Oh, Modern Ass

Yep, I'm finally done. "Out Of Time" recap should be done by the end of the week too, because I've been working on that one intermittently whenever the suckitude got too bad, so it's pretty near finished already. And then there's only three to go! Ooh, isn't it exciting.

Torchwood Episode 1x09 - "Random Shoes"

Episode Grade: F


Yeah, sometimes there are bad episodes. Farscape had The Meagerly Awaited Return Of Fuckin' Maldis in "Picture If You Will", Battlestar Galactica had Apollo's Two Never-Seen-Before-Or-After-This-Episode Girlfriends Plus A Bunch Of Adolescent Bullshit in "Black Market", Buffy had the entire seventh season, and endless other examples. It happens. They can't all be winners. But here's the thing, they usually, no, always have the occasional redeeming feature. Maybe a funny line or two here and there, or some really great acting in spite of the script, something to salvage whatever mess is going on. I've never before seen an episode that fails on every conceivable level. (Because I never watched Charmed.) It's truly a sight to behold.

So, there's this guy called Eugene, right? Eugene. Isn't that an awful name? I mean, when I picture a 'Eugene', I go straight to the geek stereotype. Now, maybe that's just because the only Eugenes I have ever encountered are "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" (who has no identifying features beyond a need to be careful with that axe), the guy from Big Brother, and the one in this episode (both of whom have the exact same annoying nasal voice appropriate to said stereotype), but really, how many great Eugenes have there been throughout history? None. None at all. (Can you imagine if kids had to study "Great Eugenes Throughout History" in school? You could call it, like, 'Eugenics' or something. Wouldn't that be awful?)

...I think this episode is so bad, it's made me retroactively have hated the name 'Eugene' for my entire life, honestly.

Anyway, this guy is called Eugene, and has this annoying nasal voice, with a total London accent, despite having supposedly lived in Wales his entire life with his family, all of whom have completely Welsh accents, and no explanation for that is ever offered in this episode, either. Whatever.

He's lying in the road, because he's just been hit by a car and died. And in any sane and decent world, this would make him shut up. But in the hell we inhabit for the next 50 odd minutes, he instead gets to talk and talk and NEVER STOP TALKING. And what he'd like to begin by saying is this; "The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second. [ONLY IN A VACUUM, FUCKWIT. MUUUUUUUUUUUH.] Pain travels through the body at 350 feet per second. Even a sneeze can reach a hundred miles per hour." THANKS, USBOURNE JUNIOR ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE. "And as for life? Well, that just bloody whizzes by." Zoom down on Eugene, lying in the road. He gets unsteadily to his feet and wanders past some police cars (with a RANDOM shot of his SHOES, like WOAH MAN) and shouts "Gwen! Jack! Tosh! The guys on the road just let me through, so..." See, what we have here is a Torchwood fanboy, IN AN EPISODE OF TORCHWOOD! And through his eyes, we can look in on our intrepid crew from an outsiders perspective, which will shed exciting new light on everything. Isn't that clever? If you're thinking this sounds awfully familiar, I think it's obvious you're going crazy, and should seek help. (But, in all seriousness, that episode, for all that I hated its execution, the 'outsider perspective' idea was sound there, where there's a forty year history to delve into. On a show with a rich history of EIGHT EPISODES, it's fucking stupid. If, indeed, that's what they were trying for here. I can't actually tell what they were trying for here, because see above re: failure on every conceivable level.)

The Torchwood crew ignore Eugene totally, because they cannot hear him, because he is dead, and they are here to inspect his rapidly cooling corpse. Hi, Eugene's rapidly cooling corpse! I hate you and all that you stand for! Eugene's ghost is all "Uh, that looks a lot like me", which is I suppose is probably supposed to be funny. Tosh remarks that he "couldn't even cross the road without messing it up", which sounds like it really ought to have been an Owen line to me, and Gwen suggests that "maybe he really did have something important". Because, apparently, Eugene's been following them around for a while, and, you know, maybe they could have shown this in at least one of the preceeding episodes, and then we'd be all "oh, that nerd that always follows them around is dead, bummer" instead of "who the hell is this guy?" Tosh thinks it was probably just an accident, Jack notes that Eugene has red paint under his fingernails, so the car that hit him must be red, Eugene finally pays attention to what's going on and repeatedly asks no one in particular "Am I dead?"

