A team of police officers are investigating an incident in a quiet residential road and are cordoning off the area when the Torchwood group arrive on the scene. For once, their presence is by invitation. Detective Swanson introduces herself, but can’t resist telling the new arrivals that her team bitches about them all the time. She briefs them on another murder that took place the day before at 96 Oakham Street. The victim was Alex Alwyn, a 28 year-old single estate agent. Today they’ve discovered two more victims, Mark and Sarah Briscoe, both aged 33, married and employed respectively as a surveyor and in education. Jack examines the photographs in Alex’s file and asks about some smears of blood on the wall that resembles writing. Swanson tells him that was just a ‘work in progress‘, but if they come inside the Brisoce’s house they can see the finished thing. In the main bedroom, the group are shocked to find the two victims have been mutilated and the word ‘TORCHWOOD’ written in their blood on the wall. It looks like someone wanted their attention - and they’ve got it!

Detective Swanson tells Jack they found a few of the killer’s hairs at the first murder scene and the lab results should be in soon. Jack wants to see a copy, then he asks the police to clear the room as some of the equipment they’re going to use is strictly ‘need to know’. As she leaves, Swanson comments that it was only a matter of time before this happened. She feels that Torchwood walks all over this city as if they own it, and now these ordinary people are paying the price. In her opinion, they were the direct cause of these murders. The group are left to consider her words, but Owen points out that if they narrow the suspects down to the people they’ve pissed off in the past, the list should only be four or five million names. And that’s just the humans. Jack contacts Tosh who’s outside in the vehicle to see if she’s got any results from her research into the victims. Unfortunately she can’t find any record of Alex or the Briscoes on the Torchwood database and there appears to be no link between them. The results of the DNA scan on the killer’s hair show he’s a white male in his early 40s, but it doesn’t match any profiles they or the police keep. Swanson joins them again and points out that the scan also shows a compound they’ve never seen before. Owen realises they’re in trouble - the compound is B67, which means the killer has traces of their ret-con drug in his blood.

In the Hub’s boardroom, the group discuss their findings. B67, or ret-con, is the magic ingredient of their amnesia pill, so whoever the killer is, it’s someone they’ve given the pill to at some stage. But is the killer now starting to remember Torchwood, or has he become a killer because of the ret-con itself? Gwen suddenly remembers she’s taken the drug herself, but Jack seems amused by this and simply warns her to stay away from any sharp objects. Ianto tells the group they’ve given the drug to 2,008 people and Owen wonders if this means all of them are going to start becoming psychotic. Jack asks Tosh to go through their records and narrow the list down to people who fit the killer’s profile, while Gwen and Owen are asked to find a link between the two sets of victims. Gwen asks why they don’t just ask the victims themselves using the resurrection glove, but after what it did to their former colleague Suzie, Jack and Owen aren’t keen. Gwen reminds them that these murders are happening because of Torchwood so they have a responsibility to do something.

Reluctantly, Jack agrees and collects the resurrection glove from the secure area of the base. He explains that the glove fell through the rift about 40 years ago and it lay at the bottom of the bay until they dredged it up. Jack is convinced that it wasn’t lost and that whoever created it wanted to get rid of it. Owen regrets the fact that they never got round to giving it a cool name and Ianto suggests they call it the ‘risen mitten’.

The group move to the autopsy room and prepare to revive the first victim, Alex Alwyn. Jack puts on the glove and reminds everyone that the maximum resurrection time Suzie achieved was two minutes and that was only after a lot of practice. The best he’s likely to get is about 30 seconds. Tosh starts recording and Ianto sets up a stopwatch, then Jack places his gloved hand on Alex’s head and the process begins. He says it feels like he’s reaching into the dark to find the dead…but it’s not successful and he throws off the glove in pain. Owen refuses the offer to use the glove as they all tried it once before and it only ever worked for Suzie. Gwen points out that she never had a go, so she volunteers. They begin the experiment again and she puts on the glove. It’s very cold but Jack tells her it will warm up as it draws on the empathy and compassion of the wearer. She places it on Alex’s head and there’s an instant reaction. Gwen cries out in shock and Alex suddenly revives and begs for help. Jack tries to calm him down and asks who attacked him, but he‘s in too much shock to answer. He starts to cry and calls out for his mum - then after 24 seconds the effect of the glove wears out and Alex dies again.

