The Gathering (Torchwood)

"The Gathering" is the ninth episode of *Torchwood: Miracle Day*, the fourth series of the British science fiction show *Torchwood*. It aired on Starz in the United States on 2 September 2011. The episode takes place two months after the events of "End of the Road," in a world where humans have lost the ability to die.

Two months later, global economic collapse has pushed governments toward isolationist dictatorships and rationing. Overflow Camps remain open despite public knowledge of their activities. Esther and Jack are hiding in Scotland, where Esther collects Jack’s blood, suspecting it holds significance for the Miracle, the Families, and the Blessing. Jack’s blood is stored in a metal briefcase. When Oswald Danes visits Gwen Cooper’s home in Swansea with information about the man behind the Miracle, the team reunites there.

Torchwood learns that Jilly Kitzinger was hired by PhiCorp to mistranslate foreign news clips, including one of a man in Shanghai claiming the Blessing saved him. Esther notes that blood banks in Shanghai and Buenos Aires were burned just before the Miracle. Rhys, examining a globe, realizes these cities are exact opposites on Earth.

Under reinstated Category legislation, police can enter homes suspected of harboring Category Ones—people legally dead who are taken to be incinerated. Gwen’s father, hidden behind wood paneling in her basement, is discovered when an inspector returns with a thermal imaging smartphone app. Gwen begs for him to be left alone but fails. She tells Jack and the others she wants the Miracle stopped and the authoritarian disaster ended.

Rhys’s discovery of two opposite points on Earth mirrors PhiCorp’s logo: a circle with a line through it. The team splits: Rex and Esther go to Buenos Aires; Jack, Gwen, and Oswald (who knows too much to be released and risks being killed by Rhys) are smuggled by gun runners to Shanghai. Jack declares Torchwood has gone global. When Charlotte learns Rex has landed in Argentina, she informs the Families.

Jilly Kitzinger is given a new identity as "Lucy Statten Meredith" and promoted to a Shanghai position. An unidentified Family member praises her storytelling skills, saying she was hired to write world history for them. She is taken to the Blessing, revealed as a massive crack or fissure running through Earth’s center, pulling debris into itself.