Credits. This episode written by one Jacquetta May, who was presumably hired to make Chibnall's efforts look good in comparison. Initial intelligence gave the title of this one as "Invisible Eugene", and I can't really decide which of the two options is a more appropriately lame title.

Back to where we returned, and Eugene's phone starts ringing. Tosh answers it, then immediately realises that she is not the one with people skills, and hands it over to Gwen, who says "Hi, Mrs. Jones. Somethings happened, we need to talk to you." And after that all too brief respite, we go back to Eugene with the annoying nasal voiceover news. "I'm dead but I'm not dead. Am I a ghost? Or a ZOMBIE? OH GOD." Because it's a well known fact that zombies are invisible and intagible and all that malarkey. Shut UP. The Torchwood crew pack up and leave, and Eugene hops into the Hyena with them. He notices his lack of reflection and freaks out a little more, and per Jack's request, Gwen takes a look at his phone for weird messages or anything; "Just some pictures of random shoes." That one, I can cope with, but each and every future mention of 'random shoes' in this episode makes me want to beat myself to death with my own svered leg or something. EVOL (Eugene Voice Over, Like.) remarks that whatever the hell is going on, "I'm somewhere I've always wanted to be", and Eugene stares lustfully at Gwen. The Hyena departs.

EVOL: "Let's back up a bit. I mean, every story's got a beginning." You know what else stories should have? An intersting and coherent plot, maybe a central character who isn't an unimaginably stupid dullard, and above all, SOME KIND OF POINT. Whatever, this 'story', such as it is, begins with a young Eugene in requisite horrible grey school uniform, at "the final of the inter-school maths competition, 1992." Young Eugene looks exceedingly miserable, as schoolchildren are wont to do in any situation that requires them to wear such horribly itchy sweaters. So, Young Eugene and his team failed to win his school the magnificent honour of the "SOUTH WALES INTERSCHOOL MATHS CHALLENGE" and his father, who TOOK THE DAY OFF WORK TO SEE HIM because THAT'S HOW IMPORTANT THE SOUTH WALES INTERSCHOOL MATHS CHALLENGE IS, was horribly disappointed in him because they lost by a totally unrespectable 42 to 34 and it was ALL HIS FAULT and WHAT A FAIlURE HE IS, I'M SURE HE WAS SCARRED FOR LIFE BY THIS EVENT AND FOOD WOULD NEVER TASTE GOOD AGAIN. And everybody blamed Eugene, which is demonstrated by one of the other kids on the team muttering "useless" under his breath as he walks past Eugene. HOW HARSH. Evol continues that "it must have been what happened afterwards that started this whole thing off" and if that is the case, why did you bother telling us that part? NOBODY CARES THAT YOU GOT A MATHS QUESTION WRONG WHEN YOU WERE 12. GOD. I am seriously abusing the capslock key here, I know, but honestly, can you blame me?

Eugene's maths teacher, Professor Squashedface (seriously, his face occupies, like, 10% of the front of his head. It's so weird.) comes in and asks him if he'd like to "take a proper look" at his "collection". Yeah. Oh, and also, he sounds like Mr. Bean. Eugene says no, Professor Squashedface says "I play golf!", and even Eugene is like "That's just fucking FANTASTIC." Professor Squashedface continues his thrilling tale; he was playing golf one day, and this thing, which he thought was a golf ball, fell out of the sky, so he picked it up and put it in his pocket. What the hell? Way to ruin someone else's game there, Professor DICKface. But anyway, he took a closer look at it later, and it turned out it wasn't a golf ball, it is, in fact, a paperweight, or a large marble, or possibly a glass eye. Squashedface reverentially marvels at the fact that it just fell out of the sky and then tells Eugene he can have it, so I guess it can't have been all that amazing after all. Eugene's dad barges into the room at this point and angrily asks where the hell Eugene has been. Squashedface gives him a pointed "Good evening", and Dad settles down a little and tells Eugene to "come on". Squashed face asks Eugene on his way out if he has everything, Eugene stares at the Magic Eye and says he has.