Gwen wants to keep trying, so Tosh starts recording again as she prepares to repeat the experiment with victim no 2 - Mark Briscoe. She places her hand on his head and can immediately feel a link between them. Mark’s eyes snap open and Jack tells him he’s been hurt and they need to know who attacked him. Mark asks about his wife, but Jack will only say that they’re looking after her. Mark tells him the attacker was a man who belonged to Pilgrim, but as they reach 35 seconds he starts to panic again. He can only remember the man was called Max, but he never knew his surname. Tosh goes to the database and enters the words ’Max’ and ’Pilgrim’, but she tells Jack she needs more information. Mark recalls there was someone else who knew Max much better - a woman who was always talking to him. Her name was Suzie. Mark dies again after 1 minute and 5 seconds. Although there are lots of people called Suzie, it would be too much of a coincidence if they were connected to this case. Jack realises they’ve been talking to the wrong corpse.

Tosh has finished her research and briefs the others in the boardroom. Pilgrim is a religious support group, more like a debating society. They discussed things like the meaning of life and the existence of God, but the reason they couldn’t find any records is because the group was tiny, more like a hobby. It was run by Mark Briscoe’s wife Sarah and it didn’t even have its own website, but Tosh has been able to collect some photocopied documents from the house. The group didn’t keep a register so there’s no record of Suzie but Owen is still sure their Suzie wouldn’t be interested in that kind of support group. However, Gwen points out that none of the group were particularly close friends of hers, so if she needed someone to talk to, a group of complete strangers is exactly where she would go. Jack agrees with her logic and decides it’s time they got to know their deceased colleague a lot better.

Jack takes the group to a locked garage away from the base and they type in a code to open the shutter. Gwen realises for the first time that when she dies, the group will take all her possessions and her whole life will be locked away forever. She wonders what would happen if she wanted to leave all her stuff to Rhys and Jack jokes that they’d have to lock him away too. Inside the lock-up, the group begin to work their way through the life of Suzie Costello, all neatly stacked away in boxes. Gwen finds a photograph of Suzie with an old man and she wonders whether her father is still alive. No one knows and Gwen is surprised to learn that the group never tracked him down after Suzie died because she wiped her records before she went on the run. He probably isn‘t even aware that she’s dead. Jack finds a book containing poems by Emily Dickinson, but more importantly Tosh finds leaflets confirming that Suzie was indeed a member of Pilgrim. This finally proves she was connected to the killer, so they have no choice but to bring her back to life.

Jack slowly goes to the mortuary section of the Hub and pulls out the shelf containing the frozen body of Suzie Costello. Later, the group assemble around the autopsy room slab and Gwen tentatively puts on the resurrection glove. She asks Jack whether they’ll all get frozen and kept at the base when they die and he confirms that the rules and regulations mean they’ll be kept on ice forever. Tosh decides she doesn’t want to be there when Suzie is revived, so she goes back to her desk to record things from there. Jack asks if anyone else wants to leave, but he gets no response. Gwen is struggling to find some empathy towards Suzie as the last time they met, she tried to kill her, but eventually she places her gloved hand on the body and the connection is made. This time the surge connecting her with the victim seems much stronger and she sees flashbacks to the moment when Suzie died. But for some reason nothing else happens and the experiment is a failure. Gwen thinks Suzie is too far gone to revive and Jack is ready to give up when Owen suggests they try the knife that Suzie used to kill her victims. It’s made out of the same metal as the glove and they’ve seen before that metallic resonance works like a closed circuit, but Jack points out that the connection only worked because the knife was used to kill people. Gwen suggests that they kill Suzie again, this time with the knife to see if it creates a link to the glove.

