This episode totally creeped me out, in the best way possible.

I love a good horror film, and Citycide had all the classic elements:

An unknown evil creature (or person). An injured hero (Gwen). Romantic tension (Owen & Gwen). An unclear method of murder.

And we had something creepy moving in the shadows. A person who appears to be a captive of the evil, but she’s really in on it. Moments of heroic escape that, in the end, are thwarted. And one helluva rescue by, of course, Captain Jack.

And no real answer as to why all the carnage takes place.

But I get ahead of myself.

After the obligatory screaming victim before the opening credits, we get the Torchwood gang in their spiffy SUV out in the country. None of them is really comfortable there, except, maybe for Captain Jack and Gwen. And they’re going to camp for the night. Tee hee.

In the woods, Owen gets all in Gwen’s face over their kiss during the Cyberwoman episode and you can see that Gwen can’t actually tell him she doesn’t feel the same.

They see something moving, they find a dead body, skinned and pretty much all the meat off it. Weevils (remember the Weevils?) don’t finish off their victims like this.

And it would be really weird if the Weevils managed to make it all the way out to the countryside like this. That would mean the rift in Cardiff was spreading, dumping aliens and general ickyness much further out than ever before.

So now something takes the Torchwood SUV (sweet ride), runs over their tent and drives away. Doesn’t go too far, though, and leads the gang to a village of sorts. It’s really just a row of a few houses and a pub. Another skinned body is inside the pub.

It’s all dark, obviously abandoned, but hasn’t been for long. It’s not all dirty and dusty. Someone’s watching from the second floor of one of the buildings, but we don’t know who or what.

I have to admit, when Owen stayed behind in the pub to examine the victims’ remains, I totally thought he was going to be captured. I mean, in a horror movie, you never go/stay anywhere alone in a creepy abandoned pub.

Of course, Captain Jack and Gwen find another dead body. She’s still dry-heaving, though. I do marvel, though, at how quickly she’s managed to become comfortable with a gun.

The next house they go into, she’s shot. A young man who may be the sole survivor in the village shot her, thinking she was one of the bad guys. Jack gets the kid to drop his gun, gets Gwen to Owen, and she’s actually happy to see him for a change, as Owen deftly observes.

Torchwood’s good for him, it turns out, because he loves being a doctor, but dealing with people? Not so much.

Meanwhile, Toshiko and Ianto went to the other row of houses, near where the signal from the Torchwood SUV was coming from, and end up being captured. They’re in some sort of underground torture-chamber-looking spot. Ianto’s totally freaked out. He’s kind of a wuss – he has more of a desk job, it seems like. And he drives.

Toshiko is totally badass, though — “I haven’t met a cell yet I couldn’t get out of.” She may have a desk job (computer whiz), but she does lots of field work, I guess.

I loved how they didn’t even show what was in the fridge when Toshiko first opens it. It’s obvious what’s in there – the stuff that’s missing from the dead bodies. It’s almost more frightening that way.

Ianto has to see what’s in there, though, and pushes past her.

The people of the village are being harvested for food.

In the pub, Captain Jack, Gwen, Owen and the young guy are surrounded. They’ve barricaded the door, but the lights are shut off. Jack shoots whatever’s trying to come in through the basement. The kid ends up being captured.

Gwen and Owen insist on going out to see if they can find him while Captain Jack tries to see how the bad guys got into the basement.

My favorite exchange of the episode is now, when Captain Jack tries to get Gwen to stay:

Jack to Gwen: “You are wounded”

Gwen to Jack: “Do you think that’s gonna stop me?”

Pause.

Jack to Gwen: “Be careful.”

For a moment, I thought the cellar of the pub might be the one that Toshiko and Ianto are imprisoned in, but not so simple.

Turns out, the torture chamber is in the Village Hall or whatever this building is that the cop tries to stop them from going to.

An older woman comes down into the basement where Toshiko and Ianto are, pointing a shotgun at them. She’s all scared, tells them that every 10 years, these creatures harvest the village; they’re forcing her to bring them.

Toshiko tries to tell her they can help, but she’s having nothing of it.

Then we find out why – she’s one of the creatures. She and her husband harvest visitors to village every 10 years. Anyone who’s passing through, not from the village.

Ianto head-butts the bad guy so Toshiko can escape, but the bad guy ends up catching up with her. Meanwhile, Ianto’s been all “tenderized.” Gwen and Owen are captured when they try to rescue Toshiko.

Ianto’s about to be killed, when, WHAMMO! Captain Jack drives into the side of the building with some weird car/tractor/truck thingy that was outside the original pub we saw. He jumps out with a shotgun, a pistol, I don’t even know all the weapons he started firing.

And he manages to kill just the bad guys, no good guys.

He’d just gone all Jack Bauer on some random guy in the basement of the pub, who I guess lived in the village, so he knew what was up? Or had he escaped?

And were these evil people human and just really, really sick, or were they some sort of aliens? Didn’t really get an answer to that when Gwen was interrogating the old man:

“Because it made me happy.” That’s what he whispers to her.

Sick, sick, sick. Though, I suppose, there are too many people for whom doing bad things is a reward unto itself.

And now, after the really horrible things she’s seen, she can only turn to Owen. She can’t share it with her boyfriend. So she’s cheating on her boyfriend with Owen. I can only think she hasn’t broken up with her boyfriend, though, because she desperately needs to have something outside of Torchwood.

It’s sweet and sad at the same time.

Owen’s apartment, by the way, is FABulous.

One question: If they had skinned Captain Jack, would he have regenerated? Gross, I know, but I’m curious how immortal he is.