At Eugene's house, while he continues to stare at the Eye, his parents are yelling at each other about something or other which is pretty unintelligible since they're both yelling at once. EVOL explains: "Dad was mad at me for losing the final." Because what we are expected to believe here, you see, is that Eugene honestly believes that his parents separated because Eugene did not win the South Wales Interschool Maths Challenge. That's a pretty huge stretch even for Eugene at whatever young age he is in these flashbacks (I guessed at twelve, but as usual, I am no good at these things), and we're supposed to believe that he's gone through his entire life without ever questioning this belief. The flashbacks have been dated at 1992, and various time stamps in Doctor Who episodes mean the present day stuff in this one is occuring in 2007 at the earliest, so even if I've overestimated his flashback age a little, he's got to be at least 25 at the time of his death. So, yeah, he's 25, and he still thinks his dad left because he wasn't good enough at maths. That is what we are dealing with here. OK.

EVOL continues that at least he still had the Eye, and if it fell out of the sky, "it probably... no. NO. Almost certainly... belonged to an alien." David Bowie's "Starman", which is far too good a song to deserve any association with this horrible episode, starts up as Young Eugene watches through a window where his father is leaving. EVOL babbles endlessly on and on about whatever shit is coming into his head, and I just can't be bothered. Believe me when I say it isn't important. It's probably something to do with aliens. Eventually he shuts up and there's some welcome relief as they just let David Bowie soundtrack the Magic Eye whizzing around through space for a while.

And we're back to the present day, and EVOL tells us "My dad never came back". I GUESS YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER AT MATHS THEN, EH, FUCKTARD? And as Eugene became older, he became a geek, AS IF HE WASN'T ALREADY. And then he discovered Torchwood and became obsessed with Gwen, but alas, he was just too bumbling and awkward and she never noticed him. Oh, isn't that sad.

Gwen breaks the news to Mrs. Jones, Eugene's mother, who gives some clear Denial and Depression in the usual five stages, and one positive thing I will say about this mess is that Mrs. Jones gives some pretty good distraught. While Eugene watches Owen and Ianto sift through all his not-actually-alien junk upstairs, Gwen sits down for a talk with Eugene's younger brother, Terry, who is playing the part of me in this episode by a) not giving a damn about Eugene, and b) thinking Eugene is a moron (though in his case it's because Eugene let himself get run over, rather than the multitude of other available reasons). Gwen asks after Terry & Eugene's dad, Terry disinterestedly informs her that he "works for a big corporation in America". Owen calls her upstairs to look at Eugene's junk for some reason, despite the fact that he thinks it has no worth whatsoever. Gwen notices something that might possibly be an empty stand for the Eye, and somehow figures out that there is something missing from Eugene's collection. She asks Mrs. Jones about it, but she's too busy on Anger; "Why didn't they stop? They killed my boy and just... drove on!"

Cut to the Torchwood crew leaving Eugene's house, and Mrs. Jones breaks up yet more at the sight of the box of Eugene's stuff that Gwen is taking with her. Gwen gives her a vaguely sympathetic "I am sorry, Mrs. Jones," and carries right on going. That's real great, Gwen. "Sorry your son died and all, I'll just be taking everything you have left to remember him by." Eugene follows and apologises to his mum too, not that she can hear him. "But we've got the best team ever working on this!" he adds, enthusiastically. Wait, but isn't Face still busy contributing a vastly insignificant positive side to the one thing on TV even worse than this episode? Well, not by the time I actually get round to posting this, no doubt. And, anyway, he means Torchwood. Haha. Yeah, "Torchwood are the best team in the world" is possibly even more stupid than "My dad left because I failed at maths." Oh, wait, "Torchwood, and me." Modest, Eugene. Modest. "See, I think there's been some mistake," Eugene continues. Yeah, it's called this episode. Too easy? Eh.

And that's one less scene to get through! Hub. Eugene goggles at how amazing the set is, and, you know, it's pretty cool, I guess. Yeah, hand in a jar, I know. Shut up, Eugene. Shut up forever. Gwen wants to know what the hell Eugene was doing standing in the road, Owen takes the right approach and doesn't care. The rest of the crew have taken an even better approach and stayed the hell away from anything and everything relating to this episode. Owen and Gwen have some of their patented annoying banter, which is at least slightly preferable to Eugene's prattling. Not that that's actually stopped. Right, Owen DOUBLE DARES Gwen to do the autopsy on Eugene because otherwise SHE FANCIES HIM! GWEN AND EUGENE SITTING IN A TREE! I swear, this is honestly what is actually happening on my screen. Eugene faints at the sight of his own body being cut open, which has the double bonus of mutilating his corpse AND shutting him up! Awesome! Ianto enters and gives some pretty compelling evidence that Eugene's death was just your basic car accident; the guy driving the car admits to hitting him and drove off because, quote, "I thought he'd be OK." So, this falls entirely outside Torchwood's sphere of interest, case closed, episode done, right? Please? And, oh dear, Owen is saying the same thing. That's twice in this scene I've agreed with him. This episode is messing with the natural order of things!

