Owen Harper dies. Then he gets better. Then it turns out being undead comes with a few… complications. Like, say, accidentally summoning Death itself to Cardiff. Typical Torchwood Tuesday.
Short Synopsis
After Owen’s fatal shooting in Reset, Jack uses a mysterious alien artifact called the Resurrection Glove (yes, that one) to bring him back. Unfortunately, Owen doesn’t return alone—something ancient and sinister hitchhikes back with him, and soon Death is on the loose in Cardiff. The city’s mortality rate skyrockets, and the team faces the impossible: stopping the unstoppable.
Extended Storyline
We pick up right where Reset left off, and things are grim. Owen’s body lies in the Hub morgue, surrounded by a team that doesn’t handle grief so much as deflect it with sarcasm and denial. Jack, in his eternal quest to “fix” death without actually understanding it, decides to try out the Second Resurrection Glove, a handy little piece of alien necromancy previously used by the dearly unhinged Suzie Costello.
Martha, still on hand from last week’s adventure, is understandably horrified. “You can’t just play God,” she warns. Jack, in his best “watch me” voice, does it anyway. Owen gasps back to life—briefly—long enough for some tragic goodbyes and dark humor. Then, naturally, things go sideways: instead of fading peacefully back into oblivion, Owen stays… alive-ish. His heart doesn’t beat, his body doesn’t function, and he’s basically a walking corpse powered by sheer attitude.
At first, everyone’s thrilled he’s back—until they realize he can’t eat, breathe, or even enjoy a pint. To make matters worse, he’s somehow connected to a dark force known only as Death, which escaped when Jack used the glove. Death, manifesting as a shadowy skeletal figure, begins killing people with a touch, consuming their life force to regain power. Because of course it does.
Owen, now Torchwood’s resident zombie, becomes the only one who can stop it—since he’s technically no longer “alive.” He also discovers he’s lost all his usual snark filters and has developed a serious case of existential crisis (and occasional glowing eyes). As the team scrambles to contain the chaos—hospitals overflowing, people dropping dead—Jack faces the horrifying truth that his own desperate need to save someone may have doomed half the city.
In a final confrontation inside a hospital, Death targets the children (because Torchwood likes to keep its nightmares efficient). Owen, realizing his undead status might be the key, confronts it head-on. Using his link to the creature, he fights it off in a glowing, cinematic struggle that leaves him once again collapsed and motionless. Jack holds his breath (and everyone else does too), but Owen revives—still dead, still snarky, but free of Death’s control.
The team tries to settle back into their strange new normal, but the atmosphere is uneasy. Martha heads back to UNIT, probably vowing never to answer Jack’s calls again, and Owen is left to ponder his new role as Torchwood’s undead medical examiner. Which, frankly, sounds like a bad sitcom waiting to happen.