Jack recovers the knife from storage and they ask Ianto for another cool name. He comes up with ’life knife’, which meets with everyone’s approval. Back in the autopsy room, Jack uses the knife to slice open Suzie’s arm, but it has no effect on the glove. There was a slight spark but then it was gone, so Gwen tells Jack he’s going to have to do this properly. Reluctantly Jack moves into position and plunges the knife straight into Suzie’s chest. The reaction is instant - Suzie’s eyes open and she cries out, and at that exact moment Gwen feels a surge of energy. For a few seconds, Suzie panics until Jack manages to calm her down. She sees the knife in her body and asks if he killed her, but he reminds her that she killed herself. In her confusion she vaguely remembers killing Jack too, which Owen reacts to. Jack asks her about Pilgrim and whether she remembers giving the amnesia pill to a man called Max. Suzie is angry that they’ve brought her back to life just for that and she’s also unhappy that Gwen is in control of the glove. They start to lose Suzie’s life-support readings and although Gwen is determined not to let her go so soon, the power from the glove becomes too much for her and she’s forced to let go. Gwen collapses and Owen rushes over to check that she’s OK, but as they help her to her feet Ianto notices that Suzie’s life-support readings have stabilised again. Even though she’s not in contact with the glove any more, she’s still alive! Jack pulls the knife out of her chest, but it doesn’t make any difference - Suzie won’t die!

Jack and Gwen descend into the interrogation room where Suzie is sitting in a wheelchair at the table. A bloody hole at the back of her head is the only evidence of her previous death. Tosh and Owen watch on the internal monitor as Jack tells Suzie it’s been three months since she died. Now she seems to be stuck in this condition and they don’t know how long she’s going to stay like this. She asks if she can see her father, but Jack declines and turns the conversation to their ongoing investigation. He shows her some photographs of the known Pilgrim members and tells her they need to find someone called Max, who they know she’d given the amnesia drug to. She assures them Max was just an ordinary bloke, but Jack tells her they think the ret-con triggered a psychosis and he’s started killing people. Over the intercom Owen asks how much of the ret-con drug did Suzie give him, and she mocks him for being too scared to see her face-to-face. He admits that she frightens the nuts out of him. Eventually Suzie says she gave Max one of the pills every week for two whole years because she needed someone to talk to about this place. It was driving her mad and he would just listen to her, and as soon as she’d finished talking she would give him the pill. Obviously she’s overdosed him, but she claims she didn’t realise that at the time. She doesn’t know anything more about Max and she’s starting to resent the fact that everything always seems to be her fault. She wants them to let her die, but Jack reminds her this is the one job n one can never quit. Suzie agrees to look through the photographs and realises there’s someone missing - a student girl who came every week. Her name was Lucy McKenzie and she worked in a nightclub. Suzie starts to get tired, but Jack insists she continue as Max is intending to kill every member of Pilgrim. Before she passes out, Suzie remembers the name of the club was the Wolf Bar.

In a heaving nightclub, the Torchwood gang mingles with the dancing crowds looking for anyone that fits the descriptions of Max or Lucy. Tosh and Suzie are watching on the monitor back at the base as Jack, Owen and Gwen split up and move to cover the exits. Gwen is starting to get a bad headache and Suzie tells her this is a side-effect of the resurrection glove and that it got inside her mind too. Jack reminds them of Max’s description - he’s a man aged about 40, six foot three or four, stocky with short dark hair and with a tattoo down his left arm. While they keep searching, Suzie starts to taunt Tosh, pointing out that she obviously can’t even bear to look at her old colleague. She accuses Tosh of being judgmental, but Tosh reminds her it was she that went on a murder spree. All of them have been driven mad by this job, but now it carries with it a little less honour because of what Suzie did. In the nightclub Owen sees a man who he thinks might be Max. They start to close in on him, but there are too many people for Suzie to make a definite identification. Suddenly they see a girl that fits Lucy’s description and it appears that the man is heading towards her. Owen races forward and clubs the man to the floor, but by the time Jack and Gwen join him and hold him down, Suzie gets a look at his face and tells them they’ve got the wrong man! On the monitor Suzie sees the real Max holding a knife and approaching Gwen from behind. She calls out a warning just in time and Jack is able to disarm Max and knock him out with a stun gun. Gwen thanks Suzie for saving her life and the group pick up the man and remove him from the club.