And now we have Antony And The Johnsons' "Hope There's Someone" playing. I can't imagine any reason anyone would think that would be appropriate to this scene. Mostly because I just can't imagine any scene of anything that that would be an appropriate soundtrack for. Basically, I just don't get Antony And The Johnsons. But right now they're awesome, because the song is occupying time that would probably be otherwised occupied by Eugene talking. You sure deserved that Mercury prize after all, I guess! Also, Eugene watches Mrs. Jones crying. I'm really moved, I'm sure.

At the hub, everyone else wants to get on with, you know, their jobs, but for no actual reason, Gwen Bloody Cooper has a feeling that something more is going on with Eugene, and so we must endure the rest of the episode. THANKS, GWEN. I HATE YOU. Owen is an obnoxious cunt to her about it, as usual, but frankly, I think it's deserved. Jack tells them to break it up, Gwen says "Just forget about it. I have." Oh, how I wish I could believe you.

Lame plot contrivance #4815162342; Eugene had a DVD rented when he died, and for some reason Owen has put it up on the Hub TVs. He tells Gwen he was going to take it back, but she can do it if she likes. Gwen acts real shifty and steals some evidence or something and, in an exceedingly obvious "I AM LYING" voice, tells Owen "I'm going to go for some lunch." Even though he just handed her a perfectly good excuse for whatever it is she's just about to get up to; Is "OK, I'll return the video now" really that hard to say, Gwen?

The heinous crime Gwen is really commiting that she so expertly covered up with her 'lunch' lie is... Going to a café? So she wasn't lying? Oh, but she asks the waiter if he knows when the video store across the road will be open. So, right, Owen told Gwen to return the video, she took the video and said "OK, I'm just going to... get... some lunch." and then went to return the video, but the video store was closed, so she went to get lunch. Right. Am I watching Family Guy all of a sudden? Really, what the hell is going on? The waiter does not know when it will be open; "He's a law unto himself", so Gwen orders ham, egg and chips which Eugene notes is EXACTLY WHAT HE ALWAYS ORDERS. It's FATE! Gwen looks again at Eugene's phone and the fucking random shoes. Eugene can't remember whose shoes they are, and realises he can't really remember anything much about his death and then tells Gwen to phone Gary. And "phone Gary becomes a ghostly echo" and Gwen does so, apparently without registering that anyone is telling her to. She gets voicemail and leaves Gary a message saying "Hi, my name is Gwen Cooper. I have some very bad news for you." Yeah, you hear that, you're going to think it's a prank.

Gwen enters the video store, which apparently has opened in the time it took her to eat her lunch, and gives the guy behind the counter the DVD and tells him it's on behalf of Eugene, who is dead. He hits on her in a most sleazy manner and tells her he remembers Eugene, "sweet guy", but he cannot give a discount on the late return fine just because the guy is dead. He also says that Eugene "had loser written through him like Brighton in a stick of rock" and maybe he commited suicide because he couldn't take his failure. But honestly, when it's a failure in something as big as the South Wales Interschool Maths Challenge, who could blame him?

