Countrycide

Torchwood is drawn into a grim case in the Brecon Beacons, where reports of seventeen people going missing within a twenty-mile radius force the team to follow the trail of a last-known mobile signal. While gathering firewood for their camp, Gwen and Owen cross paths with two hooded figures, chase them, and instead stumble upon a corpse. The discovery triggers their investigation, but their SUV is abruptly stolen, forcing Ianto to track the vehicle to a nearby village. Jack suspects that the corpse might have been a lure designed to lure them into the village.

In the village, the core team—Jack, Gwen, and Owen—search the local pub and surrounding houses, uncovering two more bodies. Their efforts lead them to a young man named Kieran, who accidentally shoots Gwen with a shotgun, mistaking that “they” have returned for him. Through Kieran, they begin to piece together who the victims were, though they remain uncertain whether aliens are involved. The tension escalates as the lights fail and strange movement is felt from both the cellar and the outdoors. Kieran is dragged away in the darkness, and Gwen and Owen try to pursue him, defying Jack’s orders. Meanwhile, Jack presses Martin—the man he had shot in the cellar—for answers about what happened.

Toshiko and Ianto pursue the SUV’s location but are captured and wake up in a cellar filled with old clothes and shoes, with a refrigerator stocked with human body parts. Toshiko quickly realizes they are being kept as potential meals. A terrified woman named Helen enters with a shotgun and learns from them that the other Torchwood members are in danger, then bluntly says she cannot help; she is part of a terrifying harvest that happens every ten years. They are taken into a kitchen crowded with more body parts, where Helen is revealed to be one of the cannibals as a man named Evan handcuffs them to be butchered.

Ianto makes a decisive move, headbutting Evan and allowing Toshiko to escape into the woods. The pursuit resumes as Evan manages to catch Toshiko, strangling her, just as Owen and Gwen arrive with a police officer named Huw. Huw reveals himself to be Evan’s nephew, and together they shepherd the Torchwood crew back toward the village, seeking an end to the nightmare.

In a dramatic rescue, Jack bursts in on a tractor, wounding the cannibals with a shotgun just as Ianto is about to be harmed. The captors are detained long enough for the truth to emerge: every ten years the village preys on travelers and literally eats them. Evan’s chilling proclamation that it “makes him happy” underscores the ritual’s unsettling logic. The villagers are then taken into police custody, and Torchwood is left to reckon with the cost of exposing a long-hidden horror in a quiet countryside setting.

Last Updated: October 01, 2025 at 13:05