Much later, Owen takes Jack down to the cell area where Max is locked up in one of the glass cages. He fires a series of questions at the man and in each case Max ignores them and simply stares into space - until Owen mentions the word Torchwood and then suddenly the man goes completely insane and violently attacks the walls of the cell. Owen calmly counts down to ten, after which Max sits down and stares into space again as though nothing had happened. This is clearly not the straight-forward result of the drug-induced psychosis they were led to believe. Max is obviously being triggered by the word Torchwood, but Jack is still concerned that if this was caused by ret-con then they may have a million more problems on the way. In the meantime, they have no idea what they’re going to do with Suzie.

Gwen is talking to Suzie alone in the interrogation room. Suzie asks just one favour, she wants to see her father again. Gwen offers to bring him in if she’ll tell them where he is, but Suzie doesn’t want him anywhere near Torchwood. She doesn’t even know if he’s still alive as he has terminal cancer. Suzie changes the subject and asks Gwen whether she’s enjoying working here and they both laugh at how mad it can be sometimes. Suzie notes how strange it is that no one seemed to really miss her when she died. She always thought she’d be indispensable, yet she’s already been replaced by Gwen - someone better! Gwen even got the resurrection glove working better than she did and it’s clear the others prefer her. It was almost as if she planned it that way. Gwen points out that she didn‘t plan anything, she has her own function here and she’s a lot more than just a replacement. Then Suzie asks if she’s sleeping with Owen and it suddenly occurs to Gwen that she isn’t the first colleague to have a relationship with him. Suzie now realises she’s been replaced completely.

Gwen bursts into Jack’s office and he comments on how he used to have a boyfriend who did that to make a grand entrance. It got boring after a while, but he put up with it because he was one of twin acrobats. Gwen has been piecing things together in her mind. Suzie had the glove and Jack put her in charge of it - but did he ever ask about her father? She tells him that Suzie’s father has been dying slowly of cancer for years and yet he recklessly gave her control of the one device that can bring people back to life. It’s no wonder she became obsessed and it’s all his fault because he never stopped to think about what the glove would do to her. Jack reminds Gwen that she originally thought Suzie’s death was her fault and he accuses her of bringing Suzie all the way back to life because she wanted it too much. Jack says they’re both responsible, but what they need to work out is what to do with her now. Gwen wonders what will happen if Suzie never dies. That would mean she and Jack would both be undead forever, but he says he would rather kill her right now than wish that upon her. Gwen is doubtful, but Jack assures her he could kill Suzie very easily. Their conversation is interrupted by a call from Owen who wants him to see something straight away…

Owen has gathered together the rest of the group. He’s been going over Suzie and Gwen’s medical records and has run the footage from the autopsy through a filter. They watch the recording of the moment that Gwen tried the glove on Mark Briscoe and see a steady flow of energy between the two until the point where Mark died again. Then they watch the recording of the moment Gwen tried the glove on Suzie - and this time they see a tremendous surge of power between the two of them. There is now a permanent connection between Gwen and Suzie, and Gwen’s life energy is being drained all the time, even as they speak…and every second that Gwen gets weaker, Suzie becomes stronger!

Gwen returns to Suzie in the interrogation room with a tray of food and drink. At first Suzie refuses the offer, but Gwen insists…and when she looks at the tray she sees Gwen has left a note asking whether she wants to go with her on a road trip?

The secret of the resurrection glove has finally been revealed. It can bring someone back to life, but it drains the wearer’s own life energy in return. The group realise the only way to stop it killing Gwen is to kill Suzie again, and Jack is the obvious choice to do that. He draws his gun and heads down to the interrogation room only to discover Gwen and Suzie are missing. The group begin a search, unaware that Gwen is pushing Suzie’s wheelchair towards her car which is parked by Cardiff Bay. Tosh tries the internal scanner system and finds nothing, but by the time she thinks to try the external CCTV cameras, it’s too late and they see Gwen and Suzie getting into her car. They’re just about to go after them when all the power inside the Hub suddenly switches off without any warning. Every piece of equipment dies and the various doors around the building slam shut and lock themselves. Ianto tells them the base has gone into 100% lockdown - they’re all trapped inside and there’s no way they can reverse the procedure.