EVOL is highly shaken by Random Offensive Video Store Clerk's words and gives lame excuses for his failure of a life; "I was waiting for the alien to come collect his eye and change my life!" "The dog ate my worth as a human being!" Gwen's off to visit Eugene's workplace, and apparently Eugene wasn't unsympathetic enough already, because it turns out that, before running into oncoming traffic, he was a telemarketer. Gwen takes a look around and spots a pair of the Random Shoes from Eugene's phone and somehow ascertains that their owner must be Gary. She introduces herself and asks if he saw Eugene the day he died, Gary distractedly says no as someone gives him the card they've been handing round for all Eugene's coworkers to sign. He yells at someone for writing "Good luck on your new job" on it, Gwen gets accosted by a Linda or Lynda, leaving Gary to wander off again, and who the hell knows why anything that is happening is happening at this point. Linda is going out with her boss, Craig, who, according to her, kept Eugene on out of the goodness of his heart, because Eugene was as bad at his job as he was at everything else in his life. Gwen asks L(i/y)nda if she wants to meet for a chat at lunchtime, despite the fact that lunchtime very clearly passed by two scenes ago, and then gets Gary's cubicle number from her. Gary's not in his cubicle, so Gwen just steals a leaflet saying "Black Holes and the Uncertainty Principle" from his desk (one of which she also found in Eugene's room), and fobs Owen off when he calls up asking where the hell she is.

OK, so L(i/y)nda is having a liquid lunch, apparently. Exposition ho! So, right, one day Eugene came in looking depressed and L(i/Y)nda was also depressed because she wanted to go to Australia but she couldn't afford it and Eugene told her she MUST go to Australia and he promised to get her the money for it. Which he would do, of course, by selling hisy MAgic Eye on Ebay. And he brought it into work to show L(i/y)nda and some other assorted coworkers for some reason, and they were all, like, "That's a fuckin' paperweight, dude", but Eugene still believed the truth was out there. But, to everyone surprise, Eugene (whose Ebay username is 'ejones'. Yeah, as if he wouldn't need to tack some numbers on the end of that.) got a bid of £2.50 in Birmingham, and then the bids just rocketed up to £3,000, and then one day it suddenly jumped to £15,000 and then, a few seconds later, £15,005.50. L(i/y)nda does not who who any of the bids came from, and Gwen bids her adieu, because she has a phonecall from Mrs. Jones, who has something Gwen needs to see.

Which turns out to be Absent Dad's home video of the frigging South Wales Interschool Maths Challenge. Mrs. Jones tells Gwen the riveting story of how Eugene acquired the Magic Eye, which would be boring even if we hadn't already seen it in excruciating detail at the start of the episode. Terry shoots his mouth of about Eugene some more, God bless him. Mrs. Jones admonishes him a little, and Gwen moves on to wondering if Absent Dad knows about Eugene's death. Mrs. Jones robotically recites her line about how he "works for a big corporation in America", Terry tells her to stop spouting that shit, he works in a garage just up the road! And now Eugene remembers why he sold the eye, I guess because it turns out his whole life was a lie? Or perhaps he shot a man in Reno 'cause they cancelled Firefly. (Yeah, I just wanted to fit as many outside references into an irrelevant sentence as I could manage. With this episode, I have to make my own fun.)

And Gwen goes to see Eugene's dad, but as she's about to get out of her car, Eugene calls out "Don't, Gwen, I don't want anything to with him!" And Gwen stops and says "It's OK," still without apparently being consciously aware of Eugene's presence. As this episode goes, it's a vaguely intriguing mystery first time around, but since it never gets even a half-hearted attempt an explanation, it can fuck off, too.

At the Hub, Jack gets on Gwen's case for having her phone turned off and being generally unreachable in case of emergencies. Gwen's like, "Eugene needed me!" and Jack's all "What the hell, the guy is dead." Jack exits, saying "I've got work to do" with an unspoken, pointed "And so do you." Gwen sits and bites her nails for a while, Eugene rants that she can't just give up now. Just as Jack's getting to the door, Gwen calls out to him and explains that Eugene had "an alien eye", which he sold on ebay. Jack uses his mystical psychic voodo to immediately determine that it is "a Dogon Sixth eye" and, I mean, clearly I don't know as much as Jack about alien life in the Whoniverse, but it strikes me as a mite implausible that he can correctly identify exactly what the thing is from the words "an alien eye". Just a tad. Gwen asks what one of those is, Jack explains that it "lets you see what's behind you. Kind of puts things in perspective." Uh huh. Eugene gushingly tells Gwen she's brilliant, "and I'm brilliant too." No, and HELL NO. Gwen gets out the "Black Holes and the Uncertainty Principle" leaflet and smiles, so I guess that is the next stop on this thrilling investigation.

Eugene rambles irritatingly in Gwen's passenger seat for a while, and hell with that.

