Torchwood: Miracle Day - The Gathering Review (Blessing Spoilers)

Torchwood: Miracle Day
Episode 9 - The Gathering

Here we are the penultimate episode to this season of Torchwood.  Do things happen or does this one drag and are we any closer to finding about the Miracle/Blessing and does Jack survive being shot? 

Well yes, yes and yes and the best part was watching Gwen kick Oswald Danes ass with a frying pan.  Wham!  She really took out her frustration on him.  In the words of all the Gwen Cooper fans out there on Twitter "Gwen Kicks Ass".  But it is not all rosy for the Torchwood crew as this episode take place 2 months after "The End of the Road" and well things are not better.  Jack is almost healed from his wounds and Gwen is still hiding her father from the authorities.  Then of course Oswald Danes shows up looking for Jack because he has knowledge of who is responsible for the Miracle.  That's when things get really interesting as the Torchwood crew must team up with the creepy Oswald Danes. 

I liked "The Gathering" a lot better than last weeks episode "The End of the Road."  This story had a lot of dramatic tension in it and that is one of the selling points for me.  It was pretty tense watching Gwen and Rhys hiding her father from the authorities.  But you knew that it wasn't going to have a happy ending and you really had to feel for Gwen when they wheeled her father away to the camps.   This episode was broken down in to two parts as Gwen, Esther and Jack used the information that Oswald gives them to try to find out about the Miracle and what Jilly's involvement is. With Rex's help they figure out that it is in two place Shang Hia and Bueno Aries.  Well they don't but Rhys does.  It's good to see Rhys be a bit more relevant than the heavy.  It was good to see him be shown as intelligent as he figured out the key point.  That the Blessing goes straight through the Earth. 

The Jilly storyline was pretty interesting as it appears that the Families want her to write history or history that they want read.  But it is her part of the story that we get to see what the Blessing is.  I have to say that at first it just looks like a big cave that has wind blowing through it.  Hopefully there is something more next week than that.  But it looks pretty cool and apparently it does something with your mind and makes you see yourself for who you are.  As Jilly found out as she was suddenly in a state of bliss.  It will be pretty interesting to see where this goes. 

This story was pretty good and the conclusion of how they came up with everything seemed to work pretty well.  You knew that all the main people we have been following for the past 9 weeks would at some point meet at the end.  The Gathering set up the last episode pretty nicely and gave us a cliff hanger and another scenario to think about this week.  What is the connection between Jack and The Miracle and why is his blood attracted to it like metal to a magnet.  I guess all will be resolved and hopefully Russell T. Davies delivers the goods and doesn't revert to his old tricks he used in Dr Who like the reset switch and stuff and lots of fluff.  But the way this series of Torchwood has been so good I'm hopeful for a cool resolution and ending to Miracle Day.  So The Gathering was a pretty good episode with a lot of cool stuff that was revealed for us to chew on and speculate this week.  Plus keep your ears open for Russell T. Davies voice.
Grade A