The episode was an interesting one; rather than focusing on Torchwood itself, the main character was a fan, a hanger-on, a wannabe.

But in spite of – or perhaps due to – that, we see more of that empathy that is becoming Gwen’s hallmark. I guess someone at Torchwood has to actually give a rat’s patootie about other people. It’s nice, though, because she’s sort of making Captain Jack halfway care about people again. He’s been around the block too many times and seen too much bad stuff to even consider that people are worthy of empathy.

I suppose I’d feel the same way, too, if I’d been around as long as he has (however long that may be).

We meet Eugene Jones as he’s discovering he’s dead, laying splat by the side of the road, bleeding from the head. The only benefit, it appears, is that he’s now actually getting to ride with the Torchwood guys, because he’s a ghost and they don’t know he’s in the car with them.

They call his mom, check out pics on his phone – just … random shoes.

Then we go on something of a “This is Your Life” trip with Eugene, going back to the moment where he became obsessed with aliens, 1992 when he was in the South Wales Interschool Maths Competition; he chokes and lets everyone down – including his father. A teacher gives him a ball that fell from the sky, and it looks like an eye.

Dun dun dun … an alien eye!!!

His father’s a jerk, his parents fight, his father leaves and never comes back.

From that moment on, Eugene is obsessed with aliens, and is convinced he has a genuine alien’s eye in his possession. And that alien will come back someday, looking for what’s his.

He starts buying all sorts of alien artifacts, which he keeps in a cabinet in his bedroom. But the eye he knows is special. He tries to tell Torchwood about it many times. When Torchwood folks visit his mum and check out his collection, they can tell immediately that most were fakes – one rock had Rice Krispies glued to it, Owen said. But something’s missing, Gwen notes.

See, she feels badly b/c Eugene was sweet on her. So Owen tells her to do the autopsy, so … she does. She has a sense that SOMEthing is going on. Perhaps because he’s able to communicate with her just a teensy bit. She goes to his regular lunch counter (where no one remembers him) and orders two eggs, ham and chips, right after he says that’s what he always ordered.

He says, “Call Gary,” and she’s fiddling around with his cell phone, finally settling on a name, “Gary.” She calls.

This is what starts leading her in the right direction. She finds out from this woman at work that Eugene had put something on eBay to help her go to Australia. “Don’t stay here and waste your life waiting for something that will never happen,” he urges her, as she’s sweet on her boss, who’s having an affair with her.

He tells her he’s going to sell it, his alien artifact. So, he obviously knows that only that one thing is an actual alien artifact. He puts it on, and after little to no movement, one day the bidding jumps to £3,000. Eventually, it goes all the way to £15,005.50. And then Eugene’s mom calls to interrupt their conversation and ask her to come to her house.

She tells her all about the maths competition and the alien eye and then Eugene’s brother explains how Eugene found out a couple weeks ago that their dad hadn’t moved to America like their mom had always said; instead, he works as a cashier and lives across town.

Gwen’s about to get out of the car and tell Eugene’s dad about it, but he says “No.” So she doesn’t. “I’m sorry,” she says. It’s as if she does know he’s there, which, on some level, she does.

She tells Jack the little she does know, after he chews her out for being incommunicado and working so hard on something that seems to have nothing to do with anything. From the little she describes to him, though, he immediately recognizes what the alien artifact must be – it’s a sixth eye, for the back of the head, to see where you’ve gone.

That’s why Eugene’s still around.

A little more nosing around and Gwen gets it all sorted out: Eugene’s so-called friends Gary and some other wanker started bidding up his eye on eBay. They arrange a meetup for the exchange, and Eugene’s totally convinced it’s his alien. But his friends meet him and confess what was up. But the one guy tries to steal the eye because some other guy actually did want to pay £15,000 for it (but he’s not an alien, they tell him, this guy’s a weirdo collector of “alien ephemera, Nazi memorabilia and … Beanie Babies). Eugene ends up swallowing the eye and running out of the place.

But he’s free, finally. Free of believing his dad is coming back (or that his dad left because he screwed up in the maths competition). Free of believing there’s an alien that wants its eye back. Free of even owning the eye. Just free, finally, to move forward with his life.

Then … boom. He’s hit by a car and we’re where we started off the hour.

After the funeral, Gwen’s pleased to see at Eugene’s house that his dad has come back. She’s so absorbed by watching that that she doesn’t notice a car bearing down on her. Eugene does and knocks her out of the way. Now everyone can see him.

Gwen kisses him for saving his life, he hands her the eye, which had dropped to the ground (she’d had it because she had the embalmer get it out of his digestive tract – have to wonder if Owen had done the autopsy, would they have found it earlier?). And now that he no longer has the eye, he is freed from all this, and begins to float up, away.

As he floats away, he tells us that life isn’t what might happen nor rehashing what has already gone by.

It’s all here, now. Life just whizzes by and then, all of a sudden, it’s …

Something we might all benefit from remembering now and again, no?