OK, so I guess this black holes thing is a museum exhibit or something like that. Fair enough. Gwen looks around the place for a while and spots Gary, who makes a break for it when she comes over to say 'hi'. Gwen gives the worst attempt at chasing in the history of forever, but it's ok, because Gary changes his mind and comes to talk to her anyway, saying "I'm not proud of what I did."

Then they get instantly transported to a different room for the rest of the conversation for no apparent reason. So, Gary was the one (or one of the ones; he slips up and says 'we' at one point, then stupidly makes a point of correcting himself to 'I', just in case Gwen hadn't already picked up on that.) bidding on the Eye, which he did in an attempt to cheer Eugene up, but then actual genuine bidders started appearing, and he became the fucker who artificially inflates the cost of his friend's ebay auctions. In flashbacks, Eugene tells Gary that he was starting to lose faith in the existence of aliens, but the high bidding has changed all that, and now he thinks the alien has come back to claim what is rightfully his, "He couldn't contact me any other way!" Gary looks a little sick for feeding Eugene's delusions and sceptically asks "So he chose Ebay?" Eugene's response; "Cyberspace! I mean, even an online auction has a certain elegant symmetry." OK, first of all, anyone who uses 'cyberspace' in this day and age when there are so many better words to choose from is an idiot. Secondly, "an online auction has a certain elegant symmetry"? What the fuck are you talking about? Back to present day, Gary tells Gwen that when the bid suddenly jumped to £15,000 he started to think maybe Eugene was right; "I wouldn't spend that kind of money unless it was my own personal private body part or something." Gwen suspiciously says "I thought it was £15,005.50?" Because no one would ever round that amount down to the nearest thousand. Gary's like, "Whatever", as any sane person would be to that question. Eugene remembers that he got an email from the winning bidder telling him to come to a restaurant to deliver the Eye. Gwen asks if maybe the exchange was supposed to take place somewhere on the A48, that presumably being where Eugene was run over. Gary shrugs "Or not. Eugene was very secretive. Could have been in Splot." "Splot," Gwen repeats. Come on already, it's not that funny. Gwen takes another look at the Random Shoes, and notices that one of the pairs look suspiciously like Gary's shoes and asks him a) why would Eugene take a picture of his shoes, and b) whose are the others? Gary tells her "They're just random shoes, I should think." GRAAAAAGH CRUSH KILL DESTROY. It occurs to Gary that he is maybe looking a little suspicious right about, so he gives Gwen puppy dog eyes and says "I miss him.", which she eats right up, of course. That one totally works in court when you're accused of murder, too. Trust me.

Gwen's in a hotel room now for some reason. She can't possibly go home until she's figured out this mystery? I don't know. Eugene hangs around babbling, of course, and after getting vague memories of a place that had something to do with happiness, he comes to the realisation that he doesn't actually want Gwen to figure it all out, because then it would end, and following her around as she figures things out is far more exciting than anything else in his useless life ever was. I'm sure this monologue would be terribly moving if I cared the slightest bit about his character, but I do not. Which is really the problem here; I got no emotional connection. Plot holes and all that be damned; you either feel a thing or you don't. And I'm sorry, "Random Shoes", but I don't. Focusing an episode on a minor character or one who's never even been seen before is always going to be a risk, because presumably if you're watching the show, you've got that connection with at least some of the main characters, but a minor character is going to be something of a wild card on that front. It can be a risk that pays off (though I'm sure many people would violently disagree with my choice of example, which is kind of my point), or it can go horribly wrong. And it really doesn't help that the only one of the major characters they've chosen to feature is Gwen, who is undoubtedly my second least favourite of the main characters at this particular moment. If it had been Tosh doing the investigature, maybe I'd have actually somewhat liked this episode, in spite of Eugene's prattling. So, what's going on? Right, Eugene loves Gwen, and is being a total stalker really. Gwen maybe hears Eugene saying "I love you", and gets up and looks out the window, which brings her to the point where she'd be almost kissing Eugene, were he actually tangible. And then she goes to sleep. Fill in your own joke about this episode sending me to sleep, I'm too tired. Goodnight!

Next day, Gwen's alarm goes off, and she actually does look like she's just woken up, which is a fairly rare thing on TV. Eugene's been lying there watching her sleep, in his stalkerish way, and for some reason he says "I thought we were on holiday."