Gwen checks Suzie’s handcuffs are secure and starts the car. She’s already beginning to regret her actions and she’s certain Jack is going to catch up with them, but Suzie thinks they might get lucky. They drive through the night and Gwen is pleased to see that the colour is returning to Suzie’s cheeks. Suzie asks about the night she died, in particular she wants to know how Jack survived the bullet he got between the eyes. Gwen doesn’t know and says Jack wouldn’t explain it properly, only that something happened to him a while back and that he can’t ever die. Suzie is furious that he still thinks he’s got the right to make judgements about whether she should live. Gwen admits that she wonders who he is…

Tosh has checked everything she can and confirms the group’s worst fears - there’s no heat, no power, no lifts, nothing. They’re completely sealed in. Owen estimates Gwen has less than a couple of hours before she dies, so Tosh tries to work out how Suzie could have arranged this. She couldn’t have switched off the override because she’s officially dead and the computer would never give her access. If she couldn’t physically do this, then who did? Jack suddenly remembers they have another guest and they rush down to the cell area where they find Max on the floor in a trance. Without even realising what he’s doing, the man is reciting poetry, which Jack recognises as Emily Dickinson. This must be a verbal trigger - the Torchwood Hub has been rigged to shut down if someone says the words out loud, which indicates Suzie must have set up the programme a very long time ago when she was still part of the team. Max is acting as a Trojan Horse and Suzie planned everything right from the very start.

Jack now realises that Max, the ret-con, everything, was all designed deliberately to trick them into resurrecting Suzie. She gave Max a series of complex triggers so that if she ever died he’d become a time-bomb. Most likely he was programmed to become a killer if he didn’t see her for three months, and the whole chain of events has led to this moment. Tosh is sure that if she locked down the Hub she must also have installed a safety programme to reverse it just in case she got trapped. Amazingly Ianto manages to get the telephone reception working again by using the water tower as a relay - but who do they phone for help?

In the police station, Detective Swanson receives a call from Jack who asks if she can do him a favour. He tries to fudge around the reasons why he needs her help, but when she says she’s too busy, he’s forced to admit that they’re locked in their own base. Swanson is overjoyed and calls all her colleagues round so they can enjoy the phone call too. Jack asks her to get a copy of the book of poetry by Emily Dickinson. He allows the officers a few moments of fun, then he tells Swanson that one of his group is in danger, so she orders everyone back to work while she tries to find a way to help them. Later, she collects a copy of the poetry book although she’s not sure what she needs to do with it. He asks her to find the passage they heard Max reciting earlier as they think the trigger might be stopped by the next verse. If that doesn’t work she might need to read out the whole book, so she settles down for a very long night…

Gwen is starting to get tired after a night of driving and Suzie makes sure she’s safe to carry on as one corpse in the car is more than enough. Gwen asks her what happens at the moment of death and Suzie wonders if this means Gwen has religious beliefs. Gwen says she doesn’t, but she’s always wanted to believe in the idea of a white light and going to Heaven and she wants to know that her Gran will be there waiting for her when she dies. Unfortunately Suzie says there’s nothing at all, which makes Gwen question what the point of life is. Suzie thinks we’re all just animals howling in the night because it’s better than silence and the point of life is just to experience the moment. Suzie always wondered why aliens would bother coming to Earth and now she thinks it’s just instinct, nothing more. They come here like moths around a flame or creatures clinging together in the cold. When you die, it’s just darkness. Gwen asks if this means everyone will be on their own after they die, but Suzie won’t confirm that. Her only response is to say that there’s something out there in the dark, and it’s moving…

Jack is now on first name terms with Detective Kathy Swanson and she continues to read out passage after passage from the Emily Dickinson book. Jack then repeats the words out loud in the hope that the Torchwood Hub will reactivate, but they’re having no success. Eventually Tosh has an idea - if words caused the lockdown in the first place, perhaps numbers will reverse it? She asks Swanson to read out the ISBN number and Tosh types it on her computer. Although the keyboard itself isn’t active, she’s hoping that the membrane underneath might still recognise the code. She types it in and the main power to the Hub automatically re-establishes itself. Jack thanks Swanson and the group get to action straight away.

