tanker. He stops, and removes something that looks like a starfish from his arm and attaches it to the side of the tanker. We see Jack and Gwen helping Beth in a hospital corridor, when there is a massive explosion.
Even the hub is shaken by the blast. Tosh realizes the target is a secret underground fuel line used by the military. Owne sees a report that Patrick Grainger has been killed. He's the leader of the council.
- "Stabbed seven times in the chest and once in the forehead. Sound familiar?" - Owen
Jack and Gwen are talking to the team at the hub. Ianto comments that Grainger was in charge of coordinating services in an emergency. Jack realizes that the invasion has started. We see the alien Mum walk into a building and there is another explosion, disrupting all telephone communications, including mobiles. Jack yells at Beth to tell him how to make it stop. Beth says she doesn't know how what the mission is. Gwen convinces her to use her implant to connect with the other cell members. The only one left is David, and she can locate him.
Jack uses CB radio to contact the hub. He lets them know the situation. He asks the team to figure out why David is heading to an abandoned farm outside of town. Tosh hacks into military files, and discovers that there are nuclear warheads secretly being stored in an old mine shaft.
Jack realizes the aliens plan to use the weapons against Earth. He tells the team not to worry, that if it does happen, they won't feel anything.
- "Come on, have a little faith. With a dashing hero like me on the case, how can we fail?" - Jack
- "He is dashing. You have to give him that."- Ianto
When Owen realizes they might all die, he says that he, Ianto, and Tosh should all have sex.
- "And I thought the end of the world couldn't get any worse." - Ianto
Scene 15 "Factor that into your plans!"
David arrives at the starage area and is challenged by the military. They shoot at him, but his forcefield protects him. He kills a soldier and takes his weapon. He advances relentlessly, illing soldiers.
Jack crashes the Torchwood SUV through the gate. DAvid is unlocking the storage area siwth information communicated to him by his implant. He succeeeds in unlocking all four areas. Jack runs him over with the SUV, and he is still dragging himself towards the warheads. Jack is bending over him on the ground. The alien stabs Jack with his arm. The alien tells him that they can't stop him, that now they know all about Jack Harkness. David tells Jack that the other aliens are already here. Gwen manages to deactivate the implant and the shield. Jack shoots David in the shoulder. DAvid activates the starfish-bomb. Beth and the two from Torchwood run, and get away in time.
Scene 16: "I don't want to die as one of those things."
At the hub again, Gwen tells Beth that Tosh has reconfigured the cryogenics so that they'll work this time. Beth asks Gwen what they will do when she becomes an alien. Beth asks Gwen if she's ever hurt the one she loves, and Gwen says she has. Beth says to imagine what they feels like, a billion times over. Beth's arm converts, and she starts threatening Gwen. She's pretending to have been activated: she'd rather die now then lose herself. She threatens Gwen, and the other members of Torchwood kill her. They know what she was doing. She was just making it easier for them to shoot her: self-sacrificing suicide by gunfire.
Scene 17: "Keep doing what we do."
Jack and Gwen have a moment. They wonder if they've done enough to stop Cell 114. Jack asks her if she's set a date for the wedding. He tells her to go home. The episode ends as Jack gazes speculatively towards the stars.
2008, SCI FI. All rights reserved.