Gwen goes out for a drive and happens upon a "Happy Cook" in a motorway service station. I can't imagine what real life chain of roadside restaurants that could be a thinly disguised version of, can you? Anyway, the Happy Cook logo, which is basically a red Pac Man in a chef's hat, matches a logo she found at some point earlier in the episode, I don't remember or care when. Point is, it links the place to Eugene, so Gwen stops by. While Eugene tries desperately to remember what happened the last time he came here, Gwen notices a waitress is wearing another pair of the Random Shoes and remarks "I've been looking for a pair of shoes like that for ages." Ho ho. Eugene finally realises that when he came to meet the alien, what he found instead where his "mates"; Gary and the skeevy prick from the video store.

So, flashback time again. Eugene, whispering for some reason, tells his 'friends' that it's good to see them, but he's meeting the alien, and he doesn't want a crowd. Record Store Prick (let's call him Lenny) is like, "it's us", which Eugene interprets as "we're your friends, we want to be part of this" until Lenny clarifies that "we're the alien". Eugene is hella confused, Lenny explains exactly what Gary explained to Gwen earlier, which is really not interesting enough to be worth hearing a second time. It wasn't really worth hearing the first time, truth be told. Only we get the end of it now; Gary and Lenny weren't responsible for the £15,000 bid, but Lenny couldn't resist raising the bid a tiny bit more, and apparently the extra £5.50 was too much for the genuine bidder. Eugene is pretty angry, naturally, and asks Lenny if he has the £15,005.50 on him. Lenny shrugs that he has £34, and Gary tries to persuade Eugene that that's a very reasonable offer which is pretty goddamn stupid. Eugene gets out his phone and says he's calling a cab, Lenny tries to grab the phone from him, and then the waitress arrives with their meals and Eugene takes pictures of her, Gary and Lenny's shoes for no apparent reason. That is the solution to the big mystery of the Random Shoes; Eugene did it for NO FUCKING REASON. I think maybe he is supposed to be doing it accidentally while trying to call a cab, or his phone just goes off in the struggle with Lenny, but if either of those are the case, it is an incredibly poorly acted scene, because Eugene is quite clearly taking the pictures deliberately. So, yeah. What the hell is that? Eugene asks why the hell Lenny even wants the Eye, if it's such a joke to him, and then, displaying far more intelligence than he has at any other point, realises that Lenny is planning to resell it online, since he knows there's an alien out there willing to "pay anything" for it. Actually, he's clearly only willing to pay £15,000, Eugene, but pretty reasonable otherwise. Well, OK, so also; the guy is not an alien, as Lenny explains; "Mr. c. Blackstaff is a collector of alien artifacts and Nazi memorobilia. And also Beanie Babies." I assume that last is supposed to be funny; it's not. "If he's willing to pay £15,000..." Lenny continues, darkly, and the unspoken end of his sentence appears to be "...then I am willing to assault my so-called "friend" in order to have the Eye for myself and win that money."

Back in present day land, the waitress with the Random Shoes is telling Gwen this story, but thankfully we don't actually have to hear a description of what we just saw, because when we join her, she's telling Gwen how Lenny jumped Eugene; "now they're inconveniencing customers!" In flashback land, EVOL announces that he didn't know what the hell the Eye actually was any more, but he sure as hell wasn't letting it go for £34 and a banana milkshake. And so he swallowed it. And he gets all blurry, momentarily, And Lenny starts trying to give him the Heimlich manouver while Gary forcefeeds him the milkshake. Because that's what friends are for. But Eugene breaks free, and runs out the door. And the waitress just gets to this end of her story, when who should walk in the doory but Lenny and Gary! "That is so weird!" the waitress comments. You say 'weird', I say 'stupidly contrived'... Gwen is all of a sudden hiding in the corner somehow, and, after Eugene gives Lenny's real name as 'Josh' and starts yelling at him and Gary, who ignore him, of course, Josh starts telling the waitress that there are people, specifically a woman, who might be investigating what happened last week, and it might be in her best interest to stay quiet. I'm pretty sure you can't just loudly threaten a waitress in a crowded restaurant like that without one of the customers maybe intervening or calling the police or at least looking up from their meals. But anyway, Gary tells Josh to shut up, because he's spotted Gwen. Josh tries to make a break for it, but Gary trips him up because he is feeling guilt about it all and he misses Eugene.