Meanwhile, Gwen and Suzie have arrived at the Greenleaves Hospital. Gwen pushes the wheelchair down the corridor towards the room where her father is being treated. Back at the Hub, Tosh has picked up the tracker signal from Gwen’s car and sends the co-ordinates to Jack and Owen who are already racing to the scene in the Torchwood SUV. Owen can only guess, but he estimates Gwen has about 40 minutes left. Jack calls Kathy again at the police station and asks her to prepare the route for him. He wants the motorway cleared of all traffic as they’re about to break the speed limit big time! Swanson contacts all officers in the area and orders them to give Torchwood priority.

Gwen and Suzie enter the hospital bedroom where Suzie’s father is asleep. He‘s hooked up to equipment that’s providing him with round-the-clock medical treatment. Gwen is now starting to realise that her tiredness is not natural and when she feels a sharp pain at the back of her head she finds she’s bleeding from an open wound. Suzie apologises and finally admits the truth - Gwen is getting shot in the head, slowly. Suzie removes the scarf around her own head and reveals that she is now almost totally cured of the gunshot wound that killed her, and instead Gwen is now suffering from that injury in her place! Gwen collapses to the floor as Suzie stands up and walks confidently away from her wheelchair. She crosses over to her father and tries to wake him up. His eyes slowly open and he looks at his daughter in complete terror. She leans over him and violently rips the medical equipment away from him. She smiles as she says goodbye, and as her father starts to flatline she says this was all worth coming back for. She’s sending him into the dark, which is just what he deserves!

With Gwen now in the wheelchair, Suzie strides quickly out of the hospital, making sure Gwen doesn’t have a chance to attract the attention of any passing nurses. The doctors rush to the bedroom and do their best to revive Suzie’s father, but it’s too late for him.

Tosh reports that Gwen’s car is on the move again and she feeds a new destination through to Jack and Owen who are still racing to the scene in the SUV. They’re starting to catch up when Suzie phones Jack, so he begs her not to let Gwen die. She refuses to stop even for Gwen’s sake, but he promises that if Gwen is dead by the time he catches her, he’s going to kill her for the last and final time! Suzie tries to convince him there’s a part of Gwen inside her now and she’ll do anything to stay alive…

Tosh has worked out that Suzie is heading for the coastline using the B587 road and will arrive at a place called Hedley Point where she can get a ferry. Owen predicts Gwen has just minutes left, so Jack puts his foot down. Dawn is starting to rise and by the time Suzie and Gwen reach their destination it’s daylight. Suzie stops the car and helps the near-dead Gwen towards the ferry at the end of a quay - and just seconds behind them Jack and Owen arrive in the SUV and arm themselves for the final confrontation. Gwen is now unable to move and Suzie is forced to let her drop to the ground. Suzie tries to talk to her, but gets no response. As Jack and Owen catch up with them, she races off alone leaving them to look after their friend…but there’s nowhere further for her to run so she turns and faces Jack.

Jack orders Suzie to let Gwen go, but she says she can’t. Owen thinks they may already be too late, but Jack wonders if killing Suzie will be enough to break the connection and he shoots her at point-blank range. She falls to the floor, apparently dead, but it’s had no effect on Gwen at all. Suddenly Suzie turns round and promises Jack that she can’t die, so he shoots her twice more in the back. It still has no effect, so he shoots again and again, but Suzie’s bullet-ridden body remains alive. At the last minute Jack realises the connection between her and Gwen is through the resurrection glove, so he contacts Tosh back at the Hub and orders her to destroy it. Jack continues shooting Suzie, but she laughs and warns him that there’s something moving in the dark and it’s coming for him… With Ianto’s help, Tosh collects the glove and destroys it. On the Hedley Point quay Suzie cries out in agony and Gwen spasms for a second in Owen’s arms. Then it’s all over and Suzie is finally dead.