Gary finishes the story; He and Josh tried to chase Eugene, but they were too slow to catch him, and he got to the other side of the road and they lost him behind all the cars. OK. Gwen accepts this and leaves them, and, while Eugene looks out the window and gives an annoying speech about "all those lives whizzing by in a frenzy of burgers and chips, bank holidays, burst tires" blah blah fucking blah. DEEP, MAN. Gwen calls up Eugene's dad and tells him she has some bad news. And Eugene remembers that he ran across to another road and EVOL, with an incredibly grating smug tone of "I am making a Deep And Significant Point About Life", says "smell of banana milkshake, a slight nausea because I wasn't that fit. All the stuff! That tells you! YOU'RE ALIVE!" And then he got hit by a car. Isn't that ironic. Hell, I don't even know any more.

And now, much like it's predecessor, the logical endpoint of the episode is followed by a whole bunch more endings that become increasingly absurd and awful as they go on. EVOL continues his self-satisfied Important Lesson About Life; he should be angry about Gary and Josh screwing him over like that, but instead he is thankful because when he swallowed the Eye, he got the chance to Learn An Important Lesson About Life. We're at Eugene's funeral now, and about ten people have turned up; Gwen, Gary, Josh, L(i/y)nda and I guess a bunch of his relatives. Eugene tells Gary he's going to miss him, and tells Gwen he wishes he could thank her and forgives his dad for not being "Superman or even an alien," and instead being just an ordinary bloke, and that particular Important Lesson About Life has already been done so very much better, so again I say SHUT UP. Mrs. Jones stands up to speak, but all she can do is cry, and then Eugene's dad gets up to say his piece; "Eugene was... He was a good boy. But somehow, things went wrong. I wasn't there. I wish I could have been there to see him, before..." And then, honest to God, he starts singing "Danny Boy". SERIOUSLY. HE BREAKS INTO "DANNY BOY". HALFWAY THROUGH A SENTENCE. THIS REALLY HAPPENS. And yet, it still can't beat the worst eulogy ever.

In the cemetary outside, Eugene's fretting to Gwen that he thinks he's going to have to go soon, and babbles some more irrelevant mathematical/scientific trivia, as all geeks are wont to do. Some bearded guy has apparently dug into Eugene's corpse to find the Eye for Gwen, and gives it to her. Wait, but why the hell didn't Gwen find it when she was doing the autopsy earlier? Oh, whatever. Only five minutes to go!

EVOL wonders why he's still here, if it was the Eye that's doing it. Gwen wonders the same, so apparently she does sense his presence? Maybe? I don't care. Gwen's hanging out across the street from Eugene's house, the Symmetric Hyena pulls up and Gwen gives the Eye to Jack, who is duly impressed. Gwen asks Jack to give her five minutes so she can go talk to Eugene's family, and also stand in the road ready to hit by a car herself. EVOL recites yet more trivia, and then spots the car about to hit Gwen and does a slo-mo dash towards her yelling "GWEEEEEEEEEEN!" and throws her to the ground, to safety. Three minutes! Just three minutes to go! All the funeral goers and the Torchwood crew gasp and stare at the suddenly visible Eugene. And he thanks Gwen for everything, and she thanks him for saving her life, and he kisses her and says goodbye and floats up to heaven with nary a word to his grieving family. No seriously, I am not making this up, or hallucinating or anything. And Gwen looks up to the sky and begs him not to go, but apparently his parents don't care that much.

And there's just time for another self-important EVOL speech before we can leave this horror behind us and never speak of it again. Here we go; "The average life is full of near misses and absolute hits. Of great love and small disasters. It's made up of banana milkshakes and loft insulation and random shoes. It's dead ordinary and truly, truly, amazing. What you've got to realise is it's all here, now, so breathe deep and swallow it whole. Because, take it from me, life just whizzes by, and then, all of a sudden, it's..." Well, you've succesfully made me vow to never, ever use the word 'random' in anything other than its strict mathematical definition. Good work.

Next week: Just to make the dip in quality even more pronounced, the two best episodes of the season go either side of this one. Also, I'll make my own self-important declarations about what life is really about, because I'm a giant hypocrite. You gotta do what you gotta do.